Narrator

Emily Janice Card

Emily Janice Card
  • We burn them to ashes and then burn the ashes.

    In Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, that’s the motto of the Firemen who hunted down and burned books wherever they found them. Bradbury warned of a world where our literary history is taken from us. In Burn the Ashes, some of the best science fiction authors working today continue to explore the dystopic worlds they introduced in Ignorance Is Strength.

    Edited by John Joseph Adams, Hugh Howey, and Christie Yant, the Dystopia Triptych is a series of three anthologies of dystopian fiction. Ignorance Is Strength—before the dystopia—focuses on society during its descent into absurdity and madness. Burn the Ashes—during the dystopia—turns its attention to life during the strangest, most dire times. Or Else the Light—after the dystopia—concludes the saga with each author sharing their own vision of how we as a society might crawl back from the precipice of despair.

    Burn the Ashes features all-new, never-before-published works by the following authors, in order of appearance: Carrie Vaughn, Tim Pratt, Rich Larson, Cadwell Turnbull, Karin Lowachee, Adam-Troy Castro, Caroline M. Yoachim, Hugh Howey, An Owomoyela, Seanan McGuire, Dominica Phetteplace, Alex Irvine, Tobias S. Buckell, Scott Sigler, Darcie Little Badger, Violet Allen, and Merc Fenn Wolfmoor.

  • Into the darkness within; or else the light …

    When Margaret Atwood wrote these words, she left open the possibility that even our darkest tales may harbor a glimmer of hope. In Or Else the Light, the third and final entry in the Dystopia Triptych, over a dozen of the best minds in science fiction conclude their stories with a descent into darkness, or perhaps a ray of light.

    Edited by John Joseph Adams, Hugh Howey, and Christie Yant, the Dystopia Triptych is a series of three anthologies of dystopian fiction. Ignorance Is Strength—before the dystopia—focuses on society during its descent into absurdity and madness. Burn the Ashes—during the dystopia—turns its attention to life during the strangest, most dire times. Or Else the Light—after the dystopia—concludes the saga with each author sharing their own vision of how we as a society might crawl back from the precipice of despair.

    Or Else the Light features all-new, never-before-published works by the following authors, in order of appearance: Carrie Vaughn, Tim Pratt, Rich Larson, Cadwell Turnbull, Karin Lowachee, Adam-Troy Castro, Caroline M. Yoachim, Hugh Howey, An Owomoyela, Seanan McGuire, Dominica Phetteplace, Alex Irvine, Tobias S. Buckell, Scott Sigler, Darcie Little Badger, Violet Allen, and Merc Fenn Wolfmoor.

  • War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.

    George Orwell once wrote of a world where abuse of power begins with an abuse of language and a bastardization of truth. Some of today’s most exciting voices in speculative fiction explore the ramifications of those ideas in Ignorance Is Strength.

    The Dystopia Triptych is a series of three anthologies of dystopian fiction. Ignorance Is Strength—before the dystopia—focuses on society during its descent into absurdity and madness. Burn the Ashes—during the dystopia—turns its attention to life during the strangest, most dire times. Or Else the Light—after the dystopia—concludes the saga with each author sharing their own vision of how we as a society might crawl back from the precipice of despair.

    Ignorance Is Strength features all-new, never-before-published works by the following authors, in order of appearance: Carrie Vaughn, Tim Pratt, Rich Larson, Cadwell Turnbull, Karin Lowachee, Adam-Troy Castro, Caroline M. Yoachim, Hugh Howey, An Owomoyela, Seanan McGuire, Dominica Phetteplace, Alex Irvine, Tobias S. Buckell, Scott Sigler, Darcie Little Badger, Violet Allen, and Merc Fenn Wolfmoor.

  • It is almost impossible to envision what childhood would be like without the enchanting world of fairyland. Three-headed trolls, horses that carry their masters up mountains of glass, giants and dwarfs, monsters and magicians, fairies and ogres—these are the companions who will thrill young boys and girls of all lands and all times, as Andrew Lang’s phenomenally successful collections of stories have proved. From the day that they were first printed, the Lang fairy-tale books of many colors have entertained thousands of boys and girls, as they have also brought pleasure to the many parents who have read these unforgettable classics to their children.

    In addition to such familiar favorites as “Jack and the Beanstalk,” “Rapunzel,” “The Ratcatcher” (“The Pied Piper”), and “Snowdrop” (“Snow White”), The Red Fairy Book contains a wonderful collection of lesser-known tales from French, German, Danish, Russian, and Romanian sources. A tale from Norse mythology recounts the old story of Sigurd and Brynhild; tales by the great Madame d’Aulnoy include “Graciosa and Percinet” and “Princess Rosette”; lesser-known tales from Grimm’s collection include “The Three Dwarfs,” “Mother Holle,” and “The Golden Goose.”

    All in all, this collection contains thirty-seven stories, all narrated in the clear, lively prose for which Lang was famous. Not only are Lang’s generally conceded to be the best English versions of standard stories, his collections are the richest and widest in range. His position as one of England’s foremost folklorists as well as his first-rate literary abilities makes his collections unmatchable in the English language.

  • It began with a quarrel over which newborn should be the baby Jesus in the town’s Christmas pageant. Decades later, two scientists arrive to study small-town genetic patterns, only to run up against the invisible walls that split the leading citizens into two congregations that can only be joined by love and forgiveness. And maybe a little deception, because there might be some things that people just don’t need to know.

  • The second volume of the best stories from legendary hard science fiction writer Ben Bova, the creator of the New York Times bestselling Grand Tour science fiction series, a six-time Hugo award winner, and past president of the National Space Society.

    The stories included in this volume span the five decades of Bova’s incandescent career at the center of science fiction and space advocacy.

    Here are tales of star-faring adventure, peril, and drama. Here are journeys into the mind-bending landscapes of virtual worlds and alternate realities. Here you’ll also find stories of humanity’s astounding future on Earth, on Mars, and in the Solar System beyond—stories that always get the science right. And Bova’s gathering of deeply realized, totally human characters are the heroic, brave, tricky, sometimes dastardly engineers, astronauts, corporate magnates, politicians, and scientists who will make these futures possible—and those who often find that the problems of tomorrow are always linked to human values, and human failings, that are as timeless as the stars.

  • The much-anticipated third installment in Card’s New York Times bestselling Mithermages series

    Danny North is the first Gate Mage to be born on Earth in nearly two thousand years, or at least the first to survive and claim his power, for families of Westil in exile on Earth have a treaty that requires the death of any suspected Gate Mage. The wars between the families had been terrible, until at last they realized it was their own survival in question. But a Gate Mage, one who could build a Great Gate back to Westil, would give his own family a terrible advantage over all the others and reignite the wars. So it was decided that they all had to die. And if the families didn’t kill them, the Gate Thief would—that mysterious mage who destroyed every Great Gate, along with the Gate Mage who created it, before it could be opened between Earth and Westil.

    But Danny survived. And Danny battled the Gate Thief—and won.

    What he didn’t know at the time was that the Gate Thief had a very good reason for closing the Great Gates—and Danny has now fallen into the power of that great enemy of both Earth and Westil.

  • Famine, Death, War, and Pestilence—the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, the harbingers of Armageddon—these are our guides through the Wastelands.

    From the Book of Revelation to The Road Warrior, from A Canticle for Leibowitz to The Road, storytellers have long imagined the end of the world, weaving eschatological tales of catastrophe, chaos, and calamity. In doing so, these visionary authors have addressed one of the most challenging and enduring themes of imaginative fiction: the nature of life in the aftermath of total societal collapse.

    Gathering together the best postapocalyptic literature of the last two decades from many of today's most renowned authors of speculative fiction—including George R. R. Martin, Gene Wolfe, Orson Scott Card, Carol Emshwiller, Jonathan Lethem, Octavia E. Butler, and Stephen King—Wastelands explores the scientific, psychological, and philosophical questions of what it means to remain human in the wake of Armageddon. Whether the end of the world comes through nuclear war, ecological disaster, or cosmological cataclysm, these are tales of survivors, in some cases struggling to rebuild the society that was, in others, merely surviving, scrounging for food in depopulated ruins and defending themselves against monsters, mutants, and marauders.

    Wastelands delves into this bleak landscape, uncovering the raw human emotion and heart-pounding thrills at the genre's core.

  • Too long to be a short story, too short to be a novel—welcome to the surprisingly potent world of the novelette. The award-winning magazine Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show has been an online haven for this powerful form of storytelling since 2005. Now its editors have selected their all-time favorite science fiction novelettes from the magazine's eight-year history and reprinted them together in one big book of reading pleasure. Anything that is remotely possible—futures near and far, artificial intelligence and alien encounters, alternate timelines and alternate theories about creating universes, planet-eating black holes and lunar racetracks—is all here under the big tent of Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show.

    This anthology features stories by such award-winning authors as Orson Scott Card, Wayne Wightman, Aliette de Bodard, Eric James Stone, Mary Robinette Kowal, Stephen Kotowych, Jackie Gamber, Greg Siewert, Jamie Todd Rubin, Brad R. Torgersen, and Marina J. Lostetter, plus an all-new essay by Orson Scott Card about writing the character of Ender.

  • In this sequel to The Lost Gate, bestselling author Orson Scott Card continues his fantastic tale of the mages of Westil, who live in exile on Earth.

    Here on Earth, Danny North is still in high school, yet he holds in his heart and mind all the stolen outselves of thirteen centuries of gatemages. The Families still want to kill him if they can’t control him—and they can’t control him; he is far too powerful.

    On Westil, Wad is now nearly powerless—he lost everything to Danny in their struggle. Even if he can survive the revenge of his enemies, he must still somehow make peace with the Gatemage Daniel North, for when Danny took that power from Loki, he also took responsibility for the Great Gates. And when he comes face-to-face with the mages who call themselves Bel and Ishtoreth, he will understand just why Loki closed the gates all those centuries ago.

  • A hero without peer or scruples, Sam Gunn has a nose for trouble, money, and women, though not necessarily in that order. A man with the ego (and stature) of a Napoleon, the business acumen of a P. T. Barnum, and the raging hormones of a teenage boy, Sam is the finest astronaut NASA ever trained and dumped. But more than money, more than women, Sam Gunn loves justice—and he really does love money and women. Whether he’s suing the pope, helping twin sisters entangled in the virtual sex trade, or on trial for his life, charged with interplanetary genocide, you can be sure of one thing: this is one space jockey who’ll meet every challenge with a smile on his lips, an ace up his sleeve, and a weapon in his pocket.

    Now, for the first time in one volume, Hugo-winner Ben Bova presents all the tales of Sam Gunn to date, including three never before collected in book form. Here is the entire chronicle of Sam Gunn, trailblazer and scoundrel, as he scams his way from one end of the solar system to the other, giving bold new meaning to the term venture capitalist.

  • Orson Scott Card’s The Lost Gate is the first book in the Mithermages series from the New York Times bestselling author of Ender’s Game.

    Danny North knew from early childhood that his family was different—and that he was different from them. While his cousins were learning how to create the things that commoners called fairies, ghosts, golems, trolls, werewolves, and other such miracles that were the heritage of the North family, Danny worried that he would never show a talent, never form an outself.

    He grew up in the rambling old house, filled with dozens of cousins and aunts and uncles, all ruled by his father. Their home was isolated in the mountains of western Virginia, far from town, far from schools, far from other people.

    There are many secrets in the House, and many rules that Danny must follow. There is a secret library with only a few dozen books, and none of them in English—but Danny and his cousins are expected to become fluent in the language of the books. While Danny’s cousins are free to create magic whenever they like, they must never do it where outsiders might see.

    Unfortunately, there are some secrets kept from Danny as well. And that will lead to disaster for the North family.

  • This third volume of Orson Scott Card's five-book anthology of short stories features ten fantasies and fables full of princesses and giants, bears and monkeys, magic and revelation. Discover the pitfalls of paradise, how to handle a dragon, the true secret of happiness, and much more. Card offers background commentaries for each story in a series of afterwords and introductions.

    Unaccompanied Sonata
    A musical child prodigy, raised alone in a cabin so that his only influences come from nature, plays a complicated instrument capable of a wide range of sound. Against his keepers' wishes, he is introduced to the music of Bach and is ejected from his musical Eden. As he strives to make music, his nemesis strives to stop him.

    A Cross-Country Trip to Kill Richard Nixon
    A young man blames all of America's problems on former president Richard Nixon.

    The Porcelain Salamander
    A curse can be lifted only once it is complete.

    Middle Woman
    An average woman—who is a middle child, of middle income, and living mid-way between her other two sisters—meets a cruel, trickster dragon on the road who grants her three wishes. Through wisdom and compassion, she is able to outsmart his trickery.

    The Bully and the Beast
    A giant hired as the king's bully falls hopelessly for the king's daughter, the most beautiful woman in the world.

    The Princess and the Bear
    A magic bear saves a princess' life twice: once from a wolf in the forest and once from her own husband.

    Sandmagic
    A young boy who watches his parents die vows to avenge their pain. This story is set in the Mithermages universe, which includes the story "Stonefather."

    The Best Day
    A woman rejects an old peddler's explanation that happiness is a matter of taking joy in overcoming the difficulties in life. Instead, she prefers to buy a traveling medicine man's elixir of happiness which promises that your best day will be with you forever. In reliving one happy day from her past she misses out on the rest of her life.

    A Plague of Butterflies
    Selfishly choosing to save his own life by not slaying a dragon, Amasa becomes involved in evil and allows it to flourish. Since it's too late to change matters, he must suffer eternal anguish knowing what he has done.

    The Monkeys Thought 'Twas All in Fun
    Paradise can have its hidden pitfalls.

  • When Runnel, a friendless peasant from a village so humble that money is a new concept, leaves his mountain valley, he is completely unaware of his magical talents. Seeking his fortune, he stumbles into a centuries-old feud when he travels to Mitherhome, the city of the water mages. He accepts a servant’s position in the household of the sole stone mage permitted within the city walls, and there his untapped magical talents and his fascination with his master’s abilities are a predictably dangerous combination. Soon, without meaning to, he complicates and endangers the lives of everyone he has come to know and care about, for when it comes to magic, there are rules and laws, and the untrained mage-to-be must be careful not to tap into deep forces and ancient enmities. Otherwise, other people might end up paying the price for his mistakes.

  • From the author of Friday and Rocketship Galileo comes this classic tale featuring the grand master of science fiction’s most remarkable heroine. Podkayne Fries, a smart and determined maid of Mars, has just one goal in life: to become the first female starship pilot and rise through the ranks to command deep-space explorations. So when she is offered a chance to join her diplomatic uncle on an interstellar journey to distant Earth via Venus, it’s a dream come true—even if her only experience with diplomacy is handling her brilliant but pesky younger brother, Clark. But she’s about to learn some things about war and peace—Uncle Tom, the ambassador plenipotentiary from Mars to the Three Planets Conference, is traveling not quite incognito enough, and certain parties will stop at nothing to sabotage negotiations between the three worlds.

  • The sphere is alien in origin but has been controlled by man for millennia. A legend as old as the stars rules this constructed world: when the seventh seventh seventh human Heptarch is crowned, he will be the Kristos and will bring salvation—or eternal destruction of the cosmos.

    Patience is the only daughter of the rightful Heptarch, but she, like her father, serves the usurper who has destroyed her family; for she believes that duty to one's race is more important than duty to one's self. But the time for prudence has passed, and Patience must journey to the heartsoul of the planet with a small band of companions to confront her destiny—and the destiny of her world.

    Wyrms is a science fiction epic with mythological style that is sure to enchant listeners with its unique world and premise.