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There's a heavy price to pay for the manipulation of nature in this novel from the revered author of The War of the Worlds and The Time Machine. It begins as a boon for mankind-the creation of the substance Herakleophorbia IV. When fed to farm animals, it causes them to grow to enormous size. But when it is accidentally allowed to enter the local food chain, the consequences prove monstrous: Human children exposed to it grow into giants, reaching forty feet in height. At first, these giants are tolerated. Then, as they mature, they are scorned.

Two classic science fiction stories about a California family fleeing a nuclear holocaust, written in an era when a dystopian future seemed inevitable. An atomic bomb has struck Los Angeles, and the streets are filled with cars fleeing the city. But Mr. Jimmon knows that things will be different for his family. He has meticulously prepared for such an event, and now that it has arrived, he carries out his plan almost gleefully. The Jimmons get in their station wagon, filled with supplies, and head for the predetermined base. From the backseat, his children are complaining.

The landmark alternate history novel by "one of the best American writers" (Ray Bradbury). In the world of this novel, said to be an inspiration for Philip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle, the Confederacy has triumphed and become an imperialist nation. What is left of the United States has been drained of its resources and is trapped in a depression. Hodge, a young man living in a village in rural New York with his parents, decides to head to the city to escape his otherwise inevitable future of poverty and indentured servitude.

A young man must fight-literally-for the opportunity to escape his backwater home planet and journey to the stars. A towering young giant growing up on a high-gravity world of perilous plants and savage creatures, Carl Bok is thrilled when he's offered a one-year scholarship to Starschool. As a new student aboard the space-traveling institution, Carl will get the opportunity to visit and learn from sixteen colonized worlds. Best of all, he'll finally escape the dangerous and grueling life of his home planet.

As if 17-year-old Alexandra Lucas' anxiety disorder isn't enough, mysterious holograms suddenly appear, heralding the end of the world. They bring an ultimatum: heed the warning and step through a portal-like vertex to safety, or stay and be destroyed by a comet that is on a collision course with Earth. The holograms,claiming to be humans from the future, bring the promise of safety. But without the ability to verify their story, Alex is forced to consider what is best for her friends, her family, and herself. To stay or to go. A decision must be made.

The holograms lied to everyone on Earth and only Alexandra Lucas knows the truth. Now she's trapped in the year 2359 without family or friends-worse, without her anxiety medication. Alex attempts to reconcile the marvelous scenery, technological advances, and luxurious living with the knowledge that the holograms weren't being completely honest-what else are they lying about' With a secret that could shatter her society, Alex tries to find her place among strangers, convicts, and a rebellion striving to bring the holograms down.

Silence is safe. Fate is not. When Sovern Briggs survives a car crash, she stops talking in order to seal in the memory of the final sounds of her mother's life. As conflict with her father builds and failure in school looms, Sovern seeks relief in a dangerous boyfriend and in speed's adrenaline edge. These needs collide, leading Sovern to a snowboarding accident that changes her future...'nd perhaps that of our universe. Life at the Speed of Us weaves dyslexia, math, cutting-edge science, genius, and love into a young woman's reluctant journey toward grace.

For Henry Franks, Death is Everywhere. It claimed his mother a year ago, in an accident that robbed him of his memory and left him covered with horrific scars. It's in his skin, leaving him numb to pain no matter how hard he tries to hurt himself. It obsesses his distant father, who buries himself in his work at the morgue. And it's stalking the streets, where a serial killer's path of destruction reveals the dark truth of Henry's past.

Solo_Lobo is a gamer who prefers to play by himself. But then he winds up in a virtual game set aboard an alien space station with a know-it-all robot named Spec. Spec is supposed to help him find the rest of his crewmates who've also been captured by the aliens. Seems like a piece of cake until Solo_Lobo learns the catch: he can't be seen by the aliens or he'll risk getting caught in their disanimator eye beams, which will send him right back to Level 1. Can he rescue his crew in time to win the game' And is there more to Spec than what she seems'

The Stories Behind the Series Though perhaps most famous as a novelist, Philip K. Dick wrote more than one hundred short stories over the course of his career, each as mind-bending and genre-defining as his longer works. Philip K. Dick's Electric Dreams collects ten of the best. In "Autofac," Dick shows us one of the earliest examples (and warnings) in science fiction of self-replicating machines.