Wyrldmaker — (1981) Publisher: Kemen of pasTreyn is the ruler of one of the tiny kingdoms of Treyn that are strung like beads on the path of the bottom of the wyrldwall. He has no queen, but is haunted by the memory of Noese, a magnificent woman who rose from the sea, taught him to love and disappeared again.
Talking Man — (1986) Publisher’s Weekly: Having dreamt this world into being, the wizard called ”Talking Man” falls in love with what he has made and retires there. He lives in a house trailer on a Kentucky hillside close by his junkyard, and he only uses magic on the rare occasions he can’t fix a car the other way. He’d be there still if his jealous codreamer Dgene hadn’t decided to undo his creation and return this world to nothingness. When Talking Man lights out to stop her, his daughter Crystal and chance-acquaintance William Williams give chase into a West that changes around them. The geography shimmers and melts, catfish big as boats are pulled from the Mississippi, the moon crumbles into luminous rings and refugees from burning cities choke the highways. A novel of the new South with a liberal dose of the old, fantastic and gothic, a road novel leading to the city at the end of time, a postmodern, Sam Shepard, apocalpseone you can drive to in a ’62 Chrysler New Yorkerthis is a charming, literate, laconic tale, deceptively brief, teasingly allusive and very entertaining.
Voyage to the Red Planet — (1990) Publisher: NASA may be bankrupt, but the dream of space travel never died. All you need is a wildcat movie producer, a brilliant midget cinematographer, a beautiful Russian Cosmonaut, a couple of Movie Stars, and a mothballed spaceship called the Mary Poppins. Then blast off, and you are about to make Hollywood history… On Mars!
Pirates of the Universe — (1996) Publisher: In the shabby, war-torn, depleted Earth of the twenty-first century, Gunther Glenn wants to live in the utopian theme park “Pirates of the Universe.” He only needs one more mission as a Space ranger–hunting the enigmatic Peteys, 1200-kilometer voids in space whose “skins” can be harvested and processed into a substance more valuable than gold–to get his chance. But the arrival of a mysterious package and the disappearance of another Ranger ship into the Petey void sends Gun on a mission through the bureaucratic maze of the mother corporation, the virtual-reality maze of the Dogg, and the Escher-like multidimensional maze of the Tangle for the key to his future.
The Pickup Artist — (2001) Publisher: From the award-winning author of Pirates of the Universe, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, comes The Pickup Artist–a sharp, witty, and subversive exploration of the future of art, culture, and society. In the tradition of Ray Bradbury’s fireman who burns books in Fahrenheit 451, our hero, Hank Shapiro, is a pickup artist, a government agent who gathers for retirement creative works whose time has come and gone. You see, there’s simply not enough room in the world for all the art, so anything past a certain age must be cataloged, archived in the records, and destroyed, paving the way for new art. It’s a job that comes with risk and the pay’s lousy, but it covers the bills. And, after all, this year’s art is better than last year’s, isn’t it? But what happens is not nearly as important as the telling. Terry Bisson is an American writer in the satirical tradition of Twain and Vonnegut and perhaps Richard Brautigan. He can make you laugh and touch your heart in the same sentence. This is a book about love, death, and America.
Dear Abbey — (2003) Publisher: Would you sacrifice humanity to save the planet Earth? Cole is an obscure professor at an undistinguished community college — a man without a future. Lee is a Chinese political refugee with a Texas accent — a man without a past. They share a tiny office, a taste for Edward Abbey (and Jack Daniels), and an awesome destiny. For the most fateful decision in human history is theirs to make. One fateful Friday night, Cole and Lee join hands (literally) and embark on a journey to retrieve a formula that will change, or end, human history. A journey through Time. Along the way, they are witness to all the horror and all the glory of our tomorrows — from the cannibal seals of the next Ice Age to the final campfire under a dying sun; from the seductions of 30th century Paris to the pleasures of a dinner party a hundred million years in the future. They even find time to meet man’s best friend, as well as his most indifferent enemy. It’s a billion-year leap — the perfect way to spend a long weekend that stretches all the way from Friday night to the End of Time. And your presence is requested as well. Introduction by Brian Aldiss. Cover art by Edward Miller.
Planet of Mystery — (2008) Publisher: Marooned on Venus, Hall and Chang of the first Chinese-American expedition are surprised to find themselves breathing Earth-normal air; and alarmed to find themselves captured by beautiful Amazons mounted on foul-smelling Centaurs. “This can’t be real!” Hall protests as he is dragged off to meet the Amazon Queen. Chang is inclined to agree (even though the arrow in his shoulder feels genuine). Then the robot rolls in …
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