Author Ryan Schneider's Blog

Unique and Diverse! The Philip K Dick Award Storybundle by Lisa Mason Author of Summer of Love and Curator of the Philip K. Dick Storybundle What the authors and books of The Philip K Dick Award Storybundle share is the award itself, whether the book was a Finalist or Winner. Above and beyond the prestige of the award—and the superb quality of the work—you will find a diverse array of protagonists to root for and startling worlds to visit. In Aestival Tide by Elizabeth Hand , come to Araboth—the majestic, domed, multi-tiered city of the Ascendants as the once-in-a-decade Aestival Tide approaches and destruction looms. In Life by Gwyneth Jones , meet Anna Senoz, a scientist who makes a momentous discovery about the X and Y chromosomes. Anna’s discovery provokes shocking reactions and impacts her career, her marriage, and her child. In The Cipher by Kathe Koja, join Koja’s artists of the modern-day demimonde as they experiment with the mys...

The Cipher by Kathe Koja is in The Philip K Dick Award Storybundle! THE CIPHER is Kathe Koja's classic, award-winning horror novel: the story of Nicholas, a failed poet, and Nakota, his feral lover, who discover a strange hole in the storage room down the hall: "Black. Pure black and the sense of pulsation, especially when you look at it too closely, the sense of something not living but alive." At first it’s a curiosity, a joke - the Funhole. But then the experiments start. "Wouldn't it be wild to go down there?" says Nakota. Nicholas says no—but from the first, they’re not in control. And the experiments turn to obsession, and violence, and a very final transformation for everyone who gets too close to the Funhole. The Cipher was the winner of the 1991 Bram Stoker Award as well as a Finalist for the Philip K. Dick Award , and was named one of io9's Top 10 Debut Science Fiction Novels That Took the World By Storm . Here’s ...