14 stories of hard science fiction

Think Like a Dinosaur, by James Patrick Kelly

The operator of an interstellar transporter learns the true cost of humanity's expansion into galactic society.

Wonders of the Invisible World, by Patricia A. McKillip

A scientist uses time travel to explore the origins of imagination in a world where anything can be made real.

Hot Times in Magma City, by Robert Silverberg (novelette)

In a future Los Angeles beset by volcanic chaos, a crew of recovering addicts is charged with saving the city.

Gossamer, by Stephen Baxter

A scientist marooned on Pluto discovers something that might be life, but the only way to preserve it may be to sacrifice her own.

A Worm in the Well, by Gregory Benford

An indebted ore hauler mines the Sun for a valuable piece of spatial impossibility.

Downloading Midnight, by William Browning Spencer

A cynical maintenance man attempts to clean up the mess when an artificial intelligence runs amok on the information highway.

For White Hill, by Joe Haldeman (novelette)

Artists from many worlds attempt to memorialize the ruins of a destroyed Earth.

In Saturn Time, by William Barton

An alternate history of the U.S. space program.

Coming of Age in Karhide, by Usula K. Le Guin

Le Guin returns to the setting of The Left Hand of Darkness where a young alien makes the journey to adulthood.

The Three Descents of Jeremy Baker, by Roger Zelazny

A spacer gets too close to a black hole and finds that falling in is the least of his worries.

Evolution, by Nancy Kress

In the age-old war between humanity and disease, a mother must fight fire with fire to save her child.

The Day the Aliens Came, by Robert Sheckley

Is it an alien invasion or is Earth just a popular vacation spot?

Microbe, by Joan Slonczewski

A xenobiologist on a deadly new world must learn the secrets of its biology so future colonists can be adapted to live there.

The Ziggurat, by Gene Wolfe (novella)

A man encounters a band of strange and dangerous marauders in the snowbound wilderness by his cabin and learns the secret of the haunted countryside.

ack to Off the Shelf.