SCIENCE FICTION. FANTASY. HUMOR. This is the third annual volume of Unidentified Funny Objects and it contains twenty-three humorous short stories from some of the genre's best-known authors, as well as talented up-and-comers. These are some of the unlikely characters you will encounter in the pages of this book: * Hobo Satan * Vampire novelist * Traveling robot salesman * Brain-in-a-jar superhero * Jinn trapped in a mattress

Chthon was Piers Anthony's first published novel in 1967, written over the course of seven years. He started it when he was in the US Army, so it has a long prison sequence that is reminiscent of that experience, being dark and grim. It features Aton Five, a space man who commits the crime of falling in love with the dangerous, alluring Minionette and is therefore condemned to death in the subterranean prison of Chthon. It uses flashbacks to show...

Aliena is a nice person who turns out to be an alien in a human host. She just has things to learn about the human form and society. When her body starts immune-rejecting the alien brain, and the brain has to be replaced by another alien brain, maintaining the semblance of marriage and family becomes a challenge for both Aliena and the man who loves her.

Penn and Chandelle, an older couple, rent a house in the city at a bargain price and discover that its back door opens onto an endless forest. Now they know why others were scared off. That's only the beginning of the oddities about this particular piece of realty. They decide to call in experts: their grandchildren, Lloyd and Llynn, who pitch in with a will, to try to discover what and why. But it may be more of a challenge than they can handle.

Slim's a Texas bluesman of a certain age, down on his luck and just about broke - but hey, that's what the blues are all about. He loves his music: "Not the popular blues, homogenized, synthesized, and zombilized; but the real down-home gut-bucket blues." Then one day the music loves him back. In a single hot burst of lightning that comes straight up out of the ground, Slim finds himself in Tejas. It's a little bit magic and a whole lot different,...

The cast of cosmic characters: A prodigal worm, a telepathic, egotistical, totally unscrupulous little alien running away from his father becomes the biggest prize in the universe. Capture the slimy brat and win an entire planet! A cosmic hustler, an effete snob who ekes out a comfortable living as the president's son-in-law and perfects his reflexes with endless contests of cosmic pool, becomes the most important element in a delicate game of interspatial...

Phthor is the sequel to Chthon, less intricately structured and less complicated in plot, but still quite dark and ugly in theme and detail. Rather than flashbacks and flash-forwards, it has a Y outline, with the stem the initial story and the ends alternate futures, neither of which is acceptable to Aton's son Arlo. Arlo has his own encounter with a Minionette, and naturally, destruction is upon him and all with whom he associates. Writer and editor...

The final installment of the Bio of a Space Tyrant series covers the same period as the first five books, but with a twist. The Iron Maiden is told from the point of view of Hope's sister, Spirit. This book fills in the gaps when the two siblings were apart and perfectly wraps up this scintillating series!

THE TYRANT FALLS This is the fifth in the series Bio of a Space Tyrant, featuring the stages in the life of Hope Hubris, the tyrant of Jupiter, and his beloved sister, Spirit. Child of flame and terror, born and bred to violence, Hope Hubris had ruled the solar system's most powerful empire with a fierce, uncompromising passion. His was a white-hot flame of justice that scarred friend and foe alike. Yet now he left Jupiter as an exile, his autocratic...

The Metal Maiden Series is a wildly different kind of story that tells how Elasa, a humanoid robot who achieves consciousness, eventually saves the world from surpassing horror Humanoid robots are surely in our future, but their uses are likely to be limited to body guarding, childcare, companionship, and sex. Other chores can better be done by smart non-humanoid machines designed for those specific tasks. But for these limited purposes, the best...