Colliding Worlds, Vol. 4: A Science Fiction Short Story Series

by Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Dean Wesley Smith

Overview

The Fourth Volume in the Acclaimed Series!

For more than four decades, New York Times and USA Today bestselling writers Kristine Kathryn Rusch and Dean Wesley Smith wrote professional science fiction short stories that won awards and sold millions of copies.

Now, for the first time, they collect together 120 of their science fiction short stories into a six-volume set called Colliding Worlds. Sixty stories total from each author, with ten stories from Rusch and ten from Smith in every volume.

Volume 4 explores the rich meanings of the term "goofy." Rusch offers up a guidebook for space travel with "Amelia Pillar's Etiquette for the Space Traveler" and a very determined little girl in "Advisors at Naptime," while Smith takes readers aboard the Titanic with Sherlock Holmes and contributes his Nebula Award-nominated tale of a vampire saying goodbye to a mortal lover with "In the Shade of the Slowboat Man." A do-not-miss volume!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781561463909
Publisher:	Wmg Publishing, Inc.
Publication date:	04/27/2021
Series:	Colliding Worlds , #4
Pages:	404
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

New York Times bestselling author Kristine Kathryn Rusch writes in almost every genre. Generally, she uses her real name (Rusch) for most of her writing. Under that name, she publishes bestselling science fiction and fantasy, award-winning mysteries, acclaimed mainstream fiction, controversial nonfiction, and the occasional romance. Her novels have made bestseller lists around the world and her short fiction has appeared in eighteen best of the year collections. She has won more than twenty-five awards for her fiction, including the Hugo, Le Prix Imaginales, the Asimov's Readers Choice award, and the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine Readers Choice Award. Publications from The Chicago Tribune to Booklist have included her Kris Nelscott mystery novels in their top-ten-best mystery novels of the year. The Nelscott books have received nominations for almost every award in the mystery field, including the best novel Edgar Award, and the Shamus Award. She writes goofy romance novels as award-winner Kristine Grayson. She also edits. Beginning with work at the innovative publishing company, Pulphouse, followed by her award-winning tenure at The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, she took fifteen years off before returning to editing with the original anthology series Fiction River, published by WMG Publishing. She acts as series editor with her husband, writer Dean Wesley Smith. To keep up with everything she does, go to kriswrites.com and sign up for her newsletter. To track her many pen names and series, see their individual websites (krisnelscott.com, kristinegrayson.com, retrievalartist.com, divingintothewreck.com, fictionriver.com, pulphousemagazine.com).

Considered one of the most prolific writers working in modern fiction, USA Today bestselling writer Dean Wesley Smith published almost two hundred novels in forty years, and hundreds and hundreds of short stories across many genres. At the moment he produces novels in several major series, including the time travel Thunder Mountain novels set in the Old West, the galaxy-spanning Seeders Universe series, the urban fantasy Ghost of a Chance series, a superhero series starring Poker Boy, and a mystery series featuring the retired detectives of the Cold Poker Gang. His monthly magazine, Smith's Monthly, which consists of only his own fiction, premiered in October 2013 and offers readers more than 70,000 words per issue, including a new and original novel every month. During his career, Dean also wrote a couple dozen Star Trek novels, the only two original Men in Black novels, Spider-Man and X-Men novels, plus novels set in gaming and television worlds. Writing with his wife Kristine Kathryn Rusch under the name Kathryn Wesley, he wrote the novel for the NBC miniseries The Tenth Kingdom and other books for Hallmark Hall of Fame movies. He wrote novels under dozens of pen names in the worlds of comic books and movies, including novelizations of almost a dozen films, from The Final Fantasy to Steel to Rundown. Dean also worked as a fiction editor off and on, starting at Pulphouse Publishing, then at VB Tech Journal, then Pocket Books, and now at WMG Publishing, where he and Kristine Kathryn Rusch serve as series editors for the acclaimed Fiction River anthology series, which launched in 2013. In 2018, WMG Publishing Inc. launched the first issue of the reincarnated Pulphouse Fiction Magazine, with Dean reprising his role as editor. For more information about Dean's books and ongoing projects, please visit his website at www.deanwesleysmith.com and sign up for his newsletter.

Table of Contents

Introduction v

Dean Wesley Smith

Ten Stories by Dean Wesley Smith 1

IN SEARCH OF THE PERFECT ORGASM 3

Dean Wesley Smith

A PARKER HOUSE ROLL 21

Dean Wesley Smith

SMILE 35

Dean Wesley Smith

IN THE SHADE OF THE SLOWBOAT MAN 49

Dean Wesley Smith

THE WAITING OF THE WIND 65

Dean Wesley Smith

TWO ROADS, NO CHOICES 75

Dean Wesley Smith

CUCUMBER PARTY 101

Dean Wesley Smith

CHEERLEADER REVELATION 113

Dean Wesley Smith

LAST MAN OUT 129

Dean Wesley Smith

FOR THE BALANCE OF A HEART 147

Dean Wesley Smith

Ten Stories by Kristine Kathryn Rusch 195

ADVISORS AT NAPTIME 197

Kristine Kathryn Rusch

THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY 211

Kristine Kathryn Rusch

PRESENT 225

Kristine Kathryn Rusch

LITTLE (GREEN) WOMEN 237

Kristine Kathryn Rusch

PETRA AND THE BLUE GOO 253

Kristine Kathryn Rusch

SAFETY TESTS 269

Kristine Kathryn Rusch

AMELIA PILLAR'S ETIQUETTE FOR THE SPACE

TRAVELER

295

Kristine Kathryn Rusch

DRINKING GAMES 303

Kristine Kathryn Rusch

RICK THE ROBBER BARON 329

Kristine Kathryn Rusch

ONCE ON THE BLUE MOON 345

Kristine Kathryn Rusch

About the Author 383

About the Author 385

Expanded Copyright Information 393

Editorial Reviews

"The Diving Universe, conceived by Hugo-Award winning author Kristine [Kathryn] Rusch is a refreshingly new and fleshed out realm of sci-fi action and adventure." -Astroguyz

"Kristine Kathryn Rusch is best known for her Retrieval Artist series, so maybe you've missed her Diving Universe series. If so, it's high time to remedy that oversight." -Analog

"The SF thriller is alive and well, and today's leading practitioner is Kristine Kathryn Rusch." -Analog

"Kristine Kathryn Rusch is one of the best writers in the field." -SFRevu

"Whether [Rusch] writes high fantasy, horror, sf, or contemporary fantasy, I've always been fascinated by her ability to tell a story with that enviable gift of invisible prose. She's one of those very few writers whose style takes me right into the story-the words and pages disappear as the characters and their story swallows me whole....Rusch has style." -Charles de Lint

"Thunder Mountain by Dean Wesley Smith is one of those reads that defies genre classification. Take some romance, throw in a little bit of historical fiction and add a dash of time travel and science fiction and you have the basis for this interesting story." -Fresh Fiction

From the Publisher