Isaac Asimov’s Robots and Aliens Book 4: Alliance by Jerry Oltion

Frank Herbert caps off his Dune Trilogy with Children of Dune. Paul “Muad’Dib” Atreides embraced his fate as a blind Fremen by walking into the desert approximately 9 years ago. His sister Alia oversees the religion of Muad’dib, and seems to be enjoying the power that comes with it as the de facto leader of the Empire. Paul’s twin children Leto II and Ghanima are being protected by Stilgar at Sietch Tabr. The main concern, which is well justified, is the fear that the Atreides twins will be assassinated. (more…)

Tim Pratt recently won the 2007 Hugo Award for best short story with Impossible Dreams. The story’s main character, Pete, is a huge movie buff that stumbles across a new video store in his neighborhood. He doesn’t seem to understand how he missed the store before, but ventures in and finds an odd selection of movies which he though had been canceled, or made by different directors with different actors. What follows is an interesting commentary on movies which either were never made, were lost, or simply done differently. This is a truly awesome story with an excellently planned ending. It was a pleasure to read from start to finish. From the writing it either the author is a huge movie buff or his writing is so good that you’d never even suggest he wasn’t passionate about movies. Visit the link above and read the full story at Asimov’s Science Fiction.