"Funny and doom-drenched, The Employees chronicles the fate of the Six-Thousand Ship. The human and humanoid crew members complain about their daily tasks in a series of staff reports and memos. When the ship takes on a number of strange objects from the planet New Discovery, the crew becomes strangely and deeply attached to them, even as tensions boil toward mutiny, especially among the humanoids. Olga Ravn's prose is chilling, crackling, exhilarating,...

"In the year 2067, the United Nations declares a global resolution to ban the use and manufacture of android technology. Japan, in an act of defiance, refuses to sign the treaty and withdraws into high-tech national seclusion for the next 10 years. For a decade, no one has crossed the magnetic force field that surrounds the nation's borders. No one, that is, until Commander Vexille and her team of U.S. special agents: SWORD. Dispatched to Japan to...

This story of a technological paradise suddenly turned nightmare is a genuine shocker. For $1,000 a day, vacationers can indulge whims at the "theme park" called Westworld where the gunhands and dance-hall girls are all robots programmed to serve the guests' violent and lustful fantasies--until something goes wrong with their circuitry.