The Elastic Book of Numbers
Edited by Allen Ashley.
Numbers rule our lives: clocks, calendars and deadlines; salaries and benefits; tax codes and pin numbers; mortgages, bills and credit limits; the FTSE and the Dow Jones; mobiles, land lines and pagers; binary strings of digitised information held for and about us, instantly accessible.
In this unique collection of 21 stories, some of the world's finest fictioneers examine the effect of numbers on humankind's past, present and future. From the rewriting of history through the thrill of the roulette wheel to the codes controlling the starships, each of these tales engages with numbers in innovative, entertaining and meaningful ways.
The Elastic Book of Numbers contains fiction by: Marion Arnott, Allen Ashley, Neil Ayres, Paul Evanby, Toiya Kristen Finley, Jeff Gardiner, Kay Green, Sam Hayes, Charles Lambert, Joel Lane, Tim Lees, Phil Locascio, Rosaleen Love, John Lucas, Mark Patrick Lynch, Ellen McAteer, Joy Marchand, Tim Nickels, Donald Pulker, E. Sedia, Eric Shapiro, Julian Todd, Neil Williamson. The Anthology is edited by Allen Ashley.
Contents:
- 8 20 17 16 22 11 21 18 11 7 5 7 by Kay Green
- Approaching Zero by John Lucas
- Where None is the Number by Joel Lane
- 3:21 by Eric Shapiro
- Every Eight and Eleven by Ekaterina Sedia (as by E. Sedia)
- The Zero Worm by Charles Lambert
- 351073 by Jeff Gardiner
- i by Paul Evansby
- Sixty Thousand Pieces of Glass by Sam Hayes
- The Square Root of 2 by Phil Locascio
- Breach of Contract, Clause 6A by Mark Patrick Lynch
- Dial 1-800-To-Live by Donald Pulker
- 7:33 by Toiya Kristen Finley
- The One Millionth Smile by Neil Williamson
- The Sympathy of Five by Joy Marchand
- Two Moon City by Tim Lees
- Wanderer 8 by Rosaleen Love
- Mine the Primes by Julian Todd
- When We Were Five by Marion Arnott
- Twenty-One Again by Neil Ayres
- 4 Thoughts on Numbers by Ellen McAteer
- While We Were Sleeping, Numbers Took Over the World (poem) by Tim Nickels and Allen Ashley
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Allen Ashley
One of the most distinctive voices in modern literature, Allen Ashley has been published in dozens of books and magazines in the UK, USA, Canada and Spain and has now passed his first century of short story publications. Allen is a highly respected author equally adept at novels, short stories, poetry and lyrics. He is also well known for a wealth of critical commentary and non-fiction articles and, more recently, as an acclaimed and award winning editor.
Allen has run successful writing workshops in Newham and Tower Hamlets libraries. In October 2005 he gave two readings at the Norwich Fringe Festival. In November 2005 he was the special guest of the Birmingham Science Fiction Group. In May 2006 he ran a writing workshop in Derby as part of the very first "Alt. Fiction Day". On 2nd June 2006 he was the Guest of Honour at The British Fantasy Society (BFS) Open Night at The Devereux Arms, London WC2. On 7th July 2006 he compered the annual BFS "Showcase" evening, also at The Devereux.. At Fantasycon 2006 he moderated a panel on "Independent Versus Mainstream Editing" and was also thrilled to receive the BFS Best Anthology award as editor of "The Elastic Book Of Numbers". At Fantasycon 2007 he moderated a panel entitled "The Small Press - Building and Maintaining an Audience".
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