Books in Science Fiction Shorts series

Kirkus Reviews Best Fiction of 2016 Barnes and Noble Best Science Fiction & Fantasy of 2016 “Intergalactic space travel meets outrageous, biting satire in Super Extra Grande…. Its author [Yoss] is one of the most celebrated—and controversial—Cuban writers of science fiction…. Reminiscent of Douglas Adams—but even more so, the satire of Rabelais and Swift.” —The Washington PostWith the playfulness and ingenuity of Douglas Adams, the Cuban science-fiction master Yoss delivers a space opera of intergalactic proportions with Super Extra Grande, the winner of the twentieth annual UPC Science Fiction Award in 2011. In a distant future in which Latin Americans have pioneered faster-than-light space travel, Dr. Jan Amos Sangan Dongo has a job with large and unusual responsibilities: he’s a veterinarian who specializes in treating enormous alien animals. Mountain-sized amoebas, multisex species with bizarre reproductive processes, razor-nailed, carnivorous humanoid hunters: Dr. Sangan has seen it all. When a colonial conflict threatens the fragile peace between the galaxy’s seven intelligent species, he must embark on a daring mission through the insides of a gigantic creature and find two swallowed ambassadors—who also happen to be his competing love interests. Funny, witty, raunchy, and irrepressibly vivacious, Super Extra Grande is a rare specimen in the richly parodic tradition of Cuban science fiction, and could only have been written by a Cuban heavy-metal rock star with a biology degree: the inimitable Yoss.

Solar sails use the suns energy to fly spacecraft, or flight by light. It sounds like something out of a science fiction novel. In fact, it is, first being mentioned in Jules Vernes From Earth to the Moon in 1865. It's been used as a way for characters to travel through space in many other books and movies, including Tron in 1985. Today, solar sails are a reality, and readers learn how their technology works as well as how successful trials with solar sail apparatuses have been. Could light energy be the best way to move through space in the future? Readers find out for themselves.

Cyborgs, heroes with missing hands, and prosthetics that allow sight in the blind are just some of the unbelievable plot points in science fiction that began years ago. Today, much of this technology exists. Those without legs can be fitted with bionic limbs so well made they can run marathons. Readers learn the history of bionic limbs in science fiction and popular culture and connect it to the real, amazing science of today. Full of interesting STEM content, each chapter engages readers with the ideas behind, execution, and future of this technology.