Neal Asher: “Adaptogenic“

“Another murder-louse made its scuttling charge, its trilobite body holding level as a pointer on me as its multitude of legs found purchase on the weed-slippery rocks. I watched the creature with a crawling sensation in my guts as it reached the perimeter. There was always the horrible suspicion that this time one might make it, that this time I’d end up as a paralysed egg-carrier or diced by those grinding mandibles. But no, with admirable and re-assuring efficiency the Tenkian strobed from its tripod and the louse became a messy explosion of legs, carapace, and pink ichor. This is, of course, adding to my problems.”

China Miéville: “An End To Hunger“ 

“I met Aykan in a pub sometime late in 1997. I was with friends, and one of them was loudly talking about the internet, which we were all very excited about.
‘Fucking internet’s fucking dead, man. Yesterday’s bullshit,’ I heard from two tables away. Aykan was staring at me, gazing at me curiously, like he wasn’t sure I’d let him crash this party.
He was Turkish (I asked because of his name). His English was flawless. He had none of the throaty accent I half-expected, though each of his words did sound finished in a slightly unnatural way.”

Cory Doctorow: “0wnz0red“

“Ten years in the Valley, and all Murray Swain had to show for it was a spare tire, a bald patch, and a life that was friendless and empty and maggoty-rotten. His only ever California friend, Liam, had dwindled from a tubbaguts programmer-shaped potato to a living skeleton on his death-bed the year before, herpes blooms run riot over his skin and bones in the absence of any immunoresponse. The memorial service featured a framed photo of Liam at his graduation; his body was donated for medical science.” 

Neil Gaiman: “The Case of the Four and Twenty Blackbirds“

“I sat in my office, nursing a glass of hooch and idly cleaning my automatic. Outside the rain fell steadily, like it seems to do most of the time in our fair city, whatever the tourist board says. Hell, I didn’t care. I’m not on the tourist board. I’m a private dick, and one of the best, although you wouldn’t have known it; the office was crumbling, the rent was unpaid and the hooch was my last.
Things are tough all over. “