In Rip-Off!, 13 of today’s best and most honored writers of speculative fiction face a challenge even they would be hard-pressed to conceive: Pick your favorite opening line from a classic piece of fiction (or even non-fiction)―then use it as the first sentence of an entirely original short story. In the world of Rip-Off!, "Call me Ishmael" introduces a tough-as-nails private eye―who carries a harpoon; The Wonderful Wizard of Oz inspires the tale of an aging female astronaut who’s being treated by a doctor named Dorothy Gale; and Huckleberry Finn leads to a wild ride with a foul-mouthed riverboat captain who plies the waters of Hell. Once you listen to Rip-Off! you’ll agree: If Shakespeare or Dickens were alive today, they’d be ripping off the authors in this great collection. As a bonus, the authors introduce their stories, explaining what they ripped-off―and why. The stories included in Rip-Off! are: • "Fireborn" by Robert Charles Wilson • "The Evening Line" by Mike Resnick • "No Decent Patrimony" by Elizabeth Bear • "The Big Whale" by Allen M. Steele • "Begone" by Daryl Gregory • "The Red Menace" by Lavie Tidhar • "Muse of Fire" by John Scalzi • "Writer’s Block" by Nancy Kress • "Highland Reel" by Jack Campbell • "Karin Coxswain or Death as She Is Truly Lived" by Paul Di Filippo • "The Lady Astronaut of Mars" by Mary Robinette Kowal • "Every Fuzzy Beast of the Earth, Every Pink Fowl of the Air" by Tad Williams • "Declaration" by James Patrick Kelly