Ranked Top 10 "Best Lit Mags of 2023" by Chill Subs

Synopsis: Carefully curated stories from our monthly magazine to create a themed short story book about the philosophy and ethics of business. Perfect for classrooms and book clubs, each story is 1,500-7,000 words and comes with five suggested discussion questions.

• The Pool: A good-willed apartment complex owner deals with ever-complaining tenants as she attempts community improvements.
• First Gold: A graphic designer is called out when he wins a design prize for an advertisement he plagiarized.
• Pandora's Dreams: A new technology allows the recording, playback, and sale of dreams.
• Cicada: Dr. Zhang invents teleportation but refuses to share it with the world.
• Claim: The local diocese requests insurance coverage against future child sexual abuse lawsuits.
• Thorn: A local builder comes across an upstart carpenter in a neighboring village that he believes threatens his business.
• Guilt-Edge Security: A traveling salesman at the bar is cleverly pitched a new product by an emerging planet on the rim, Life.
• The Money Box: A mysterious black box gives its users "unearned" money, but at what price?
• Lev's Pawn Shop: A dying pawn shop own looks to return all the items in his shop to settle his account with God.
• Bugs In The Valley: A pharmaceutical company turns a rare flower into an equally rare medicine that cures cancer and stops aging.

Reviews ★★★★★
“With Science fiction we can explore other galaxies and alien conflicts, but with philosophical fiction we can explore other minds and ethical conflicts. Let this book take you on a Phi-Fi adventure.”
— William Irwin, Ph.D. - Philosophy Professor, King's College

“After Dinner Conversation has taken up the initiative to write themed collections of short stories that fit focused ethics courses – say, a course on bioethics, AI ethics, Tech ethics etc. These collections can offer a spine for such courses or individual stories could be added to a course as illustrative material to stimulate discussion. The stories are lively and engaging and followed by a set of questions to start classroom discussion. Also, outside of educational contexts, the stories will work nicely to stimulate conversation in families, elder hostels, youth clubs, or book groups.”
— Luc Bovens, Ph.D. - Philosophy Professor, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill