King David's Spaceship


Jerry Pournelle - 1973
    If his people are not to spend the rest of their history as just another satrapy, they must prove that they can reach space unaided. Though they have just re-invented the steam engine, King David will have his spaceship...

The Witling


Vernor Vinge - 1976
    If the anthropologists can't help resolve the conflict between the feuding alien factions, no one will survive.This edition features sixteen full-page illustrations by Doug Beekman.

Those Who Watch


Robert Silverberg - 1967
    It also the most unusual love story ever written.VORNEEN—the seducer, in the shell of an Apollo who came out of nowhere into the life of Kathryn MasonGLAIR—the perfect woman, an empty form who filled the hours of Tom FaulknerMIRTIN—otherworldly friend and mentor to an 11-year-old Indian boy who accepted the extraordinary on faithONLY THREE HUMANS WOULD EVER KNOW that the blinding flash in the sky on that night in 1982 was an exploding flying saucer. Only they would learn the truth about THOSE WHO WATCH—about the alien beings who came to this world in a crash landing from the stars.

Proxima


Stephen Baxter - 2013
    The age of star formation is long past. Yet there is life here, feeding off the energies of the stellar remnants, and there is mind, a tremendous galaxy-spanning intelligence each of whose thoughts lasts a hundred thousand years. And this mind cradles memories of a long-gone age when a more compact universe was full of light... The 27th century: Proxima Centauri, an undistinguished red dwarf star, is the nearest star to our sun. How would it be to live on such a world?

Wyrms


Orson Scott Card - 1987
    A legend as old as the stars rules this constructed world; When the seventh seventh seventh human Heptarch is crowned, he will be the Kristos and will bring eternal salvation . . . or the destruction of the cosmos.Patience is the only daughter of the rightful Heptarch, but she, like her father before her, serves the usurper who has destroyed her family. For she has learned the true ruler's honor.Duty to one's race is more important than duty to one's self. But the time for prudence has passed, and that which has slept for ages has awakened. And Patience must journey to the heartsoul of this planet to confront her destiny . . . and her world's.

The Man Who Japed


Philip K. Dick - 1956
    Highly mobile and miniature robots monitor the behavior of every citizen, and the slightest transgression can spell personal doom. Allen Purcell is one of the few people who has the capacity to literally change the way of the world, and once he's offered a high-profile job that acts as guardian of public ethics, he sets out to do precisely that, but first he has to deal with the head in his closet.

Sassinak


Anne McCaffrey - 1990
    That made her just the right age: old enough to be used, young enough to be broken. Or so the slavers thought. But Sassy turned out to be a little different from your typical slave girl. Maybe it was her unusual physical strength. Maybe it was her friendship with the captured Fleet crewman. Maybe it was her spirit. Whatever it was, it wouldn't let her resign herself to the life of a slave. She bided her time, watched for her moment. Finally it came, and she escaped.But that was only the beginning for Sassinak. Now she's a Fleet Captain with a pirate-chasing ship of her own, and only one regret in her life: not enough pirates.

Time and Again


Clifford D. Simak - 1950
    based on some real, honest, practical ethical thinking. It is an idea book.' - Groff Conklin in Galaxy Science FictionAsher Sutton has been lost in deepest space for twenty years. Suddenly arrives a warning from the future, that he will return- and that he must be killed. He is destined to write a book whose message may lead to the death of millions in centuries to come. For this reason Sutton is hounded by the sinister warring factions of the future who wish to influence or prevent the writing of this book he has not yet begun to write.Yet already a copy has been found in the burnt-out wreckage of a space-craft on Aldebaran XII.

The Door Through Space


Marion Zimmer Bradley - 1961
    It is a peaceful reign, held by compact and not by conquest. Again and again, when rebellion threatens the Terran Peace, the natives of the rebellious world have turned against their own people and sided with the men of Terra; not from fear, but from a sense of dedication. There has never been open war. The battle for these worlds is fought in the minds of a few men who stand between worlds; bound to one world by interest, loyalties and allegiance; bound to the other by love. Such a world is Wolf. Such a man was Race Cargill of the Terran Secret Service… At one time Race Cargill had been the best Terran Intelligence agent on the complex and mysterious planet of Wolf. He had repeatedly imperiled his life amongst the half-human and non-human creatures of the sullen world. And he had repeatedly accomplished the fantastic missions until his name was emblazoned with glory. But that had all seemingly ended. For six long years he'd sat behind a boring desk inside the fenced-in Terran Headquarters, cut off there ever since he and a rival had scarred and ripped each other in blood-feud. But when The Door Through Space swung suddenly open, the feud was on again—and with it a plot designed to check and destroy the Terran Empire.

Eye of Cat


Roger Zelazny - 1982
    The World Government calls upon him for aid in protecting an alien diplomat from a powerful and hostile member of his own species. Knowing both the importance of the task and his inability to handle it on his own, Singer goes to confront his greatest conquest with a strange bargain. A shape-shifting alien, the last of his species, sits in a special cage at an institute dedicated to the study of extraterrestrial beings. Most frequently he projects the aspect of a one-eyed catlike creature, but he can appear as almost anything.One of Singer’s secrets, and his greatest guilt, is his suspicion that the creature is intelligent. He confronts him and offers his own life for Cat’s cooperation in saving the alien. Cat accepts, and later, their mission fulfilled, demands a refinement on the original bargain. Rather than a simple death he wants a return bout—a chase with Singer as the hunted rather than the hunter.The gods, powers and monsters of Navajo legend provide the backdrop for the working out of Singer’s fate—for the chase is as much for his soul as for his body. As he uses matter transmitters to flit from Paris to London to the Middle East to the American Southwest, he must search back into his own early life as well as the root beliefs of his vanished people and come to terms with a world that has adopted him, made use of his skills, and left him feeling that he has no place to call his own.

The Engines of God


Jack McDevitt - 1994
    Now, as faster-than-light drive opens the stars to exploration, humans are finding other relics of the race they call the Monument-Makers - each different, and each heartbreakingly beautiful. But except for a set of footprints on Jupiter's moon Iapetus, there is no trace of the enigmatic race that has left them behind. Then a team of scientists working on a dead world discover an ominous new image of the Monument-Makers. Somehow it all fits with other lost civilizations, and possibly with Earth's own future. And distant past. But Earth itself is on the brink of ecological disaster - there is no time to search for answers. Even to a question that may hold the key to survival for the entire human race...

Armor


John Steakley - 1984
    The military sci-fi classic in a striking new packageFelix is an Earth soldier, encased in special body armor designed to withstand Earth's most implacable enemy-a bioengineered, insectoid alien horde. But Felix is also equipped with internal mechanisms that enable him, and his fellow soldiers, to survive battle situations that would destroy a man's mind.This is a remarkable novel of the horror, the courage, and the aftermath of combat--and how the strength of the human spirit can be the greatest armor of all.

Icerigger


Alan Dean Foster - 1974
    . . a sophisticated traveler between many worlds. But he had certainly never thought of himself as a hero.Skua September, on the other hand, never thought of himself as anything else.A matched pair, if ever there was one!When the two of them were suddenly stranded on a deadly frozen world, Ethan Fortune incredibly found himself cast in the role of Leader.And he didn't find that at all amusing . . .

Sisterhood of Dune


Brian Herbert - 2012
    Great changes are brewing that will shape and twist all of humankind. The war hero Vorian Atreides has turned his back on politics and Salusa Secundus. The descendants of Abulurd Harkonnen Griffen and Valya have sworn vengeance against Vor, blaming him for the downfall of their fortunes. Raquella Berto-Anirul has formed the Bene Gesserit School on the jungle planet Rossak as the first Reverend Mother. The descendants of Aurelius Venport and Norma Cenva have built Venport Holdings, using mutated, spice-saturated Navigators who fly precursors of Heighliners. Gilbertus Albans, the ward of the hated Erasmus, is teaching humans to become Mentats…and hiding an unbelievable secret. The Butlerian movement, rabidly opposed to all forms of “dangerous technology,” is led by Manford Torondo and his devoted Swordmaster, Anari Idaho. And it is this group, so many decades after the defeat of the thinking machines, which begins to sweep across the known universe in mobs, millions strong, destroying everything in its path. Every one of these characters, and all of these groups, will become enmeshed in the contest between Reason and Faith. All of them will be forced to choose sides in the inevitable crusade that could destroy humankind forever….

The Dark Side of the Sun


Terry Pratchett - 1976
    Librarian Note: An alternative cover for this ISBN can be found here Dom Salabos had a lot of advantages.As heir to a huge fortune he had an excellent robot servant (with Man-Friday subcircuitry), a planet (the First Syrian Bank) as a godfather, a security chief who even ran checks on himself, and on Dom's home world even death was not always fatal.Why then, in an age when prediction was a science, was his future in doubt?