Nailed-down cyberpunk ala William Gibson for the 21st century meets the vivid dark futures of Al Reynolds in this extraordinary debut novel. With Earth abandoned, humanity resides on Station, an industrialised asteroid run by the sentient corporations of the Pantheon. Under their leadership a war has been raging against the Totality - ex-Pantheon AIs gone rogue. With the war over, Jack Forster and his sidekick Hugo Fist, a virtual ventriloquist's dummy tied to Jack's mind and created to destroy the Totality, have returned home. Labelled a traitor for surrendering to the Totality, all Jack wants is to clear his name but when he discovers two old friends have died under suspicious circumstances he also wants answers. Soon he and Fist are embroiled in a conspiracy that threatens not only their future but all of humanity's. But with Fist's software licence about to expire, taking Jack's life with it, can they bring down the real traitors before their time runs out?

    And though each was good at a number of things, all of them were very good at games...Dagmar is a game designer trapped in Jakarta in the middle of a revolution. The city is tearing itself apart around her and she needs to get out. Her boss Charlie has his own problems — 4.3 billion of them, to be precise, hidden in an off-shore account. Austin is the businessman — the VC. He's the one with the plan and the one to keep the geeks in line. BJ was there from the start, but while Charlie's star rose, BJ sank into the depths of customer service. He pads his hours at the call-center slaying on-line orcs, stealing your loot, and selling it on the internet.But when one of them is gunned down in a parking lot, the survivors become players in a very different kind of game. Caught between the dangerous worlds of the Russian Mafia and international finance, Dagmar must draw on all her resources — not least millions of online gamers — to track down the killer. In this near-future thriller, Walter Jon Williams weaves a pulse-pounding tale of intrigue, murder, and games where you don't get an extra life.

    The preternatural races step out of hiding to work with the humans to save what they can from their dying world. With the aid of the Fae, shape shifters, Vampires, and other creatures of supernatural lore, the Worldship, Leviathan, is complete one thousand years later. Lotteries are held and only twelve million souls are selected to make the ten thousand year journey to the new world aboard the multi-generational starship. The Worldship Files follow the cases of Knith Shade, a human law enforcement officer of the Enforcers Brigade aboard the Leviathan, five thousand years into her journey. Knith must investigate a series of grisly murders, where the victims organs are harvested in the back halls of the bulkhead decks of the massive habitation rings of the Leviathan. Where others have failed, she has discovered leads that lead her to the unthinkable, when all signs point to a Fae Lady, and not just any lady, but the daughter of Queen Mab herself. Driven to solve the murders and bring the perpetrator to justice, even though she knows that merely even suggesting a Fae could have anything to do with the crimes would cause retaliation against Knith's habitation ring, as the magic of the Fae is what is keeping everyone alive on the Worldship. It could be more than simply career suicide. Enforcer Shade finds herself almost irresistible drawn to her main suspect, the Winter Maiden, Princess Aurora herself. Secrets are revealed and treachery uncovered, while even more mysteries and questions are unearthed.

    When she comes to, she explains that she was on her way to the island, to pray to the Goddess at the temple on the hill. Her name is Ashleigh. She cannot remember anything else. Only one person, local historian and past life regression therapist Andrew Monaghan, understands what this could really mean. He asks his colleague, New Yorker Kathleen Edwards, to fly over to help him with this unusual, and potentially extraordinary case. From the start, it is obvious that the two women share a deep, meaningful, yet troubling connection. But who is Ashleigh, really? And will the dark secrets of her past eventually catch up with her, and cost her the life, and love she has always been searching for?

    Still, like everything else in the Budayeen, he’s available…for a price.For a new kind of killer roams the streets of the Arab ghetto, a madman whose bootlegged personality cartridges range from a sinister James Bond to a sadistic disemboweler named Khan. And Marid Audrian has been made an offer he can’t refuse.The 200-year-old “godfather” of the Budayeen’s underworld has enlisted Marid as his instrument of vengeance. But first Marid must undergo the most sophisticated of surgical implants before he dares to confront a killer who carries the power of every psychopath since the beginning of time.Wry, savage, and unignorable, When Gravity Fails was hailed as a classic by Effinger’s fellow SF writers on its original publication in 1987, and the sequence of “Marid Audrian” novels it begins were the culmination of his career.

    Dick AwardSamuil Petrovitch is a survivor.He survived the nuclear fallout in St. Petersburg and hid in the London Metrozone – the last city in England. He’s lived this long because he’s a man of rules and logic.For example, getting involved = a bad idea.But when he stumbles into a kidnapping in progress, he acts without even thinking. Before he can stop himself, he’s saved the daughter of the most dangerous man in London.And clearly saving the girl = getting involved.Now, the equation of Petrovitch’s life is looking increasingly complex.Russian mobsters + Yakuza + something called the New Machine Jihad = one dead Petrovitch.But Petrovitch has a plan – he always has a plan – he’s just not sure it’s a good one.

    Angel’s memory loss cover story? Lame. Robbing a passing ruffian of his shirt to cover her naked body? NOT a good way to avoid attracting attention! As a science fiction geek, Kim felt herself uniquely qualified to watch Angel and thwart her dark mission…once the alien got around to it. But Angel had her own questions. She couldn’t help but wonder, why would Kim invite a stranger home? Surely, it could only be for romance! Kim didn’t dare correct her, not without giving herself away, and so both found themselves in an escalating romantic relationship neither actually wanted. Is it possible lies and deception could lead to true love? Could projected feelings designed to fool the other become genuine? “A Date with Angel is a romantic escalation comedy full of misinterpretations, grand theories, and devious, romantic traps ... and a suspected alien woman doing her best to meet a sci-fi paranoiac's expectations."

    And nobody talks about their past.But when a face from Captain Ichabod Drift’s former life send them on a run to Old Earth, all the rules change.Trust will be broken, and blood will be spilled.

    In this vivid world that author Brandon Sanderson has built, society can create a snapshot of a specific day in time. The experiences people have, the paths they follow—all of them are real again for a one day in the snapshot. All for the purposes of investigation by the court. Davis’s job as a cop on Snapshot Duty is straight forward. Sometimes he is tasked with finding where a criminal dumped a weapon. Sometimes he is tasked with documenting domestic disputes. Simple. Mundane. One day, in between two snapshot assignments, Davis decides to investigate the memory of a call that was mysteriously never logged at the precinct, and he makes a horrifying discovery.As in all many stories, Snapshot follows a wonderfully flawed character as he attempts to solve a horrific crime. Sanderson proves that no matter the genre, he is one of the most skilled storytellers in the business.

    But not everyone aboard shares such noble ideals. Bootlegging, booze, and prostitution form a lucrative underground economy for rival gangs, which the authorities are happy to turn a blind eye to until a disassembled corpse is found dancing in the micro-gravity. In charge of the murder investigation is Nikki "Fix" Freeman, who is not thrilled to have Alice Blake, an uptight government goody-two-shoes, riding shotgun. As the bodies pile up, and the partners are forced to question their own memories, Nikki and Alice begin to realize that gang warfare may not be the only cause for the violence.

    But when a catastrophic attack left her injured, indebted, and stranded far from home, she was forced to take a dead-end security job with a powerful mining company in the asteroid belt. Now she spends her days investigating petty crimes to help her employer maximize its profits. She's surprised to hear from an old friend and fellow victim of the terrorist attack that ruined her life—and that surprise quickly turns to suspicion when he claims to have discovered something shocking about their shared history and the tragedy that neither of them can leave behind.Before Hester can learn more, her friend is violently murdered at a remote asteroid mine. Hester joins the investigation to find the truth, both about her friend's death and the information he believed he had uncovered. But catching a killer is only the beginning of Hester's worries, and she soon realizes that everything she learns about her friend, his fellow miners, and the outpost they call home brings her closer to revealing secrets that very powerful and very dangerous people would rather keep hidden in the depths of space.

    Most who get sick experience nothing worse than flu, fever and headaches. But for the unlucky one percent - and nearly five million souls in the United States alone - the disease causes "Lock In": Victims fully awake and aware, but unable to move or respond to stimulus. The disease affects young, old, rich, poor, people of every color and creed. The world changes to meet the challenge.A quarter of a century later, in a world shaped by what's now known as "Haden's syndrome," rookie FBI agent Chris Shane is paired with veteran agent Leslie Vann. The two of them are assigned what appears to be a Haden-related murder at the Watergate Hotel, with a suspect who is an "integrator" - someone who can let the locked in borrow their bodies for a time. If the Integrator was carrying a Haden client, then naming the suspect for the murder becomes that much more complicated.But "complicated" doesn't begin to describe it. As Shane and Vann began to unravel the threads of the murder, it becomes clear that the real mystery - and the real crime - is bigger than anyone could have imagined. The world of the locked in is changing, and with the change comes opportunities that the ambitious will seize at any cost. The investigation that began as a murder case takes Shane and Vann from the halls of corporate power to the virtual spaces of the locked in, and to the very heart of an emerging, surprising new human culture. It's nothing you could have expected.

    The keys to this empire belong to the powerful North family - composed of successive generations of clones. Yet these clones are not identical. For one thing, genetic errors have crept in with each generation. For another, the original three clone "brothers" have gone their separate ways, and the branches of the family are now friendly rivals more than allies. Or maybe not so friendly. At least that's what the murder of a North clone in the English city of Newcastle suggests to Detective Sidney Hurst. Sid is a solid investigator who'd like nothing better than to hand off this hot potato of a case. The way he figures it, whether he solves the crime or not, he'll make enough enemies to ruin his career. Yet Sid's case is about to take an unexpected turn: Because the circumstances of the murder bear an uncanny resemblance to a killing that took place years ago on the planet St. Libra, where a North clone and his entire household were slaughtered in cold blood.The convicted slayer, Angela Tramelo, has always claimed her innocence. And now it seems she may have been right. Because only the St. Libra killer could have committed the Newcastle crime. Problem is, Angela also claims that the murderer was an alien monster. Now Sid must navigate through a Byzantine minefield of competing interests within the police department and the world's political and economic elite...all the while hunting down a brutal killer poised to strike again. And on St. Libra, Angela, newly released from prison, joins a mission to hunt down the elusive alien, only to learn that the line between hunter and hunted is a thin one.

    . . and it promises to be a publication to remember.An ex-corporate enforcer, Hakan Veil, is forced to bodyguard Madison Madekwe, part of a colonial audit team investigating a disappeared lottery winner on Mars. But when Madekwe is abducted, and Hakan nearly killed, the investigation takes him farther and deeper than he had ever expected. And soon Hakan discovers the heavy price he may have to pay to learn the truth.

    A daring bank robbery has taken place at Hayek Associates -- a dot-com start-up company that's just floated onto the London stock exchange. But this crime may be a bit beyond Smith's expertise.The prime suspects are a band of marauding orcs with a dragon in tow for fire support. The bank is located within the virtual land of Avalon Four, and the robbery was supposed to be impossible. When word gets out, Hayek Associates and all its virtual "economies" are going to crash hard.For Smith, the investigation seems pointless. But the deeper she digs, the bigger the case gets. There are powerful players -- both real and pixilated -- who are watching her every move. Because there is far more at stake than just some game-head's fantasy financial security . . .