Book picks similar to
Terminal Mind by David Walton
science-fiction
sci-fi
fiction
scifi
Moxyland
Lauren Beukes - 2008
Kendra, an art-school dropout, brands herself for a nanotech marketing program; Lerato, an ambitious AIDS baby, plots to defect from her corporate employers; Tendeka, a hot-headed activist, is becoming increasingly rabid; and Toby, a roguish blogger, discovers that the video games he plays for cash are much more than they seem. On a collision course that will rewire their lives, this story crackles with bold and infectious ideas, connecting a ruthless corporate-apartheid government with video games, biotech attack dogs, slippery online identities, a township soccer school, shocking cell phones, addictive branding, and genetically modified art. Taking hedonistic trends in society to their ultimate conclusions, this tale paints anything but a forecasted utopia, satirically undermining the reified idea of progress as society's white knight.
Far North
Marcel Theroux - 2009
He'd say it had gone west. But going west always sounded pretty good to me. After all, westwards is the path of the sun. And through as much history as I know of, people have moved west to settle and find freedom. But our world had gone north, truly gone north, and just how far north I was beginning to learn.Out on the frontier of a failed state, Makepeace—sheriff and perhaps last citizen—patrols a city's ruins, salvaging books but keeping the guns in good repair.Into this cold land comes shocking evidence that life might be flourishing elsewhere: a refugee emerges from the vast emptiness of forest, whose existence inspires Makepeace to reconnect with human society and take to the road, armed with rough humor and an unlikely ration of optimism.What Makepeace finds is a world unraveling: stockaded villages enforcing an uncertain justice and hidden work camps laboring to harness the little-understood technologies of a vanished civilization. But Makepeace's journey—rife with danger—also leads to an unexpected redemption.Far North takes the reader on a quest through an unforgettable arctic landscape, from humanity's origins to its possible end. Haunting, spare, yet stubbornly hopeful, the novel is suffused with an ecstatic awareness of the world's fragility and beauty, and its ability to recover from our worst trespasses.
Collision with Chronos
Barrington J. Bayley - 1973
They were thought to be the ruins of an invading force of space monsters that men had defeated during the Dark Ages centuries before. Butthe ruins were visibly getting newer — rebuilding themselves. The militarists who had reconstructed society after the supposed invasion were getting panicky. Until they found a complete invader vehicle -- and learned it travelled through time. But what was Time? What was Now? Could there be more than one Time Front — one going forward, one in reverse? And what would happen when two such fronts met in the inevitable COLLISION COURSE?
Radiant Dawn
Cody Goodfellow - 2000
From a ruined chemical weapons bunker in Iraq to a shallow grave in California's San Andreas Fault, the lines are drawn for a shadow war that will decide who, or what, will inherit the earth and reign as the next dominant species. The escalating conflict engulfs the lives of three born survivors: a broken veteran of the Gulf War; a fiercely independent young nurse dying of cancer; and a brilliant novice FBI agent. Plunged into an arena where the stakes are survival or extinction, each must choose a side: between a militia of rogue government scientists and an enigmatic messiah who holds the cure for death itself, and the key to a new form of life. Trapped in a genocidal war the government will do anything to conceal, where top-secret military technologies vie with the primal power of evolution unleashed, they will struggle to understand and stay alive...and stay human.
Shadow & Claw
Gene Wolfe - 1994
Shadow & Claw brings together the first two books of the tetralogy in one volume.
Moonbane
Al Sarrantonio - 1989
Some of them fall nearby, but when Jason and Ritchie go to investigate, they are attacked by a werewolf-like creature, and Ritchie is injured. This is a novel of relationships, of apocalyptic adventure, and very personal sacrifice. Fast-paced and gaining speed with each page, Moonbane is a poetic novel that works on a number of unexpected levels, running the gamut from taut suspense to outright mayhem.
First Light
Linda Nagata - 2013
They hunt insurgents each night on a harrowing patrol, guided by three simple goals: protect civilians, kill the enemy, and stay alive—because in a for-profit war manufactured by the defense industry there can be no cause worth dying for. To keep his soldiers safe, Shelley uses every high-tech asset available to him—but his best weapon is a flawless sense of imminent danger...as if God is with him, whispering warnings in his ear. (Hazard Notice: contains military grade profanity.)
The Electric Church
Jeff Somers - 2007
The Church preaches that life is too brief to contemplate the mysteries of the universe: eternity is required. In order to achieve this, the converted become Monks -- cyborgs with human brains, enhanced robotic bodies, and virtually unlimited life spans. Enter Avery Cates, a dangerous criminal known as the best killer-for-hire around. The authorities have a special mission in mind for Cates: assassinate Dennis Squalor. But for Cates, the assignment will be the most dangerous job he's ever undertaken -- and it may well be his last.
Legacy: Fractured Era Legacy, Book 1
Autumn Kalquist - 2015
The last humans fled to the stars in search of a new home. In the darkness, they fought to survive. Now the fleet decays, and their hope of finding a better world is fading. Era Corinth works to preserve the archives, but viewing them herself would be treason. When she's faced with the possibility that her unborn child may be aborted due to a genetic defect, her fascination with ancient secrets escalates to obsession. Brutal conspiracies and devastating betrayals threaten to fracture the fleet. And the colonists have forgotten the most important lesson their ancestors swore to remember: It only took one wrong choice to destroy life on Earth. Will their descendants make the same mistake? "Had me hooked from the first paragraph." Amazon Reviewer
Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue 160 (January 2020)
Neil Clarke - 2020
This was published as a Clarkesworld audiobook podcast in 2020.
The Test
Sylvain Neuvel - 2019
Twenty-five chances to impress.When the test takes an unexpected and tragic turn, Idir is handed the power of life and death.How do you value a life when all you have is multiple choice?
The Rising: The Newsflesh Trilogy
Mira Grant - 2012
My name is Georgia Mason, and I am begging you. Rise up while you can."The year was 2014. We had cured cancer. We had beat the common cold. But in doing so we created something new, something terrible that no one could stop. The infection spread, virus blocks taking over bodies and minds with one, unstoppable command: FEED.Now, twenty years after the Rising, Georgia and Shaun Mason are on the trail of the biggest story of their lives - the dark conspiracy behind the infected. The truth will out, even if it kills them.The Rising includes Feed, Deadline, and Blackout.
Newsflesh
Feed
Deadline
Blackout
Feedback
Newsflesh Short Fiction Collection
Rise
Dark Eden
Chris Beckett - 2012
Beyond the Forest lie the mountains of the Snowy Dark and a cold so bitter and a night so profound that no man has ever crossed it. The Oldest among the Family recount legends of a world where light came from the sky, where men and women made boats that could cross the stars. These ships brought us here, the Oldest say—and the Family must only wait for the travelers to return. But young John Redlantern will break the laws of Eden, shatter the Family and change history. He will abandon the old ways, venture into the Dark…and discover the truth about their world.Already remarkably acclaimed in the UK, Dark Eden is science fiction as literature; part parable, part powerful coming-of-age story, set in a truly original alien world of dark, sinister beauty--rendered in prose that is at once strikingly simple and stunningly inventive.
The Courier's New Bicycle
Kim Westwood - 2011
This would be fine for the hormone business, except the new government has banned all remedies except prayer.Now the pious gather under the streetlights at dusk and the Neighbourhood Values Brigades prowl for ‘transgressors’. Meanwhile, the out-of-town animal farms have started up a barbarous form of hormone production and the Animal Protection Vigilantes are planning their next raid.For Salisbury it’s not all bad. Love is in the air, and the job is a joy—until someone starts distributing suss hormones stamped with the boss’s Cruelty-Free Assured logo. This bike courier turned accidental sleuth has to discover who’s trying to destroy the business before it all goes belly up…
Mission: Critical
Jonathan StrahanPeter F. Hamilton - 2019
New anthology from the critically-acclaimed editor of Engineering Infinity.SPACE IS DANGEROUS The greatest threat, to those who dare venture among the stars, isn’t from aliens, or enemy nations, or cosmic forces from outside reality, but from the simple things on which our lives in space are built: the engines and control systems, the machines that provide our atmosphere, our gravity, even our food and water.Mission Critical tells the stories of when the machines go wrong.