Shadows of the Empire


Steve Perry - 1996
    Han Solo, frozen in carbonite, is being taken to the vile gangster Jabba the Hutt. As Princess Leia mounts a rescue mission including Luke Skywalker, Lando Calrissian, and a brilliant young pilot, Darth Vader pits himself against a cunning and ruthless rival. Xizor is the leader of a powerful crime syndicate who seeks to supplant Vader for the favor of their mutual master, the dreaded Emperor. Their target: Luke Skywalker. Suddenly Luke finds himself the potential prize of the two most evil entities in the galaxy--one who wants him alive...and one who wants him dead.

The New Space Opera


Gardner DozoisRobert Silverberg - 2007
    McAuley88 • Glory • (2007) • novelette by Greg Egan112 • Maelstrom • (2007) • novelette by Kage Baker143 • Blessed by an Angel • (2007) • shortstory by Peter F. Hamilton158 • Who's Afraid of Wolf 359? • shortstory by Ken MacLeod170 • The Valley of the Gardens • (2007) • novelette by Tony Daniel202 • Dividing the Sustain • (2007) • novelette by James Patrick Kelly234 • Minla's Flowers • [Merlin [4] • 2] • (2007) • novella by Alastair Reynolds291 • Splinters of Glass • (2007) • novelette by Mary Rosenblum316 • Remembrance • (2007) • shortstory by Stephen Baxter334 • The Emperor and the Maula • (2007) • novelette by Robert Silverberg379 • The Worm Turns • (2007) • shortstory by Gregory Benford401 • Send Them Flowers • (2007) • novelette by Walter Jon Williams436 • Art of War • shortstory by Nancy Kress454 • Muse of Fire • (2007) • novella by Dan Simmons

The Star Fraction


Ken MacLeod - 1995
    Janis Taine is a scientist working on memory-enhancing drugs, fleeing the US/UN's technology cops. Jordan Brown is a teenager in the Christian enclave of Beulah City, dealing in theologically-correct software for the world's fundamentalists-and wants out.In a balkanized twenty-first century, where the "peace process" is deadlier than war, the US/UN's spy satellites have everyone in their sights. But the Watchmaker has other plans, and the lives of Moh, Janis, and Jordan are part of the program. A specter is haunting the fight for space and freedom, the specter of the betrayed revolution that happened before... With The Star Fraction, Ken MacLeod burst onto the SF scene and began the Fall Revolution sequence that continued with The Stone Canal, The Cassini Division, and The Sky Road.

Area 51


Robert Doherty - 1997
    The President doesn't know about it. The press doesn't know about it. Just a few scientists and military personnel do, and they are about to make a very big mistake...Nashville, Tennessee...An unemployed freelance journalist receives an audio tape that nearly scares her to death - then send her racing to New Mexico.Outside Nellis Air Force Base, New Mexico...An investigative reporter and a UFO watcher sneak into a restricted zone called Area 51.Inside the Great Pyramid, Egypt...An archaeologist makes a startling discovery deep within the Lower Chamber - a discovery that could change the world.Inside Nellis Air Force Base, New Mexico...Mike Turcotte, formerly of Special Forces, joins Nightscape, the elite security force guarding Area 51, and sees something that makes his blood run cold.The White House, Washington, D.C....Dr. Lisa Duncan, the President's scientific adviser, leaves to join Majic-12, the top secret project at Nellis Air Force Base... to try to stop it before doomsday begins...

To Your Scattered Bodies Go


Philip José Farmer - 1971
    When famous adventurer Sir Richard Francis Burton dies, the last thing he expects to do is awaken naked on a foreign planet along the shores of a seemingly endless river. But that's where Burton and billions of other humans (plus a few nonhumans) find themselves as the epic Riverworld saga begins. It seems that all of Earthly humanity has been resurrected on the planet, each with an indestructible container that provides three meals a day, cigarettes, alcoholic beverages, a lighter, and the odd tube of lipstick. But why? And by whom? That's what Burton and a handful of fellow adventurers are determined to discover as they construct a boat and set out in search of the river's source, thought to be millions of miles away. Although there are many hardships during the journey--including an encounter with the infamous Hermann Goring--Burton's resolve to complete his quest is strengthened by a visit from the Mysterious Stranger, a being who claims to be a renegade within the very group that created the Riverworld. The stranger tells Burton that he must make it to the river's headwaters, along with a dozen others the Stranger has selected, to help stop an evil experiment at the end of which humanity will simply be allowed to die. --Craig E. Engler

Voyagers


Ben Bova - 1981
    The message is heading straight for Earth, and Stoner will do anything to be the first man to confront the enigma, even if he loses his only love.

Master of Life and Death


Robert Silverberg - 1957
    Walton is faced with problems of cosmic proportions...How can he deal with the mass revolt against Popeek's resettlement and euthanasia programmes?Will the interstellar mission X-72 return with hope for a new Earth?And how can Walton finally silence his embittered, jealous brother who shares his two darkest secrets? One could cripple Popeek for a long time to come. The other would destroy Walton. For ever...

Heir to the Empire


Timothy Zahn - 1991
    New challenges to galactic peace have arisen. And Luke Skywalker hears a voice from his past. A voice with a warning. Beware the dark side….The Rebel Alliance has destroyed the Death Star, defeated Darth Vader and the Emperor, and driven the remnants of the old Imperial Starfleet back into barely a quarter of the territory that they once controlled. Leia and Han are married, are expecting Jedi twins, and have shouldered heavy burdens in the government of the new Republic. And Luke Skywalker is the first in a hoped-for new line of Jedi Knights.But thousands of light years away, where a few skirmishes are still taking place, the last of the Emperor's warlords has taken command of the remains of the Imperial fleet. He has made two vital discoveries that could destroy the fragile new Republic—built with such cost to the Rebel Alliance. The tale that emerges is a towering epic of action, invention, mystery, and spectacle on a galactic scale—in short, a story that is worthy of the name Star Wars.

Altered Carbon


Richard K. Morgan - 2002
    The colonies are linked together by the occasional sublight colony ship voyages and hyperspatial data-casting. Human consciousness is digitally freighted between the stars and downloaded into bodies as a matter of course.But some things never change. So when ex-envoy, now-convict Takeshi Kovacs has his consciousness and skills downloaded into the body of a nicotine-addicted ex-thug and presented with a catch-22 offer, he really shouldn't be surprised. Contracted by a billionaire to discover who murdered his last body, Kovacs is drawn into a terrifying conspiracy that stretches across known space and to the very top of society.

Little Fuzzy


H. Beam Piper - 1962
    Their charter was for a Class III uninhabited planet, which Zarathustra was, and it meant they owned the planet lock stock and barrel. They exploited it, developed it and reaped the huge profits from it without interference from the Colonial Government. Then Jack Holloway, a sunstone prospector, appeared on the scene with his family of Fuzzies and the passionate conviction that they were not cute animals but little people.

Strata


Terry Pratchett - 1981
    The excavation showed that the fossilized plesiosaur had been holding a placard which read, 'End Nuclear Testing Now'.That was nothing unusual.But then came a discovery of something which did intrigue Kin Arad.A flat earth was something new ...

The Martian Tales Trilogy


Edgar Rice Burroughs - 2003
    In the first installment, Carter wins the affections of the "princess of Mars" and the respect of the Martian warlords whom he befriends. The excitement continues in The Gods of Mars when Carter engages the Black Pirates in airborne combat above the dead seas of Mars and leads a revolt to free the Martian races from a religion that thrives on living sacrifices. In the third book, Warlord of Mars, Carter overcomes the forces of evil that would destroy the planet. By the end of the trilogy the Martians all clamor for a triumphant John Carter to be their king.About the Author:Born in Chicago, Illinois, on September 1, 1875, Edgar Rice Burroughs grew to maturity during the height of the Industrial Revolution and witnessed the emergence of the United States as a twentieth-century world power. Hailing from a well-to-do family, Burroughs was given an aristocratic education steeped in Latin and Greek, but he was drawn more to an itinerant life of adventure than to a life in the boardroom. The author of Tarzan of the Apes (1912), Burroughs did not confine himself to a single genre; he also wrote medieval romances (The Outlaw of Torn, 1914), westerns (The War Chief of the Apaches, 1927), and mainstream novels (The Girl from Hollywood, 1922).

The Terminal Man


Michael Crichton - 1972
    Roger McPherson, head of the prestigious Neuropsychiatric Research Unit at University Hospital in Los Angeles, is convinced he can cure Benson through a procedure called Stage Three. During this highly specialized experimental surgery, electrodes will be place in the patient's brain, sending monitored, soothing pulses to its pleasure canyons.Though the operation is a success, there is an unforseen development. Benson learns how to control the pulses and is increasing their frequency. He escapes -- a homicidal maniac loose in the city -- and nothing will stop his murderous rampages or impede his deadly agenda. . .

I Sing the Body Electric! & Other Stories


Ray Bradbury - 1969
    Yet all his work is united by one common thread: a vivid and profound understanding of the vast set of emotions that bring strength and mythic resonance to our frail species. Ray Bradbury characters may find themselves anywhere and anywhen. A horrified mother may give birth to a strange blue pyramid. A man may take Abraham Lincoln out of the grave—and meet another who puts him back. An amazing Electrical Grandmother may come to live with a grieving family. An old parrot may have learned over long evenings to imitate the voice of Ernest Hemingway, and became the last link to the great man. A priest on Mars may confront his fondest dream: to meet the Messiah. Each of these magnificent creations has something to tell us about our humanity—and all of their fates await you in this new trade edition of twenty-eight classic Bradbury stories and one luscious poem. Travel on an unpredictable and unforgettable literary journey—safe in the hands of one of the century's great men of imagination.

Ilium


Dan Simmons - 2003
    On Earth, a small band of the few remaining humans pursues a lost past and devastating truth—as four sentient machines depart from Jovian space to investigate, perhaps terminate, the potentially catastrophic emissions emanating from a mountaintop miles above the terraformed surface of the Red Planet.