Book picks similar to
Dancers in the Afterglow by Jack L. Chalker
science-fiction
sci-fi
fiction
scifi
The Peace War
Vernor Vinge - 1984
The Peace Authority conquered the world with a weapon that never should have been a weapon--the "bobble," a spherical force-field impenetrable by any force known to mankind. Encasing governmental installations and military bases in bobbles, the Authority becomes virtually omnipotent. But they've never caught Paul Hoehler, the maverick who invented the technology, and who has been working quietly for decades to develop a way to defeat the Authority. With the help of an underground network of determined, independent scientists and a teenager who may be the apprentice genius he's needed for so long, he will shake the world, in the fast-paced hard-science thriller that garnered Vinge the first of his four Hugo nominations for best novel.
The Black Hole
Alan Dean Foster - 1979
Novelization of the Walt Disney film
The Gap Into Conflict: The Real Story
Stephen R. Donaldson - 1990
Donaldson returns with this exciting and long-awaited new series that takes us into a stunningly imagined future to tell a timeless story of adventure and the implacable conflict of good and evil within each of us.Angus Thermopyle was an ore pirate and a murderer; even the most disreputable asteroid pilots of Delta Sector stayed locked out of his way. Those who didn't ended up in the lockup--or dead. But when Thermopyle arrived at Mallory's Bar & Sleep with a gorgeous woman by his side the regulars had to take notice. Her name was Morn Hyland, and she had been a police officer--until she met up with Thermopyle.But one person in Mallory's Bar wasn't intimidated. Nick Succorso had his own reputation as a bold pirate and he had a sleek frigate fitted for deep space. Everyone knew that Thermopyle and Succorso were on a collision course. What nobody expected was how quickly it would be over--or how devastating victory would be. It was common enough example of rivalry and revenge--or so everyone thought. The REAL story was something entirely different.In The Real Story, Stephen R. Donaldson takes us to a remarkably detailed world of faster-than-light travel, politics, betrayal, and a shadowy presence just outside our view to tell the fiercest, most profound story he has ever written.
Queen of Angels
Greg Bear - 1990
"One is ultimately awed... it may be the most ambitious novel I've ever read." -- Washington Post Book World
Venus on the Half-Shell
Philip José Farmer - 1974
A man without a planet, he gains immortality from an elixir drunk during a sexual interlude with a cat-like alien queen in heat. Now, with his pet owl, his dog Anubis and a sexy robot companion, Simon charts a 3,000-year course to the most distant corners of a multiverse full of surprises to seek out the answers to the questions no one can seem to answer.
Noninterference
Harry Turtledove - 1987
. .When the Survey Service first came to Bilbeis IV, it found a planet inhabited by humanoid aliens just on the verge of civilization. Then compassion overcame common sense, and David Ware did the one thing the Service prohibited - - he interfered. Just a little.But when the Survey Service returned 1,500 years later, it discovered just what David Ware's meddling had done.The bureaucrats of the Survey Service could not afford to allow such a breach of noninterference to be publicized. So they set out to cover it up. Reports were destroyed, files erased, and people eliminated. But one witness refused to be silenced. For the future of the Survey Service was at stake, and so was the future of Bilbeis IV.
Hestia
C.J. Cherryh - 1979
An early (1979) Cherryh novel about colonists on an alien world and their interactions with the catlike natives, centering on a young engineer sent to solve the colonists' problems, and his relationship with one of the natives. Major themes in this novel include sexual liberation, sexual aberration, hypocrisy of social mores, and responsibility toward indigenous peoples.
Dark Mirror
Diane Duane - 1993
Humanity’s greatest dreams have become reality. Along with dozens of other sentient races, the people of Earth have formed the United Federation of Planets—a galactic civilization that governs much of the known universe for the good of all. Over the past two centuries, mankind has tamed its basest instincts, and reached the stars…But suppose it hadn’t happened that way at all? Suppose instead humanity’s darkest impulses, its most savage, animalistic desires had triumphed? Suppose that the empire mankind made out in the stars was one ruled by terror, where only those willing to brutalize their own kind and their neighbors could survive?One hundred years ago, four crewmembers of the U.S.S. Enterprise crossed the dimensional barrier and found just such an empire. A mirror image of their own universe, populated by nightmare duplicates of their shipmates. Barely able to escape with their lives, they returned thankful that the accident that brought them there could not be duplicated. Or so they thought.But now the scientists of that empire have found a doorway into our universe. Thier plan: to destroy from within, to replace one of our starships with one of theirs. Their victims: the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC 1701-D.
Tuf Voyaging
George R.R. Martin - 1986
So how is it that, in competition with the worst villains the universe has to offer, he's become the proud owner of the last seedship of Earth's legendary Ecological Engineering Corps? Never mind, just be thankful that the most powerful weapon in human space is in good hands-hands which now control cellular material for thousands of outlandish creatures. With his unique equipment, Tuf is set to tackle the problems human settlers have created in colonizing far-flung worlds: hosts of hostile monsters, a population hooked on procreation, a dictator who unleashes plagues to get his own way...and in every case the only thing that stands between the colonists and disaster is Tuf's ingenuity - and his reputation as an honest dealer in a universe of rogues...Tuf Voyaging features interior illustrations by Janet Aulisio. Included in it will be her original eight illustrations, along with 28 newly commissioned ones.
David Starr, Space Ranger
Paul French - 1952
The vital foodstuffs supplied by its Martian colony are being poisoned. Working in secret, the ruling Council of Science sends David Starr, its youngest member, to the Martian farmlands to discover the truth behind the murders...
House Atreides
Brian Herbert - 1999
By his death in 1986, Herbert had completed six novels in the series, but much of his vision remained unwritten. Now, working from his father's recently discovered files, Brian Herbert and bestselling novelist Kevin J. Anderson collaborate on a new novel, the prelude to Dune—where we step onto the planet Arrakis…decades before Dune's hero, Paul Muad'Dib Atreides, walks its sands.Here is the rich and complex world that Frank Herbert created, in the time leading up to the momentous events of Dune. As Emperor Elrood's son plots a subtle regicide, young Leto Atreides leaves for a year's education on the mechanized world of Ix; a planetologist named Pardot Kynes seeks the secrets of Arrakis; and the eight-year-old slave Duncan Idaho is hunted by his cruel masters in a terrifying game from which he vows escape and vengeance. But none can envision the fate in store form them; one that will make them renegades—and shapers of history.
Earth Has Been Found
D.F. Jones - 1979
Alien horror becomes a living nightmare as the xenos, meaning “strangers”, inflict mayhem on earth. International distress alerts are sent out when planes first seem to disappear, disturbing concepts of space and time and leaving a trail of death and disillusionment. This bizarre series of “cosmic skyjackings” is shrouded in secrecy by a baffled and frightened military. Intense surveillance fails to reveal the cause of a seemingly hostile yet invisible enemy. Aircraft continue to disappear, plucked out of the sky without warning, only to reappear months later, thousands of miles off course. National and global security is under threat and the ICARUS committee is formed to investigate. Military officials, the government and the FBI work alongside physician Mark Freedman and Soviet scientists to uncover the supernatural mystery that lies behind these unexplainable events. Earth has been found by a horde of creatures that not even the wildest imagination could invent – sinister parasitic creatures that took to their human hosts with deadly speed and bloodthirsty precision. The terror that unfolds has terrifying consequences for all involved, and the invasion reveals something much more frightening and final than ever suspected. Earth Has Been Found is a gripping and chilling first contact sci fi novel, from classic science fiction author D. F. Jones.
Bill, The Galactic Hero
Harry Harrison - 1965
But Bill, a Technical Fertilizer Operator from a planet of farmers, wasn't interested in honor-he was only interested in two things: his chosen career, and the shapely curves of Inga-Maria Calyphigia. Then a recruiting robot shanghaied him with knockout drops, and he came to in deep space, aboard the Empire warship Christine Keeler. And from there, things got even worse.
50 Short Science Fiction Tales
Isaac AsimovPeter Grainger - 1963
You meet a souvenir hunter in the Thirtieth Century and a schoolgirl who tries to cope with the teaching methods of the Twenty-second Century. You share the terror of an astronaut in a “haunted” space suit and the dilemma of a wife whose husband knows a common chemical formula for destroying the earth. In short, you feel the impact, the originality, and the uncanny atmosphere created by these science fiction experts not once—but 50 times.Fifty Short Science Fiction Tales have been selected for their concise writing, and for punch lines that leave the reader “surprised, shocked, and delighted at the final sentence.” According to the editors, another important aspect of this literary form is “evocation of a background differing from our own.” Consequently, though some of the stories are just a page long, the reading experience is always excitingly unique.Ballade of an artificial satellite / Paul Anderson --Fun they had / Isaac Astimov --Men are differenct / Alan Bloch --Ambassadors / Anthoy Boucher --Weapon / Fredric Brown --Random sample / T.P. Caravan --Oscar / Cleve Cartmill --Mist / Peter Cartur --Teething ring / James Causey --Haunted space suit / Arthur C. Clarke --Stair Trick / Mildred Clingerman --Unwelcome tenant / Roger Dee --Mathematicians / Arthur Feldman --Third level / Jack Finney --Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful! / Stuart Friedman --Figure / Edward Grendon --Rag thing / David Grinnell --Good provider / Marion Gross --Columbus was a dope / Robert A. Heinlein --Texas Week / Albert Hernhuter --Hilda / H.B. Hickey --Choice / W. Hilton-Young --Not with a bang / Damon Knight --Altar at midnight / C.M. Kornbluth --Bad day for sales / Fritz Leiber --Who's cribbing? Jack Lewis --Spectator sport / John D. MacDonald --Cricket ball / Avro Manhattan --Double-take / Winston K. Marks --Prolog / John P. McKnight --Available data on the worp reaction / Lion Miller --Narapoia / Alan Nelson --Tiger by the tail / Alan E. Nourse --Counter charm / Peter Phillips --Fly / Arthur Porges --Business, as usual / Mack Reynolds --Two weeks in August / Frank M. Robinson --See? / Edward G. Robles, Jr. --Appointment at noon / Eric Frank Russell --We don't want any trouble / James H. Schmitz --Built down logically / Howard Schoenfeld --Egg a month from all over / Idris Seabright --Perfect woman / Robert Sheckley --Hunters / Walt Sheldon --Martian and the magician / Evelyn E. Smith --Barney / Will Stanton --Talent / Theodore Sturgeon --Project hush / Willian Tenn --Great judge / A.E. Van Vogt --Emergency landing / Ralph Williams --Obviously suicide / S. Fowler Wright --Postlude --Six Haiku / Karen Anderson
Metropolitan
Walter Jon Williams - 1995
It resonates within the human mind, giving power to heal and to kill. So when she finds an undiscovered, unlimited supply, she dares to meet with the powerful Metropolitan known as Constantine, a mysterious rebel with plans. Together they can use the plasm to rally forces to overthrow the government.