Book picks similar to
Echo by C. Scott Frank
science-fiction
short-stories
fiction
sci-fi
ADAM
A.K. Stone - 2012
That warning was the only thing protecting the child. Why? Perhaps because he was abandoned without parents or AI-implants, when almost everyone else has them. Perhaps because the rest of humanity is connected mind-to-mind to compete with pure robotic AIs, but bio-extremists see deadly threat in his power. Or perhaps because they wonder at the mystery of his origins when humankind reaches for the stars, only to find something out there watching, and waiting. All Adam wishes for is what most teenagers want: a home, to find out who he is, maybe even some friends & family. But forces at work in our little corner of the galaxy ensure he’ll be forced on to a journey that is far more exciting - and dangerous - than he ever could have imagined. “…truly brings about the question of what you define as "human"...one of the best sci-fi novels I've read!" (–C Hsu, ‘Ethereal Pages’.)What Readers Say About “ADAM” (from 133 reviews Amazon.uk, and 311 ratings Goodreads):★★★★★ ‘Wonderfully crafted sc-fi…if A.K.Stone isn't a pseudonym for an already acknowledged master of the sci-fi genre, then I have to say that I am amazed…The quality of the plotting and writing is superb…filled with complex imagery and concepts….extraordinary vision...’★★★★★ ‘Fabulous…A great journey from the first chapter to the last, with great character development.’★★★★★ ‘A wonderfully rich sci fi, full of twists and fascinating technology, a great read…’★★★★★ ‘Excellent…This book is as good as it gets…’★★★★★ ‘engaging, imaginative and beautifully written.’ ★★★★★ ‘Clever, different, gripping…’★★★★★ ‘Awesome story!! a very magical and detailed reality. The reading flows and the more you go on, the more you want to read.’★★★★★ ‘Science Fiction of the first order.’★★★★★ ‘Every so often you come across a little known book where it seems a crime that it should be unknown and this gem is one of those books.’★★★★★ ‘Excellent…big galaxy spanning story, with a lot of heart and soul.’★★★★★ ‘Couldn’t put it down…a plot that twists and turns, taking you on an exciting and sometimes emotional journey.’★★★★★ ‘This is literature, a beautifully crafted novel…One to savour,…’★★★★★ ‘Great Great read…I’m a really fussy sci-fi reader and this ticked all the boxes.’★★★★★ ‘Absorbing and thought provoking, Adam pulled me into to its world and stayed with me long after I had finished the book.’★★★★★ ‘Brilliant, Aliens, AI and a mystery. Tell me there is a book 2!!’ ★★★★★ ‘Excellent. Brilliant plot. Wonderful language. Amazing ideas and tech…’★★★★★ ‘Fantastic What a great book. Very different from the normal. Intelligent and fascinating. A real page turner!’★★★★★ ‘The ultimate underdog story …gargantuan space ships…and an enemy that will make humans, Aliens and AIs quake!! Read this!’★★★★★ ‘Best this year. Why is this not a film? Great read , could not put down, mysterious and thought-provoking. Get your teeth into this adventure.’
The Micro-Age
Liu Cixin - 2008
What will save us?“Your eyes are black as the ocean. So deep with melancholy! Your melancholy shrouds our city. You should make them a museum!”The High Counselor told the Forerunner, the only surviver, when she leapt into the air and onto a truly bizarre flying machine, a large, propeller powered, feather. “Melancholy is only for museums. The micro-age is an age without worries!” Enter Liu Cixin's Micro-Age and take a look at what kind of program China's top sci-fi author has proposed to save the destiny of humankind!
Time Split
Patricia Smith - 2011
His search for the truth soon becomes a fight for survival and a race against evil, with any chance of correcting the timeline slowly slipping away.*** Time Split is also available in paperback. Also by Patricia Smith: Distant Suns, Distant Suns - The Journey Home, Islands - The Epidemic and Nebathan.
Carson Mach: The Complete Series
A.C. Hadfield - 2021
1000+ pages of explosive, military space opera action, filled with characters that leap off the page. Carson Mach, a former war hero turned freelancer, is seeking to revive his fortunes. Heeding a call from a friend in the Commonwealth government, he's tasked with a series of missions that few would ever agree to, much less with eagerness. But Carson Mach is a special kind of risk-taker and is known for cleaning up the quadrant's dregs in his unique, chaotic way. With few resources and overwhelming odds, Mach must reunite some of his old buddies: tech specialists, military veterans, assassins, and puzzling AIs, and form them into an elite fighting force. If he fails, the threats to the Commonwealth may spell the end for millions of lives. This is his last chance. Should he fail, he'll either be dead or back in the gutter with no more favors to call in and few friends ready to lend a hand. From hunting down mythical ships and recovering powerful artifacts to preventing the Commonwealth's center of power from falling to the enemy, Carson Mach and his ragtag crew of the starship Intrepid must do the extraordinary if they're to succeed. That's if they don't tear each other apart first. Experience this complete Military Space Opera series from Amazon Bestseller A.C. Hadfield. It's perfect for fans of Jamie McFarlane, JN Chaney and Jay Allan. This boxset contains three full-length novels: Book 1: The Atlantis Ship Book 2: The Lost Voyager Book 3: The Terminal War
Terms May Apply
Keith A. Pearson - 2020
As he blows out the candles on his cake, he makes a token wish. Three days later, to his utter astonishment, that wish comes true.All his problems solved, Kyle is busy counting his blessings when a gaunt pensioner turns up at his door unannounced. The stranger then confounds Kyle by claiming credit for his recent good fortune, followed by a bizarre declaration … when Edmund Wishkin grants a wish, there’s always a price to pay.Whether he believes the old man or not, Kyle is about to discover the true cost of a wish fulfilled.
Project Mnemosyne
Kim Frauli - 2017
There, she and her best friend Declan work on medical advancements to benefit the world outside. Everything they do is dictated by the rules of the New Regime. When Guardian Costma, the leader of the New Regime, summons them to assign a new project, Julianna has serious objections to the nature of the project. With Declan’s help, she devises a plan to get them out of the Scholars Compound and live a life of their own making. However, they are blindly entering a world about which they know very little, and Guardian Costma will not let them go without a chase. Will they be able to find freedom they seek? Are their family members still out there waiting for their return? Or will the truths they learn be too much to handle?
Outpost Omega
Marc Landau - 2018
One robot. One dog. And a strange alien rock. Can they save the universe?Life's not going as planned on Earth Prime. Wil's lost his job, his living quarters, and the love of his life. Now all he wants is to get as far away as possible from his problems.But like the saying goes, you can't run away from yourself.He takes a sub-level military job as a night watchman patrolling the farthest end of the galaxy. He sits, watches, and waits. Alone, except for a robot and a contraband dog. Nothing ever happens at the farthest reach of the universe.Until it does.What starts out as an escape from life ends up thrusting Wil into the middle of war, an alien invasion, and an encounter with a mysterious lifeform as powerful as a God.Click and teleport to Outpost Omega!
Headspace
J.D. Edwin - 2021
A deadly challenge. The fate of the world is on Astra’s shoulders.Twenty-five-year-old Astra Ching has never sought the spotlight. So when a mysterious black orb appears with a challenge for Earth and selects her to compete in its strange—and very public—game, she’s not pleased to find herself a sudden superstar.The rules are bewildering, and there are no second chances for losers. Yet while Astra fights to stay alive and save the world from imminent destruction, the people of Earth are more interested in tabloids and gossip, like whether or not she’s engaging in a scandalous love affair with a fellow contestant . . . or the mysterious alien known only as Eleven.In her struggle to survive, Astra forms tentative alliances with a handful of trustworthy friends. But as the global gossip seeps into the game and contestants are eliminated with each round, Astra’s celebrity threatens to become infamy and the line between friend and foe blurs.Will she emerge from the arena a hero, or just another headline?
Glitches
Marissa Meyer - 2011
She’s a second-class citizen with a mysterious past, reviled by her stepmother and blamed for her stepsister’s illness. In Glitches, a short prequel story to Cinder, we see the results of that illness play out, and the emotional toll that takes on Cinder. Something that may, or may not, be a glitch…
Rage of Angels
Michael Tinker Pearce - 2014
Who are they, and why have they come? The survivors soon discover the aliens are here for the one resource they cannot find elsewhere in the solar system- surface biomass. Life itself. The survivors are left to fight a guerrilla war against their technologically superior adversaries in the vain hope of driving them off before they can strip the world of life. But they may be doomed to fail unless they can find a way to strike directly against the aliens, unassailable in their fortress-mothership orbiting high above the earth. With memorable characters, packed with action and bleeding-edge technology ‘Rage of Angels’ is a fresh, up to date and frighteningly plausible addition to the alien invasion genre.
Project ELE
Rebecca Gober - 2012
As a last ditch effort to preserve the human race, the government implements Project ELE. With the earth heating at rapid speeds, all remaining survivors are forced to turn to F.E.M.A. shelters to wait out ELE's wrath. Fifteen-year-old Willow Mosby's life, as she knows it, ends the moment she walks through the shelter's door. Willow has to quickly adapt to the new challenges that shelter life demands, the least of which includes making new friends and working a full time job.Soon after making an interesting discovery, Willow and her friends start exhibiting strange abilities. Seeking answers, they embark on a mission to find out what these new abilities mean and whether they are a gift or a curse. This new adventure can send her world crashing down around her. The question is: Can Willow survive the fall?***We've heard your reviews and have since corrected all of the errors we could find that were mentioned in the reviews. We appreciate your support and comments! Thank you for taking the time to read our books!
The Variant
John August - 2009
But when a terrified woman falls through his bathroom ceiling, he's forced back into a life of gunfights, double agents and paranormal research. The secret he's been keeping for nearly four decades might reunite him with his lost love, or kill millions.This new short story by John August falls into the genre of paranoid "spy-fi" popularized by writers like Jorge Luis Borges and shows like The Prisoner and The Man from U.N.C.L.E.== What Others Say =="I really dug the story. Gave it a glance just to see, got totally hooked, and blazed on through to the end."-- Michael Chabon (The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, The Yiddish Policemen's Union) "The Variant" is both a good, fun, smart story and an interesting experiment in indie self-publishing for fiction."-- John Gruber, daringfireball.net== About the Author ==An excerpt of The Variant is available at johnaugust.com/variant About the AuthorJohn August is the screenwriter of eight feature films, including Go, Big Fish, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Corpse Bride. He wrote and directed the 2007 movie The Nines.He can be found on Twitter, @johnaugust
Whispers in Autumn
Trisha Leigh - 2012
They enslaved humanity not by force, but through an aggressive mind control that turned people into contented, unquestioning robots. Except sixteen-year-old Althea isn’t content at all, and she doesn’t need the mysterious note inside her locket to tell her she’s Something Else. It also warns her to trust no one, so she hides the pieces that make her different, even though it means being alone. Then she meets Lucas, everything changes. Althea and Lucas are immune to the alien mind control, and together they search for the reason why. What they uncover is a stunning truth the Others never anticipated, one with the potential to free the brainwashed human race. It’s not who they are that makes them special, but what.And what they are is a threat. One the Others are determined to eliminate for good.
Grounded
G.P. Ching - 2012
Science made me complicated.Book 1 in the Grounded TrilogyMy name is Lydia Troyer. Growing up in Hemlock Hollow, my life has always been simple. Things in my community haven’t changed much in over three hundred years, since the time my Amish ancestors came to what is now the Green Republic. I milk my cow by hand, make fresh bread every morning, and hope to be courted by Jeremiah, a boy I’ve known since childhood.When my father falls ill, the English doctor says a hospital outside the wall can heal him. Jeremiah convinces me to go on rumspringa, to experience the outside world as an Englisher in order to be closer to my father during his recovery. Others have gone before me. They claim it’s an adventure. But adventure turns to horror as an ordinary light switch thrusts me into a new world, and revelations about my personal history make me question everything I believe.All my life I’ve worked to be simple. I can’t pretend anymore. Nothing about me is simple.
Absolution
George S. Mahaffey Jr. - 2017
They way they are proven innocent? Evade, escape, and survive their hunters. At nineteen, Marisol never thought she would be a tracker of humans. In this post-apocalyptic world where justice is determined by a system of Absolution, Marisol steps up to do her duty. She hates everything that Absolution stands for, but there's nothing she can do about it. Nothing, that is, until one of her Runners turns out to be the key to uncovering a vast conspiracy that threatens to topple the dictator of New Chicago and change their lives forever.