The Beam: Season Three


Sean Platt - 2015
    while at the same time something is happening within the Beam network: a thing coming alive, its power unchecked and out of control. Micah and Isaac Ryan, the brothers sitting at each political party’s head, have resorted to tooth-and-nail tactics to eke out as many votes as possible. The Beau Monde observes everything, sticking their fingers in the pie only to change the flavor to their personal tastes. Everyone else has one simple goal: surviving the battle. Kai struggles with a job bigger than she’s ever faced, against a foe she can’t hope to outwit. Dominic, his law enforcement job precarious after betraying the drug runners he once smuggled for, must keep his head down even as he pokes his nose into the game of higher politics. And Nicolai, the unwitting harbinger of the Beam itself, concocts his own plots to overthrow the arrogant Ryans once and for all. Yet all their efforts — great and small alike — will pale in comparison to the oncoming storm, the cataclysmic return of one of history’s greatest figures. Someone from the Beam’s very conception is about to appear anew, and with humanity interconnected like never before, their footsteps will rock the NAU like a meteor strike. Shift is finally here. But even those who think they control its sway are not prepared for what happens next.

The Lead Cloak


Erik Hanberg - 2013
    Except the people who tried to kill him. By 2081, privacy no longer exists. The Lattice enables anyone to re-live any moment of your life. People can experience past and present events—or see into the mind of anyone, living or dead. Most people love it. Some want to destroy it. Colonel Byron Shaw has just saved the Lattice from the most dangerous attack in its history. Now he must find those responsible. But there’s a question nobody’s asking: does the Lattice deserve to be saved? The answer may cost him his life.

An Unkindness of Ghosts


Rivers Solomon - 2017
    She's used to the names; she only wishes there was more truth to them. If she were truly a monster, as they accuse, she'd be powerful enough to tear down the walls around her until nothing remained of her world, save for stories told around the cookfire.Aster lives in the low-deck slums of the HSS Matilda, a space vessel organized much like the antebellum South. For generations, the Matilda has ferried the last of humanity to a mythical Promised Land. On its way, the ship's leaders have imposed harsh moral restrictions and deep indignities on dark-skinned sharecroppers like Aster, who they consider to be less than human.When the autopsy of Matilda's sovereign reveals a surprising link between his death and her mother's suicide some quarter-century before, Aster retraces her mother's footsteps. Embroiled in a grudge with a brutal overseer and sowing the seeds of civil war, Aster learns there may be a way off the ship if she's willing to fight for it.

Glasshouse


Charles Stross - 2006
    It’s the twenty-seventh century, when interstellar travel is by teleport gate and conflicts are fought by network worms that censor refugees’ personalities and target historians. The civil war is over and Robin has been demobilized, but someone wants him out of the picture because of something his earlier self knew.On the run from a ruthless pursuer and searching for a place to hide, he volunteers to participate in a unique experimental polity, the Glasshouse, constructed to simulate a pre-accelerated culture. Participants are assigned anonymized identities: It looks like the ideal hiding place for a posthuman on the run. But in this escape-proof environment, Robin will undergo an even more radical change, placing him at the mercy of the experimenters—and at the mercy of his own unbalanced psyche...

Cyberpunk City Book One: The Machine Killer


D.L. Young - 2020
    He couldn't be more wrong.Forced by a powerful executive to steal a priceless dataset, Maddox uncovers the shocking truth of a secret war between AIs, raging inside the digital universe known as virtual space. Plunged headlong into the deadly conflict, he’ll have to use every trick he’s ever learned—and a few he’s never tried before—if he wants to survive.Sprawling megacities, rogue AIs, black market tech, modded mercenaries, and a pulse-pounding story filled with unexpected twists. If you love gritty, hardcore cyberpunk, you won’t want to miss this series!

Shades of Grey


Jasper Fforde - 2009
    In a society where the ability to see the higher end of the color spectrum denotes a better social standing, Eddie Russet belongs to the low-level House of Red and can see his own color—but no other. The sky, the grass, and everything in between are all just shades of grey, and must be colorized by artificial means. Eddie's world wasn't always like this. There's evidence of a never-discussed disaster and now, many years later, technology is poor, news sporadic, the notion of change abhorrent, and nighttime is terrifying: no one can see in the dark. Everyone abides by a bizarre regime of rules and regulations, a system of merits and demerits, where punishment can result in permanent expulsion. Eddie, who works for the Color Control Agency, might well have lived out his rose-tinted life without a hitch. But that changes when he becomes smitten with Jane, a Grey, which is low-caste in this color-centric world. She shows Eddie that all is not well with the world he thinks is just and good. Together, they engage in dangerous revolutionary talk.

The Punch Escrow


Tal M. Klein - 2017
    Advancements in nanotechnology have enabled us to control aging. We've genetically engineered mosquitoes to feast on carbon fumes instead of blood, ending air pollution. And teleportation has become the ideal mode of transportation, offered exclusively by International Transport—a secretive firm headquartered in New York City. Their slogan: Departure... Arrival... Delight!Joel Byram, our smartass protagonist, is an everyday twenty-second century guy. He spends his days training artificial intelligence engines to act more human, jamming out to 1980's new wave—an extremely obscure genre, and trying to salvage his deteriorating marriage. Joel is pretty much an everyday guy with everyday problems—until he's accidentally duplicated while teleporting. Now Joel must outsmart the shadowy organization that controls teleportation, outrun the religious sect out to destroy it, and find a way to get back to the woman he loves in a world that now has two of him.

The Dreaming Void


Peter F. Hamilton - 2007
    Now an even greater danger has surfaced: a threat to the existence of the universe itself.At the very heart of the galaxy is the Void, a self-contained microuniverse that cannot be breached, cannot be destroyed, and cannot be stopped as it steadily expands in all directions, consuming everything in its path: planets, stars, civilizations. The Void has existed for untold millions of years. Even the oldest and most technologically advanced of the galaxy’s sentient races, the Raiel, do not know its origin, its makers, or its purpose.But then Inigo, an astrophysicist studying the Void, begins dreaming of human beings who live within it. Inigo’s dreams reveal a world in which thoughts become actions and dreams become reality. Inside the Void, Inigo sees paradise. Thanks to the gaiafield, a neural entanglement wired into most humans, Inigo’s dreams are shared by hundreds of millions–and a religion, the Living Dream, is born, with Inigo as its prophet. But then he vanishes.Suddenly there is a new wave of dreams. Dreams broadcast by an unknown Second Dreamer serve as the inspiration for a massive Pilgrimage into the Void. But there is a chance that by attempting to enter the Void, the pilgrims will trigger a catastrophic expansion, an accelerated devourment phase that will swallow up thousands of worlds. And thus begins a desperate race to find Inigo and the mysterious Second Dreamer. Some seek to prevent the Pilgrimage; others to speed its progress–while within the Void, a supreme entity has turned its gaze, for the first time, outward. . . .From the Hardcover edition.

Post-Human Omnibus


David Simpson - 2014
    What will happen when humans can live forever? Or die with just a few keystrokes? How will our governments react as they lose control of their citizens' data? And how do you feel about uploading your mind into a computer so that you may live on after death?The Post-Human Omnibus is the perfect book for these times. It's an epic series of stories that explore all sides of humanity's future through science fiction, from both near-future dystopias to far-future utopias (and everything in between). Written by award winning author & TEDx speaker David Simpson, this collection explores many different genres from thrillers to romances to mysteries and much more.

Dark Run


Mike Brooks - 2015
    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.

Prison Nation


Jenni Merritt - 2011
    Millie 942B has spent her entire life locked away with her criminal parents and countless other inmates. She believes in the Nation, in its strict laws and harsh punishments. But when Millie is released on her eighteenth birthday, she finds things are nothing as she was taught. People vanish, never to be seen again. Lies cover every word. Trust is as fragile as ice.And then there is Reed. Born and raised outside the Prison walls, his dreams and thoughts cause Millie to doubt everything she has ever believed. What is truly worth fighting for? If she pushes too hard, she could lose her freedom. If she stays silent, she could lose herself. The clock is ticking, and Millie must find the truth before it is too late.

Nightwings


Robert Silverberg - 1969
    It was Avluela the Flier's scarlet and ebony wings that lead the Watcher to the seven hills of the ancient city, leaving the skies and deep space unguarded. And so the invaders came and conquered and Avluela became lost in the turmoil.

Legacy Code


Autumn Kalquist - 2014
    Beaten. Broken in more ways than one. Their descendants carry the Legacy Code—mangled genes that force them to abort half their unborn children.When Era and Dritan Corinth get placements on the safest ship in the fleet and win a chance to have a child, they feel lucky. Until the day Era's supposed to find out if her baby has the Defect, and the ship suffers a hull breach.An investigation uncovers new threats. Dangerous secrets. Lies. Treason.Era begins to question everything she’s been taught about the fleet, their search for a new Earth, and the Defect. But the answers she seeks were never meant to be found...Legacy Code is a suspenseful, dark post-apocalyptic read that has earned five star reviews from fans of books like Hunger Games, Divergent, and Red Rising, and has been compared favorably to Wool, 1984, and the new Battlestar Galactica.

The Unsung


Scott Bartlett - 2018
     It’s Commander Joe Pikeman’s job to protect what’s left: not just the computer servers, but the flesh-and-blood people huddled in fortified settlements, praying to be overlooked by pirates and other predators. When raiders start abducting children from those settlements, Joe uncovers a galaxy-wide conspiracy bent on enslaving everyone. They hit Joe where it hurts the most – where he keeps his heart buried. Now, he’s going to use all his training and skill to make them pay.

The Amplified Trilogy: The Amplified Books 1-3


Lauren M. Flauding - 2017
    Includes The Amplified, The Dissenters, and The Restrainers.