A Fire upon the Deep is the big, breakout book that fulfills the promise of Vinge's career to date: a gripping tale of galactic war told on a cosmic scale.Thousands of years hence, many races inhabit a universe where a mind's potential is determined by its location in space, from superintelligent entities in the Transcend, to the limited minds of the Unthinking Depths, where only simple creatures and technology can function. Nobody knows what strange force partitioned space into these "regions of thought," but when the warring Straumli realm use an ancient Transcendent artifact as a weapon, they unwittingly unleash an awesome power that destroys thousands of worlds and enslaves all natural and artificial intelligence.Fleeing the threat, a family of scientists, including two children, are taken captive by the Tines, an alien race with a harsh medieval culture, and used as pawns in a ruthless power struggle. A rescue mission, not entirely composed of humans, must rescue the children-and a secret that may save the rest of interstellar civilization.

    The only problem is that the Confederacion needs him as one of its twelve Prime Operators for its secret service, the TBII. The TBII wants him as a spy, thief & assassin. It's not, of course, a problem for the Confederacion, which simply uses immersion therapy & hypnotic personality overlay for Otto's training, then sends him out in deep cover, encased in plastiflesh, on a variety of dangerous missions on a number of bizarre worlds. But for him, it's a different matter: what he has to witness & what he's forced to do take a terrible toll. Always he returns to his original self--his conscience stabbed by the memory of all those he'd killed in the service of interstellar harmony.

    Most victims die, others experience physical or psychic changes: aces have useful powers, deuces minor maybe entertaining abilities, jokers uglified, disabled, relegated to ghettos.

    the reader observes, recollects, or participates in a range of personal experience including violent pain and disfigurement, sensory deprivation and overload, man-machine communion, the drug experience, the creative experience - and inter-personal relationships which include incest and assassination, father-son, leader-follower, human-pet, and lots more!The balance of galactic power in the 31st century revolves around Illyrion, the most precious energy source in the universe. The varied and exotic crew who sign up with Captain Lorq van Ray know their mission is dangerous, and they soon learn that they are involved in a deadly race with the charismatic but vicious leader of an opposing space federation. But they have no idea of Lorq's secret obsession: to gather Illyrion at the source by flying through the very heart of an imploding star.

    One thing is clear: the five inhabited worlds of the sector are on the brink of civil war and the once peaceful coexistence of the three leading races -- human, Selonian, and Drallan --  has come to an end.

    Spock, and Dr. McCoy struggle to establish new lives apart from each other and the starship. The newly-promoted Admiral Kirk is placed in charge of a specially-created Starfleet division and attempts to defuse a critical hostage situation; Mr. Spock, who, in the midst of a teaching assignment on Vulcan, finds the one thing he least expected; and Dr. McCoy, whose unerring instinct for trouble lands him smack in the middle of an incident that could trigger an interstellar bloodbath.

    The age of star formation is long past. Yet there is life here, feeding off the energies of the stellar remnants, and there is mind, a tremendous galaxy-spanning intelligence each of whose thoughts lasts a hundred thousand years. And this mind cradles memories of a long-gone age when a more compact universe was full of light... The 27th century: Proxima Centauri, an undistinguished red dwarf star, is the nearest star to our sun. How would it be to live on such a world?

    A stunning collection of the kind of fiction that has only one source--the unparalleled Ray Bradbury.

    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.

    That made her just the right age: old enough to be used, young enough to be broken. Or so the slavers thought. But Sassy turned out to be a little different from your typical slave girl. Maybe it was her unusual physical strength. Maybe it was her friendship with the captured Fleet crewman. Maybe it was her spirit. Whatever it was, it wouldn't let her resign herself to the life of a slave. She bided her time, watched for her moment. Finally it came, and she escaped.But that was only the beginning for Sassinak. Now she's a Fleet Captain with a pirate-chasing ship of her own, and only one regret in her life: not enough pirates.

    With credits running low, and prospects limited, he has just one hope...to enlist for two years with a deep space commercial freighter. Ishmael, who only rarely visited the Neris Orbital, and has never been off-planet alone before, finds himself part of an eclectic crew sailing a deep space leviathan between the stars. Join the crew of the SC Lois McKendrick, a Manchester built clipper as she sets solar sails in search of profit for her company and a crew each entitled to a share equal to their rating.

    The sombre story of a group of people in their fifties who face the fact that there is no younger generation coming to replace them; instead nature is rushing back to obliterate the disaster they have brought on themselves.

    A daring bank robbery has taken place at Hayek Associates -- a dot-com start-up company that's just floated onto the London stock exchange. But this crime may be a bit beyond Smith's expertise.The prime suspects are a band of marauding orcs with a dragon in tow for fire support. The bank is located within the virtual land of Avalon Four, and the robbery was supposed to be impossible. When word gets out, Hayek Associates and all its virtual "economies" are going to crash hard.For Smith, the investigation seems pointless. But the deeper she digs, the bigger the case gets. There are powerful players -- both real and pixilated -- who are watching her every move. Because there is far more at stake than just some game-head's fantasy financial security . . .

    Two archaeologists glean forbidden knowledge from the ruins of a dead world. Robot servants of ruling insectoid Klikiss guard the Klikiss Torch, which has the power to create suns. The reasons for the fall of the Klikiss empire may return.

    Strange fireballs race through the sky above the deepest trenches of the oceans. Something is about to show itself, something terrible and alien, a force capable of causing global catastrophe.