Book picks similar to
Shadow of Tomorrow by Frederik PohlJohn Wyndham
science-fiction
short-stories
on-a-shelf
20th-century
The Humanarium
C.W. Tickner - 2018
An Epic Science Fiction Action Adventure Series
We landed on the wrong world...
On their planet, we are the insects, but humanity cannot hide forever.Geck Mulliver is first to step out into the unreal world of giant flora and fauna.Attempting to lead his band of misfit soldiers into war against the planet’s ruling species will put them face to face with the titans that roam the land.When one of the titans discovers our ships we must fight a war against our extinction.But how to kill a thousand foot giant?
Mike's War: Sequel to Jesse's Starship
Saxon Andrew - 2014
Humans have been forced by Aliens to live in peace for fifteen years and things are not going well on the planet. Conditions have not improved and the Elected Leaders are doing little more than lining their own pockets with exorbitant taxes. The crazies are killing people, who no longer have a way to defend themselves and technology has stagnated. Now the Aliens have asked the unthinkable and Mike Sanders is faced with a decision that will divide Earth. Humans are going back to war against an enemy that the Aliens are unable to defeat. Will Earth decide to do their bidding or continue in peace? If they decide for war, it will be Mike’s war to win or lose. Excerpt from; Mike’s War Derek arrived with the three companies at the Gracken Barracks. The Gracken were rushing out of the barracks when he arrived and the companies were firing a barrage of slivers into the building. He shook his head at the speed of the huge Gracken. The ones still in the building were firing their blasters through the openings but slivers would be fired at the source of the beams and they would immediately stop. The large number of Gracken that had escaped before they formed up began attacking from the rear of their formation and from above as they jumped off the buildings on each side of the street. The leapers appeared to have no fear of dying as they dove on the human lines outside their barracks. Derek assigned fire zones to the officers and he watched the buildings. The Gracken actually fell slower than they could run. Derek kept his rifle aimed above the three companies and shot more than twenty huge Gracken who jumped at human formations. The giants would jerk as the slivers punched into their bodies and in a number of instances their dead body would hit one of the soldiers in ranks. The soldier’s personal force field would absorb the energy of the fall and push the huge body to the side but the soldier hit would be staggered by the impact. A Gracken came running at high speed, zig zagging as it approached; it accelerated and hit Lieutenant Patel standing behind Derek. Derek turned, drew his handgun and looked into the contorted face of the Gracken as it ripped Patel’s heart out his chest. The Gracken saw Derek’s face as he pulled the trigger and it knew there was no time to escape. Its head was blown off its shoulders and the Gracken collapsed. Ten Gracken had fallen into the companies while Derek was dealing with the Gracken and he ordered over the main frequency, “Move a platoon back here to hold off the Gracken coming from the rear.” Derek turned back and shot two Gracken falling in on their ranks. Crap, they were fast. “Sir, we’re seeing large numbers of Gracken moving over the roofs. Do we have permission to fire into the buildings?” Derek knew there were civilians in the buildings but the die was cast and hard decisions had to be made. “Take them out.” Derek saw bright flashes start appearing over the tops of the buildings on each side of the streets. Thank God he had taken the time to train a company to use the force fields to keep them in the air. The foils would flex and generate lift keeping the warrior flying. The Flyers were keeping the casualty rate down. Without them, losses would be incredible. This review is from: Jesse's Starship (Kindle Edition) From the beginning, I was glued to this story. I was intrigued by Jesse's tenacity and determination to see to the end the return of whoever or whatever took his family. This story only gets better as you continue to read it. Ten stars to Saxon Andrew for a wonderful story. If only we could live like this.... Visit us at on face book at www.facebook.
Nightfall
Moshe Ben-Or - 2016
Let His Excellency sow his wild oats. Don’t let him kill himself, or anyone else, in the process.Piece of cake for a man of his skills. A glorified vacation. Or so it was supposed to be.Now Yosi is marooned on a foreign world, surrounded by people whom he doesn’t understand, and hunted by enemies who literally want to eat him alive. But these are the least of his problems. Because the biggest war in living memory has set all of Known Space aflame in an instant. And if Yosi Weismann is to ever get back home, he first needs to build an army…
Flight of the Javelin: The Complete Series: A Space Opera Box Set
Rachel Aukes - 2021
The Bear That Fell From The Stars
Keith C. Blackmore - 2011
On the night he decides to strike, his life, and his world, are forever changed. Alien scientists from across the cosmos, abduct and place Kazaka in deep storage for centuries. When they revive him with the intent to subject him to extraterrestrial evisceration, the ninja escapes. The shadow warrior then begins to hunt his captors, one by one, leading up to a battle that will shake the galaxy.The Bear That Fell From the StarsA different kind of alien terror. NOTE: This is a Novella of approx. 20,000 words, or about 60 pages.Science Fiction Fantasy and not hard SciFi.Some scenes of graphic violence.
Thor's Hammer
Reginald Bretnor - 1979
Heinlein• Defending the Third Industrial Revolution • by G. Harry Stine• Interior artwork by David Egge• Old Woman by the Road • (1978) • by Gregory Benford• Encased in the Amber of Eternity • poem by Robert Frazier• Moon Rocks • (1973) • by Tom Purdom• Lasers, Grasers, and Marxists • (1976) • by Jerry Pournelle• Fixed Price War • (1978) • by Charles Sheffield• Marius • (1957) • by Poul Anderson• Weapons in Future Warfare • essay by Roger A. Beaumont and R. Snowden Ficks• Scenario for the Fall of Night • by Roger A. Beaumont• The Spell of War • [Lord Darcy] • (1978) • by Randall Garrett• Military Vehicles: Into the Third Millennium • essay by Dean Ing• Interior artwork by Stephen Fabian• The Man in the Gray Weapons Suit • by Paul J. Nahin• Just an Old-Fashioned War Story • (1977) • by Michael G. Coney• The Private War of Private Jacob • (1974) • by Joe Haldeman• One Foot in the Grave: Medicine in Future Warfare • essay by Alan E. Nourse• Shark • (1973) • by Edward Bryant• Training • by David Langford• Final Muster • (1961) • by Rick Rubin
Chronicle Worlds: Tails of Dystopia
Samuel PeraltaCheri Lasota - 2017
Discover Tails of Dystopia.-----Proceeds from this volume of The Future Chronicles help support the charity Pets for Vets, which rescues and re-trains shelter animals and matches them with military veterans in need of a companion animal.
The Year's Top Hard Science Fiction Stories
Allan KasterCraig DeLancey - 2017
In “Vortex,” by Gregory Benford, astronauts find a once thriving microbial lifeform that carpets the caves of Mars dying off. A code monkey tracks down the vain creator of a pernicious software virus that people jack cerebrally in “RedKing,” by Craig DeLancey. In “Number Nine Moon,” by Alex Irvine, illicit scavengers on Mars are on a rescue mission to save themselves after one of their team members dies. A young girl’s thirst for vengeance becomes a struggle for survival when she is swallowed by a gigantic sea creature on an alien planet in “Of the Beast in the Belly,” by C.W. Johnson. In “The Seventh Gamer,” by Gwyneth Jones, a writer immerses herself into a MMORPG community to search for characters being played by real aliens from other worlds. A woman armed with a rifle stalks a herd of cloned wooly mammoths in British Columbia in “Chasing Ivory,” by Ted Kosmatka. In “Fieldwork,” by Shariann Lewitt, a volcanologist struggles with her research on Europa where both her mother and grandmother suffered dire consequences. A daughter pays homage to her mother with mega-engineering projects to deal with climate change over eons in “Seven Birthdays,” by Ken Liu. In “The Visitor from Taured,” by Ian R. MacLeod, a cosmologist in the near future is obsessed with proving his theory of multiverses. The citizens of a small town on a “Jackaroo” planet object to a corporation placing a radio telescope near local alien artifacts in “Something Happened Here, But We’re Not Quite Sure What It Was,” by Paul McAuley. And finally, in “Sixteen Questions for Kamala Chatterjee,” by Alastair Reynolds, a graduate student defends her dissertation on a solar anomaly that threatens humanity.
Showdown
Dan Moren - 2019
But Commonwealth operative Simon Kovalic knows nothing ever goes to plan. So, when a duplicitous bounty hunter lives up to his reputation, Kovalic’s ready—just maybe not ready enough.Now he and his team must get offworld, before their enemies catch up with them…
At the Helm, Volume 2
Rhett C. BrunoNick Cole - 2017
Epic battles. Artificial Intelligence's longing for meaning. Life as we know it, ending... Sci-Fi Bridge is thrilled to present its second collection from bestselling authors and newly emerging writers. These stories span the near and far future. They transport you to worlds unknown. They examine today's fears amid tomorrow's technologies. From the far corners of the galaxy to the inner reaches of the human heart, the exciting stories in At the Helm will thrill, inspire, and make you wonder--do humans have what it takes to build a better future? Or are we doomed by our own failings? Foreword by Jay Allan. "Scout" by Will McIntosh. "Gelassenheit" by Chris Pourteau. "Rubbish with Names" by Felix R. Savage. "Galaxy's Edge" by Jason Anspach and Nick Cole “A God Among Us” by Rhett C. Bruno "Just An Old Fashioned Lust Story" by Christopher J. Valin "The Quarium Wars" by E. E. Giorgi "Death-Life on Kepler 452b" by Hall & Beaulieu "The Tunnel" by Andreas Christensen "Caterpillar" by Isaac Hooke "The Null" by Vincent Trigili "The Machine" by Mark R. Healy "Bottled Lightning" by Philip Harris "The Gambit" by Rysa Walker "Control" by Will Swardstrom "The Greatest Serial Killer in the Universe" by Robert Jeschonek "Magnet" by David Adams "Stasis Dream" by Josi Russell
Tales of the Dying Earth
Jack Vance - 1998
Jack Vance is one of the most remarkable talents ever to grace the world of science fiction. His unique, stylish voice has been beloved by generations of readers. Some of his enduring classics are the 1950 novel
The Dying Earth
and its sequels, The Eyes of the Overworld, Cugel's Saga, and Rialto the Marvelous.
Destiny: Union Station
E.M. Foner - 2021
Joe McAllister is a reluctant mercenary who's looking for a way out and family-friendly place to start a business and raise an orphaned boy. Will the choices they make in the next few months shape the rest of their lives, or is free will just an illusion in a galaxy managed by ancient artificial intelligence? Destiny: Union Station takes place two years before the start of the nineteen book EarthCent Ambassador series.
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
The Third Pandemic
Pierre Ouellette - 1996
Elaine Wilkes predicted begins its deadly march across the continents, Elaine retains the formula for the cure. But Elaine's employers plan to withhold it in a grisly game of supply and demand. And in the center of the madness, a psychopathic genius readies the final, stunning blow.