Feersum Endjinn


Iain M. Banks - 1994
    His only clues point to a conspiracy that reaches far beyond his own murder, and survival lies in discovering other fugitives who know the truth about the ultimate weapon of chaos and salvation. Reprint.

Fiasco


Stanisław Lem - 1986
    It is a kingdom of phantoms and of a beauty afflicted by madness. In stark contrast, the crew of the spaceship Hermes represents a knowledge-seeking Earth. As they approach Quinta, a dark poetry takes over and leads them into a nightmare of misunderstanding. Translated by Michael Kandel.The novel was published in German translation (translated by H. Schumann) in 1986. The Polish text published in 1987, the English translation (by M. Kandel) the same year.

The Stars, Like Dust


Isaac Asimov - 1951
    A radiation bomb planted in his dorm room changed him from an innocent student at the University of Earth to a marked man, fleeing desperately from an unknown assassin.He soon discovers that, many light-years away, his father, the highly respected Rancher of Widemos, has been murdered. Stunned, grief-stricken, and outraged, Biron is determined to uncover the reasons behind his father’s death, and becomes entangled in an intricate saga of rebellion, political intrigue, and espionage.The mystery takes him deep into space where he finds himself in a relentless struggle with the power-mad despots of Tyrann. Now it is not just a case of life or death for Biron, but a question of freedom for the galaxy.

A New Collection of Three Complete Novels: Congo / Sphere / Eaters of the Dead


Michael Crichton - 1994
    One great omnibus of three of Crichton's most popular adventures (Congo, Sphere, & Eaters of the Dead), with his trademark blend of breathtaking suspense & cutting-edge technology.

A Fighting Man of Mars / Swords of Mars


Edgar Rice Burroughs - 1991
    Sentenced as a spy and condemned to suffer 'The Death', Hadron must prove that John Carter's warriors are not so easily destroyed. In Swords of Mars, the eighth adventure, we once again join John Carter himself. Disguised as a panthan (or mercenary), Carter sets out to end the curse of the Assassins of Zodanga-but he soon discovers that their threat is reaching out to the very heart of his own family. Edgar Rice Burroughs' Martian series continues to delight lovers of fantastic fi ction with heroic deeds, hairsbreadth escapes, duels and battles, all set in a strange and alien landscape. The complete John Carter of Mars adventures are published by Leonaur.

The Dark Tower: And Other Stories


C.S. Lewis - 1977
    S. Lewis’s adult religious books, a repackaged edition of the revered author’s definitive collection of short fiction, which explores enduring spiritual and science fiction themes such as space, time, reality, fantasy, God, and the fate of humankind.From C.S. Lewis—the great British writer, scholar, lay theologian, broadcaster, Christian apologist, and author of Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters, The Great Divorce, The Chronicles of Narnia, and many other beloved classics—comes a collection of his dazzling short fiction.This collection of futuristic fiction includes a breathtaking science fiction story written early in his career in which Cambridge intellectuals witness the breach of space-time through a chronoscope—a telescope that looks not just into another world, but into another time. As powerful, inventive, and profound as his theological and philosophical works, The Dark Tower reveals another side of Lewis’s creative mind and his longtime fascination with reality and spirituality. It is ideal reading for fans of J. R. R. Tolkien, Lewis’s longtime friend and colleague.

The Skinner


Neal Asher - 2002
    This remote world is mostly ocean, and it is a rare visitor who ventures beyond the safety of the island Dome. Outside it, only the native Hoopers dare risk the voracious appetites of the planet's wildlife. But somewhere out there is Spatterjay Hoop -- and Keech will not rest until he brings this legendary renegade to justice for hideous crimes committed centuries ago during the Prador Wars.While Keech is discovering that Hoop is now a monster -- his body and head living apart from each other -- Janer is bewildered by a place where the native inhabitants just will not die and angry when he finally learns the Hive mind's intentions for him. Meanwhile, Erlin thinks she has plenty of time to find the answers she seeks, but could not be more wrong. For one of the most brutal of the alien Prador is about to pay the planet a surreptitious visit, intent on exterminating all remaining witnesses to his wartime atrocities. As the visitors' paths converge, major hell is about to erupt in a chaotic waterscape where minor hell is already a remorseless fact of everyday life . . . and death.

The Book of the Short Sun: On Blue's Waters/In Green's Jungles/Return to the Whorl


Gene Wolfe - 2001
    At the urging of Whorl’s religious leader, Patera Silk, the people left the ship for an uncertain future on Blue – a world already inhabited by the inhumi, blood-drinking aliens who take human form.Now The Book of the Short Sun carries the story forward to the years after the great exodus, to let Horn, narrator of the earlier work, tell his own story.Horn and his family have made a decent life for themselves on Blue, though crime, pollution and poverty have become so rampant in the city of New Viron that he is called upon to find Patera Silk. Horn must go to the still-orbiting Whorl and convince his old friend and mentor to return to Blue, for the legendary hero is the only one who can restore order and lead them to prosperity. But Horn isn’t even sure Silk still lives.Setting sail in a small boat, the aging Horn embarks on a long and difficult journey across the planet, trying to get to the Whorl. With the undine Seawrack, his adopted inhumi son, Krait, and his eldest son, Sinew, Horn makes it to the last working lander – only to be highjacked to the jungles of Green, where the inhumi imprison the passengers as slaves. There, he encounters the mysterious alien Neighbors who were once native to Blue, but whom the inhumi have all but exterminated. Horn joins their fight for freedom, is fatally wounded… and finds himself on another world, wearing a different body.As his inability to find Silk weighs heavily on his mind, Horn is further tormented by the fact that his new body bears a striking resemblance to the lost Caldé. In the end, he will have to answer a troubling question: has he truly failed in his sworn task, or has he become the very man he sought?Includes:On Blue's WatersIn Green's JunglesReturn To The Whorl

Foundation's Fear


Gregory Benford - 1997
    It is the monumental story of a Galactic Empire in decline, and the secret society of scientists who seek to shorten the inevitable Dark Age with the science of psychohistory. Now, with the permission -- and blessing -- of the Asimov estate, the epic saga continues.Fate -- and a cruel Emperor's arbitrary power -- have thrust Hari Seldon into the First Ministership of the Empire against his will. As the story opens, Hari is about to leave his quiet professorship and take on the all but impossible task of administering 25 million inhabited worlds from the all-steel planet of Trantor. With the help of his beautiful bio-engineered "wife" Dors and his alien companion Yugo, Seldon is still developing the science that will transform history, never dreaming that it will ultimately pit him against future history's most awesome threat.

The Exiles Trilogy


Ben Bova - 1986
    Thus, he and thousands of other scientists and their families are sentenced to permanent exile from Earth on a space station. But Lou and several others decide to escape--by converting the space station into a starship.

The Fall of Neskaya


Marion Zimmer Bradley - 2001
    Set in the tumultuous era of The Hundred Kingdoms, a terrible time of strife and war, this unique fantasy world is divided into a mutlitude of small belligerent domains vying for power and land. One ambitious and corrupt tyrant will stop at nothing to control Darkover-even wield the terrifying weapons of the matrix.

Embassytown


China Miéville - 2011
    She cannot speak the Ariekei tongue, but she is an indelible part of it, having long ago been made a figure of speech, a living simile in their language.When distant political machinations deliver a new ambassador to Arieka, the fragile equilibrium between humans and aliens is violently upset. Catastrophe looms, and Avice is torn between competing loyalties—to a husband she no longer loves, to a system she no longer trusts, and to her place in a language she cannot speak yet speaks through her.

The Loom of Thessaly


David Brin - 2011
    Who guides our fate? And can we ever hope to wrest control for ourselves? In this novella, "The Loom of Thessaly" , classical mythology merges with impudent modern spirit into a science fiction legend that speculates upon the nature of reality.

The Golden Age


John C. Wright - 2002
    Phaethon, of Radamanthus House, is attending a glorious party at his family mansion celebrating the thousand-year anniversary of the High Transcendence. There he meets an old man who accuses him of being an imposter, and then a being from Neptune who claims to be an old friend. The Neptunian tells him that essential parts of his memory were removed and stored by the very government that Phaethon believes to be wholly honorable. It shakes his faith. Is he indeed an exile from himself? He can't resist investigating, even though to do so could mean the loss of his inheritance, his very place in society. His quest must be to regain his true identity and fulfill the destiny he chose for himself.The Golden Age is just the beginning of Phaethon's story, which will continue in The Phoenix Exultant, forthcoming from Tor.

A Fire Upon the Deep


Vernor Vinge - 1992
    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.