Jesus on Mars


Philip José Farmer - 1979
    His first words, as he steps out of the landing craft onto the red planet, are transmitted to Earth minutes later: "Christopher Columbus, you should be here."Perhaps he was. Someone has been here. A spaceship sits half-buried under the red dust and heavy boulders. Nearby, there's a tunnel door.Richard Orme and his crew, dragged into the tunnel by Martians, enter a strange, subterranean world, a world where Martians live in caverns in a hollowed-out Mars, a world where Martians pay homage to a sunlike globe -- floating high above their cities of the interior. Orme thought they were sun worshippers. But there is a man who dwells within the flaming orb. And these people call him "Jesus".And the man they called "Jesus" would go back to Earth. He would be labeled "the Anti-Christ". And Richard Orme asked himself, Would history repeat itself... once more?

Paratime


H. Beam Piper - 1981
    Carr · in 14 · He Walked Around the Horses · nv Astounding Apr ’48 39 · Police Operation [Verkan Vall] · nv Astounding Jul ’48 77 · Last Enemy [Verkan Vall] · na Astounding Aug ’50 149 · Time Crime [Verkan Vall] · n. Astounding Feb ’55 (+1) 261 · Temple Trouble [Verkan Vall] · nv Astounding Apr ’51

The Songs of Distant Earth


Arthur C. Clarke - 1986
    And suddenly uncertainty and change had come to the placid paradise that was Thalassa.

The Shrinking Man


Richard Matheson - 1956
    The radioactivity acts as a catalyst for the bug spray, causing his body to shrink at a rate of approximately 1/7 of an inch per day. A few weeks later, Carey can no longer deny the truth: not only is he losing weight, he is also shorter than he was and deduces, to his dismay, that his body will continue to shrink.

A Way Home


Theodore Sturgeon - 1955
    This collection of short stories contain the following stories: Unite and Conquer (1948), Special Aptitude (1951), Mewhu's Jet (1946), Hurricane Trio (1955), The Hurkle Is a Happy Beast (1949), Thunder and Roses (1947), Bulkhead (1955), Tiny and the Monster (1947), A Way Home (1953).

The Medusa Chronicles


Stephen Baxter - 2016
    And with this change came an opportunity - that of piloting a mission into Jupiter's atmosphere, and ultimately of making first contact with the life forms he discovers there. Picking up the threads of humanity versus artificial intelligences and machines, and of encounters with the alien, this collaborative novel between two superb writers is a sequel to Howard Falcon's adventures. A proper science fiction adventure, this is perfect for fans of Golden Age SF as well as the modern SF reader.

The Gap Into Conflict: The Real Story


Stephen R. Donaldson - 1990
    Donaldson returns with this exciting and long-awaited new series that takes us into a stunningly imagined future to tell a timeless story of adventure and the implacable conflict of good and evil within each of us.Angus Thermopyle was an ore pirate and a murderer; even the most disreputable asteroid pilots of Delta Sector stayed locked out of his way.  Those who didn't ended up in the lockup--or dead.  But when Thermopyle arrived at Mallory's Bar & Sleep with a gorgeous woman by his side the regulars had to take notice.  Her name was Morn Hyland, and she had been a police officer--until she met up with Thermopyle.But one person in Mallory's Bar wasn't intimidated.  Nick Succorso had his own reputation as a bold pirate and he had a sleek frigate fitted for deep space.  Everyone knew that Thermopyle and Succorso were on a collision course.  What nobody expected was how quickly it would be over--or how devastating victory would be.  It was common enough example of rivalry and revenge--or so everyone thought.  The REAL story was something entirely different.In The Real Story, Stephen R. Donaldson takes us to a remarkably detailed world of faster-than-light travel, politics, betrayal, and a shadowy presence just outside our view to tell the fiercest, most profound story he has ever written.

The Terminal Man


Michael Crichton - 1972
    Roger McPherson, head of the prestigious Neuropsychiatric Research Unit at University Hospital in Los Angeles, is convinced he can cure Benson through a procedure called Stage Three. During this highly specialized experimental surgery, electrodes will be place in the patient's brain, sending monitored, soothing pulses to its pleasure canyons.Though the operation is a success, there is an unforseen development. Benson learns how to control the pulses and is increasing their frequency. He escapes -- a homicidal maniac loose in the city -- and nothing will stop his murderous rampages or impede his deadly agenda. . .

Queen of Angels


Greg Bear - 1990
    "One is ultimately awed... it may be the most ambitious novel I've ever read." -- Washington Post Book World

Sassinak


Anne McCaffrey - 1990
    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.

The Invaders Plan


L. Ron Hubbard - 1985
    Ron Hubbard's 1.2-million-word-ten-volume MISSION EARTH dekalogy brilliantly blends science fiction and action/adventure on a vast interstellar scale with stinging satire -- in the literary tradition of Voltaire, Swift and Orwell -- on the world's foibles and fancies.A true publishing phenomenon -- precedent-setting when each volume, in turn, became a New York Times and then an international bestseller -- MISSION EARTH has already sold more than five million copies and continues to appear on bestseller lists in contries throghout the world.Winner of France's Cosmos 2000 Award and the Nova Science Fiction Award in Italy, and nominated for a Hugo Award, MISSION EARTH is an epic narrative of a secret invasion of Earth as seen-and vividly recounted -- by the aliens who, unrecognized, already live and work among us. It is a novel crowded with sharply memorable characters and with places and events cloaked in splendor, menace and mystery: Palace City, Joy City, the forbidden prison fortress of Spiteos, the violent fall of the Voltar Confederation.The Voltar Confederation has a long-range plan to use Earth as a strategic staging area in its continuing conquest of the galaxy. However, with the discovery that Earth is being destroyed by pollution, drugs and other menaces, Combat Engineer Jettero Heller is sent on a top-secret mission to save the planet from self-destruction. Unknown to Heller, another Voltarian faction (the Coordinated Information Apparatus) has secretly been using Earth as a supply base for drugs. It dispatches its own counter mission to thwart Heller's plans.

The Reefs of Space


Frederik Pohl - 1963
    The Reefs of Space brings humanity to the brink of the stars. Steve Ryeland, enslaved by Earth's tyrannical Plan of Man computer, is given the world's most important job—to develop a "jetless drive," an extraordinary new space propulsion mechanism. Yet the most important thing on Steve's mind was not his work, but the iron collar locked securely around his neck. Filled with a lethal charge of explosives, it could be detonated any time the Plan of Man considered him too much of a risk. That's why he had to obey every order, and succeed at his experiments. Only then, perhaps, could he use the jetless drive himself… and escape to the safety of the half-mythical Reefs of Space, strange formations rumored to exist somewhere beyond the orbit of Pluto. But if he failed, the next step would be the Living Body Bank—a scientific horror chamber from which no one ever returned. (1st published in World of IF Science Fiction magazine, 1963)

The Hyperion Omnibus


Dan Simmons - 1990
    Invasion by the warlike Ousters looms, and the mysterious schemes of the secessionist AI TechnoCore bring chaos ever closer.On the eve of disaster, with the entire galaxy at war, seven pilgrims set fourth on a final voyage to the legendary Time Tombs on Hyperion, home to the Shrike, a lethal creature, part god and part killing machine, whose powers transcend the limits of time and space. The pilgrims have resolved to die before discovering anything less than the secrets of the universe itself.THE FALL OF HYPERIONThe mysterious Time Tombs are opening and the Shrike that has risen from them may well control the fate of all mankind. The Ousters are laying siege to the Hegemony of Man and the AIs we created have turned against us to build the Ultimate Intelligence; God. The God of Machines. His genesis could mean annihilation for man.Something is drawing the Hegemony, the Ousters, the Als, the entire universe to the Shrike.Here is a superb vision of future technology and ancient religions, of scientific revelation and timeless mystery, of transcendent joy and mind-bending horror. Here is a Hugo Award-winning landmark in Science Fiction.

The Ophiuchi Hotline


John Varley - 1977
    The invention of the Hotline -- a constant stream of data from a star in the constellation Ophiuchus -- facilitates survival and enables the development of amazing new technologies. Then, after 400 years, humanity's unknown helpers send a bill for their services...and suddenly everything is threatened once again.The Ophiuchi Hotline was John Varley's first novel, and it received nominations for both the Hugo and Nebula awards; he later won both for his book Persistence of Vision.

Agent of Chaos


Norman Spinrad - 1967
    But at the same time he was too organically a radical ever to be confused with a conservative. Result: Agent of Chaos! Boris Johnson thinks he wants democracy. But in the course of his adventures he discovers that democracy to him means freedom. It's a banned concept from the Millennium of Religion. Like God. He finds himself dealing with a byzantine political situation worthy of anything from the banned past. The dictatorship is the Hegemony. Opposition is provided by the aptly named agents of C.H.A.O.S. Meanwhile, the Brotherhood of Assassins plays a game that no one can fathom. Whose side are they on? Whose fool are you? Spinrad explores his philosophical theme in a manner all too rare in contemporary science fiction. The problem is that Order will always try to eliminate any random factors. By its very nature, it encourages opposition and that feeds the forces of chaos. But chaos has built in problems as well. Its victories cannot help but feed the forces of reaction, of order. The heroes in this novel ultimately opt for personal freedom. The villains try to establish a dictatorship over the very nature of reality itself. And then Spinrad throws in the discovery of aliens. A starship sets forth to meet them, the Prometheus. The Hegemony doesn't like that.