Book picks similar to
Tropic of Creation by Kay Kenyon
science-fiction
physical
sci-fi
sff
The Seeds of Time
John Wyndham - 1956
For the ten short stories collected here, John Wyndham turns his imagination to, among other subjects, body-snatching, time-travel and mind-travel, and the the tricky business of interplanetary colonization.
Telempath
Spider Robinson - 1976
He's many miles from home, half-dead, his left arm is gangrenous, and he possesses--like everyone else--a sense of smell 1000 times better than a wolf's. Ahead of him, in the stinking ruins of New York, hides Carlson, the greatest killer of all time. All Isham has to do is stay alive long enough to find Carlson and kill him. But Carlson is guarded by ghosts. They rode the winds when Earth was bubbling rock, shared the world with men for a million years, and though we sensed their presence we never truly believed in them--for in our arrogance we assumed life was an exclusive property of solids and liquids... Now they've declared war on us, and our species is nearly annihilated...thanks to the man Isham has come to kill. The first third of this book, as "By Any Other Name," won the Hugo Award for Best Novella, the first of Spider's 3 Hugos.
Semiosis
Sue Burke - 2018
The planet provides a lush but inexplicable landscape--trees offer edible, addictive fruit one day and poison the next, while the ruins of an alien race are found entwined in the roots of a strange plant. Conflicts between generations arise as they struggle to understand one another and grapple with an unknowable alien intellect.
Solar Kill
Charles Ingrid - 1987
It is the story of his desperate struggle to survive and his determination to claim justice for the lives and worlds wrongfully destroyed.
The Mind Game
Norman Spinrad - 1980
The Movement-was it the greatest con of all time, or the last true religion? A chilling novel about the evil of cults.
The Best of E.E. "Doc" Smith
E.E. "Doc" Smith - 1975
Contents:To the Far Reaches of Space (1928)Robot Nemesis (1934)Pirates of Space (1934)The Vortex Blaster (1941)Tedric (1953)Lord Tedric (1954)Subspace Survivors (1960)The Imperial Stars (1964)
Stellar Ranger
Steve Perry - 1994
But one of the galaxy's richest and most brilliant lunatics has designs on the universe - and has created something terrible to make his dastardly dreams a reality.It's high noon on a backrocket desert planet called Roget - and the Stellar Ranger is finally about to meet his match. Only this time, it's not human.
The Darwin Effect
Mark Lukens - 2016
They are all suffering from short-term memory loss and they can't remember why or how they got on this ship. The onboard computer (MAC) tells them that it was programmed to wake them up early. They believe MAC woke them up by mistake. They can't re-enter suspended animation, there's only enough food for a few months, and they are too far away to return to Earth ... but even if they could return, MAC tells them that the Earth has been destroyed by nuclear war. They realize that they are all going to die on this ship.Cromartie, the unelected leader of their group, tries his best to keep the others calm, but soon they are at each other's throats. After one of them is found murdered, Cromartie and Sanders form an alliance. Cromartie tells Sanders that pieces of his memories are beginning to come back to him in his dreams; he believes he's seeing clues to their survival.But after the next murder, Cromartie and Sanders must work fast to find the mind-blowing key to their survival and figure out which one of them is the killer before it's too late.
The Islands at the End of the World
Austin Aslan - 2014
And so am I ...Sixteen-year-old Leilani loves surfing and her home in Hilo, on the Big Island of Hawaii. But she's an outsider - half white, half Hawaiian, and an epileptic.While Lei and her father are on a visit to Oahu, a global disaster strikes. Technology and power fail, Hawaii is cut off from the world, and the islands revert to traditional ways of survival. As Lei and her dad embark on a nightmarish journey across islands to reach home and family, she learns that her epilepsy and her deep connection to Hawaii could be keys to ending the crisis before it becomes worse than anyone can imagine.A powerful story enriched by fascinating elements of Hawaiian ecology, culture, and warfare, this captivating and dramatic debut from Austin Aslan is the first of two novels. The author has a master’s degree in tropical conservation biology from the University of Hawaii at Hilo.
Invasion
Robin Cook - 1997
Now, in his most provocative thriller to date, he explores a sudden outbreak of strange new symptoms that defy diagnosis. The cause is unknown—and unknowable—because it is unlike anything humankind has ever seen....
Permanence
Karl Schroeder - 2002
Fleeing in a shuttle spacecraft from the sparsely populated and austere comet-mining habitat she has lived in her whole life, she spots a distant, approaching object, and stakes a legal claim to it. It is not the valuable comet she hoped for but something even more wonderful, an abandoned Cycler starship.Her discovery unleashes a fury of action, greed, and interstellar intrigue as many factions attempt to take advantage of the last great opportunity to revitalize - and perhaps control - the Compact.This is the story of Rue's quest to visit and claim this ship and its treasures, set against a background of warring empires, strange alien artifacts, and fantastic science. It is a story of hope and danger, of a strange and compelling religion, Permanence, unique to this star-faring age, and of the re-birth of life and belief in a place at the edge of forever.
Ricochet Joe
Dean Koontz - 2017
When a series of strange intuitions leads him to a crime in progress, Joe jumps headlong into danger without hesitation. In the aftermath, he wonders about the uncanny impulse that suddenly swept over him.
Until new friend Portia Montclair, the strangely wise daughter of the local police chief, explains to him what sent him ricocheting around town like a crazy pinball. Portia tells of another reality, a reality more thrilling—and terrifying—than Joe ever imagined. Timeless, elemental forces of good and evil have come to the quiet town of Little City: a cosmic entity capable of infecting human beings, and the seeker who has chosen Joe to find it.
To stop the malevolent invader, this average Joe must be braver than he ever thought possible…and face the hardest decisions of his life.
Agent to the Stars
John Scalzi - 2004
There's just one problem: They're hideously ugly and they smell like rotting fish. So getting humanity's trust is a challenge. The Yherajk need someone who can help them close the deal. Enter Thomas Stein, who knows something about closing deals. He's one of Hollywood's hottest young agents. But although Stein may have just concluded the biggest deal of his career, it's quite another thing to negotiate for an entire alien race. To earn his percentage this time, he's going to need all the smarts, skills, and wits he can muster.
The Norby Chronicles
Janet Asimov - 1986
But Jeff only needed it to teach him Martian Colony Swahili before he got expelled from the Space Academy.Jeff Wells didn't really know what he had purchased.He didn't realize that the robot had been constructed by a genius half a century ago--from the salvaged parts of a damaged alien spacecraft.He didn't know about the robot's amazing technological skills--such as antigrav and a strange capacity for human emotions--among other things.Jeff Wells didn't really know what he was getting himself into....Norby Chronicles* Norby, the Mixed-Up Robot (1983)* Norby's Other Secret (1984)* Norby and the Lost Princess (1985)* Norby and the Invaders (1985)* Norby and the Queen's Necklace (1986)* Norby Finds a Villain (1987)* Norby Down to Earth (1988)* Norby and Yobo's Great Adventure (1989)* Norby and the Oldest Dragon (1990)* Norby and the Court Jester (1991)* Norby and the Terrified Taxi (1997)
The Dog Said Bow-Wow
Michael Swanwick - 2001
The reigning master of short fiction reinvents science fiction and fantasy in a dazzling new collection unlike anything you’ve ever read. Time-traveling dinosaurs wreak havoc on a placid Vermont town. An ogre is murdered in a locked room in Faerie. An uncanny bordello proves as dangerous as it is alluring. Language is stolen from the builders of babel. Those strangely loveable Post-Utopion scoundrels and con men, Darger and Surplus, swindle their way through London, Paris, and Arcadia.The Dog Said Bow-Wow includes three Hugo Award-winning stories and an original novelette of swashbuckling romance and adventure, “The Skysailor’s Tale.” Ranging from the hardest of science fiction to the highest of fantasy, this irresistible collection amuses and enlightens as only Michael Swanwick can.