Orion


Ben Bova - 1984
    He is an eternal warrior destined to combat the Dark Lord through all time for dominion of the Earth. Follow him, servant of a great race, as he battles his enemy down the halls of time, from the caves of our ancestors to the final confrontation under the hammer of nuclear annihilation.

Mirrorshades: The Cyberpunk Anthology


Bruce SterlingJames Patrick Kelly - 1986
    Fans and critics call their world cyberpunk. Here is the definitive "cyberpunk" short fiction collection.Contents:The Gernsback Continuum (1981) by William GibsonSnake-Eyes (1986) by Tom MaddoxRock On (1984) by Pat CadiganTales of Houdini (1981) by Rudy Rucker400 Boys (1983) by Marc LaidlawSolstice (1985) by James Patrick KellyPetra (1982) by Greg BearTill Human Voices Wake Us (1984) by Lewis ShinerFreezone (1985) by John ShirleyStone Lives (1985) by Paul Di FilippoRed Star, Winter Orbit (1983) by William Gibson and Bruce SterlingMozart in Mirrorshades (1984) by Bruce Sterling and Lewis Shiner

Dinner at Deviant's Palace


Tim Powers - 1985
    Dick Award: In a nuclear-ravaged California, a humble musician sets out on a dangerous quest to rescue his lost love from the clutches of a soul-devouring religious cultIn the twenty-second century, the City of Angels is a tragic shell of its former self, having long ago been ruined and reshaped by nuclear disaster. Before he was in a band in Ellay, Gregorio Rivas was a redeemer, rescuing lost souls trapped in the Jaybirds cult of the powerful maniac Norton Jaybush. Rivas had hoped those days were behind him, but a desperate entreaty from a powerful official is pulling him back into the game. The rewards will be plentiful if he can wrest Urania, the official’s daughter and Gregorio’s first love, from Jaybush’s sinister clutches. To do so, the redeemer reborn must face blood-sucking hemogoblins and other monstrosities on his way to discovering the ultimate secrets of this neo-Californian civilization. One of the most ingeniously imaginative writers of our time, Tim Powers dazzles in an early work that displays his unique creative genius. Alive with wit, intelligence, and wild invention, Dinner at Deviant’s Palace is a mad adventure across a dystopian future as only Tim Powers could have imagined it.

Terminal World


Alastair Reynolds - 2009
    Clinging to its skin are the zones, a series of semi-autonomous city-states, each of which enjoys a different—and rigidly enforced—level of technology. Horsetown is pre-industrial; in Neon Heights they have television and electric trains . . .Following an infiltration mission that went tragically wrong, Quillon has been living incognito, working as a pathologist in the district morgue. But when a near-dead angel drops onto his dissecting table, Quillon's world is wrenched apart one more time, for the angel is a winged posthuman from Spearpoint's Celestial Levels—and with the dying body comes bad news.If Quillon is to save his life, he must leave his home and journey into the cold and hostile lands beyond Spearpoint's base, starting an exile that will take him further than he could ever imagine. But there is far more at stake than just Quillon's own survival, for the limiting technologies of the zones are determined not by governments or police, but by the very nature of reality—and reality itself is showing worrying signs of instability . . .Terminal World is a snarling, drooling, crazy-eyed mongrel of a book: equal parts steampunk, western, planetary romance, and far-future SF.

The Songs of Distant Earth


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

Nightfall


Isaac Asimov - 1990
    The story was called "Nightfall", and many years later it has long been recognized as a classic, its author a legend. Now, the Gran Master of Science Fiction teams with Robert Silverberg, one of the field's top award-winning authors, to explore and expand an apocalyptic tale that is more spellbinding today than ever before -- Nightfall: The Novel.Imagine living on a planet with six suns that never experiences Darkness. Imagine never having seen the Stars. Then, one by one the suns start to set, gradually leading into Darkness for the first time ever. Kalgash is a world on the edge of chaos, torn between the madness of religious fanaticism and the unyielding rationalism of scientists. Lurking beneath it all is a collective, instinctual fear of the Darkness. For Kalgash knows only the perpetual light of day; to its inhabitants, a gathering twilight portends unspeakable horror. And only a handful of people on the planet are prepared to face the truth, their six suns are setting all at once for the first time in over two thousand years, signaling the end of civilization as it explodes in the awesome splendor of Nightfall.Encompassing the psychology of disaster, the tenacity of the human spirit, and, ultimately, the regenerative power of hope, Nightfall is a tale rich in character and suspense that only the unique collaboration of Isaac Asimov and Robert Silverberg could create.

Sisterhood of Dune


Brian Herbert - 2012
    Great changes are brewing that will shape and twist all of humankind. The war hero Vorian Atreides has turned his back on politics and Salusa Secundus. The descendants of Abulurd Harkonnen Griffen and Valya have sworn vengeance against Vor, blaming him for the downfall of their fortunes. Raquella Berto-Anirul has formed the Bene Gesserit School on the jungle planet Rossak as the first Reverend Mother. The descendants of Aurelius Venport and Norma Cenva have built Venport Holdings, using mutated, spice-saturated Navigators who fly precursors of Heighliners. Gilbertus Albans, the ward of the hated Erasmus, is teaching humans to become Mentats…and hiding an unbelievable secret. The Butlerian movement, rabidly opposed to all forms of “dangerous technology,” is led by Manford Torondo and his devoted Swordmaster, Anari Idaho. And it is this group, so many decades after the defeat of the thinking machines, which begins to sweep across the known universe in mobs, millions strong, destroying everything in its path. Every one of these characters, and all of these groups, will become enmeshed in the contest between Reason and Faith. All of them will be forced to choose sides in the inevitable crusade that could destroy humankind forever….

Millennium


John Varley - 1983
    But in the far distant future, a time travel team is preparing to snatch the passengers, leaving prefabricated smoking bodies behind for the rescue teams to find. And in Washington D.C., an air disaster investigator named Smith is about to get a phone call that will change his life...and end the world as we know it.

Destiny's Road


Larry Niven - 1997
    The Cavorite deserted the original interstellar colonists, stranding them without hope of contacting Earth.Now, descendants of those pioneers have many questions about the Road, but no settler who has gone down it has ever returned. For Jemmy Bloocher, a young farm boy, the questions burn too hot--and he sets out to uncover the many mysteries of Destiny's Road.

S is for Space


Ray Bradbury - 1966
    S is for science fiction, spine-tingling, supernatural and sublime! S is for stories from a "Star Wilderness that stretched as far as eye and mind could see and imagine".ChrysalisPillar of FireZero HourThe ManTime in Thy FlightThe PedestrianHall and FarewellInvisible BoyCome into My CellarThe Million-Year PicnicThe Screaming WomanThe SmileDark They Were, and Golden-EyedThe TrolleyThe Flying MachineIcarus Montgolfier Wright

Gate of Ivrel


C.J. Cherryh - 1976
    In their time, long before the rise of the native civilizations, they had terrorized a hundred worlds—not from villainy but from folly, from tampering with the strands that held a universe together.Now the task was to uproot these Gates, destroy their potency for mischief, take horror out of the hands of the few who hungered for power by misuse of the Gates.This is the story of one such Gate and one such world.

The Compass Rose


Ursula K. Le Guin - 1982
    Twenty astonishing stories from acclaimed author Ursula K. Le Guin that carry us to worlds of wonder and horror, desire and destiny, enchantment and doom.

Molly Fyde and the Parsona Rescue


Hugh Howey - 2009
    A dull future seems to await, until a marvelous discovery changes everything. Her father's old starship, missing for a decade, turns up halfway across the galaxy. Its retrieval launches Molly and Cole on the adventure of a lifetime, one that will have lasting consequences for themselves and billions of others. What starts off as a simple quest to reconnect with her past, ends up forging a new future. And the forgotten family she hoped to uncover becomes one she never foresaw: a band of alien misfits and runaways-the crew of the starship Parsona.

Viriconium


M. John Harrison - 2000
    This landmark collection gathers four groundbreaking fantasy classics from the acclaimed author of Light.Set in the imagined city of Viriconium, here are the masterworks that revolutionized a genre and enthralled a generation of readers: The Pastel City, A Storm of Wings, In Viriconium, and Viriconium Knights.Contents:The Pastel City, 1971 (novel)A Storm of Wings, 1980 (novel)In Viriconium, 1982 (novel)The Lamia & Lord Cromis, 1971 (short story)Viriconium Knights, 1981 (short story)The Luck in the Head, 1984 (novelette)Strange Great Sins, 1983 (short story)The Lords of Misrule, 1984 (short story)The Dancer from the Dance, 1985 (short story)A Young Man’s Journey to Viriconium, 1985 (short story)

The Spell Sword


Marion Zimmer Bradley - 1974
    Most of the planet's wild terrain was unexplored...and many of its peoples seclusive and secretive.But for Andrew Carr there was an attraction he could not evade. Darkover drew him, Darkover haunted him--and when his mapping plane crashed in unknown heights, Darkover prepared to destroy him.Until the planet's magic asserted itself--and his destiny began to unfold along lines predicted only by phantoms and wonder workers of the kind Terran science could never acknowledge.THE SPELL SWORD is a Darkover novel to stand with the great ones of the series.