Book picks similar to
A Signal Shattered by Eric S. Nylund
science-fiction
sci-fi
fiction
cyberpunk
Fury
Henry Kuttner - 1947
Sam Reed was born an immortal, but his deranged father had him mutilated as a baby. He is determined to overthrow the immortals and lead the people of Earth off of the floor of the oceans of Venus.
Nightflyers
George R.R. Martin - 1985
Nine misfit academics on an expedition to find the volcryn, a mythic race of intersteller nomads, and the only ship available for this strange quest is the Nightflyer, a cybernetic wonder with a never-seen captain...Nine innocents are about to find themselves in deep space, trapped with an insane murderer who can go anywhere, do anything, and intends to kill them all.
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.
Crashcourse
Wilhelmina Baird - 1993
Dosh has sold his good looks once too often to rough customers. He's so desperate to get off the planet and start a new life that he persuades friends Moke and Cass to sign a cybercinema contract--a decision that proves to be as dangerous as it is lucrative.
Alien Taste
Wen Spencer - 2001
Now considered one of the greatest trackers in the country, this private investigator puts his nose to the ground to track down missing fugitives. When he crosses paths with a criminal gang called the Pack, Ukiah discovers just how much he has in common with the Pack.
The Silent Tower
Barbara Hambly - 1986
In her latest novel, The Silent Tower, Barbara Hambly has written a complex tale of dark magic, mystery and deadly danger involving a woman computer programmer who struggles to help a condemned wizard save--or perhaps destroy?--two worlds...
The Age of Scorpio
Gavin G. Smith - 2012
And now he and his crew are living to regret his desperation. In Red Space the rules are different. Some things work, others don't. Best to stick close to the Church beacons. Don't get lost. Because there's something wrong about Red Space. Something beyond rational. Something vampyric...Long after The Loss mankind is different. We touch the world via neunonics. We are machines, we are animals, we are hybrids. But some things never change. A Killer is paid to kill, a Thief will steal countless lives. A Clone will find insanity, an Innocent a new horror. The Church knows we have kept our sins. Gavin Smith's new SF novel is an epic slam-bang ride through a terrifyingly different future.
The Serene Invasion
Eric Brown - 2013
The West and China confront each other over an inseperable ideological divide, each desperate to sustain their future.And then the Serene arrive, enigmatic aliens form Delta Pavonis V, and nothing will ever be the same again.The Serene bring peace to an ailing world, an end to poverty and violence -- but not everyone supports the seemingly benign invasion.There are forces out there who wish to return to the bad old days, and will stop at nothing to oppose the Serene.
Cities in Flight
James Blish - 1970
Named after the migrant workers of America's Dust Bowl, these novels convey Blish's "history of the future," a brilliant and bleak look at a world where cities roam the Galaxy looking for work and a sustainable way of life.In the first novel, They Shall Have Stars, man has thoroughly explored the Solar System, yet the dream of going even further seems to have died in all but one man. His battle to realize his dream results in two momentous discoveries anti-gravity and the secret of immortality. In A Life for the Stars, it is centuries later and anti-gravity generations have enabled whole cities to lift off the surface of the earth to become galactic wanderers. In Earthman, Come Home, the nomadic cities revert to barbarism and marauding rogue cities begin to pose a threat to all civilized worlds. In the final novel, The Triumph of Time, history repeats itself as the cities once again journey back in to space making a terrifying discovery which could destroy the entire Universe. A serious and haunting vision of our world and its limits, Cities in Flight marks the return to print of one of science fiction's most inimitable writers.A Selection of the Science Fiction Book Club
Macroscope
Piers Anthony - 1969
But although they may have longed for it, not even the most brilliant minds could conceive of a device as infinitely powerful or as immeasurably precise as the macroscope, until the twenty-first century. By analyzing information carried on macrons, this unbelievable tool brought the whole universe of wonders to man's doorstep. The macroscope was seen by many as the salvation of the human race. But in the hands of the wrong man, the macroscope could be immensely destructive-infinitely more dangerous than the nuclear bomb. By searching to know too much, man could destroy the very essence of his mind. This is the powerful story of man's struggle with technology, and also the story of his human struggle with himself. This novel takes us across the breathtaking ranges of space as well as through the most touching places in the human heart. It is a story of coming of age, of sacrifice, and of love. It is the story of man's desperate search for a compromise between his mind and his heart, between knowledge and humanity.
The Middle Kingdom
David Wingrove - 1989
China has once again become a world unto itself and this time its only boundary is space . . . The world is City Earth, ruled by the Seven, China's new kings. Beautiful, controlled, sensual, this high-tech society is rushing toward war between the forces of West and East, between the rebels who hunger for change and the overlords who demand stability, between the very powers of darkness and light. It will be an era of violent conflagration destined to expose the basest elements of human nature . . . and the highest dreams. An epic that draws us into an alternative world so real, so complete that we become denizens of the new Middle Kingdom, touched by longings we never imagined. . . driven by forces as ancient as man's first breath. Not since Asminov's Foundation books and Herbert's Dune has there been such a majestic and powerful vision of a believable other world. . . seductive, chilling, unforgettable!
Enterprise: The First Adventure
Vonda N. McIntyre - 1986
Kirk is the youngest man to be promoted to the rank of captain in Federation history. His crew consists of a first officer who finds him impetuous; a chief engineer who finds him arrogent; a chief medical officer who finds him trifling; and a helmsman who wants a transfer. But the young crew, which would later become the legendary space explorers, quickly puts aside their differences when a monstrous starship appears on their nascent flight path.
A Million Open Doors
John Barnes - 1992
Giraut--swordsman, troubador, lover--is a creature of this swashbuckling world, the most isolated of humanity's Thousand Cultures.But the winds of change have come to Nou Occitan. As the invention of the "springer"--instantaneous interstellar travel, at a price--spreads throughout the human galaxy, the stability and purity of no world, no matter how isolated, is safe. Nor can Giraut's life remain untouched. To his wonder, his is about to find himself made an ambassador to a different human world, a place strange beyond his wildest imaginings.
The Ruins of Ambrai
Melanie Rawn - 1994
But the greater the magic, the greater the peril—and Lenfell was soon devastated by a war between rival Mageborn factions that polluted land, sea, and air with Wild Magic and unleashed the hideous specters known as Wraithenbeasts.Generations after that terrible war, with the land recovered from crippling wounds and the people no longer threatened by genetic damage, Mageborns still practice their craft—but under strict constraints. Yet so long as the rivalry between the Mage Guardians and the Lords of Malerris continues, the threat of another war is ever-present. And someone has been planning just such a war for many long years, the final strike in a generations-old bid for total power....