Good News from Outer Space


John Kessel - 1989
    Or was. The newsnet he works for has illegally revived him. But he finds himself examining the sensationalist stories he has been reporting on - for evidence that there are Aliens among us.Lucky Eberhart, George's wife, loses her job for her role in reviving him, and finds that there are worse things on Earth than she had dreamed of in her philosophies.The Reverend Jimmy-Don Gilray believes that the Day of Judgment will arrive on the stroke of midnight, December 31, 1999. But all bets are off if the Aliens are already here.Meanwhile, Carla Hazard, Sandy Ellison, and Martha Shummel are finding that this is their lucky day. Or is it all a sinister Alien game?And Judgment Day approaches...

What Entropy Means to Me


George Alec Effinger - 1972
    Initially defending himself with a torch, the Doctor searched frantically for a new method of defense. The crimson mass is lunging forward using long, tentacle-like attachments: what is that thing? Slowly the subhuman blob comes in to focus, and Dore realizes . . . it's a colossal radish! This is a monster never before wrestled with; what are they going to do? After reading this vegetative tale, you won't look at your garden the same way again..

The Byworlder


Poul Anderson - 1971
    For three years it had been there, and still there were nothing but questions. What had lured the voyager from Sigma Dacron's to Earth? How did the creature plan to use its incredible power? And most important, why was it waiting...and for what?Then, in a blinding flash of insight, Skip Wayburn suddenly knew the answers... knew with dead certainty why the Sigman had come, who "he' was, and precisely what the Earthmen must do.But who would listen to the far-out ideas of a mere sigaroon? Skip didn't know. But someone had to listen—and fast.

Redshift Rendezvous


John E. Stith - 1990
    The first sign of trouble is the apparent suicide of a passenger. When first officer Jason Kraft discovers that she was murdered, Kraft wants to know why. Before long, a desperate group of people tries to use the hyperspace craft for their evil purposes, and Kraft is the only person in their way. [A selection of the Science Fiction Book Club.]

Deserted Cities of the Heart


Lewis Shiner - 1988
    A mysterious photo sends Lindsey, his ex-wife, on a quest to bring him back and puts her on a collision course with Eddie's brother Thomas, whose desire for her has never faded. Their search leads them to the ruined Mayan temples of NaChan, deep in the jungle, where mushrooms grow that can send you back through time--or kill you. NaChan is sacred to the Landon Indians, and their enigmatic shaman Chan Ma'ax. But the ruins have also become a nexus for the political forces that are tearing Mexico apart. Lindsey, Thomas, and Eddie are soon caught between Carla's rebel army and the secret US paramilitary group known as the Fighting 666th as they face off in the first battle of the end of the world.

The Road to Corlay


Richard Cowper - 1978
    But on the Eve of the Fourth Millennium the sound of a magical pipe was heard, and the air was filled with songs of freedom and enlightenment. And on the Eve of the Fourth Millennium the Boy appeared, bringing the gift of sacrilege, a harbinger of the future, heralding the arrival of the White Bird of Dawning. It is the coming of a New Age. A glorious future bearing the presents of the past!

The Collapsium


Wil McCarthy - 2000
    But it is also a future imperiled by a bitter rivalry between two brilliant scientists--one perhaps the greatest genius in the history of humankind; the other, its greatest monster.The Collapsium In a world of awesome technology, the deadly substance called collapsium has given humans all the powers and caprices--including immortality--of the gods they once worshiped. Composed of miniature black holes, collapsium allows the instantaneous transmission of information and matter--as well as humans--throughout the solar system. But while its reclusive inventor, Bruno de Towaji, next dreams of probing the farthest reaches of spacetime, Marlon Sykes, his ambitious rival in science--and in love--has built an awesome telecommunications network by constructing a ring of collapsium around the sun. It appears Sykes may be the victor--until a ruthless saboteur attacks the ring and sends it falling toward the sun. Now the two scientists must put aside personal animosity to prevent the destruction of the solar system--and every living thing within it.

Celestis


Paul Park - 1993
    As support from home wanes, the "improved" Aboriginals launch a rebellion against the colonists. Simon, a political functionary from Earth, and Katharine, the altered daughter of a successful native merchant, are taken hostage by the rebels.Simon falls in love with Katharine, but, cut off from a supply of the medication she needs to maintain her humanlike state, her suppressed alien nature begins to reemerge. As she discovers her true self, hidden vistas of expanded alien perception are revealed in a stunning exploration of the limits of humanity. "A Martian Chronicles for the nineties possessed of a haunting power".--Locus

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.

Hard Landing


Algis Budrys - 1993
    The story Budrys goes on to tell is a tale ripped from the pages of a supermarket tabloid. A starship crash lands in a New Jersey swamp, its passengers, human in appearance, scatter, each forced to find their own way in an alien world, living the rest of their lives among the human race. Like much of Budys' best work of the 1960s, Hard Landing expounds on the nature of identity, following its chief protagonist, Jack Mullica, through a series of adventures after his initial crash landing. Hard Landing is a welcome addition to Budrys' small but impressive collection of work. Hopefully Budrys, who has never been the most prolific of writers, will not go another fifteen years before releasing his next.

Juniper Time


Kate Wilhelm - 1979
    Drought has devastated the western United States and the people migrate eastward to settle in squalid concentration camps called "Newtowns". One woman, Jean Brighton, flees in the opposite direction. A linguist who can decode secret messages and make sense of alien languages, Jean has found governmental pressure on her university work untenable, and she heads for the only place she knows she will be safe — her grandfather's now-deserted house in the Pacific Northwest. Yet her survival does not come from her own devices alone, for she receives the help of Indians who have stayed to reclaim the land that was once theirs. Through them and the mysteries of their world, Jean masters the art of survival, not only in the desolate Northwest but also in the white man's world she must return to someday.

The Void Captain's Tale


Norman Spinrad - 1982
    Pilots are rare, and the ability to be a Pilot also entails physical wasting and a shortened life.But Pilots live only for the timeless moments of Transition, when their ships cross the emptiness of space in an instant. Now Void Pilot Dominique Alia Wu has begun to catch a glimpse of something more, something transcendent in that eternal moment . . . and she needs the cooperation of her Captain to achieve it permanently. Even at risk to the survival of the Ship.Norman Spinrad has been one of SF’s most adventurous writers since the 1960s, an internationally praised peer of such writers as Harlan Ellison, Michael Moorcock, and Samuel R. Delany. His stories of the Second Starfaring Age, The Void Captain’s Tale and the later novel Child of Fortune, form a single epic praised by the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction as “an eroticized vision of the Galaxy . . . an elated Wanderjahr among the sparkling worlds.”

Plague of Demons


Keith Laumer - 1964
    Cover Artist: Alan AldridgeWhen John Bravais was sent on a secret mission to observe a war in North Africa he found out more than it was safe for him to know - even after he had secretly been surgically transformed so that he was as strong as a Bolo tank, and nearly as tough: Wolf-like aliens, invisible to the ordinary eye, were harvesting the brains of the fallen fighters! Brevais might have become the Ultimate Warrior, but still he was only one man against A Plague of Demons.

Mars Crossing


Geoffrey A. Landis - 2000
    But from the moment of their arrival on Mars, everything begins to go wrong. The fuel tanks that were to have supplied their return trip are found corroded and empty. Their supplies are running out and their life support systems are beginning to fail. And any rescue mission won't reach them for months, or even years-if at all.The crew's only hope for survival lies in a desperate plan: an agonizing trek halfway across the surface of Mars to a ship designed to carry only half their number. Torn by conflict and dissent, and troubled by secrets that endanger them all, they must embark on an ordeal that will test them to the limits of endurance.

The Masks of Time


Robert Silverberg - 1968
    And for Leo Garfield things would never be the same. For he is an acknowledged expert in the time reversal properties of sub-atomic particles...and Vornan-19 claims to come from far in the future. Whether or not he is telling the truth, a nervous and edgy world accepts the charming and magnetically charismatic Vornan as some kind of messiah. Even Garfield and his fellow scientists fall under Vornan's spell. But, has he really traveled across time--or is he just a charlatan and a fraud? A compassionate and powerful novel worthy of comparison to Stranger in a Strange Land.