The Speed of Sound


Eric Bernt - 2018
    Resident Eddie Parks’s contribution is nothing less than extraordinary: an “echo box” that can re-create never-recorded sounds using acoustic archeology.All Eddie wants is to hear his late mother’s voice. But what he’s created is inadvertently posing a threat to national security.To Harmony House’s shadowy government backers and radical extremists, the echo box is the ultimate intelligence asset—an end to the very concept of secrecy. Now for Eddie and the compassionate Dr. Skylar Drummond, the true nature of the institution is becoming chillingly clear.As ruthless competing enemies close in on Eddie and his miraculous machine, Skylar risks all to take him on the run. Because once that prize is won, Eddie Parks will no longer be considered a “special person” but a dangerous redundancy. An inconvenient echo that must be silenced.

The Dream of Perpetual Motion


Dexter Palmer - 2010
    His only companions are the disembodied voice of Miranda Taligent, the only woman he has ever loved, and the cryogenically frozen body of her father Prospero, the genius and industrial magnate who drove her insane.The tale of Harold’s life is also one of an alternate reality, a lucid waking dream in which the well-heeled have mechanical men for servants, where the realms of fairy tales can be built from scratch, where replicas of deserted islands exist within skyscrapers.. As Harold’s childhood infatuation with Miranda changes over twenty years to love and then to obsession, the visionary inventions of her father also change Harold’s entire world, transforming it from a place of music and miracles to one of machines and noise. And as Harold heads toward a last desperate confrontation with Prospero to save Miranda’s life, he finds himself an unwitting participant in the creation of the greatest invention of them all: the perpetual motion machine.Beautifully written, stunningly imagined, and wickedly funny, The Dream of Perpetual Motion is a heartfelt meditation on the place of love in a world dominated by technology.

The Last Conversation


Paul Tremblay - 2019
    All you have is the disconnected voice of an attentive caretaker. Dr. Kuhn is there to help you—physically, emotionally, and psychologically. She’ll help you remember everything. She’ll make sure you reclaim your lost identity. Now answer one question: Are you sure you want to?Paul Tremblay’s The Last Conversationis part of Forward, a collection of six stories of the near and far future from out-of-this-world authors. Each piece can be read or listened to in a single thought-provoking sitting.

Reveal Me


Tahereh Mafi - 2019
    This fourth and final novella in the series will bring readers back to the world of the Shatter Me before the final novel installment hits shelves in winter 2020.And don’t miss Find Me, the gorgeous paperback bind-up that brings together Shadow Me and Reveal Me in print for the first time!

The New World


Patrick Ness - 2010
    - Patrick Ness

Resurrection Man


Sean Stewart - 1995
    It is an ambitious story that confirms Sean Stewart's growing reputation as "a new voice as distinctive as any in SF" (Robert Charles Wilson).

Gamers


Thomas K. Carpenter - 2011
    Ten points for keeping your room tidy. Seventy-two points for the Bioeconomic Game Design pop quiz on the ride to school in your personal FunCar. Another thirty for making every hurdle in gym class. Life is a game, unless you're not the one winning.Gabby DeCorte, top student and reality-hacker extraordinaire, has been doing whatever it takes to keep her best friend, Zaela, from falling behind in LifeGame. Zaela has gifts of artistry that amaze Gabby, but none of those skills translate in LifeGame and with final exams coming up, they can't afford to waste a single minute. But when a mysterious group called the Frags contacts Gabby claiming to know what really happens to the losers of LifeGame, she must choose between winning and what she believes in.

The Catalyst


Chris Reher - 2012
    Her escape leaves her with no option but to rely on Seth, a former lover, for help.Unfortunately, she realizes that they are now on opposite sides of an escalating war between the Commonwealth Union of Planets and an increasingly dangerous rebel organization.In trying to find who is threatening her life, they discover a plot to destroy a distant planet - a world inhabited by creatures that are the key to Nova's survival - and a conspiracy that threatens the stability of the Union Commonwealth.Can Nova go beyond her strict military training to cooperate with people whom she is sworn to destroy?

All the Birds in the Sky


Charlie Jane Anders - 2016
    But as adults they both wind up in near-future San Francisco, where Laurence is an engineering genius and Patricia works with a small band of other magicians to secretly repair the world’s ever growing ailments. But something is determined to bring them back together—to either save the world, or end it.

How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe


Charles Yu - 2010
    . . through quantum space–time.  Minor Universe 31 is a vast story-space on the outskirts of fiction, where paradox fluctuates like the stock market, lonely sexbots beckon failed protagonists, and time travel is serious business. Every day, people get into time machines and try to do the one thing they should never do: change the past. That’s where Charles Yu, time travel technician—part counselor, part gadget repair man—steps in. He helps save people from themselves. Literally. When he’s not taking client calls or consoling his boss, Phil, who could really use an upgrade, Yu visits his mother (stuck in a one-hour cycle of time, she makes dinner over and over and over) and searches for his father, who invented time travel and then vanished. Accompanied by TAMMY, an operating system with low self-esteem, and Ed, a nonexistent but ontologically valid dog, Yu sets out, and back, and beyond, in order to find the one day where he and his father can meet in memory. He learns that the key may be found in a book he got from his future self. It’s called How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, and he’s the author. And somewhere inside it is the information that could help him—in fact it may even save his life.

A Pause in Space-Time


Laurence E. Dahners - 2019
    They tell us about Kaem Seba, a sickly and financially destitute young man who uses his extraordinary math talents to work out a way to stop time within limited volumes of space-time. He and Arya Vaii, a business student, set out to develop the phenomenon. It quickly becomes obvious that, beyond the fact that time stops inside the stasis field, the volume of space-time in stasis might be useful for some of its other phenomenal properties. Since it essentially can’t be altered (time’s stopped inside) it’s stronger than any known substance and, unlike matter, does not melt. This makes it the perfect material for building rocket engines. They set out to sell such engines in order to provide their budding business enough profit to let them develop other useful products. Unfortunately, the owner of the lab that tested the properties of their samples also recognizes their potential. His desire to share in their profits unhinges his shaky grasp on reality. When he can’t talk them into letting him join their enterprise, he demands a share at gunpoint.

Dark Eden


Chris Beckett - 2012
    Beyond the Forest lie the mountains of the Snowy Dark and a cold so bitter and a night so profound that no man has ever crossed it. The Oldest among the Family recount legends of a world where light came from the sky, where men and women made boats that could cross the stars. These ships brought us here, the Oldest say—and the Family must only wait for the travelers to return. But young John Redlantern will break the laws of Eden, shatter the Family and change history. He will abandon the old ways, venture into the Dark…and discover the truth about their world.Already remarkably acclaimed in the UK, Dark Eden is science fiction as literature; part parable, part powerful coming-of-age story, set in a truly original alien world of dark, sinister beauty--rendered in prose that is at once strikingly simple and stunningly inventive.

The Fear Trials


Lindsay Cummings - 2014
    This is a prequel to The Murder Complex, by Lindsay Cummings, and it is set in a blood-soaked world where the murder rate is higher than the birth rate. For fans of Moira Young's Dust Lands series, La Femme Nikita, and the movie Hanna.Meadow Woodson's father calls it The Fear Trials, and it is a rite of passage in their family. Meadow is up against her brother Koi. The Fear Trials will both harden her and make her brave. If Meadow wins, she will get a weapon of her own and the right to leave the Woodsons' houseboat without her father or mother at her side. Set in the violent, complex, and mysterious world of The Murder Complex, and introducing Meadow Woodson—a teenage girl trained to survive no matter what the cost—and her family, who are together for the last time on their houseboat in the Florida Everglades.

Precipice


John Jackson Miller - 2009
    It is an offense punishable by death-and a fate to which Commander Yaru Korsin will not succumb. But on a crucial run to deliver troops and precious crystals to a combat hotspot in the Sith's war against the Republic, Korsin and the crew of the mining ship Omen are ambushed by a Jedi starfighter. And when the Sith craft crash-lands, torn and crippled, on a desolate alien planet, the hard-bitten captain finds himself at odds with desperate survivors on the brink of mutiny-and his own vengeful half brother, who's bent on seizing command. No matter the cost, Korsin vows that it will not be his blood and bones left behind on this unknown world. For the way of the Sith leaves little room for compromise-and none at all for mercy.

Crimson Son


Russ Linton - 2014
    Along the way he rallies a team of retiree superheroes and everyday people living in the shadow of a weapons program gone wrong.Before the dust settles every superhero and supervillain will come together for a Jerry Springer style Ragnarok. On the brink of Armageddon, with his mother's very existence at stake, Spencer stumbles into the true mastermind's web and discovers he's been the prey all along.Crimson Son isn't your typical superhero novel. Fast-paced, engaging, with all the action you'd expect but set in a believable world helmed by a vulnerable hero with an unmistakable voice. Mr. Robot meets the Winter Soldier in this unique superhero series you'll love. Buy now and launch into action with Spencer today!