Lights in the Deep


Brad R. Torgersen - 2013
    Torgersen. Go on fantastic new adventures at the bottom of Earth's oceans and at the edge of the solar system. Meet humans who are utterly alien and aliens who are all too human. Originally featured in the pages of Analog Science Fiction and Fact magazine as well as Orson Scott Card's InterGalactic Medicine Show, these stories are gathered here for the first time, along with anecdotes and other commentary from the author. Introductions by Stanley Schmidt, Mike Resnick and Allan Cole. Features the stories Ray of Light (2012 Hugo & Nebula nominee), Outbound (2011 Analog Readers Choice Award winner), and Exanastasis (2010 Writers of the Future Award winner).

D.A.


Connie Willis - 2007
    She didn't apply for the ultra-coveted posting, and doesn't relish spending years aboard the ship to which she's been assigned. But the plucky young heroine, in true Heinlein fashion, has no plans to go along with the program. Aided by her hacker best friend Kimkim, in a screwball comedy that has become Connie Wills' hallmark, Theodora will stop at nothing to uncover the conspiracy that has her shanghaied.

Anchor Leg


Jack Croxall - 2017
    Stranded with a saboteur, stranded with a killer.Humanity has spilled out into the Solar System, into a succession of giant space stations known as the Relay. Seren Temples is a security apprentice running the Relay’s remote Anchor Leg. When sabotage strands her vessel near another damaged ship, Seren and her team are sent across to investigate. The second ship is a zero-G graveyard. Inside its vast hold, nothing but a single vial of frozen blood.

Izanami's Choice


Adam Heine - 2016
    Heine does a great job of building a world replete with rules and history and uses both to construct a mystery with an awful lot of intrigue and surprise." - Nerds on EarthSamurai vs. robots. In 1901, the Meiji Restoration has abolished the old ways and ushered in a cybernetic revolution. Androids integrate into society at all levels, following their programming for the betterment of every citizen, as servants, bodyguards, and bureaucrats. Jinzou are the future. Japan is at the threshold of a new tomorrow!As a ronin steeped in the old ways, Itaru wants nothing more to do with the artificial creations posing as human. But when a jinzou is suspected of murder, he's pulled into a mystery that could tear the nation apart.​Malfunction or free will? When is a machine more than just a machine?IZANAMI'S CHOICE is an alternate history sci-fi novella set in Meiji Era Japan. It's samurai vs. robots as the author explores how Japan might grapple with the rise of artificial intelligence.

Starship Troopers / The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress / Time Enough For Love


Robert A. Heinlein - 1991
    

Dryker's Folly: Book 1 in Void Wraith Origins


Chris Fox - 2020
    Before the Eradication.One man had a chance to stop it all, and failed...Captain Dryker is a washed up vet mining on the fringes of the Kuiper belt. He loads rocks into the Folly’s railgun, and fires them back to his corporate overlords on Earth. Boring, just the way he likes it. Until one day it isn’t.An alien signal bursts from Pluto, which as it turns out is neither a planet, nor a planetoid body. It is an ancient defense satellite activated because it detected the return of the Vuka Spectra. The Void Wraith.Dryker is the closest ship on the scene, but not the only one vying for the prize. Hostile aliens have emerged from our sun using something called a Helios Gate. The savage Tigris have come not just for the satellite, but to conquer Earth.Dryker’s only hope is finding something, anything, within the installation to counter the alien’s superior technology and save mankind.The prequel to the Void Wraith Saga. Learn how it all began...

Thirteen


Richard K. Morgan - 2007
    Morgan arrived on the scene. He unleashed Takeshi Kovacs–private eye, soldier of fortune, and all-purpose antihero–into the body-swapping, hard-boiled, urban jungle of tomorrow in Altered Carbon, Broken Angels, and Woken Furies, winning the Philip K. Dick Award in the process. In Market Forces, he launched corporate gladiator Chris Faulkner into the brave new business of war-for-profit. Now, in Thirteen, Morgan radically reshapes and recharges science fiction yet again, with a new and unforgettable hero in Carl Marsalis: hybrid, hired gun, and a man without a country . . . or a planet.Marsalis is one of a new breed. Literally. Genetically engineered by the U.S. government to embody the naked aggression and primal survival skills that centuries of civilization have erased from humankind, Thirteens were intended to be the ultimate military fighting force. The project was scuttled, however, when a fearful public branded the supersoldiers dangerous mutants, dooming the Thirteens to forced exile on Earth’s distant, desolate Mars colony. But Marsalis found a way to slip back–and into a lucrative living as a bounty hunter and hit man before a police sting landed him in prison–a fate worse than Mars, and much more dangerous.Luckily, his “enhanced” life also seems to be a charmed one. A new chance at freedom beckons, courtesy of the government. All Marsalis has to do is use his superior skills to bring in another fugitive. But this one is no common criminal. He’s another Thirteen–one who’s already shanghaied a space shuttle, butchered its crew, and left a trail of bodies in his wake on a bloody cross-country spree. And like his pursuer, he was bred to fight to the death. Still, there’s no question Marsalis will take the job. Though it will draw him deep into violence, treachery, corruption, and painful confrontation with himself, anything is better than remaining a prisoner. The real question is: can he remain sane–and alive–long enough to succeed?2007 1st Ed Del Rey 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

United States of Japan


Peter Tieryas - 2016
    Americans worship their infallible Emperor, and nobody believes that Japan’s conduct in the war was anything but exemplary. Nobody, that is, except the George Washingtons – a shadowy group of rebels fighting for freedom. Their latest subversive tactic is to distribute an illegal video game that asks players to imagine what the world might be like if the United States had won the war instead.   Captain Beniko Ishimura's job is to censor video games, and he's working with Agent Akiko Tsukino of the secret police to get to the bottom of this disturbing new development. But Ishimura's hiding something... He's slowly been discovering that the case of the George Washingtons is more complicated than it seems, and the subversive videogame's origins are even more controversial and dangerous than either of them originally suspected. Part detective story, part brutal alternate history, United States of Japan is a stunning successor to Philip K Dick’s The Man in the High Castle. File under: Science Fiction [ Gamechanger | Area #11 | Robot Wars | Strike Back the Empire ]

The Star Fraction


Ken MacLeod - 1995
    Janis Taine is a scientist working on memory-enhancing drugs, fleeing the US/UN's technology cops. Jordan Brown is a teenager in the Christian enclave of Beulah City, dealing in theologically-correct software for the world's fundamentalists-and wants out.In a balkanized twenty-first century, where the "peace process" is deadlier than war, the US/UN's spy satellites have everyone in their sights. But the Watchmaker has other plans, and the lives of Moh, Janis, and Jordan are part of the program. A specter is haunting the fight for space and freedom, the specter of the betrayed revolution that happened before... With The Star Fraction, Ken MacLeod burst onto the SF scene and began the Fall Revolution sequence that continued with The Stone Canal, The Cassini Division, and The Sky Road.

Starfire


Mike Lee - 2011
    The Captain is given an impossible mission, find out what happened to the AMS StarFire, the Alliances' newest and deadliest, war ship. The AMS StarFire has a crew of over 3,000 men. Captain Lombard is given 50 men and sent on his mission. Find out why he is now facing a Board of Inquiry over his actions.

A Shadow in the Flames


Michael G. Munz - 2007
    Decaying, violent, and corrupt, it is a common enough city in 2051, yet soon, discoveries beneath the Moon's surface will mark the city with their first distant echoes.New arrival Michael Flynn is jobless and down to his last few dollars, but he still dreams of making a positive difference of his own. He has no family, no friends--save for the freelancer known only as Diomedes--and tonight the apartment they share will burn to the ground.When Diomedes becomes his mentor in a search for the arsonist responsible, Michael will get the chance to realize his dreams. Joining them is Felix, a wise-cracking "information bounty hunter" who claims that neither the arsonist nor the man Michael idolizes are quite what they appear.Will Michael find the courage to pass through the flames unscathed, or will the violence that surrounds him incinerate all that he is? Those who search the Moon will be watching...Booktrope edition, released December 2014. Original publication date: November 2007.

The Demolished Man


Alfred Bester - 1953
    He is also an obsessed, driven man determined to murder a rival. To avoid capture, in a society where murderers can be detected even before they commit their crime, is the greatest challenge of his life.

The Lead Cloak


Erik Hanberg - 2013
    Except the people who tried to kill him. By 2081, privacy no longer exists. The Lattice enables anyone to re-live any moment of your life. People can experience past and present events—or see into the mind of anyone, living or dead. Most people love it. Some want to destroy it. Colonel Byron Shaw has just saved the Lattice from the most dangerous attack in its history. Now he must find those responsible. But there’s a question nobody’s asking: does the Lattice deserve to be saved? The answer may cost him his life.

Admiral's Lady: Ashes for Ashes, Blood for Blood


Luke Sky Wachter - 2014
    For reference its about twice the size of the previous Admiral's Lady book. Product Description: While Jason was getting back and gearing up for his Revenge, Akantha wasn't just sitting quietly in the corner or out waving the flag on a PR tour. She was gearing up for some revenge of her own. Determined to punish those who planted the knife in the MSP and just as or even more importantly her own people's back, this is one Hold-Mistress who isn't about to let the events that took place at Omicron Station pass. As far as she's concerned her Protector was far too lenient, a mistake she's not about to repeat. You see she has a name for her pain and it is King James, the very man who sent the traitors that took their ship and killed their people. There will be ashes, there will be blood and while victory may not be possible one thing is certain... whether she goes home carrying her shield or carried upon it, they will suffer as she has suffered. Or her name is not Akantha of Messene!