But idle sometime-musician George has little talent for clockwork. And when a shadowy figure tries to steal an old device from the premises, George finds himself embroiled in a mystery of time travel, music and sexual intrigue. A genuine lost classic, a steampunk original whose time has come.

    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.

    Permutation city is the tale of a man with a vision - how to create immortality - and how that vision becomes something way beyond his control. Encompassing the lives and struggles of an artificial life junkie desperate to save her dying mother, a billionaire banker scarred by a terrible crime, the lovers for whom, in their timeless virtual world, love is not enough - and much more - Permutation city is filled with the sense of wonder.

    Captain Mond Aton had been proud to serve in such a fleet. But now, falsely convicted of cowardice and dereliction of duty, he had been given the cruellest of sentences: to be sent unprotected into time as a lone messenger between the cruising timeships. After such an inconceivable experience in the endless voids there was only one option left to him. To be allowed to die.

    What most of the inhabitants don't realize is that their world of Urba is actually a giant spacecraft, an ark built more than a thousand years ago to save as much of the Earth's population as possible before the sun went nova. The Elite were originally the ship's crew, but as the centuries passed, they became decadent, corrupt, and cruel, and the truth about Urba became hidden. And now Jad and the courageous Prince are about to find out what happened to the Elite—and what's happening to the people of Urba.

    Only a hidden group of rebels can stem the humanoid tide...if it's not already too late.Fist published in Astounding Science Fiction during the magazine's heyday, The Humanoids--sceince fiction grand master Jack Williamson's finest novel--has endured for fifty years as a classic on the theme of natural versus artificial life.Also included in this edition is the prelude novelette, "With Folded Hands," which was chosen for the Science Fiction Hall of Fame.

    Clarke award-winning author of Children of Time brings us an extraordinary space opera about humanity on the brink of extinction, and how one man's discovery will save or destroy us all.The war is over. Its heroes forgotten. Until one chance discovery . . .Idris has neither aged nor slept since they remade him in the war. And one of humanity's heroes now scrapes by on a freelance salvage vessel, to avoid the attention of greater powers.After earth was destroyed, mankind created a fighting elite to save their species, enhanced humans such as Idris. In the silence of space they could communicate, mind-to-mind, with the enemy. Then their alien aggressors, the Architects, simply disappeared—and Idris and his kind became obsolete.Now, fifty years later, Idris and his crew have discovered something strange abandoned in space. It's clearly the work of the Architects—but are they returning? And if so, why? Hunted by gangsters, cults and governments, Idris and his crew race across the galaxy hunting for answers. For they now possess something of incalculable value, that many would kill to obtain.

    Clarke of Last and First Men. This masterpiece of science fiction by British philosopher and writer Olaf Stapledon (1886–1950) is an imaginative, ambitious history of humanity's future that spans billions of years. Together with its follow-up, Star Maker, it is regarded as the standard by which all earlier and later future histories are measured.The protagonist of this compelling novel is humanity itself, stripped down to sheer intelligence. It evolves through the ages: rising to pinnacles of civilization, teetering on the brink of extinction, surviving onslaughts from other planets and a decline in solar energy, and constantly developing new forms, new senses, and new intellectual abilities. From the present to five billion years into the future, this romance of humanity abounds in profound and imaginative thought.

    . . a sophisticated traveler between many worlds. But he had certainly never thought of himself as a hero.Skua September, on the other hand, never thought of himself as anything else.A matched pair, if ever there was one!When the two of them were suddenly stranded on a deadly frozen world, Ethan Fortune incredibly found himself cast in the role of Leader.And he didn't find that at all amusing . . .

    In the festive season of Winterfair on the planet Barrayar, Lord Miles Vorkosigan is making elaborate preparations for his wedding. The long-awaited event stirs up romance and intrigue among his eccentric family and friends, particularly for bioengineered space mercenary Sergeant Taura and shy, diffident Armsman Roic. But Miles also has an enemy who is plotting to turn the romantic ceremony into a festival of death. Winterfair Gifts offers another of Bujold's witty, character-centered science fiction plots with a twist of romance.

    The Terran explorers have made an uneasy truce with the Sholen, their first extraterrestrial contact: so long as they don’t disturb the Ilmataran habitat, they’re free to conduct their missions in peace.But when Henri Kerlerec, media personality and reckless adventurer, ends up sliced open by curious Ilmatarans, tensions between Terran and Sholen erupt, leading to a diplomatic disaster that threatens to escalate to war.Against the backdrop of deep-sea guerrilla conflict, a new age of human exploration begins as alien cultures collide. Both sides seek the aid of the newly enlightened Ilmatarans. But what this struggle means for the natives—and the future of human exploration—is anything but certain, in A Darkling Sea by James Cambias.

    It is the monumental story of a Galactic Empire in decline, and the secret society of scientists who seek to shorten the inevitable Dark Age with the science of psychohistory. Now, with the permission -- and blessing -- of the Asimov estate, the epic saga continues.Fate -- and a cruel Emperor's arbitrary power -- have thrust Hari Seldon into the First Ministership of the Empire against his will. As the story opens, Hari is about to leave his quiet professorship and take on the all but impossible task of administering 25 million inhabited worlds from the all-steel planet of Trantor. With the help of his beautiful bio-engineered "wife" Dors and his alien companion Yugo, Seldon is still developing the science that will transform history, never dreaming that it will ultimately pit him against future history's most awesome threat.

    When aliens do arrive, Thirg's heretical and dangerous beliefs are vindicated. But the strange creatures called human plan to exploit his planet's resources. Only one human, Karl Zambendorf, can stop his fellow Terrans from enslaving Thirg's people. Too bad Zambendorf is a con man.

    But when an alien spacecraft crash-lands in the South Pacific bearing visitors from another world, the Vulcans, Earth must decide whether to extend the hand of friendship, or the fist of war. In the distant future, horrible dreams torment Admiral James T. Kirk, dreams prompted by his reading of Strangers from the Sky, a book about that historic first contact. He dreams of an alternate reality where he somehow changed the course of history, and destroyed the Federation before it began.

    Starflight is possible but hugely expensive, so humakind's efforts are focused on Isis, the one nearby Earthlike world. Isis is verdant, Edenic, rich with complex DNA-based plant and animal life. And every molecule of Isian life is spectacularly toxic to human beings. The entire planet is a permanent Level Four Hot Zone.Despite that, Isis is the most interesting discovery of the millennium: a parallel biology with lessons to teach us about our own nature. It's also the hardest of hardship posts, the loneliest place in the universe.Zoe Fisher was born to explore Isis. Literally. Cloned and genetically engineered by a faction within the hothouse politics of Earth, Zoe is optimized to face Isis's terrors. Now at last Zoe has arrived on Isis. But there are secrets implanted within her that not even she suspects--and the planet itself has secrets that will change our understanding of life in the universe.Bursting with ideas, replete with human insight, Bios is science fiction in the grand tradition: a novel of bravery, exploration, and discovery in a universe charged with awe.