Book picks similar to
Tatja Grimm's World by Vernor Vinge
science-fiction
sci-fi
fiction
scifi
The Hammer of God
Arthur C. Clarke - 1992
. .[Clark] handles both ideas and characters with deftness and wit; in short, the outstanding living science fiction writers is romping".-- "Chicago Sun-Times". In the year 2110 technology has cured most of our worries. But even as humankind enters a new golden age, an amateur astronomer points his telescope at just the right corner of the night sky and sees disaster hurtling toward Earth: a chunk of rock that could annihilate civilization. While a few fanatics welcome the apocalyptic destruction as a sign from God, the greatest scientific minds of Earth desperately search for a way to avoid the inevitable. On board the starship Goliath Captain Robert Singh and his crew must race against time to redirect the meteor form its deadly collision course. Suddenly they find themselves on the most important mission in human history--a mission whose success may require the ultimate sacrifice."Clarke is still at the top of his game".-- "The Detroit News"."As good as any anything he's written. . .for a hard-science-fiction treat, I suspect "The Hammer Of God" won't be topped".-- "Star Tribune", Minneapolis."Classic Clarke. . .a good story".-- "The Denver Post".
A World Out of Time
Larry Niven - 1976
Once he was outbound, where the Society that ruled Earth could not reach him, he headed his starship toward the galactic core, where the unimaginable energies of the Universe wrenched the fabric of time and space and promised final escape from his captors.Then he returned to an Earth eons older than the one he'd left...a planet that had had 3,000,000 years to develop perils he had never dreamed of -- perils that became nightmares that he had to escape...somehow!
Against a Dark Background
Iain M. Banks - 1993
On an island with a glass shore - relic of some even more ancient conflict - she discovers she is to be hunted by the Huhsz, a religious cult which believes she is the last obstacle before their faith's apotheosis. She has to run, knowing her only hope of finally escaping the Huhsz is to find the last of the ancient, apocalyptically powerful but seemingly cursed Lazy Guns. But that is just the first as well as the final step on a search that takes her on an odyssey through the exotic Golterian system and results in both a trail of destruction and a journey into her own past, as well as that of her family and the system itself; a journey that changes everything.
House of Suns
Alastair Reynolds - 2008
But now, someone is eliminating the Gentian line. Campion and Purslane—two shatterlings who have fallen in love and shared forbidden experiences—must determine exactly who, or what, their enemy is, before they are wiped out of existence.
In the Ocean of Night
Gregory Benford - 1977
Ordered to destroy the comet, he instead discovers that it is actually the shell of a derelict space probe - a wreck with just enough power to emit a single electronic signal...2034: Then a reply is heard. Searching for the source of this signal that comes from outside the solar system, Nigel discovers the existence of a sentient ship. When the new vessel begins to communicate directly with him, the astronaut learns of the horrors that await humanity. For the ship was created by an alien race that has spent billions and billions of years searching for intelligent life...to annihilate it.In the Ocean of Night is a 1977 hard science fiction novel by Gregory Benford. It is the first novel in his Galactic Center Saga. It was nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1977. It was first published as a novelette in the May/June 1972 edition of Worlds of If Science Fiction.
Sundiver
David Brin - 1980
Did some cryptic patron race begin the job long ago, then abandon us? Or did we leap all by ourselves? That question burns, yet a greater mystery looms ahead, in the furnace of a star. Under the caverns of Mercury, Expedition Sundiver prepares for the most momentous voyage in our history – into the boiling inferno of the sun, seeking our destiny in the cosmic order of life.
The Engines of God
Jack McDevitt - 1994
Now, as faster-than-light drive opens the stars to exploration, humans are finding other relics of the race they call the Monument-Makers - each different, and each heartbreakingly beautiful. But except for a set of footprints on Jupiter's moon Iapetus, there is no trace of the enigmatic race that has left them behind. Then a team of scientists working on a dead world discover an ominous new image of the Monument-Makers. Somehow it all fits with other lost civilizations, and possibly with Earth's own future. And distant past. But Earth itself is on the brink of ecological disaster - there is no time to search for answers. Even to a question that may hold the key to survival for the entire human race...
The Gabble And Other Stories
Neal Asher - 2008
No one does monsters better than Neal Asher, so be prepared to revisit the lives and lifestyles of such favourites as the gabbleduck and the hooder, to savour alien poisons, the walking dead, the Sea of Death, and the putrefactor symbiont. Through these stories, welcome to a universe of unbridled imagination, each one of them a delight in itself.Contents: Softly Spoke the Gabbleduck [Polity Universe] (2005) / novelette by Neal Asher Putrefactors [Polity Universe] (1999) / novelette by Neal Asher Garp and Geronamid [Polity Universe] (2005) / novelette by Neal Asher (variant of Garp & Geronamid) The Sea of Death [Polity Universe] (2001) / short story by Neal Asher Alien Archaeology [Polity Universe] (2007) / novella by Neal Asher Acephalous Dreams [Polity Universe] (2005) / novelette by Neal Asher Snow in the Desert [Polity Universe] (2002) / novelette by Neal Asher Choudapt [Polity Universe] (2000) / novelette by Neal Asher Adaptogenic [Polity Universe] (1994) / short story by Neal Asher The Gabble [Polity Universe] (2006) / novelette by Neal Asher.
Whipping Star
Frank Herbert - 1969
It all depended on the survival of the last of the entities known as Calebians.But the Caleban was dying - subjected to systematic torture by the richest, most wicked woman in the Galaxy. Unless she could be stopped, the end was only a few days away, or hours - or even minutes!
The Mandel Files, Volume 1: Mindstar Rising & A Quantum Murder
Peter F. Hamilton - 2011
Hamilton’s acclaimed novels—Mindstar Rising and A Quantum Murder—set in a near-future so real it seems ripped from tomorrow’s headlines In Mindstar Rising, Greg Mandel, gifted—or cursed—with biotechnology that makes him a living lie detector, is hired to investigate corporate espionage by Event Horizon, a powerful company about to introduce a technology that will solve the energy problems of a world decimated by global warming.Set two years later, A Quantum Murder once again teams Mandel with Event Horizon and its beautiful young owner, Julia Evans, in a locked-room mystery that combines the ingenuity of an Agatha Christie novel with cutting-edge speculative brilliance.Read together, these novels take on fresh depth and complexity, underscoring the magnitude of Peter F. Hamilton’s creative talent.
Singularity Sky
Charles Stross - 2003
It pushed Earth through the greatest technological evolution ever known, while warning that time travel is forbidden, and transgressors will be eliminated.Distant descendants of this ultra high-tech Earth live in parochial simplicity on the far-flung worlds of the New Republic. Their way of life is threatened by the arrival of an alien information plague known as the Festival. As forbidden technologies are literally dropped from the sky, suppressed political factions descend into revolutionary turmoil.A battle fleet is sent from Earth to destroy the Festival, but Spaceship engineer Martin Springfield and U.N. diplomat Rachel Mansour have been assigned rather different tasks. Their orders are to diffuse the crisis or to sabotage the New Republic's war-fleet, whatever the cost, before the Eschaton takes hostile action on a galactic scale.
The Forge of God
Greg Bear - 1987
Not hiding, not turned black, but gone. On September 28th, Edward Shaw, a geologist working in Death valley, finds a mysterious new cinder cone in very well-mapped area As more unexplained phenomena spring up around the globeL: a granite mountain appearing in Australia, sounds emanating from the Earth's core, flashes of light among the asteroids, it becomes clear to some that the end is approaching, and there is nothing that can be done. In The Forge of God, award-winning author Greg Bear describes the final days of the world on both a massive, scientific scale and in the everyday, emotional context of individual human lives. Facing the destruction of all they know, some people turn to God, others to their families, and a few turn to saviors promising escape from a planet tearing itself apart. Will they make it in time? And who gets left behind to experience the last moments of beauty and chaos on Earth?
Distress
Greg Egan - 1995
He's on his way to the artifical island of Stateless, where the world's top physicists are gathering to decide on a new TOE, or Theory of Everything, to replace Einstein's outmoded legacy. Chief among the scientists is the brilliant African Nobel laureate, Violet Mosala, the focus of Worth's story, who is the subject of mysterious death threats. Worth begins his own investigation, but it takes on even more urgency when he finds that Distress, the mental plague now affecting millions, is linked somehow to the approaching Aleph Moment when the TOE is finalized.The countdown has begun for a disaster that will reach all the way back to the Big Bang. And beyond...
The Gap Into Conflict: The Real Story
Stephen R. Donaldson - 1990
Donaldson returns with this exciting and long-awaited new series that takes us into a stunningly imagined future to tell a timeless story of adventure and the implacable conflict of good and evil within each of us.Angus Thermopyle was an ore pirate and a murderer; even the most disreputable asteroid pilots of Delta Sector stayed locked out of his way. Those who didn't ended up in the lockup--or dead. But when Thermopyle arrived at Mallory's Bar & Sleep with a gorgeous woman by his side the regulars had to take notice. Her name was Morn Hyland, and she had been a police officer--until she met up with Thermopyle.But one person in Mallory's Bar wasn't intimidated. Nick Succorso had his own reputation as a bold pirate and he had a sleek frigate fitted for deep space. Everyone knew that Thermopyle and Succorso were on a collision course. What nobody expected was how quickly it would be over--or how devastating victory would be. It was common enough example of rivalry and revenge--or so everyone thought. The REAL story was something entirely different.In The Real Story, Stephen R. Donaldson takes us to a remarkably detailed world of faster-than-light travel, politics, betrayal, and a shadowy presence just outside our view to tell the fiercest, most profound story he has ever written.
H.G. Wells Collection, Over 50 Works: The War of the Worlds, The Invisible Man, Time Machine, Island of Dr. Moreau, Little Wars, World Set Free, Tales of Space and Time, When the Sleeper Wakes & MORE!
H.G. Wells - 2013
Wells Collection, which has been designed and formatted specifically for your Amazon Kindle. Unlike other e-book editions, the text and chapters are perfectly set up to match the layout and feel of a physical copy, rather than being haphazardly thrown together for a quick release. This edition also comes with a linked Table of Contents for both the list of included books and their respective chapters. Navigation couldn't be easier.Purchase this H.G. Wells Collection and treat yourself to the following list of works created by this classic author: Novels:The Time Machine (1895)The Wonderful Visit (1895)The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896)The Wheels of Chance (1896)The Invisible Man (1897)The War of the Worlds (1898)Love and Mr. Lewisham (1900)The First Men in the Moon (1901)The Sea Lady (1902)The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth (1904)Kipps (1905)A Modern Utopia (1905)In the Days of the Comet (1906)The War in the Air (1908)Tono-Bungay (1909)Ann Veronica (1909)The History of Mr. Polly (1910)The Sleeper Awakes (1910)The New Machiavelli (1911)Marriage (1912)The Passionate Friends (1913)The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman (1914)The World Set Free (1914)The Research Magnificent (1915)Mr. Britling Sees It Through (1916)The Soul of a Bishop (1917)The Secret Places of the Heart (1922)Non-fiction:Certain Personal Matters (1897)Anticipations of the Reactions of Mechanical andScientific Progress upon Human Life and Thought (1901)Mankind in the Making (1903)New Worlds for Old (1908)First and Last Things (1908)Floor Games (1911)Little Wars (1913)An Englishman Looks at the World (1914)What is Coming? (1916)God the Invisible King (1917)War and the Future (aka Italy, France and Britain atWar) (1917)In the Fourth Year (1918)The Salvaging of Civilization (1921)A Short History of the World (1922)Short Stories:Select Conversations with an Uncle (Now Extinct) andTwo Other Reminscences (1895)The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents (1895)Tales of Space and Time (1899)Twelve Stories and a Dream (1903)Other Short Stories