Book picks similar to
A Sweet, Sweet Summer by Jane Gaskell


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The Quatermass Experiment


Nigel Kneale - 1959
    Professor Quatermass and his team from the British Experimental Rocket Group wait anxiously for the crew to emerge. But only man is left aboard - a man too shocked to tell what happened to his colleagues. It is thebeginning of a reign of terror which will hold London in its merciless grip - and threaten the entire world!

Ash: A Secret History


Mary Gentle - 2000
    War is her job. She has fought her way to the command of a mercenary company, and on her unlikely shoulders lies the destiny of a Europe threatened by the depredations of an Infidel army more terrible than any nightmare.

Aurora Renegades: The Complete Collection


G.S. Jennsen - 2016
    A new world rises--one of unshackled AIs, indestructible starships, ethereal quantum spaces & potent new weapons--& the race is on to determine who will control its future.When faced with its greatest challenge, will humanity rise to triumph or fall to ruin?*SIDESPACEHumanity is saved. But its troubles are just beginning.To achieve their extraordinary triumph over the Metigen armada, humanity put aside its myriad of conflicts & united against a common foe intent on annihilating civilization. In victory, unparalleled peace & prosperity are theirs for the taking--if they can keep hold of them.When the secrets behind the Metigens' defeat escape the shadows, the people who won the war find their lives in danger. Facing anti-synthetic terrorists who want them dead, power-hungry politicians who want them chained, & a rapidly dwindling number of people they can trust, the Prevos--individuals & AIs sharing a single body--must take their fate into their own hands.51 Portals. 51 Universes.Intent on learning the purpose behind the Metigens' elaborate multiverse network, Alex Solovy, Caleb Marano & Valkyrie embark on a gripping journey through the network's portals, each one leading to a universe not their own. In a mosaic of spaces inhabited by fantastical aliens & worlds both beautiful & deadly, they will be forced to question everything they thought they knew, including the nature of life itself.*DISSONANCEKnow this: you need not be afraid. They own the fear. They fear us because they believe we are powerful, and they are correct to do so.The technology behind Project Noetica is on the loose. Prevos are spreading across the galaxy. Now two opposing but inexorably related forces threaten to plunge the galaxy into chaos. The Order of the True Sentients believes Prevos are monsters who endanger humanity,& it intends to destroy them by any means necessary. Underworld despot Olivia Montegreu, now a radically enhanced Prevo, is its doomsday warnings made flesh.As society splinters from within & the Earth Alliance falls to reactionaries, a formidable new player emerges on the galactic stage, one not afraid to do whatever it takes to protect all sentient life--human, Artificial and Prevo.The Metigen surged forward to engulf her in light. I see you, Alexis Solovy.Killers & saviors. Deceivers & protectors. Destroyers & creators. Could the Metigens truly be all these things? The search for answers leads Alex and Caleb to the most shocking revelation of all--the true face of the enemy.*ABYSMIn the quest to be the masters of their own fate, will humanity rise to become liberators or follow the path of their ancestors into darkness?Alex Solovy & Caleb Marano risked everything to learn the hidden purpose behind the Metigens' multiverse portal network, but nothing prepared them for the answer. Humans are a genetic recreation of the Anaden, the dictators & overlords of the master universe. Aurora is a recreation of their origins created by the Metigens in a desperate gambit to understand their enemy & find a way to defeat them.Aurora's future hangs in the balance as the Earth Alliance goes to war with itself over the right of synthetics and Prevos--human/AI hybrids--to exist. Terrorists sow chaos in a wave of bombings and assassinations. The next evolution of the human species will not be so easily defeated, but they must move quickly to win the day, because the true enemy is closing in faster than anyone realizes.

Black Brillion


Matthew Hughes - 2004
    He comes to the city of Sherit seeking the criminal, Luff Imbry. Luff Imbry has devoted his young life to the enjoyment of wealth. A gourmet, a charmer, and an ever-so-stylish fop, he has come to Sherit to pursue a new fortune. Not, mind you, his own, for Luff is also a mountebank, swindler, and forger of the first water. Yoked together by circumstance, they form an uneasy truce and discover a common goal: capturing the grandest con-man of them all, Horselan Gebbling. Gebbling, who made off with Imbry's previous fortune, is posing as Father Olwyn, Sacredotal Eminence of the Assembly of Tangible Unity, and now claims to cure the invariably fatal ailment known as the lassitude with Black Brillion. But the gemstone is a myth, as our heroes know.Filled with dollops of drollery and an ancient evil, Black Brillion is a science fantasy caper that grows into a metaphysical exploration of the human psyche. Matt Hughes has crossed Jack Vance with Carl Jung to come up with a bold new novel of life on an Earth grown older by millions of years.

Star Frontier


Hamish Spiers - 2013
    with everyone.Corinthe, the minister of security, has been granted emergency powers in response to an external military threat and has initiated a campaign to strengthen the Federation by annexing independent worlds along its borders. The problem though is that there is no such threat. The members of the Frontier resistance movement know it, the commander of the Federation's navy knows it and so do the crew of the Lady Hawk, who have no idea what they're about to be swept up in.Meanwhile, independent worlds along the Frontier are being swallowed up under Corinthe's policy of aggressive expansion and things are about to reach a boiling point...

Nevertheless, She Persisted: Flash Fiction Project


Diana M. PhoCatherynne M. Valente - 2020
    She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted.Three short lines, fired over social media in response to questions of why Senator Elizabeth Warren was silenced on the floor of the United States Senate, for daring to read aloud the words of Coretta Scott King. As this message was transmitted across the globe, it has become a galvanizing cry for people of all genders in recognition of the struggles that women have faced throughout history.Three short lines, which read as if they are the opening passage to an epic and ageless tale.We have assembled this flash fiction collection featuring several of the best writers in SF/F today, including Seanan McGuire, Charlie Jane Anders, Maria Dahvana Headley, Jo Walton, Amal El-Mohtar, Catherynne M. Valente, Brooke Bolander, Alyssa Wong, Kameron Hurley, Nisi Shawl and Carrie Vaughn. Together these authors share unique visions of women inventing, playing, loving, surviving, and – of course – dreaming of themselves beyond their circumstances.At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Rupetta


Nike Sulway - 2013
    Part mechanical, part human, Rupetta’s consciousness is tied to the women who wind her. In the years that follow she is bought and sold, borrowed, forgotten and revered. By the twentieth century, the Rupettan four-fold law rules everyone’s lives, but Rupetta—the immortal being on whose existence and history those laws are based—is the keeper of a secret that will tear apart the world her followers have built in her name. The closeness between women is mirrored in the relationship between Henri and Miri, a woman at the college with whom she fall in love, and also between mothers and daughters and grandmothers and granddaughters - a heritage of affection that loops down over the centuries.This stunning new novel by award-winning Australian writer Nike Sulway invokes the great tradition of European fantasy/horror fiction and moves it forward in a superbly imaginative, highly original fashion.

The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag


Robert A. Heinlein - 1942
    He enlists private detectives Edward and Cynthia Randall to follow him and uncover his identity, entangling them in a web of intrigue and nightmarish encounters… causing all to question their own and each others' sanity. From the bestselling author of STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND, GLORY ROAD and STARSHIP TROOPERS.

Infernal Devices


K.W. Jeter - 1986
    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.

The Vital Abyss


James S.A. Corey - 2015
    A. Corey . . . Somewhere in the vast expanse of space, a group of prisoners lives in permanent captivity.The only company they have is each other and the Belters who guard them. The only stories they know are the triumphs and crimes that brought them there. The only future they see is an empty life in an enormous room.And then the man from Mars came along . . .Set in the hard-scrabble solar system of the Expanse, The Vital Abyss deepens James S. A. Corey's acclaimed series.

The Methuselah Treatment


T.C. Powell - 2015
    Not everyone can. Who decides? Desperate to save his daughter from a mysterious sickness, Daniel applies for the Methuselah Treatment. If she gets it, his daughter won’t just recover, she’ll live forever. But the drug is tightly controlled, and only the special, the talented, and the truly deserving ever receive it. There is nothing special about Daniel’s destitute ten- year-old girl—or is there?

The Island


Peter Watts - 2009
    

Wool Omnibus


Hugh Howey - 2012
    The first Wool story was released as a standalone short in July of 2011. Due to reviewer demand, the rest of the story was released over the next six months. This is the story of mankind clawing for survival, of mankind on the edge. The world outside has grown unkind, the view of it limited, talk of it forbidden. But there are always those who hope, who dream. These are the dangerous people, the residents who infect others with their optimism. Their punishment is simple. They are given the very thing they profess to want: They are allowed outside.Alternate cover for B0071XO8RA

Archetype


M.D. Waters - 2014
    If only she could remember which is which . . .   In the stunning first volume of a two-book series, Emma wakes with her memory wiped clean. Her husband, Declan—a powerful and seductive man—narrates the story of her past, but Emma’s dreams contradict him. They show her war, a camp where girls are trained to be wives, and love for another man. Something inside warns her not to speak of these things, but the line between her dreams and reality is about to shatter forever.

The DNA Cowboys Trilogy: The Quest of the DNA Cowboys/Synaptic Manhunt/The Neural Atrocity


Mick Farren - 2002
    With influences that range from Star Trek to Kung Fu, from the Marquis de Sade to Sam Peckinpah, Farren has created a bizarre universe populated with pre-teen dictators, huge twin-brained domestic lizards, and growing bio-computers tended by martial arts-practising monks. Farren let his imagination run wild and the results are awesome. Expect fanciful weapons, medieval jails, public hangings, Albert Speer architecture, gunfights, stiletto heels and femmes fatales in tight clothing, orgies, orgasms, and undefined monsters called Disruptors that suck up all life and logic. The Quest of the DNA Cowboys: Striding out of the small township of Pleasant Gap - reproduction pistols in their hands, portable generators at their belt - come Billy and Reave, the DNA Cowboys. They hit the long and winding trail through the molecular dissolution of the Nothings, teetering on the edge of non-existence, to Graveyard and beyond...Synaptic Manhunt: Brother Jeb Stuart Ho's mission will take him out into the sick, post-cataclysmic world, to the pleasure city of Litz, with its Sex-O-Mats, its Torture-Parlours, its genetically-bred courtesans, where Billy and Reave, the DNA Cowboys, have found their private hells.The Neural Atrocity: The all-knowing, all-providing computer at Stuff Central has made a critical error that could mean the end of human life. Against all its programming, the cloning plant at Stuff Central has supplied A.A. Catto - sadistic child-woman ruler of Quahal - with enough genetically-engineered soldiers to realise her dream of world conquest. The Brotherhood orders Jeb Stuart Ho to stop her.