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Greg Bear - 1990

In this brilliant, evocative novel, Greg Bear takes the reader into a strangely familiar, near-future world -- and shatters our conceptions of perfection, punishment, and the elusive nature of the human soul.

"One is ultimately awed... it may be the most ambitious novel I've ever read." -- Washington Post Book World

Rainbows End

Vernor Vinge - 2006

Robert Gu is a recovering Alzheimer's patient.

The world that he remembers was much as we know it today. Now, as he regains his faculties through a cure developed during the years of his near-fatal decline, he discovers that the world has changed and so has his place in it. He was a world-renowned poet. Now he is seventy-five years old, though by a medical miracle he looks much younger, and he’s starting over, for the first time unsure of his poetic gifts. Living with his son’s family, he has no choice but to learn how to cope with a new information age in which the virtual and the real are a seamless continuum, layers of reality built on digital views seen by a single person or millions, depending on your choice. But the consensus reality of the digital world is available only if, like his thirteen-year-old granddaughter Miri, you know how to wear your wireless access—through nodes designed into smart clothes—and to see the digital context—through smart contact lenses. With knowledge comes risk. When Robert begins to re-train at Fairmont High, learning with other older people what is second nature to Miri and other teens at school, he unwittingly becomes part of a wide-ranging conspiracy to use technology as a tool for world domination. In a world where every computer chip has Homeland Security built-in, this conspiracy is something that baffles even the most sophisticated security analysts, including Robert’s son and daughter-in law, two top people in the U.S. military. And even Miri, in her attempts to protect her grandfather, may be entangled in the plot. As Robert becomes more deeply involved in conspiracy, he is shocked to learn of a radical change planned for the UCSD Geisel Library; all the books there, and worldwide, would cease to physically exist. He and his fellow re-trainees feel compelled to join protests against the change. With forces around the world converging on San Diego, both the conspiracy and the protest climax in a spectacular moment as unique and satisfying as it is unexpected.

Saturn's Children

Charles Stross - 2008

Sometime in the twenty-third century, humanity went extinct—leaving only androids behind.

Freya Nakamichi 47 is a femmebot, one of the last of her kind still functioning. With no humans left to pay for the pleasures she provides, she agrees to transport a mysterious package from Mercury to Mars. Unfortunately for Freya, she has just made herself a moving target for some very powerful, very determined humanoids who will stop at nothing to possess the contents of the package.

Brain Twister

Mark Phillips - 1959

"Mark Phillips" was the pseudonym of two well-known science fiction writers: Randall Garrett and Laurence M.

Janifer. Their joint pen-name, derived from their middle names (Philip and Mark), was coined soon after their original meeting, at a science-fiction convention. Both men were drunk at the time, which explains a good deal, and only one ever sobered up. A matter for constant contention between the collaborators was which one. They collaborated for some years, and devised an interesting method of work: Mr. Garrett handled the verbs, the adverbs and the interjections, Mr. Janifer the nouns, pronouns, and adjectives. Conjunctions are a matter of joint decision, and in the case of a tie, the entire game was replayed at Fenway Park, Boston, the following year. Regardless of who wrote what, Brain Twister is a highly enjoyable novel about spies and telepathy, as only two great writers could have conceived it!

A Call to Arms

Alan Dean Foster - 1991

For eons, the Amplitur had searched space for intelligent species, each of which was joyously welcomed to take part in the fulfillment of the Amplitur Purpose.

Whether it wanted to or not. When the Amplitur and their allies stumbled upon the races called the Weave, the Purpose seemed poised for a great leap forward. But the Weave's surprising unity also gave it the ability to fight the Amplitur and their cause. And fight it did, for thousands of years.Will Dulac was a New Orleans composer who thought the tiny reef off Belize would be the perfect spot to drop anchor and finish his latest symphony in solitude. What he found instead was a group of alien visitors, a scouting party for the Weave, looking for allies among what they believed to be a uniquely warlike race, Humans.Will tried to convince the aliens that Man was fundamentally peaceful, for he understood that Human involvement would destroy the race. But all too soon, it didn't matter. The Amplitur had discovered Earth...

Mission of Gravity

Hal Clement - 1954

Cover Artist: Ed EmshwillerMission of Gravity is an sf novel by Hal Clement.

The title is a play on words, one meaning "the force which pulls" & the other being "extremely serious or important". It was serialized in Astounding Science Fiction, 4–7/53. Its 1st cloth publication was in '54. It was 1st published in paper in '58. Along with the novel itself, many editions (& most recent editions) of the book also include Whirligig World, an essay on creating the planet Mesklin that was published in the 6/53 Astounding. He published two sequels, a '70 novel called Star Light & a '73 short story called Lecture Demonstration. Mission of Gravity was nominated for a Retro Hugo Award for '54.For a profit & adventure Barlennan would sail thousands of miles across uncharted waters, into regions where gravity played strange tricks. He'd dare the perils of strange tribes & stranger creatures--even dicker with those aliens from beyond the skies, though the concept of another world was unknown to the inhabitants of the planet of Mesklin. But in spite of the incredible technology of the strangers & without regard for their enormous size, Barlennan had the notion of turning the deal to an unsuspected advantage for himself--a considerable enterprise for a being very much resembling a 15" caterpillar!

Man Plus

Frederik Pohl - 1976

Ill luck made Roger Torraway the subject of the Man Plus Programme, but it was deliberate biological engineering which turned him into a monster -- a machine perfectly adapted to survive on Mars.

For according to computer predictions, Mars is humankind's only alternative to extinction. But beneath his monstrous exterior, Torraway still carries a man's capacity for suffering.

Dinosaur Planet

Anne McCaffrey - 1978

THE MISSIONThe Exploratory and Evaluation Corps of the Federated Sentient Planets had sent ARCT-10, with its mixed crew of shipbred and planet-bound technicians, to Ireta to catalogue fauna and flora and search for new energy sources.

It was a simple mission. A standard crew.THE PROBLEMKai and his beautiful co-leader Varian, the best xenob-vet in the business, followed all the standard procedures -- but the results of their investigations were totally unexpected. Not only were the planet's creatures larger than anyone had anticipated and the geological finds smaller, but the rescue ship had inexplicably disappeared.THE NIGHTMAREThen suddenly on a world of giant swamp creatures and deadly predators, a curious change had come over many of the members of the ARCT-10 crew... a change that would lead all of them, in one way or another, into the primitive darkness of a future world.

The Neutronium Alchemist 1: Consolidation

Peter F. Hamilton - 1997

Humanity is in incredible peril.

The minds of those long dead are taking over the bodies of the living, in increasingly alarming numbers. Joshua Calvert is desperately trying to recover a "doomsday weapon", an instrument that might blast the dead back into oblivion--but in the wrong hands, it could mean the end of the human race.

Who?

Algis Budrys - 1958

Martino was a very important scientist, working on something called the K-88.

But the K-88 exploded in his face, and he was dragged across the Soviet border. There he stayed for months. When they finally gave him back, the Soviets had given him a metal arm...and an expressionless metal skull. So how could Allied Security be sure he actually was Martino ?

The Algebraist

Iain M. Banks - 2004

It is 4034.

Humanity has made it to the stars. Fassin Taak, a Slow Seer at the Court of the Nasqueron Dwellers, will be fortunate if he makes it to the end of the year. The Nasqueron Dwellers inhabit a gas giant on the outskirts of the galaxy, in a system awaiting its wormhole connection to the rest of civilization. In the meantime, they are dismissed as decadents living in a state of highly developed barbarism, hoarding data without order, hunting their own young & fighting pointless formal wars. Seconded to a military-religious order he's barely heard of—part of the baroque hierarchy of the Mercatoria, the latest galactic hegemony— Taak has to travel again amongst the Dwellers. He is in search of a secret hidden for half a billion years. But with each day that passes a war draws closer—a war threatening to overwhelm everything & everyone he's ever known.

The Winged Man