How to Buy a Planet


D.A. Holdsworth - 2020
    What could possibly go wrong?Shortlisted for The Selfies Fiction Award 2021Finalist in the Page Turner Awards 2021It’s the Year 2024. Drowning in debt following the pandemic and facing ruin, the world's leaders have taken the only logical decision.They’ve sold the planet.When Toby, a penniless student, and his two new flatmates find out one morning on TV, they're surprised to find the Earth’s new owners are staggeringly cute and bring the promise of a debt-free future. They're just getting ready to celebrate along with the rest of the world, when a chance encounter with a mysterious professor reveals the truth. And there’s a glitch: the Earth is about to be destroyed.Fresh, fun and fast-paced, How to Buy a Planet is the unforgettable tale of three students on an impossible quest to beat the system. If you're a fan of Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett, or sci-fi hero, Doctor Who, this is the must-read sci-fi novel of 2021.WHAT THE CRITICS ARE SAYING ABOUT HOW TO BUY A PLANET:"Builds a palpable sense of cinematic tension… will captivate readers with its ingenuity and timeliness.” BookLife Prize Critic’s report, June 2021"What a timely read... Totally mesmerising." Oxford Daily Information review"Echoes of Douglas Adams... Lots of fun." Tim Harford, The Undercover Economist"Entertaining and fast-moving science fiction adventure… Written with a sense of humour, fun, and wonder." Una McCormack, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author

Will Save the Galaxy for Food


Yahtzee Croshaw - 2017
    With the invention of Quantum Teleportation, space heroes aren't needed anymore. When one particularly unlucky ex-adventurer masquerades as famous pilot and hate figure Jacques McKeown, he's sucked into an ever-deepening corporate and political intrigue. Between space pirates, adorable deadly creatures, and a missing fortune in royalties, saving the universe was never this difficult!From the creator of Mogworld and Jam!Benjamin Richard "Yahtzee" Croshaw is a British-Australian comedic writer, video game journalist, author, and video game developer. He is perhaps best known for his acerbic video game review series, Zero Punctuation, for The Escapist.

The Android's Dream


John Scalzi - 2006
    Earth is on the verge of war with a vastly superior alien race. A lone man races against time and a host of enemies to find the one object that can save our planet and our people from alien enslavement...A sheep.That's right, a sheep. And if you think that's the most surprising thing about this book, wait until you read Chapter One. Welcome to The Android's Dream.For Harry Creek, it's quickly becoming a nightmare. All he wants is to do his uncomplicated mid-level diplomatic job with Earth's State Department. But his past training and skills get him tapped to save the planet--and to protect pet store owner Robin Baker, whose own past holds the key to the whereabouts of that lost sheep. Doing both will take him from lava-strewn battlefields to alien halls of power. All in a day's work. Maybe it's time for a raise.Throw in two-timing freelance mercenaries, political lobbyists with megalomaniac tendencies, aliens on a religious quest, and an artificial intelligence with unusual backstory, and you've got more than just your usual science fiction adventure story. You've got The Android's Dream.

Fate of Perfection


K.F. Breene - 2017
    But her daughter inherits more than superior genetics…little Marie has a rare ability that the world has never seen, and her conglomerate, Moxidone, will stop at nothing to have sole possession of the child.Teamed with Ryker, the formidable master of security, Millicent must risk everything in a life-and-death struggle to tear her daughter away from the ruling force who wants to own them all. The odds are stacked against them, but Moxidone will learn that the pursuit of perfection comes at a perilous cost—and that love can’t be bought at any price.

Off to Be the Wizard


Scott Meyer - 2013
    With every use of this ability, though, Martin finds his little “tweaks” have not escaped notice. Rather than face prosecution, he decides instead to travel back in time to the Middle Ages and pose as a wizard.What could possibly go wrong?An American hacker in King Arthur’s court, Martin must now train to become a full-fledged master of his powers, discover the truth behind the ancient wizard Merlin… and not, y’know, die or anything.

Take Us To Your Trump


Andrew Stanek - 2018
    Okay yes, all that stuff too, but I'm not talking about that right now. The government has also been lying to us about space aliens. Aliens have landed on the National Mall and are asking to speak with the President of the United States. For the sake of the planet, diplomat Michael Wallenson is tasked with keeping them away from Donald Trump at all costs. Will Michael succeed? Or will these heavily armed, easily offended aliens succeed in reaching our leader? Building the border dome, coal-powered missiles, and the true identities of the men in black - all in Take Us To Your Trump, another hilarious satirical comedy from author Andrew Stanek.

The Girl Who Could Move Sh*t with Her Mind


Jackson Ford - 2019
    Sure, she's got telekinetic powers—a skill that the government is all too happy to make use of, sending her on secret break-in missions that no ordinary human could carry out. But all she really wants to do is kick back, have a beer, and pretend she's normal for once.But then a body turns up at the site of her last job—murdered in a way that only someone like Teagan could have pulled off. She's got 24 hours to clear her name—and it's not just her life at stake. If she can't unravel the conspiracy in time, her hometown of Los Angeles will be in the crosshairs of an underground battle that's on the brink of exploding... Full of imagination, wit and random sh*t flying through the air, this insane adventure from an irreverent new voice will blow your tiny mind.

The Spaceship Next Door


Gene Doucette - 2015
    It never opened its doors, and for all that time, the townspeople have wondered why the ship landed there, and what—or who—could be inside. Then one day a government operative—posing as a journalist—arrives in town, asking questions. He discovers sixteen-year-old Annie Collins, one of the ship’s closest neighbors and a local fixture known throughout the town, who has some of the answers. As a matter of fact, Annie Collins might be the most important person on the planet. She just doesn’t know it.

Time Burrito


Aaron Frale - 2017
     Pete’s food truck at the University of New Mexico isn’t going well. Seniors dare freshman to eat his burritos. Frats use them for pledges and pranks. Rumors fly around campus that they are chupacabra ground up with rat. Pete needs a change, and it comes in the form of a physics experiment gone awry. After being sucked into the past, he stumbles across an ingredient that goes great in one of his creations. First, there was Marty McFly. Then there was Bill and Ted. And now Pete—

The Time Travel Trailer


Karen Musser Nortman - 2014
    A 1937 vintage camper trailer half hidden in weeds catches Lynne McBriar's eye when she is visiting an elderly friend Ben. Ben eagerly sells it to her and she just as eagerly embarks on a restoration. But after each remodel, sleeping in the trailer lands Lynne and her daughter Dinah in a previous decade-exciting, yet frightening. Glimpses of their home town and ancestors fifty or sixty years earlier is exciting and also offers some clues to the mystery of Ben's lost love. But when Dinah makes a trip on her own, separating herself from her mother by decades, Lynne has never known such fear. It is a trip that may upset the future if Lynne and her estranged husband can't team up to bring their daughter back.

We Are Legion (We Are Bob)


Dennis E. Taylor - 2016
    Bob Johansson has just sold his software company and is looking forward to a life of leisure. There are places to go, books to read, and movies to watch. So it's a little unfair when he gets himself killed crossing the street. Bob wakes up a century later to find that corpsicles have been declared to be without rights, and he is now the property of the state. He has been uploaded into computer hardware and is slated to be the controlling AI in an interstellar probe looking for habitable planets. The stakes are high: no less than the first claim to entire worlds. If he declines the honor, he'll be switched off, and they'll try again with someone else. If he accepts, he becomes a prime target. There are at least three other countries trying to get their own probes launched first, and they play dirty. The safest place for Bob is in space, heading away from Earth at top speed. Or so he thinks. Because the universe is full of nasties, and trespassers make them mad - very mad.

The Dirk Gently Omnibus


Douglas Adams - 1987
    There is a long and honourable tradition of great detectives and Dirk Gently does not belong to it. Sherlock Holmes observed that once you have eliminated the impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. Dirk Gently, however, does not like to eliminate the impossible.In Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency a simple search for a missing cat reveals two ghosts, a dodo, an Electric Monk, the devastating secret that lies behind the whole of human history and threatens to bring it to a premature close, and, finally, the utterly terrifying reason why Richard MacDuff has had a sofa stuck on his stairs for three weeks.As The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul opens a passenger check-in desk at Terminal Two, Heathrow Airport, shoots up through the roof engulfed in a ball of orange flame. The usual people try to claim responsibility. However, no rational cause can be found for the explosion - it was simply designated an act of God. But, thinks Dirk Gently, which God? And why? What God would be hanging around Terminal Two of Heathrow Airport trying to catch the 15.37 to Oslo?What do a dead cat, a computer whizz-kid, an electric monk, quantum mechanics, a chronologit over 200 years old, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and pizza have in common? Apparently not much, until Dirk Gently begins his investigation.

Year Zero


Rob Reid - 2012
    But Frampton and Carly are highly advanced (if bumbling) extraterrestrials. And boy, do they have news. The entire cosmos, they tell him, has been hopelessly hooked on humanity’s music ever since “Year Zero” (1977 to us), when American pop songs first reached alien ears. This addiction has driven a vast intergalactic society to commit the biggest copyright violation since the Big Bang. The resulting fines and penalties have bankrupted the whole universe. We humans suddenly own everything—and the aliens are not amused. Nick now has forty-eight hours to save humanity, while hopefully wowing the hot girl who lives down the hall from him.

Attack of the Mammary Clans


David Blake - 2018
    after a cleaner unplugged his cryogenic freezing machine by accident, Detective Inspector Capstan wakes up to find that he's been in a state of suspended animation for over four hundred years. As he's forced to adjust to life in the future he finds himself reinstated as a policeman, and together with the great great great great grandson of his former subordinate, Sergeant Dewbush, he's put on the case of a missing cow.

Date Night on Union Station


E.M. Foner - 2014
    After swallowing her pride and purchasing a subscription to the dating service that’s rumored to be powered by the same benevolent artificial intelligence that runs the huge station, Kelly decides to give love a shot. But as her dates go from bad to worse, she can only hope that the supposedly omniscient AI is planning a happy ending.