As a corrupt Commonwealth rules the galaxy through the might of its armies, its most influential general--a renegade Guardian of the deposed Starfire royal line--pursues the rumor of a hidden heir to the throne and searches for a woman he loves and is destined to destroy.From the Trade Paperback edition.

    The aliens put their ship into orbit around the moon, peacably ignoring frantic human excitement, and asked to see someone who knew the stars. Earth sent Bradley Reynolds, 52, officially retired, a man who knew the stars as well as any man could. But the aliens wanted more than Reynolds could give. They wanted to know whether the sun loves us.For Bradley Reynolds, it was the beginning of a life-long quest for alien intelligence, for beings who could speak to him with that wonderful Otherness. On Mars, on Jupiter, on Titan he would find hints of what he sought, and what he would find in the end was a tranformation so glorious as to be far beyond his capacity to dream.

    But Worlorn isn’t the world Dirk imagined, and Gwen Delvano is no longer the woman he once knew. She is bound to another man, and to a dying planet that is trapped in twilight. Gwen needs Dirk’s protection, and he will do anything to keep her safe, even if it means challenging the barbaric man who has claimed her. But an impenetrable veil of secrecy surrounds them all, and it’s becoming impossible for Dirk to distinguish between his allies and his enemies. In this dangerous triangle, one is hurtling toward escape, another toward revenge, and the last toward a brutal, untimely demise.

    After all, the planet he’s orbiting is frozen and sunless, and the cities are dead. But when Toby wakes again, he’s surprised to discover a thriving planet, a strange and prosperous galaxy, and something stranger still—that he’s been asleep for 14,000 years.Welcome to the Lockstep Empire, where civilization is kept alive by careful hibernation. Here cold sleeps can last decades and waking moments mere weeks. Its citizens survive for millennia, traveling asleep on long voyages between worlds. Not only is Lockstep the new center of the galaxy, but Toby is shocked to learn that the Empire is still ruled by its founding family: his own.Toby’s brother Peter has become a terrible tyrant. Suspicious of the return of his long-lost brother, whose rightful inheritance also controls the lockstep hibernation cycles, Peter sees Toby as a threat to his regime. Now, with the help of a lockstep girl named Corva, Toby must survive the forces of this new Empire, outwit his siblings, and save human civilization.Karl Schroeder's Lockstep is a grand innovation in hard SF space opera.

    Overnight, the age of dinosaurs ended. The age of mammals had begun.But what if history had happened differently? What if the reptiles had survived to evolve intelligent life?In West of Eden, bestselling author Harry Harrison has created a rich, dramatic saga of a world where the descendents of the dinosaurs struggled with a clan of humans in a battle for survival.Here is the story of Kerrick, a young hunter who grows to manhood among the dinosaurs, escaping at last to rejoin his own kind. His knowledge of their strange customs makes him the humans' leader...and the dinosaurs' greatest enemy.Rivalling Frank Herbert's Dune in the majesty of its scope and conception, West of Eden is a monumental epic of love and savagery, bravery and hope.

    Millions die as planes fall from the sky, people tumble down staircases, and cars plow into each other.But that’s the least of the survivors’ challenges. During the blackout, everyone experienced a glimpse of what his or her future holds—and the interlocking mosaic of these visions threatens to unravel the present.

    Enemy Rix are machine-augmented humans who worship AI compound minds. Separated by light years, bound by an unlikely love, Zai and pacifist senator Nara Oxham face the Rix and hold the fate of the empire.

    But hours after his arrival he witnesses a murder and is forced into hiding.It is also the first visit for celebrity travel reporter Ta Shu. He has contacts and influence, but he too will find that the moon can be a perilous place for any traveler.Finally, there is Chan Qi. She is the daughter of the Minister of Finance, and without doubt a person of interest to those in power. She is on the moon for reasons of her own, but when she attempts to return to China, in secret, the events that unfold will change everything - on the moon, and on Earth.

    His force is Panoply, and his beat is the multi-faceted utopian society of the Glitter Band, that vast swirl of space habitats orbiting the planet Yellowstone. These days, his job is his life.A murderous attack against a Glitter Band habitat is nasty, but it looks to be an open-and-shut case - until Dreyfus starts looking under some stones that some very powerful people would really rather stayed unturned. What he uncovers is far more serious than mere gruesome murder...

    A stunning collection of the kind of fiction that has only one source--the unparalleled Ray Bradbury.

    A starship captain has gone a little crazy and killed two of his crewmen in cold blood. Just plead insanity, make sure they give his client a nice, comfortable, padded cell, and go skiing at Aspen.But the captain refuses to cop an insanity plea. He insists that the two crew members he killed were not humans, but aliens. That's his story, and he's sticking by it. So Becker reluctantly goes through the motions of trying to prove his case----and suddenly his witnesses start getting transferred or disappearing, and when he finally finds one he realizes there are holes in his story... and suddenly Becker is running for his life, hunted by every branch of the military. He can't figure it out: he's a loyal officer, he's just doing his job as a military attorney, he's never broken a law, there are no aliens: so why does everybody want him dead?Join Hugo- and Nebula-winning author Mike Resnick as he chronicles Becker's desperate attempt to learn the only thing that can save him: the truth.

    It is the most toxic drug ever to find its way on to the streets of LA. It destroys the links between the brain's two hemispheres, causing, first, disorientation and then complete and irreversible brain damage.The undercover narcotics agent who calls himself Bob Arctor is desperate to discover the ultimate source of supply. But to find any kind of lead he has to pose as a user and, inevitably, without realising what is happening, Arctor is soon as addicted as the junkies he works among...

    Named after the migrant workers of America's Dust Bowl, these novels convey Blish's "history of the future," a brilliant and bleak look at a world where cities roam the Galaxy looking for work and a sustainable way of life.In the first novel, They Shall Have Stars, man has thoroughly explored the Solar System, yet the dream of going even further seems to have died in all but one man. His battle to realize his dream results in two momentous discoveries anti-gravity and the secret of immortality. In A Life for the Stars, it is centuries later and anti-gravity generations have enabled whole cities to lift off the surface of the earth to become galactic wanderers. In Earthman, Come Home, the nomadic cities revert to barbarism and marauding rogue cities begin to pose a threat to all civilized worlds. In the final novel, The Triumph of Time, history repeats itself as the cities once again journey back in to space making a terrifying discovery which could destroy the entire Universe. A serious and haunting vision of our world and its limits, Cities in Flight marks the return to print of one of science fiction's most inimitable writers.A Selection of the Science Fiction Book Club

    Being an officer in Barrayar's military wasn't easy. And being the leader of a force of spaceborne mercenaries while maintaining a secret identity wasn't easy—in fact it should have been impossible, to say nothing of being a capital offense on Barrayar. Not that impossibility or great danger would slow down young Miles Vorkosigan much.The Warrior's Apprentice 1Discharged from the Barrarayan academy after flunking the physical, a discouraged Miles (17) takes possession of a jumpship and becomes the leader of a mercenary force that expands to a fleet of treasonous proportions.The Mountains of Mourning 373Miles (20) is sent to a small mountain village to investigate the murder of an infant, killed because she had a physical defect. Miles must deal with deep-seated prejudice against “mutants” and uncover the real killer in this novella that won both the Hugo Award and Nebula Award.The Vor Game 465 Miles (20s) faces enormous challenges in this Hugo Award-winning novel as he leads a mutiny against his military commander's criminal orders, rejoins his Dendarii mercenaries, and attempts to rescue Emperor Gregor after Barrayar's royal scion has run off straight into trouble.

    Every lunar walker since Apollo 11 has noticed it: a burnt-metal scent that reminds them of war. Caden Dechert, the chief of the U.S. mining operation on the edge of the Sea of Serenity, thinks the smell is just a trick of the mind—a reminder of his harrowing days as a Marine in the war-torn Middle East back on Earth.It’s 2072, and lunar helium-3 mining is powering the fusion reactors that are bringing Earth back from environmental disaster. But competing for the richest prize in the history of the world has destroyed the oldest rule in space: Safety for All. When a bomb kills one of Dechert’s diggers on Mare Serenitatis, the haunted veteran goes on the hunt to expose the culprit before more blood is spilled.But as Dechert races to solve the first murder in the history of the Moon, he gets caught in the crosshairs of two global powers spoiling for a fight. Reluctant to be the match that lights this powder-keg, Dechert knows his life and those of his crew are meaningless to the politicians. Even worse, he knows the killer is still out there, hunting.In his desperate attempts to save his crew and prevent the catastrophe he sees coming, the former Marine uncovers a dangerous conspiracy that, with one spark, can ignite a full lunar war, wipe out his team . . . and perhaps plunge the Earth back into darkness.