Alfred Bester's first science fiction novel since The Stars My Destination was a major event—a fast-moving adventure story set in Earth's future. A band of immortal—as charming a bunch of eccentrics as you'll ever come across—recruit a new member, the brilliant Cherokee physicist Sequoya Guess. Dr. Guess, with group's help, gain control of Extro, the supercomputer that controls all mechanical activity on Earth. They plan to rid Earth of political repression and to further Guess's researches—which may lead to a great leap in human evolution to produce a race of supermen. But Extro takes over Guess instead and turns malevolent. The task of the merry band suddenly becomes a fight in deadly earnest for the future of Earth.
In this “astonishing fantasy debut,” a mother and a mysterious Chinese man—who is more than he appears—search for her missing daughter in San Francisco (Locus). Offering “a deft blend of the oldest of magicks in a dragon, and the newest of sorceries in computers” (Anne McCaffrey), this is the incomparable novel that garnered Nebula, Hugo, World Fantasy, and Philip K. Dick Award nominations, and earned its author the John W. Campbell Best New Writer award. Martha Macnamara knows that her daughter, Elizabeth, is in trouble—she just doesn’t know what kind. Mysterious phone calls from San Francisco at odd hours of the night are the only contact they've had for years. Now, Elizabeth has sent her mother a plane ticket and reserved a room for her at the city’s most luxurious hotel. Yet, since Martha checked in, she still hasn’t been contacted by her daughter, and is feeling lonely, confused, and a little bit worried. But Martha meets someone else at the hotel: Mayland Long, a distinguished-looking and wealthy Chinese man who is drawn to Martha’s good character and ability to pinpoint the truth of a matter. They become close quickly, and he promises to help her find Elizabeth. Before he can solve the mystery, though, Martha herself disappears—and Mayland realizes that he’s in love with her. Now, a man whose true nature and identity is unknown to those around him will embark on a potentially dangerous adventure in a city on the verge of exploding with its own sort of magic as technology spreads through the region that will become known as Silicon Valley. An elegant, delightful, and unusual novel that blends ancient myth with modern wizardry, Tea with the Black Dragon is “a small masterpiece, setting a fantasy story against a contemporary background” (Booklist).
After he firewalked in Polynesia, the world wasn't the same for Alexander Hergensheimer, now called Alec Graham. As natural accidents occurred without cease, Alex knew Armageddon and the Day of Judgement were near. Somehow he had to bring his beloved heathen, Margrethe, to a state of grace, and, while he was at it, save the rest of the world ....
They set a Slamhound on Turner's trail in New Delhi, slotted it to his pheromones and the colour of his hair. When the Maas Biolabs and Hosaka zaibatsus fight it out for world domination, computer cowboys like Turner and Count Zero are just foot soldiers in the great game: useful but ultimately expendable. When Turner wakes up in Mexico - in a new body with a beautiful woman beside him - his corporate masters let him recuperate for a while, then reactivate his memory for a mission even more dangerous than the one that nearly killed him: the head designer from Maas Biolabs says he wants to defect to Hosaka, and it's Turner's job to deliver him safely. Count Zero is a rustbelt data-hustler totally unprepared for what comes his way when the designer's defection triggers war in cyberspace. With voodoo gods in the Net and angels in the software, he can only hope that the megacorps and the super-rich have their virtual hands too full to notice the amateur hacker with the black market kit trying desperately to stay alive . . .
The Hugo Award-winning SF saga is now available in one complete trade paperback edition, containing Cyteen: The Betrayal, The Rebirth and The Vindication. "A psychological novel, a murder mystery and an examination of power on a grand scale, encompassing light years and outsize lifetimes".--Locus.
A stunning tour de force filled with transcendent awe and wonder, Hyperion is a masterwork of science fiction that resonates with excitement and invention, the first volume in a remarkable epic by the multiple-award-winning author of The Hollow Man. On the world called Hyperion, beyond the reach of galactic law, waits a creature called the Shrike. There are those who worship it. There are those who fear it. And there are those who have vowed to destroy it. In the Valley of the Time Tombs, where huge, brooding structures move backward through time, the Shrike waits for them all. On the eve of Armageddon, with the entire galaxy at war, seven pilgrims set forth on a final voyage to Hyperion seeking the answers to the unsolved riddles of their lives. Each carries a desperate hope—and a terrible secret. And one may hold the fate of humanity in his hands. Praise for Dan Simmons and Hyperion “Dan Simmons has brilliantly conceptualized a future 700 years distant. In sheer scope and complexity it matches, and perhaps even surpasses, those of Isaac Asimov and James Blish.”—The Washington Post Book World “An unfailingly inventive narrative . . . generously conceived and stylistically sure-handed.”—The New York Times Book Review “Simmons’s own genius transforms space opera into a new kind of poetry.”—The Denver Post “An essential part of any science fiction collection.”—Booklist
When Sparrowhawk, the Archmage of Earthsea, returns from the dark land stripped of his magic powers, he finds refuge with the aging widow Tenar and a crippled girl child who carries an unknown destiny.
Injured in his mother's womb, Lord Miles Naismith Vorkosigan, born a dwarf with brittle bones, faces off against his brother, a cloned stranger created to murder Miles and replace him. 35,000 first printing.
In a genetically altered future America that is overrun by beautiful and super-intelligent people, the entire planet faces destruction in the face of overpopulation and unemployment. Reprint.
On the brink of completing the terraforming effort on Mars, colonists find their work complicated by a crisis on Earth, new colonization projects on Jupiter and Saturn, and the onset of a Martian ice age
Willkommen in der unmöglichen Stadt! Eine Stadt, eine Welt für sich, ein Moloch: Das ist New Crobuzon, bevölkert von Milliarden Menschen und Mutanten, unterjocht von einem strengen Regime und angefüllt mit den ungezählten Sehnsüchten, Ängsten, Problemen und Kämpfen seiner Bewohner. Als eines Tages ein seltsames Wesen den geheimen Laboren der Stadt entflieht, ahnt niemand, dass dies der Untergang New Crobuzons sein könnte. Auch Isaac Dan dar Grimnebulin ahnt die Gefahr nicht, als er dem Wesen begegnet ...
Modern technology is pitted against ancient dinosaurs in this scientific thriller James Rollins calls “Jurassic Park set amid the paradox of time travel.” Paleontologist Richard Leyster is perfectly content in his position with the Smithsonian excavating dinosaur fossil sites and publishing his findings . . . until the mysterious Harry Griffin appears in his office with a cooler containing the head of a freshly killed Stegosaurus. The enigmatic stranger offers Leyster the opportunity to travel back in time to study living dinosaurs in their original habitats—but with strings attached. Soon, the paleontologist finds himself, along with a select team of colleagues—including his chief rival, the ambitious and often ruthless Dr. Gertrude Salley—making discoveries that would prove impossible working from fossils alone. But when Leyster and his team are stranded in the Cretaceous, they must learn to survive while still keeping alive the joy of scientific discovery. This shocking novel spans hundreds of millions of years and deals with the ultimate fate not only of the dinosaurs but also of all humankind. Nominated for the Locus Award, the Hugo Award, and the Nebula Award for Best Novel, Bones of the Earth cements author Michael Swanwick as an author who “proves that sci-fi has plenty of room for wonder and literary values” (San Francisco Chronicle).
La Californie, au milieu du XXIe siècle. Dans un monde où dominent l'informatique et le cyberespace, un dangereux procédé de contrôle des esprits est élaboré. Le chef des services secrets européens est derrière ce procédé appelé V-D-M-C (Vous-Devez-Me-Croire). Robert Gu, le plus grand poète américain, se trouve mêlé à l'affaire...
Enjoying his assignment with the Xenobiology lab on board the prestigious Intrepid, ensign Andrew Dahl worries about casualties suffered by low-ranking officers during away missions before making a shocking discovery about the starship's actual purpose. By the award-winning author of Old Man's War.
Instant #1 New York Times Bestseller from the author of The Poppy War “Absolutely phenomenal. One of the most brilliant, razor-sharp books I've had the pleasure of reading that isn't just an alternative fantastical history, but an interrogative one; one that grabs colonial history and the Industrial Revolution, turns it over, and shakes it out.” -- Shannon Chakraborty, bestselling author of The City of Brass From award-winning author R. F. Kuang comes Babel, a thematic response to The Secret History and a tonal retort to Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell that grapples with student revolutions, colonial resistance, and the use of language and translation as the dominating tool of the British empire. Traduttore, traditore: An act of translation is always an act of betrayal. 1828. Robin Swift, orphaned by cholera in Canton, is brought to London by the mysterious Professor Lovell. There, he trains for years in Latin, Ancient Greek, and Chinese, all in preparation for the day he’ll enroll in Oxford University’s prestigious Royal Institute of Translation—also known as Babel. Babel is the world's center for translation and, more importantly, magic. Silver working—the art of manifesting the meaning lost in translation using enchanted silver bars—has made the British unparalleled in power, as its knowledge serves the Empire’s quest for colonization. For Robin, Oxford is a utopia dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. But knowledge obeys power, and as a Chinese boy raised in Britain, Robin realizes serving Babel means betraying his motherland. As his studies progress, Robin finds himself caught between Babel and the shadowy Hermes Society, an organization dedicated to stopping imperial expansion. When Britain pursues an unjust war with China over silver and opium, Robin must decide… Can powerful institutions be changed from within, or does revolution always require violence?
Fetter was raised to kill, honed as a knife to cut down his sainted father. This gave him plenty to talk about in therapy. He walked among invisible powers: devils and anti-gods that mock the mortal form. He learned a lethal catechism, lost his shadow, and gained a habit for secrecy. After a blood-soaked childhood, Fetter escaped his rural hometown for the big city, and fell into a broader world where divine destinies are a dime a dozen. Everything in Luriat is more than it seems. Group therapy is recruitment for a revolutionary cadre. Junk email hints at the arrival of a god. Every door is laden with potential, and once closed may never open again. The city is scattered with Bright Doors, looming portals through which a cold wind blows. In this unknowable metropolis, Fetter will discover what kind of man he is, and his discovery will rewrite the world.
Carson Napier, first Earthman to reach Venus, had to keep alert every instant of his stay on that world of mist and mystery. For its lands were unmapped, its inhabitants many, varied, and strange, and he had taken an obligation to restore a native princess to her lost homeland. On terrible oceans where dreaded sea-monsters dwelled, in deep forests where terror haunted every branch, and behind the walls of eerie cities where power-mad chieftains plotted uncanny schemes, "Carson of Venus" is fast-paced science fiction adventure.
The first book in C. S. Lewis's acclaimed Space Trilogy, which continues with Perelandra and That Hideous Strength, Out of the Silent Planet begins the adventures of the remarkable Dr. Ransom. Here, that estimable man is abducted by a megalomaniacal physicist and his accomplice and taken via spaceship to the red planet of Malacandra. The two men are in need of a human sacrifice, and Dr. Ransom would seem to fit the bill. Once on the planet, however, Ransom eludes his captors, risking his life and his chances of returning to Earth, becoming a stranger in a land that is enchanting in its difference from Earth and instructive in its similarity. First published in 1943, Out of the Silent Planet remains a mysterious and suspenseful tour de force.
Kimball Kinnison is a Lensman and an officer of the Galactic Patrol, a kind of interstellar police force with almost unlimited powers. The Lens gives its wearer a variety of mental capabilities, including those needed to enforce the law on alien planets, and to bridge the communication gap between different life-forms. It can provide mind-reading and telepathic abilities. Kinnison is sent on a mission to fight the pirates of Boskone, an evil empire of enormous power and unimagined technological capabilities.
