It is 4034 AD. 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.

Bean's past was a battle just to survive. He first appeared on the streets of Rotterdam, a tiny child with a mind leagues beyond anyone else. He knew he could not survive through strength; he used his tactical genius to gain acceptance into a children's gang and then to help make that gang a template for success for all the others. He civilized them and lived to grow older. Then he was discovered by the recruiters for the Battle School.

Bean was the smallest student at the Battle School but he became Ender Wiggins' right hand. Since then, he has grown to be a power on Earth. He served the Hegemon as strategist and general in the terrible wars that followed Ender's defeat of the alien empire attacking Earth. Now he and his wife Petra yearn for a safe place to build a family—something he has never known—but there is nowhere on Earth that does not harbor his enemies—old enemies from the days in Ender's Jeesh, new enemies from the wars on Earth.

To find security, Bean and Petra must once again follow in Ender's footsteps. They must leave Earth behind, in the control of the Hegemon, and look to the stars.

Callie Hayes is living a life of fear and disillusionment when she volunteers for a psychology experiment that promises to turn her life around. As her orientation proceeds, Callie becomes frightened by the secrecy and evasion she encounters. When she demands to be released from the program, she is suddenly dropped into a terrifying alien world and into a perilous battle between good and evil.

With limited resources and only a few cryptic words to guide her, Callie embarks on a life-changing journey. Will she decipher the plans the Benefactor has established for her escape, or will she succumb to the deception of the Arena?

Lilith Iyapo is in the Andes, mourning the death of her family, when war destroys Earth. Centuries later, she is resurrected by miraculously powerful unearthly beings, the Oankali. Driven by an irresistible need to heal others, the Oankali are rescuing our dying planet by merging genetically with mankind.

But Lilith and all humanity must now share the world with uncanny, unimaginably alien creatures: their own children.

This is their story, a thrilling, epic adventure of man's struggle to survive after Earth's destruction, and a provocative meditation on what it means to be human.

Animorphs is an exciting series for young adult readers about five teens who are given the power to morph into any animal they touch and then to absorb its DNA. This power is granted to them by a dying Andalite alien named Elfangor, who also warns the teens that Earth is being threatened secretly by a group of aliens called Yeerks.

This high-interest series is currently a successful television show and will be sure to intrigue even the most reluctant readers.

In AD 2600, the human race is finally beginning to realize its full potential. Hundreds of colonized planets scattered across the galaxy host a multitude of prosperous and wildly diverse cultures. Genetic engineering has pushed evolution far beyond nature's boundaries, defeating disease and producing extraordinary spaceborn creatures. Huge fleets of sentient trader starships thrive on the wealth created by the industrialization of entire star systems. And throughout inhabited space, the Confederation Navy keeps the peace. A true golden age is within our grasp.

But now something has gone catastrophically wrong. On a primitive colony planet, a renegade criminal's chance encounter with an utterly alien entity unleashes the most primal of all our fears. An extinct race which inhabited the galaxy aeons ago called it "The Reality Dysfunction." It is the nightmare which has prowled beside us since the beginning of history.

Rama Revealed is a science fiction novel that concludes the Rama series, co-authored by Arthur C. Clarke and Gentry Lee. This final installment picks up immediately after the cliffhanger ending of The Garden of Rama.

The story follows Nicole Wakefield as she escapes from imprisonment. The colony, once a hopeful settlement, has turned into a brutal dictatorship, terrorizing both humans and their alien neighbors. Nicole's journey takes her across the Cylindrical Sea to the mysterious island called New York, where she reunites with her husband and family.

However, their reunion is short-lived as they are pursued and forced to flee into the subterranean corridors inhabited by the enigmatic octospiders. As they delve deeper, they face the challenge of determining whether these creatures are allies or adversaries.

This epic adventure is filled with massive scope and extraordinary revelations, offering a stunning conclusion to the generations-long odyssey of the Rama starship.

The war for survival of the planet Lusitania will be fought in the heart of a child named Gloriously Bright. On Lusitania, Ender found a world where humans and pequininos and the Hive Queen could all live together; where three very different intelligent species could find common ground at last. Or so he thought.

Lusitania also harbors the descolada, a virus that kills all humans it infects, but which the pequininos require in order to become adults. The Starways Congress so fears the effects of the descolada, should it escape from Lusitania, that they have ordered the destruction of the entire planet, and all who live there. The Fleet is on its way, and a second xenocide seems inevitable.

A Fire Upon the Deep is the big, breakout book that fulfills the promise of Vinge's career to date: a gripping tale of galactic war told on a cosmic scale. Thousands of years hence, many races inhabit a universe where a mind's potential is determined by its location in space, from superintelligent entities in the Transcend, to the limited minds of the Unthinking Depths, where only simple creatures and technology can function. Nobody knows what strange force partitioned space into these "regions of thought," but when the warring Straumli realm use an ancient Transcendent artifact as a weapon, they unwittingly unleash an awesome power that destroys thousands of worlds and enslaves all natural and artificial intelligence.

Fleeing the threat, a family of scientists, including two children, are taken captive by the Tines, an alien race with a harsh medieval culture, and used as pawns in a ruthless power struggle. A rescue mission, not entirely composed of humans, must rescue the children-and a secret that may save the rest of interstellar civilization.

Now available in mass market, the revised, definitive edition of the Hugo and Nebula Award-winning classic. In this second book in the saga set 3,000 years after the terrible war, Ender Wiggin is reviled by history as the Xenocide--the destroyer of the alien Buggers. Now, Ender tells the true story of the war and seeks to stop history from repeating itself.

...In the aftermath of his terrible war, Ender Wiggin disappeared, and a powerful voice arose: The Speaker for the Dead, who told the true story of the Bugger War.Now, long years later, a second alien race has been discovered, but again the aliens' ways are strange and frightening...again, humans die. And it is only the Speaker for the Dead, who is also Ender Wiggin the Xenocide, who has the courage to confront the mystery...and the truth.

Speaker for the Dead, the second novel in Orson Scott Card's Ender Quintet, is the winner of the 1986 Nebula Award for Best Novel and the 1987 Hugo Award for Best Novel.

The Rowan is the first installment in a wonderful trilogy told in the timeless style of Anne McCaffrey. This book represents sci-fi at its best: a contemporary love story intertwined with an engrossing view of our world in the future.

The kinetically gifted, trained in mind/machine gestalt, are the most valued citizens of the Nine Star League. Using mental powers alone, these few Prime Talents transport ships, cargo, and people between Earth's Moon, Mars' Demos, and Jupiter's Callisto.

An orphaned young girl, known simply as The Rowan, is discovered to have superior telepathic potential and is trained to become Prime Talent on Callisto. After years of self-sacrificing dedication to her position, The Rowan intercepts an urgent mental call from Jeff Raven, a young Prime Talent on distant Deneb.

She convinces the other Primes to merge their powers with hers to help fight off an attack by invading aliens. Her growing relationship with Jeff gives her the courage to break her status-imposed isolation and choose the more rewarding world of love and family.

The long awaited sequel to Gene Wolfe’s four-volume classic, The Book of the New Sun. We return to the world of Severian, now the Autarch of Urth, as he leaves the planet on one of the huge spaceships of the alien Hierodules to travel across time and space to face his greatest test: to become the legendary New Sun or die.

The strange, rich, original spaceship scenes give way to travels in time, wherein Severian revisits times and places which fill in parts of the background of the four-volume work. This will thrill and intrigue particularly all readers of the earlier books.

But The Urth of the New Sun is an independent structure all of a piece, an integral masterpiece to shelve beside the classics, one itself.

Magic and murder engulf the realm of Kelewan. Fierce warlords ignite a bitter blood feud to enslave the empire of Tsuranuanni. Meanwhile, in the opulent Imperial courts, assassins and spy-masters plot cunning and devious intrigues against the rightful heir.

Now, Mara, a young, untested Ruling lady, is called upon to lead her people in a heroic struggle for survival. But first, she must rally an army of rebel warriors, form a pact with the alien cho-ja, and marry the son of a hated enemy. Only then can Mara face her most dangerous foe of all—in his own impregnable stronghold.

An epic tale of adventure and intrigue, Daughter of the Empire is fantasy of the highest order by two of the most talented writers in the field today.

Until the arrival of Aiken Drum, the 100,000 humans who had fled backward in time to Pliocene exile on Earth knew little but slavery to the Tanu, the humanoid aliens who came from another galaxy. But King Aiken's rule is precarious, for the Tanu's twisted brethren are secretly maneuvering to bring about his downfall.

Worse, Aiken is about to confront a man of incredibly powerful talents who nearly overthrew a galactic rule. He is Marc Remillard. Call him...The Adversary.

David Brin's Uplift novels are among the most thrilling and extraordinary science fiction ever written. Sundiver, Startide Rising, and The Uplift War together make up one of the most beloved sagas of all time.

Brin's tales are set in a future universe in which no species can reach sentience without being "uplifted" by a patron race. But the greatest mystery of all remains unsolved: who uplifted humankind?

As galactic armadas clash in quest of the ancient fleet of the Progenitors, a brutal alien race seizes the dying planet of Garth. The various uplifted inhabitants of Garth must battle their overlords or face ultimate extinction. At stake is the existence of Terran society and Earth, and the fate of the entire Five Galaxies.

Sweeping, brilliantly crafted, inventive and dramatic, The Uplift War is an unforgettable story of adventure and wonder from one of today's science fiction greats.

The Number of the Beast is a thrilling tale where two male and two female supremely sensual, unspeakably cerebral humans find themselves under attack from aliens. These extraterrestrials crave their awesome quantum breakthrough. In response, our protagonists take to the skies and zoom into the cosmos on a rocket roller coaster ride filled with adventure and danger, ecstasy and peril.

This novel is a homage to science fiction, celebrating the genre with references to other works and characters. It’s a parody and a lesson to anyone willing to listen, presented in a way only Robert A. Heinlein could.

Felix is an Earth soldier, encased in special body armor designed to withstand Earth's most implacable enemy—a bioengineered, insectoid alien horde. But Felix is also equipped with internal mechanisms that enable him, and his fellow soldiers, to survive battle situations that would destroy a man's mind.

This is a remarkable novel of the horror, the courage, and the aftermath of combat—and how the strength of the human spirit can be the greatest armor of all.

David Brin's Uplift novels are among the most thrilling and extraordinary science fiction ever written. Sundiver, Startide Rising, and The Uplift War together make up one of the most beloved sagas of all time. Brin's tales are set in a future universe in which no species can reach sentience without being "uplifted" by a patron race. But the greatest mystery of all remains unsolved: who uplifted humankind?

The Terran exploration vessel Streaker has crashed in the uncharted water world of Kithrup, bearing one of the most important discoveries in galactic history. Below, a handful of her human and dolphin crew battles armed rebellion and a hostile planet to safeguard her secret—the fate of the Progenitors, the fabled First Race who seeded wisdom throughout the stars.

The story centers on individual human and dolphin characters, highlighting themes of courage, determination, friendship, love, and betrayal, both for the humans and the dolphins.

On Earth, six million B.C., two species of alien ruled: the graceful humanoid Tanu and their twisted brethren, the Firvulag. Then, men from the twenty-second century Earth arrived through a one-way time tunnel — and soon, the aliens were locked in a battle to the death, for the humans had upset the precarious balance of power that existed between them.

But when the tides of combat had receded, no one group held firm control, though Aiken Drum, man of no woman born, had declared himself the Nonborn King. As Aiken faces opposition from skeptical Tanu factions and the revitalized Firvulag, another menace emerges: a group of fearsome rogues from the year 2083, led by Marc Remillard, seeking to seize control of the time-portal.

The Nonborn King features the same blend of adventure, rich pageantry, humor, and fantastic elements that characterized The Many-Colored Land and The Golden Torc.

By A.D. 2110, nearly 100,000 humans had fled the civilized strictures of the Galactic Milieu for the freedom they thought existed at the end of the one-way time tunnel to Earth, six million B.C.

But all of them had fallen into the hands of the Tanu, a humanoid race who'd fled their own galaxy to avoid punishment for their barbarous ways. And now, the humans had made the Tanu stronger than the Firvulag, their degenerate brethren and ritual antagonists. Soon the Tanu would reign supreme. Or so they thought...

In this second installment of the Saga of the Pliocene Exile, a small group journeys through a time-gate into Europe's prehistoric past. Yet this supposedly unspoilt sanctuary holds two alien races locked in combat. In a world where the human-like Tanu have the upper hand, Elizabeth Orme soon encounters trouble. When they find she possesses rare mind powers, they want her for their own. She won’t be used as a pawn in a Tanu versus Firvulag war, but Aiken Drum can’t wait to get involved.

Aiken discovers the Tanu’s mind-enhancing torcs have given him his own powerful abilities. And it’s not long before he devises a plan to challenge the Tanu’s leader – for rule of the Many-Coloured Land itself. But another faction seeks the slaughter of all humans, and he stands in their path.

Red Schuhart is a stalker, one of those young rebels who are compelled, in spite of extreme danger, to venture illegally into the Zone to collect the mysterious artifacts that the alien visitors left scattered around. His life is dominated by the place and the thriving black market in the alien products. But when he and his friend Kirill go into the Zone together to pick up a &“full empty,&” something goes wrong. And the news he gets from his girlfriend upon his return makes it inevitable that he'll keep going back to the Zone, again and again, until he finds the answer to all his problems. First published in 1972, Roadside Picnic is still widely regarded as one of the greatest science fiction novels, despite the fact that it has been out of print in the United States for almost thirty years. This authoritative new translation corrects many errors and omissions and has been supplemented with a foreword by Ursula K. Le Guin and a new afterword by Boris Strugatsky explaining the strange history of the novel's publication in Russia.

Babel-17 delves into the power of language in a universe where humanity is embroiled in a cosmic war with the Invaders. These adversaries have been covertly assassinating officials and sabotaging spaceships. The only clues are strange alien messages intercepted in space. Poet and linguist Rydra Wong is determined to decipher this cryptic language and halt the alien threat.

As Rydra embarks on this mission, she discovers that the language, Babel-17, is more than just a code; it's a weapon that can alter perception and thought, turning those who understand it into unwilling traitors.

Childhood's End is a seminal work by Arthur C. Clarke, an author celebrated for his contributions to the science fiction genre. This prescient novel explores the concept of first contact gone awry and has been regarded not only as a classic of science fiction but as a literary thriller of the highest order.

When vast spaceships suddenly appear over every city on Earth, they bring with them the Overlords, an alien race that is intellectually, technologically, and militarily superior to humans. Their initial demands are seemingly benevolent: unify Earth, eliminate poverty, and end war. As humankind enters a golden age, the Overlords' true agenda remains shrouded in mystery, prompting questions about the true cost of peace.

As the Overlords exert their influence, humanity ceases to strive for creative greatness, and a sense of malaise descends. For those who resist, it becomes clear that the Overlords have their own plans for the human race. As civilization stands at a crossroads, the Overlords' role in human evolution questions whether their arrival marks the end of humankind, or a new beginning.

Phssthpok the Pak had been traveling for most of his thirty-two thousand years. His mission: save, develop, and protect the group of Pak breeders sent out into space some two and a half million years before.

Brennan was a Belter, the product of a fiercely independent, somewhat anarchic society living in, on, and around an outer asteroid belt. The Belters were rebels, one and all, and Brennan was a smuggler. The Belt worlds had been tracking the Pak ship for days—Brennan figured to meet that ship first.

He was never seen again—at least not by those alive at the time.

At first, only a few things are known about the celestial object that astronomers dub Rama. It is huge, weighing more than ten trillion tons. And it is hurtling through the solar system at an inconceivable speed. Then a space probe confirms the unthinkable: Rama is no natural object. It is, incredibly, an interstellar spacecraft. Space explorers and planet-bound scientists alike prepare for mankind's first encounter with alien intelligence. It will kindle their wildest dreams... and fan their darkest fears. For no one knows who the Ramans are or why they have come. And now the moment of rendezvous awaits — just behind a Raman airlock door.

In the twenty-second century, Earth obtains limitless, free energy from a source science little understands: an exchange between Earth and a parallel universe, using a process devised by the aliens. But even free energy has a price. The transference process itself will eventually lead to the destruction of the Earth's Sun—and of Earth itself.

Only a few know the terrifying truth—an outcast Earth scientist, a rebellious alien inhabitant of a dying planet, a lunar-born human intuitionist who senses the imminent annihilation of the Sun. They know the truth—but who will listen? They have foreseen the cost of abundant energy—but who will believe? These few beings, human and alien, hold the key to the Earth's survival.

The artefact is a circular ribbon of matter six hundred million miles long and ninety million miles in radius. Pierson's puppeteers, the aliens who discovered it, are understandably wary of encountering the builders of such an immense structure and have assembled a team of two humans, a mad puppeteer and a kzin, a huge cat-like alien, to explore it. But a crash landing on the vast edifice forces the crew on a desperate and dangerous trek across the Ringworld.

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin is a groundbreaking work of science fiction that explores the story of a lone human emissary to Winter, an alien world whose inhabitants spend most of their time without a gender. His goal is to facilitate Winter's inclusion in a growing intergalactic civilization. However, to achieve this, he must bridge the gulf between his own views and those of the completely dissimilar culture he encounters.

Embracing aspects of psychology, society, and human emotion on an alien world, The Left Hand of Darkness is celebrated as a landmark achievement in the annals of intellectual science fiction. The novel delves into complex themes involving gender and sexuality, challenging readers' perceptions of human nature and societal constructs. It is not only an adventure story but also a profound thought experiment that invites contemplation about the fluidity of gender and the potential for understanding amidst cultural differences.

He was a fully grown man, alone in dense forest, with no trail to show where he had come from and no memory to tell who — or what — he was. His eyes were not the eyes of a human.

The forest people took him in and raised him almost as a child, teaching him to speak, training him in forest lore, giving him all the knowledge they had. But they could not solve the riddle of his past, and at last he had to set out on a perilous quest to Es Toch, the City of the Shining, the Liars of Earth, the Enemy of Mankind. There he would find his true self ... and a universe of danger.

Hard to Be a God follows Anton, an undercover operative from future Earth, on a mission to an alien planet inhabited by human beings whose society remains in the Middle Ages.

The novel's core idea explores how human progress often involves cruelty and bloodshed, with religion and blind faith serving as tools of oppression against emerging scientific disciplines and enlightenment.

Don Rumata, masquerading as an arrogant nobleman, dueler, and brawler, is sent to the medieval kingdom of Arkanar to observe and save what he can. He faces the challenge of his orders, which restrict him from killing, despite his desire to save the kingdom from Don Reba, the first minister to the king.

With his doubt, compassion, and deep love for a local girl named Kira, Rumata's role becomes complex as he navigates the kingdom's political machinations.

This translation by Olena Bormashenko reintroduces one of the most profound Soviet-era novels to an eager audience.

The U-10 is a survival kit you might not survive using. Activated by unreadable cards, it could create a can of soup — or an explosive grenade that looks like a can of soup. The U-10 is a guessing game of life or death.

A top-secret paramilitary agency wants the U-10 and its gadgets, the guy who has the U-10 wants to keep it, and the alien who lost the U-10 wants it back. A death squad is dispatched to retrieve the U-10 and will stop at nothing, including the destruction of Earth, to accomplish their mission.

Using the U-10 to heal battle wounds produces unexpected results. What good is a U-10 survival kit that has just three options? (A) Saves you. (B) Kills you. (C) Turns you into an alien?