Displaying books 49-95 of 95 in total

The Strain

The Strain is the first installment in a thrilling trilogy that presents a horrifying battle between man and vampire, threatening all of humanity. A Boeing 777 lands at JFK Airport and comes to an inexplicable stop on the tarmac. With all shades pulled down, lights out, and communication channels silent, the ground crews are baffled. The CDC sends out an alert, and Dr. Eph Goodweather, head of their Canary project which investigates biological threats, is summoned to investigate.

What Dr. Goodweather discovers on the plane sends chills down his spine. Meanwhile, in Spanish Harlem, Abraham Setrakian, a former professor and Holocaust survivor, senses that an ominous war is brewing. As a vampiric virus infects New York and begins to spread, Dr. Goodweather, Setrakian, and a diverse group of fighters unite to stop the contagion and save the city, including Dr. Goodweather's own family, before it's too late.

Authored by Guillermo del Toro, the visionary filmmaker behind the Academy Award-winning Pan's Labyrinth, and Chuck Hogan, a Hammett Award-winning author, The Strain offers a bold, epic, and extraordinary narrative that reinvents the vampire novel with a chilling and unputdownable tale of survival.

Embassytown

In the far future, humans have colonized a distant planet, home to the enigmatic Ariekei, sentient beings famed for a language unique in the universe, one that only a few altered human ambassadors can speak.

Avice Benner Cho, a human colonist, has returned to Embassytown after years of deep-space adventure. She cannot speak the Ariekei tongue, but she is an indelible part of it, having long ago been made a figure of speech, a living simile in their language.

When distant political machinations deliver a new ambassador to Arieka, the fragile equilibrium between humans and aliens is violently upset. Catastrophe looms, and Avice is torn between competing loyalties—to a husband she no longer loves, to a system she no longer trusts, and to her place in a language she cannot speak yet speaks through her.

The Illumination

What if our pain was the most beautiful thing about us? In the aftermath of a fatal car accident, a private journal of love notes written by a husband to his wife passes into the keeping of a hospital patient, and from there through the hands of five other suffering people, touching each of them uniquely.

I love the soft blue veins on your wrist. I love your lopsided smile. I love watching TV and shelling sunflower seeds with you.

The six recipients - a data analyst, a photojournalist, a schoolchild, a missionary, a writer, and a street vendor - inhabit an acutely observed, beautifully familiar yet particularly strange universe, as only Kevin Brockmeier could imagine it: a world in which human pain is expressed as illumination, so that one's wounds glitter, fluoresce, and blaze with light.

As we follow the journey of the book from stranger to stranger, we come to understand how intricately and brilliantly they are connected, in all their human injury and experience.

The Word for World is Forest

The Word for World is Forest by Ursula K. Le Guin is a profound narrative set in a future where Terrans have established a logging colony and military base named 'New Tahiti' on a planet inhabited by the Athsheans—a species with a culture deeply intertwined with lucid dreaming.

Terran exploitation clashes with the Athsheans' way of life, leading to a spiraling overturn of the ancient society. Interstellar travel has become commonplace amongst humans, and the novel introduces the ansible—a device enabling instantaneous communication across light years—and the formation of the League of All Worlds.

The peaceful Athsheans call their world 'Athshe,' meaning 'forest,' a stark contrast to the Terrans' 'dirt.' The Terran colonists' approach to colonization mirrors the destructive patterns of the 19th century, including deforestation, farming, mining, and enslavement. Without a cultural understanding of tyranny, slavery, or war, the Athsheans initially offer no resistance—until a single act of violence ignites a rebellion that forever alters the inhabitants of both worlds.

Death with Interruptions

Nobel Prize-winner José Saramago's brilliant new novel poses the question: what happens when the grim reaper decides there will be no more death? On the first day of the new year, no one dies. This, of course, causes consternation among politicians, religious leaders, morticians, and doctors. Among the general public, on the other hand, there is initially mass celebration. Flags are hung out on balconies; people dance in the streets. They have achieved the great goal of humanity: eternal life. Then reality hits home—families are left to care for the permanently dying; life-insurance policies become meaningless; and funeral parlors are reduced to arranging burials for pet dogs, cats, hamsters, and parrots.

Death sits in her chilly apartment, where she lives alone with scythe and filing cabinets, and contemplates her experiment: What if no one ever died again? What if she, death with a small d, were to become human and fall in love?

Metro 2033

The year is 2033. The world has been reduced to rubble. Humanity is nearly extinct. The half-destroyed cities have become uninhabitable through radiation. Beyond their boundaries, they say, lie endless burned-out deserts and the remains of splintered forests. Survivors still remember the past greatness of humankind. But the last remains of civilisation have already become a distant memory, the stuff of myth and legend.

More than 20 years have passed since the last plane took off from the earth. Rusted railways lead into emptiness. The ether is void and the airwaves echo to a soulless howling where previously the frequencies were full of news from Tokyo, New York, Buenos Aires. Man has handed over stewardship of the earth to new life-forms. Mutated by radiation, they are better adapted to the new world. Man's time is over. A few score thousand survivors live on, not knowing whether they are the only ones left on earth.

They live in the Moscow Metro - the biggest air-raid shelter ever built. It is humanity's last refuge. Stations have become mini-statelets, their people uniting around ideas, religions, water-filters - or the simple need to repulse an enemy incursion. It is a world without a tomorrow, with no room for dreams, plans, hopes. Feelings have given way to instinct - the most important of which is survival. Survival at any price.

VDNKh is the northernmost inhabited station on its line. It was one of the Metro's best stations and still remains secure. But now a new and terrible threat has appeared. Artyom, a young man living in VDNKh, is given the task of penetrating to the heart of the Metro, to the legendary Polis, to alert everyone to the awful danger and to get help. He holds the future of his native station in his hands, the whole Metro - and maybe the whole of humanity.

The City & the City

When a murdered woman is found in the city of Beszel, somewhere at the edge of Europe, it looks to be a routine case for Inspector Tyador BorlĂş of the Extreme Crime Squad. But as he investigates, the evidence points to conspiracies far stranger and more deadly than anything he could have imagined.

Borlú must travel from the decaying Beszel to the only metropolis on Earth as strange as his own. This is a border crossing like no other, a journey as psychic as it is physical, a shift in perception, a seeing of the unseen. His destination is Beszel’s equal, rival, and intimate neighbor, the rich and vibrant city of Ul Qoma. With Ul Qoman detective Qussim Dhatt, and struggling with his own transition, Borlú is enmeshed in a sordid underworld of rabid nationalists intent on destroying their neighboring city, and unificationists who dream of dissolving the two into one. As the detectives uncover the dead woman’s secrets, they begin to suspect a truth that could cost them and those they care about more than their lives. What stands against them are murderous powers in Beszel and in Ul Qoma: and, most terrifying of all, that which lies between these two cities.

Casting shades of Kafka and Philip K. Dick, Raymond Chandler and 1984, The City & the City is a murder mystery taken to dazzling metaphysical and artistic heights.

Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives

2009

by David Eagleman

Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives is a dazzling exploration of unexpected afterlives—each presented as a vignette that offers a stunning lens through which to see ourselves in the here and now.

In one afterlife, you may find that God is the size of a microbe and unaware of your existence. In another version, you work as a background character in other people’s dreams. Or you may find that God is a married couple, or that the universe is running backward, or that you are forced to live out your afterlife with annoying versions of who you could have been.

With a probing imagination and deep understanding of the human condition, acclaimed neuroscientist David Eagleman offers wonderfully imagined tales that shine a brilliant light on the here and now.

Kindred

Dana, a modern Black woman, is celebrating her 26th birthday with her new husband when she is snatched abruptly from her home in California and transported to the antebellum South. Rufus, the white son of a plantation owner, is drowning, and Dana has been summoned to save him.

Dana is drawn back repeatedly through time to the slave quarters, and each time the stay grows longer, more arduous, and more dangerous until it is uncertain whether or not Dana's life will end, long before it has a chance to begin.

Daemon

2009

by Daniel Suarez

Daemon takes you on a thrilling ride into a world where the unthinkable consequences of a computer program running without human control—a daemon—designed to dismantle society and bring about a new world order become a terrifying reality.

Technology controls almost everything in our modern-day world, from remote entry on our cars to access to our homes, from the flight controls of our airplanes to the movements of the entire world economy. Thousands of autonomous computer programs, or daemons, make our networked world possible, running constantly in the background of our lives, trafficking e-mail, transferring money, and monitoring power grids. For the most part, daemons are benign, but the same can't always be said for the people who design them.

Matthew Sobol was a legendary computer game designer—the architect behind half-a-dozen popular online games. His premature death depressed both gamers and his company's stock price. But Sobol's fans aren't the only ones to note his passing. When his obituary is posted online, a previously dormant daemon activates, initiating a chain of events intended to unravel the fabric of our hyper-efficient, interconnected world. With Sobol's secrets buried along with him, and as new layers of his daemon are unleashed at every turn, it's up to an unlikely alliance to decipher his intricate plans and wrest the world from the grasp of a nameless, faceless enemy—or learn to live in a society in which we are no longer in control.

Blending haunting high-tech realism with gripping suspense, Daniel Suarez crafts an authentic, complex thriller in the tradition of Michael Crichton, Neal Stephenson, and William Gibson, making Daemon a must-read for fans of techno-thrillers.

Anathem

2008

by Neal Stephenson

Raz, a mathematician, is among a cohort of secluded scientists and philosophers who are called upon to save the world from impending catastrophe.

Minority Report

2008

by Philip K. Dick

In the world of The Minority Report, Commissioner John Anderton is credited for the absence of crime. He is the creator of the Precrime System, which employs "precogs"—individuals with the ability to see into the future—to pinpoint criminals before they can act. Tragically for Anderton, he is identified by the precogs as the next perpetrator. Despite knowing he has never considered such an act, this premonition suggests the precogs can err. Caught in a dire situation, Anderton's fate seems sealed unless he can uncover the precogs's "minority report"—the singular dissenting opinion that might allow him to unearth the truth and save himself from the very system he designed.

A motion picture adaptation of The Minority Report, directed by Steven Spielberg and featuring Tom Cruise, has been released, signifying the lasting influence of Philip K. Dick's imaginative literature.

Rocannon's World

Rocannon's World, authored by Ursula K. Le Guin, unfolds on a remote world inhabited by three native races: the subterranean Gdemiar, the ethereal Fiia, and the valiant warrior clan, the Liuar. Earth scientist Rocannon has been conducting an ethnological survey on this technologically unsophisticated planet when it is abruptly besieged by a fleet of starships, insurgents against the League of All Worlds.

As the sole survivor of his survey team, Rocannon finds himself stranded among alien cultures. He takes up the mantle of leadership to liberate this newly discovered world from its invaders, becoming a legend in the process, as he wages a resistance that will have tales told of his heroism for ages to come.

Blindsight

2006

by Peter Watts

Two months since sixty-five thousand alien objects clenched around the Earth like a luminous fist, screaming to the heavens as the atmosphere burned them to ash. Two months of silence while a world holds its breath.

Now some half-derelict space probe, sparking fitfully past Neptune's orbit, hears a whisper from the edge of the solar system: a faint signal sweeping the cosmos like a lighthouse beam. Whatever's out there isn't talking to us. It's talking to some distant star, perhaps. Or perhaps to something closer, something en route.

So who do you send to force introductions on an intelligence with motives unknown, maybe unknowable? Who do you send to meet the alien when the alien doesn't want to meet?

You send a linguist with multiple personalities, her brain surgically partitioned into separate, sentient processing cores. You send a biologist so radically interfaced with machinery that he sees X-rays and tastes ultrasound, so compromised by grafts and splices that he no longer feels his own flesh. You send a pacifist warrior in the faint hope she won't be needed, and a fainter hope that she'll do any good if she is needed. You send a monster to command them all, an extinct hominid predator once called "vampire," recalled from the grave with the voodoo of recombinant genetics and the blood of sociopaths. And you send a synthesist—an informational topologist with half his mind gone—as an interface between here and there, a conduit through which the Dead Center might hope to understand the Bleeding Edge.

You send them all to the edge of interstellar space, praying you can trust such freaks and retrofits with the fate of a world. You fear they may be more alien than the thing they've been sent to find.

The Possibility of an Island

A worldwide phenomenon and the most important French novelist since Camus, Michel Houellebecq now delivers his magnum opus–a tale of our present circumstances told from the future, when humanity as we know it has vanished. Surprisingly poignant, philosophically compelling, and occasionally laugh-out-loud funny, The Possibility of an Island is at once an indictment, an elegy, and a celebration of everything we have and are at risk of losing. It is a masterpiece from one of the world’s most innovative writers.

A Canticle for Leibowitz

In a nightmarish ruined world slowly awakening to the light after sleeping in darkness, the infant rediscoveries of science are secretly nourished by cloistered monks dedicated to the study and preservation of the relics and writings of the blessed Saint Isaac Leibowitz. From here the story spans centuries of ignorance, violence, and barbarism, viewing through a sharp, satirical eye the relentless progression of a human race damned by its inherent humanness to recelebrate its grand foibles and repeat its grievous mistakes.

Seriously funny, stunning, and tragic, eternally fresh, imaginative, and altogether remarkable, A Canticle for Leibowitz retains its ability to enthrall and amaze. It is now, as it always has been, a masterpiece.

His Majesty's Dragon

2006

by Naomi Novik

In the first novel of the New York Times bestselling Temeraire series, a rare bond is formed between a young man and a dragon, and together they must battle in the Napoleonic Wars.

Aerial combat brings a thrilling new dimension to the Napoleonic Wars as valiant warriors rise to Britain’s defense by taking to the skies . . . not aboard aircraft but atop the mighty backs of fighting dragons. When HMS Reliant captures a French frigate and seizes its precious cargo, an unhatched dragon egg, fate sweeps Capt. Will Laurence from his seafaring life into an uncertain future–and an unexpected kinship with a most extraordinary creature. Thrust into the rarified world of the Aerial Corps as master of the dragon Temeraire, he will face a crash course in the daring tactics of airborne battle. For as France’s own dragon-borne forces rally to breach British soil in Bonaparte’s boldest gambit, Laurence and Temeraire must soar into their own baptism of fire.

“Just when you think you’ve seen every variation possible on the dragon story, along comes Naomi Novik. . . . Her wonderful Temeraire is a dragon for the ages.”—Terry Brooks.

Brave New World / Brave New World Revisited

2005

by Aldous Huxley

The astonishing novel Brave New World, originally published in 1932, presents Aldous Huxley's vision of the future -- of a world utterly transformed. Through the most efficient scientific and psychological engineering, people are genetically designed to be passive and therefore consistently useful to the ruling class. This powerful work of speculative fiction sheds a blazing critical light on the present and is considered to be Huxley's most enduring masterpiece.

Following Brave New World is the nonfiction work Brave New World Revisited, first published in 1958. It is a fascinating work in which Huxley uses his tremendous knowledge of human relations to compare the modern-day world with the prophetic fantasy envisioned in Brave New World, including threats to humanity, such as overpopulation, propaganda, and chemical persuasion.

Jennifer Government

2004

by Max Barry

In Max Barry's twisted, hilarious, and terrifying vision of the near future, the world is run by giant corporations, and employees take the last names of the companies they work for. It's a globalized, ultra-capitalist free market paradise!

Meet Hack Nike, a lowly merchandising officer who's not very good at negotiating his salary. So when John Nike and John Nike, executives from the promised land of Marketing, offer him a contract, he signs without reading it. Unfortunately, Hack's new contract involves shooting teenagers to build up street cred for Nike's new line of $2,500 trainers.

Hack goes to the police—but they assume that he's asking for a subcontracting deal and lease the assassination to the more experienced NRA. Enter Jennifer Government, a tough-talking agent with a barcode tattoo under her eye and a personal problem with John Nike (the boss of the other John Nike). And a gun. Hack is about to find out what it really means to mess with market forces.

Oryx and Crake

2004

by Margaret Atwood

Oryx and Crake is at once an unforgettable love story and a compelling vision of the future. Snowman, known as Jimmy before mankind was overwhelmed by a plague, is struggling to survive in a world where he may be the last human, and mourning the loss of his best friend, Crake, and the beautiful and elusive Oryx whom they both loved. In search of answers, Snowman embarks on a journey–with the help of the green-eyed Children of Crake–through the lush wilderness that was so recently a great city, until powerful corporations took mankind on an uncontrolled genetic engineering ride.

Margaret Atwood projects us into a near future that is both all too familiar and beyond our imagining.

The Years of Rice and Salt

It is the fourteenth century, and one of the most apocalyptic events in human history is set to occur—the coming of the Black Death. History teaches us that a third of Europe's population was destroyed. But what if? What if the plague killed 99 percent of the population instead? How would the world have changed?

This is a look at the history that could have been—a history that stretches across centuries, sees dynasties and nations rise and crumble, and spans horrible famine and magnificent innovation. These are the years of rice and salt.

Through the eyes of soldiers and kings, explorers and philosophers, slaves and scholars, Robinson navigates a world where Buddhism and Islam are the most influential and practiced religions, while Christianity is merely a historical footnote. Probing the most profound questions, Robinson shines his extraordinary light on the place of religion, culture, power—and even love—in this bold New World.

Jerusalén

2001

by J.J. BenĂ­tez

Jerusalén es una obra fascinante que desvela una documentación secreta clasificada como top secret por el Pentágono. Esta documentación revela nuevos y sorprendentes datos sobre la figura y obra de Jesús de Nazaret.

El autor, J.J. Benítez, nos lleva a un viaje asombroso al corazón de Israel, donde en 1973 las fuerzas aéreas norteamericanas ejecutaron uno de sus proyectos "supersecretos" bautizado como "Operación Caballo de Troya". Este libro es un testimonio del periodista y escritor navarro que deja al lector en un estado de constante intriga y asombro.

Con una narrativa que recuerda a los relatos visionarios de Julio Verne, BenĂ­tez nos invita a cuestionar la realidad y a descubrir si estas revelaciones son verĂ­dicas o simplemente una ficciĂłn magistralmente construida.

Lilith's Brood

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.

A Clockwork Orange

2000

by Anthony Burgess

In Anthony Burgess's influential nightmare vision of the future, criminals take over after dark. Teen gang leader Alex narrates in fantastically inventive slang that echoes the violent intensity of youth rebelling against society. Dazzling and transgressive, A Clockwork Orange is a frightening fable about good and evil and the meaning of human freedom.

This edition includes the controversial last chapter not published in the first edition, and Burgess’s introduction, “A Clockwork Orange Resucked.”

Girlfriend in a Coma

On a snowy Saturday night in 1979, after making love for the first time, high school senior Karen Ann McNeil confides the dark visions she's been suffering to her boyfriend, Richard. Only a few hours later she descends into a coma. Nine months after that, she gives birth to a daughter, Megan, her child by Richard. Karen remains comatose for the next 18 years. Richard and her circle of friends reside in an emotional purgatory throughout the next two decades, passing through careers as models, film special-effects technicians, doctors, and demolition experts before finally being reunited while working on a conspiracy-driven supernatural series. Upon Karen's reawakening, life grows as surreal as the television show. Strange, apocalyptic events begin to occur. Later, amid the world's rubble, Karen, Richard, and their friends attempt to restore their own humanity.

Left Behind

An airborne Boeing 747 is headed to London when, without any warning, passengers mysteriously disappear from their seats. Terror and chaos slowly spread not only through the plane but also worldwide as unusual events continue to unfold. For those who have been left behind, the apocalypse has just begun...

Green Mars

Green Mars continues the epic saga of the colonization of Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson. Nearly a generation has passed since the first pioneers landed, and the transformation of Mars into an Earthlike planet is underway. However, the project faces opposition from those who wish to preserve the planet's hostile, barren beauty.

At the forefront of this conflict are rebels like Peter Clayborne, part of the first generation of children born on Mars. They are joined by original settlers Maya Toitovna, Simon Frasier, and Sax Russell. In the backdrop of this cosmic setting, the human elements of passions, rivalries, and friendships intensify, creating a story as breathtaking as the planet itself.

Shadow & Claw

1994

by Gene Wolfe

Shadow & Claw brings together the first two books of the tetralogy in one volume:

The Shadow of the Torturer is the tale of young Severian, an apprentice in the Guild of Torturers on the world called Urth, exiled for committing the ultimate sin of his profession -- showing mercy toward his victim.

The Claw of the Conciliator continues the saga of Severian, banished from his home, as he undertakes a mythic quest to discover the awesome power of an ancient relic, and learn the truth about his hidden destiny.

Ursula K. Le Guin said, "Magic stuff . . . a masterpiece . . . the best science fiction I've read in years!"

"One of the most ambitious works of speculative fiction in the twentieth century." -- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction

Red Mars

In Red Mars, award-winning author Kim Stanley Robinson presents the first installment of his acclaimed Mars Trilogy. The novel chronicles the ambitious endeavor of terraforming Mars, beginning in 2026 with the arrival of a group of 100 colonists. Among them are leaders such as John Boone, Maya Toitavna, Frank Chalmers, and Arkady Bogdanov, who carry the burden of their mission's success and the dreams of humanity.

The colonists embark on a monumental task to transform the barren, hostile climate of the red planet into a habitable environment. Their plans include orbiting giant satellite mirrors to reflect sunlight, sprinkling black dust on the polar caps to capture warmth, and drilling massive tunnels into the mantle to release hot gases.

Set against a backdrop of massive planetary changes, the narrative delves into the personal lives of the colonists, exploring their rivalries, loves, and friendships. As some become consumed by their passion for Mars, others see the planet as a chance for profit or a laboratory for genetic breakthroughs. However, not everyone is in favor of altering Mars, leading to conflicts that could jeopardize the entire mission.

Red Mars is a brilliant and imaginative epic that combines cutting-edge science with human drama, exploring the complexities of colonization and the ethical dilemmas of altering an entire world.

VALIS

1991

by Philip K. Dick

VALIS is the first book in Philip K. Dick's incomparable final trio of novels (the others being The Divine Invasion and The Transmigration of Timothy Archer). This disorienting and bleakly funny work is about a schizophrenic hero named Horselover Fat; the hidden mysteries of Gnostic Christianity; and reality as revealed through a pink laser. VALIS is a theological detective story, in which God is both a missing person and the perpetrator of the ultimate crime.

The Fall of Hyperion

1991

by Dan Simmons

In the stunning continuation of the epic adventure begun in Hyperion, Simmons returns us to a far future resplendent with drama and invention. On the world of Hyperion, the mysterious Time Tombs are opening. And the secrets they contain mean that nothing--nothing anywhere in the universe--will ever be the same.

Tales of Pirx the Pilot

In Pilot Pirx, Lem has created an irresistibly likable character: an astronaut who gives the impression of still navigating by the seat of his pants—a bumbler but an inspired one. By investing Pirx with a range of human foibles, Lem offers a wonderful vision of the audacity, childlike curiosity, and intuition that can give humans the courage to confront outer space.

Set in the not-too-distant future, when space flight has evolved to the point where humanity is ready to colonize the solar system, Tales of Pirx the Pilot follows one somewhat-hapless explorer as he struggles through his training as a cadet, his career as a pilot, and his tenure as captain of a merchant ship. In these collected stories, Pirx stumbles his way through various exploits: traveling to the moon; battling mechanical malfunctions; encountering robots; and confronting questions of ambition, evolution, exploration, experimentation, and the nature of humanity itself.

And in classic Pirx fashion, he faces down each dilemma with charm, curiosity, courage, and intuition. These early works by revered speculative fiction author Stanisław Lem are filled with both the sharp insight for which he is known and a childlike innocence, making them an entertaining and thought-provoking read for science fiction fans of all ages.

Jurassic Park

Jurassic Park is a science fiction novel that delves into the dangers of genetic engineering. It depicts the disastrous events that unfold in a theme park where dinosaurs, brought back to life through advanced cloning techniques, are put on display.

The novel explores the concept of chaos theory and its real-world implications, serving as a cautionary tale about the unforeseen consequences of tampering with nature. Jurassic Park became a significant cultural phenomenon, especially after its adaptation into a blockbuster film directed by Steven Spielberg, which sparked the widespread 'dinomania' of the 1990s.

Earth

1990

by David Brin

Time is running out. Decades from now, an artificial black hole has fallen into the Earth's core. As scientists frantically work to prevent the ultimate disaster, they discover that the entire planet could be destroyed within a year.

But while they look for an answer, some claim that the only way to save Earth is to let its human inhabitants become extinct: to reset the evolutionary clock and start over.

The Gate to Women's Country

1990

by Sheri S. Tepper

Tepper's finest novel to date is set in a post-holocaust feminist dystopia that offers only two political alternatives: a repressive polygamist sect that is slowly self-destructing through inbreeding and the matriarchal dictatorship called Women's Country.

Here, in a desperate effort to prevent another world war, the women have segregated most men into closed military garrisons and have taken on themselves every other function of government, industry, agriculture, science, and learning. The resulting manifold responsibilities are seen through the life of Stavia, from a dreaming 10-year-old to maturity as doctor, mother, and member of the Marthatown Women's Council.

As in Tepper's Awakeners series books, the rigid social systems are tempered by the voices of individual experience and, here, by an imaginative reworking of The Trojan Woman that runs through the text. A rewarding and challenging novel that is to be valued for its provocative ideas.

Replay

1987

by Ken Grimwood

At forty-three Jeff Winston is tired of his low-paid, unrewarding job, tired of the long silences at the breakfast table with his wife, saddened by the thought of no children to comfort his old age. But he hopes for better things, for happiness, maybe tomorrow ... But a sudden, fatal heart attack puts paid to that. Until Jeff wakes up in his eighteen-year-old body, all his memories of the next twenty-five years intact.

If he applies those memories, he can be rich in this new chance at life and can become one of the most powerful men in America. Until he dies at forty-three and wakes up in his eighteen-year-old body again ... and again in a continuous twenty-five year cycle each time starting from scratch at the age of eighteen to reclaim lost loves, make a fortune - or remedy past mistakes.

A novel of gripping adventure, romance, and fascinating speculation on the nature of time, Replay asks the question: "What if you could live your life over again?"

Woman on the Edge of Time

1985

by Marge Piercy

Hailed as a classic of speculative fiction, Marge Piercy’s landmark novel is a transformative vision of two futures—and what it takes to will one or the other into reality.

Harrowing and prescient, Woman on the Edge of Time speaks to a new generation on whom these choices weigh more heavily than ever before. Connie Ramos is a Mexican American woman living on the streets of New York. Once ambitious and proud, she has lost her child, her husband, her dignity—and now they want to take her sanity.

After being unjustly committed to a mental institution, Connie is contacted by an envoy from the year 2137, who shows her a time of sexual and racial equality, environmental purity, and unprecedented self-actualization. But Connie also bears witness to another potential outcome: a society of grotesque exploitation in which the barrier between person and commodity has finally been eroded. One will become our world. And Connie herself may strike the decisive blow.

Roadside Picnic

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.

Patternmaster

The combined mind-force of a telepathic race, Patternist thoughts can destroy, heal, rule. For the strongest mind commands the entire pattern and all within. Now the son of the Patternmaster craves this ultimate power, He has murdered or enslaved every threat to his ambition--except one. In the wild, mutant-infested hills, a young apprentice must be hunted down and destroyed because he is the tyrant's equal... and the Patternmaster's other son.

The Girl Who Was Plugged In

The Girl Who Was Plugged In by James Tiptree, Jr. (aka Alice Sheldon) is a critically acclaimed work, celebrated for its compelling short fiction. The novella, awarded the Hugo for best novella in 1974, presents a dystopian future dominated by corporate power, where traditional advertising is obsolete and life itself becomes a form of commercial influence through celebrities and product placements.

In this world, Philadelphia ("P.") Burke, a seventeen-year-old girl with profound deformities, is given a second chance at life after a suicide attempt. She is selected to become one of these pivotal celebrities, operating a flawless, brainless body engineered specifically for this role. As she steps into her new persona, a public figure whose sole responsibility is to be seen purchasing products, she becomes entangled in the complexities of fame, identity, and unexpected love.

2001

2001: A Space Odyssey is a classic work of science fiction that remains an influential part of the genre fifty years after its original publication. The story begins with the discovery of a black monolith on the moon, an event that leads humanity to send a manned expedition deep into the solar system in hopes of establishing contact with an alien intelligence. As the crew embarks on their momentous journey, they encounter unforeseen and inexplicable disasters.

Arthur C. Clarke's novel is not only compelling and prophetic but also addresses the perennial question of mankind's place in the universe. With Clarke's extensive knowledge of physics and astronomy, the narrative is both scientifically informed and richly imaginative, offering readers a gripping adventure that extends to the very limits of time and space.

I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream

1967

by Harlan Ellison

First published in 1967 and re-issued in 1983, I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream contains seven stories with copyrights ranging from 1958 through 1967. This edition contains the original introduction by Theodore Sturgeon and the original foreword by Harlan Ellison, along with a brief update comment by Ellison that was added in the 1983 edition.

Among Ellison's more famous stories, two consistently noted as among his very best ever are the title story and the volume's concluding one, Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes.

Since Ellison himself strongly resists categorization of his work, we won't call them science fiction, or SF, or speculative fiction or horror or anything else except compelling reading experiences that are sui generis. They could only have been written by Harlan Ellison and they are incomparably original.

Content:
"I Have No Mouth & I Must Scream"
"Big Sam Was My Friend"
"Eyes of Dust"
"World of the Myth"
"Lonelyache"
"Delusion for Dragonslayer"
"Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes"

Planet of Exile

The Earth colony of Landin has been stranded on Werel for ten years—and ten of Werel's years are over 600 terrestrial years. The lonely and dwindling human settlement is beginning to feel the strain. Every winter—a season that lasts for 15 years—the Earthmen have neighbors: the humanoid hilfs, a nomadic people who only settle down for the cruel cold spell.

The hilfs fear the Earthmen, whom they think of as witches and call the farborns. But hilfs and farborns have common enemies: the hordes of ravaging barbarians called gaals and eerie preying snow ghouls. Will they join forces or be annihilated?

Stranger in a Strange Land

NAME: Valentine Michael Smith
ANCESTRY: Human
ORIGIN: Mars

Valentine Michael Smith is a human being raised on Mars, newly returned to Earth. Among his people for the first time, he struggles to understand the social mores and prejudices of human nature that are so alien to him, while teaching them his own fundamental beliefs in grokking, watersharing, and love.

I, Robot

1950

by Isaac Asimov

I, Robot is a fixup novel of science fiction short stories or essays by American writer Isaac Asimov. The stories, which originally appeared in the American magazines Super Science Stories and Astounding Science Fiction between 1940 and 1950, are woven together by a framing narrative. In this narrative, the fictional Dr. Susan Calvin tells each story to a reporter in the 21st century.

The stories share a theme of the interaction of humans, robots, and morality. Together, they tell a larger story of Asimov's fictional history of robotics. The collection explores profound questions such as: What is human? And is humanity obsolete?

Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics are central to the narrative:

  1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

  2. A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

  3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

These laws lay the foundation for a bold new era of evolution, opening up enormous possibilities—and unforeseen risks. As humans and robots struggle to coexist on Earth and in space, the future of both hangs in the balance. I, Robot not only changes our perception of robots but also challenges the timeless myth of man's dream to play god—with all its rewards and terrors.

The Ghost Moth (The Red Grouse Tales)

The Ghost Moth; a tragic tale of the Spirit versus the Flesh.

Is it possible that a five hundred year old story of a young monk and his lover could impact on a family in the present day? As Joe reads an old folk tale and is drawn into a world of religious fanatics, witches, angels and she-devils, this unlikely possibility gradually becomes increasingly probable.

A story about the desires of the sexes and the doctrines of religion, with and hints at the supernatural and beautiful and atmospheric imagery, this controversial, adult, speculative, spiritual and philosophical tale will intrigue, entertain and keep you guessing in equal measure up until the last page.

Warning to sensitive readers; the story is an adult one and so deals with adult themes. It contains what some might find to be controversial views on both religion and sex, as well as mild sex scenes.

The Red Grouse Tales

The Little Dog and other stories. Comprising four very different adult, speculative, spiritual, and philosophical novellas to intrigue, entertain, and keep you guessing.

The Little Dog – a story of good and evil and retribution. Bill, a retired forester, recounts a week in his early working life when he was paired with an unsavoury workmate. This commences with them finding a little domestic dog sitting beside a forest haul-road way out in a remote part of the forest, but what is a little dog doing in such an unlikely location? As the week goes on it becomes increasingly uncomfortable, the little dog disappears, events take an unexpected turn, and our young troubled and naive Bill starts to learn some awful truths.

The Golden Tup - a dreadful tale of paradise being cruelly taken by latent evil. This tale opens with the shocking news that a nice young couple have killed their newborn baby. How could they have done such a dreadful thing? Our narrator, Verity, recalls how the pair bought an old derelict farmhouse and commenced renovating it; creating their own paradise. However, their felling an old tree changed everything.

The Crow - a poignant tale of misunderstanding, dying, bitterness, and blame. As a child, David is taken to a hospice by his mother where he finds himself listening to an increasingly mad tale told by a dying and embittered old Irish priest. But why do the old priest’s recollections of the school days and subsequent rise of a local councillor become so increasingly bizarre and bitter?

The White Hart - a happy ghost story, if there can be such a thing! What might connect a chance encounter with a little albino deer, an equally unexpected meeting with a beautiful, but somewhat enigmatic young girl in a remote chapel, and a third, just as strange an incident, on a windswept hillside? Pete Montague relates a redemptive, adult, speculative, spiritual, and philosophical happy ghost story - if there can be such a thing!

(Warning to sensitive readers; some tales do contain a tiny bit of bad language and references to sex.)

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