Children of the Lens by
E. E. Smith . With the ultimate weapon, it was beginning to look as if no one couldprevent the destruction of the Universe. [via]
Most science fiction seeks to excite and gratify the reader's sense of wonder. Jack McDevitt's hard SF novel Chindi both satisfies and examines this sense of wonder, which inspires not only SF readers and writers, but every explorer and scientist who seeks to understand the universe.
In Chindi, humanity has expanded to the stars and found very few other intelligent races--all but one extinct, with the survivor none too impressive. Humanity has resigned itself to being alone. Then an alien satellite is found, orbitting a distant star and beaming an unreadable signal across the galaxy. Academy starship Captain Priscilla "Hutch" Hutchins finds herself piloting a motley crew of eccentrics (one an ex-lover) from the idealistic, ridiculed Contact Society, seeking the signal's destination. Their quest turns deadly as it takes them far beyond the borders of explored space to an impossible planetary system--and a vast and terrifying alien artifact.
Chindi is an ambitious, exciting, big-idea hard-SF novel that ventures successfully into Rendezvous with Rama territory, and beyond. The sequel to The Engines of God and Deepsix, Chindi leaves some unanswered questions for McDevitt's forthcoming fourth novel. --Cynthia Ward[via]
With his sharp, fast-paced, challenging novel Dark Light (sequel to the Prometheus Award-nominated Cosmonaut Keep in the Engines of Light series), Ken MacLeod reaffirms why he is science fiction's hottest new writer at the turn of the millennium.
From the days of the dinosaurs, mysterious aliens have been transporting earthly life forms across the galaxy to the worlds of the Second Sphere. Here, the descendants of humans abducted from the Stone Age and from colonial America coexist with dinosaurs--and with the saurs, their intelligent descendants, who are technologically superior to the humans. This arrangement is disturbed by the arrival of nearly immortal (but far from indestructible) humans from 21st-century Earth--men like Matt Cairns, who have no desire to let the secret of interstellar flight remain in the hands of the inscrutable, almost godlike aliens.
In addition to the Engines of Light series, MacLeod has written the Fall Revolution quartet: The Cassini Division (a Nebula Award and Arthur C. Clarke Award finalist); The Star Fraction (a Prometheus Award winner); The Stone Canal (also a Prometheus Award winner); and The Sky Road (a Hugo Award finalist and recipient of the British SF Association Award). --Cynthia Ward[via]
It's the American Revolution all over again. But this time it's a ragtag band of space colonists vs. the United States. And the fate of the world hangs by a thread--200 miles above the earth.
Humanity tried to conquer the stars and failed. Then it was time to try again, on Destiny. But even as the new colony was taking hold, the settlers were in revolt against one another. While some stayed on the new planet with what equipment they could keep, others fled back to the stars. Now the settlements are falling into decay, and the old technology is breaking down. Spiraltown is better off than most, and Jeremy Bloocher is lucky that he will someday head the family farm there. But there is trouble, Jeremy must flee, and neither he nor Destiny will ever be the same. [via]
Here are strange, beautiful stories covering the full spectrum of the late Roger Zelazny's remarkable talents. In Doors of His Face, The Lamp of His Mouth, Zelazny's rare ability to mix the dream-like, disturbing imagery of fantasy with the real-life hardware of science fiction is on full display. His vivid imagination and fine prose made him one of the most highly acclaimed writers in his field. [via]
More editions of The Doors of His Face, The Lamps of His Mouth:
An award-winning novel set in the post-apocalyptic future follows a young woman who travels the earth healing the sick with the help of her alien companion, the dreamsnake, pursued by two implacable followers. Reissue. PW. [via]
This is the indispensable reference book on science fiction that now contains over 4,300 entries--a staggering 1,500 more than the original--and, at 1.2 million works, it is nearly half a million words longer than the first edition. For every reader who loves, uses and wishes to know more about science fiction. [via]
More editions of The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction:
What begins as a stroll on an overcast day turns into an apocalyptic experience for a group of visitors to a laboratory. When a telescope's particle-light beam slices across their paths, each one of them enters a dreamlike odyssey that exposes their innermost hopes, dreams, and terrifying fears. As emergency workers desperately scramble to rescue the victims from the charred wreckage, their souls begin an incredible journey through one fantastic nightmare world after another. One of the victims, Jack Hamilton, realizes something the others do not: that in each strange new world they are trapped by forces utterly beyond those that govern the real world, forces that may never set them free. [via]
In this landmark of imaginative fiction, winner of a special Hugo Award as Best All Time Science Fiction Series, Asimov has brilliantly conceived a whole new world for mankind, set far in the future and spanning a period of more than a thousand years.
The beginning of the epic, Foundation, describes how one man creates a new force for civilised life as the old Galactic Empire crumbles into barbarism.Foundation and Empire is the story of the mighty conflict for mastery of the stars between these two major powers.In Second Foundation a new and even more terrifying threat to the future of humanity arises in the form of a dangerous mutant, capable of manipulating men's minds and destroying the universe. . .
The Stars, Like Dust
A masterpiece of suspense and drama: Biron Farrill sets out on a dangerous quest through the galaxies to find "Rebellion World" and its key to man's future peace.
The Naked Sun
Earth's very existence is at stake when a murder takes place on power-hungry Solaria.One of the greatest detective stories in the science fiction canon.
I, Robot
The classic vision of a future where robots are so sophisticated that mankind is threatened with redundancy.
Stories include: Robbie, Runaround, Reason, Catch That Rabbit, Liar!, Little Lost Robot, Escape!, Evidence, and The Evitable Conflict.[via]
A group of slaves, brought to an uninhabited planet by their catenni masters, who have taken over earth, must learn to survive in their new surroundings, but some struggle with calling their new planet home and consider a rebellion in order to return to their true home [via]
China Miéville's novel Iron Council is the tumultuous story of the "Perpetual Train." Born from monopolists' greed and dispatched to tame the western lands beyond New Crobuzon, the train is itself the beginnings of an Iron Council formed in the fire of frontier revolt against the railroad's masters. From the wilderness, the legend of Iron Council becomes the spark uniting the oppressed and brings barricades to the streets of faraway New Crobuzon. The sprawling tale is told through the past-and-present eyes of three characters. The first is Cutter, a heartsick subversive who follows his lover, the messianic Judah Low, on a quest to return to the Iron Council hidden in the western wilds. The second is Judah himself, an erstwhile railroad scout who has become the iconic golem-wielding hero of Iron Council's uprising at the end of the tracks. And the third is Ori, a young revolutionary on the streets of New Crobuzon, whose anger leads him into a militant wing of the underground, plotting anarchy and mayhem.
Miéville (The Scar, Perdido Street Station) weaves his epic out of familiar and heavily political themes--imperialism, fascism, conquest, and Marxism--all seen through a darkly cast funhouse mirror wherein even language is distorted and made beautifully grotesque. Improbably evoking Jack London and Victor Hugo, Iron Council is a twisted frontier fable cleverly combined with a powerful parable of Marxist revolution that continues Miéville's macabre remaking of the fantasy genre. --Jeremy Pugh[via]
Humanity has spread to every star within 500 light-years of its half-forgotten origin, coloring the sky with a haze of habitats. Societies rise and fall. Incautious experiments burn fast and fade. On the fringes, less modified humans get on with the job of settling a universe that has, so far, been empty of intelligent life.
The ancient starship But the Sky, My Lady! The Sky! is entering orbit around a promising new system after a four hundred year journey. For its long-lived inhabitants, the centuries have been busy. Now a younger generation is eager to settle the system. The ship is a seed-pod ready to burst.
Then they detect curious electromagnetic emissions from the system's Earth-like world. As the nature of the signals becomes clear, the choices facing the humans become stark.
On Ground, second world from the sun, a young astronomer searches for his system's outermost planet. A moving point of light thrills, then disappoints him. It's only a comet. His physicist colleague Orro takes time off from trying to invent a flying-machine to calculate the comet's trajectory. Something is very odd about that comet's path.
They are not the only ones for whom the world has changed.
"We are not living in the universe we thought we lived in yesterday. We have to start learning the world all over again."
The Martians is a collection of stories, alternate histories, poems, and even the complete text of a planetary constitution based on Kim Stanley Robinson's award-winning Mars trilogy (composed of Red Mars, Green Mars, and Blue Mars). For those unfamiliar with the series, The Martians from the title are the humans who have colonized and terraformed the Red Planet over the course of several generations. While Robinson told their story at considerable length in his novels, The Martians fleshes out some of his more interesting characters and also adds depth to their world.
When it's at its best, this collection presents stand-alone stories of life, love, and work on our celestial neighbor, ranging from the tale of an expedition seeking to conquer Olympus Mons in "Green Mars" to a folksy story of friendship and baseball in "Arthur Sternbach Brings the Curveball to Mars." Unfortunately, some of the material here can be tough going for those unfamiliar with Robinson's Mars milieu. For instance, the ending piece, "Purple Mars," is apparently an autobiographical snippet about the day Robinson finished writing the final novel. That's great stuff for someone who has been following the entire Mars saga from beginning to end, but newcomers will probably not know what to make of it.
Still, there is enough material here to interest anyone on the lookout for some good Mars stories. Although Robinson has made his name by writing fat novels that span dozens of generations and characters, in The Martians he proves that he is also adept at shorter pieces. It's a fine if somewhat uneven collection that serves to round out the Mars universe while providing some excellent reading. --Craig E. Engler[via]
Title: Abaujmegye XVI. szazadbeli mu veltseg-tortenelmebo l.
Publisher: British Library, Historical Print Editions
The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom. It is one of the world's largest research libraries holding over 150 million items in all known languages and formats: books, journals, newspapers, sound recordings, patents, maps, stamps, prints and much more. Its collections include around 14 million books, along with substantial additional collections of manuscripts and historical items dating back as far as 300 BC.
The HISTORY OF EUROPE collection includes books from the British Library digitised by Microsoft. This collection includes works chronicling the development of Western civilisation to the modern age. Highlights include the development of language, political and educational systems, philosophy, science, and the arts. The selection documents periods of civil war, migration, shifts in power, Muslim expansion into Central Europe, complex feudal loyalties, the aristocracy of new nations, and European expansion into the New World.
++++ The below data was compiled from various identification fields in the bibliographic record of this title. This data is provided as an additional tool in helping to insure edition identification: ++++
British Library Karoly, Gyula Hugo.; 1875. 8º. 9314.dd.10.
This is the first American hardcover edition of Cordwainer Smith's only SF novel. Originally published as two paperbacks. Includes an introduction by Alen C. Elms. [via]
This is a volume in the NESFA's Choice series. The objective of this series is to publish the classic works of neglected sf authors, and to keep these works in print. [via]
This is the only novel Cordwainer Smith ever wrote during his distinguished career. It tells the story of a boy form the planet Old North Australia (where rich, simple farmers grow the immortality drug Stroon), how he bought Old Earth, and how his visit to Earth changed both him and Earth itself.
"Vividly drawn and wonderfully suggestive...confirms that Cordwainer Smith was one of science fiction's most original writers." -- "Science Fiction: The Best 100 Novels"
"Better than any writer we've yet seen, Smith represents the sense of awe and wonder that is the heart of science fiction." -- Scott Edelman, "Science Fiction Age"
Will Parker has managed escape from the City of Gold and Lead, where he served as a slave to one of the Masters who rule the modern world. And he has not only discovered what lies behind the Tripods' power, but how the Masters heartlessly plan to destroy the Earth. [via]
Within the Constellation of the Serpent, out of bounds to all spacefarers, humans live among the insect-like aliens--and one of them, a woman named Paen, is bent on a revenge that will tear apart the truce between human and alien. "Brisk pacing . . . and genuinely brilliant world-building."--ALA Booklist. Reissue. [via]
Severian is a torturer, born to the guild and with an exceptionally promising career ahead of him . . . until he falls in love with one of his victims, a beautiful young noblewoman. Her excruciations are delayed for some months and, out of love, Severian helps her commit suicide and escape her fate. For a torturer, there is no more unforgivable act. In punishment he is exiled from the guild and his home city to the distant metropolis of Thrax with little more than Terminus Est, a fabled sword, to his name. Along the way he has to learn to survive in a wider world without the guild - a world in which he has already made both allies and enemies. And a strange gem is about to fall into his possession, which will only make his enemies pursue him with ever-more determination . . . [via]
In the series that started with The Star Fraction, Ken MacLeod has created a future history whose genesis was an argument about anarchism between a group of left-wing students in the '70s. The destruction and renaissance of civilization, here and elsewhere in the human galaxy, turns on this argument. In the fourth book, MacLeod productively fills in some of the gaps. This is the story of Myra, Trot-turned-entrepreneur, whose nuclear deterrence-for-hire is central to the event known by some as the Fall and others as the Deliverance. It is also the story of young Clovis, part-time worker in the yard where the first space-ship in centuries is being built, part-time scholar trying to find out what Myra the Deliverer was really like.
MacLeod's readers are used to his quirky and intelligent take on the world of power politics and his charmingly cynical gift for engaging and engaged protagonists. What this book also has is a profound sense of the beauty of a simpler and stiller world; MacLeod's real gift is his capacity to see all sides of a question, even when he is sure of the answer. --Roz Kaveney, Amazon.co.uk[via]
On the sixteen colonized worlds, mankind had changed, evolved into something that was slightly more than human...and slightly less. Men of War on the Dorsai worlds, men of Faith on the Friendly Worlds of Harmony and Association, men of Science, the Exotics of Kultis and Mara, and the Splinter cultures which had produced even stranger new talents.
Those who knew said it was the Dorsai who supplied soldiers to the sixteen worlds. The Friendlies supplied cannon fodder, common soldiers who could be relied on to obey orders at all times.
But even cannon fodder can sometimes produce genius. Jamethon Black is a true soldier, and a true man of faith. Now he must face a deadly enemy--an enemy whose defeat will forever separate Black from the only woman he has ever loved.
A haunting story of power and love--a tale of the man who would destroy everything he loves to preserve humanity's peace, and the boy who might just sing the world away. [via]
As "Book Two of the Serrano Legacy", this is an immediate sequel to Elizabeth Moon's enjoyable SF Hunting Party--best read first, since the plot tangles of Sporting Chance emerge directly from the earlier story. Ex-Navy space-captain Heris Serrano is still commanding her eccentric but sharp old patron Cecelia de Marktos's luxury interstellar yacht, the new mission being to ferry home a misplaced sprig of galactic royalty after the first book's action. Something's wrong with this feckless prince, though, and carrying the bad news of possible poisoning makes the messenger a target for Borgia-like scheming among the royals. Very soon, one heroine is in near-death coma while the other's on the run through deep space--harried by Crown warships, the galactic mafia, a traitor crewperson and a plague of mutant cockroaches. Moon counterpoints space-operatic excitement (including one small but tense battle) with slow, agonising therapy as the woman trapped speechlessly within her own body is slowly brought to the point of fumbling communication. Eventually there are massive repercussions for the galaxy's sickly, scheming royalty, and although Sporting Chance ends satisfactorily-- with the major villain getting a suitable comeuppance--it seems clear that something bigger and smellier is ready to hit the fan in book three, Winning Colours. Moon continues to entertain. [via]
Ijon Tichy, Lem's Candide of the Cosmos, encounters bizarre civilizations and creatures in space that serve to satirize science, the rational mind, theology, and other icons of human pride. Line drawings by the Author. Translated by Michael Kandel. A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book
This marvelous collection by one of science fiction's most thoughtful and graceful writers belongs on the bookshelf of anyone interested in literary science fiction.
Collected here for the first time, Ted Chiang's award-winning stories--recipients of the Nebula, Sturgeon, Campbell, and Asimov awards--offer a feast of science, speculation, humanity, and lyricism. Standouts include "Tower of Babylon," in which a miner ascends the fabled tower in order to break through the vault of heaven; "Division by Zero," a precise and heartbreaking examination of the disintegration of hope and love; and "Story of Your Life," in which a linguist learns an alien language that reshapes her view of the world. Chiang has the gift that lies at the heart of good science fiction: a human story, beautifully told, in which the science is an expression of the deeper issues that the characters must confront. Full of remarkable ideas and unforgettable moments, Stories of Your Life and Others is highly recommended. --Roz Genessee[via]
The 50th Anniversary Edition of one of Arthur C. Clarke's best-loved collections featuring a brand new White Hart story written in collaboration with Stephen Baxter. Although written, as the author informs us in his Introduction to the 1969 edition, in such diverse locations as New York, Miami, Columbo and Sydney there is something inherently English about these stories. London's famed Fleet Street district has changed dramatically in the five decades since the collection's first appearance as a Ballantine paperback original... and, of course, many of the regulars of the White Hart (based on the White Horse pub on Fetter Lane) are no longer with us. But the White Hart's most prominent raconteaur, Harry Purvis can still be found propping up the bar and regaling us all once again with tales of quirky and often downright eccentric scientists and inventors. Here, for example, are a man who could control a giant squid; a man who could silence an entire orchestra at the flick of a switch; and a French genius who invents a machine that can record all human pleasures and transmit them to any client rich enough to afford such luxury. And rounding up the whole affair is 'Time Gentlemen, Please', in which we encounter a gadget able to accelerate the passage of time in a small volume... immensely useful for vaccine research where an entire year's worth of study could be completed in seconds. But the hapless inventor finds himself walled off by immobile air molecules... and even worse. It's a tale which points out, with some nostalgic resonance, that we simply cannot slow the passage of time. A fitting last word for one of SF's most enduring watering holes! [via]
Harry has a problem. Ever since getting in a car accident, he's suffered from "thought seizures," violent fits in which he attacks other people. He used to be an artificial intelligence researcher, which may explain why he targets anyone who either works on machines or who acts like a machine--mechanics, gas-station attendants, prostitutes, exotic dancers. But there's hope: he can become part machine himself, undergoing "Stage 3," an experimental procedure implanting 40 electrodes deep in the pleasure centers of his brain. The surgery is successful, and blissful pulses of electricity short-circuit Harry's seizures. That is, until Harry figures out how to overload himself with the satisfying jolts and escapes on a murderous rampage. One of Crichton's earliest, playing ably on '70s fears of computers and mind control. --Paul Hughes[via]
The Transmigration of Timothy Archer, the final novel in the trilogy that also includes Valis and The Divine Invasion, is an anguished, learned, and very moving investigation of the paradoxes of belief. It is the story of Timothy Archer, an urbane Episcopal bishop haunted by the suicides of his son and mistress--and driven by them into a bizarre quest for the identity of Christ. [via]
More editions of The Transmigration of Timothy Archer:
Lanik Mueller's birthright as heir to planet Treason's most powerful rulership will never be realized. He is a "rad" -- radical regenerative. A freak among people who can regenerate injured flesh... and trade extra body parts to the Offworld oppressors for iron. For, on a planet without hard metals -- or the means of escape -- iron is power in the race to build a spacecraft. Iron is the promise of freedom -- which may never be fulfilled as Lanik uncovers a treacherous conspiracy beyond his imagination. Now charged with a mission of conquest -- and exile -- Lanik devises a bold and dangerous plan... a quest that may finally break the vicious chain of rivalry and bloodshed that enslaves the people of Treason as the Offworld never could.
Tor presents the one-volume sequel to The Book of the New Sun! "Another brilliantly inventive, dense, demanding, at times intellectually stunning effort. Dazzling".--Kirkus. Advertising in Locus and Science Fiction Chronicle. [via]
Living in a decadent world of cheap pleasures and easy death in the 22nd century, Marid Audra has kept his independence and his identity the hard way. Like everything else in Budayeen, he is available, for a price. This is a detective story about an insane future world not far removed from our own. [via]
The award-winning masterpiece by one of todays most honored writers!
The Word for World is Forest
When the inhabitants of a peaceful world are conquered by the bloodthirsty yumens, their existence is irrevocably altered. Forced into servitude, the Athsheans find themselves at the mercy of their brutal masters.
Desperation causes the Athsheans, led by Selver, to retaliate against their captors, abandoning their strictures against violence. But in defending their lives, they have endangered the very foundations of their society. For every blow against the invaders is a blow to the humanity of the Athsheans. And once the killing starts, there is no turning back.
Lo que cualquier lector, entre los miles de seguidores de la obra de Asimov, siempre había anhelado: tener a su alcance la amplísima producción de cuentos que el autor llegó a elaborar. Este primer tomo de la colección completa de cuentos cortos de Isaac Asimov contiene cuarenta y seis títulos, algunos de los cuales ya se han convertido en clásicos del género de la ciencia ficción. Rayando a veces en lo erudito, buscando otras la diversión, pero mostrando siempre una amena accesibilidad, los escritos que componen este volumen demuestran la gran diversidad de temas tratados por Asimov y su gran talento como autor. / The first book of the definitive collection of short stories by the prolific Isaac Asimov, whose tales have delighted countless fans for over half a century--a must for every science fiction bookshelf. [via]
More editions of Cuentos Completos / the Complete Stories:
Beggars and Choosersby Nancy KressISBN 0312857497 (0-312-85749-7)
The City Who Foughtby Anne McCaffreyISBN 067187599X (0-671-87599-X)
The Complete Storiesby Isaac AsimovISBN 0385416067 (0-385-41606-7)
Dark Lightby Ken MacLeodISBN 0765344963 (0-7653-4496-3)
Darwiniaby Robert Charles WilsonISBN 0812566629 (0-8125-6662-9)
Dreamsnakeby Vonda N. McIntyreISBN 0440117291 (0-440-11729-1)
Earth Is Room Enough: Science Fiction Tales of Our Own Planetby Isaac AsimovISBN 0200723782 (0-200-72378-2)
The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction: An Illustrated A to Zby Peter NichollsISBN 0246110201 (0-246-11020-1)
Eye in the Skyby Philip K. DickISBN 1400030102 (1-4000-3010-2)
Eye in the Skyby Raymond MillerISBN 043960740X (0-439-60740-X)
Hunting Partyby Elizabeth MoonISBN 0671721763 (0-671-72176-3)
In the Ocean of Nightby Gregory BenfordISBN 044661159X (0-446-61159-X)
Isaac Asimovby Isaac AsimovISBN 038541627X (0-385-41627-X)
Norstriliaby Cordwaner SmithISBN 0575070188 (0-575-07018-8)
Sassinakby Anne McCaffrey, Elizabeth MoonISBN 067169863X (0-671-69863-X)
Songmasterby Orson Scott CardISBN 0312876629 (0-312-87662-9)
The Stainless Steel Rat Gets Draftedby Harry HarrisonISBN 0553273078 (0-553-27307-8)
The Terminal Manby Michael CrichtonISBN 0060092572 (0-06-009257-2)
Urth of the New Sunby Gene WolfeISBN 0312863942 (0-312-86394-2)
The Word for World Is Forestby Ursula K. Le GuinISBN 0441909159 (0-441-90915-9)
Cuentos De La Taberna Del Ciervo Blanco/ Tales from the White Heartby Arthur C. Clarke, Flora CasasISBN 8420672939 (84-206-7293-9)
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