Showing results for "A - M" in Hard Science Fiction

Fleet of Worlds takes a closer look at Human-Puppeteer (Citizen) relations and the events leading up to Niven's first Ringworld novel. Kirsten Quinn-Kovacks is among the best and brightest of her people. She gratefully serves the gentle race that rescued her ancestors from a dying starship, gave them a world, and nurtures them still. If only the Citizens knew where Kirsten's people came from.

How can a colony on Mars survive when the greatest danger on the planet is humanity itself. All contact is lost with the first human colony on Mars during a long, intense sandstorm. Satellite imagery of the aftermath shows extensive damage to the facility, and the fifty-four colonists who called it home are presumed dead. Three years later, a new mission sets down on the planet surface to investigate what remains of the derelict site.

How can a colony on Mars survive when the greatest danger on the planet is humanity itself? All contact is lost with the first privately funded colony on Mars during a long and destructive sandstorm. Satellite imagery of the aftermath shows extensive damage to the facility. The 54 colonists who called it home are presumed dead.

Humanity is caught in the slow collapse of coastlines, governments, and trust. In the middle of this unraveling world stands Malcolm Carter, a quiet mathematician who turns to equations the way others turn to prayer. While nations argue and seas rise, he begins work that might rewrite the future one variable at a time. At his side, sometimes watching, sometimes guiding, is his daughter Elena. She grows up in a world of ash-darkened skies and half-finished theories, learning too young that brilliance can be both a gift and a burden.

To be a Docile is to be kept, body and soul, for the uses of the owner of your contract. To be a Docile is to forget, to disappear, to hide inside your body from the horrors of your service. To be a Docile is to sell yourself to pay your parents' debts and buy your children's future. Elisha Wilder’s family has been ruined by debt, handed down to them from previous generations. His mother never recovered from the Dociline she took during her term as a Docile, so when Elisha decides to try and erase the family’s debt himself, he swears he will never take the drug.

The Space Race of the Sixties, at the height of the Cold War, had been nail-biting—until the Soviet Union forfeited. In the thirties—amid a second Cold War—China is not about to lose the race to Mars. Nor is the United States. Nor, quite the wildcard, is a secretive cabal drawn from among the world's multi-billionaires. All of them are scrambling to launch deep-space missions on a schedule that makes the Sixties contest appear lackadaisical. This competition could only continue on the Red Planet.

Lords of Creation, the eagerly anticipated finale in S. M. Stirling's acclaimed Lords of Creation series, promises to be a masterful conclusion to a saga that has captivated audiences worldwide. Following the remarkable adventures in The Sky People and In the Courts of the Crimson Kings, this third installment is set to weave the intricate tales of alternate Venus and Mars into a climactic narrative.

Geoff and his friends live in Phocaea, a distant asteroid colony on the Solar System's frontier. They're your basic high-spirited young adults, enjoying such pastimes as hacking matter compilers to produce dancing skeletons that prance through the low-gee communal areas, using their rocket-bikes to salvage methane ice shrapnel that flies away when the colony brings in a big (and vital) rock of the stuff, and figuring out how to avoid the ubiquitous surveillance motes.

The Exodus Towers features all the high-octane action and richly imagined characters of The Darwin Elevator—but the stakes have never been higher. The sudden appearance of a second space elevator in Brazil only deepens the mystery about the aliens who provided it: the Builders. Scavenger...

The Machine Stops is a visionary science fiction novelette by E. M. Forster, first published in 1909. Set in a distant future where humanity lives underground, fully dependent on a giant mechanical system for survival, the story follows a mother and son as they confront the consequences of technological control, isolation, and the loss of direct human connection.

A geopolitical miscalculation tainted the world’s major oil fields with radioactivity and plunged the Middle East into chaos. Any oil that remains usable is more prized than ever. No one can build solar farms, wind farms, and electric cars quickly enough to cope. The few countries still able to export petroleum and natural gas—Russia chief among them—have a stranglehold on the world economy. Then, from the darkness of space, came Phoebe. Rather than deflect the onrushing asteroid, America coaxed it into Earth’s orbit.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Jason M. Hough’s pulse-pounding debut combines the drama, swagger, and vivid characters of Joss Whedon’s Firefly with the talent of sci-fi author John Scalzi. In the mid-23rd century, Darwin, Australia, stands as the last human city on Earth. The world has...

The Plague Forge delivers an unbeatable combination of knockout action and kick-ass characters as the secrets to the ultimate alien mystery from The Darwin Elevator and The Exodus Towers are about to be unraveled. The hunt is on for the mysterious keys left by the alien Builders. While...

It's the 23rd century, and Nasir Deepra is 248 years old, wealthy, kept young by all-pervasive nanotechnology, a corporate executive, and bored with life. To spice things up, he has become an Agonist, dipping into war zones—many of them in satellites orbiting the Earth—and filming his daredevil antics.

Die Söldnerin Ghost lebt am Limit. Der Anruf ihres Dealers verspricht einen Job, der sie zurück in den New Babylon Megaplex führt, wo Seelen in Chrom gewogen werden und holografische Geishas überhöhten Göttern gleichen. Dazu muss sie nur die Netrunnerin Amy töten. Rein. Kugel in den Kopf. Raus. Absolut easy. Doch die Götter des Cyberspace haben andere Pläne. In einer total vernetzten Welt, mit Neuroprozessoren im Schädel und durch Implantate übers Limit getunten Körpern schicken sie Amy und Ghost auf einen Höllenritt zwischen Realität und virtuellem Pantheon.

Decades after Nathalie Hart's fateful mission to Bethesda, Earth teeters on the brink of collapse. As the planet's resources dwindle, the orbital elites of the ruling Yun Ju play a dangerous game with Earth's population from space. Jason Nevsky, driven by his aunt Nathalie's legacy, fights to save a starving planet. But when he uncovers a sinister political plot, he realizes the Yun Ju will stop at nothing to maintain their power. His mission becomes a desperate gambit that could either save Earth or doom it forever.

As the ship's alarms blare and smoke fills the corridors, Nathalie finds herself thrust into command amidst a crew of strangers, each harbouring their own secrets. A scrawled threat in her cabin, written in a language only she knows, confirms her suspicions. Someone on board will do anything to stop them reaching the colony and revealing Bethesda’s secrets.

Tanis is looking forward to a long journey in stasis before arriving at the newly terraformed world of New Eden. New Life. New Start. Getting a berth on the Intrepid is her ticket out of the Sol System. But nothing proves easy for Major Tanis Richards. Nothing is at it seems. What should be a simple trip is fraught with danger and filled with adventure. An array of forces seek to stop the Intrepid - no matter the cost, or lives lost. From competing corporations, to stellar eco-terrorists, no one wants the Intrepid to arrive at New Eden.

Hyperthought recounts the adventures of a young man who trusts an unscrupulous doctor to enhance his brain function, and of a young woman who tries to save him. The year is 2125, and the Earth has undergone drastic climate change due to global warming. People crowd in sealed underground habitats. Feisty little Jolie Sauvage leads extreme surface adventure tours for rich executives. She introduces Dr. Merida to one of her wealthy tour group clients, Jin Sura, an arrogant but troubled young man with a terrible desire for knowledge. That will prove to be a disastrous mistake.

Joel Byram is an everyday 22nd century guy. He spends his days training artificial-intelligence engines to act more human, jamming out to 1980s new wave - an extremely obscure genre - and trying to salvage his deteriorating marriage. Joel is pretty much an everyday guy with everyday problems - until he's accidentally duplicated while teleporting. Now Joel must outsmart the shadowy organization that controls teleportation, outrun the religious sect out to destroy it, and find a way to get back to the woman he loves.