Showing results for "History" in Hard Science Fiction

Conn Maxwell returns from Terra to his poverty-stricken home planet of Poictesme, “The Junkyard Planet”, with news of the possible location of Merlin, a military super-computer rumored to have been abandoned there after the last war. The inhabitants hope to find Merlin, which they think will be their ticket to wealth and prosperity. But is Merlin real or just an old rumor? And if they find it, will it save them - or tear them apart?

A trans-siberian odyssey through political, criminal, scientific, philosophical and amorous intrigues, and into an endless winter to confront something utterly alien. The catalyst for this frosty metamorphosis of 20th century history is the impact of the Tunguska asteroid, deep in Siberia, in 1908. As the land freezes, so does history: the Tsar still rules Russia; the Belle Époque endures; and the First World War never happened. But out there, on the ice, a new world is being forged.

This anthology, with an introduction by Robert Silverberg, offers a sweeping survey of robots as depicted throughout literature. Since the Iliad—in which we are shown golden statues built by Hephaestus “with minds and wisdoms”—humans have been fascinated by the idea of artificial life. From the Argonautica to the medieval Jewish legend of the Golem and Ambrose Bierce’s tale of a chess-playing robot, the idea of what robots are—and who creates them—can be drastically different.

The iconic visionary returns with his first new novel since the New York Times bestseller Spook Country. Whatever you do, because you are an artist, will bring you to the next thing of your own... When she sang for The Curfew, Hollis Henry's face was known worldwide. She still runs into people...

A corporation controls the portal that leads from Earth to the land of Lost Eden. They intend to exploit the incredible richness of that world. But there is a small team on the other side, fighting to survive against incredible odds. Nearly everything they meet tries to kill them. The members of that team have different ideas about what should happen with Lost Eden. But there is a seemingly ancient monk named Tokin who holds the secret to everything. With the portal to Earth seemingly closed, will the team be able to find a way home, or will they truly be stranded, marooned—exiled?

Late in the 26th century, the human race has advanced enough to accidentally trigger the Inhibitors---alien-killing machines designed to detect intelligent life and destroy it. The only hope for humanity lies in the recovery of a secret cache of doomsday weapons---and a renegade named Clavain who is determined to find them. But other factions want the weapons for their own purposes---and the weapons themselves have another agenda altogether.

From debut author Maggie Shen King, An Excess Male is the chilling dystopian tale of politics, inequality, marriage, love, and rebellion, set in a near-future China, that further explores the themes of the classics The Handmaid's Tale and When She Woke. Under the One Child Policy, everyone...

The 'Wasting' (HIV) has caused devastating destruction throughout the known world and severely limited the development of technology as well, creating a mid-nineteenth century England and London almost unrecognizable to us. This is the world Viola is born into. Extremely intelligent and growing up in a house full of medical books which she reads, she dreams of traveling to far-off places, something she can only do via books since her actions and movements are severely restricted by law custom.

Head to distant worlds and alternate futures! Explore the limitless potential for twists and turns when stories are fueled by the infinite power of imagination! Here are twenty-four thought-provoking tales as up-to-date as tomorrow. It's new-time radio in the classic old-time-radio manner, from the mind of producer Jim French.

Apollo 32, commanded by career astronaut Vivian Carter, docks at NASA's Columbia Station in lunar orbit en route to its main mission: exploring the volcanic Marius Hills region of the Moon. Vivian is caught in the crossfire as four Soviet Soyuz craft appear without warning to assault the orbiting station. In an unplanned and desperate move, Vivian spacewalks through hard vacuum back to her Lunar Module and crew, and escapes right before the station falls into Soviet hands.

What if mankind's "missing link", the apelike Homo erectus, had survived to dominate a North American continent where woolly mammoths and saber-toothed tigers still prowled while the more advanced Homo sapiens built their civilizations elsewhere? Now imagine that the Europeans arriving in the New World had chanced on these primitive creatures and seized the opportunity to establish a hierarchy in which the sapiens were masters and the "sims" were their slaves.

Alice works at the Scottish embassy in Tallinn in Estonia as a member of the Cultural Section. When two men bring her the jeweled skull of a Scottish saint, her world gets turned on its head, and she becomes the latest recruit to Les Coureurs des Bois. On a Greek island, Benno is just one of hundreds of refuges dreaming of a new life in continental Europe. After hatching an audacious escape plan, he may just get his dream, but at the price of serving some powerful mysterious new masters.

Mary Robinette Kowal continues the grand sweep of alternate history begun in The Calculating Stars. The Fated Sky looks forward to 1961, when mankind is well established on the moon and looking forward to its next step: journeying to, and eventually colonizing, Mars. Of course the noted Lady Astronaut Elma York would like to go, but there’s a lot riding on whoever the International Aerospace Coalition decides to send on this historic - but potentially very dangerous - mission. Could Elma really leave behind her husband and the chance to start a family to spend several years traveling to Mars?

On a cold spring night in 1952, a huge meteorite fell to earth and obliterated much of the East Coast of the US, including Washington, DC. The ensuing climate cataclysm will soon render the Earth inhospitable for humanity, as the last such meteorite did for the dinosaurs. This looming threat calls for a radically accelerated effort to colonize space and requires a much-larger share of humanity to take part in the process. Elma York’s drive to become the first lady astronaut is so strong that even the most dearly held conventions of society may not stand a chance against her.

While J. Robert Oppenheimer and his Manhattan Project team struggle to develop the A-bomb, Edward Teller wants something even more devastating: a weapon based on nuclear fusion - the mechanism that powers the sun. But Teller’s research leads to a terrifying discovery: by the year 2030, the sun will eject its outermost layer, destroying the entire inner solar system - including Earth. After the war ends, Oppenheimer’s physicists combine forces with Albert Einstein, computing pioneer John von Neumann, and rocket designer Wernher von Braun.

All That Outer Space Allows: Booktrack Edition adds an immersive musical soundtrack to your audiobook listening experience! It is 1965 and Ginny Eckhardt is a science fiction writer. She’s been published in the big science fiction magazines and is friends with many of the popular SF authors of the day. Her husband, Walden, will soon be an Apollo astronaut. Although the realities of spaceflight fascinate Ginny, her genders bars her from the United States space programme. Her science fiction offers little in the way of consolation - but perhaps there is something she can do about that....

H.G. Wells, one of the most influential writers of science fiction and speculative fiction, has left an indelible mark on literature with his vast body of work. Wells's books, spanning across various genres, captivate people with their imaginative narratives, thought-provoking concepts, and insightful social commentary. His novels, such as "The Time Machine," "The War of the Worlds," and "The Invisible Man," have become iconic and have helped shape the science fiction genre as we know it today.

In 1638, in the first age of modern astronomy, as the starts opened up to us, the scientists of the time found themselves bound into fantastical visions based on their new knowledge. This was perhaps the first 'hard' sci fi, at least based on the cutting edge of knowledge from the time. Drawing on contemporary theories of Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, and Gilbert, the inhabitants of the Moon in this story are a tall Christian people encountered by a roguish hero who must learn of their lands, and gains items that allow the control of light, heat, and gravity.

When nuclear war breaks out and the nations of the Earth are destroyed, a group of nine US astronauts are marooned on the lunar surface. Using the "torsion field generator", a WWII Nazi Wunderwaffe previously known as the Bell, they hope to find an alternate Earth that did not suffer nuclear armageddon. But once they do discover one, how will they return to the planet? They have a single lunar module, which can carry only four astronauts into lunar orbit....