Showing titles in Hard Science Fiction

The First Foundation survived two centuries of barbarism as the once-mighty Galactic Empire descended into chaos. Now it must prepare for war against the remnants of the Empire as the Imperial fleet advances on their planet, Terminus. Hari Seldon predicted this war; he even prepared his Foundation for it. But he couldn’t foresee the birth of the mutant Mule. In possession of a power which reduces fearsome opposition to devoted slaves, the Mule poses a terrible threat to Seldon’s Foundation. 

What happens when a robot begins to question its creators? What would be the consequences of creating a robot with a sense of humour? Or the ability to lie? How do we truly tell the difference between man and machine? In I, Robot, Asimov sets out the Three Laws of Robotics - designed to protect humans from their robotic creations - and pushes them to their limits and beyond.

Could a robot ever show true creativity? Is it wise to trust self-driving cars? Will robotic body parts transform human beings into machines? Will organic technology allow robots to become human? Featuring Dr. Susan Calvin, Donovan and Powell, and the detective Elijah Baley, hero of the Robot novels, this is the ultimate collection of short stories from a genius of the genre.

They dreamed of a new home. They woke to a nightmare. A far-reaching space opera spanning generations, species and galaxies by Arthur C. Clarke Award-winning author Adrian Tchaikovsky. On Imir, Captain Holt founded a hopeful new colony on an empty world. But generations later, his descendants...

A classic thriller from #1 New York Times bestselling author Michael Crichton, Sphere is a bravura demonstration of what he does better than anyone: riveting storytelling that combines frighteningly plausible, cutting-edge science and technology with pulse-pounding action and serious chills.

Darrow would have lived in peace, but his enemies brought him war. The Gold overlords demanded his obedience, hanged his wife, and enslaved his people. But Darrow is determined to fight back. Risking everything to transform himself and breach Gold society, Darrow has battled to survive the cutthroat rivalries that breed Society's mightiest warriors, climbed the ranks, and waited patiently to unleash the revolution that will tear the hierarchy apart from within.

Brought to you by Penguin. An antimeme is an entity with self-censoring properties. Some are benign; but others, less so… These entities can feed on your most cherished memories, the things that make you you – and you’ll never even know anything changed. And they aren’t just feeding on...

Jazz Bashara is a criminal. Well, sort of. Life on Artemis, the first and only city on the moon, is tough if you're not a rich tourist or an eccentric billionaire. So smuggling in the occasional harmless bit of contraband barely counts, right? Not when you've got debts to pay and your job as a porter barely covers the rent. Everything changes when Jazz sees the chance to commit the perfect crime, with a reward too lucrative to turn down.

In the thousand-sun network of humanity's expansion, new colony worlds are struggling to find their way. Every new planet lives on a knife-edge between collapse and wonder, and the crew of the aging gunship, Rocinante, have their hands more than full keeping the fragile peace. In the vast space between Earth and Jupiter, the inner planets and the Belt have formed a tentative and uncertain alliance still haunted by a history of wars and prejudices.

All Systems Red is the tense first science fiction adventure novella in Martha Wells' series The Murderbot Diaries. For fans of Westworld, Ex Machina, Ann Leckie's Imperial Raadch series, or Iain M. Banks' Culture novels. The main character is a deadly security droid that has bucked its restrictive programming and is balanced between contemplative self-discovery and an idle instinct to kill all humans.

The United States government is given a warning by the preeminent biophysicists in the country: current sterilization procedures applied to returning space probes may be inadequate to guarantee uncontaminated re-entry to the atmosphere.

Please note: The original recording has now been replaced with a new performance by Jefferson Mays. If you own this audiobook, simply re-download it from your library to access the new recording. The gates have opened the way to a thousand new worlds and the rush to colonise has begun. Settlers...

It has been 40 years since the publication of this classic science-fiction novel that changed the way we look at the stars and ourselves. From the savannas of Africa at the dawn of mankind to the rings of Saturn as man adventures to the outer rim of our solar system, 2001: A Space Odyssey is a journey unlike any other.

Half a century after the Doomsday Battle, the uneasy balance of Dark Forest Deterrence keeps the Trisolaran invaders at bay. Earth enjoys unprecedented prosperity due to the infusion of Trisolaran knowledge and, with human science advancing and the Trisolarans adopting Earth culture, it seems that the two civilizations can co-exist peacefully as equals without the terrible threat of mutually assured annihilation. But peace has made humanity complacent.

In 1942, Lawrence Pritchard Waterhouse - mathematical genius and young Captain in the US Navy - is assigned to detachment 2702. It is an outfit so secret that only a handful of people know it exists, and some of those people have names like Churchill and Roosevelt. The mission of Watrehouse and Detachment 2702 - commanded by Marine Raider Bobby Shaftoe - is to keep the Nazis ignorant of the fact that Allied Intelligence has cracked the enemy's fabled Enigma code. In the present, Waterhouse's crypto-hacker grandson, Randy, is attempting to create a "data haven" in Southeast Asia....

In the vast, domed cities of Earth, artificial intelligence is strictly controlled; in the distant Outer Worlds, colonists and robots live side by side. A Spacer ambassador is found dead and detective Elijah Baley is assigned to find the killer. But with relations between the two cultures in the balance, the Spacers insist that he work with a partner of their choosing – a robot partner, R. Daneel Olivaw. Baley has never seen a robot like Daneel before – and soon, though the Three Laws of Robotics should render the crime impossible, Baley’s partner becomes his prime suspect.

Neal Stephenson is a blazing new force on the sci-fi scene. With the groundbreaking cyberpunk novel Snow Crash, he has "vaulted onto the literary stage." It weaves virtual reality, Sumerian myth, and just about everything in between with a cool, hip cybersensibility - in short, it is the gigathriller of the information age.

Brought to you by Penguin. NOW THE NO.1 DRAMA IN THE HISTORY OF AppleTV+, SILO. In a ruined and hostile landscape, in a future few have been unlucky enough to survive, a community exists in a giant underground silo. Inside, men and women live an enclosed life full of rules and regulations, of...

Mankind has conquered space and moved toward the starry heart of the galaxy. Earth is a planet of no importance, riddled with radioactivity by long-forgotten wars. When assassins target his rooms and news arrives that, many light-years away, his father has been murdered, student Biron Farrill flees for his life. Stunned, grief-stricken, and outraged, Biron is determined to uncover the reasons behind his father's death, and finds himself entangled in a web of deep-space rebellion, espionage, and political intrigue.

The Galactic Empire has prospered for 12,000 years. Nobody suspects that the heart of the thriving Empire is rotten, until psychohistorian Hari Seldon uses his new science to foresee its terrible fate. Exiled to the desolate planet Terminus, Seldon establishes a colony of the greatest minds in the Empire, a Foundation which holds the key to changing the fate of the galaxy.