Showing titles in Hard Science Fiction

Jonas kills people...with his mind. He reaches out, focuses for a moment, and feels a snap of pain between his eyes. Then his target falls over dead: a hole in the center of their brains. The cause of death is unknown to all aside from Jonas, and his lone companion, Bubbles, a sarcastic AI with aspirations to be more human, or a serial killer. One of the two. Maybe both. Jonas calls his ability...mind bullet.

In the year 2031, a robot probe detects traces of biological activity on Enceladus, one of Saturn's moons. This sensational discovery shows that there is indeed evidence of extraterrestrial life. Fifteen years later, a hurriedly built spacecraft sets out on the long journey to the ringed planet and its moon. The international crew is not just facing a difficult twenty-seven months: if the spacecraft manages to make it to Enceladus without incident it must use a drillship to penetrate the kilometer-thick sheet of ice that entombs the moon.

The greatest scientific challenge of our age wasn't to enable time travel, it was to prevent it. The laws of physics had turned out to be idiotic, erecting no barriers to hopping time. In fact, they make it hard to avoid. I'm in the business of preserving the timeline - making sure the world sticks to the sacred rule of One Second per Second, and that history unfolds according to plan. The problem is, there is no plan until I make it.

Two centuries have passed since Elijah Baley’s actions on Aurora sent settlers from Earth to new worlds all over the galaxy. The Spacer planet of Solaria has been abandoned by humans, though countless robots remain. When settlers arrive to salvage them, something unthinkable happens – the robots attack. Accompanied by Gladia Delmarre and the robots Daneel and Giskard, a descendant of Elijah Baley sets out for Solaria to investigate, a quest that will lead them to a vast, catastrophic conspiracy and a revolution in the Three Laws of Robotics.

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.

Winner of the Nebula Award for Best Novel, Red Mars is the first book in Kim Stanley Robinson's best-selling trilogy. Red Mars is praised by scientists for its detailed visions of future technology. It is also hailed by authors and critics for its vivid characters and dramatic conflicts.

For centuries, the red planet has enticed the people of Earth. Now an international group of scientists has colonized Mars. Leaving Earth forever, these 100 people have traveled nine months to reach their new home. This is the remarkable story of the world they create - and the hidden power struggles of those who want to control it.

From the bestselling author of Lost in Time and Quantum Radio comes a new mind-bending thriller: a group of strangers with tinnitus begins seeing numbers—numbers they soon realize are a code that will change the world.

When an unauthorized oil rig appears offshore of Ecuador, a military team is sent to investigate. The deep-water platform has no markings, no drilling rig, and no workers—but it's surrounded by a curious bank of fog. When their helicopter closes in, it's swallowed without a trace.

Hugo Award winner Elizabeth Bear has been called one of the best science fiction authors of her generation. In Dust she skillfully spins a classic science fiction trope - the lost generation ship - into a complex and compelling tale of fallen angels, secretive family politics, and sexual taboo.

Island One is a celestial utopia, and David Adams is its most perfect creation - a man with a brain as advanced as any computer and a body free of human frailties. But David is a prisoner - a captive of the colony that created him - destined to spend the days of his life in an island-sized cylinder that circles a doomed and desperate home planet. Thousands of miles below him, a world trembles; its people cringe in terror and despair in anticipation of an impending apocalypse. And fate has cast one extraordinary human in the role of savior.

The spaceship Shepherd-1 is on its way to the star closest to the sun. Halfway there, the crew succeeds in using gravitational lensing technology to take sharp pictures of the origin of the universe—and thus obtain the answer that reveals how the cosmos came into being and whether or not God had a hand in it. But no sooner does the crew tell Earth this than the radio communication goes silent, even though the ship is apparently functional. Is it a case of sabotage—or were the three astronauts overwhelmed with the answer for which science and religion have been searching for millennia?

The First Foundation has been defeated, crushed by the formidable mental powers of the Mule. But whispers of the mysterious Second Foundation, the only hope of defeating the Mule, are beginning to spread. Surviving members of the First Foundation also fear the secret powers of the Second Foundation, vowing to find and destroy it. However, the location of the Second Foundation remains shrouded in mystery. Finding it will lead the Foundation to the opposite end of the Galaxy, where the fate of Seldon’s two Foundations awaits.

On Aurora, the first and greatest of the Spacer planets, Elijah Baley and R. Daneel Olivaw investigate yet another seemingly impossible crime – this time, a roboticide. Someone has destroyed the positronic mind of R. Jander Panell, a humanoid twin to Daneel. His creator, the master roboticist Han Fastolfe, denies all involvement. So does Gladia Delmarre, the robot’s owner. And lover. 

Caught up in an experiment gone wrong, Joseph Schwartz is transported forward in time from post-war Chicago to the heyday of the first Galactic Empire. Earth, he soon learns, is a backwater, despised by the other two hundred million planets of the Empire because its people dare to claim it as the original home of man. And Earth is poor, with great areas of radioactivity ruining much of its soil – so poor that everyone is sentenced to death at the age of sixty. And Joseph Schwartz is sixty-two.

Thomas n'a rien pour lui : pas très attirant ni débrouillard et il vient de se faire larguer. Mais sa rencontre avec un robot mystérieux va le sortir de sa morosité.

"Such realistic brilliance you can see a whole civilisation in it" - The Times "Simply amazing science fiction that will have me grabbing book two" - Goodreads Reviewer, 5 stars "one of the best scifi concepts out there" - Amazon Reviewer, 5 stars Stephen Baxter's highly acclaimed first novel...

Isaac Asimov’s ROBOT series – from the iconic collection I, Robot to four classic novels – contains some of the most influential works in the history of science fiction. Establishing and testing the Three Laws of Robotics, they continue to shape the understanding and design of artificial...

Brought to you by Penguin. This celebration of Chinese Science Fiction - thirteen stories, all translated for the first time into English - represents a unique exploration of the nation's speculative fiction from the late 20th century onwards, curated and translated by critically acclaimed...

In a grim future, astronomers discover the solar system’s long-theorized ninth planet, triggering an unprecedented space race, but not between countries. Instead, two mega corporations battle fiercely for primacy. Each wants to be the first to launch their probes into the darkness beyond Neptune.

The third book in the New York Times bestselling Expanse series, Abaddon's Gate opens the door to the ruins of an alien gate network—and the crew of the Rocinante may hold the key to unlocking its secrets. Now a Prime Original series. For generations, the solar system—Mars, the Moon, the...