A major new novel from one of science fiction’s most powerful voices, AURORA tells the incredible story of our first voyage beyond the solar system. Brilliantly imagined and beautifully told, it is the work of a writer at the height of his powers.
Our voyage from Earth began generations ago. Now, we approach our new home. AURORA.
The Scavenger species are circling. It is, truly, provably, the End Days for the Gzilt civilization.
An ancient people, organized on military principles and yet almost perversely peaceful, the Gzilt helped set up the Culture ten thousand years earlier and were very nearly one of its founding societies, deciding not to join only at the last moment. Now they've made the collective decision to follow the well-trodden path of millions of other civilizations; they are going to Sublime, elevating themselves to a new and almost infinitely more rich and complex existence.
Amid preparations though, the Regimental High Command is destroyed. Lieutenant Commander (reserve) Vyr Cossont appears to have been involved, and she is now wanted - dead, not alive. Aided only by an ancient, reconditioned android and a suspicious Culture avatar, Cossont must complete her last mission given to her by the High Command. She must find the oldest person in the Culture, a man over nine thousand years old, who might have some idea what really happened all that time ago.
It seems that the final days of the Gzilt civilization are likely to prove its most perilous.
The Interdependency―humanity’s interstellar empire―is on the verge of collapse. The extra-dimensional conduit that makes travel between the stars possible is disappearing, leaving entire systems and human civilizations stranded.
Emperox Grayland II of the Interdependency is ready to take desperate measures to help ensure the survival of billions. But arrayed before her are those who believe the collapse of the Flow is a myth―or at the very least an opportunity to an ascension to power.
While Grayland prepares for disaster, others are preparing for a civil war. A war that will take place in the halls of power, the markets of business and the altars of worship as much as it will between spaceships and battlefields.
The Emperox and her allies are smart and resourceful, as are her enemies. Nothing about this will be easy... and all of humanity will be caught in its consuming fire.
Seeking atonement for past crimes, Breq takes on a mission as captain of a troublesome new crew of Radchai soldiers, in the sequel to Ann Leckie's NYT bestselling, award-winning Ancillary Justice. A must read for fans of Ursula K. Le Guin and James S. A. Corey. Breq is a soldier who used to be a warship. Once a weapon of conquest controlling thousands of minds, now she has only a single body and serves the emperor. With a new ship and a troublesome crew, Breq is ordered to go to the only place in the galaxy she would agree to to Athoek Station to protect the family of a lieutenant she once knew - a lieutenant she murdered in cold blood. Ann Leckie's Imperial Radch trilogy has become one of the new classics of science fiction. Beautifully written and forward thinking, it does what good science fiction does best, taking readers to bold new worlds with plenty explosions along the way.
A master storyteller, Stephen R. Donaldson established a worldwide reputation with his unforgettable, critically acclaimed fantasy series The Chronicles Of Thomas Covenant . Then, with The Real Story and Forbidden Knowledge , he launched a thrilling new science fiction series. Now the galactic epic continues as humanity struggles against the forces of ultimate evil—and its own dark nature.
The stage is set for confrontation at Billingate—illegal shipyard, haven for pirates and brigands, where every vice flourishes and every appetite can be sated. Gateway to the alien realm of the Amnion, the shipyard is a clearinghouse for all they require to fulfill their mutagenic plans against humanity.
It is here that the fate of Morn Hyland is to be decided amid a kaleidoscopic whirl of plot and counter-plot, treachery and betrayal.
As schemes unravel to reveal yet deeper designs, Morn, Nick, Angus' lives may all be forfeit as pawns in the titanic game played our between Warden Dios, dedicated director of the UMC Police, and the Dragon, greed-driven ruler of the UMC. Here, the future of humankind hangs on the uncertain fortune of Morn Hyland in a daring novel of epic power and suspense, relentlessly gripping from first page to last.
A brilliant young scientist rises to power on Cyteen, haunted by the knowledge that her predecessor and genetic duplicate died at the hands of one of her trusted advisors. Murder, politics, and genetic manipulation provide the framework for the latest Union-Alliance novel by the author of Downbelow Station. Cherryh's talent for intense, literate storytelling maintains interest throughout this long, complex novel.
Jamie Waterman is returning to the Red Planet, this time in charge of an expedition in which he hopes to demonstrate that one can study Martian life not only for the sake of the pursuit but more, that it can be profitable. Waterman also hopes to revisit a part of the canyon where he thought he spied a primitive cliff dwelling during the first Martian mission.
But this second voyage to Mars brings trouble right away as Waterman clashes with Dex Trumball, the son of a billionaire who is backing the expedition. Dex wants to turn the planet into a tourist attraction, while Waterman wants to preserve the planet solely for scientific research.
To further complicate matters, both men are attracted to the expedition's beautiful psychologist, Vijay Shektar, who can't seem to decide which of the two men she prefers. On top of all of this confusion, it seems that another member of the team may be trying to sabotage the mission while the elder Trumball is pulling strings in order to force Waterman to step down as the expedition's leader.
The Barnes & Noble Review Alex Benedict and his executive assistant, Chase Kolpath -- ambitious antiquities dealers from Jack McDevitt's A Talent for War (1989) and, more recently, Polaris -- are back in Seeker, a story in which the two antiquarians search for a legendary lost colony that is both a science fiction thriller and a remarkably complex mystery.
More than 9,000 years after an interstellar transport named Seeker left an overcrowded and politically repressive Earth with the dream of founding a new society on an unspecified planet, Benedict and Kolpath stumble across a ceramic cup that was once on the now-legendary lost starship. But tracking down how the ancient artifact got from the ship into the hands of a maltreated woman and her thuggish boyfriend turns out to be more than Benedict and Kolpath bargained for -- as their search leads them across multiple star systems and straight into an anonymous assassin's crosshairs. But as the killer closes in, the two courageous antiquarians uncover the jaw-dropping truth about the lost starship and the legendary colony
Equally reminiscent of Frederik Pohl's Hugo and Nebula Award-winning Heechee saga (Gateway, Beyond the Blue Event Horizon, et al.) and a classic Ellery Queen mystery, McDevitt's Seeker will appeal to readers of hard-core science fiction, as well as adventurous mystery fans looking for an out-of-this-world story. And just like Polaris, Seeker is characterized by a bombshell of an ending that will leave readers absolutely awestruck. Paul Goat Allen
Larry Greenberg's telepathic tendencies had been trained and developed to a critical level. The trouble was that if these psychic interchanges were strong enough, a man could end up not knowing who he really was. And when Larry's mind is taken over by a sinister alien force, he has to fight to retain his sanity - and divert a disaster that threatens all mankind...
"Snappy, ingenious, and upbeat." - Galaxy
Made the 1st ballot for the 1967 Nebula
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