Aliens Audiobook Canada Fiction Religion Sci-Fi Fantasy Science Fiction

Calculating God

Name: Calculating God
Rating: 3.87 (10299 reviews)
Author: Robert J. Sawyer

Robert J. Sawyer June 3, 2000

3.87 10.3k Ratings

Ongoing Status

10 Views

Start Reading

Synopsis

An alien shuttle craft lands outside the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto. Out pops a six-legged, two-armed alien, who says, in perfect English, “Take me to a paleontologist.”

It seems that Earth, and the alien’s home planet, and the home planet of another alien species traveling on the alien mother ship, all experienced the same five cataclysmic events at about the same time, including events exactly like the meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs. Both alien races believe this proves the existence of God: i.e. he’s obviously been manipulating the evolution of life on each of these planets.

Books similar to Calculating God

Rollback

★ 3.76

Robert J. Sawyer

Dr. Sarah Halifax decoded the first-ever radio transmission received from aliens. Thirty-eight years later, a second message is received and Sarah, now 87, may hold the key to deciphering this one, too . . . if she lives long enough. A wealthy industrialist offers to pay for Sarah to have a rollback―a hugely expensive experimental rejuvenation procedure. She accepts on condition that Don, her husband of sixty years, gets a rollback, too. The process works for Don, making him physically twenty-five again. But in a tragic twist, the rollback fails for Sarah, leaving her in her eighties. While Don tries to deal with his newfound youth and the suddenly vast age gap between him and his wife, Sarah struggles to do again what she'd done once figure out what a signal from the stars contains.

Demon

★ 4.04

John Varley

ISBN moved from less recent edition

The satellite-sized alien Gaea has gone completely insane. She has transformed her love of old movies into monstrous realities. She is Marilyn Monroe. She is King Kong. And now she must be destroyed.

The End of All Things

★ 4.01

John Scalzi

Humans expanded into space…only to find a universe populated with multiple alien species bent on their destruction. Thus was the Colonial Union formed, to help protect us from a hostile universe. The Colonial Union used the Earth and its excess population for colonists and soldiers. It was a good arrangement...for the Colonial Union. Then the Earth said: no more.
　
Now the Colonial Union is living on borrowed time—a couple of decades at most, before the ranks of the Colonial Defense Forces are depleted and the struggling human colonies are vulnerable to the alien species who have been waiting for the first sign of weakness, to drive humanity to ruin. And there’s another problem: A group, lurking in the darkness of space, playing human and alien against each other—and against their own kind —for their own unknown reasons.
　
In this collapsing universe, CDF Lieutenant Harry Wilson and the Colonial Union diplomats he works with race against the clock to discover who is behind attacks on the Union and on alien races, to seek peace with a suspicious, angry Earth, and keep humanity’s union intact...or else risk oblivion, and extinction—and the end of all things.

Precursor

★ 4.25

C.J. Cherryh

National best-selling author and winner of three Hugo Awards, C.J. Cherryh returns to the universe of her acclaimed Foreigner trilogy-with an epic tale of the survivors of a lost spacecraft stranded on a planet inhabited by a hostile, sentient race.

The beginning of a second trilogy, Precursor follows a single human delegate living among aliens, who are just gaining access to space....

Praise for Precursor...

"An addition to Cherryh's superior alien-contact series...Another intriguing human/alien struggle."-Kirkus Reviews"A powerful look at the effects of alienation on individuals and societies."-Locus

...and C.J. Cherryh's Foreigner Universe:

"Superlatively drawn aliens and characterization...a return to the anthropological science fiction in which [Cherryh] has made such a name is a double pleasure."-Chicago Sun-Times

"An incisive study-in-contrast of what it means to be human."-Library Journal

Children of God

★ 4.09

Mary Doria Russell

Mary Doria Russell's debut novel, The Sparrow, took us on a journey to a distant planet and into the center of the human soul. A critically acclaimed bestseller, The Sparrow was chosen as one of Entertainment Weekly's Ten Best Books of the Year, a finalist for the Book-of-the-Month Club's First Fiction Prize and the winner of the James M. Tiptree Memorial Award. Now, in Children of God, Russell further establishes herself as one of the most innovative, entertaining and philosophically provocative novelists writing today.

The only member of the original mission to the planet Rakhat to return to Earth, Father Emilio Sandoz has barely begun to recover from his ordeal when the Society of Jesus calls upon him for help in preparing for another mission to Alpha Centauri. Despite his objections and fear, he cannot escape his past or the future.

Old friends, new discoveries and difficult questions await Emilio as he struggles for inner peace and understanding in a moral universe whose boundaries now extend beyond the solar system and whose future lies with children born in a faraway place.

Strikingly original, richly plotted, replete with memorable characters and filled with humanity and humor, Children of God is an unforgettable and uplifting novel that is a potent successor to The Sparrow and a startlingly imaginative adventure for newcomers to Mary Doria Russell’s special literary magic.

Invader

★ 4.18

C.J. Cherryh

The second novel in Cherryh’s Foreigner space opera series, a groundbreaking tale of first contact and its consequences… Nearly two centuries after the starship Phoenix disappeared into the heavens, leaving an isolated colony of humans on the world of the atevi , it unexpectedly returns to orbit overhead, threatening the stability of both atevi and human governments.

With the situation fast becoming critical, Bren Cameron, the brilliant, young paidhi to the court of the atevi is recalled from Mospheira where he has just undergone surgery. But his sudden and premature return to the mainland is cause for more than mere physical discomfort. For during his brief absence, his government has sent his paidhi -successor, Deana Hanks—representative of a dangerous archconservative faction on Mospheira who hate the atevi . And though she should depart when Bren is once again able to fill his post, no recall order comes.

Cut off from his government and haunted by the continuing threat of assassination, Bren realizes his only hope may be to communicate directly with the Phoenix as the spokesman of the atevi— an action which may cut him off for good from his own species. Yet if he doesn't take this desperate and illegal action, he may be forced to helplessly bear witness to the final destruction of the already precarious balance of world power.

Destroyer

★ 4.23

C.J. Cherryh

The seventh novel in Cherryh’s Foreigner space opera series, a groundbreaking tale of first contact and its consequences…

It has been two years since the starship Phoenix left Alpha Station on a rescue mission where over four thousand human spacers were under attack by a hostile alien race. Now, exhausted from their journey, the crew of the Phoenix yearns for home. But when the ship makes the jump into atevi space and contacts Alpha, they learn the that supplies to the station have been cut off; that civil war has broken out on the atevi mainland; that the powerful Western Association has been overthrown; and that Tabini-aiji, Bren Cameron's primary supporter and Ilisidi's grandson and ally, is missing and may be dead.

With no one left to lead the Western Association, Ilisidi and Bren know that the survival of their allies lies in their hands. And with the atevi world at war, the only safe landing strip lies on the human colony at Mospheira. Although there are many dangers inherent in bringing a powerful atevi leader such as Ilisidi onto human lands, Bren realizes they have no other choice.

But even if they safely survive their landing, will Bren and Ilisidi together prove strong enough to muster the remaining shards of the Western Association and regain control of their planet?

The long-running Foreigner series can also be enjoyed by more casual genre readers in sub-trilogy installments. Destroyer is the 7th Foreigner novel, and the 1st book in the third subtrilogy.

The Kafir Project

★ 4.04

Lee Burvine

Astronomer and TV science guy Gevin Rees just landed the interview of a lifetime with the world's most famous physicist. Remarkable, because the eccentric genius is notoriously reclusive.

And he's already dead.

What happens next forces Rees to run for his life from two separate assassins and global powers desperate to bury what he's just uncovered. Mind-blowing technology and solid evidence that would rewrite religious history and challenge the faith of billions.

Rees teams up with DCIS Special Agent Kerry Morgan, who soon discovers her own agency has been compromised. Forced underground, the pair must rely on little more than Morgan's fierce tenacity and Rees's scientific know-how.

Their only path back to safety is to unlock the shocking secrets of the Kafir Project and expose them to the world.

But can they beat the impossible odds stacked against them?

Calculating God

Books similar to Calculating God

Rollback

Demon

The End of All Things

Precursor

Children of God

Invader

Destroyer

The Kafir Project

Welcome Back!