Jeune astronome convaincue de l'existence d'une vie extraterrestre intelligente, Ellie Arroway doit faire face au scepticisme de la communauté scientifique à l'égard du projet "Argus", un programme d'écoute spatiale installé au Nouveau-Mexique qu'elle et son équipe tentent par tous les moyens de sauver. Jusqu'au jour où leurs ordinateurs captent un message rationnel émis non pas depuis la Terre, mais depuis Véga, une lointaine étoile. Ellie se lance alors à coeur perdu dans son déchiffrage, pour découvrir qu'il s'agit des plans d'un véhicule censé permettre à des humains de voyager dans l'espace afin de rencontrer ceux qui nous les ont adressés. Or ces êtres semblent à présent impatients d'établir le contact : ils nous surveillent depuis longtemps, et le moment est peut-être venu pour eux de nous juger...
Clarke's masterful evocation of the far future of humanity, considered his finest novel.
Men had built cities before, but never such a city as Diaspar. For millennia its protective dome shut out the creeping decay and danger of the world outside. Once, it held powers that rule the stars.
But then, as legend has it, the invaders came, driving humanity into this last refuge. It takes one man, a Unique, to break through Diaspar's stifling inertia, to smash the legend and discover the true nature of the Invaders.
Beneath the dying sun the disgraced torturer, Severian, at last comes to his place of exile - Thrax, the City of Windowless Rooms. But Severian's journeying is not ended, and high in the Earth's ancient mountains he draws closer to his destiny.
Now celebrating the 42nd anniversary of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, soon to be a Hulu original series!
“Wild satire . . . The feckless protagonist, Arthur Dent, is reminiscent of Vonnegut heroes.”— Chicago Tribune
The unhappy inhabitants of planet Krikkit are sick of looking at the night sky above their heads—so they plan to destroy it. The universe, that is. Now only five individuals stand between the killer robots of Krikkit and their goal of total annihilation.
They are Arthur Dent, a mild-mannered space and time traveler who tries to learn how to fly by throwing himself at the ground and missing; Ford Prefect, his best friend, who decides to go insane to see if he likes it; Slartibartfast, the indomitable vice president of the Campaign for Real Time, who travels in a ship powered by irrational behavior; Zaphod Beeblebrox, the two-headed, three-armed ex-president of the galaxy; and Trillian, the sexy space cadet who is torn between a persistent Thunder God and a very depressed Beeblebrox.
How will it all end? Will it end? Only this stalwart crew knows as they try to avert “universal” Armageddon and save life as we know it—and don’t know it!
“Adams is one of those rare an author who, one senses, has as much fun writing as one has reading.”— Arizona Daily Star
In 2024, with the world descending into madness and anarchy, one woman begins a fateful journey toward a better future.
Lauren Olamina and her family live in one of the only safe neighborhoods remaining on the outskirts of Los Angeles. Behind the walls of their defended enclave, Lauren’s father, a preacher, and a handful of other citizens try to salvage what remains of a culture that has been destroyed by drugs, disease, war, and chronic water shortages. While her father tries to lead people on the righteous path, Lauren struggles with hyperempathy, a condition that makes her extraordinarily sensitive to the pain of others.
When fire destroys their compound, Lauren’s family is killed and she is forced out into a world that is fraught with danger. With a handful of other refugees, Lauren must make her way north to safety, along the way conceiving a revolutionary idea that may mean salvation for all mankind.
Electronics engineer Dan Davis has finally made the invention of a lifetime: a household robot with extraordinary abilities, destined to dramatically change the landscape of everyday routine. Then, Dan was tricked by an unscrupulous greedy business partner and a greedier fiancee into spending thirty years in suspended animation, the long sleep, just when he was on the verge of a success beyond his wildest dreams.
They never imagine that the future time in which Dan, a modern-day and future-time, Rip Van Winkle, will awaken has mastered time travel, giving him a way to get back to them, and at them, and get his revenge!.
Isaac Asimov's I, Robot launches readers on an adventure into a not-so-distant future where man and machine , struggle to redefinelife, love, and consciousness—and where the stakes are nothing less than survival. Filled with unforgettable characters, mind-bending speculation, and nonstop action, I, Robot is a powerful reading experience from one of the master storytellers of our time.
I, ROBOT
They mustn't harm a human being, they must obey human orders, and they must protect their own existence...but only so long as that doesn't violate rules one and two. With these Three Laws of Robotics, humanity embarked on perhaps its greatest adventure: the invention of the first positronic man. It was a bold new era of evolution that would open up enormous possibilities—and unforeseen risks. For the scientists who invented the earliest robots weren't content that their creations should ' remain programmed helpers, companions, and semisentient worker-machines. And soon the robots themselves; aware of their own intelligence, power, and humanity, aren't either.
As humans and robots struggle to survive together—and sometimes against each other—on earth and in space, the future of both hangs in the balance. Human men and women confront robots gone mad, telepathic robots, robot politicians, and vast robotic intelligences that may already secretly control the world. And both are asking the same questions: What is human? And is humanity obsolete?
In l, Robot Isaac Asimov changes forever our perception of robots, and human beings and updates the timeless myth of man's dream to play god. with all its rewards—and terrors. --front flap
