Showing titles in Hard Science Fiction

Daniel Rice is a government science investigator whose specialty is solving seemingly intractable problems through scientific inquiry. But Daniel's intellectual strength is sorely tested by the bizarre realities he finds in the quantum world. Extra dimensions of space trap the unwary, probability replaces cause and effect, and time isn't what anyone imagined. The other side of the mirror is a place full of dangers, but it's also somewhere a dedicated scientist can uncover secrets that connect humans with something greater.

A Fire Upon the Deep is the big, breakout book that fulfills the promise of Vinge's career to date: a gripping tale of galactic war told on a cosmic scale. Thousands of years hence, many races inhabit a universe where a mind's potential is determined by its location in space, from superintelligent entities in the Transcend, to the limited minds of the Unthinking Depths, where only simple creatures and technology can function.

Polity Agent is the fourth novel in Neal Asher's popular Agent Cormac series. Refugees arrive in the Polity from eight hundred years in Agent Cormac’s future. And once they are through, the gate they use is dumped into the sun, as something dangerous and non-human is in pursuit. Cormac soon...

A GRIPPING TECHNO-THRILLER BY THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF NEUROMANCER, THE THIRD NOVEL IN THE BRIDGE TRILOGY The Bridge, San Francisco, after the quake: Ex-cop Berry Rydell has been hired by Colin Laney - who is hooked deep into the network of things - to go to San Francisco and act in such a way...

When a catastrophic disaster cripples the International Space Station, the balance of power shatters overnight. The United States and China race to seize control of orbit—because whoever dominates space controls the future of humanity. But the disaster wasn’t an accident. As governments mobilize and private space companies push dangerous new technology to the brink, a smoldering conspiracy for world domination ignites a war no one can stop.

When London is lost beneath the rising tides, unconscious desires rush to the surface in this apocalyptic tale from the author of Crash and Cocaine Nights. Fluctuations in solar radiation have melted the ice caps, sending the planet into a new Triassic Age of unendurable heat. London is a swamp; lush tropical vegetation grows up the walls of the Ritz and primeval reptiles are sighted, swimming through the newly-formed lagoons.

One thousand years after Earth was destroyed in an unprovoked attack, humanity has emerged victorious from a series of terrible wars to assure its place in the galaxy. But during celebrations on humanity’s new Homeworld, the legendary Captain Pantillo of the battle carrier Phoenix is court-martialed then killed, and his deputy, Lieutenant Commander Erik Debogande, the heir to humanity’s most powerful industrial family, is framed with his murder.

In an unprecedented first, Earth sends a message to Mogwa Prime. Unfortunately, the messenger is not met with enthusiasm. Misunderstandings soon threaten all of Humanity. Forced to prove Earth can serve the Empire better than any rival, McGill does his best. Eager to prove our worth to the Galactics, the frontier war between Rigel and Earth is expanded to Storm World. Circled by six moons, the planet is ravaged by wild storms and tides. Battles are fought in raging hurricanes, and death stalks the soldiers on both sides.

Joel Byram is an everyday 22nd century guy. He spends his days training artificial-intelligence engines to act more human, jamming out to 1980s new wave - an extremely obscure genre - and trying to salvage his deteriorating marriage. Joel is pretty much an everyday guy with everyday problems - until he's accidentally duplicated while teleporting. Now Joel must outsmart the shadowy organization that controls teleportation, outrun the religious sect out to destroy it, and find a way to get back to the woman he loves.

War Factory is the second novel in the Transformation series, a no-holds-barred adventure set in Neal Asher's popular Polity universe. One seeks judgement, another faces damnation and one man will have his revenge . . . Thorvald Spear is losing his mind as he drowns in dark memories that aren't...

Late in the 26th century, the human race has advanced enough to accidentally trigger the Inhibitors---alien-killing machines designed to detect intelligent life and destroy it. The only hope for humanity lies in the recovery of a secret cache of doomsday weapons---and a renegade named Clavain who is determined to find them. But other factions want the weapons for their own purposes---and the weapons themselves have another agenda altogether.

What lies on the dark side of the moon could change the course of humanity forever. When a Chinese rover discovers an alien technology on the dark side of the moon, it is up to Richard "Rock" Crandon and his NASA team of scientists and engineers to devise a way to return before the Chinese and Russians. Forced to deal with bureaucratic oversight and a complex team of personalities, Rock Crandon pushes his team to their limits.

Deep in the steaming jungles of Paraguay, Aimee Weir is in trouble. The petrobiologist has found what she was looking for – a unique microorganism in a natural gas deposit – but it proves to be more destructive than anyone could have imagined. A contagion is striking down all in its wake. The camp is quarantined, but workers start to vanish in the night. Is it fear of contamination – or has something far more lethal come to the surface? Something that has been trapped beneath the miles of stone, waiting... for us.

David Ryan is the designer of ELOPe, an email language optimization program, that if successful, will make his career. But when the project is suddenly in danger of being canceled, David embeds a hidden directive in the software accidentally creating a runaway artificial intelligence. David and his team are initially thrilled when the project is allocated extra servers and programmers.

Noah Parker, a newly minted PhD, is thrilled to land a dream job at Reptilian Corp., the hottest tech company in the American Southwest. He's eager to put his genetic engineering expertise to use designing new lines of Reptilian's feature product: living, breathing dragons. Although highly specialized dragons have been used for industrial purposes for years, Reptilian is desperate to crack the general retail market. By creating a dragon that can be the perfect family pet, Reptilian hopes to put a dragon into every home. But Noah has a secret goal....

Half a million years in the future, on a dead, war-ravaged world at the centre of the galaxy, there is a mile-high statue of Michael Poole. Poole, born on Earth in the fourth millennium, was one of mankind's most influential heroes. He was not a warrior, not an emperor. He was an engineer, a builder of wormhole transit systems. But Poole's work would ultimately lead to a vast and destructive conflict, a million-year war between humanity and the enigmatic, powerful aliens known as the Xeelee. The Xeelee won.

The military SF sequel to his extraordinary Old Man's War, John Scalzi's The Ghost Brigades is the second in The Old Man's War series. Who can you trust, if you can't trust yourself? Three hostile alien races have united against humanity, determined to halt our expansion into space. The...

They hunt us. They bomb our worlds for target practice. A star cluster in the constellation of Orion rotates once every thousand years. Those who rule there have an ancient tradition: When each cycle ends, they train their fleets by spilling the blood of lesser beings. The enemy fleets are coming again. In response, the Rebel Worlds gather their starships to face the terrifying threat, and this time humanity is asked to stand with them.

The Postponement is a restrained, high-concept science-fiction drama about a generation ship that finally reaches a viable planet—and discovers that arrival may be the most dangerous moment of the journey. After 143 years in transit, the ship confirms the existence of Threshold-1: a planet capable of sustaining human life. According to the charter, the population must vote—land and begin planetary settlement, or continue onward and remain a civilization in motion. The decision is binding. The consequences are irreversible.

NASA finally made it. The very first human has just set foot on the surface of our neighbor planet. This is the start of a long research expedition that sent four scientists into space. But the four astronauts of the NASA crew are not the only ones with this destination. The privately financed "Mars for Everyone" initiative has also targeted the Red Planet. Twenty men and women have been selected to live there and establish the first extraterrestrial settlement.