Showing titles in Hard Science Fiction

In High Earth, digital entertainment is everything. Shows. Virtual worlds. Simulations - there’s something for everybody in a city where working for a living has been rendered obsolete by technological advancements. Even a short walk outside to visit with others is no longer necessary. Just load into the network and you can be with anyone, anywhere. For Asher Reinhart, nothing compares to Ignis; a live reality show that pushes human beings to their very extremes.

Jay Gardiner has given himself a fool's errand: to find the remains of his deceased father in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California. He knows it's a long shot, but Jay feels it's the only way for him to lift the weight of guilt he has carried since his dad's death the previous year. The dive begins well enough, but the sudden appearance of a giant squid puts Jay in very real jeopardy, made worse by the arrival of a sperm whale looking to feed. Suddenly, Jay is caught in the squid's tentacles and drawn into the whale's mouth where he is pulled into the first of its four stomachs.

This is high action, ideas driven noir SF of the highest order. Morgan has already established himself as an SF author of global significance. Takeshi Kovacs has come home. Home to Harlan's World. An ocean planet with only 5 percent of its landmass poking above the dangerous and unpredictable...

With the power gone, the UK falls into a state of panic. The ensuing anarchy is simply the warm-up act. Shaun Taylor is stranded far from home, far from a broken family he needs to make whole again, and he will do whatever it takes to get back to them. What would you do to get home? What would you do if the lights went out?

Captain Jason Burke is a man apart, and not just because he's the only of his kind for thousands of light-years in any direction. The changes to his body and to his genetic code have made him faster, stronger, more able to survive in his dangerous occupation...but they've also ensured that he'll never truly fit in with others of his species. He always assumed he would live and die with his crew and never lay eyes on another human again. He was wrong.

In the 25th century, humans have conquered space. The advent of faster-than-light travel has opened up hundreds of habitable planets for colonization, and humans have exploited the virtually limitless space and resources for hundreds of years with impunity. So complacent have they become with the overabundance that armed conflict is a thing of the past, and their machines of war are obsolete and decrepit. What would happen if they were suddenly threatened by a terrifying new enemy?

Neal Stephenson is a blazing new force on the sci-fi scene. With the groundbreaking cyberpunk novel Snow Crash, he has "vaulted onto the literary stage." It weaves virtual reality, Sumerian myth, and just about everything in between with a cool, hip cybersensibility - in short, it is the gigathriller of the information age.

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.

Summoned to the home planet of her family's business empire, space-fleet commander Kylara Vatta is told to expect a hero's welcome. But instead, she is thrown into danger unlike any other she has faced and finds herself isolated, unable to communicate with the outside world, commanding a motley group of unfamiliar troops, and struggling day by day to survive in a deadly environment with sabotaged gear. Only her undeniable talent for command can give her ragtag band a fighting chance.

Harry can build a perfect android, but no one likes them unless he can make them more human. Harry's dead wife lends a hand, but Eva, the android, hates him. A first contact goes so smoothly that Ethan falls in love with a blue alien, but soon realizes that some erroneous assumptions have been made... An explorer becomes best friends with an artificial person that he found in his salvaged ship, and the mystery of why such a valuable machine was wiped and left for junk haunts them both. Cobb had an interest in both the vast AI systems that ran everything and how they came to be.

An interstellar object is hurtling toward Earth. It isn't natural. When astronomers detect a massive kinetic impactor on a collision course with Earth, the math is undeniable: the impact will be an extinction-level event. Humanity has eighteen months to stop it — or cease to exist. But stopping it requires something unprecedented. Earth and Mars — two civilizations separated by millions of miles and decades of distrust — must cooperate on a mission that pushes physics, engineering, and human endurance to their absolute limits. The science is unforgiving. The distances are real.

From the author of the acclaimed and best-selling The Gates of the Alamo, a novel of extraordinary power about what it’s like, and what it means, to journey into space as one of today’s astronauts. At the novel’s center: Lucy Kincheloe, an astronaut married to an astronaut, the loving...

In this “whip-smart and engrossing” (Associated Press) dystopian novel from the bestselling author of the Assassins Anonymous series, a disillusioned employee and a corporate spy team up to expose a massive tech company’s dark underbelly. “Outstanding . . . walks a fine line between...

A high-stakes treasure hunt…A twisted trail of murder…A secret one woman may die to discover… Number one New York Times bestselling author Iris Johansen last electrified readers with Dead Aim and No One to Trust. Now she offers a new pulse-pounding thriller that takes suspense writing to...

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.

The Soldier is the first novel in the no-holds barred Rise of the Jain series, by bestselling science fiction author Neal Asher. 'A beautifully complex universe where AIs, aliens and post-humans scheme and struggle – magnificently awesome.' – Peter F. Hamilton Her mission is vital. Her...

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.

“Like Carl Hiaasen, Berney delights in the cartoonish. Like Elmore Leonard, he can drive a plot. What sets him apart is how well he evokes love, making the romance…as compelling as the mystery.” —Boston Globe Lou Berney immediately earned a seat of honor at the mystery masters’ table...

When Simon and Katherine Hawke stumble upon an alien shuttle that has landed on earth, it’ll not only change the course of their lives, but of the entire world. Taking the shuttle into orbit, they discover a much larger ship left adrift with no one on board. Commandeering it, they confirm that we’re not alone in the universe and must prepare the human race for what is about to come. Recruiting from all over the world, they begin to expand their fleet and build a federation to give humans a foothold in the galaxy.

Neal Stephenson - "the hottest science fiction writer in America" - takes science fiction to dazzling new levels. The Diamond Age is a stunning tale; set in 21st-century Shanghai, it is the story of what happens what a state-of-the-art interactive device falls into the hands of a street urchin named Nell. Her life - and the entire future of humanity - is about to be decoded and reprogrammed.