From the Nebula Award-winning author comes a newly revised edition of this story in his classic Galactic Center series. 2076: Technology has propelled the world into a new age of enlightenment. Nigel (from In the Ocean of Night) has left Earth to explore space for alien life. But while on this captivating mission, humanity's birthplace has fallen prey to attack and its seas are seeded with alien lifeforms. Now, Nigel is left to search for the only savior he knows-the one who saved him once before-the alien machine called the "Snark." Having left the solar system and turned traitor to its alien masters, Nigel is unsure of the Snark's new allegiance. Is the Snark a friend? Or will it also turn on Nigel... proving to be a deadly foe?
From the Nebula Award-winning author comes a newly revised edition of this story in his classic Galactic Center series. 2076: Technology has propelled the world into a new age of enlightenment. Nigel (from In the Ocean of Night) has left Earth to explore space for alien life. But while on this captivating mission, humanity's birthplace has fallen prey to attack and its seas are seeded with alien lifeforms. Now, Nigel is left to search for the only savior he knows-the one who saved him once before-the alien machine called the "Snark." Having left the solar system and turned traitor to its alien masters, Nigel is unsure of the Snark's new allegiance. Is the Snark a friend? Or will it also turn on Nigel... proving to be a deadly foe?
The third novel in the award-winning author's classic Galactic Center series is available once again. "A challenging, pacesetting work of hard science fiction that should not be missed" (Los Angeles Times). Nearly 100,000 years after first contact with the machines that dominate the universe, a few hundred humans survive. Trapped on Snowglade, a barren world near the center of the galaxy, people like Killeen of Family Bishop and his child Toby are primitive scavengers, homeless and hunted by the ruling "mechs." Then suddenly, a strange cosmic entity-neither organic nor cybernetic nor living matter-reaches out from a black hole to speak with Killeen. But can this fallen descendant of starfarers understand this alien being in time-and seize his only chance to save his family and mankind from final annihilation?
This new, special edition of the classic concluding volume of this defining series by the eminent physicist and Nebula Award-winning author contains a teaser chapter from Benford's, The Sunborn. The final chapter of humanity's future has begun, and three men hold the key to survival. As the fierce, artificially intelligent mechs pursue their savage and unstoppable destruction of the human race, it soon becomes apparent that three men-three generations in a family of voyagers-are their targets. Toby Bishop, his father Kileen, and his longdead grandfather each carry a piece of the lethal secret that can destroy their relentless pursuers. There is only one problem: They have no idea they possess the only weapon that can save humanity.
The Nebula Award-winning author's fifth installment of his classic Galactic Center series is reissued in this special edition that contains a teaser chapter from The Sunborn. Trying to escape the relentless mechs, the last humans from planet Snowglade take their ancient starship on a dangerous course straight into the Eater, the black hole at the galactic center. Hungry and desperate, the refugees begin to question the leadership of Captain Killeen, who believes the center holds their one hope of survival. Meanwhile, Killeen's son Toby struggles with the microchips that were implanted in his spine-a technology that now threatens his sanity. Caught between their genocidal pursuers and peril in the galactic center, Killeen and Toby bring humanity to its final destiny.
A research team and a blind old sailor slyly spar over the truth of a long-ago shipwreck, a mad island of dead gods and the mystery of a lost manuscript. Neither sailor nor interviewer is what they seem; and both must learn to work together to find what they seek. Seemingly, Clarence St. Elmo sits old and blind in the Sailor's Safe Harbor Home. A patient interviewer sifts his wandering memories for details of the wreck of the Unicorn, a cargo schooner lost long ago in the South Pacific. But Clarence St. Elmo is also a young man who finds himself on a cursed ship with a cargo of dead gods destined to be sunk in the Sea of Time. His love waits for his return, while mad voices in his head slyly pry for clues to a lost book. And always beyond the words and the memories, the dreadful storm circles closer. A romance of memory, across the sea of time. From the book: Describe the dance in the moonlight. The girl stopped dancing at the first bird chirp of dawn. The ruined walls pooled the remainder of night like a hollow on a beach when the tide draws away. Exhausted, I stared up at a patch of coloring on a tree-top. My heart beat for a drum. The girl looked at the sky, then regretfully towards the dark entrance to the crumbled house. She wasn't a bit tired. But she intended to retire for the day, no doubt taking me and Cut-Throat with her. She could do it, too. In the faint light her face was hungry and pretty and determined as a tiger's. If I bolted she would be on me before I made the archway. I crossed looks with Cut-Throat. He shook his head slightly, telling me the same. I tried not to look at the other fellow, who had no eyes to meet. He just stood there in rotting sea-man's clothes listening for the clap of her hands. But our Cut-Throat had taken the girl's measure. He'd noted what rhythm and time made her feet stamp, made her toss her ropes of hair. Now he began a slow sad dirge for the dying night. She turned to him, hands raised to clap an order. But I took her left hand and bowed and stepped forward my right foot and she had no choice in her perfection of movement but to step back and then half turn as I did and we stepped forwards together two steps, then turned together as I placed my left hand on the small of her back and we skipped left three steps as the fiddle slyly slipped from dirge to a laughing tune that ran faster and faster till we were whirling and turning over the cold stones.
A young man seeks vengeance against the man who killed his parents in this action-packed science fiction thriller series opener. It is the distant future. The world known as Virga is a fullerene balloon three thousand kilometers in diameter, filled with air, water, and aimlessly floating chunks of rock. The humans who live in this vast environment must build their own fusion suns and “towns” that are in the shape of enormous wood and rope wheels that are spun for gravity. Young, fit, bitter, and friendless, Hayden Griffin is a very dangerous man. He’s come to the city of Rush in the nation of Slipstream with one thing in mind: to take murderous revenge for the deaths of his parents six years ago. His target is Admiral Chaison Fanning, head of the fleet of Slipstream, which conquered Hayden’s nation of Aerie years ago. And the fact that Hayden’s spent his adolescence living with pirates doesn’t bode well for Fanning’s chances . . .
From Rampant and Ascendant author Diana Peterfreund comes this thrilling companion to For Darkness Shows the Stars, now in paperback. Across a Star-Swept Sea is a romantic science-fiction reimagining of the classic The Scarlet Pimpernel. Centuries after wars nearly destroyed civilization, the islands of Galatea and Albion stand alone, a paradise where even the Reduction—the devastating brain disorder that sparked the wars—is a distant memory. Yet on Galatea, an uprising against the aristocracy has turned deadly. The revolutionaries' weapon is a drug that damages their enemies' brains, and the only hope is a mysterious spy known as the Wild Poppy. On neighboring Albion, no one suspects that the Wild Poppy is actually famously frivolous teenage aristocrat Persis Blake. Her gossipy flutternotes are encrypted plans, her pampered sea mink is genetically engineered for spying, and her well-publicized new romance with handsome Galatean medic Justen Helo . . . is her most dangerous mission ever. When Persis discovers that Justen is keeping a secret that could plunge New Pacifica into another dark age, she realizes she's not just risking her heart, she's risking the world she's sworn to protect.
Now a New York Times and USA Today bestseller! Winner of Best Science Fiction in the 2020 Goodreads Choice Awards! To Sleep in a Sea of Stars is a brand new epic novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author of Eragon, Christopher Paolini. Kira Navárez dreamed of life on new worlds. Now she's awakened a nightmare. During a routine survey mission on an uncolonized planet, Kira finds an alien relic. At first she's delighted, but elation turns to terror when the ancient dust around her begins to move. As war erupts among the stars, Kira is launched into a galaxy-spanning odyssey of discovery and transformation. First contact isn't at all what she imagined, and events push her to the very limits of what it means to be human. While Kira faces her own horrors, Earth and its colonies stand upon the brink of annihilation. Now, Kira might be humanity's greatest and final hope . . . The Fractalverse Series To Sleep in a Sea of Stars Fractal Noise At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.