Not far in the future the seas have risen and the central latitudes are emptying but it’s still a good time to be rich in San Francisco where weapons drones patrol the skies to keep out the multitudinous poor. Irina isn’t rich, not quite, but she does have an artificial memory that gives her perfect recall, and lets her act as a medium between her various employers and their AIs, which are complex to the point of opacity. It’s a good gig, paying enough for the annual visits to the Mayo Clinic that keep her from ageing. Kern has no such access; he's one of the many refugees in the sprawling drone-built favelas on the city’s periphery, where he lives like a monk, training relentlessly in martial arts, scraping by as a thief and an enforcer. Thales is from a different world entirely – the mathematically-inclined scion of a Brazilian political clan, he's fled to L.A. after the attack that left him crippled and his father dead. A ragged stranger accosts Thales and demands to know how much he can remember. Kern flees for his life after robbing the wrong mark. Irina finds a secret in the reflection of a laptop’s screen in her employer’s eyeglasses. None are safe as they’re pushed together by subtle forces that stay just out of sight. Vivid, tumultuous and propulsive, Void Star is Zachary Mason’s mind-bending follow-up to his bestselling debut The Lost Books of the Odyssey.
"...a daunting triumph of will pushing its way through imposing roadblocks to a magical country, an absurdist nirvana of humor, pathos, and loss."--Time magazine A Void is a metaphysical whodunit, a story chock-full of plots and subplots, of trails in pursuit of trails, all of which afford Perec occasion to display his virtuosity as a verbal magician. It is also an outrageous verbal stunt: a 300-page novel that never once employs the letter E. The year is 1968, and as France is torn apart by social and political anarchy, the noted eccentric and insomniac Anton Vowl goes missing. Ransacking his Paris flat, his best friends scour his diary for clues to his whereabouts. At first glance these pages reveal nothing but Vowl's penchant for word games, especially for "lipograms," compositions in which the use of a particular letter is suppressed. But as the friends work out Vowl's verbal puzzles, and as they investigate various leads discovered among the entries, they too disappear, one by one by one, and under the most mysterious circumstances . . .
Readers join Captain MacKensie Calhoun, Commander Shelby, Dr. Selar, and the rest of the crew of the "U.S.S. Excalibur" as they explore strange new worlds, seek out new life and boldly go where no one has gone before!
Reviewers exhaust superlatives when it comes to the science fiction of Peter F. Hamilton. His complex and engaging novels, which span thousands of years—and light-years—are as intellectually stimulating as they are emotionally fulfilling. Now, with The Dreaming Void, the first volume in a trilogy set in the same far-future as his acclaimed Commonwealth saga, Hamilton has created his most ambitious and gripping space epic yet. The year is 3589, fifteen hundred years after Commonwealth forces barely staved off human extinction in a war against the alien Prime. Now an even greater danger has surfaced: a threat to the existence of the universe itself. At the very heart of the galaxy is the Void, a self-contained microuniverse that cannot be breached, cannot be destroyed, and cannot be stopped as it steadily expands in all directions, consuming everything in its path: planets, stars, civilizations. The Void has existed for untold millions of years. Even the oldest and most technologically advanced of the galaxy’s sentient races, the Raiel, do not know its origin, its makers, or its purpose. But then Inigo, an astrophysicist studying the Void, begins dreaming of human beings who live within it. Inigo’s dreams reveal a world in which thoughts become actions and dreams become reality. Inside the Void, Inigo sees paradise. Thanks to the gaiafield, a neural entanglement wired into most humans, Inigo’s dreams are shared by hundreds of millions–and a religion, the Living Dream, is born, with Inigo as its prophet. But then he vanishes. Suddenly there is a new wave of dreams. Dreams broadcast by an unknown Second Dreamer serve as the inspiration for a massive Pilgrimage into the Void. But there is a chance that by attempting to enter the Void, the pilgrims will trigger a catastrophic expansion, an accelerated devourment phase that will swallow up thousands of worlds. And thus begins a desperate race to find Inigo and the mysterious Second Dreamer. Some seek to prevent the Pilgrimage; others to speed its progress–while within the Void, a supreme entity has turned its gaze, for the first time, outward. . . . BONUS: This edition includes an excerpt from Peter F. Hamilton's The Temporal Void.
A post-singularity sci-fi setting that explores transhumanism and post-scarcity societies against a backdrop of action, adventure, conspiracy and intrigue.
The New York Times bestselling author of The Physics of Wall Street “deftly explains all you wanted to know about nothingness—a.k.a. the quantum vacuum” (Priyamvada Natarajan, author of Mapping the Heavens). James Owen Weatherall’s bestselling book, The Physics of Wall Street, was named one of Physics Today’s five most intriguing books of 2013. In this work, he takes on a fundamental concept of modern physics: nothing. The physics of stuff—protons, neutrons, electrons, and even quarks and gluons—is at least somewhat familiar to most of us. But what about the physics of nothing? Isaac Newton thought of empty space as nothingness extended in all directions, a kind of theater in which physics could unfold. But both quantum theory and relativity tell us that Newton’s picture can’t be right. Nothing, it turns out, is an awful lot like something, with a structure and properties every bit as complex and mysterious as matter. In his signature lively prose, Weatherall explores the very nature of empty space—and solidifies his reputation as a science writer to watch. Included on the 2017 Best Book List by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) “An engaging and interesting account.”—The Economist “Readers get a dose of biography while following such figures as Einstein, Dirac, and Newton to see how top theories about the void have been discovered, developed, and debunked. Weatherall’s clear language and skillful organization adroitly combines history and physics to show readers just how much ‘nothing really matters.’”—Publishers Weekly
Thousands of years before the time of Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader, on the remote world Tython, ancient philosophers and scientists share their mystical knowledge and study the ways of the Force. They establish the order of the Je'daii - which, in years to come, will become the Jedi. But first these visitors from so many different planets must colonise a dangerous new homeworld and surmount societal conflicts as the burgeoning Rakatan Empire prepares to conquer the known galaxy.
They could find a bright future . . . or the end of everything. From Peter F. Hamilton, The Evolutionary Void is the startling conclusion to the Void trilogy, set in the world of the Commonwealth Saga. Millions of Leaving Dream pilgrims have boarded ships, and are speeding towards the Void at the centre of the galaxy. They are chasing their dream – and expect to find paradise. Yet breaching the Void will trigger its expansion, destroying everything in its path. Paula Myo is desperate to find Void’s latest prophet – Second Dreamer Araminta. As without her, the ships can’t enter the Void. But when Araminta finally chooses her path, it will change things in ways no one could have imagined. And within the Void, Edeard realizes the price of peace may be too high. However, what will this mean for the pilgrims – and the galaxy beyond? 'A huge achievement in science fiction' – SciFiNow
Science fiction. As the millions of followers of the Living Dream plan a mass pilgrimage into the Void, others plot to stop their exodus, which they believe will only increase the Void's expansion and hasten the end of the galaxy. To complicate matters, the alien Ocisen Empire has allied with an old nemesis of humanity, the Primes, and their combined military might stands poised as a tremendous threat
Peter F. Hamilton’s extraordinary far-future epics recall the golden age of science fiction, as practiced by Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein. Nowhere is that legacy more in evidence than in The Void Trilogy. Taking place twelve hundred years after the events of Hamilton’s Commonwealth novels, The Dreaming Void, The Temporal Void, and The Evolutionary Void are Hamilton at his most ambitious and daringly imaginative—and now all three are together for the first time in this addictive eBook bundle. Contains an exhilarating preview of Peter F. Hamilton’s highly anticipated novel, The Abyss Beyond Dreams, set in the same universe as The Void Trilogy. THE DREAMING VOID THE TEMPORAL VOID THE EVOLUTIONARY VOID The year is 3589. At the very heart of the galaxy is the Void, a self-contained microuniverse that cannot be stopped as it expands in all directions, consuming everything in its path. Even the oldest and most technologically advanced of the galaxy’s sentient races, the Raiel, do not know its origin or its purpose. Then Inigo, an astrophysicist, begins having vivid dreams. Inside the Void, Inigo sees paradise. Thanks to the gaiafield, a neural entanglement wired into most humans, those dreams are shared by hundreds of millions—and a religion, the Living Dream, is born, with Inigo as its prophet. But then he vanishes. A new wave of dreams broadcast by an unknown Second Dreamer serves as the impetus for a massive Pilgrimage into the Void, which could trigger an accelerated devourment phase that will swallow up thousands of worlds. Thus begins a desperate race to find Inigo and avert catastrophe. Praise for The Void Trilogy The Dreaming Void “Peter F. Hamilton is the owner of the most powerful imagination in science fiction, author of immense, complex far-future sagas. The Dreaming Void is his best yet.”—Ken Follett “A real spellbinder from a master storyteller . . . dozens of scenarios, a surprisingly well-delineated cast of thousands, plotting enough to delight the most Machiavellian of readers.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review) “Amazing storytelling . . . Hamilton is the clear heir to Heinlein in my view.”—Marc Andreessen, founder, Netscape The Temporal Void “Fusing elements of hard SF with adventure fantasy tropes, Hamilton has singlehandedly raised the bar for grand-scale speculative storytelling.”—Publishers Weekly “A great, sprawling, ripping yarn reminiscent of Golden Age Science Fiction.”—SF Crowsnest “A gripping story, with the fates of two universes at stake.”—SF Site The Evolutionary Void “Satisfying and powerful . . . Space Opera doesn’t get much more epic than Peter F. Hamilton, something proven in spades in The Evolutionary Void.”—SFFWorld “Spiced with plenty of action and intrigue.”—San Jose Mercury News “The author’s mastery of the art of the ‘big story’ earns him a place among the leading authors of dynastic SF.”—Library Journal
