A missing Martian. A sinister plot. A Napoleonic spy. . . Boundless adventures await in Book 2 of The Secrets of the Dragon Tomb middle grade sci-fi series! If Edward thought life was going to be easy in Lunae City, he was very, very wrong. The moment he intercepts a thief escaping from Lady Harleston’s town house, he is caught in a terrible scheme that threatens all of Mars. Soon he’s fighting off vicious sea serpents, battling a small army of heavily armored thugs, and trying to unpick an impossible mystery. Edward doesn’t know whom he can trust. Will he make the right choice? Or will his family—and his entire planet—fall victim to the treacherous Emperor of Mars? A Christy Ottaviano Book
While dreaming of being a spy like those in his favorite magazine, twelve-year-old Edward's been stuck holding his eccentric family together, but when his parents are kidnapped, he leads his sisters and cousin in an effort to rescue them across the danger-filled landscape of nineteenth-century Mars.
Welcome to the End of Empire. Set over two hundred years from now, in a world very much like Imperial Rome, this is the story of General Peter Black, the last decent man, as told through the eyes of his devoted (and illegitimate) daughter, Justa. Raised on battlefields, more comfortable in the company of hard men of war than with women or other children, Justa must keep the truth of her birth hidden. Her father regards her as an embarrassment, a reminder of his one and only indiscretion. Yet she is a remarkable woman, one whose keen mind wins her an education at the feet of Emperor Mathias the Glistening himself. All his life, General Black served the noble emperor, and, out of loyalty to the father, continues to serve his son after Mathias's death, even as the son's reign degenerates into an insane tyranny worthy of Nero or Caligula. As the rule of the empire passes from father to son with disastrous results, a strange metal plague begins slowly destroying the empire's technology, plunging the realm into chaos and the world into war. Amid the destruction and upheaval, General Black must decide whether to turn his back on the men and institutions who never loved him nearly as much as he did them, or whether to save his most trusted ally and adviser, his best friend and only real family. The Martian General's Daughter is a gripping tale of a world at war; of cunning strategies and vile politics; of bravery, foolishness, and excess. It is at once a stirring military adventure, a cautionary tale of repeating history, a cutting satire, and a heartbreaking examination of the joys and pain inherent in the love between a father and child. Judson's previous novel was selected in multiple best-of-the-year lists. With The Martian General's Daughter, he offers another must-read epic destined to take its place in the canon of science fiction, and sure to appeal to readers of everything from Orson Scott Card to Walter M. Miller, Jr.
This collection puts together 20 of the best science fiction stories about Mars published over the past two decades by top-notch authors of the genre. An improbable group of astronauts are slingshot to Mars in cheap one-person, one-way jalopies in "Terminal," by Lavie Tidhar. In "The Cascade," by Sean McMullen, an affair between a shy robotics postdoc and an adventurous young woman change the destiny of the first landing on Mars. A penal colony on Mars violently clashes with a science base in "Falling onto Mars," a Hugo Award winning story by Geoffrey A. Landis. In "The Old Cosmonaut and the Construction Worker Dream of Mars," by Ian McDonald, the lives of a young Indian construction worker and an old Estonian cosmonaut collide during the terraforming of Mars by quantum machines. Two young girls are desperate to survive on the surface of Mars after their commune's underground compound is destroyed by comet strikes in "Hanging Gardens," by Gregory Feeley. In "Digging," by Ian McDonald, a project has been undertaken to create a breathable atmosphere on Mars constructing a valley so deep that the planet's thin atmosphere will be forced into it. An amusing step-by-step program enables potential potentates to find the right Mars to rule over in "How to Become a Mars Overlord," by Catherynne M. Valente. In the Hugo Award winning story "The Emperor of Mars," by Allen M. Steele, a laborer on a corporate-owned Martian colony transforms himself into royalty while coping with a tragedy on Earth. A young girl defies the conventional role she's fated for on Mars in "La Malcontenta," by Liz Williams. In "The Burial of Sir John Mawe at Cassini," by Chez Brenchley, a gravedigger uncovers many secrets at the burial of a hanged British nobleman on a Victorian Mars. A colonist provides a moving account of his life on Mars to inspire a new generation of Martians in "Martian Heart," by John Barnes. In "The Vicar of Mars," by Gwyneth Jones, a High Priest suffers hauntings after visiting an old, reclusive, wealthy woman on Mars. A rough and tumble Martian mining town reconstructs a lawman from the Old American West to restore order in "Wyatt Earp 2.0," by Wil McCarthy. In "An Ocean is a Snowflake, Four Billion Miles Away," by John Barnes, the rivalry between two documentarians, filming on Mars, puts them in peril as the planet is being terraformed. A corporation building New Las Vegas on Mars grooms a janitor for rock stardom to improve worker morale in "The Rise and Fall of Paco Cohen and the Mariachis of Mars," by Ernest Hogan. In "Martian Blood," by Allen M. Steele, an Egyptian-American astrobiologist travels to a Martian aboriginal settlement to prove his theory that life on Earth originated on Mars. Pilgrims, tourists, and locals visit the many monoliths of Mars to commune with their unknown builders through radio bursts in "The Monoliths of Mars," by Paul McAuley. In "The Martian Job," by Jaine Fenn, the greatest heist known to humankind, with many a double-cross, is pulled on the largest corporation on Mars. The first man to step foot on Mars recounts his life's story as mankind ends its colonization of the planet in "Mars Abides," by Stephen Baxter. And finally, in the Locus Award winning story "The Martian Obelisk," by Linda Nagata, a robotic crawler threatens the remote construction of a monument on Mars, by an architect on Earth, as it approaches the obelisk.
An intimate look inside the secretive world of chocolate explores the.history of the Hershey and Mars corporations, the paranoid executives.who protect their secrets, the spies who attempt to steal them, and.lawyers hired to defend the business
For more than a century, Mars has been at the center of debates about humanity’s place in the cosmos. Focusing on perceptions of the red planet in scientific works and science fiction, Dying Planet analyzes the ways Mars has served as a screen onto which humankind has projected both its hopes for the future and its fears of ecological devastation on Earth. Robert Markley draws on planetary astronomy, the history and cultural study of science, science fiction, literary and cultural criticism, ecology, and astrobiology to offer a cross-disciplinary investigation of the cultural and scientific dynamics that have kept Mars on front pages since the 1800s. Markley interweaves chapters on science and science fiction, enabling him to illuminate each arena and to explore the ways their concerns overlap and influence one another. He tracks all the major scientific developments, from observations through primitive telescopes in the seventeenth century to data returned by the rovers that landed on Mars in 2004. Markley describes how major science fiction writers—H. G. Wells, Kim Stanley Robinson, Philip K. Dick, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Ray Bradbury, Robert Heinlein, and Judith Merril—responded to new theories and new controversies. He also considers representations of Mars in film, on the radio, and in the popular press. In its comprehensive study of both science and science fiction, Dying Planet reveals how changing conceptions of Mars have had crucial consequences for understanding ecology on Earth.
On Mars, some 65 million years ago, two civilisations live uneasily side by side. When a good friend of antagonist Aka-des is conscripted into the service of the god-Emperor, he has no option but to try and find him, unearthing unimaginable horrors at the seat of imperial power in the process. Outside the Martian city the insectoid Antis, imperilled by the continued expansion of the humanoid Martians into their tribal lands, have to make a choice. Can war between the two races be averted, and can Aka-des prove to a disbelieving world what is really happening in their name? Meanwhile, in the near future, explorers from Earth make startling discoveries on the Red Planet, which provide a link with its distant past. What they uncover will change people’s view of Mars forever, and pose a growing threat to the mission and the lives of the isolated band of pioneers themselves.
The Dangerous Snake and Reptile Club, with the help of a boy visiting the neighborhood, sets up equipment in the clubhouse in hopes of tracking flying saucers and making contact with aliens.
Book nine in the New York Times bestselling series This is a reissue of 9781849708173 As the flames of treachery spread outwards through the Imperium, Horus mobilises those forces who are loyal to him, and plots to subvert or destroy those who stand against him. A battle is being fought for the heart and soul of all the Imperial forces – the Astartes, the Imperial Army, the Titan Legions and more. In this epic story, author Graham McNeill tells the story of the civil war on Mars, and the genesis of the Dark Mechanicum.
