Merlin's Gun

Muse of Fire

Dan Simmons · 105 pages

In a remote future age when the human enterprise has all but ground to a halt. a wandering troupe of players is dedicated to presenting the works of Shakespeare to every accessible corner of the settled universe. When aliens take an interest, the players find themselves giving command performances of King Lear, Hamlet and the Scottish play for a series of increasingly important alien species, with

War Factory

Neal Asher · 454 pages

"Thorvald Spear, resurrected from his death over a hundred years earlier, continues to hunt Penny Royal, the rogue AI and dangerous war criminal on the run from Polity forces. Beyond the Graveyard, a lawless and deadly area in deep space, Spear follows the trail of several enemy Prador, the crab-like alien species with a violent history of conflict with humanity. Sverl, a Prador genetically modifi

Ancillary Justice

Ann Leckie · 401 pages

On a remote, icy planet, the soldier known as Breq is drawing closer to completing her quest. Once, she was the *Justice of Toren*--a colossal starship with an artificial intelligence linking thousands of soldiers in the service of the Radch, the empire that conquered the galaxy. Now, an act of treachery has ripped it all away, leaving her with one fragile human body, unanswered questions, a

Pandora's Star

Peter F. Hamilton · 988 pages

Critics have compared the engrossing space operas of Peter F. Hamilton to the classic sagas of such sf giants as Isaac Asimov and Frank Herbert. But Hamilton's bestselling fiction--powered by a fearless imagination and world-class storytelling skills--has also earned him comparison to Tolstoy and Dickens. Hugely ambitious, wildly entertaining, philosophically stimulating: the novels of Peter F. Ha

The Stars, Like Dust

Isaac Asimov · 218 pages

Biron Farrell was young and naïve, but he was growing up fast. A radiation bomb planted in his dorm room changed him from an innocent student at the University of Earth to a marked man, fleeing desperately from an unknown assassin. He soon discovers that, many light-years away, his father, the highly respected Rancher of Widemos, has been murdered. Stunned, grief-stricken, and outraged, Biron i

Golden Son

Pierce Brown · 464 pages

"With shades of The Hunger Games, Ender's Game, and Game of Thrones, debut author Pierce Brown's genre-defying epic Red Rising hit the ground running and wasted no time becoming a sensation. Golden Son continues the stunning saga of Darrow, a rebel forged by tragedy, battling to lead his oppressed people to freedom from the overlords of a brutal elitist future built on lies. Now fully embedded amo

Newton's Wake

Ken MacLeod · 368 pages

Promethean Sun

Nick Kyme

Tin Stars

Jeff Lemire · 160 pages

Young Robot boy TIM-21 and his companions struggle to stay alive in a universe where all androids have been outlawed and bounty hunters lurk on every planet. Written by award-winning creator, Jeff Lemire, Descender is a rip-roaring and heart-felt cosmic odyssey. Lemire pits humanity against machine, and world against world, to create a sprawling epic.

Look to Windward

Iain M. Banks · 369 pages

It was one of the less glorious incidents of a long-ago war. It led to the destruction of two suns and the billions of lives they supported. Now, eight hundred years later, the light from the first of those ancient mistakes has reached the Culture Orbital, Masaq. The light from the second may not.

Dune

Frank Herbert · 541 pages

Set on the desert planet Arrakis, Dune is the story of the boy Paul Atreides, heir to a noble family tasked with ruling an inhospitable world where the only thing of value is the "spice" melange, a drug capable of extending life and enhancing consciousness. Coveted across the known universe, melange is a prize worth killing for... When House Atreides is betrayed, the destruction of Paul's famil

Navigators of Dune

Brian Herbert, Kevin J. Anderson · 448 pages

A *New York Times* bestseller, Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson's *Navigators of Dune* is the climactic finale of the Great Schools of Dune trilogy, set 10,000 years before Frank Herbert's classic *Dune*. The story line tells the origins of the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood and its breeding program, the human-computer Mentats, and the Navigators (the Spacing Guild), as well as a crucial battle fo

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet

Becky Chambers · 441 pages

When Rosemary Harper joins the crew of the Wayfarer, she isn't expecting much. The Wayfarer, a patched-up ship that's seen better days, offers her everything she could possibly want: a small, quiet spot to call home for a while, adventure in far-off corners of the galaxy, and distance from her troubled past. But Rosemary gets more than she bargained for with the Wayfarer. The crew is a mishmash o

Dark Matter

Ian Douglas · 369 pages

The United States of North America is now engaged in a civil war with the Earth Confederation, which wants to yield to the demands of the alien Sh'daar, limit human technology, and become a part of the Sh'daar Galactic Collective. USNA President Koenig believes that surrendering to the Sh'daar will ultimately doom humankind. But when highly advanced, seemingly godlike aliens appear through an arti

The Killing of Worlds

Scott Westerfeld · 336 pages

"Captain Laurent Zai of the Imperial Frigate faces a suicied mission: stopping the next thrust of the Rix invasion with just his own ship. While ship-to-ship combat rages among the stars, Zai's lover, Senaotr Nara Oxham, is caught in a deadly political fencing match with the Emperor himself. The Emperor has a terrible secret, a secret Nara is in danger of finding out, a secret for which he would c

Iron Sunrise

Charles Stross · 448 pages

Zones of Thought: A Fire Upon the Deep / A Deepness in the Sky

Vernor Vinge · 976 pages

Deathstalker Honor

Simon R. Green · 528 pages

Foundation and Chaos

Greg Bear · 408 pages

Isaac Asimov's renowned Foundation trilogy pioneered many of the familiar themes of modern science fiction and shaped many of its best writers. With the permission and blessing of the Asimov estate, the epic saga left unfinished by the Grand Master himself now continues with this second masterful volume. With Hari Seldon on trial for treason, the Galactic Empire's long-anticipated migration to

Space Viking

H. Beam Piper · 212 pages

When his wife is murdered on his wedding day, Lucas Trask launches himself on a quest for revenge. Using his personal fortune, he buys a spaceship and becomes a Space Viking, raiding worlds while hunting for his wife's killer. But raiding is not his destiny, and he gradually becomes a trader, starting to build a galactic empire. Before he can achieve his new goals, however, he must still deal with

The Uplift War

David Brin · 638 pages

David Brin's Uplift novels are among the most thrilling and extraordinary science fiction ever written. Sundiver, Startide Rising, and The Uplift War--a New York Times bestseller--together make up one of the most beloved sagas of all time. Brin's tales are set in a future universe in which no species can reach sentience without being "uplifted" by a patron race. But the greatest mystery of all

Firebird

Jack McDevitt · 375 pages

Alex Benedict and Chase Kolpath discover that a missing renowned physicist had several interstellar yachts flown far outside the planetary system where they vanished. Following the physicist's trail into the unknown puts Benedict and Kolpath in danger.

The Star King

Jack Vance · 205 pages

Kirth Gersen carries in his pocket a slip of paper with a list of five names written upon it. These are the names of the five Demon Princes who led the historic Mount Pleasant Massacre, which destroyed not only Kirth's family but his entire world as well. He roams the universe, searching the endless galaxies of space, hunting down the Demon Princes and exacting his revenge. First he must find A

Children of the Mind

Orson Scott Card · 370 pages

The planet Lusitania is home to three sentient species: the Pequeninos; a large colony of humans; and the Hive Queen, brought there by Ender. But once against the human race has grown fearful; the Starways Congress has gathered a fleet to destroy Lusitania. Jane, the evolved computer intelligence, can save the three sentient races of Lusitania. She has learned how to move ships outside the univ