A Dramatic Science Fiction story about a geologist, Mark, who is exploring the Himalayan mountains to find the source of increasingly powerful earthquakes. He meets a beautiful woman cult leader, Kusoom, who tells him a great being is about to be born. He is skeptical until he sees its eye in a deep cave. He realizes the source of the earthquakes is the emergence of the 'great being', a colossal bird hatching from beneath Mt. Kailas. He is caught...

Drugs. Sex. Murder. Taxes. Welcome to planet Earth. They're here. They've arrived. And they're all eyes. The Voltarian scouting party-illegal aliens extraordinaire-on a top-secret expedition led by one Jettero Heller, Royal Officer of the Fleet. His mission: rescue the planet from pollution-and make it safe for the upcoming invasion. His problem: the planet may not want to be saved-and the invasion may just be a trick. One way or another, Heller is...

"Rick Shelley concludes his military sci-fi trilogy following the exploits of the Lucky 13th Spaceborne Assault Team as they undertake a daring strike aimed at the heart of the enemy. The ongoing three-sided war among the Schlinal Hegemony, the Dogel Worlds, and the Accord of Free Worlds has worn down all the combatants. Even as the most recent entrant to the hostilities, the Accord is already running out of men and material. And now the Hegemony...

Ever wish things were different? Ivy Velasquez did, so she became someone else. In the 3D virtual world Marionette City, you can be anything you want - but everyone still knows who you are. Driven by her desire for a new life, Ivy takes her future in her hands when she makes another identity for herself. A brilliant designer, Ivy works for one of the huge multi-national firms, which control the online system the world relies upon for both business...

This work of science fiction by Edward Elmer Smith ("Doc Smith") and E. Everett Evans tells the story of a deep space naval mission known as Project Theta Orionis. Onboard, Jarvis Hilton and his team of scientists find their ship, the Perseus, is dropped into normal space and facing an encounter with a peculiar object. They have no idea what to make of it all and unexpectedly find themselves as witnesses to a enormous space battle. Following the encounter...

The Ethical Engineer is a science fiction novel by Harry Harrison, first published in 1963. The story is set in a fictional medieval kingdom, where a power-hungry king named Lanius seeks to expand his empire by conquering neighboring lands. The main character, Conn Maxwell, is an engineer who is hired by Lanius to build a war machine that will help him conquer his enemies. However, Conn is also a man of ethics and principles, and he struggles with...

"Talents, Incorporated was first published in 1962 at the height of the Cold War. The order of the day was MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) and Murray Leinster, pseudonym for William F. Jenkins, author of Talents, Incorporated, does a better job of presenting the absurdity of governing for defeat than does Wibberley. Wibberley assails the patronizing near Imperialism of the anti-Communist frenzy of the era. Both are hilarious, disconcerting, and...

It'll take more than a lie to keep Kirsten safe. *** A creative assassin. A hit list hidden in a Doomsday seed vault. A woman with an unusual gift who has to untangle the conspiracy … before it kills her. Kirsten is desperate for a baby, but when she digs into her mother's past she discovers a shocking betrayal that derails her life. Will she uncover the mystery before the hitman finds her? Why You Were Taken is the first book in the When Tomorrow...

Stupid Machine is a Hard Science Fiction novel set in 2062. Car accidents don't happen. The last one was twenty-some years ago, somewhere around 2040. Which makes Jordan Bishop's fatal crash in a self-driving vehicle unusual. Maybe even a murder. Jupyter Fuertes works with appliances-rice cookers, ovens, whatever calls for help-coaching them back to proper operation. She hopes for something bigger. She's hounded by a refrigerator with an impossible...

13 dazzling stories and a rare screenplay by the Hugo and Nebula Award–winning author of Queen of Angels, Eon, and Hull Zero Three    Greg Bear's ability to transform challenging scientific concepts into gripping fiction has won him numerous awards and an avid following. He has written novels about interstellar war, human evolution, intelligent bacteria, international terrorism, and the exploration of deep space-but he doesn't stop there. This...