Showing titles in Hard Science Fiction

The Quantum Thief is a dazzling hard SF novel set in the solar system of the far future - a heist novel peopled by bizarre post-humans but powered by very human motives of betrayal, revenge and jealousy. It is a stunning debut. Jean le Flambeur is a post-human criminal, mind burglar, confidence...

AE follows the story of Michael Forbes as he navigates the intricacies of temptation and loyalty while trying to be helpful in a world dominated by mafioso moves, alien AI, beauty, and attraction. Meanwhile, his girlfriend is being very naughty. Michael meets Una and Evan in this continuation of The Alien while the AI and Lizzie both go through a process of evolution and Silvio moves ahead with plans. An investigation team arrives from Home and some new players enter the field as Alien Encounters stack up and actions clash.

Caught up in an experiment gone wrong, Joseph Schwartz is transported forward in time from post-war Chicago to the heyday of the first Galactic Empire. Earth, he soon learns, is a backwater, despised by the other two hundred million planets of the Empire because its people dare to claim it as the original home of man. And Earth is poor, with great areas of radioactivity ruining much of its soil – so poor that everyone is sentenced to death at the age of sixty. And Joseph Schwartz is sixty-two.

Frederik Pohl was on a streak when this Hugo Award-finalist novel was published in 1980. Now back in print after an absence of nearly a decade, this unique science fiction novel is as fresh and entertaining as ever. The story begins when the hero of Gateway finances an expedition to a distant alien spaceship that may end famine forever. On the ship, the explorers find a human boy, and evidence that reveals a powerful alien civilization is thriving on a transport ship headed right for Earth....

A crescent moon set against a jeweled field of stars gracefully slid into view. The thin arc of its crater-filled landscape drew Jack’s mind in. His eyes followed the long, inky shadows cast by jagged crater walls as they cut sharply into the pockmarked ashen terrain. Deeper within the jet-black lunar night-side were the lonely peaks of a smattering of mountain tops, catching a few last rays of sunlight. All Jack felt was a desire to escape; to be down there exploring...perhaps uncovering some new detail in the history of Earth’s nearest neighbor.

"Such realistic brilliance you can see a whole civilisation in it" - The Times "Simply amazing science fiction that will have me grabbing book two" - Goodreads Reviewer, 5 stars "one of the best scifi concepts out there" - Amazon Reviewer, 5 stars Stephen Baxter's highly acclaimed first novel...

Space opera's sharpest mind returns to the world of the Imperial Radch in this brilliant standalone from award-winning author Ann Leckie. The Temporal Location of the Radiant Star has always been a source of both conflict and hope for the people of Ooioiaa. However, the imperial Radch see it...

Kevin Stiles was told he would go through two months of intense astronaut training and then have his memories uploaded into a computer. After that, he would go home to his family and continue with his life. And long ago and impossibly far away, he assumes he did that. But this version of Kevin finds himself on a ship in deep space, a clone of himself with all his old memories, on a mission to propagate the human species. His old life no longer exists. In all likelihood, Earth no longer exists. Kevin must forge a life for himself and his female companion on a world where humans are the aliens.

There are reports that hijacked Star Watch personnel are released onto a jungle planet in the Beyond. There, New Men hunt them down like animals with high-powered rifles and killer dogs. Captain Maddox would check that out, but he’s grounded on Earth and Galyan refuses to let anyone else use Starship Victory. Valerie goes in a Patrol scout with Keith at helm and the newly young Riker as security.

Reporter Tom Lambert decides to reinvestigate the bizarre events of a decade earlier concerning the ‘cosmic noise’. Believing the whole truth was never revealed, he tracks down the one man who knows it: retired astrophysics professor Dr Hayward Petrie. Told in flashbacks, the story unfolds from Petrie’s recordings of the time when he experienced things that made him doubt his own sanity. Invited to visit his old colleague Campbell McLaren, who is in charge of a radio telescope on a remote Hebridean island, Petrie asks students Clifford Brown and Elizabeth Ryder to join him.

Two hundred thousand feet up, things go horribly wrong. An experimental low-orbit spaceplane breaks up on reentry, falling to earth over a trail hundreds of miles long. And in its wake is the beginning of the most important mission in the history of spaceflight.

Truth Medici knows life isn't fair. But for the first time, the balance is in his favor. Cultivation has taken him from desperate slumrat to burglar to mercenary to bodyguard to terrorist, and now he's the revered prince of a kingdom to come—immortal heir to a dynasty hidden for millennia. Pampered by succubae, demons, and sprites, Truth is more than ready to embody the might of his ancestors, who've prospered in secret for centuries. With an aura that reeks of power, he'll make his presence known. His word and will are law.

With The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume Six, award-winning editor Neil Clarke provides a year-in-review and 33 of the best stories published by both new and established authors in 2020.

Following on from the explosive action of The Departure, Zero Point is the second book in Neal Asher's near-future, science fiction Owner series. Earth’s Zero Asset citizens no longer face extermination. Thanks to Alan Saul, the Committee’s despotic network is in ruins and its robotic...

Anderson Lake is a company man, AgriGen's Calorie Man in Thailand. Under cover as a factory manager, Anderson combs Bangkok's street markets in search of foodstuffs thought to be extinct, hoping to reap the bounty of history's lost calories. There, he encounters Emiko...Emiko is the Windup Girl, a strange and beautiful creature. One of the New People, Emiko is not human; instead, she is an engineered being, creche-grown and programmed to satisfy the decadent whims of a Kyoto businessman.

Earth builds her first war fleet! The greatest warships ever constructed in known space rise up one by one, soon dominating our skies. They strike fear into the hearts of every citizen and rebel colonist alike. Captain William Sparhawk, the very man who convinced the secretive Council to build this terrifying fleet, now has doubts about the project. What is their exact mission? How could anyone have built these huge ships so quickly? And, most puzzling of all, what's happening out at the isolated laboratory complex on Phobos, Mars' lopsided moon?

Fourteen people arrive on the strange planet of Delmak-O. They have nothing in common other than a desire to make a fresh start–and they have no idea why they are there and no way of escaping. And then the first murder takes place....

When London is lost beneath the rising tides, unconscious desires rush to the surface in this apocalyptic tale from the author of Crash and Cocaine Nights. Fluctuations in solar radiation have melted the ice caps, sending the planet into a new Triassic Age of unendurable heat. London is a swamp; lush tropical vegetation grows up the walls of the Ritz and primeval reptiles are sighted, swimming through the newly-formed lagoons.

Humanity stands on the precipice of a great change. Cassie Voges has made it back to Earth, but her return opens a Pandora’s box that will irrevocably change humankind. The world is in the grip of a new pandemic that may be alien in origin. Politicians, researchers, and soldiers grapple with this new reality. If a solution cannot be found, will it herald a new age, or will it be the end of civilization?

George Orr is a mild and unremarkable man who finds the world a less than pleasant place to live: seven billion people jostle for living space and food. But George dreams dreams which do in fact change reality - and he has no means of controlling this extraordinary power. Psychiatrist Dr William Haber offers to help. At first sceptical of George's powers, he comes to astonished belief. When he allows ambition to get the better of ethics, George finds himself caught up in a situation of alarming peril.