Showing results by publisher "Brilliance Audio" in Science Fiction

In the third installment of the Girl Genius novels, Agatha H. and the Voice of the Castle begins as Agatha Heterodyne returns to her ancestral home, the warped little town of Mechanicsburg. There she must claim her inheritance by convincing the artificial intelligence that animates her family's castle that she is, in fact, the new Heterodyne. But this apparently simple task is made complicated in several ways: An imposter claiming to be the legitimate heir appears.

Staff Sergeant Winthrop Carter only enlisted in the army for the steady pay. When he cheated on the Special Forces’ final exam, he never expected his actions would get him drafted into the Nightstalkers - an elite team with a mysterious mission and even more mysterious leader. For decades, Rifts have been opening and unleashing bloodthirsty alien life forms into our reality. The Nightstalkers’ goal is to shut down these breaches and stop the beings that emerge from rampaging out of control.

In the near future, political tensions between the United States and China are at an all-time high. Then a catastrophic explosion on the moon cleaves a vast gash in the lunar surface, and the massive electromagnetic pulse it unleashes obliterates Earth's electrical infrastructure. To plumb the depths of the newly created lunar fissure and excavate the source of the power surge, the feuding nations are forced to cooperate on a high-risk mission to return mankind to the moon.

A metallic cylinder falls to earth, landing in the sands of Horsell Common, Surrey, generating curiosity and awe. But what's inside soon induces only terror. The story that unfolds is a breathless first-person account of an inconceivable reality: an extraterrestrial war has been waged on the planet.

They are just children when they first meet: Charlotte, daughter of the French ambassador, and Hiroshi, a laundress’s son. One day in the playground, Hiroshi declares that he has an idea that will change the world. An idea that will sweep away all differences between rich and poor. When Hiroshi runs into Charlotte several years later, he is trying to build a brighter future through robotics.

In 2035, the southwestern United States is ravaged by drought, reeling from an environmental catastrophe that has left the landscape a chaotic, depleted ruin. California, still viably inhabitable due to its oppressive social controls, marshals state-of-the-art surveillance technology and totalitarian policies to preserve its fragile hold on rapidly dwindling resources and an increasingly unsettled population.

There is nowhere left to run. In the wake of the deadly plague that virtually annihilated the human race, a vast red jungle teeming with alien creatures and lethal plants is devouring Earth, swallowing buildings whole, and ruthlessly decimating what life remains. A witness to the terrifying transformation, survivor Emily Baxter thinks the odds against humanity can’t get any worse. She is wrong.

Beyond the din and dancing lights of the Las Vegas strip, a young woman has mysteriously gone missing. All the facts point to something sinister - even paranormal. Quentin Draith, supernatural crime investigator, is hired to assist. However, the deeper Draith digs, the more otherworldly his assignment gets. Assassins, human and otherwise, put a target on Draith’s head and a ravenous alien beast starts rampaging through the city. The clues point Draith to Sin City’s infamous “Bone Triangle,” a neighborhood marked for its dark happenings and disappearances.

Bram Stoker kept secret a tale even more terrifying than Dracula. It begins among the Carpathian peaks, when an intrepid explorer discovers a mysterious golden box. She brings it back with her to the foggy streets of Victorian London, unaware of its dangerous power…or that an evil beyond imagining has already taken root in the city. Stoker, a successful theater manager but frustrated writer, is drawn into a deadly web spun by the wealthy founders of a mission house for the poor. Far from a safe haven, the mission harbors a dark and terrifying secret.

Mythological artifacts become a modern arsenal in a millennia-long interstellar battle. On one side stands the alien race that styled itself as gods to secretly steer human evolution. On the other is an elite team of Area 51 commandos, dedicated to freeing humanity from their interstellar overlords. Special Forces officer Mike Turcotte and his former lover Lisa Duncan are among the few who know the truth about the extraterrestrial threat - and have the power to fight it.

This funny and insightful science fiction classic introduces Shoogar, the greatest wizard ever known in his village. His spells can strike terror in the hearts of even his most powerful enemies. But the enemy he faces now is like none he has ever seen before. The stranger has come from nowhere and is ignorant of even the most basic principles of magic. But the stranger has an incredibly powerful magic of his own. There is no room in Shoogar's world for an intruder whose powers match his own, let alone one whose powers might exceed his.

As war rages in 1944, young army lieutenant Lucas Athan recovers a sarcophagus excavated from an Egyptian tomb. Shipped to Princeton University for study, the box contains mysteries that only Lucas, aided by brilliant archaeologist Simone Rashid, can unlock. These mysteries may, in fact, defy - or fulfill - the dire prophecies of Albert Einstein himself.

When a real-life truth serum, a military cabal bent on launching a preemptive strike against America’s enemies, and the nuclear football - which contains the information the President needs to launch the nation's missiles - all converge, the Nightstalkers suit up for another deadly mission. Joining forces with the Cellar, the covert world’s police force, the team might be mankind's last hope.

Bioengineer Peter Bernhardt has dedicated his life to nanotechnology, the science of manipulating matter on the atomic scale. As the founder of Biogineers, he is on the cusp of revolutionizing brain therapies with microscopic nanorobots that will make certain degenerative diseases a thing of the past.

Ever since the first Rift opened in Area 51 in 1947, exposing the world to deadly beings of pure energy, only the Nightstalkers have stood between humanity and complete annihilation. But as the decades have gone by, whatever power controls the Rifts seems to be getting smarter, as if refining an ultimate plan… An old ally alerts the Nightstalkers to a resurgence of Rifts in Tennessee, near one of the team’s first major skirmishes with the seemingly inexhaustible threat.

Two dozen tales of future shock and twisted history from an undisputed king of cyberpunk science fiction, including Nebula Award finalists “Sunken Garden” and “Dori Bangs.”

1923 in Midland, Texas, and Miss Dara falls in love with her best friend - who also happens to be a girl. Terrified, Miss Dara takes a job at Sugar Land Prison for men, hoping to keep her secret attractions under lock and key. Once there, she befriends inmate and soon-to-be legendary blues singer Leadbelly, who sings his way out (true story) - but only after he makes her promise to free herself from her own prison. Sugar Land is a triumphant, beautiful debut novel about the heart’s refusal to be denied what the heart wants.

Two decades into the twenty-first century, the world’s nations are becoming irrelevant. Corporations are the true global powers, with information the most valuable currency, while the smaller island nations have become sanctuaries for data pirates and terrorists. A globe-trotting PR executive for the large corporate economic democracy Rizome Industries Group, Laura Webster is present when a foreign representative is assassinated on Rizome soil during a conference for offshore data havens.

It’s the near future, and thanks to a perfect storm of reckless banking practices, hyperinflation, a stock market gone mad, and the negligence of our elected officials, the entire social, political, and economic infrastructure of America has collapsed. Chaos reigns in the streets, medical treatment is no longer available, and a silent coup has placed a dangerous group of men at the helm of a false government. America’s fate is in the hands of those few individuals who have the survival skills, the faith, and the forethought to return this country to the state its founding fathers intended.

As an orphaned girl, Harmony survived a strange war waged by an enemy called the Quondam. They crushed every technological advancement in the world, eviscerated the landscape, and killed millions. It can still be stopped. As prophesied, Harmony has a destiny to fulfill. Thirty years later, she is in a tenuous alliance with a cult of zealots who worship time itself. A master code breaker, she’s enlisted to obliterate the power of the Quondam and prevent a war that has already ended.