Showing results by publisher "Recorded Books" in Science Fiction

Trillionaire Igbal Renz has constructed a starship capable of making the twentyyear journey to Alpha Centauri. So why is he stopping at barely one-tenth that distance, with a cargo of a hundred frozen scientists and diplomats? Rumors abound that Renz Ventures, Inc., has made contact with … something.

The Weltall Tournament’s professional VR games were supposed to be a symbol of cooperation between SysGov and its militaristic neighbor, the Admin. But that was before star Admin player Elly Sako received a death threat, written in blood next to a copy of her own severed head. The Admin’s Department of Temporal Investigation swiftly seizes control of the crime scene, and the tournament transforms into a flashpoint of charged politics and conflicting jurisdictions.

It was supposed to be a routine trip for the members of the Gordian Division, both human and AI: fly out to Saturn, inspect the construction of their latest time machines, then fly back. But when the division’s top scientist and chief engineer are killed in the same freak accident, suspicions of foul play run deep. Detective Isaac Cho is sent in to investigate, but he has more on his mind than just a new case. His superiors have saddled him with an exchange officer from the neighboring Admin—Special Agent Susan Cantrell.

A young gentlewoman, Margaret de Beauchamp finds her fate twisted into the lives of the up-timers when she meets the Americans imprisoned in the Tower of London. In exchange for her help, Rita Simpson and Harry Lefferts give her a huge sum of money to keep her family’s manor and its woolen trade from falling into the hands of the crown and its unscrupulous minister, Lord Cork. But Margaret’s troubles are not at an end. Her family’s fortunes are in a downward spiral. Her trip to Grantville brings unexpected dangers and a possible up-time solution.

After years of crisscrossing the galaxy as an emergency medic, Melanie Mooney is learning this in a personal way. Each run to a far-flung star system takes Melanie ever farther from her former life, and the incomprehensible distances are the least of her problems.

Assigned to break a VR smuggling ring, Siegn makes his first visit to the Moon—but his chief suspect is found dead. Now he must solve the murder before the killer strikes again. That’s not going to be easy. On the Moon, VR is a way of life, and no one wants a Martian prying into the reality beneath the glamorous fantasies. But reality gatecrashes the party when hackers attack the Moon’s prized space elevator. Now the race is on to find the criminals before catastrophe strikes.

To everyone’s surprise, the wormhole has reopened—albeit temporarily. What comes through, no one could have predicted. A people with a mysterious past, with names no one truly understands, have decided to make Faebos their home. Predaxes and Malik, working together, must keep peace while determining whether or not these new arrivals are the friends they claim to be, or the worst foes they’d ever encountered. With a man claiming to be the Prime Minister of Lenzaab among them, will this be salvation for the former residents of Purgatory, or yet another battle waiting to happen?

Talinn Reaze and Bee serve as “Breezy,” part of the United Colonial Force’s elite Artificial Intelligence Troops. Trained for full integration since before Talinn’s birth, they exceeded expectations and became one of the premier heavy tanks, leading assaults on several fronts of the long war against the Interstellar Defense Corps. When they’re thrown to a backwater base without cause, boredom becomes their main enemy—until the world falls out from under their treads and they begin to question everything they’ve ever known. As they orient to their new reality, they have a decision to make.

Three teenagers are traveling northeast in a navy blue Ford pickup. Turi fled his abusive family at the border to see the beautiful New England landscape he’s always dreamed about. Arnulfo is undocumented and wants only to find someplace safe and quiet. Molly seeks a new life far away from her nowhere Missouri town. Turi and Arnulfo are best friends. Molly and Turi are falling in love. But for all their innocence, violence follows the trio at every turn.

Nev Bourne is a hotshot programmer for the latest and greatest tech invention out there: SavePoint, the brain implant that rewinds the seconds of all our most embarrassing moments. She’s been working non-stop on the next rollout, even blowing off her boyfriend, her best friend and her family to make SavePoint 2.0. But when she hits go on the test-run, she wakes up the next day only to discover it's yesterday. She's falling backwards in time, one day at a time. As things spiral out of control, a long-lost friend from college reappears in her life claiming they know how to save her.

Asher has been training her entire life to become a Sor-Commander. One day, she'll give her soul to the gilded mechanical body of the Sor and become a commander to a battalion of Dedicates. These soldiers, encased in exoskeletons, with extra arms, and telepathic subordination to the Sor-Commanders, are the only thing that's kept the much larger Levastani army of conquest at bay for decades. But while on a training journey, Asher and her party are attacked, and her commander is incapacitated, leaving her alone to lead the unit across a bitterly cold, unstable mountain.

As students at university of Makhanda, South Africa during the #RUReferenceList campaign, Langa and her lover Khwezi have a passionate and complex relationship. Puzzling gaps in her memory haunt Langa, yet her dreams are vivid with colors and symbols that hint at a nightmare of forgotten violations and losses. So many secrets—and Langa has had enough of secrets and silences. Who can she turn to? Her mother? Her grandmother? Khwezi? Or herself?

Book 4 of a new Military Science Fiction adventure from bestseller Joshua T. Calvert. Aliens, War, and a Captain who will stop at nothing to defend his people, this is Sci-Fi the way it's meant to be!

The Minerva Sierra Challenge is a grueling spectacle, the cyborg’s Tour de France. Rich thrill seekers with corporate sponsorships, extensive support teams, and top-of-the-line exoskeletal and internal augmentations pit themselves against the elements in a daylong race across the Sierra Nevadas. Marmeg Guinto doesn’t have funding, and she doesn’t have support. She cobbled her gear together from parts she found in rich people’s garbage and spent the money her mother wanted her to use for nursing school to enter the race.

Thomas "the Great Stoner" Stone once performed miraculous surgery upon Phillip Theophrastus Gribbleflotz, the World’s Greatest Alchemist, using his bare hands, no anesthesia, producing no pain, and leaving no scar. It would have been wonderful if it was real. But Dr. Tom Stone, the face of modern medicine, has been engaging in fake treatments—bringing all modern medicine into question.

Maya has died and been resurrected into countless cyborg bodies through the years of a dangerous long career with the infamous Dirty Dozen, the most storied crew of criminals in the galaxy, at least before their untimely and gruesome demise. Decades later, she and her diverse team of broken, diminished outlaws must get back together to solve the mystery of their disastrous last mission and to rescue a missing and much-changed comrade … but they’re not the only ones in pursuit of the secret at the heart of the planet Dimmuborgir.

Everything is different than expected. The mystical home of mankind is anything but the warm bosom of their ancestors, and the power is no longer with himanity. Pascal and Jeremy quickly realize that they didn't reach Earth for no reason, and that they are mere pieces on a chessboard. The real players are moving them back into position. The mission? Dangerous. The chances of success? Slim. Will they once again succeed in pulling their heads out of the noose and reshuffling the cards?

It's time. Alexander Moreau, supervisor of Bismarck and head of the Human Corporation, and the mysterious Neuromorph ask for the final game—a game Pascal Takahashi is only too happy to play. But this game no longer follows any rules, and the stakes are higher than ever. In the midst of a dying colony, Jeremy and his crew must join Pascal in finding a way to set the course for humanity's future themselves before others do. For beneath the darkness of the barrier, secrets are stirring, about to rise to the surface.

Zen and the Art of Starship Maintenance and Other Stories is Tobias S. Buckell's seventh short fiction collection and is comprised of 15 stories, several of which are original to the collection or were previously only available through his Patreon. This collection ranges from galactic adventures to intimate explorations of humanity—sometimes in the same story—rich with a sense of wonder and deft storytelling.

Mara Leanor is the last of her kind—the last Balti temptress, a woman schooled in the art of pleasures great and small. She's waited years to return to her home planet only to find that Balti, once lush and beautiful, is losing its battle with the enemy occupation she despises. Harder to despise is Calvy D’Aldiern, the enemy captain turned bodyguard assigned to protect her, who seems intent on breaking down her walls instead.