Showing results by publisher "Recorded Books" in Science Fiction

The universe shifts and changes: suddenly you understand, you get it, and are filled with wonder. That moment of understanding drives the greatest science-fiction stories and lies at the heart of Engineering Infinity. Whether it's coming up hard against the speed of light - and with it the enormity of the universe, realizing that terraforming a distant world is harder and more dangerous than you'd ever thought, or simply realizing that a hitchhiker on a starship consumes fuel and oxygen with tragic results, it's hard science-fiction where a sense of discovery is most often found and where science-fiction's true heart lies.

A month ago, the supernova Aeon detonated in the skies over Antarctica. Global sea levels rose by five feet, temperatures by ten degrees. A mass human and animal exodus to the north is underway even as the global electronics and power and communications grids have been destroyed. Max Carver made it back to America in time to be with Talisha and witness the birth of their child, Charlotte, but he was unsuccessful in stopping Ben Belloc from leaving he Amazon with the Colony technology. Rumors surface that Ben has landed in Louisiana, in the town Max and Ben grew up in together.

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.

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.

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.

Shrouded forces are pulling Gravity City and reality to the brink of extinction. In the wake of the deadly Seagazer attack, Countess Maia Reed is out to even the score and reclaim her city from Dickey Jets with the help of hired guns, while her son, Victor, looms in the shadows and seeks to carve out his prominence in the criminal underworld and beyond.

It’s been ten years since the Confederation defeated the Nimic fleet and Zefir-Five has been destroyed, but the fight for peace in the galaxy is far from over. Lt. Commander Johnny Rangers undertakes a special assignment in Gravity City, the galaxy’s capital, as an equalizer for the Gravity City Police Force, and finds himself fighting a new war against criminal elements, mutinous robots, and thugs led by the elusive criminal mastermind known as Dickey Jets.

In the midst of fighting a reignited war with the deadly Nimic, Lt. Commander Johnny Rangers of the Confederation of Aligned Planets is dragged into a rescue mission by mysterious agent Koya Nyrus. With his best friend’s life at stake, he finds himself on a restricted world full of secrets that could alter the course of the war. Meanwhile, Rangers’ father, Inspector Frank Branza of the Gravity City Police Force, sets out to uncover a vast conspiracy with plans to affect the very fabric of reality.

An elderly woman in early 22nd-century Lagos is called in to help test the artificial intelligence built from her genius mother’s mind, but all is not as it seems. Exiled from Earth for a crime of passion, a young man must learn to survive a barely habitable prison planet. From the bustling streets of Lagos to the icy moons of Jupiter, this debut collection of twenty stories from the vivid imagination of the award-winning Wole Talabi explores what it means to be human in a world of accelerating technology, diverse beliefs, and unlimited potential from a uniquely Nigerian perspective.

There is an African proverb, “Se wo were fi na wosankofa a yenkyi,” which translates as “It is not wrong to go back for that which you have forgotten.” This is why we continue to remember the tales of struggle and tales of perseverance, even as we look to tales of hope. What a people choose to remember about their past, the stories they pass down, informs who they are and sets the boundaries of their identity. We remember the pain of our past to mourn, to heal, and to learn. Only in that way can we ensure the same mistakes are not repeated.

On a warm Fourth of July in the quiet New York town of Byram Hills, Nick Quinn watches as his wife and daughter die—along with his closest friends and family—in an unprecedented terrorist attack. Amid the disaster, Nick is approached by one of his closest friends, gunshot and dying. With his last breath, he hands Nick an antique pocket watch that possesses the power to rewrite the recent past.

When a bandit gang seizes High Windward, holding the Storn family hostage, the laran powers of the oldest son Loran are the family’s only hope. Reaching out with those powers, he finds a young Terran, Dan Barron, and “overshadows” his mind, sending him on a desperate rescue mission to Aldaran Castle.

Not long ago, Earth’s colonies and space stations threw off the yoke of planet Earth’s tyrannical rule. Decades later, trouble is brewing in the Four Systems, and Old Earth is flexing its power in a bid to regain control over its lost territories.

Kris Merrill is a member of a small insurgent group operating within a multi-level metropolis that stretches from San Francisco to the Mexican border. Her attempt at rescuing Ian Miller failed, leaving her alone and her unborn son without a father. Without the trust of the insurgents, Kris is relegated to low-level assignments for them, and trying desperately to keep her pregnancy a secret. She is alone. War has started between the corporations. The people living in the lower levels of San Angeles have become the victims.

Ivan Delgato, a former leader of a rebel group called the Runners, is released from jail on the condition that he carry out a secret mission for the World Council. His assignment is simple: stay under cover, but do absolutely anything necessary to reach the planet Omega IX and offer the renegade Runners clemency if they surrender - which may be complicated since Ivan's brutally violent brother has taken lead of the Runners in Ivan's absence.

Masks, the first novel in a mesmerizing new fantasy series, draws readers into a world in which cataclysmic events have left the Autarchy of Aygrima - the one land blessed with magical resources - cut off from its former trading partners across the waters, not knowing if any of those distant peoples still live. Yet under the rule of the Autarch, Aygrima survives. And thanks to the creation of the Masks and the vigilance of the Autarch’s Watchers, no one can threaten the security of the empire.

In Masks, Mara Holdfast's life changed forever. As the daughter of the Autarch’s Master Maskmaker, she had a clearly defined future: a quiet, ordered life in the capital, making Masks with her father and doing work important to the ruling Autarch. But when her Mask, specially made by her own father, cracked and fell to pieces during her Masking ceremony, Mara was exiled from everything she once knew.Now she has become part of an underground rebellion, rejecting the unjust rules of a Masked society.

Come meet a utopian assassin, an aging UFO contactee, a haunted Mohawk steelworker, a time-traveling prizefighter, a yam-eating zombie, and a child who loves a frizzled chicken - not to mention Harry Houdini, Zora Neale Hurston, and all their fellow travelers riding the steamer-trunk imagination of a unique 21st-century fabulist.

In the long war against terrorism, the US government had taken on extraordinary powers. And now that the war was won, powerful forces in the government had no intention of relinquishing those powers. As in 1860, the country was on the verge of civil war. And as in 1860, a leader arose to save the country - but it was not the president this time. Instead, the governor of Texas was the woman of destiny. And, though the federal government had more guns and troops, David was about to give Goliath a run for his money....

Demography is destiny. In the 22nd century, European deathbed demographics have turned the continent over to the more fertile Moslems. Atheism in Europe has been exterminated. Homosexuals are hanged, stoned, or crucified. Such Christians as remain are relegated to dhimmitude, a form of second-class citizenship.