Showing results by publisher "Recorded Books" in Science Fiction

Luzia N.E. Drainway never concerned herself with the fey Astrosi. They lurk above and below the Bastion – a giant multileveled megalopolis that is her world – and they tend to keep to themselves. On the rare occasions they use their magics to meddle with human affairs, anyone with an ounce of sense steers clear. Luzia is too dedicated to the rigorous work of maintaining Bastion to pay them much attention.

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.

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.

A debut near future romance, where Sea of Tranquility meets Winter’s Orbit, told against the backdrop of the Moon’s first lunar colony, with a multicultural and LGBTQ+ cast, about a cynical agronomist and charming Emirati businessman who fall in love, and battle eco-terrorists.

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.

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.

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.

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.

In 2488, Battle Quest, an arrow shooting, sword fighting, magic slinging live action RPG, is the most popular sport in the universe. Tal works in a trash dump by day and fights in a street samurai pit by night. He dreams of becoming a Battle Quest pro to pull his sisters and grandmother from the slums. Problem is he’s too short, too broke, and his highlight vid-reel has more fails than an ogre’s got warts.

American Book Award-winning author Tananarive Due's second collection of stories ranges from horror to science fiction to suspense. From the mysterious, magical town of Gracetown to the aftermath of a pandemic to the reaches of the far future, Due's stories all share a sense of dread and fear balanced with heart and hope. In some of these stories, the monster is racism itself; others address the monster within, or other universal struggles set against the supernatural or surreal. All of them are written with Due's trademark attention to detail and deep characterization.

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.

In dystopian Mafinga, Jasmin must contend with a dictator’s sorcerer to cleanse the socialist state of its deadly pollution. Mafinga's malevolent king dislikes books and, together with his sorcerer Atari, has collapsed the environment to become almost uninhabitable. The sun has killed all the able men, including Jasmin’s husband Godi. But Jasmin has Godi’s secret story machine that tells of a better world, far different from the wastelands of Mafinga. Jasmin’s crime for possessing the machine and its forbidden literature filled with subversive text is punishable by death.

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.