Showing results by publisher "Audible studios" in Hard Science Fiction

Peter Bell the Third, accidentally named from the title of a poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley, is called upon to renew his old friendship with Rowland Usher, who was deliberately named after the protagonist of a story by Edgar Allan Poe. In the new House of Usher that Rowland is building in the Orinoco Delta, Usher explains the scientific work in genetics that he's doing there to Peter, while they both mourn Rowland's dead twin sister, Magdalen, who has apparently committed suicide for reasons that no one quite understands.

From the neo-feudalistic slubs and cornfields of his youth to his apprenticeship among the saleswarriors of Seattlehama - the sex-and-shopping capital of the world - to the rarefied heights of power that Tain now treads, Yarn takes its readers on a roller coaster ride through his life. Vada, the stylish revolutionary and love of Tane's life, draws him back into a world he had thought was long behind him. The swirling threads of violence and passion threaten to destroy him and the world he has made for himself.

An alien invasion left part of Earth's population deteriorating from alien viruses. The drug called Omnifix replaces the victims' DNA with micro technology, saving their lives at the cost of their humanity. And now, the aliens have returned...

On the West Coast of the United States in the mid-twenty-first century, several decades after an ill-fated Secession, a young solder is chosen to lead the Security team for a mile-wide dance club. Lt. Sean Mallory's "Blackshirts" as they're dubbed by the customers, find themselves embroiled in a bitter turf war with several gangs on their own grounds. Though Sean's worst enemy is pulling most of the strings, someone from much further out of town is actually responsible-light-years further out, in fact.

Chaz Eades is on the mission of a lifetime - the first to an alien solar system far beyond our own - and it's a one-way trip. When he learns that contact with Earth has been lost, he wants to help reestablish communication. But the commander insists on science first and contact later, the crew is inexplicably hostile, and Chaz finds himself painfully isolated. Soon he realizes that there's a secret at the heart of the crew's troubles that is much larger than any he could have imagined

Hyperthought recounts the adventures of a young man who trusts an unscrupulous doctor to enhance his brain function, and of a young woman who tries to save him. The year is 2125, and the Earth has undergone drastic climate change due to global warming. People crowd in sealed underground habitats. Feisty little Jolie Sauvage leads extreme surface adventure tours for rich executives. She introduces Dr. Merida to one of her wealthy tour group clients, Jin Sura, an arrogant but troubled young man with a terrible desire for knowledge. That will prove to be a disastrous mistake.

In a post-cyberpunk future, Mia and Zakariah Davis risk their lives to secure an activated sample of the life-prolonging “eternal virus” for their son Rix. Afterwards, Mia is murdered in retribution and the family is overcome by grief. Zakariah goes on a quest to contact her spirit in the afterlife while Rix wants revenge, no matter the cost.

Millennia of conflict between humans and mechs have driven the human race to near-extinction. Now, as the fierce AI mechs begin their final assault on mankind, it soon becomes apparent that three men – three generations in a family of voyagers – are their targets. Toby Bishop, his father, Killeen Bishop, and his grandfather, Nigel Walmsley, each carry a piece of the lethal secret that can destroy their enemies. But hunted through space and time by relentless assassins, they have no idea that they possess the only weapon that can save humanity.

In the Hereditary Tyranny of Tartesh, what was once a vast sea basin is now a dried-out, unforgiving desert. When the kingdom's enemies try to shake down the Barrier Mountains and let the ocean in, Trench Park tour guide Radnal vez Krobir must stop them or be destroyed along with everything he holds dear. Down in the Bottomlands received the 1994 Hugo Award for Best Novella.

Garner Nanotechnology is developing nanotech-enhanced protective suits and autonomous first-aid nanobots. It’s cutting-edge stuff, and when it saves Brent Cleary from a pipeline explosion that killed hundreds, the Army takes notice. Near-death experience changes a person, so no one is entirely surprised when easy-going Brent turns somber and studious, focused and cold. Not at first. But Kim O’Donnell, Brent’s best friend, cannot get past some of the changes. This just isn’t her friend, and she wonders what’s gotten into him.

Jason Wander is ready to lead the final charge into battle. After 40 years of fighting the Slugs, mankind's reunited planets control the vital crossroad that secures their uneasy union. The doomsday weapon that can end the war, and the mighty fleet that will carry it to the Slug homeworld, lie within humanity's grasp.

Years in the future, the U.S. is a splintered country. The city-state of Philadelphia is ripe for revolution. Mark McGovern, the son of a rich politician, lives in a world of expensive parties and frivolous biological mods, a sharp contrast to the poor underworld of his best friend, Darin Kinsley. When the two accidentally release a sophisticated virus called a "slicer" into the net, Mark must try to stem the tide of casualties before the charged political situation explodes. But the slicer is more than a virus. To destroy it, Mark must first sort truth from lies, not only for himself, but for the mind of the child who holds his fate.

For two centuries, the planet of the Dedelphi has been riven by war. Though delicate, swanlike creatures, the planet’s natives are fierce in battle, and their ceaseless conflict has reduced their world to a wasteland. To save themselves and their world, the Dedelphi have forged a fragile peace and called for outside intervention. The Earth corporation Bioverse constructs a plan to heal the shattered planet. It’s the most ambitious engineering project the universe has ever seen, and if it backfires, the result will almost certainly be genocide.

Humans have been discovered on the Outworlds. And the Army decides to send emissaries. Emissaries like Jason Wander. As intraplanetary conflicts rage around him and the personal stakes get ever higher, Jason finds that playing planet-hopping politician can be harder than commanding armies. When united mankind squares off to battle the Slugs for a precious interstellar crossroad, Jason will discover that the most dangerous enemy may be the one he least expects.

What if First Contact doesn't come the way we expect it-or with the sort of aliens we expect? When every side has secrets within secrets to keep, how is anyone supposed to know the truth - or live to tell about it? Is what the Prospector probe reported the greatest discovery of all time ... or the biggest hoax? Bob Hanson, the chief scientist of a major aerospace corporation, has made an incredible discovery. Video images from the space probe he created reveal a wrecked alien spacecraft adrift in the Asteroid Belt.

The Wilding is the long-awaited sequel to C.S. Friedman's epic, In Conquest Born. The Braxaná were created to become the ultimate warriors. The Azeans were raised to master the power of the mind. The two civilizations are fighting an endless war over a long-forgotten cause. Now, after a century and a half, the legacy of their greatest military leaders threatens to tear apart both empires.

Nicky Rosewell hadn't expected to be a candidate for biotechnological resurrection at age 27, but he's unfortunately killed by a suicide bomber while taking a shortcut through the local mall after his lunch break. Having idled away his real life, Nicky's immediate prospects of making better use of his afterlife seem rather slim. The beleagued community of albino, pink-eyed zombies is dominated by the very old, and subject to all manner of social prejudice and discrimination.

Montese Crandall is a downtrodden writer whose rare collection of baseball cards won't sustain him, financially or emotionally, through the grave illness of his wife. Luckily, he swindles himself a job churning out a novelization of the 2025 remake of a 1963 horror classic, "The Crawling Hand." Crandall tells therein of the United States, in a bid to regain global eminence, launching at last its doomed manned mission to the desolation of Mars.

It's an age where high tech rules supreme. Computers do all the work while humans spend their lives enjoying drug-induced fantasies. Only a handful live and work in the traditional sense - managing the few affairs that still need attention. At the center of this system is the Mnemonist, the man who directs everything that happens. But now he has reached an advanced age and must carefully choose a dreamer capable of taking over his crucial position.

Despite its futuristic technical trappings, enduring family bonds are at the core of this riveting techno-thriller. An alien virus that prolongs life has infected a couple, Zakariah and Mia Davis, and made their blood a valuable black-market staple due to its rejuvenating effects. The eternal virus has not affected their son Rix, and Zakariah is consumed with the search for an active sample to inoculate the teenager against mortality.