Showing titles in Hard Science Fiction

Kira Miller is a brilliant genetic engineer who discovers how to temporarily achieve savant-like capabilities in all areas of thought and creativity. But what if this transcendent level of intelligence brings with it a ruthless megalomania? David Desh left the special forces after his team was brutally butchered in Iran. Now he has been reactivated for one last mission: find Kira Miller, the enigmatic genius behind a bioterror plot that threatens millions.

Modern medicine has conquered or contained many of the diseases that used to carry children away before their time, reducing mortality and improving health. Vaccination and treatment are widely available. There are still monsters left to fight, but the old ones, the simple ones, trouble us no more. Or so we thought. For with the reduction in danger comes the erosion of memory, as pandemics fade from memory into story into fairy tale. Those old diseases can't have been so bad, people say, or we wouldn't be here to talk about them. They're never coming back.... It begins with a fever.

Revolution threatens a longstanding peace.... Thirty years after the Syndicate Corporation saved Earth from climate-change extinction, SynCorp’s Five Factions rule the solar system with an iron fist wrapped in a velvet glove. Food, entertainment, safety, security - SynCorp provides it all. In return, the Company requires complete loyalty and obedience to corporate law.

The final title in the historical Kingpriest trilogy. This titles completes the exploration of a key part of Dragonlance history. The era explored in this novel, although referred to frequently throughout many Dragonlance novels, is being finely detailed for the first time. In addition, this title features popular characters that appear throughout the Dragonlance Legends trilogy.

It’s been five years since the end of the Hive Wars. Straker has handed over the burden of governing the Earthan Republic to civil authorities. This should be a happy time, as Straker and his most loyal soldiers retire to a planet and step off the galactic stage. Unfortunately, authoritarian forces within the Earthan Republic are still simmering with rage at his victory. Rumors reach Straker of a growing new Republic Fleet manned by state loyalists. Planets begin to fall under their influence and go dark. Even in retirement, they see Straker’s Breakers as a threat.

After 25 years serving as the human Monitor of the Interstellar Ark, Hermes, Orion is scheduled to be placed back into hibernation with the other crewmembers. Knowing he'll die there and be replaced before the ship's voyage is over, he decides that he won’t — can’t — accept that fate. Whatever it takes, Orion will escape Hermes and see what's beyond, even if it means defying the regulations of his only friend — the ship-wide artificial intelligence known as Dan.

What if it were possible to upload years of knowledge into your mind in hours? To become an expert in multiple scientific fields, become an MD, or learn several languages - in a single day? The benefit to humanity would be immense. But so would the danger.... Rachel Howard is a brilliant neuroscientist trying to make this capability a reality. But when she crosses paths with Kevin Quinn, a Secret Service agent desperately trying to kill the president, she finds herself at the epicenter of an insidious plot.

With the Federation losing ground in its war against the Dominion, the galaxy's greatest smugglers, including the beautiful and enigmatic Vash, rendezvous on Deep Space 9. Their objective: a fabled lost orb of the Prophets unlike any other, rumored to be the key to unlocking a second wormhole in Bajoran Space, a second Celestial Temple.

They hunt us. They bomb our worlds for target practice. A star cluster in the constellation of Orion rotates once every thousand years. Those who rule there have an ancient tradition: When each cycle ends, they train their fleets by spilling the blood of lesser beings. The enemy fleets are coming again. In response, the Rebel Worlds gather their starships to face the terrifying threat, and this time humanity is asked to stand with them.

Humans beware. As the robotic revolution continues to creep into our lives, it brings with it an impending sense of doom. What horrifying scenarios might unfold if our technology were to go awry? From self-aware robotic toys to intelligent machines violently malfunctioning, this anthology brings to life the half-formed questions and fears we all have about the increasing presence of robots in our lives.

FEAT DESC

What kind of person does it take to build a civilization from the ground up? In this fun hard science fiction novel, astronaut Nick Burke will have to learn how to be a leader if he wants humanity to survive on a new planet, even if he is no longer a human himself. Nick Burke dreams of successfully creating the first sustainable space colony in human history.

Fleeing Earth after an alien invasion, the human race stands on the threshold of evolution. Their new home is Luna, a moon colony blessed with creature comforts, prolonged lifespans, digital memories, and instant sex changes. But the people of Luna are bored, restless, suicidal - and so is the computer that monitors their existence.

The spaceship Shepherd-1 is on its way to the star closest to the sun. Halfway there, the crew succeeds in using gravitational lensing technology to take sharp pictures of the origin of the universe—and thus obtain the answer that reveals how the cosmos came into being and whether or not God had a hand in it. But no sooner does the crew tell Earth this than the radio communication goes silent, even though the ship is apparently functional. Is it a case of sabotage—or were the three astronauts overwhelmed with the answer for which science and religion have been searching for millennia?

This is how the world ends. Not with a bang, but with many nuclear bombs detonated around the planet. It was no longer a topic of conversation around the dinner table as in years past. Nobody was prepared, including the world's governments. Yet the threat was always real, and the devastation was predictable. The damage was incalculable. Millions died at the points of impact. Nuclear winter spread across the globe. A rapidly cooling climate shocked humanity and all living things...to their death.

In 2034, the stars went out. An unknown agency surrounded the solar system with an impenetrable barrier, concealing the universe from humanity’s gaze. In 2067, Nick Stavrianos is hired to investigate the disappearance of a mentally disabled woman, Laura Andrews, from the institution where she was being cared for. Aided by a skull full of neural modifications, he follows her trail to the Republic of New Hong Kong, where an organization known as the Ensemble has uncovered Laura’s extraordinary secret: An ability that could transform the world.

A robopsychologist must outwit a machine determined to stay hidden in "Little Lost Robot"; a woman’s talent for "Light Verse" overshadows her true accomplishments with her robot servants; "The Last Question" presented to computer after computer over a hundred billion years may remain forever unanswered … and seventeen more future visions from the grand master of science fiction.

In 2088 humankind is at last ready to explore beyond Earth's solar system, and astrophysicist Reggie Straifer knows where we should go. He's discovered a distant anomalous star that appears to defy the laws of physics. It could be a weird natural phenomenon, or it could be alien. Convoy 7's mission to discern the nature of the star's strange qualities will use vast resources and take centuries, so in order to maintain the genetic talent of the first crew, clones will be used for the expedition.

After the mysterious discovery of an alien mech inside a comet, Darkstream Security has finally completed its own design. They assign Chief Gabriel Roach with the task of whittling down hundreds of bright young recruits to form a team of elite mech pilots, which he will command. Their mission: protect human colonies from the almighty Quatro. A single Quatro can take down an entire squad of traditional soldiers. But Roach is the perfect one for the job.

What if mankind's "missing link", the apelike Homo erectus, had survived to dominate a North American continent where woolly mammoths and saber-toothed tigers still prowled while the more advanced Homo sapiens built their civilizations elsewhere? Now imagine that the Europeans arriving in the New World had chanced on these primitive creatures and seized the opportunity to establish a hierarchy in which the sapiens were masters and the "sims" were their slaves.