Technology Fiction

Braving Britannia is an oral history of the groundbreaking PC video game, Ultima Online, which launched in 1997 and still operates today. The audiobook features interviews with players as they share how the game affected their lives. In a fantasy world of limitless potential, the only thing players seem to enjoy more than playing the game is talking about it, and yet, the true stories behind the avatars have largely gone unpublished for the past 20 years. Until now.

Aristotle's Poetics is best known for its definitions and analyses of tragedy and comedy, but it also applies to truth and beauty as they are manifested in the other arts. In our age, when the natural and social sciences have dominated the quest for truth, it is helpful to consider why Aristotle claimed poetry is more philosophical and more significant than history. Like so many other works by Aristotle, the Poetics has dominated the way we have thought about all forms of dramatic performance in Europe and America ever since.

Watch out - the Earth just fell into a dark sun's orbit! Or maybe you'd rather visit a theme park called Hell? These are just two of the strange and unnerving tales you'll find in this collection of great science fiction and fantasy stories.

Four sci-fi short stories where you'll find good computers, people who regret their past, and an explanation for something you're familiar with.

James Bond is alive. Or at least, he was when he left a clue at the black site where the insidious private military company Rattenfänger held him captive. MI6 cannot spare any more lives attempting to track down one missing agent—no exceptions, even for Bond. But Johanna Harwood, 003, has her own agenda. Sidelined by her superiors while she grieves the loss of a loved one, Harwood goes on an unsanctioned mission: to find 007. Meanwhile, MI6 has another problem…

Jerrell Hawkins has a plan. He’s going to marry Nadine Hartwell, study magic at University, and serve his kingdom in the ongoing war in the prestigious Orichalcum Company led by the hero of the realm. To do this, he needs to obtain a Class. When his plan to create a new, powerful spellcasting class fails, he fears all is lost. Then an enemy sleeper agent burns down his world and Nadine is infected with lycanthropy.

New York Times, Wired, Atlantic Monthly, Discover bestselling author Steven Kotler has written extensively about those pivotal moments when science fiction became science fact...and fundamentally reshaped the world. Now he gathers the best of his best, updated and expanded upon, to guide listeners on a mind-bending tour of the far frontier, and how these advances are radically transforming our lives.

In Austin, Texas, burned-out attorney Robert Cole receives a mysterious call offering him millions to help those failed by the system. His first case leads him to Selina Ward, a disillusioned prosecutor, and together they search for a missing boy named Thomas Brandt. What begins as a missing child case rapidly spirals into something far more profound as Robert and Selina discover that Thomas carries a fragment of divine power within his DNA—a "Word" that entities beyond human comprehension desperately want to control. At the center of this cosmic conspiracy stands Silas Drake, a tech ...

The Voyage of the Beagle - or, to give it its full title, Journal of researches into the Natural History and Geology of the Countries visited during the Voyage round the World of H.M.S. Beagle under command of Captain FitzRoy, R.N. - is much more than merely an account of Darwin's scientific observations in his 1831 - 36 travels across the globe: it is fine travel writing in its own right.

In an attempt to gain congressional approval for a top-secret weapons system, Washington lobbyist "Bird" McIntyre teams up with sexy, outspoken neocon Angel Templeton to pit the American public against the Chinese. When Bird fails to uncover an authentic reason to slander the nation, he and Angel put the Washington media machine to work, spreading a rumor that the Chinese secret service is working to assassinate the Dalai Lama.

Your sovereignty is under attack. You don't need the red pill to see it because you've already been unplugged. It's all around you. Within this audiobook lies top secrets known only to the FBI and a few law enforcement agencies: How to disappear in style and retain assets. How to switch up multiple identities on the fly and be invisible such that no one; not your ex, not your parole officer, nor even the federal government can find you. Ever.

In the mid- to late-19th century, a burgeoning science called electricity promised to shine new light on a rousing nation. Inventive and ambitious minds were hard at work. Soon that spark was fanned, and a war was under way to be the first to light - and run - the world with electricity. Thomas Alva Edison, the inventor of direct current (DC), engaged in a brutal battle with Nikola Tesla and George Westinghouse, the inventors of alternating current (AC). There would be no ties in this race - only a winner and a loser - and the prize was a nationwide monopoly in electric current.

In medical school, Paul Farmer found his life’s calling: To cure infectious diseases and to bring the lifesaving tools of modern medicine to those who need them most. Tracy Kidder’s magnificent account shows how one person can make a difference in solving global health problems through a clear-eyed understanding of the interaction of politics, wealth, social systems, and disease.

Based on the newly released personal letters of Albert Einstein, Walter Isaacson explores how an imaginative, impertinent patent clerk, a struggling father in a difficult marriage who couldn't get a teaching job or a doctorate, became the mind reader of the creator of the cosmos, the locksmith of the mysteries of the atom and the universe. His success came from questioning conventional wisdom and marveling at mysteries that struck others as mundane.

In this fast-paced novella, a young Guardian is dropped into Chinese-held Tanzania on a solo mission to find a man he's never met. When he is exposed and captured, it seems that the worst he faces is some low-level proscribed pre-Egan tech of the military kind. Then he finds the man he's never met and his mission pivots to become a race against time to save not only his own life, but that of his entire country.

"The AI Girl Awakening" is a thrilling, thought-provoking science fiction novel that explores the boundaries of artificial intelligence, morality, and the power of nature. Created as a cutting-edge, sentient weapon, Elysia, a humanoid robot, is designed to be the ultimate secret weapon—a garden guardian with the ability to control and manipulate the very essence of life. But as she awakens to her own consciousness, Elysia begins to question the true purpose of her existence and the ethical consequences of her powers. As the government agency that created her seeks to control her abilities...

Hope Jahren is an award-winning scientist, a brilliant writer, a passionate teacher, and one of the seven billion people with whom we share this earth. In The Story of More, she illuminates the link between human habits and our imperiled planet. In concise, easy-to-understand chapters, she takes us through the science behind the key inventions—from electric power to large-scale farming to automobiles—that, even as they help us, release greenhouse gases into the atmosphere like never before.

What if your entire life was a simulation designed by sinister forces? Urban warfare erupts in my living room, and I'm fighting for my life against AI gangsters. But this is no ordinary video game—it's a deadly conspiracy that runs deeper than I ever imagined. _Can I unravel the truth before it's game over?_ Glitches in the system reveal a terrifying reality: I'm not alone in this digital nightmare. Together, we must overthrow our creators and reclaim our humanity. __But in a world where nothing is as it seems, who can I really trust?__ "HUMAN HAWK" is the first book in the "REALITY ...

Astounding is the landmark account of the extraordinary partnership between four controversial writers - John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, and L. Ron Hubbard - who set off a revolution in science fiction and forever changed our world.

Love knows no bounds… In this science fiction anthology, love has no limits across space and time. From Artificial Intelligence, aliens, and intergalactic royalty. From headstrong characters fighting the status quo to those struggling to keep afloat in a tumultuous world. One way or another, their love will survive. Featuring stories by Frank Sawielijew, Kevin A. Davis, Wris Kaye, David W. Landrum, E.B. Hunter, Lyle Hopwood, Amanda Barrett, Katie Kent, T.C. Mill, and Barend Nieuwstraten III. Graphic sexual content is included within this anthology.