On the planet Pyrrus, human colonists have fought a centuries-old war with the native life forms. These life forms adapt to human tactics and technology, evolving new species so rapidly that natives returning from even brief trips off planet must be carried in protective armor canisters from their ship to the safe buildings, where they will learn of the latest deadly threats.

Melanie is a very special girl. Dr. Caldwell calls her "our little genius". Every morning, Melanie waits in her cell to be collected for class. When they come for her, Sergeant keeps his gun pointing at her while two of his people strap her into the wheelchair. She thinks they don't like her. She jokes that she won't bite, but they don't laugh.

The Galahad, a faster-than-light spacecraft, carries 50 scientists and engineers on a mission to prepare Kepler 452b, Earth's nearest habitable neighbor at 1400 light years away. With Earth no longer habitable and the Mars colony slowly failing, they are humanity's best hope. After 10 years in a failed cryogenic bed - body asleep, mind awake - William Chanokh's torture comes to an end as the fog clears, the hatch opens, and his friend and fellow hacker, Tom, greets him...by stabbing a screwdriver into his heart. This is the first time William dies.

Consider Phlebas: Booktrack Edition adds an immersive musical soundtrack to your audiobook listening experience! The first audiobook in Iain M. Banks's seminal science fiction series, The Culture. Consider Phlebas introduces listeners to a utopian conglomeration of human and alien races that explores the nature of war, morality, and the limitless bounds of mankind's imagination.

The year is 2033. The world has been reduced to rubble. Humanity is nearly extinct and the half-destroyed cities have become uninhabitable through radiation. Beyond their boundaries, they say, lie endless burned-out deserts and the remains of splintered forests. Survivors still remember the past greatness of humankind, but the last remains of civilisation have already become a distant memory. Man has handed over stewardship of the earth to new life-forms. A few score thousand survivors live on, not knowing whether they are the only ones left on Earth....

Harry Keogh is the man who can talk to the dead, the man for whom every grave willingly gives up its secrets, the one man who knows how to travel effortlessly through time and space to destroy the vampires that threaten all of humanity.

H.A.L.F. 9 has taken his first breath of desert air and his first steps in the human world. Created to be a weapon, he proved too powerful for his makers, hidden from humans and sedated. H.A.L.F. 9 has escaped the underground lab he called home, and the sedation has worn off. He has never been more alive. More powerful. Or more deadly.Erika Holt longs to ride her motorcycle east until pavement gives way to shore. She bides her time until graduation when she'll escape the trailer she shares with her alcoholic mother and memories of her dead father.

Untouched by Human Hands consists of 13 stories of beings who dwell on the strange borders of reality. Some of these stories tell of people you know or of events that might happen - but haven't yet. Some will take you to the furthermost reaches of the sky and to planets whose names are unknown this side of Arcturus. And some - perhaps the richest and most memorable of these stories - open into the interior of strange minds to reveal the reflection of ourselves.

On June 30, 1908, an object fell from the sky, releasing more energy than a thousand Hiroshima bombs. A Siberian forest was flattened, but the strike left no significant crater. The anomaly came to be known as the Tunguska Event, and scientists have never agreed whether it was the largest meteor strike in recorded history - or something else. Alien artifacts have been uncovered since the 1908 event, and a new star drive is discovered.

This book contains 26 of the greatest science fiction stories ever written. They represent the considered verdict of the Science Fiction Writers of America, those who have shaped the genre and who know, more intimately than anyone else, what the criteria for excellence in the field should be. The authors chosen for the Science Fiction Hall Fame are the men and women who have shaped the body and heart of modern science fiction; their brilliantly imaginative creations continue to inspire and astound new generations of writers and fans.

After the world's governments collapsed, the corporations took control. Houston's Pulsystems has sent an expedition to the lost Martian colony of Frontera to search for survivors, but Reese, aging hero of the US space program, knows better. The colonists are not only alive; they have discovered a secret so devastating that the new rulers of Earth will stop at nothing to own it.

Deep in the Indian Ocean, Dr. Selene Khan enters an underwater dome thousands of years old, one that is fully operational. She barely escapes to the surface, only to discover that her research vessel has vanished. Can she make it to shore 100 miles away? On the other side of the world, Agent Jack Elliot uncovers an impossible 900 grams of antimatter. The trail leads him to Egypt, betrayal, and a sinister brainwashing facility. There, in a desperate move, he rescues Dr. Selene Khan.

Richard Garrison, a corporal in the British Military Police, loses his sight while trying to save the wife and child of millionaire industrialist Thomas Schroeder from a terrorist bomb. While Garrison is recovering from his injuries, Schroeder makes him an offer the young man cannot refuse - refuge at Schroeder's luxurious mountain retreat and rehabilitation from the best doctors who can treat Garrison's blindness and, if not cure him, at least teach him a new way of life. But Thomas Schroeder has a secret. He is dying and determined not to lose his life.

They came from the brightest star in the southern constellation of Carina. First they studied us. Now they're among us, threatening human existence as they search for the Starcore, the greatest device of the lost Polarions. Logan is captured in the Nevada desert but escapes in Greenland. There he finds an extraterrestrial stealth ship, giving him the means to take the battle to the enemy.

Bent on taking over the earth, the deadly Thone have planted a monstrous device on our planet's surface. Trapped inside is a group of scientists, spies, and innocent bystanders. Part maze, part torture chamber, part laboratory, the house of doors is a test. If its captives survive, the Thone will withdraw from earth and leave us in peace.