| Three Years With the Rat by Jay HoskingGrace is gone. The brilliant and obsessive graduate student has been missing for eight months, along with her boyfriend, John, who also studies psychophysics (the study of temporal subjectivity). When Grace's younger brother goes to the couple's apartment, he discovers a strange contraption and embarks on a quest to solve the mystery of his sister's disappearance. Thought-provoking and stylistically complex, this debut by Canadian author and neuroscientist Jay Hosking slowly reveals its secrets through a nonlinear story divided into three interlinked sections. For similarly mind-bending books about the nature of time, try Dexter Palmer's Version Control or Robert Dickinson's The Tourist. |
|
|
Cold welcome
by Elizabeth Moon
Decorated military hero Kylara Vatta survives a disastrous shuttle crash in a distant future, spacefaring culture where she finds herself stranded on an arctic land mass that proves more mysterious than she ever suspected. By the author of Victory Conditions.
|
|
|
Agents of dreamland
by Caitlín R Kiernan
After haunting events occur at a cult compound, two intelligence agents meet in Arizona to exchange information about what happened, while contact is lost with one of NASA's interplanetary probes and something beyond Pluto's orbit makes contact
|
|
| Spaceman of Bohemia by Jaroslav KalfarChosen for his country's first space mission, Czech astrophysicist Jakub Procházka views the opportunity as a chance to redeem his family's reputation (his father tortured dissidents as part of the previous Communist regime). Jakub boards the JanHus1 and, en route to his destination (a cosmic dust cloud known as Chopra), begins to question his life choices. At once erudite and emotionally intense, this introspective novel may appeal to fans of other character-driven stories about astronauts, such as Meg Howrey's The Wanderers. |
|
| Six Wakes by Mur LaffertyThe crew of the spaceship Dormire wakes up in cloning vats, covered in blood and surrounded by the corpses of their previous bodies. In this world, the "mindmaps" of the deceased can be downloaded into new clone bodies. But that doesn't mean homicide isn't a serious crime. Now the six must catch a killer (who could be any of them!) as they contend with a malfunctioning ship, an offline AI navigational system, and their own missing memories. Readers who enjoy suspenseful locked room mysteries set in outer space may also like James Smythe's The Explorer or Adam Roberts' Jack Glass. |
|
|
At the table of wolves
by Kay Kenyon
A young woman must go undercover and use her superpowers to discover a secret Nazi plat and stop an invasion of England. In 1936, there are paranormal abilities that have slowly seeped into the world, brought to the surface by the suffering of the Great War. The research to weaponize these abilities in England has lagged behind Germany, but now it's underway at an ultra-secret site called Monkton Hall. Kim Tavistock, a woman with the talent of the spill--drawing out truths that people most wish to hide--is among the test subjects at the facility. When she wins the confidence of caseworker Owen Cherwell, she is recruited to a mission to expose the head of Monkton Hall--who is believed to be a German spy. As she infiltrates the upper-crust circles of some of England's fascist sympathizers, she encounters dangerous opponents, including the charismatic Nazi officer Erich von Ritter, and discovers a plan to invade England. No one believes an invasion of the island nation is possible, not Whitehall, not even England's Secret Intelligence Service. Unfortunately, they are wrong, and only one woman, without connections or training, wielding her talent of the spill and her gift for espionage, can stop it.
|
|
|
The Berlin Project
by Gregory Benford
Karl Cohen, a chemist and mathematician who is part of The Manhattan Project, has discovered an alternate solution for creating the uranium isotope needed to cause a chain reaction: U-235. After convincing General Groves of his new method, Cohen and his team of scientists work at Oak Ridge preparing to have a nuclear bomb ready to drop by the summer of 1944 in an effort to stop the war on the western front What ensues is an altered account of World War II in this taut thriller. Combining fascinating science with intimate and true accounts of several members of The Manhattan Project, The Berlin Project is an astounding novel that re-imagines history and what could have happened if the atom bomb was ready in time to stop Hitler from killing millions of people.
|
|
| Revenger by Alastair ReynoldsIn a departure from his usual brand of hard SF, author Alastair Reynolds presents an action-packed adventure featuring space pirates, high-tech heists, and bloody revenge. To save their family from bankruptcy, siblings Adrana and Fura Ness join the crew of the notorious Captain Rackamore, who searches the galaxy for "baubles," hidden worlds shielded by force fields and containing treasure in the form of alien artifacts. Although it can be a lucrative gig, it's also dangerous -- as Fura finds out when her sister is captured in a raid. For more stories about space-faring treasure-hunters, try Kristine Kathryn Rusch's Diving Universe series, which begins with Diving into the Wreck. |
|
|
Change agent : a novel
by Daniel Suarez
Drugged and abducted while standing on a crowded train platform, Kenneth Durand, an Interpol agent working against black-market labs that perform illegal embryo augmentation, awakens to discover he has been genetically transformed into his most wanted suspect. By the best-selling author of Daemon.
|
|
|
Borne : a novel
by Jeff VanderMeer
In a ruined, nameless city of the future, a scavenger named Rachel finds a creature named Borne, a leftover from a biotech firm called The Company, and she takes it back to her underground layer where she must shield it from her drug-dealer boyfriend, Wick. By the author of the Southern Reach trilogy.
|
|
| Eifelheim by Michael FlynnAlternate History SF. Eifelheim should have been resettled. Although plague decimated the tiny German town in 1349, modern-day historian Tom, who uses mathematical models to predict settlement patterns, can find no reason why Eifelheim, ideally situated in all respects, shouldn't have bounced back after the Black Death. As Tom and his partner, Sharon, a theoretical physicist, puzzle over this anomaly, readers learn how 14th-century village priest Father Deitrich welcomed extraterrestrials to Eifelheim, setting the stage for a confrontation between the otherworldly visitors and the Church. Readers who enjoy intricately plotted speculative fiction that delves deeply into history, science, and religion may also enjoy Wolfgang Jeschke's The Cusanus Game. |
|
| The Difference Engine by William Gibson and Bruce SterlingAlternate History SF. In this version of 1855, Charles Babbage actually builds his Analytical Engine and, in doing so, ushers in a new age of computer-driven technology more than a century ahead of schedule. The plot centers around a set of missing punch cards and three individuals affected by their disappearance: courtesan Sibyl Gerard, daughter of a Luddite agitator; paleontologist Edward "Leviathan" Mallory; and diplomat-spy Laurence Oliphant. However, the book's real draw is its atmospheric and richly detailed retrofuturistic Victorian setting. Originally published in 1990, The Difference Engine played a significant role in bringing Steampunk into the mainstream. |
|
| The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley RobinsonAlternate History SF. What if the Black Death had killed 99 percent of Europe's population? In this sweeping novel, author Kim Stanley Robinson explores a radically different world in which the Chinese colonize North America, the Industrial Revolution begins in India, and Christianity proves to be more of a historical curiosity than a global religion like Buddhism or Islam. The book is divided into ten novella-length sections that span about 700 years. Uniting these otherwise distinct stories are a small cast of characters who are repeatedly reincarnated in different time periods and places. With its well-drawn ensemble cast and detailed world-building, The Years of Rice and Salt offers a thought-provoking glimpse of what easily could have been. |
|
| Radiance by Catherynne M. ValenteAlternate History SF. The daughter of one of Earth's most acclaimed movie directors, Severin Unck blazes her own artistic trail by making documentaries about obscure and overlooked cultures within the solar system. However, her latest project, a film about a lost colony on Venus, becomes her controversial final work when she disappears during the shoot. In a "found footage" narrative style that compiles transcripts, news items, eyewitness accounts, and more, Radiance -- described by its author as a "decopunk alt-history Hollywood space opera mystery thriller with space whales" -- is a must-read for SF fans seeking a lush, lyrical outer space adventure. |
|
| Burning Paradise by Robert Charles WilsonAlternate History SF. In 2014, 19-year-old Cassie Klyne's world has been at peace since the Armistice of...1914? (That's right: in this timeline, World War I ended almost as soon as it began, while the Great Depression and the Second World War never happened.) Of course, this peaceful and prosperous society has some steep hidden costs: it's controlled by extraterrestrials, who strategically intervene to create their desired outcomes. They also deploy lethal "sims" to dispatch anyone who tries to reveal the truth. Cassie's parents died as a result of their attempts to expose their alien overlords; now Cassie's about to meet the same fate, unless she can escape and locate her deceased parents' former allies. |
|
Contact your librarian for more great books!
|
|
|