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Science Fiction October 2016
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Prince of outcasts : a novel of the Change
by S. M Stirling
John Arminger Mackenzie wanted to be a troubadour, but fate made him the son of the king of Montival. His sister Princess Orlaith will deservedly inherit the throne of the High Kings, and it will only pass unto him in the event of her death, leaving the young Prince on an unknown path to discover his true role in the family.
The opportunity to prove his mettle comes when John’s ship, the "Tarshish Queen," is caught in the fierce storm raised against the enemies of the alliance. When the clouds recede and the skies clear, John and his crew find themselves on the other side of the Pacific, in the island chains of the Ceram Sea, fighting to survive against vicious pirates and monstrous creatures of the deep, meeting new allies and mysterious enemies of this world and another.
Now, Prince John must seize his birthright and lead his people in battle against the darkest forces man and nature can conjure against them.
Change #10
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At the sign of triumph
by David Weber
When the leaders and soldiers of the tiny island of Charis rise up behind cybernetic avatar Merlin to defend their home, a powerful Church of God Awaiting, pushed to the brink of defeat, draws on its formidable resources and forbidden technologies in an ultimate battle between freedom and oppression.
Safehold #9
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The Gradual
by Christopher Priest
Alesandro grows up in Glaud, a fascist state constantly at war with a faceless opponent. His brother is sent off to war; his family is destroyed by grief. Occasionally he catches glimpses of islands in the far distance from the shore, and they feed into the music he composes music for which he is feted. His search from his brother brings him into contact with the military leadership and suddenly he is a fugitive on the run he seeks refuge on the islands and his endless travels take him through places and time, bringing him answers where he could not have foreseen them.
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A night without stars : a novel of the Commonwealth
by Peter F Hamilton
After centuries trapped inside the Void, the planet Bienvenido along with its inhabitants, both human and Faller has been expelled into normal space. But the survivors are millions of light-years from the Commonwealth, which knows nothing of their existence. As the two races plunge into mortal conflict for sole possession of the planet, the humans seem destined to lose despite the assistance of the mysterious Warrior Angel, who possesses forbidden Commonwealth technology.
With the Fallers numbers growing, and their ability to mimic humans allowing them to infiltrate all levels of society, it s only a matter of time before they surge to victory. Then, on a routine space flight, Major Ry Evine inadvertently frees a captive vessel that crash-lands on Bienvenido carrying the last, best hope for human survival: a baby. But a far from ordinary one.
The child not only ages at a remarkable rate but demonstrates knowledge and abilities far beyond those of Bienvenido’s humans. Hunted by Fallers and humans alike, she is a crucial link to humanity s lost past and a glorious future already almost out of reach.
Commonwealth: Chronicle of the Fallers #2
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The Rise of Io
by Wesley Chu
Ella Patel thief, con-artist and smuggler is in the wrong place at the wrong time. One night, on the border of a demilitarized zone run by the body-swapping alien invaders, she happens upon a man and woman being chased by a group of assailants. The man freezes, leaving the woman to fight off five attackers at once, before succumbing. As she dies, to both Ella and the man’s surprise, the sparkling light that rises from the woman enters Ella, instead of the man. She soon realizes she’s been inhabited by Io, a low-ranking Quasing who was involved in some of the worst decisions in history. Now Ella must now help the alien presence to complete her mission and investigate a rash of murders in the border states that maintain the frail peace.
With the Prophus assigned to help her seemingly wanting to stab her in the back, and the enemy Genjix hunting her, Ella must also deal with Io’s annoying inferiority complex. To top it all off, Ella thinks the damn alien voice in her head is trying to get her killed. And if you can’t trust the voices in your head, who can you trust?
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The sound of seas
by Gillian Anderson
After discovering the secrets to the Gaalderkhani tiles ancient computers that house not just memories, but untold destructive force Caitlin O’Hara’s son gets accidentally thrust back in time. In order to save him she must master the power of the tiles and figure out what the Gaalderkhani’s modern relatives are searching and killing for. Can she put the pieces together and bring her son back home again?
Earthend Saga #3
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Hell's heart
by John Jackson Miller
Continuing the milestone 50th anniversary celebration of Star Trek an epic new trilogy that stretches from the events of The Original Series movie "The Search for Spock" to "The Next Generation"!
When Klingon commander Kruge died in combat against James T. Kirk on the Genesis planet back in 2285, he left behind a powerful house in disarray and a series of ticking time bombs: the Phantom Wing, a secret squadron of advanced Birds-of-Prey; a cabal of loyal officers intent on securing his heritage; and young Korgh, his thwarted would-be heir, willing to wait a Klingon lifetime to enact his vengeance.
Now, one hundred years later, while on a diplomatic mission for the United Federation of Planets, Captain Jean-Luc Picard and the crew of the USS Enterprise are snared in the aged Korgh s trap and thrust directly in the middle of an ancient conflict. But as Commander Worf soon learns, Korgh may be after far bigger game than anyone imagines, confronting the Federation-Klingon alliance with a crisis unlike any it has ever seen!
Star Trek: Prey #1
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The Jackal's Trick
by John Jackson Miller
The Klingon-Federation alliance is in peril as never before. Lord Korgh has seized control of the House of Kruge, executing a plot one hundred years in the making. The Klingon cult known as the Unsung rampages across the stars, striking from the shadows in their cloaked Birds-of-Prey. And the mysterious figure known as Buxtus Cross launches a scheme that will transform the Klingon Empire forever.
Into danger flies Admiral William T. Riker and the USS Titan, charged with protecting the peace forged nearly a century before during the Khitomer Accords. Aided by Captain Jean-Luc Picard and the USS Enterprise, Riker and his officers scour the stars, seeking to find the Unsung and uncover the truth behind the conspiracy before time runs out.
Yet even as Commander Worf departs on a deeply personal mission of honor, hidden sinister forces seek to turn the crisis to their advantage. And the conspirators plans threaten to spiral out of control, jeopardizing the very empire they aspire to rule.
Star Trek: Prey #2
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Escapology
by Ren Warom
Shock Pao is the best. In the virtual world the Slip there’s nothing he can’t steal for the right price. Outside the Slip, though, he’s a Fail no degree, no job. So when his ex offers him a job, breaking into a corporate databank, he accepts it s either that, or find himself a nice bench to sleep under. Amiga works for psychotic crime lord Twist Calhoun so when Shock’s war comes to her, it’s her job to bring him to Twist, dead or alive.
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Ninth City Burning
by J. Patrick Black
We never saw them coming.
Entire cities disappeared in the blink of an eye, leaving nothing but dust and rubble. When an alien race came to make Earth theirs, they brought with them a weapon we had no way to fight, a universe-altering force known as thelemity. It seemed nothing could stop it until we discovered we could wield the power too.
Five hundred years later, the Earth is locked in a grinding war of attrition. The talented few capable of bending thelemity to their will are trained in elite military academies, destined for the front lines. Those who refused to support the war have been exiled to the wilds of a ruined Earth.
But the enemy's tactics are changing, and Earth's defenders are about to discover this centuries-old war has only just begun. As a terrible new onslaught looms, heroes will rise from unlikely quarters, and fight back.
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Women of futures past : Classic Stories
by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Meet the Women of Futures Past: from Grand Master Andre Norton and the beloved Anne McCaffrey to some of the most popular SF writers today, such as Lois McMaster Bujold and CJ Cherryh. The most influential writers of multiple generations are found in these pages, delivering lost classics and foundational touchstones that shaped the field.
You'll find Northwest Smith, C.L. Moore’s famous smuggler who predates (and maybe inspired) Han Solo by four decades. Read Leigh Brackett’s fiction and see why George Lucas chose her to write The Empire Strikes Back. Adventure tales, post-apocalyptic visions, space opera, aliens-among-us, time travel these women have delivered all this and more, some of the best science fiction ever written!
Includes stories by Leigh Brackett, Lois McMaster Bujold, Pat Cadigan, CJ Cherryh, Zenna Henderson, Nancy Kress, Ursula K. Le Guin, Anne McCaffrey, C.L. Moore, Andre Norton, James Tiptree, Jr., and Connie Willis.
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Eternity's mind
by Kevin J. Anderson
Two decades after the devastating Elemental War, which nearly destroyed the cosmos, the new Confederation restored peace and profitable commerce among the peoples and worlds of the Spiral Arm. The ambitious, innovative Roamers went back to their traditional business of harvesting the vital stardrive fuel ekti from the clouds of gas giant planets, and the telepathic green priests of Theroc provided instantaneous galaxy-wide communication via their connection to the powerful and sentient worldtrees. The alien Ildiran Empire rebuilt their grand Prism Palace under the light of their seven suns, and their Mage-Imperator declared a new age of expansion and discover.
But peace was not to last. The malevolent Klikiss robots soon found an ally in the ancient and near-omnipotent Shana Rei, destructive creatures who are the personification of darkness and chaos awakened after millennia of slumber to destroy all sentient life in the universe. The Confederation and the Ildiran Empire fought in every way possible, but the Spiral Arm itself seemed doomed.
All across the transportal network, space is tearing apart, the links between the gateways are breaking down, the fabric of space unraveling. The worldtrees are dying, entire planets are englobed in impenetrable black barriers erected by the Shana Rei, and the murderous taint has infiltrated the Ildiran race as well as Mage-Imperator Jora’h himself.
Desperate for stardrive fuel to power the military and all space travel, the industrialist Lee Iswander has been extracting ekti the blood of the cosmos from mysterious giant nodules found floating in empty space, draining these bloaters dry by the thousands. But in doing so, is he weakening the only ally that all of civilization may have against the Shana Rei?
Saga of Shadows #3
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Navigators of Dune
by Brian Herbert
The story line tells the origins of the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood and its breeding program, the human-computer Mentats, and the Navigators (the Spacing Guild), as well as a crucial battle for the future of the human race, in which reason faces off against fanaticism. These events have far-reaching consequences that will set the stage for Dune, millennia later.
Dune #10
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A second chance
by Jodi Taylor
In A Second Chance, it seems nothing can go right for Max and her fellow historians. The team confronts a mirror-stealing Isaac Newton and later witnesses how the ancient and bizarre cheese-rolling ceremony in Gloucester can result in CBC: Concussion By Cheese.
Finally, Max makes her long-awaited jump to Bronze Age Troy, only for it to end in personal catastrophe. And just when it seems things couldn t get any worse, it’s back to the Cretaceous Period to confront an old enemy who has nothing to lose.
Chronicles of St. Mary's #3
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The Complete Orsinia : Malafrena Stories and Songs
by Ursula K. Le Guin
The inaugural volume of Library of America’s Ursula K. Le Guin edition gathers her complete Orsinian writings, enchanting, richly imagined historical fiction collected here for the first time. Written before Le Guin turned to science fiction, the novel Malafrena is a tale of love and duty set in the central European country of Orsinia in the early nineteenth century, when it is ruled by the Austrian empire. The stories originally published in Orsinian Tales (1976) offer brilliantly rendered episodes of personal drama set against a history that spans Orsinia's emergence as an independent kingdom in the twelfth century to its absorption by the eastern Bloc after World War II. The volume is rounded out by two additional stories that bring the history of Orsinia up to 1989, the poem Folksong from the Montayna Province, Le Guin’s first published work, and two never before published songs in the Orisinian language.
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The big sheep
by Robert Kroese
Los Angeles of 2039 is a baffling and bifurcated place. After the Collapse of 2028, a vast section of LA, the Disincorporated Zone, was disowned by the civil authorities, and became essentially a third world country within the borders of the city. Navigating the boundaries between DZ and LA proper is a tricky task, and there's no one better suited than eccentric private investigator Erasmus Keane. When a valuable genetically altered sheep mysteriously goes missing from Esper Corporation's labs, Keane is the one they call.
But while the erratic Keane and his more grounded partner, Blake Fowler, are on the trail of the lost sheep, they land an even bigger case. Beautiful television star Priya Mistry suspects that someone is trying to kill her - and she wants Keane to find out who. When Priya vanishes and then reappears with no memory of having hired them, Keane and Fowler realize something very strange is going on. As they unravel the threads of the mystery, it soon becomes clear that the two cases are connected - and both point to a sinister conspiracy involving the most powerful people in the city. Saving Priya and the sheep will take all of Keane's wits and Fowler's skills, but in the end, they may discover that some secrets are better left hidden.
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| Foundation by Isaac AsimovClassic SF. This opening installment of Isaac Asimov's Foundation series introduces mathematician Hari Seldon, who develops psychohistory -- a branch of science that uses probability and statistics to forecast future events as they apply to large societies. When his work predicts the collapse of the Galactic Empire and a subsequent Dark Age lasting millennia, Seldon establishes a foundation dedicated to preserving human knowledge and culture until such time as it can be resurrected and a new society established. |
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| Consider Phlebas by Iain BanksSpace Opera. As the Culture and the Idiran Empire engage in ongoing interstellar warfare, shapeshifting mercenary Bora Horza Gobuchul is chosen for a special covert mission by the Idirans, who believe that he may be able to bypass the Dra'Azon guardian of Schar's World and gain access to the forbidden planet. Originally published in 1987, Consider Phlebas kicks off the ten-volume Culture Universe series. While the novels need not be read in any particular order, readers who enjoy the characters and plot of Consider Phlebas may be interested in Look to Windward, a loose sequel. |
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| Dune by Frank HerbertSpace Opera. Dune and its five original sequels are among the most famous and beloved science fiction novels of all time. They tell the sprawling, epic story of an interstellar empire and its potential messiah, Paul Atreides, who has inherited control of the planet that is the sole source of Melange, the "spice of spices" and the most valuable substance in the universe. Burgeoning with the complex politics, religion, ecology, and dynastic intrigue of author Frank Herbert's vividly created and comprehensive universe, Dune has been hailed as "an astonishing science fiction phenomenon" (The Washington Post) and "one of the monuments of modern science fiction" (The Chicago Tribune). |
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| Hyperion by Dan SimmonsSpace Opera. Think Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, only in space and full of cosmic horror. Set in the 28th-century, this intricately plotted novel follows seven pilgrims on a voyage to the world of Hyperion to visit the Valley of Time Tombs and the Shrike, a god-like creature that may answer their prayers or destroy them all. En route, the pilgrims take turns telling their tales, which reveal their histories and hint at their ultimate fates. Hyperion and its sequel, The Fall of Hyperion, set the stage for the Hyperion Cantos, which includes Endymion and The Rise of Endymion. For another space-faring tale of storytelling pilgrims in search of a great and terrible deity, check out James Gunn's Transcendental. |
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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Prince George's County Memorial Library System 9601 Capital Lane Largo, Maryland 20774 301-699-3500www.pgcmls.info/ |
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