Publisher: Orbit
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 11/22/2010
ISBN-13: 9780316072816
ISBN-10: 0316072818

Space Opera. Colonists en route to a habitable planet are jolted from Dreamtime (travel hibernation) to discover that their massive living ship is heavily damaged, and its AI-command center now insane. A few survivors crawl through horror-filled corridors toward the command center, uneasily aware that the ship chose each of them for its own reasons. Infusing these SF stand-bys with the atmospheric, cryptic appeal of ABC's Lost, this erudite space opera manifests enough complexity to satisfy long-term SF readers and reach new ones.

Publisher: Del Rey
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 11/23/2010
ISBN-13: 9780345511973
ISBN-10: 0345511972

Cyberpunk. Melds (humans with radical body modifications) are mainstream in this gritty, noir future-world where thieves Jiminy Cricket (named for his nano-crafted legs with high-strength muscle implants) and partner Whispr (surgically slimmed to razor-thinness) kill to steal saleable body implants. After Whispr finds a data storage device on one of their victims, Jiminy disappears and murderous assassins force Whispr into desperate alliance with the upstanding Dr. Ingrid Seastrom. Readers who like Alan Dean Foster's successful Pip and Flinx series will miss its trademark humor, but William Gibson fans will love the dark, solid world-building here.

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Publisher: Ace Books
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 11/02/2010
ISBN-13: 9780441019243
ISBN-10: 0441019242

SF. On the far-future planet Rimway, antiquities dealer Alex Benedict and his assistant Chase travel faster than light to planets whose ruins are filled with valuable finds. In this 5th book of the Alex Benedict series, they're after an indecipherable stone tablet that could prove the existence of multiple alien races. Alex lives for the thrill of the hunt, while Chase just wants to live: deadly foes track their every step toward the stone and its secrets. This well-told, unpredictably plotted space-mystery is a must-read for current fans; newcomers should start their adventures alongside these likable characters with the series' 1st book, A Talent for War.

Publisher: Ballantine Books
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 02/28/2006
ISBN-13: 9780345457691
ISBN-10: 0345457692

Cyberpunk. Laconic Takeshi Kovacs is a specially-trained mercenary in a nasty cyber-verse where your "cortical stack" (digitized consciousness) can be "re-sleeved" in a different body to prolong life--or as a punishment. Kovacs, captured in combat, finds his stack forcibly pulled, shelved, and sold. He awakens in the body of powerful political conspirator Bancroft. The recent victim of a hit masked as suicide, Bancroft orders Kovacs to track down his killers--or else. Fans of William Gibson's Neuromancer or Joseph Citro's Deus X will love this first book of the Takeshi Kovacs series for its graphic, seamy, no-punches-pulled world; Iain Banks' Surface Detail fans will love this as an extended exploration of similar post-death conceits.

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Publisher: Tor
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 02/01/2003
ISBN-13: 9780765345004
ISBN-10: 0765345005

Parallel Worlds SF. Neanderthals have built a peaceful, sophisticated civilization on a parallel world unknown to Earth--until quantum physics experiments in both worlds go horribly awry. Neanderthal physicist Ponter Boddit is trapped on Earth, where scientist Mary Vaughn (adrift in her own loneliness) sympathetically befriends him. Meanwhile, his home-world colleague faces a terrible sentence for his alleged murder unless Boddit returns. Canadian author Robert J. Sawyer blends erudite science and character-driven narrative as he explores technology's murky benefits and what being "human" really means in this engaging novel for adult and YA readers alike. If you like his Neanderthal Parallax (of which this is the 1st) try his WWW trilogy too!

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Publisher: Bantam Books
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 11/27/2007
ISBN-13: 9780553589641
ISBN-10: 0553589644

Humorous SF. Beautiful kick-butt Jorie Makkalah of the Guardian Force can't believe a techno-deficient hole like Earth (where they don't even know there's an interstellar war going on) houses the biggest known nest of killer bio-droids released by alien enemies the Tresh. Worse, a pesky human investigating a dessicated corpse stumbles smack into the midst of Jorie's intergalactic battle against the deadly "space-zombies." The tongue-in-cheek title reflects this story's quirky, genre-melding take on a classic "mindless-killing-machines-from-space" plot. If you like funny, smart SF (laced with pulpy boy-meets-space-girl romance) dig into The Down Home Zombie Blues, y'all puny humans!

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Publisher: Harcourt
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 04/01/2008
ISBN-13: 9780151014910
ISBN-10: 0151014914

Slipstream. Abandoning a depleted Earth millennia ago, mankind colonized the new planet Orbus. Now war and pollution ravage it too, and Earth must be considered for re-colonization. Heroine Billie Crusoe journeys back to 18th-century Earth, hoping to learn how the deadly cycle of war and environmental destruction that seems to doom her people--wherever they go--might be ended. All technological marvels aside, her journey explores whether or not humanity can ever moderate its consumptive nature to protect its future. Fans of China Mieville's Perdido Street Station will like this work's darkly speculative tone; graphic sexual content recommends both titles for limited audiences.

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