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"I am drunk on battery acid and wearing my best party frock, sitting on a balcony beneath a pleasure palace afloat in the stratosphere of Venus." ~ from Charles Stross' Saturn's Children |
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| The Cold Between by Elizabeth BonesteelSF Mystery. During shore leave on the colony planet of Volhynia, Commander Elena Shaw, chief engineer of the Central Corps ship Galileo, hooks up with retired starship captain Treiko "Trey" Zajec. But their no-strings-attached fling gets knotty when Trey is accused of murdering one of Elena's fellow crew members. Unable to believe that he could be a cold-blooded killer, Elena investigates the crime and quickly gets caught up in a vast intergalactic conspiracy. Blending mystery, political intrigue, action, and romance, this opening installment of the Central Corps novels may appeal to fans of Ann Aguirre's Sirantha Jax novels. |
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| Transgalactic by James GunnHard SF. Thanks to the Transcendental Machine, a matter-transmission device that "translates" everything it encounters, space travelers Riley and Asha are now sentient beings of pure information possessing advanced intelligence and superhuman physical abilities. They've also been separated and transported to opposite ends of the universe, each stranded on a different planet with no knowledge of the other's whereabouts. Can they find their way back to each other despite impossible odds? Although Transgalactic can be read on its own, readers interested in Riley and Asha's backstory should check out this novel's predecessor, Transcendental. |
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| Arena by Holly JenningsCyberpunk. In 2054, gamers have become pro-athletes thanks to technology that allows players to compete in the digital arena of RAGE, or Reality-Alternate Gladiatorial Events, a high-stakes tournament run by the Virtual Gaming League. Superstar athlete Kali Ling has just been chosen as captain of Team Defiance, making her the first female team captain in VGL history. As if breaking gender barriers isn't enough pressure, the team's sponsors are expecting the team to win the league championship against difficult odds. For more novels about deadly competitions that combine cutting-edge technology and old-fashioned violence, check out Ted Kosmatka's The Games or Walter Jon Williams' Dagmar Shaw novels. |
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| Sleeping Giants by Sylvain NeuvelHard SF. While riding her bike around town, 11-year-old South Dakota resident Rose Franklin falls through a sinkhole and into a subterranean chamber decorated with mysterious luminescent carvings. Seventeen years later, Rose, now a highly regarded physicist, is assigned to a government project that involves studying the chamber and its unusual, unearthly artifacts. Blending traditional narrative with interview transcripts, news articles, and government documents, this thought-provoking debut novel interweaves a compelling story with philosophical reflections on humankind's place in the universe. |
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| Quantum Night by Robert J. SawyerHard SF. Experimental psychologist Jim Marchuk is in demand since developing a test for definitively identifying psychopathy in individuals. While testifying as an expert witness at a high-profile trial, Marchuk discovers that, somehow, he's lost six months of memories from his college days. To recover his past, he turns to quantum physicist Kayla Huron, who knew him during that period. But what Marchuk discovers about those missing months forces him to reconsider everything he thought he knew about himself. |
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| Dark Intelligence: Transformation Book One by Neal AsherSpace Opera. Set in author Neal Asher's Polity Universe, this trilogy opener stars Thorvald Spear, who died at the hands of rogue A.I. "Penny Royal" during the Prador-Human War over a century ago. Resurrected via his memory implant, his consciousness placed in a clone body, Thorvald now seeks revenge. He hires cybernetically enhanced Isobel Satomi to track down his nemesis, in the process jeopardizing his second life. For another dramatic, action-packed, and intricately plotted space opera with a large cast of characters, check out Kevin J. Anderson's Saga of Seven Suns series. |
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| Diaspora by Greg EganHard SF. By 2975, Homo sapiens has evolved into three distinct subspecies: two, the disembodied polises and the robotic gleisers, are sentient AIs who exist in a purely digital state; the third, fleshers, possess human brains encased in organic bodies. Diaspora follows Yatima, a spontaneously generated, agender orphan whose consciousness evolves as ve searches for the Transmuters, an ancient and incorporeal race with profound knowledge of the universe. For more SF that explores issues of identity and the nature of existence, check out Ann Leckie's Imperial Radch trilogy, which begins with Ancillary Justice. |
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| Crux by Ramez NaamSF Thriller. Just six months after the release of Nexus 5, a nano-drug that enables communication by linking minds, society teeters on the brink of chaos. While the Post-Human Liberation Front hijacks the brains of ordinary people and transforms them into unwitting assassins, agents from the ERD (Emerging Research Directorate) attempt to locate and eliminate the software that makes Nexus possible. Meanwhile, scientist Kaden Lane must decide whether to protect his creation or assist in its destruction. For the full experience of this highly connected futuristic world, start at the beginning of the series with Nexus; the suspenseful, thought-provoking trilogy concludes with the Philip K. Dick Award-winning Apex. |
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| Saturn's Children: A Space Opera by Charles StrossSpace Opera. Humanity's extinction leaves femmebot Freya Nakamichi 47, a concubine android designed for human clients, sadly out of work. In the centuries after humanity's end, android society develops an all-too familiar class system: "slave-chipped" lower-class droids work for a wealthy minority of "aristo" droids, who continue their human creators' dreams of space exploration. Super-sexy Freya struggles to remain a free agent, and -- fleeing the unwanted attention of a powerful aristo -- accepts work ferrying a mysterious package between Mercury and Mars. Author Charles Stross (a two-time Hugo winner) received a 2009 Hugo nomination for this old-school, adults-only (warning: explicit android sex), pulpy SF/space mystery praised by Booklist as "one of the most stylishly imaginative robot tales ever penned." |
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| Echopraxia by Peter WattsHard SF. Daniel Brüks is obsolete. He's a field biologist in a scientific community that's gone computational, an atheist in a faith-based society, and a mortal man trying to survive in an increasingly post-human civilization. Boarding the Rapture-guided ship Crown of Thorns, Brüks joins the hive-like Bicameral Order of monks and a genetically engineered vampire who are following in the footsteps of the Theseus mission, which vanished years ago after reaching the edge of our solar system. En route, Brüks and the crew discover a post-biological organism that challenges everything they know about the nature of life in the universe. Echopraxia serves as a companion novel to the Hugo Award-nominated Blindsight, although this book can be enjoyed without having read its predecessor. |
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