Download or read book Helliconia Spring written by Brian W. Aldiss and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2014-04-01 with total page 634 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Hugo and Nebula Award–winning author and Science Fiction Grand Master delivers a sweeping epic of a planet suffering deadly conditions of alternating extremes in this Nebula Award finalist Helliconia follows an eccentric orbit around a double-star system with a twenty-six-hundred-year cycle of very long seasons. As spring slowly breaks the brutally long winter, humans emerge from hiding and a long sequence of civilization and growth begins to repeat again, unbeknownst to the participants but watched by an orbiting satellite station, Avernus, created by Earth some centuries ago. Humans free themselves from slavery to the aboriginal Phagors, and religion and science flower and expand. Brian W. Aldiss has, for more than fifty years, continued to challenge readers’ minds with literate, thought-provoking, and inventive fiction. Helliconia Spring’s prescience with regard to climate change is nothing short of extraordinary.
Download or read book Helliconia Summer written by Brian W. Aldiss and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2014-04-01 with total page 678 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Grand Master of Science Fiction’s “monumental” epic continues as Helliconia nears its larger star—and a strange visitor joins its civilization (The Times, London). A handful of centuries on, Helliconia is close to the larger star in its binary system, and the Phagors have been driven into exile, but conflicting religions and hostility to science keep human civilization fragmented and constantly fighting wars over petty power and fertile land as a plague devastates populations. However, everything changes when a secret visitor from the observer satellite from Earth accepts a slow death in order to visit the planet and spend his time in the sunlight and open air. More than thirty years after the original publication of Helliconia Spring, the first volume of the Helliconia Trilogy, the series is newly available, now with a map, an afterword, and an introduction by the author.
Download or read book Helliconia Winter written by Brian W. Aldiss and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2014-04-01 with total page 497 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A civilization crumbles as its planet hurtles away from its star in the final chapter of this “monumental” epic from the Grand Master of Science Fiction (The Times, London). After many centuries, the flowering of human civilization has begun to dwindle again and the Great Year slowly progresses while the long, deadly cold winter looms—but a break in the long, repeating cycles of growth and decay may result from the long-ago visit of the Earthman. New legends of the spring and summer have evolved and a new future may be aborning. More than thirty years after the original publication of Helliconia Spring, the first volume of the Helliconia Trilogy, the series is newly available, now with a map, an afterword, and an introduction by the author.
Download or read book Helliconia written by Brian Aldiss and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2011-05-12 with total page 1248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Helliconia is a planet that, due to the massively eccentric orbit of its own sun around another star, experiences seasons that lasts eons. Whole civilisations grow in the Spring, flourish in the Summer and then die in the brutal winters. The human-like inhabitants have been profoundly changed by their experience of this harsh cycle. In orbit above the planet a terran mission struggles to observe and understand the effects on society of such a massive climatic impact. Massive, thoroughly researched, minutely organised, full of action, pulp references and deep drama this is a classic trilogy.
Download or read book Supertoys Last All Summer Long written by Brian W. Aldiss and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2001-06-27 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of science fiction tales, including the story of a robot boy who wants nothing more than to be loved by his parents.
Download or read book Non Stop written by Brian W. Aldiss and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2020-10-13 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A “brilliant . . . classic of the field” generation ship adventure from the Golden Age of Science Fiction by the author of the Helliconia Trilogy (Encyclopedia of Science Fiction). Non-Stop is Grand Master of Science Fiction and Hugo and Nebula Award–winning author Brian W. Aldiss’s debut novel. Written in response to Robert Heinlein’s Orphans of the Sky and published in the late 1950s, it is set in a primitive world, home to tribes of inhabitants who endure their harsh and stunted lives in a maze of corridors. Though legends exist that they’re actually on a ship traveling through the universe, no one really believes it. But that conviction doesn’t stop a group of people from embarking on a mission to find the rumored “Forwards” section and its control room. Through a tangled, hydroponic jungle, they’ll encounter telepathic animals, giants, outcasts, and mutants in an epic race to uncover the truth—and survive . . . “A breakneck ride filled with some truly disturbing and chaotic imagery . . . Aldiss’ world is visceral and powerful.” —Science Fiction and Other Suspect Ruminations “Worth reading, and quite a significant contribution to the long SF history of generation ship novels.” —SF Site Praise for Brian W. Aldiss “A major figure in world SF . . . Whatever else Aldiss may be, predictable he is not.” —The Guardian “One of the most influential—and one of the best—SF writers Britain has ever produced.” —Iain M. Banks, award-winning author of the Culture series “One of the most important SF writers of the 20th century.” —Publishers Weekly
Download or read book The Dark Light Years written by Brian W. Aldiss and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2014-04-01 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A strange alien species forces us to question our definition of civilization in this biting satire from the Grand Master of Science Fiction. What would intelligent life‐forms on another planet look like? Would they walk upright? Would they wear clothes? Or would they be hulking creatures on six legs that wallow in their own excrement? Upon first contact with the Utod— intelligent, pacifist beings who feel no pain—mankind instantly views these aliens as animals because of their unhygienic customs. This leads to the slaughter, capture, and dissection of the Utod. But when one explorer recognizes the intelligence behind their habits, he must reevaluate what it actually means to be “intelligent.”
Download or read book Iron Winter written by Stephen Baxter and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2013-11-05 with total page 512 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Praised as “not only a gifted storyteller but also a master of speculative fiction” (Library Journal), bestselling author Stephen Baxter brings his epic Northland trilogy to a close as a once-thriving civilization faces winter without end.... Many generations ago, the Wall was built to hold back the sea. A simple dam, it grew into a vast linear city, home to scholars, builders, and merchants. Northland’s prosperity survived wars and unrest—and brought the whole of Europe together. But now darkness is falling. Days grow shorter, temperatures colder, and in the wake of long winters come famine, destruction, and terror. As a mass exodus to warmer climes threatens to fracture Northland, one man believes he can outwit the cold, and even salvage some scraps of the great civilization—before interminable gloom settles over the land; before the fires of war lay waste to an empire; before the ice comes....
Download or read book Greybeard written by Brian W. Aldiss and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2014-04-01 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Human reproduction has ceased and society slowly spirals in this “adult Lord of the Flies” by a Grand Master of Science Fiction (San Francisco Chronicle). After the “Accident,” all males on Earth become sterile. Society ages and falls apart bit by bit. First, toy companies go under. Then record companies. Then cities cease to function. Now Earth’s population lives in spread‐out, isolated villages, with its youngest members in their fifties. When the people of Sparcot begin to make claims of gnomes and man‐eating rodents lurking around their village, Greybeard and his wife set out for the coast with the hope of finding something better.
Download or read book Report on Probability A written by Brian W. Aldiss and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2015-05-19 with total page 129 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An unending chain of surveillance crosses countless dimensions in this brilliant, disturbing, and groundbreaking “antinovel” by one of science fiction’s greatest practitioners Mr. Mary and his wife are being observed from at least three vantage points as they go about their mundane home lives. G, the former gardener, watches them from a garden shed. Mr. Mary’s dismissed secretary, S, watches them from the top room of a brick outhouse in the back. The chauffeur, C, who no longer drives, watches the Marys from the garage. Each observer must file a report with his superiors in another continuum, pausing in his surveillance only long enough to eat identical meals alone at the deserted café across the street. But the watchers are themselves being observed by others who are, in turn, being watched across vast and infinite dimensional planes in an attempt to unravel the mysteries of the world known as Probability A. This brilliant, experimental work by Grand Master Brian W. Aldiss is a perplexing and devastatingly haunting masterwork of speculative fiction, considered by many to be the greatest work in the long, prolific career of a true giant of the genre. Thought-provoking, confounding, and stylistically brilliant, Report on Probability A will burn its way into the reader’s mind and memory.
Download or read book Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits written by David Wong and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2015-10-06 with total page 383 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York Times bestselling author David Wong takes readers to a whole new level with his latest darkly comic sci-fi thriller.
Download or read book Seven Blades in Black written by Sam Sykes and published by Orbit. This book was released on 2019-04-09 with total page 611 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Acclaimed author Sam Sykes returns with a brilliant new epic fantasy that introduces an unforgettable outcast mage caught between two warring empires. Her magic was stolen. She was left for dead. Betrayed by those she trusts most and her magic ripped from her, all Sal the Cacophony has left is her name, her story, and the weapon she used to carve both. But she has a will stronger than magic, and knows exactly where to go. The Scar, a land torn between powerful empires, where rogue mages go to disappear, disgraced soldiers go to die and Sal went with a blade, a gun, and a list of seven names. Revenge will be its own reward.
Download or read book The Helliconia Trilogy written by Brian W. Aldiss and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2016-10-25 with total page 1683 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From a Science Fiction Grand Master: The sweeping epic of a planet veering from one extreme atmosphere to another—and the humans trying to survive on it. Helliconia Spring introduces us to a tumultuous world that follows an eccentric orbit around a double-star system—and the satellite from Earth secretly monitoring it. Hugo and Nebula Award–winning author Brian W. Aldiss then explores the social and religious divisions keeping the planet’s population in conflict even as they’re devastated by plague in Helliconia Summer, and concludes the trilogy with Helliconia Winter, which recounts both the threat of a looming, frigid age of decay and the hope of a new future. The Helliconia Trilogy is both a riveting story and a thought-provoking examination of how our destinies are shaped by the environment around us. Aldiss’s study of fields from astronomy to climatology to geobiology endow all three novels with rich details of the planet Helliconia. This riveting, century-spanning saga is a timely exploration of what climate change can mean for our own planet. “Brian Aldiss’s towering imagination places his Helliconia Trilogy far above standard science fiction” (Daily Mail).
Download or read book Tik Tok written by John Sladek and published by Gateway. This book was released on 2011-09-29 with total page 174 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'A Robot shall not injure a human being, or through inaction allow a human being to come to harm'. That's Asimov's celebrated First Law of Robotics. And in the 21st century, all domestic robots are programmed according to that Law. But something had gone terribly wrong with Tik-Tok's 'asimov circuits', and he sets out to injure as many people as possible - preferably fatally - while maintaining the exterior of a mild-mannered artist and a sincere campaigner for robot rights. So, like any self-respecting crook and murderer, he moves into politics, becoming the first robot candidate for Vice-President of the United States. Tik-Tok follows his maniacal progress from humble beginnings to the top of the heap - or almost. Because in his devious cunning, there was one element that Tik-Tok had forgotten... Winner of the BSFA Award for best novel, 1983
Download or read book Fallen Dragon written by Peter F. Hamilton and published by Aspect. This book was released on 2008-11-15 with total page 640 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the distant future, corporations have become sustainable communities with their own militaries, and corporate goals have essentially replaced political ideology. On a youthful, rebellious impulse, Lawrence joined the military of a corporation that he now recognizes to be ruthless and exploitative. His only hope for escape is to earn enough money to buy his place in a better corporation. When his platoon is sent to a distant colony to quell a local resistance effort, it seems like a stroke of amazing fortune, and Lawrence plans to rob the colony of their fabled gemstone, the Fallen Dragon, to get the money he needs. However, he soon discovers that the Fallen Dragon is not a gemstone at all, but an alien life form that the local colonists have been protecting since it crashed in their area. Now, Lawrence has to decide if he will steal the alien to exploit the use of its inherent biotechnical processes -- which far exceed anything humans are capable of -- or if he will help the Resistance get the alien home.
Download or read book Red Flame Burning written by Ward Hawkins and published by Del Rey. This book was released on 1985 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Malacia Tapestry The Brian Aldiss Collection written by Brian Aldiss and published by HarperCollins UK. This book was released on 2015-10-08 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Malacia, a city where change is forbidden and radical ideas are crushed, a war like no other is about to commence. The Brian Aldiss collection includes over 50 books and spans the author’s entire career, from his debut in 1955 to his more recent work.
