Download or read book Tau Zero written by Poul Anderson and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2018-09-18 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Hugo Award finalist, “justifiably regarded as a classic” (SFReviews.net), is the tale of an epic space voyage where time dilation goes horribly wrong. Aboard the spacecraft Leonora Christine, fifty crewmembers, half men and half women, have embarked on a journey of discovery like no other to a planet thirty light-years away. Since their ship is not capable of traveling faster than light, the crew will be subject to the effects of time dilation and relativity. They will age five years on board the ship before reaching their destination, but thirty-three years will pass on Earth. Experienced scientists and researchers, they have come to terms with the time conditions of their space travel. Until . . . the Leonora Christine passes through an uncharted nebula, which damages the engine, making it impossible to decelerate the ship on the second half of their trip. To survive, the crewmembers have no choice but to bypass their destination and continue to accelerate toward the speed of light. But how will they keep hope alive and maintain order as they hurtle deeper into space with time passing more and more rapidly, and their ultimate fate unknown? With its combination of mind-blowing hard science and compelling human drama, Tau Zero is “the ultimate hard science novel” (Mike Resnick).

Download or read book Rendezvous With Rama written by Arthur Charles Clarke and published by Spectra. This book was released on 1990 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the twenty-second century, a space probe's investigation of a mysterious, cylindrical asteroid brings man into contact with an extra-galactic civilization

Download or read book Total Eclipse written by John Brunner and published by Gateway. This book was released on 2011-09-29 with total page 150 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nineteen light years from Earth, on Sigma Draconis, an international space team stumbles upon the first evidence of another highly advanced civilization in the universe. Tragically, however, the Draconians are extinct and have been for a hundred thousand years. What mysterious disaster destroyed man's nearest neighbour in the colossal emptiness of space? And will the same fate befall Earth? The answers, as Earth degenerates into squabbles, paranoia and self-destruction, are vital. But how to begin the almost insuperable task of cracking the enigma of a long-buried and utterly alien culture?

Download or read book Project Hail Mary written by Andy Weir and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2021-05-04 with total page 497 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the author of The Martian, a lone astronaut must save the earth from disaster in this “propulsive” (Entertainment Weekly), cinematic thriller full of suspense, humor, and fascinating science—in development as a major motion picture starring Ryan Gosling. HUGO AWARD FINALIST • ONE OF THE YEAR’S BEST BOOKS: Bill Gates, GatesNotes, New York Public Library, Parade, Newsweek, Polygon, Shelf Awareness, She Reads, Kirkus Reviews, Library Journal • “An epic story of redemption, discovery and cool speculative sci-fi.”—USA Today “If you loved The Martian, you’ll go crazy for Weir’s latest.”—The Washington Post Ryland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission—and if he fails, humanity and the earth itself will perish. Except that right now, he doesn’t know that. He can’t even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it. All he knows is that he’s been asleep for a very, very long time. And he’s just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company. His crewmates dead, his memories fuzzily returning, Ryland realizes that an impossible task now confronts him. Hurtling through space on this tiny ship, it’s up to him to puzzle out an impossible scientific mystery—and conquer an extinction-level threat to our species. And with the clock ticking down and the nearest human being light-years away, he’s got to do it all alone. Or does he? An irresistible interstellar adventure as only Andy Weir could deliver, Project Hail Mary is a tale of discovery, speculation, and survival to rival The Martian—while taking us to places it never dreamed of going.

Download or read book Starfarers written by Poul Anderson and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2015-11-24 with total page 647 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Courageous space explorers embark on a mission to make contact with alien races light years away, while the Earth they leave behind ages twelve hundred centuries It’s the most exciting discovery since humankind first began watching the skies: SETI scientists detect starship “trails” in a galaxy many light years from Earth, and at long last the dream of human-to-alien contact is attainable. But the courageous crew of starfarers assembled to take on the monumental endeavor must sacrifice the only lives they’ve ever known and the people they love; the Earth will have aged many thousands of years when—and if—they are finally able to return. Still, their hunger for knowledge of the universe and the extraterrestrial races that inhabit it is too great to deny, and the Envoy rockets off into the vast unknown. It’s a perilous mission that will profoundly change everyone it touches—even as the passing millennia transform the Earth in ways no one could ever have imagined. Of all the science fiction extrapolators to emerge in the twentieth century, none were more visionary and few as prolific as the great Poul Anderson. Starfarers, his ingeniously imagined space exploration adventure, still stands tall among the most intelligent, enthralling, and unforgettable science fiction novels ever written. This ebook includes the bonus stories “Ghetto” and “The Horn of Time the Hunter.”

Download or read book The Rage of Dragons written by Evan Winter and published by Orbit. This book was released on 2019-02-12 with total page 522 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Game of Thrones meets Gladiator in this blockbuster debut epic fantasy about a world caught in an eternal war, and the young man who will become his people's only hope for survival. ONE OF TIME MAGAZINE'S TOP 100 FANTASY BOOKS OF ALL TIME Winner of the Reddit/Fantasy Award for Best Debut Fantasy Novel The Omehi people have been fighting an unwinnable war for almost two hundred years. The lucky ones are born gifted. One in every two thousand women has the power to call down dragons. One in every hundred men is able to magically transform himself into a bigger, stronger, faster killing machine. Everyone else is fodder, destined to fight and die in the endless war. Young, gift-less Tau knows all this, but he has a plan of escape. He's going to get himself injured, get out early, and settle down to marriage, children, and land. Only, he doesn't get the chance. Those closest to him are brutally murdered, and his grief swiftly turns to anger. Fixated on revenge, Tau dedicates himself to an unthinkable path. He'll become the greatest swordsman to ever live, a man willing to die a hundred thousand times for the chance to kill the three who betrayed him. The Rage of Dragons launches a stunning and powerful debut epic fantasy series that readers are already calling "the best fantasy book in years." The BurningThe Rage of Dragons

Download or read book To Outlive Eternity and Other Stories written by Poul Anderson and published by Baen Publishing Enterprises. This book was released on 2007-03-01 with total page 709 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the aftermath of World War III to a world inherited by robots, where humans are unwelcome . . . from a handful of human survivors on a starship desperately searching for other ships carrying survivors of the destruction of the entire Earth by an unknown enemy, who may strike again at any time, to another starship hurtling through the cosmos at a speed so close to that of light¾and unable to slow down¾that relativistic effects make millennia fly by for each tick of the clock onboard . . . from a team striving to make Venus habitable for humans to a group of men who find the ominous secret behind a new quasi-religious philosophy that is sweeping the world. . . . The wide-ranging imagination and exciting storytelling of Poul Anderson brings many different worlds to vivid life in a great volume of his best stories that will thrill all fans of science fiction. At the publisher's request, this title is sold without DRM (Digital Rights Management).

Download or read book Perihelion Summer written by Greg Egan and published by Tor.com. This book was released on 2019-04-16 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Greg Egan's Perihelion Summer is a story of people struggling to adapt to a suddenly alien environment, and the friendships and alliances they forge as they try to find their way in a world where the old maps have lost their meaning. Taraxippus is coming: a black hole one tenth the mass of the sun is about to enter the solar system. Matt and his friends are taking no chances. They board a mobile aquaculture rig, the Mandjet, self-sustaining in food, power and fresh water, and decide to sit out the encounter off-shore. As Taraxippus draws nearer, new observations throw the original predictions for its trajectory into doubt, and by the time it leaves the solar system, the conditions of life across the globe will be changed forever. Praise for Perihelion Summer “Egan here doubles down on climate change with his typically rigorous exploration of a cosmic accident’s effect on Earth and all its people. His characters are sharp and funny and their courageous response to the massive challenge they face works as a spur to cause us to think—why couldn’t we do as well with our own great challenge? This is what the best science fiction can do that no other genre can, and we need it now more than ever. Bravo!” — Kim Stanley Robinson At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Download or read book Hellstrom s Hive written by Frank Herbert and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2010-08-24 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: America is a police state, and it is about to be threatened by the most hellish enemy in the world: insects. When the Agency discovered that Dr. Hellstrom's Project 40 was a cover for a secret laboratory, a special team of agents was immediately dispatched to discover its true purpose and its weaknesses—it could not be allowed to continue. What they discovered was a nightmare more horrific and hideous than even their paranoid government minds could devise. First published in Galaxy magazine in 1973 as "Project 40," Frank Herbert's vivid imagination and brilliant view of nature and ecology have never been more evident than in this classic of science fiction. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Download or read book A Legend of the Future written by Augustín de Rojas and published by Restless Books. This book was released on 2014-10-28 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A morally profound chamber piece, A Legend of the Future is a critique of morality. It takes place inside a spaceship after a crash takes place during a failed mission to Titan, one of the Saturn moons. The journey home forces the crew to face its innermost fears while coexisting with each other in a state of desperation. This mesmerizing novel, recalling Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001: Space Odyssey, is a roman a clef about the intense pressures—economic, ideological, psychological—inside Socialist Cuba. Praise for A Legend of the Future "The best science fiction writer in Cuba; the only possible debate is which of his works is the best.... His trilogy of Spiral, A Legend of the Future, and Year 200 is still the best of Cuban science fiction.... With a very refined style and well-established scientific-social background, Agustín’s work surprises through its humanistic content. His concerns surrounding the meaning of life and the evolution of human beings put him in a privileged place among national writers.” —Cuenta Regresiva "The best and most popular novelist of this genre that the Island has ever given.... He is considered one of the principal exponents of Cuban science fiction, and he was undoubtedly the one who knew how to best combine solid scientific formation as plots and attractive characters with a confidence well-based in humanity’s socialist future.” —Yoss "One of the best science fiction writers in Cuba—and, until [his death], one of the best Cuban story tellers alive.... Today Agustín de Rojas’ work, from Spiral through Catharsis and Society, is admired by cult readers, pro-government thinkers, and elitists alike." —Félix Luis Viera, Cubaencuentro "The most elevated figure in Cuban science fiction." —Axxón Agustín de Rojas (1949-2011) is the patron saint of Cuban science fiction. A professor of the history of theater at the Escuela de Instructores de Arte in Villa Clara, he is the author of a canonical trilogy of novels: Espiral (Spiral, 1982), for which he was awarded the David Prize; La leyenda del futuro (The Legend of the Future, 1985) and El año 200 (The Year 200, 1990), all scheduled for publication in English translation by Restless Books. While influenced by Ray Bradbury and a translator of Isaac Asimov into Spanish, he aligned himself with the Soviet line of socialist realism defined by the brothers Arkady and Boris Strugatsky as well as by Ivan Antonovich Yefremov, author of The Andromeda Nebula, made into a movie directed by Yevgeni Sherstobitov and admired by de Rojas. In Cuban literature, he is said to have begun writing after reading Miguel Collazo’s El viaje (The Journey). After the fall of the Soviet Union, de Rojas stopped writing science fiction and embraced other themes such as Christianity, about which he wrote a novel called El publican (1997), about the disciples of Jesus Christ, that was awarded the Dulce María Loynaz Prize. He spent his last years persuaded—and persuading others—that Fidel Castro did not exist. Nick Caistor is a British journalist, non-fiction author, and translator of Spanish and Portuguese literature. He has translated Cesar Aira, Paulo Coelho, Eduardo Mendoza, Juan Marsé, and Manuel Vázquez Montalban, and he has twice won the Valle-Inclán Prize for translation. He regularly contributes to Radio 4, the BBC World Service, the Times Literary Supplement, and the Guardian. He lives in Norwich, England.

Download or read book Farewell Earth s Bliss written by D G Compton and published by Gateway. This book was released on 2011-09-29 with total page 141 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On board an obsolete ship, nine weeks out from home, the latest batch of colonists arrive at their destination. A grim penal settlement in a wilderness worlds away from the homes they will never see again. TASMANIA? BOTANY BAY? No. For this is tomorrow, not yesterday. The dumping ground for social outcasts and political deportees is Mars, barren, unproductive, but invaluable as a convict settlement. What kind of welcome will the twenty-four deportees receive when the reception party from the Settlement reaches their stranded ship? And how will they survive in a primitive environment, an alien system?

Download or read book The Corridors of Time written by Poul Anderson and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2014-12-30 with total page 187 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A young man from the twentieth century is recruited to fight in a war that rages throughout time in this classic science fiction adventure from a multiple Hugo and Nebula Award–winning master. College student, ex-marine, and martial artist Malcolm Lockridge is in prison awaiting his trial for murder when he receives an unexpected visit from an extraordinarily beautiful woman named Storm. Claiming to be a representative of the Wardens, a political faction from two thousand years in the future, Storm offers the astonished young man a proposition: freedom in return for his assistance in recovering an unspecified lost treasure. But it is not long before Malcolm realizes that, in truth, he’s been recruited as a soldier in the Wardens’ ongoing war against their rivals, the Rangers. And this war is different from any that has ever been fought, because the battlefield is not a place but time itself. Traveling backward and forward through corridors connecting historical epochs separated by thousands of years, Malcolm is soon embroiled in a furious conflict between the forces of good and minions of evil. But the deeper he is pulled into this devastating time war, the clearer Malcolm’s ultimate role in humankind’s destiny becomes, causing the troubled young soldier from the twentieth century to question whether he’s been chosen to fight on the side of good or evil . . . and if such a distinction even exists.

Download or read book Frontiers of Propulsion Science written by Marc G. Millis and published by AIAA (American Institute of Aeronautics & Astronautics). This book was released on 2009 with total page 786 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Frontiers of Propulsion Science is the first-ever compilation of emerging science relevant to such notions as space drives, warp drives, gravity control, and faster-than-light travel - the kind of breakthroughs that would revolutionize spaceflight and enable human voyages to other star systems. Although these concepts might sound like science fiction, they are appearing in growing numbers in reputable scientific journals. This is a nascent field where a variety of concepts and issues are being explored in the scientific literature, beginning in about the early 1990s. The collective status is still in step 1 and 2 of the scientific method, with initial observations being made and initial hypotheses being formulated, but a small number of approaches are already at step 4, with experiments underway. This emerging science, combined with the realization that rockets are fundamentally inadequate for interstellar exploration, led NASA to support the Breakthrough Propulsion Physics Project from 1996 through 2002.""Frontiers of Propulsion Science"" covers that project as well as other related work, so as to provide managers, scientists, engineers, and graduate students with enough starting material that they can comprehend the status of this research and decide if and how to pursue it in more depth themselves. Five major sections are included in the book: Understanding the Problem lays the groundwork for the technical details to follow; Propulsion Without Rockets discusses space drives and gravity control, both in general terms and with specific examples; Faster-Than-Light Travel starts with a review of the known relativistic limits, followed by the faster-than-light implications from both general relativity and quantum physics; Energy Considerations deals with spacecraft power systems and summarizes the limits of technology based on accrued science; and, From This Point Forward offers suggestions for how to manage and conduct research on such visionary topics.

Download or read book The Ark written by Patrick S. Tomlinson and published by Watkins Media Limited. This book was released on 2015-11-03 with total page 435 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Introducing a thrilling deep-space science fiction mystery series in the tradition of James S.A. Corey’s The Expanse When a geneticist goes missing aboard a generation ship, it’s up to sports star Bryan Benson to solve the mystery before landfall. Humankind has escaped a dying Earth and set out to find a new home among the stars aboard an immense generation spaceship, affectionately named the Ark. Bryan Benson is the Ark’s greatest living sports hero, enjoying retirement working as a detective in Avalon, his home module. The hours are good, the work is easy, and the perks can’t be beat. But when a crew member goes missing, Benson is thrust into the center of an ever-expanding web of deception, secrets, and violence that overturns everything he knows about living on the Ark and threatens everyone aboard. As the last remnants of humanity hurtle towards their salvation, Benson finds himself in a desperate race to unravel the conspiracy before a madman turns mankind’s home into its tomb.

Download or read book The Clockwork Rocket written by Greg Egan and published by Start Publishing LLC. This book was released on 2011-07-01 with total page 494 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Yalda's universe, light has no universal speed and its creation generates energy. On Yalda's world, plants make food by emitting their own light into the dark night sky. As a child, Yalda witnesses one of a series of strange meteors, the Hurtlers, that are entering the planetary system at an immense, unprecedented speed. It becomes apparent that her world is in imminent danger — and the task of dealing with the Hurtlers will require knowledge and technology far beyond anything her civilization has yet achieved! Only one solution seems tenable: if a spacecraft can be sent on a journey at sufficiently high speed, its trip will last many generations for those on board, but it will return after just a few years have passed at home. The travelers will have a chance to discover the science their planet urgently needs, and bring it back in time to avert disaster.

Download or read book Mission Of Gravity written by Hal Clement and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2014-12-11 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mesklin is a vast, inhospitable, disc-shaped planet, so cold that its oceans are liquid methane and its snows are frozen ammonia. It is a world spinning dizzyingly, a world where gravity can be a crushing 700 times greater than Earth's, a world too hostile for human explorers. But the planet holds secrets of inestimable value, and an unmanned probe that has crashed close to one of its poles must be recovered. Only the Mesklinites, the small creatures so bizarrely adapted to their harsh environment, can help. And so Barlennan, the resourceful and courageous captain of the Mesklinite ship Bree, sets out on an heroic and appalling journey into the terrible unknown. For him and his people, the prize to be gained is as great as that for mankind... Hal Clement's MISSION OF GRAVITY is universally regarded as one of the most important and best loved novels in the genre. The remarkable and sympathetic depiction of an alien species and the plausible and scientifically based realisation of the strange world they inhabit make it a major landmark in the history of hard SF.

Download or read book Aurora written by Kim Stanley Robinson and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2015-07-09 with total page 509 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'What a saga! Scifi with honest, complex humanity, physics, biology, sociology' - Tom Hanks 'Aurora is a magnificent piece of writing, certainly Robinson's best novel since his mighty Mars trilogy, perhaps his best ever' - Guardian Our voyage from Earth began generations ago. Now, we approach our destination. A new home. Aurora. Brilliantly imagined and beautifully told, Aurora is the work of a writer at the height of his powers. 'An accessible novel packed with big ideas, wonders, jeopardy and, at the end, a real emotional punch' SFX 'Aurora is Robinson's best book yet . . . Heart-wrenching, provocative' Scientific American 'Kim Stanley Robinson is one of science fiction's greats' Sunday Times Novels by Kim Stanley Robinson: Icehenge The Memory of Whiteness A Short, Sharp Shock Antarctica The Years of Rice and Salt Galileo's Dream 2312 Shaman Aurora New York 2140 Red Moon