Date: 1970-90

Strength of Stones

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Strength of Stones
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Artificially intelligent cities rise up against humanity in this “excellent novel. It came on me as a surprise, and it knocked me out!” (Harlan Ellison).

In a theocratic world far into the future, cities control their own movements and organization. Constantly moving, growing and decaying, taking care of every need their inhabitants might think of, the cities have decided that humans are no longer a necessary part of their architecture, casting them out to wander in the wilderness and eke out a meager subsistence.

To the exiled humans, the cities represent a paradisiacal Eden, a reminder of all they cannot attain due to their sinful and unworthy natures. But things are beginning to change. People are no longer willing to allow the cities to keep them out, choosing instead to force an entry and plunder at will.

The cities are starting to crumble and die because they have no purpose or reason to continue living without citizens. One woman, called mad by some and wise by others, is the only human allowed to inhabit a city. From her lonely and precarious position at the heart of one of the greatest cities ever, she must decide the fate of the relationship between human society and the ancient strongholds of knowledge, while making one last desperate attempt to save the living cities.

The Santiago Saga

The Santiago Saga
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When you’re the most wanted man alive, your legend never dies. An adventure of interplanetary law and disorder from the multiple Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author.

Santiago is a legend, known far and wide across the galaxy as the greatest killer and thief alive. He’s the subject of songs, the faceless wanted poster on the wall, the bogeyman that parents name to scare their children into behaving. And he’s the target of every bounty hunter in the universe.

Sebastian Nightingale Cain has quite the reputation himself. Known as the Songbird, he’s a former revolutionary who has killed hundreds of criminals for the right price. But one has always eluded him: Santiago. Now, Cain has gotten a lead on the elusive outlaw, and it’s too hard to resist. In a race against a rival bounty hunter, Cain’s quest will take him to the far-flung Frontier planets, where he’ll encounter aliens and evangelists, journalists and cyborgs—all of whom have a stake in finding or protecting Santiago. But unraveling the threads of Santiago’s life might get Cain tangled up in something far bigger than he ever imagined . . .

Streetlethal (The Aubry Knight trilogy)

Streetlethal (The Aubry Knight trilogy)
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The Ware Tetralogy

The Ware Tetralogy
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An omnibus of Rudy Rucker’s groundbreaking cyberpunk series—Software, Wetware, Freeware, and Realware—with an introduction by William Gibson.

The first two books both received the Philip K. Dick Award for best novel

The events in the series are set in motion by Cobb Anderson, a computer scientist born in 1950 as part of the baby boomer generation. In the late part of the 20th century, the population bulge of the Baby Boomers causes massive unemployment. By 1995, Anderson’s self-replicating robots, known as “boppers”, colonize the Moon. By 2010, the United States Social Security system collapses. In response to riots, the federal government turns over the state of Florida to the elderly. This leads directly into the events of Software, in 2020.

 

Mindplayers

Mindplayers
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Mindplayers are tomorrow’s psychoanalysts, linked directly to their patients using sophisticated machinery attached to the optic nerve. In one-to-one Mindplay contact, you can be inside someone else’s head, wandering the landscapes of their consciousness. Allie is a sensation-seeking young woman, obtaining illicit thrills from her shady friend Jerry Wirerammer.

But Allie goes badly astray when Jerry supplies her with a “madcap” – a device that lets you temporarily and harmlessly experience psychosis. There’s something wrong with Jerry’s madcap, and the psychosis doesn’t go away when it’s disconnected.

Allie ends up undergoing treatment at a “dry-cleaner”, and she is faced with a stark choice – jail, for her illegal use of the madcap; or training to become a Mindplayer herself.

During training Allie becomes familiar with the Pool – a cohesive, though shifting mental landscape jointly constructed by a number of minds; and more disturbingly encounters McFlor, who has been mind-wiped, so that his adult body is inhabited by a mind only two hours old.

And as a fully-fledged Mindplayer Allie has to choose between the many specialist options open to her – Reality Affixing or Pathosfinding; Thrillseeking or Dreamfeeding.

A Spell for Chameleon (Xanth)

A Spell for Chameleon (Xanth)
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BEST NOVEL OF THE YEAR, BRITISH FANTASY SOCIETY • Discover the magical beginning of Piers Anthony’s enthralling Xanth series

Xanth was the enchanted land where magic ruled—where every citizen had a special spell only he could cast. It was a land of centaurs and dragons and basilisks.

For Bink of North Village, however, Xanth was no fairy tale. He alone had no magic. And unless he got some—and got some fast!—he would be exiled. Forever. But the Good Magician Humfrey was convinced that Bink did indeed have magic. In fact, both Beauregard the genie and the magic wall chart insisted that Bink had magic. Magic as powerful as any possessed by the King or by Good Magician Humfrey—or even by the Evil Magician Trent.

Be that as it may, no one could fathom the nature of Bink’s very special magic. Bink was in despair. This was even worse than having no magic at all . . . and he would still be exiled!

Thus begins Piers Anthony’s enthralling Xanth series. . . .

The Dosadi Experiment (ConSentiency Universe)

The Dosadi Experiment (ConSentiency Universe)
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From author Frank Herbert, creator of the Dune series, comes this classic science fiction of a sadistic experiment created by a interstellar civilization … THE DOSADI EXPERIMENT

Beyond the God Wall

Generations of a tormented human-alien people, caged on a toxic planet, conditioned by constant hunger and war-this is the Dosadi Experiment, and it has succeeded too well.

For the Dosadi have bred for Vengeance as well as cunning, and they have learned how to pass through the shimmering God Wall to exact their dreadful revenge on the Universe that created them . . .

Frank Herbert The Pandora Sequence

Frank Herbert The Pandora Sequence
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another one of this serie not linked correctly by amazon :

first novel : Destination: Void

A stranded starship’s crew races against time to create an artificial consciousness in this epic by the New York Times–bestselling author of Dune.

The starship Earthling, filled with thousands of hybernating colonists en route to a new world at Tau Ceti, is stranded beyond the solar system when the ship’s three Organic Mental Cores—disembodied human brains that control the vessel’s functions—go insane. An emergency skeleton crew sees only one chance for survival: to create an artificial consciousness in the Earthling’s primary computer, which could guide them to their destination . . . or could destroy the human race.

This classic novel by Nebula Award winner Frank Herbert begins the epic Pandora Sequence (written with Bill Ransom), which also includes The Jesus Incident, The Lazarus Effect, and The Ascension Factor.

and the 3 sequel in one book :

The Jesus Incident opens as Ship, an artificial intelligence with godlike powers delivers the last survivors of humanity to a horrific, poisonous planet, Pandora—rife with deadly Nerve-Runners, Hooded Dashers, airborne jellyfish, and intelligent kelp. Chaplain and psychiatrist Raja Lon Flattery is brought back out of hybernation to witness Ship’s machinations as well as the schemes of human scientists manipulating the genetic structure of humanity.

The Lazarus Effect takes place centuries later. The descendants of humanity, split into Mermen and Islanders, must reunite . . . because Pandora’s original owner is returning to life . . .

The series concludes with The Ascension Factor. Pandora is now in the grip of the clone known as Director. The resistance’s main hope is Crista Galli, believed by some to be the child of God, and the fight for Pandora spreads ever wider.

The Avatar

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A monumental epic tale of space exploration and alien contact from one of science fiction’s greatest writers

In the future, humankind has taken only limited advantage of a miraculous gift left for it in the far-distant past. A beneficent and inscrutable alien race called the Others has provided “gates” that enable passage to all corners of the galaxy. But after the colonization of a single star system, a repressive government on Earth has forbidden all further explorations, seizing the returning starship Emissary and taking its crew captive along with an alien passenger the vessel encountered on its voyage.

A wealthy entrepreneur and off-world rebel incensed by the prevailing antiexpansionist politics, Daniel Brodersen decides to take matters into his own hands. Commandeering one of his company’s spaceships, he travels to Earth to pull off a daring rescue of the prisoners and the extraterrestrial Betan visitor, then rockets off with them to points unknown. But before long, a lack of proper preparation has left Brodersen, his crew, and his lover, the remarkable Caitlín Mulryan, irretrievably lost in the vastness of uncharted space—and their only hope of finding their way back home again will be in doing the seemingly impossible: making contact with humanity’s elusive ancient benefactors, the Others.

Contact: A Novel by Carl Sagan

Contact: A Novel by Carl Sagan
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Pulitzer Prize-winning author and astronomer Carl Sagan imagines the greatest adventure of all—the discovery of an advanced civilization in the depths of space.

In December of 1999, a multinational team journeys out to the stars, to the most awesome encounter in human history. Who—or what—is out there? In Cosmos, Carl Sagan explained the universe. In Contact, he predicts its future—and our own.