Genre: Hard Sf

Salvation: A Novel (The Salvation Sequence)

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Eon (The Way Book 1)

From the New York Times–bestselling author of War Dogs: A novel that “may be the best constructed hard SF epic yet” (The Washington Post). In a supernova flash, the asteroid arrived and entered Earth’s orbit. Three hundred kilometers in length, it is Read more

Prador Moon: A Novel of the Polity (polity universe stand alone novels)

The Polity, a space-faring civilization ruled mostly by AIs because only they can cope with the math for the runcible operation enabling interstellar travel, has just made first contact. No one knew quite what to expect of the crablike Prador's Read more

Salvation
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Published: 2019-06-25
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Humanity’s complex relationship with technology spirals out of control in this first book of an all-new series from “the owner of the most powerful imagination in science fiction” (Ken Follett). “How far ‘space opera’ has come! The Old Masters of sci-fi would admire the scope and sweep of Salvation.”—The Wall Street Journal In the year 2204, humanity is expanding into the wider galaxy in leaps and bounds. Cutting-edge technology of linked jump gates has rendered…

The Abyss Beyond Dreams: Chronicle of the Fallers, Book 1

The Abyss Beyond Dreams
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Published: 2021-06-24
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Bestselling science fiction master Peter F. Hamilton delivers the first of a two-book saga set in his popular Commonwealth universe. Distinguished by deft plotting, a teeming cast of characters, dazzling scientific speculation, and imagination that brings the truly alien to life, The Abyss Beyond Dreams reveals Hamilton as a storyteller of astonishing ingenuity and power.

The year is 3326. Nigel Sheldon, one of the founders of the Commonwealth, receives a visit from the Raiel—self-appointed guardians of the Void, the enigmatic construct at the core of the galaxy that threatens the existence of all that lives. The Raiel convince Nigel to participate in a desperate scheme to infiltrate the Void.

Once inside, Nigel discovers that humans are not the only life-forms to have been sucked into the Void, where the laws of physics are subtly different and mental powers indistinguishable from magic are commonplace. The humans trapped there are afflicted by an alien species of biological mimics—the Fallers—that are intelligent but merciless killers.

Yet these same aliens may hold the key to destroying the threat of the Void forever—if Nigel can uncover their secrets. As the Fallers’ relentless attacks continue, and the fragile human society splinters into civil war, Nigel must uncover the secrets of the Fallers—before he is killed by the very people he has come to save.

The Dreaming Void (void trilogy)

The Dreaming Void
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The year is 3589, fifteen hundred years after Commonwealth forces barely staved off human extinction in a war against the alien Prime. Now an even greater danger has surfaced: a threat to the existence of the universe itself. At the very heart of the galaxy is the Void, a self-contained microuniverse that cannot be breached, cannot be destroyed, and cannot be stopped as it steadily expands in all directions, consuming everything in its path: planets, stars, civilizations.

The Void has existed for untold millions of years. Even the oldest and most technologically advanced of the galaxy’s sentient races, the Raiel, do not know its origin, its makers, or its purpose. But then Inigo, an astrophysicist studying the Void, begins dreaming of human beings who live within it. Inigo’s dreams reveal a world in which thoughts become actions and dreams become reality. Inside the Void, Inigo sees paradise.

Thanks to the gaiafield, a neural entanglement wired into most humans, Inigo’s dreams are shared by hundreds of millions–and a religion, the Living Dream, is born, with Inigo as its prophet. But then he vanishes. Suddenly there is a new wave of dreams. Dreams broadcast by an unknown Second Dreamer serve as the inspiration for a massive Pilgrimage into the Void. But there is a chance that by attempting to enter the Void, the pilgrims will trigger a catastrophic expansion, an accelerated devourment phase that will swallow up thousands of worlds. And thus begins a desperate race to find Inigo and the mysterious Second Dreamer. Some seek to prevent the Pilgrimage; others to speed its progress–while within the Void, a supreme entity has turned its gaze, for the first time, outward. . . .

Reviewers exhaust superlatives when it comes to the science fiction of Peter F. Hamilton. His complex and engaging novels, which span thousands of years–and light-years–are as intellectually stimulating as they are emotionally fulfilling. Now, with The Dreaming Void, the first volume in a trilogy set in the same far-future as his acclaimed Commonwealth saga, Hamilton has created another ambitious and gripping space epic.

Set in the same universe as the Commonwealth Saga, the Void Trilogy is set 1200 years after

Pandora’s Star (Commonwealth Saga)

Pandora's Star
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Published: 2020-08-20
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Pandora’s Star is the first part of Hamilton’s epic Commonwealth Saga duology – a fantastic galaxy-spanning novel from the master of space opera. At the edge of the galaxy something awakens – and it’s coming for us Earth AD 2329: Humanity has colonized over four hundred planets, all interlinked by wormholes. For the first time in mankind’s history there is peace. Then a star over a thousand light years away suddenly vanishes, imprisoned inside a force field of immense size. Yet who – or what – has that sort of technology?

And what could this mean for us? Only a faster-than-light starship, captained by ex-NASA astronaut Wilson Kime, can reach that distance to investigate. However, what if there was a very good reason to seal off an entire star system? Also, getting in could prove easier than the worst possible outcome – stopping something else from getting out

. The Commonwealth Saga duology concludes with Judas Unchained. ‘The best book Hamilton has written in years’ – Guardian ‘Anyone who begins this won’t be able to put it down’ – Publishers Weekly

there is a follow up trilogy set 1200 years after available here

Rendezvous with Rama

Rendezvous with Rama
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A science-fiction classic, Rendezvous with Rama is one of Arthur C. Clarke's best novels and a winner of the Hugo and Nebula awards.

stronauts explore an alien spacecraft hurtling toward the sun in this Hugo and Nebula Award–winning novel—“a stone-cold classic” of hard sci-fi (The Guardian).

An enormous cylindrical object has entered Earth’s solar system on a collision course with the sun. A team of astronauts are sent to explore the mysterious craft, which the denizens of the solar system name Rama. What they find is astonishing evidence of a civilization far more advanced than ours. They find an interior stretching over fifty kilometers; a forbidding cylindrical sea; mysterious and inaccessible buildings; and strange machine-animal hybrids, or “biots,” that inhabit the ship. But what they don’t find is an alien presence. So who—and where—are the Ramans?

Often listed as one of Clarke’s finest novels, Rendezvous with Rama won numerous awards, including the Hugo, the Nebula, the Jupiter, and the British Science Fiction Awards. A fast-paced and compelling story of an enigmatic encounter with alien technology, Rendezvous with Rama offers both answers and unsolved mysteries that will continue to fascinate readers for generations.

“Mr. Clarke is splendid . . . We experience that chilling touch of the alien, the not-quite-knowable, that distinguishes SF at its most technically imaginative.” —The New York Times

The Reality Dysfunction (The Night’s Dawn trilogy) Confederation universe

The Reality Dysfunction
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Published: 2018-08-23
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The Reality Dysfunction by Peter F. Hamilton is the first in a sweeping galactic trilogy from the master of space opera, The Night’s Dawn trilogy.In AD 2600, the human race is finally realizing its potential. The galaxy’s colonized planets host a multitude of diverse cultures. Genetic engineering has defeated disease and produced extraordinary space-born creatures. Huge fleets of sentient trader starships thrive, living on the wealth created by industrializing entire star systems. And throughout inhabited space, the Confederation Navy keeps the peace.Then something goes catastrophically wrong. On a primitive colony planet, a renegade criminal encounters an utterly alien entity. And this unintended meeting triggers the release of those that should never see the light, threatening everything we’ve become. An extinct race named this phenomenon ‘the Reality Dysfunction’. It is a nightmare that has haunted us since the dawn of time.The Reality Dysfunction is followed by The Neutronium Alchemist and The Naked God.

Red Mars (Mars Trilogy Book 1) by Kim Stanley Robinson

Red Mars
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Published: 2021-11-23
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Winner of the Nebula Award for Best Novel • Discover the novel that launched one of science fiction’s most beloved, acclaimed, and awarded trilogies: Kim Stanley Robinson’s masterly near-future chronicle of interplanetary colonization.

“A staggering book . . . the best novel on the colonization of Mars that has ever been written.”—Arthur C. Clarke

For centuries, the barren, desolate landscape of the red planet has beckoned to humankind. Now a group of one hundred colonists begins a mission whose ultimate goal is to transform Mars into a more Earthlike planet. They will place giant satellite mirrors in Martian orbit to reflect light onto its surface.

Black dust sprinkled on the polar caps will capture warmth and melt the ice. And massive tunnels drilled into the mantle will create stupendous vents of hot gases. But despite these ambitious goals, there are some who would fight to the death to prevent Mars from ever being changed.

Aurora Rising (Dreyfus Emergencies trilogy -revelation space universe) Alastair Reynolds

Aurora Rising (Dreyfus Emergencies trilogy -revelation space universe) Alastair Reynolds
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set in the Revelation Space universe

Award-winning author Alastair Reynolds creates “a fascinating hybrid of space opera, police procedural and character study” (Publishers Weekly) with this novel set in the Revelation Space universe.

Tom Dreyfus is a Prefect, a law enforcement officer with the Panoply. His beat is the Glitter Band, that vast swirl of space habitats orbiting the planet Yellowstone, the teeming hub of a human interstellar empire spanning many worlds.

His current case: investigating a murderous attack against one of the habitats that leaves nine hundred people dead. But his investigation uncovers something far more serious than mass slaughter — a covert plot by an enigmatic entity who seeks nothing less than total control of the Glitter Band.

Chasm City

Chasm City
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The once-utopian Chasm City – a domed human settlement on an otherwise inhospitable planet – has been overrun by a virus known as the Melding Plague, capable of infecting any body, organic or computerized. Now, with the entire city corrupted – from its people to the very buildings they inhabit – only the most wretched, grim sort of existence remains.

And it is through this city that security operative Tanner Mirabel must pursue the object of his vendetta: a lowlife postmortal named Argent Reivich. But as Reivich keeps slipping through the cracks of Chasm, Tanner will be taken far beyond the mere settling of a score – to come face to face with a centuries-old atrocity that history would rather forge.

Inhibitor Phase

Inhibitor Phase
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Published: 2022-04-28
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Miguel de Ruyter is a man with a past. Fleeing the ‘wolves’ – the xenocidal alien machines known as Inhibitors – he has protected his family and community from attack for forty years, sheltering in the caves of an airless, battered world called Michaelmas.

The slightest hint of human activity could draw the wolves to their home, to destroy everything … utterly. Which is how Miguel finds himself on a one-way mission with his own destructive mandate: to eliminate a passing ship, before it can bring unwanted attention down on them.

Only something goes wrong. There’s a lone survivor. And she knows far more about Miguel than she’s letting on . . . Ranging from the depths of space to the deeps of Pattern Juggler waters, from nervous, isolated communities to the ruins of empire, this is a stealthy space opera from an author at the top of his game.