Beyond the Aquila Rift

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Griots: Sisters of the Spear

Griots: Sisters of the Spear picks up where the ground breaking Griots Anthology leaves off. Charles R. Saunders and Milton J. Davis present seventeen original and exciting Sword and Soul tales focusing on black women. Just as the Griots Anthology Read more

The Guardian called Alastair Reynolds’ work “a turbulent, wildly entertaining ride” and The Times acclaimed him as “the mastersinger of space opera”.

With a career stretching back more than 25 years and across fourteen novels, including the classic ‘Revelation Space’ series, the bestselling ‘Poseidon’s Children’ series, Century Rain, Pushing Ice, and most recently The Medusa Chronicles (with Stephen Baxter), Reynolds has established himself as one of the best and most beloved writers of hard science fiction and space opera working today.

A brilliant novelist, he has also been recognized as one of our best writers of short fiction. His short stories have been nominated for the Hugo, British Fantasy, British Science Fiction, Theodore Sturgeon Memorial, Locus, Italia, Seiun, and Sidewise Awards, and have won the Seiun and Sidewise Awards.

The very best of his more than sixty published short stories are gathered in Beyond the Aquila Rift: The Best of Alastair Reynolds, a sweeping 250,000 word career retrospective which features the very best stories from the ‘Revelation Space’ universe like “Galactic North”, “Great Wall of Mars”, “Weather”, “Diamond Dogs”, and “The Last Log of the Lachrimosa” alongside thrilling hard science fiction stories like Hugo Award nominee “Troika”, “Thousandth Night”, and “The Star Surgeon’s Apprentice”. Spanning more than fifteen years, the book also collects more recent stories like environmental SF tale “The Water Thief”, powerful and moving YA “The Old Man and the Martian Sea” and the brilliant “In Babelsberg”.

Beyond the Aquila Rift: The Best of Alastair Reynolds has something for every reader of science fiction, and easily meets the challenge of delivering stories that are the hardest of hard science fiction and great entertainment.

The Very Best of the Best: 35 Years of The Year’s Best Science Fiction

A 2020 LOCUS AWARD FINALIST FOR BEST ANTHOLOGY

For the first time in a decade, a compilation of the very best in science fiction, from a world authority on the genre.

For decades, the Year’s Best Science Fiction has been the most widely read short science fiction anthology of its kind. Now, after thirty-five annual collections comes the ultimate in science fiction anthologies.

In The Very Best of the Best, legendary editor Gardner Dozois selects the finest short stories for this landmark collection, including short fiction from authors such as Charles Stross, Michael Swanwick, Nancy Kress, Greg Egan, Stephen Baxter, Pat Cadigan, and many many more.

The Year’s Best Science Fiction Serie

The Year's Best Science Fiction Serie
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This collection launched the popular and long-running “The Year’s Best Science Fiction” series:

Fantastic Science Fiction!

The Year’s Best — And Biggest Collection

Here’s the cream of the crop: short stories, novelettes, novellas by science fiction writers already famous and awarded for their high-quality work in science fiction. Writers like:

Poul Anderson
Joe Haldeman
Tanith Lee
George R.R. Martin
Robert Silverberg
James Tiptree, Jr.
Vernor Vinge
Gene Wolfe

Plus writers who are newer to the field, but just as excellent! These are the stories that will vie for the Hugo and Nebula Awards this year. And we’ve got them all! Not ten. Not twenty. 25 GREAT SF TALES.

Each one is chosen by renowned SF writer and editor Gardner R. Dozois. Among them are “Black Air” by Kim Stanley Robinson, “Blood Music” and “Hardfought” by Greg Bear, “Blind Shemmy” by Jack Dann, “Cicada Queen” by Bruce Sterling and “Slow Birds” by Ian Watson.

Hunter’s Run

Running from poverty and hopelessness, Ramón Espejo boarded one of the great starships of the mysterious, repulsive Enye. But the new life he found on the far-off planet of São Paulo was no better than the one he abandoned. Then one night his rage and too much alcohol get the better of him. Deadly violence ensues, forcing Ramón to flee into the wilderness.

Mercifully, almost happily alone—far from the loud, bustling hive of humanity that he detests with sociopathic fervor—the luckless prospector is finally free to search for the one rich strike that could make him wealthy.

But what he stumbles upon instead is an advanced alien race in hiding: desperate fugitives, like him, on a world not their own. Suddenly in possession of a powerful, dangerous secret and caught up in an extraordinary manhunt on a hostile, unpredictable planet, Ramón must first escape . . . and then, somehow, survive.

And his deadliest enemy is himself.

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.

Multiverse: Exploring the Worlds of Poul Anderson

Poul Anderson was one of the seminal figures of 20th century science fiction. Named a Grand Master by the SFWA in 1997, he produced an enormous body of stand-alone novels (Brain Wave, Tau Zero) and series fiction (Time Patrol, the Dominic Flandry books) and was equally at home in the fields of heroic fantasy and hard SF.

He was a meticulous craftsman and a gifted storyteller, and the impact of his finest work continues, undiminished, to this day.

Here is a rousing, all-original anthology that stands both as a significant achievement in its own right and a heartfelt tribute to a remarkable writerand equally remarkable man.

A nicely balanced mixture of fiction and reminiscence, this volume contains thirteen stories and novellas by some of today’s finest writers, along with moving reflections by, among others, Anderson’s wife, Karen, his daughter, Astrid Anderson Bear, and his son-in-law, novelist and co-editor Greg Bear. (Bear’s introduction, “My Friend Poul,” is particularly illuminating and insightful.)

The fictional contributions comprise a kaleidoscopic array of imaginative responses to Anderson’s many and varied fictional worlds.

A few of the highlights include Nancy Kress’s “Outmoded Things” and Terry Brooks’ “The Fey of Cloudmoor,” stories inspired by the Hugo Award-winning “The Queen of Air and Darkness”; a pair of truly wonderful Time Patrol stories (“A Slip in Time” by S. M. Stirling and “Christmas in Gondwanaland” by Robert Silverberg); Raymond E. Feist’s Dominic Flandry adventure, “A Candle”; and a pair of very different homages to the classic fantasy novel, Three Hearts and Three Lions: “The Man Who Came Late” by Harry Turtledove and “Three Lilies and Three Leopards (And a Participation Ribbon in Science)” by Tad Williams. These stories, together with singular contributions by such significant figures as Larry Niven, Gregory Benford, and Eric Flint, add up to a memorable, highly personal anthology that lives up to the standards set by the late—and indisputably great—Poul Anderson.

The New Space Opera: All New Stories of Science Fiction Adventure

The New Space Opera: All New Stories of Science Fiction Adventure
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Sisters of Battle: the Adepta Sororitas Omnibus

Sisters of Battle: the Adepta Sororitas Omnibus
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The Adepta Soroitas, or Sisters of Battle, are the military arm of the Ecclesiarchy, and their remit is to prosecute the enemies of mankind with extreme prejudice. Uniquely among the fighting forces of the Imperium, all the warriors of this organisation are female.

Clad in ceramite power armour and armed with and awesome array of wargear, thy fight with fanatical fervour for the glory of the Emperor, scourging both xenos and heretic alike with bolter and flamer.

This omnibus collects together James Swallow’s two classic Sisters of Battle novels, Fire & Faith and Hammer & Anvil, along with the prose version of the audio drama Red & Black and a new short story ‘Heart & Soul’, both available in print for the first time.

 

The Deathwatch, the Grey Knight and the Adepta Sororitas are the three Chamber Militant : the military arm of the major branches of the Imperial Inquisition (the secret police of the Imperium) :   the Ordo Xenos (Alien Hunters), Ordo Malleus (Daemonhunters) and the Ordo Hereticus (Witchhunters)

Read it because
The Sisters of Battle are a perennially popular part of the Warhammer 40,000 universe, and these classic stories – plus a brand new addition – showcase them doing what they do best – hunting heretics and safeguarding the spiritual welfare of the Imperium.

Deathwatch: The Omnibus (Warhammer 40,000)

The Deathwatch are the elite. Recruited from numerous Space Marine Chapters, their mission is simple: exterminate any xenos threat to the Imperium.

Assembled into kill-teams, the Deathwatch are expert alien hunters, equipped to undertake any mission in any environment. None are as dedicated or as skilled in the brutal art of alien annihilation.

This action-packed omnibus contains three full novels written by Steve Parker, Ian St Martin and Justin D Hill, along with a dozen of the best short stories ever written about the Imperium’s premier xenos hunters.

 

The Deathwatch, the Grey Knight and the Adepta Sororitas are the three Chamber Militant : the military arm of the major branches of the Imperial Inquisition (the secret police of the Imperium) :   the Ordo Xenos (Alien Hunters), Ordo Malleus (Daemonhunters) and the Ordo Hereticus (Witchhunters)

 

Fabius Bile: The Omnibus (Warhammer 40,000)

Fabius Bile: The Omnibus (Warhammer 40,000)
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A Fabius Bile Omnibus

Originally chief Apothecary of the Emperor’s Children, Fabius Bile now believes himself to be a near-divine creator, an artist whose tapestry is the very flesh and blood of his brothers.

READ IT BECAUSE

This omnibus contains three novels and three short stories that tell the twisted tale of Fabius Bile and his endless pursuit of perfection.

THE STORY

Fabius Bile is known by many names: Primogenitor, Clonelord, Manflayer. Once a loyal son of the Emperor’s Children, now he loathes and is loathed by his brothers. Feared by man and monster, Fabius possesses a knowledge of genetic manipulation second to none, and the will to use it to twist flesh and sculpt nightmares.

Now a traitor amongst traitors, Fabius pursues his dark craft across the galaxy, from the Eye of Terror to the tomb world of Solemnace to the Dark City of Commorragh itself, leaving a trail of monstrous abominations in his wake.