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Science fiction

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    Summary:

    Published in 1973 to honor stories that had appeared before the institution of the Nebula Awards, this anthology introduced tens of thousands of young readers to the wonders of science fiction and was a favorite of libraries across the country. This last volume in the definitive collection of the best science fiction novellas published between 1929 and 1964 contains eleven classics.

  • Author:
    Adams, Douglas
    Summary:

    Rescued from his beloved Macintosh, The Salmon of Doubt provides us with the opportunity to linger and frolic one last time in the uniquely entertaining and richly informative mind of Douglas Adams. For the millions of readers who expressed their grief and shock at his untimely death, this is a treasure; his final book and our last chance to see new work from an acknowledged comic genius.

  • Author:
    Bachman, Richard
    Summary:

    A desperate man attempts to win a reality TV game where the only objective is to stay alive in this #1 national bestseller from Stephen King, writing as Richard Bachman. "Tomorrow at noon, the hunt begins. Remember his face!" Ben Richards is a desperate man. With no job, no money, no way out, and a young daughter in need of proper medical attention, he must turn to the only possibility of striking it rich in this near-future dystopian America: participating in the ultra-violent TV programming of the government-sanctioned Games Network. Ben soon finds himself selected as a contestant on the biggest and the best that the Games Network has to offer: "The Running Man," a no-holds-barred thirty-day struggle to stay alive as public enemy number one, relentlessly hunted by an elite strike force bent on killing him as quickly as possible in front of an audience all-too eager to see that happen. It means a billion dollars in prize money if he can live for the next month. No one has ever survived longer than eight days. But desperation can push a person do things they never thought possible—and Ben Richards is willing to go the distance in this ultimate game of life and death....

  • Author:
    Walters, Eric
    Summary:

    A global blackout forces teenager Adam Daley and his neighbors to turn their community into a fortress, defending against countless enemies, but a new danger threatens to destroy them all.

  • Author:
    Wilson, John
    Summary:

    Howard is a lonely, geeky tenth-grader dealing with a father who's had some kind of breakdown, a flaky, overprotective mother and frightening waking dreams. Then he meets Cate, a strange girl who convinces him that he is an Adept, which means he can communicate through dreams with other dimensions and, under certain circumstances, travel between them. Howard discovers that our world is only one of several dimensions swirling in time and space, and that one of the others, peopled by unimaginably powerful monsters, is approaching Earth for the first time in millennia. The last time the dimensions coincided, our world was saved by the breaking of a powerful golden mask in the Chinese city of Sanxingdui. Together, Howard and Cate travel through time and space, meeting other Adepts and avoiding lurking monsters, in a quest to find the three fragments of the golden mask and prevent it from falling into the wrong hands.

  • Author:
    Lawless, J.R.H.
    Summary:

    If only fools think they can change the world, then a fool is the only one who can. Life doesn't pick winners and losers. That's for the corporations to decide. And they picked Liam Argyle for a carefree life of fame and fortune as host of the world's most popular reality show competition. Unfortunately, Liam doesn't do carefree. After two seasons of parading about the world's biggest victims on The Grass is Greener, he's been forced to put a happy face on one tragedy too many-and he won't turn a blind eye to the horrors of the corporate dystopian world of the 2070s any longer. Now, Liam is out to destroy the very people who made him a star. Even if he fails, he vows he'll never be a feckless pawn of the industrial-military-entertainment-culinary-janitorial complex ever again! . . . and this time, he means it. Contains mature themes.

  • Author:
    Klassen, Jon.
    Summary:

    Look up! From the Caldecott Medal–winning creator of the hat trilogy comes a new deadpan gem. There is a spot. It is a good spot. It is the perfect spot to stand. There is no reason to ever leave. But somewhere above there is also a rock. A rock from the sky. Here comes The Rock from the Sky , a hilarious meditation on the workings of friendship, fate, shared futuristic visions, and that funny feeling you get that there's something off somewhere, but you just can't put your finger on it. Merging broad visual suspense with wry wit, celebrated picture book creator Jon Klassen gives us a wholly original comedy for the ages.

  • Author:
    Clayton, Emma
    Summary:

    In an overpopulated world where all signs of nature have been obliterated and a wall has been erected to keep out plague-ridden animals, twelve-year-old Mika refuses to believe that his twin sister was killed after being abducted, and continues to search for her in spite of the dangers he faces in doing so.

  • Author:
    McCarthy, Cormac
    Summary:

    America is a barren landscape of smoldering ashes, devoid of life except for those people still struggling to scratch out some type of existence. Amidst the destruction, a father and his young son walk, always toward the coast, but with no real understanding that circumstances will improve once they arrive. Still they persevere, and their relationship comes to represent goodness in a world that is utterly devastated.

  • Author:
    DiMartino, Michael Dante, Yee, F. C.
    Summary:

    After years of searching for the next Avatar, the four nations have found peace with Avatar Yun, until Kyoshi, Yun's friend and servant, demonstrates remarkable bending abilities herself. With the identity of the true Avatar at stake, Kyoshi and her fiery friend Rangi flee the Avatar mansion and find supporters in the daofei, outlaws living in the shadows of the Earth Kingdom. But while Kyoshi, Rangi, and their daofei friends face off against underworld rivals, those who seek to control the Avatar draw close.

  • Author:
    Stross, Charles
    Summary:

    As a newly appointed junior manager within the Laundry--the clandestine organization responsible for protecting Britain against supernatural threats--Bob Howard is expected to show some initiative to help the agency battle the forces of darkness. But shining a light on things best left in the shadows is the last thing Bob wants to do--especially when those shadows hide an occult parasite spreading a deadly virus. Traders employed by a merchant bank in London are showing signs of infection--an array of unusual symptoms such as superstrength and -speed, an uncanny talent for mind control, an extreme allergic reaction to sunlight, and an unquenchable thirst for blood. While his department is tangled up in bureaucratic red tape (and Buffy reruns), debating how to stop the rash of vampirism, Bob digs deeper into the bank's history--only to uncover a bloodcurdling conspiracy between men and monsters ...

  • Author:
    Dekker, Rachelle
    Summary:

    They say the Awakening is coming.That she's the key.But can she find her identity in the lightBefore she perishes in the dark'Twenty years have passed since Carrington and Remko Brant's baby, Elise, was kidnapped and they were forced to leave her captive in the Authority City. Though they fled with the Seers far from Authority reach, they've never given up hope of rescuing their daughter from the man who betrayed them. Now Authority President, he's ushered the city into a new era of "peace"-one where the Scientist Roth Reynard's Genesis Serum has eradicated all memory of emotion or rebellion.But the mysterious Aaron and his Seers are once again on the move, threatening the illusion the Authority has worked so hard to build. As the Seers send seven chosen warriors to rescue Elise and bring restoration to the Authority City, the lines are drawn for a final battle between light and darkness. The key to ultimate victory may rest within the strangely powerful girl who has felt forgotten but was never abandoned-a truth she'll need to wage war against the powerful forces of evil.

  • Author:
    Adams, Douglas
    Summary:

    If you've done six impossible things this morning, why not round it off with breakfast at Milliways, the Restaurant at the end of the Universe? Which is exactly what the crew of the Heart of Gold plan to do. There's just the small matter of escaping the Vogons, avoiding being taken to the most totally evil world in the Galaxy and teaching a space ship how to make a proper cup of tea. And did anyone actually make a reservation?

  • Author:
    Powell, Daniel
    Summary:

    A young man with a terrible secret buried deep in his chest staggers through what remains of the American South. The destruction is total — the landscape scrubbed bare by the fires of the Reset. The sun rarely penetrates the daily ash storms, and the last of the Earth’s plants and animals are slowly dying out. And yet, there are survivors. Benjamin Stone is one of them, and he’s searching for the only person who can share his pain, another who was biologically altered at birth to become a weapon capable of bringing the world to its knees. Outside of the few supplies that sustain him in his search for a new life, he has nothing. Nothing but a will to survive and the desire to find someplace safe — someplace better. The Reset is a story of perseverance. It examines a future in which fragmentation and devolution have decimated society, and in which terrorism represents the final desperate attempt at shuffling the deck. With thematic elements similar to Stephen King’s The Stand and Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, it’s a post-apocalyptic story about the survivors of humanity’s cruelest intentions and their essential impulse to rebuild.

  • Author:
    Adams, Scott
    Summary:

    In this frenetically paced sequel to Adams' best-selling "thought experiment," God's Debris, the smartest man in the world is on a mission to stop a cataclysmic war between Christian and Muslim forces and save civilization. The brilliantly crafted, thought-provoking fable raises questions about the nature of reality and just where our delusions are taking us. With publication of The Religion War, millions of long-time fans of Scott Adams' Dilbert cartoons and business bestsellers will have to admit that the literary world is a better place with Adams on the loose spreading new ideas and philosophical conundrums. Unlike God's Debris, which was principally a dialogue between its two main characters, The Religion War is set several decades in the future when the smartest man in the world steps between international leaders to prevent a catastrophic confrontation between Christianity and Islam. The parallels between where we are today and where we could be in the near future are clear. According to Adams, The Religion War targets "bright readers with short attention spans-everyone from lazy students to busy book clubs." But while the book may be a three-hour read, it's packed with concepts that will be discussed long after, including a list of "Questions to Ponder in the Shower" that reinforce the story's purpose of highlighting the most important-yet most ignored-questions in the world.

  • Author:
    Bachman, Richard
    Summary:

    Life on Poplar Street seems idyllic, but before the sun sets on this summer day, the quiet Ohio suburb will become a terrifying slaughterhouse.

  • Author:
    Brandt, Gerald
    Summary:

    Kris Merrill is a member of a small insurgent group operating within a multi-level metropolis that stretches from San Francisco to the Mexican border. Her attempt at rescuing Ian Miller failed, leaving her alone and her unborn son without a father. The insurgents don't trust her, Kai has disappeared completely, and Pat is trying to control how Kris should mourn the loss of Ian. Without the trust of the insurgents, Kris is relegated to low level assignments for them, and trying desperately to keep her pregnancy a secret. She is alone. War has started between the corporations. The people living in the lower levels of San Angeles have become the victims, starving and being rounded up to be soldiers in the war. Torn between working with the insurgents as they become more like the corporations they are fighting, and helping the people of the lower levels, Kris doesn't know what to do. Facing the return of an enemy who will stop at nothing to have revenge, Kris struggles with loss and discovering who she really is.

  • Author:
    Lee, Yoon Ha.
    Summary:

    Captain Kel Cheris is possessed by a long-dead traitor general. Together they must face the rivalries of the hexarchate and a potentially devastating invasion. When the hexarchate's gifted young captain, Kel Cheris, summoned the ghost of the long-dead General Shuos Jedao to help her put down a rebellion, she didn't reckon on his breaking free of centuries of imprisonment - and possessing her. Even worse, the enemy Hafn are invading, and Jedao takes over General Kel Khiruev's fleet, which was tasked with stopping them. Only one of Khiruev's subordinates, Lieutenant Colonel Kel Brezan, seems to be able to resist the influence of the brilliant but psychotic Jedao. Jedao claims to be interested in defending the hexarchate, but can Khiruev or Brezan trust him? For that matter, will the hexarchate's masters wipe out the entire fleet to destroy the rogue general?

  • Author:
    Doctorow, Cory, Stross, Charles
    Summary:

    At the dusk of the twenty-first century, the splintery metaconsciousness of the solar system sometimes spams Earth's networks with plans for disastrously disruptive technologies. It is the job of Tech Jury Service to assess new inventions and rule on whether to let them loose.

  • Author:
    Iles, Greg
    Summary:

    Natchez, Mississippi, is the jewel of the antebellum South, a city of old secrets and older money. Upon learning that his father is being blackmailed, Penn finds himself reopening the most highly charged murder case in the town's history, searching for the evidence that could bring down the judge who nearly destroyed his father years ago.

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