by Robert J. Sawyer (2013)
"Robert J. Sawyer, the author of such "revelatory and thought-provoking"* novels as Triggers and The WWW Trilogy, presents a noir mystery expanded from his Hugo and Nebula Award-nominated novella "Identity Theft" and his Aurora Award-winning short story "Biding Time," and set on a lawless Mars in a future where everything is cheap, and life is even cheaper ... Alex Lomax is the one and only private eye working the mean streets of New Klondike, the Martian frontier town that sprang up forty years ago after Simon Weingarten and Denny O'Reilly discovered fossils on the Red Planet. Back on Earth, where anything can be synthesized, the remains of alien life are the most valuable of all collectibles, so shiploads of desperate treasure hunters stampeded to Mars in the Great Martian Fossil Rush. Trying to make an honest buck in a dishonest world, Lomax tracks down killers and kidnappers among the failed prospectors, corrupt cops, and a growing population of transfers--lucky stiffs who, after striking paleontological gold, upload their minds into immortal android bodies. But when he uncovers clues to solving the decades-old murders of Weingarten and O'Reilly, along with a journal that may lead to their legendary mother lode of Martian fossils, God only knows what he'll dig up ... "The Globe and Mail."
L. P. Davies
A bizarre other world occupying the same space as ours... a place shrouded in pulsating nightmarish mists that lived and killed... where thoughts could become realities and realities were irrelevant... where primitive Toparians battled telepathic Vorteds for survival... and where three desperate aliens from earth raced against time that had no meaning to save the future...
Todd McCaffrey
In Dragon's Kin, bestselling author Anne McCaffrey did the unthinkable: for the first time ever, she invited another writer to join her in the skies of her most famous fictional creation. That writer was her son, Todd McCaffrey. Together, they penned a triumphant new chapter in the annals of the extraordinarily popular Dragonriders of Pern. Now, for the first time, Todd McCaffrey flies alone. And Dragonsblood is proof that the future of Pern is in good hands. After all, dragons are in his blood. . . .Never in the dramatic history of Pern has there been a more dire emergency than that which faces the young dragonrider Lorana. A mysterious fatal illness is striking dragons. The epidemic is spreading like wildfire . . . and the next deadly cycle of Threadfall is only days away. Somehow, Lorana must find a cure before the dragons--including her own beloved Arith--succumb to the sickness, leaving Pern undefended.The lyrics of an all-but-forgotten song seem to point toward an answer from nearly five hundred years in the past, when Kitti Ping and her daughter Wind Blossom bred the first dragons from their smaller cousins, the fire-lizards. No doubt the first colonists possessed the advanced technology to find the cure for which Lorana seeks, but over the centuries, that knowledge has been lost.Or has it?For in the distant past, an aged Wind Blossom worries that the germs that affect the fire-lizards may one day turn on larger prey--and unleash a plague that will destroy the dragons, Pern's only defenders against Thread. But as her people struggle to survive, Wind Blossom has neither the time nor the resources to expend on a future that may never arrive--until suddenly she uncovers evidence that her worst fears will come true.Now two brave women, separated by hundreds of years but joined by bonds transcending time, will become unknowing allies in a desperate race against sickness and Threadfall, with nothing less than the survival of all life on Pern at stake.From the Hardcover edition.
Julie E. Czerneda and Jana Paniccia
"In our modern-day world where rumors of conspiracies and covert organizations can spread with the speed of the internet, it's often hard to separate truth from fiction. Down through the centuries there have been groups sworn to protect important artifacts and secrets, perhaps exercising their power and connections -- possibly even mystical affiliations -- to guide the world's future. Now some of science fiction's and fantasy's finest minds offer up fourteen stories of those unseen powers operating for their own purposes, whether on our own world or in far-distant places and other times -- even in fantastical realms. From an unexpected ally who aids Lawrence in Arabia, to an assassin hired to target the one person he'd never want to kill, to a young woman who stumbles into an elfin war in the heart of London, to a man who steals time -- here are unforgettable tales that will start you wondering whether someone is watching you from the shadows or changing your destiny at this very moment"--P. [4] of cover.
Robert Sheckley
It is a dying Earth's defiant answer to a seemingly hopeless future. While the world's remaining population struggles to survive on a planet made barren by humanity's own greed, a small, select group of men and women seek wealth and glory in the challenge of death itself. They are the Hunters. and they are also the Victims, co-conspirators in a mutual duel of destruction played out for the world's vicarious entertainment. One by one, the have come to the small Caribbean island where the Hunt is held. And two by two, computers have assigned them their roles - Hunter and Victim - to Kill or be killed by any means fair or fowl.