Bowl of Heaven

Author: Gregory Benford
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 1429988223
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 396

Book Description
SF masters Gregory Benford and Larry Niven spin a tale of alien encounters and strange technologies on an epic scale In Bowl of Heaven, the first collaboration by science fiction authors Larry Niven (Ringworld) and Gregory Benford (Timescape), the limits of wonder are redrawn once again as a human expedition to another star system is jeopardized by an encounter with an astonishingly immense artifact in interstellar space: a bowl-shaped structure half-englobing a star, with a habitable area equivalent to many millions of Earths...and it's on a direct path heading for the same system as the human ship. A landing party is sent to investigate the Bowl, but when the explorers are separated—one group captured by the gigantic structure's alien inhabitants, the other pursued across its strange and dangerous landscape—the mystery of the Bowl's origins and purpose propel the human voyagers toward discoveries that will transform their understanding of their place in the universe. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

The Long War

Author: Terry Pratchett
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0062067788
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 333

Book Description
The Long War by legendary author and Discworld creator Terry Pratchett and award-winning science fiction novelist Stephen Baxter follows the adventures and travails of heroes Joshua Valiente and Lobsang in an exciting continuation of the extraordinary journey begun in the New York Times bestseller The Long Earth. War has come to the Long Earth.... Humankind has spread across the new worlds opened up by stepping, which Joshua and Lobsang explored a mere decade ago. Now "civilization" flourishes, and fleets of airships link the multiple Earths through exploration, trade, and culture. Humankind is shaping the Long Earth, but in turn the Long Earth is shaping humankind. A new America that has christened itself "Valhalla" has emerged more than a million steps from the original Datum Earth. And like the American revolutionaries of old, the Valhallans resent being controlled from afar by the Datum government. In the intervening years, the song of the trolls—graceful, hive-mind humanoids—has suffused the Long Earth. But in the face of humankind's inexorable advance, they are beginning to fall silent . . . and gradually disappear. Joshua, now married and a father, is summoned by Lobsang. It seems that he alone can confront the perfect storm of crises that threatens to plunge all of the Long Earth into war. A war unlike any that has been waged before... The full list of books in the Long Earth series include: The Long Earth The Long War The Long Mars The Long Utopia The Long Cosmos

The Long Earth

Author: Terry Pratchett
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0062067761
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 305

Book Description
The first novel in a brilliant collaboration between the visionary Discworld® creator Terry Pratchett and acclaimed science fiction novelist Stephen Baxter, The Long Earth transports readers to an infinity of new worlds—a series of parallel “earths" with doorways leading to adventure, intrigue, excitement, and an escape into the furthest reaches of the imagination. All it takes is a single step. . . . The possibilities are endless. (Just be careful what you wish for. . . .) 1916: The Western Front. Private Percy Blakeney wakes up. He is lying on fresh spring grass. He can hear birdsong and the wind in the leaves. Where have the mud, blood, and blasted landscape of no-man's-land gone? For that matter, where has Percy gone? 2015: Madison, Wisconsin. Police officer Monica Jansson is exploring the burned-out home of a reclusive—some say mad, others allege dangerous—scientist who seems to have vanished. Sifting through the wreckage, Jansson finds a curious gadget: a box containing some rudimentary wiring, a three-way switch, and . . . a potato. It is the prototype of an invention that will change the way humankind views the world forever. The Long Earth is an adventure of the highest order and will captivate science fiction fans of all stripes, readers of Kurt Vonnegut, Douglas Adams, and Carl Hiaasen, and anyone who enjoyed the Terry Pratchett/Neil Gaiman collaboration Good Omens. Other books in the Long Earth series include: The Long War The Long Mars The Long Utopia The Long Cosmos

The Long Cosmos

Author: Terry Pratchett
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062297392
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 378

Book Description
The thrilling conclusion to the internationally bestselling Long Earth series explores the greatest question of all: What is the meaning of life? 2070-71. Nearly six decades after Step Day, a new society continues to evolve in the Long Earth. Now, a message has been received: “Join us.” The Next—the hyper-intelligent post-humans—realize that the missive contains instructions for kick-starting the development of an immense artificial intelligence known as The Machine. But to build this computer the size of an Earth continent, they must obtain help from the more populous and still industrious worlds of mankind. Meanwhile, on a trek in the High Meggers, Joshua Valienté, now nearing seventy, is saved from death when a troll band discovers him. Living among the trolls as he recovers, Joshua develops a deeper understanding of this collective-intelligence species and its society. He discovers that some older trolls, with capacious memories, act as communal libraries, and live on a very strange Long Earth world, in caverns under the root systems of trees as tall as mountains. Valienté also learns something much more profound . . . about life and its purpose in the Long Earth: We cultivate the cosmos to maximize the opportunities for life and joy in this universe, and to prepare for new universes to come. The complete list of books in the Long Earth series include: The Long Earth The Long War The Long Mars The Long Utopia The Long Cosmos

Tiffany Aching Complete 5-Book Collection

Author: Terry Pratchett
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 006245742X
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 834

Book Description
This collection includes all five Tiffany Aching novels in Terry Pratchett's beloved and bestselling Discworld series, including the final Discworld novel, The Shepherd's Crown. The Wee Free Men: Armed with only a frying pan and her common sense, young witch-to-be Tiffany Aching must defend her home against the monsters of Fairyland. Luckily she has some very unusual help: the local Nac Mac Feegle—aka the Wee Free Men. A Hat Full of Sky: Tiffany Aching is ready to begin her apprenticeship in magic. She expects spells and magic—not chores and ill-tempered nanny goats! Surely there must be more to witchcraft than this! Indeed, there is. . . . Wintersmith: When the Spirit of Winter takes a fancy to Tiffany Aching, he wants her to stay in his gleaming, frozen world. Forever. It will take the young witch's skill and cunning, as well as help from the legendary Granny Weatherwax and the irrepressible Wee Free Men, to survive until Spring. I Shall Wear Midnight: As the witch of the Chalk, Tiffany Aching performs the distinctly unglamorous work of caring for the needy. But someone—or something—is inciting fear, generating dark thoughts and angry murmurs against witches. Tiffany must find the source of unrest and defeat the evil at its root, for if she falls, the whole Chalk falls with her. . . . The Shepherd's Crown: Deep in the Chalk, something is stirring. The owls and the foxes can sense it, and Tiffany Aching feels it in her boots. An old enemy is gathering strength. This is a time of endings and beginnings, old friends and new, a blurring of edges and a shifting of power. Now Tiffany stands between the light and the dark, the good and the bad. There will be a reckoning. . . .

The Long Utopia

Author: Terry Pratchett
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 006229735X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 272

Book Description
The fourth novel in Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter’s internationally bestselling “Long Earth” series, hailed as “a brilliant science fiction collaboration . . . a love letter to all Pratchett fans, readers, and lovers of wonder everywhere” (Io9). 2045-2059. Human society continues to evolve on Datum Earth, its battered and weary origin planet, as the spread of humanity progresses throughout the many Earths beyond. Lobsang, now an elderly and complex AI, suffers a breakdown, and disguised as a human attempts to live a “normal” life on one of the millions of Long Earth worlds. His old friend, Joshua, now in his fifties, searches for his father and discovers a heretofore unknown family history. And the super-intelligent post-humans known as “the Next” continue to adapt to life among “lesser” humans. But an alarming new challenge looms. An alien planet has somehow become “entangled” with one of the Long Earth worlds and, as Lobsang and Joshua learn, its voracious denizens intend to capture, conquer, and colonize the new universe—the Long Earth—they have inadvertently discovered. World-building, the intersection of universes, the coexistence of diverse species, and the cosmic meaning of the Long Earth itself are among the mind-expanding themes explored in this exciting new installment of Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter's extraordinary Long Earth series. The complete list of books in the Long Earth series include: The Long Earth The Long War The Long Mars The Long Utopia The Long Cosmos

Hothouse

Author: Brian W. Aldiss
Publisher: Open Road Media
ISBN: 1504010353
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 228

Book Description
A Hugo Award–winning classic about a far-future Earth dominated by gargantuan plants and the few humans who remain Millions of years beyond our time, our Earth has long since stopped spinning—and giant flora have taken over the sunlit half of the motionless world. Here humans are among the very few animal species that still exist, struggling to survive against enormous odds, but they have become small and weak, and their numbers have dwindled to almost nothing. When the aging leader of Gren’s tribe decrees it is time for the old ones to go “Up,” the younger are left to make their own way below. Although the journey will not be an easy one for young Gren, he sets off on an odyssey across a perilous world populated by carnivorous plants and other evolved vegetation. But any knowledge to be gained at the terminator—the forbidding boundary between the day world and the night—might well prove worthless for the boy and the companions he amasses along the way when the expanding sun goes nova and their Earth is no more. A thrilling parable of courage, discovery, and survival, Hothouse is among Grand Master Brian W. Aldiss’s most beloved and enduring works. Ingeniously inventive, richly detailed, and breathtakingly lush and vibrant, the doomed world and people that Aldiss creates will live forever in the minds of all those who enter this remarkable realm.

The Long Mars

Author: Terry Pratchett
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0062297317
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 273

Book Description
The third novel in legendary author and Discworld creator Terry Pratchett and award-winning science fiction writer Stephen Baxter's “Long Earth” series, which Io9 calls “a brilliant science fiction collaboration.” 2040. The Long Earth is in chaos. . . . The cataclysmic Yellowstone eruption is shutting down civilization. Whole populations flee to the relative safety of myriad stepwise Earths. Sally Linsay, Joshua Valiente, and Lobsang have all been involved in the perilous post-eruption clean-up. But Joshua faces a crisis close to home. From a long childhood hidden deep in the Long Earth, a new breed of young, super-bright post-humans is emerging—but "normal" human society is turning against them, driven by ignorance and fear. For Joshua, caught up in the conflict, a dramatic showdown seems inevitable. Meanwhile, U.S. Navy Commander Maggie Kauffman embarks on an incredible journey, leading an expedition to the unexplored limits of the far Long Earth. And Sally is contacted by her long-vanished father, Willis Linsay, inventor of the original Stepper device. Ever the maverick, he is planning a fantastic voyage of his own—across the Long Mars. But what is his true motivation? For Joshua, for humankind, for the Long Earth itself—everything is different now. Joshua becomes embroiled in the plight of the Next: the super-bright post-humans who are beginning to emerge from their “long childhood” in the community called Happy Landings, located deep in the Long Earth. Ignorance and fear have caused “normal” human society to turn against the Next. A dramatic showdown seems inevitable. . . . The complete list of books in the Long Earth series include: The Long Earth The Long War The Long Mars The Long Utopia The Long Cosmos

Disappearing Earth

Author: Julia Phillips
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0525520422
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 272

Book Description
One of The New York Times 10 Best Books of the Year National Book Award Finalist Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize Finalist for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize Finalist for the New York Public Library's Young Lions Fiction Award National Best Seller "Splendidly imagined . . . Thrilling" --Simon Winchester "A genuine masterpiece" --Gary Shteyngart Spellbinding, moving--evoking a fascinating region on the other side of the world--this suspenseful and haunting story announces the debut of a profoundly gifted writer. One August afternoon, on the shoreline of the Kamchatka peninsula at the northeastern edge of Russia, two girls--sisters, eight and eleven--go missing. In the ensuing weeks, then months, the police investigation turns up nothing. Echoes of the disappearance reverberate across a tightly woven community, with the fear and loss felt most deeply among its women. Taking us through a year in Kamchatka, Disappearing Earth enters with astonishing emotional acuity the worlds of a cast of richly drawn characters, all connected by the crime: a witness, a neighbor, a detective, a mother. We are transported to vistas of rugged beauty--densely wooded forests, open expanses of tundra, soaring volcanoes, and the glassy seas that border Japan and Alaska--and into a region as complex as it is alluring, where social and ethnic tensions have long simmered, and where outsiders are often the first to be accused. In a story as propulsive as it is emotionally engaging, and through a young writer's virtuosic feat of empathy and imagination, this powerful novel brings us to a new understanding of the intricate bonds of family and community, in a Russia unlike any we have seen before.

The Pillars of the Earth

Author: Ken Follett
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101442190
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 1009

Book Description
#1 New York Times Bestseller Oprah's Book Club Selection The “extraordinary . . . monumental masterpiece” (Booklist) that changed the course of Ken Follett’s already phenomenal career—and begins where its prequel, The Evening and the Morning, ended. “Follett risks all and comes out a clear winner,” extolled Publishers Weekly on the release of The Pillars of the Earth. A departure for the bestselling thriller writer, the historical epic stunned readers and critics alike with its ambitious scope and gripping humanity. Today, it stands as a testament to Follett’s unassailable command of the written word and to his universal appeal. The Pillars of the Earth tells the story of Philip, prior of Kingsbridge, a devout and resourceful monk driven to build the greatest Gothic cathedral the world has known . . . of Tom, the mason who becomes his architect—a man divided in his soul . . . of the beautiful, elusive Lady Aliena, haunted by a secret shame . . . and of a struggle between good and evil that will turn church against state and brother against brother. A spellbinding epic tale of ambition, anarchy, and absolute power set against the sprawling medieval canvas of twelfth-century England, this is Ken Follett’s historical masterpiece.