Science Fiction: The 101 Best Novels 1985-2010

Description

Inspired by David Pringle's landmark 1985 work Science Fiction: The 100 Best Novels, this volume supplements the earlier selection with the present authors' choices for the best English-language science fiction novels during the past quarter century. Employing a critical slant, the book provides a discussion of the novels and the writers in the context of popular literature. Moreover, each entry features a cover image of the novel, a plot synopsis, and a mini review, making it an ideal go-to guide for anyone wanting to become reacquainted with an old favorite or to discover a previously unknown treasure. With a foreword by David Pringle, this invaluable reference is sure to provoke conversation and debates among sci-fi fans and devotees.

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The Spike: How Our Lives Are Being Transformed By Rapidly Advancing Technologies

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• Accustom: New
• ISBN13: 9780312877828
• Notes: Maker NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!

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If we are to believe the projections outlined in Damien Broderick's The Spike, the acceleration of change is increasing so sharply that the future is not just unknowable but unrecognizable. Dr. Broderick pulls together his vast learning to expand on Vernor Vinge's notion of the technological Singularity and to share with us his necessarily clouded vision of a posthuman future. Writing with a rare enthusiasm unmuted by years of dystopian fiction and news reports, Broderick peels back the layers of jargon enshrouding recent advances in nanotech, biotech, and all the other tech that's daring us to keep up.

It's hard for the reader to avoid feeling swept up in the rush of novelty, and that of course is the author's point. As we learn to modify even our deepest natures, how can we ever hope to maintain intellectual distance from our technology? Forewarned is forearmed, and Broderick hopes that awareness of the maelstrom will keep us from drowning; this might be the best cure for post-millennial despair. In any case, not everyone believes that the world of 2050 will be incomprehensible to those of us who lived through part of the 20th century. Will the curve spike, as Broderick suggests, or will it plateau? We should know in relatively little time, as we find ourselves either downloaded into space-traveling robots or watching the latest incarnation of holographic Star Trek. --Rob Lightner

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Zones: A Science Fiction Novel

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Centaurus: The Best of Australian Science Fiction

Description

Hartwell and acclaimed Australian anthologist Damien Broderick are bringing a higher profile to Australian SF with Centaurus, a showcase of some of the most original voices in SF. Included are stories from Peter Carey, Greg Egan, Terry Dowling, A. Bertram Chandler, Phillippa C. Maddern, Rosaleen Love, Sean McMullen, Lucy Sussex, and George Turner.

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The anthology Centaurus: The Best of Australian SF is a banquet of thought-provoking science fiction from Australia. Readers who so far have been unaware of the developing world of Australian SF will be engrossed by this diverse selection of stories chosen by World Fantasy Award-winning editor David G. Hartwell and acclaimed Australian writer Damien Broderick. Yes, Australian star Greg Egan appears, with a story ("Wang's Carpets") that embodies his humanistic approach to hard SF. But Centaurus also presents rising stars whose works deal with landscapes, concerns, and themes Australian. Take, for example, Leanne Frahm's "Borderline." Her story of a widower who has little in common with his ambitious, city-dwelling offspring, yet who wants to protect them even if it means confronting his worst fears, is made richer by its plainspoken Australian dialect. Both "The Mountain Movers" by A. Bertram Chandler and Terry Dowling's "Privateer's Moon" drench readers in the other-worldliness of Australian landscapes. The editors bookend the volume with stunning stories by George Turner ("Flowering Mandrake"), one of Australia's earliest internationally known SF writers, and Peter Carey ("The Chance"), winner of the Booker Prize for his novel Oscar and Lucinda. Every story has its own introduction, and each editor provides an introduction to the volume. Centaurus is full of imaginative fare from writers with a colorful regional perspective. --Blaise Selby

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Dark Gray

Description

My father is the Rev. Daimon Keith. At the age of twenty, he was abducted near a school playground by small gray aliens. Indeed, Daimon was taken up into UFOs not just that once, but from infancy, and over and again. It caused him to devote his middle years to the establishment of the Church of Jesus Christ, Time Traveler, and later Scionetics.

Rosa "Flake" Rosch is a postmodern orphan. She's forgotten her mother, and her notorious abductee father Deems has vanished—again. Dark Gray is Rosa's unreliable memoir of her father's zany life, from his hapless prankster youth in Australia to apotheosis as a UFO guru in the 21st century. It's the story of Rosa's indomitable mother, her weird quasi-brother Ben, Zelda the horsewife, and our whole tormented era, as we blast into hyperreality.

Tilted on the hard slab, he knows the heavy stink of the place. What awful crap do they suck up with those lipless little mouths? The gray doctor touches his forehead with a needle—sharp, glinting—and pushes it hard into his skull.

"That life may simultaneously reduce the living to both laughter and despair is a subject few novelists tackle in one bite. Damien Broderick and Rory Barnes succeed in the near-impossible task. Dark Gray stands as one of the two great realist novels to tackle the notoriously non-realist theme of contact with extraterrestrials. It resides on the same (astral) plane as Alison Lurie's magisterial Imaginary Friends.… A quite brilliant achievement."
     —Rosaleen Love, author of The Total Devotion Machine

Finalist for the Aurealis Award and the Ditmar Award.

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Human's Burden

Description

Poor Jack Wong is a clueless cadet at the Unified Space Academy when his pod is stranded on a planet of disgusting aliens. All he wants to do, other than escape, is to fulfill his proud duty to advance Earth Culture's Primary Heuristic: "Wherever possible, find the weak spot in an alien civilization and interfere as much as possible for the benefit of humanity." It's the Human's Burden!

But everything comes unstuck, made worse by his irritating Machiavellian AI. And that's just the start of Jack's troubles in space and time....

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