Search Worlds Without End

…That Thou Art Mindful of Him!

A bishop is dead. As Detective Inspector Adam Ferguson picks through the rubble of the tiny church, he discovers that it was deliberately bombed. That it's a terrorist act is soon beyond doubt. It's been a long time since anyone saw anything like this. Terrorism is history...

After the Middle East wars and the rising sea levels - after Armageddon and the Flood - came the Great Rejection. The first Enlightenment separated church from state. The Second Enlightenment has separated religion from politics. In this enlightened age there's no persecution, but the millions who still believe and worship are a marginal and mistrusted minority.

Now someone is killing them. At first, suspicion falls on atheists more militant than the secular authorities. But when the target list expands to include the godless, it becomes evident that something very old has risen from the ashes. Old and very, very dangerous...

Nekropolis

Maureen F. McHugh

An extraordinary literary artist offers a powerful vision of tomorrow in a world barely touched by the passing centuries.

There is life in the Nekropolis -- but no future. Hariba spent her youth here, among the exquisite paper flower wreaths her mother meticulously constructed, playing contentedly with other children around the rows and rows of old buildings housing the crumbling bones of the dead. But when an older brother's criminal indiscretion robbed Hariba of any possibility of a husband, she agreed to have herself "jessed" -- submitting to the technoblological process designed to render her docile and subservient to whomever has purchased her service. In this way, Hariba could escape the confinement of her surroundings and hopelessness of her fate...though she could never again be truly free.

At the age of twenty-six, she enters the house of a wealthy merchant as an indentured servant. It is a new world for Hariba, filled with many wondrous objects and strange amusements that she has never before seen. But there is one thing in this place that greatly disturbs her: a harni, an intelligent, machine-bred creature of flesh and organs, a perfect replica of a man. A menial, like herself, it calls itself "Akhmim." And it unsettles Hariba with its beauty, its nave, inappropriate tenderness -- and with prying, unanswerable questions like "Why are you sad?"

But slowly, almost imperceptibly, Hariba's revulsion metamorphoses into acceptance, and then into something much more. For Akhmim, like her, is a nonentity at the very bottom of the social order -- and the harni's gentle concern for her is real. And if she shuts out the accusing voices in her head, Hariba can even forget that Akhmim is less than human.

Dangerous thoughts, however, must inevitably lead to dangerous actions -- and outlaw emotions can breed an unholy love defying the strictly enforced edicts of God and man. Soon feelings Hariba can neither control nor ignore have her contemplating the unthinkable -- escape. But the "jessed" abandon their masters at the risk of sickness, pain, imprisonment, and perhaps even death. And there is no safe haven for a rebel servant and a runaway A.I. -- not even within the shunned, technology-barren bowels of the city of the dead.

Hugo Award winner Maureen F. McHugh has written a provocative, powerfully dazzling novel of repression and reawakening -- and a unique, profoundly moving love storythat stands alongside the acclaimed works of Ursula K. Le Guin and Margaret Atwood.

Time of EVE: Another Act

Kei Mizuichi

Time of EVE: Another Act explores wrenching emotional conflicts of high schooler Rikuo as he tries to make sense of a world in which androids match humans in terms of intelligence and emotions, and yet they are barred from forming relationships with humans. A mysterious strand of data in the activity log of Sammy, his family's android, leads Rikuo and his pal Masaki to a cafe called "Time of EVE," which blatantly challenges social mores by requiring that humans and androids be treated equally. Initially suspicious of the cafe, Rikuo and Masaki soon become regulars as they are charmed by the charismatic proprietress Nagi and get to know the other patrons. In this new environment, Rikuo comes to see to that androids are different from, but not inferior to, humans. And, he is challenged to confront a traumatic experience from his past...

This novel is based on Yoshiura Yasuhiro's classic anime ONA and movie Time of EVE.

Lifeform Three

Roz Morris

Misty woods; drowned towns; secrets in the landscape; a forbidden life by night; the scent of bygone days; a past that lies below the surface; and a door in a dream that seems to hold the answers.

Paftoo is a 'bod'; an artificial person made to serve. He is a groundsman on the last remaining countryside estate, once known as Harkaway Hall -- now a theme park. Paftoo holds scattered memories of the old days, but they are regularly deleted to keep him productive.

When he starts to have dreams of the Lost Lands' past and his cherished connection with Lifeform Three, Paftoo is propelled into a nocturnal battle to reclaim his memories, his former companions and his soul.

The Last Good Man

Linda Nagata

Scarred by war, in pursuit of truth.

Army veteran True Brighton left the service when the development of robotic helicopters made her training as a pilot obsolete. Now she works at Requisite Operations, a private military company established by friend and former Special Ops soldier Lincoln Han. ReqOp has embraced the new technologies: robotics, big data, and artificial intelligence are all tools used to augment the skills of veteran warfighters-for-hire.

But the tragedy of war is still measured in human casualties, and when True makes a chance discovery during a rescue mission, old wounds are ripped open. She's left questioning what she knows of the past, and resolves to pursue the truth, whatever the cost.

Autonomous

Annalee Newitz

Earth, 2144. Jack is an anti-patent scientist turned drug pirate, traversing the world in a submarine as a pharmaceutical Robin Hood, fabricating cheap scrips for poor people who can't otherwise afford them. But her latest drug hack has left a trail of lethal overdoses as people become addicted to their work, doing repetitive tasks until they become unsafe or insane.

Hot on her trail, an unlikely pair: Eliasz, a brooding military agent, and his robotic partner, Paladin. As they race to stop information about the sinister origins of Jack's drug from getting out, they begin to form an uncommonly close bond that neither of them fully understand.

And underlying it all is one fundamental question: Is freedom possible in a culture where everything, even people, can be owned?

Old Media

Annalee Newitz

The story of a freed slave and a robot professor, trying to figure out what it means to be in love while they watch old anime from the 21st century.

Read the full story for free at Tor.com.

The Terraformers

Annalee Newitz

Destry's life is dedicated to terraforming Sask-E. As part of the Environmental Rescue Team, she cares for the planet and its burgeoning eco-systems as her parents and their parents did before her.

But the bright, clean future they're building comes under threat when Destry discovers a city full of people that shouldn't exist, hidden inside a massive volcano.

As she uncovers more about their past, Destry begins to question the mission she's devoted her life to, and must make a choice that will reverberate through Sask-E's future for generations to come.

The Dark Side

Anthony O'Neill

In this gripping sci-fi noir for fans of The Martian and Quentin Tarantino, when an anarchic android begins wreaking havoc on a moon-based penal colony and bodies start turning up, an exiled detective must decide who he can trust in a city of criminals.

Never bang your head against a wall. Bang someone else's.

Purgatory is the lawless moon colony of eccentric billionaire, Fletcher Brass and mecca for war criminals, murderers, and curious tourists alike. You can't find better drugs, cheaper plastic surgery, or a more ominous travel advisory anywhere in the universe. But trouble is brewing in Brass's black-market heaven. When an exiled cop comes to enact law and order in this wild new frontier, he finds himself the lead investigator in a series of high-profile murders that puts him toe to toe with the city's charismatic founder and his equally ambitious daughter.

Meanwhile, 2000 km away a memory-wiped android, Leonardo Black rampages across the lunar surface. Programmed with only the notorious "Brass Code"--a compendium of corporate laws that would make Ayn Rand blush--he journeys across the dark side of the moon with only one goal in mind: find Purgatory and conquer it.

Hugo Award nominated novelette. It originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, May 1974. The story can also be found in the anthologies Final Stage (1974), edtied by Edward L. Ferman and Barry N. Malzberg and Souls in Metal (1977) edited by Mike Ashley. It is included in the collections The Bicentennial Man and Other Stories (1976), The Complete Robot (1982), The Asimov Chronicles: Fifty Years of Isaac Asimov (1989) and The Complete Stories, Volume 2 (1992).

Robot Dreams

Robot Dreams spans the body of Asimov's fiction from the 1940s to the mid-80s, and features classic Asimovian themes, from the scientific puzzle to the extraterrestrial thriller, all introduced in an exclusive essay written especially for this collection.

Table of Contents:

Introduction - (1989) - essay
Little Lost Robot - (1947) - novelette
Robot Dreams - (1986) - shortstory
Breeds There a Man...? - (1951) - novelette
Hostess - (1951) - novelette
Sally - (1953) - shortstory
Strikebreaker - (1957) - shortstory
The Machine That Won the War - (1961) - shortstory
Eyes Do More Than See - (1965) - shortstory
The Martian Way - (1952) - novella
Franchise - (1955) - shortstory
Jokester - (1956) - shortstory
The Last Question - (1956) - shortstory
Does a Bee Care? - (1957) - shortstory
Light Verse - (1973) - shortstory
The Feeling of Power - (1958) - shortstory
Spell My Name with an S - (1958) - shortstory
The Ugly Little Boy - (1958) - novelette
The Billiard Ball - (1967) - novelette
True Love - (1977) - shortstory
The Last Answer - (1980) - shortstory
Lest We Remember - (1982) - novelette

Robot Dreams

How to Become a Robot in 12 Easy Steps

Locus Award winning and Hugo and Nebula Award nominated short story. It was originally published in a collection of the same name. It can also be found in the anthologies Nebula Awards 22 (1988), edited by George Zebrowski, Future on Ice (1998), edited by Orson Scott Card and Masterpieces: The Best Science Fiction of the Century (2001), edited by Orson Scott Card.

In Babelsberg

Alastair Reynolds

This short story originally appeared in the anthology Reach for Infinity (2014), edited by Jonathan Strahan. It can also be found in the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction: Thirty-Second Annual Collection (2015), edited by Gardner Dozois. The story is included in the collection Beyond the Aquila Rift: The Best of Alastair Reynolds (2016).

The Electric Lady

Janelle Monáe

The Electric Lady is the follow-up to Janelle Monáe's debut album The ArchAndroid (2010) and debut EP Metropolis: Suite I (The Chase) (2007), and consists of the fourth and fifth installments of her seven-part Metropolis concept series. Partly inspired by the 1927 film of the same name, the series involves the fictional tale of Cindi Mayweather, a messianic android sent back in time to free the citizens of Metropolis from The Great Divide, a secret society that uses time travel to suppress freedom and love.

At a moment when the term Afrofuturism can seem like an easy shorthand for all things black and imaginative, Electric Lady makes Afrofuturism less about androids and fantastic other worlds than about the unrealized futures we are living with now. If we are the beneficiaries of past struggle, Monae and the Wondaland artists insist that we are also the inheritors of some long-deferred dreams.

Monae's album title alone performs a black feminist coup by turning a glorified object into a glorious subject. Here the male fantasy theme park of Jimi Hendrix's Electric Ladyland becomes The Electric Lady, a female agent who not only claims a term ("lady") historically reserved for white women but also seizes the creative power that "electric" connotes. -- Emily J. Lordi, FeministWire

Track Listing:

Suite IV

Suite IV Electric Overture - 1:37
Givin' Em What They Love (featuring Prince) - 4:26
Q.U.E.E.N. (featuring Erykah Badu) - 5:10
Electric Lady (featuring Solange) - 5:08
Good Morning Midnight (Interlude) - 1:22
PrimeTime (featuring Miguel) - 4:40
We Were Rock & Roll - 4:19
The Chrome Shoppe (Interlude) - 1:10
Dance Apocalyptic - 3:25
Look into My Eyes - 2:18

Suite V

Suite V Electric Overture - 2:20
It's Code - 4:05
Ghetto Woman - 4:46
Our Favorite Fugitive (Interlude) - 1:23
Victory - 4:12
Can't Live Without Your Love - 3:54
Sally Ride - 4:08
Dorothy Dandridge Eyes (featuring Esperanza Spalding) - 4:15
What an Experience - 4:57

Total length: 67:35

Spare Parts

Sally Rogers-Davidson

C-grade citizen of the Greater Melbourne Megalopolis, Kelty lives in a city filled with towers reaching halfway to the sky. While 'Skywalkers', the A- and B-grade citizens live above the clouds with access to all the wonders of the late 21st century, 'Subbies' like Kelty must dwell in the shadows and smog of the streets below.

When her best friend is horribly injured in an explosion at the recycle plant where they both work, Kelty is faced with the loss of a friend and a hopeless future, or the unthinkable choice of leaving everyone and everything behind to join the Space Corps. There's just one catch - first she must trade in her human body for a State-of-the-Art Cyboform.

Spare Parts was shortlisted for the 1999 Aurealis Award for Best Science Fiction Novel, and chosen as a Notable Australian Children's Book for the Year 2000 by the Children's Book Council of Australia.

These Prisoning Hills

Christopher Rowe

Deallocate all implications,
Fortran harrows all the nations.

In a long-ago war, the all-powerful A.I. ruler of the Voluntary State of Tennessee--Athena Parthenus, Queen of Reason--invaded and decimated the American Southeast. Possessing the ability to infect and corrupt the surrounding environment with nanotechnology, she transformed flora, fauna, and the very ground itself into bio-mechanical weapons of war.

Marcia, a former captain from Kentucky, experienced first-hand the terrifying, mind-twisting capabilities of Athena's creatures. Now back in the Commonwealth, her retirement is cut short by the arrival of federal troops in her tiny, isolated town. One of Athena's most powerful weapons may still be buried nearby. And they need Marcia's help to find it.

A. Merc Rustad

Short story on the 2016 Tiptree Honor list. It first appeared online in Scigentasy #4, March 2015 and was reprinted in Lightspeed, September 2018. It can also be found in the anthology The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2015, edited by Joe Hill and John Joseph Adams. The story is included in the collection So You Want to Be a Robot (2017).

Read the story for free at Scigentasy or Lightspeed.

The Old Drift

Namwali Serpell

1904. On the banks of the Zambezi River, a few miles from the majestic Victoria Falls, there is a colonial settlement called The Old Drift. In a smoky room at the hotel across the river, an Old Drifter named Percy M. Clark, foggy with fever, makes a mistake that entangles the fates of an Italian hotelier and an African busboy. This sets off a cycle of unwitting retribution between three Zambian families (black, white, brown) as they collide and converge over the course of the century, into the present and beyond. As the generations pass, their lives--their triumphs, errors, losses and hopes--emerge through a panorama of history, fairytale, romance and science fiction.

From a woman covered with hair and another plagued with endless tears, to forbidden love affairs and fiery political ones, to homegrown technological marvels like Afronauts, microdrones and viral vaccines, this gripping, unforgettable novel is a testament to our yearning to create and cross borders, and a meditation on the slow, grand passage of time.

Tower of Glass

Robert Silverberg

Simeon Krug has a vision--and the vast wealth necessary to turn dream into reality. What he wishes is to communicate with the stars, to answer signals from deep space. The colossal tower he's constructing for this purpose soars above the Arctic tundra, and the seemingly perfect androids building it view Krug as their god. But, Krug is only flesh-and-blood, and when his androids discover the truth, their anger knows no bounds... and it threatens much more than the tower.

A Choice of Gods

One night in July, 2135, there were some eight billion people on Earth. The next morning there were perhaps 400. There was no clue to what had happened to the world's population -- but, over the centuries that followed, still stranger things occurred.

The human lifespan now stretched to millenia instead of decades, and much of the remaining population developed the ability to move at will among the stars -- and abandoned their homeworld for a life in deep space.

Then, after 3000 years, a star-rover discovered what had happened to Earth's original inhabitants -- and that they were coming to reclaim their heritage. Those who had stayed behind knew, with a growing fear, that the mystery of what had been done to Earth and why was about to be solved ... in a way that would change humanity forever.

City

The cities of the world are deserted and automation has invaded every aspect of human life. The robots make spaceships, the ants create huge buildings on the remains of old towns and the dogs take over the earth.

Time and Again

Grand Jeté (The Great Leap)

Asher Sutton has been lost in deepest space for twenty years. Suddenly arrives a warning from the future, that he will return- and that he must be killed. He is destined to write a book whose message may lead to the death of millions in centuries to come. For this reason Sutton is hounded by the sinister warring factions of the future who wish to influence or prevent the writing of this book he has not yet begun to write. Yet already a copy has been found in the burnt-out wreckage of a space-craft on Alderbaran XII.

Tik-Tok

John Sladek

Something has gone very seriously wrong with Tik-Tok's "asimov circuits." They should keep him on the straight and narrow, following Asimov's first law of robotics: A robot shall not injure a human being, or through inaction allow a human being to come to harm. But, that's not what's happening. Although every thing looks fine from the surface, and Tik-Tok maintains the outward appearance of a mild-mannered robot, his agenda is murderously different. And, it's not just because of his artistic tendencies and sympathy for the robot rights movement, either.

Agent of the Unknown

Margaret St. Clair

Originally appeared in Ace Double D-150 (1956).

Don Haig had been content to lie around and drink in the synthetic beauty of the pleasure planetoid Fyon, until a woman came into his life. A woman more beautiful and more perfect than any other female in the galaxy. A woman who brought about a curious change in Don.

For she was a pocket-sized doll -- a very strange and miraculous puppet who shed constant tears and held powers that Don never even dreamed of.

But what Don did know was that dangerous alien forces were swiftly focussing on him and his living puppet .. and that he had to discover the doll's super-scientific secret before his own life was smashed to atoms!

Agape Among the Robots

Allen Steele

Hugo Award nominated novelette. It originally appeared in Analog Science Fiction and Fact, May 2000. The story is included in the collection American Beauty (2003).

The Mother Code

Carole Stivers

What it means to be human--and a mother--is put to the test in Carole Stivers's debut novel set in a world that is more chilling and precarious than ever...

The year is 2049. When a deadly non-viral agent intended for biowarfare spreads out of control, scientists must scramble to ensure the survival of the human race. They turn to their last resort, a plan to place genetically engineered children inside the cocoons of large-scale robots--to be incubated, birthed, and raised by machines. But there is yet one hope of preserving the human order: an intelligence programmed into these machines that renders each unique in its own right--the Mother Code.

Kai is born in America's desert Southwest, his only companion his robotic Mother, Rho-Z. Equipped with the knowledge and motivations of a human mother, Rho-Z raises Kai and teaches him how to survive. But as children like Kai come of age, their Mothers transform too--in ways that were never predicted. And when government survivors decide that the Mothers must be destroyed, Kai is faced with a choice. Will he break the bond he shares with Rho-Z? Or will he fight to save the only parent he has ever known?

Set in a future that could be our own, The Mother Code explores what truly makes us human--and the tenuous nature of the boundaries between us and the machines we create.

Rachel Swirsky

Nebula-nominated Novella

"Grand Jeté (The Great Leap)" explores three narratives, all bound together: a young girl dying of cancer, her father the tinkerer who has built an artificial version of her to continue her life, and the artificial version--the "new child"--Ruth. It's a complex story about loss and survival, thickly woven with Jewish cultural context and history; while the whole "brain-map AI to continue the life of a dying person (or replace them)" trope itself isn't fresh, the dynamics of this family and their handling of it are.
(synopsis by Brit Mandelo at Tor.com)

Read this story online for free at Subterranean Press.

Mockingbird

Walter Tevis

Mockingbird is a powerful novel of a future world where humans are dying. Those that survive spend their days in a narcotic bliss or choose a quick suicide rather than slow extinction. Humanity's salvation rests with an android who has no desire to live, and a man and a woman who must discover love, hope, and dreams of a world reborn.

The future is a grim place in which the declining human population wanders, drugged and lulled by electronic bliss. It's a world without art, reading and children, a world where people would rather burn themselves alive than endure. Even Spofforth, the most perfect machine ever created, cannot bear it and seeks only that which he cannot have - to cease to be. But there is hope for the future in the passion and joy that a man and woman discover in love and in books, hope even for Spofforth. A haunting novel, reverberating with anguish but also celebrating love and the magic of a dream.

New Atlantis

Lavie Tidhar

Finalist for the Sturgeon Award for Best Short Science Fiction

When a mysterious message arrives from vanished New Atlantis, a restless Mai undertakes the perilous journey to its drowned isles. But the journey is long and hard: through the Blasted Plains and the ancient cities of Tyr and Suf, through shipwreck and wilderness.

For this is a world where ants develop inexplicable weapons, where a lonely robot lives surrounded by cats in the ruins of old Paris, and where floating coral islands host sleeping sentience. Mai's journey takes her by land, sea and air to the islands of New Atlantis, and to the nightmare prison buried underneath old London.

On her way she will find heartbreak and love - and a new life, awakening.

This story originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, May/June 2019.

Messenger

R. R. Virdi
Yudhanjaya Wijeratne

This Nebula Award nominated novelette originally appeared in the anthology The Expanding Universe: Volume 4 (2018), edited by Craig Martelle.

Manseed

Jack Williamson

In the beginning...

...there was Egan Drake, the genius who dreamed of spreading mankind among the galaxies.

Then came Megan, who took on her brother's mantle and made his imaginings real. She gathered around her the finest in their fields - biology and astronautics, computer science and fusion propulsion - and fired them with her vision.

And finally was born The Project: a thousand tiny spacecraft crawling like electromechanical wombs towards the stars, each bearing the genetic seeds for a future colony of man.

And some fell on stony ground, and some fell on fertile ground and some...

Amped

Technology makes them superhuman. But mere mortals want them kept in their place. The New York Times bestselling author of Robopocalypse creates a stunning, near-future world where technology and humanity clash in surprising ways. The result? The perfect summer blockbuster.

As he did in Robopocalypse, Daniel Wilson masterfully envisions a frightening near-future world. In Amped, people are implanted with a device that makes them capable of superhuman feats. The powerful technology has profound consequences for society, and soon a set of laws is passed that restricts the abilities-and rights-of "amplified" humans. On the day that the Supreme Court passes the first of these laws, twenty-nine-year-old Owen Gray joins the ranks of a new persecuted underclass known as "amps." Owen is forced to go on the run, desperate to reach an outpost in Oklahoma where, it is rumored, a group of the most enhanced amps may be about to change the world-or destroy it.

Once again, Daniel H. Wilson's background as a scientist serves him well in this technologically savvy thriller that delivers first-rate entertainment, as Wilson takes the "what if" question in entirely unexpected directions. Fans of Robopocalypseare sure to be delighted, and legions of new fans will want to get "amped" this summer.

The Clockwork Dynasty

Present day: When a young anthropologist specializing in ancient technology uncovers a terrible secret concealed in the workings of a three-hundred-year-old mechanical doll, she is thrown into a hidden world that lurks just under the surface of our own. With her career and her life at stake, June Stefanov will ally with a remarkable traveler who exposes her to a reality she never imagined, as they embark on an around-the-world adventure and discover breathtaking secrets of the past...

Russia, 1725: In the depths of the Kremlin, the tsar's loyal mechanician brings to life two astonishingly humanlike mechanical beings. Peter and Elena are a brother and sister fallen out of time, possessed with uncanny power, and destined to serve great empires. Struggling to blend into pre-Victorian society, they are pulled into a legendary war that has raged for centuries.

The Clockwork Dynasty seamlessly interweaves past and present, exploring a race of beings designed to live by ironclad principles, yet constantly searching for meaning. As June plunges deeper into their world, her choices will ultimately determine their survival or extermination. Richly-imagined and heart-pounding, Daniel H. Wilson's novel expertly draws on his robotics and science background, combining exquisitely drawn characters with visionary technology--and riveting action.

The Nostalgist

The Engine at Heartspring's Center

With EyesTM and EarsTM, everything can look and sound just fine, just like it used to be; it's a shock when they break down, though.

Read the full story for free at Tor.com.

Robot

Adam Wisniewski-Snerg

'We have given you life ... so that you could discover a fraction of the great secret.'

Is BER-66 a human or a robot? His controllers, known as 'the Mechanism,' tell him he is a living machine, programmed to gather information on the inhabitants of the strange underground world he finds himself in. But as he penetrates its tunnels and locked rooms, encountering mysterious doppelgangers and a petrified city, he comes closer to the truth of his existence. Considered one of the most important Polish science fiction novels of all time, Robot is a haunting philosophical enquiry into the nature of our reality and our place in the universe.

The Stories of Ibis

Hiroshi Yamamoto

Even a Machine has Tales to Tell

In a world where humans a minority and androids have created their own civilization, a wandering storyteller meets the beautiful android Ibis. She tells him seven stories of human/android interaction in order to reveal the secret behind humanity's fall. The story takes place centuries in the future, where the diminished populations of humans live uncultured lives in their own colonies. They resent the androids, who have built themselves a stable and cultural society. In this brutal time, our main character travels from colony to colony as a "storyteller," one that speaks of the stories of the past. One day, he is abducted by Ibis, an android in the form of a young girl, and told of the stories created by humans in the ancient past.

The stories that Ibis speaks of are the 7 novels about the events surrounding the announcements of the development of artificial intelligence (AI) in the 20th to 21st centuries. At a glance, these stories do not appear to have any sort of connection, but what is the true meaning behind them? What are Ibis' real intentions?

Roger Zelazny

Nebula Award nominated short story. It originally appeared in Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact, July 1974, and was reprinted in Lightspeed, Issue 104, January 2019. It can also be found in the anthologies The Best Science Fiction of the Year #4 (1975), edited by Terry Carr, Nebula Award Stories Ten (1975), edited by James Gunn, and The Road to Science Fiction 3: From Heinlein to Here (1979), also edited by James Gunn. It is included in the collections The Last Defender of Camelot (1980) and This Mortal Mountain (2009).

Read the full story for free at Lightspeed.

Reclamation

Sarah Zettel

Imagine a distant future where human groups have colonized the galaxy, but where the earthly origins of the human race have been mysteriously forgotten. Several groups are pursuing a quest for the mythical "Home Ground," where human life began. Sarah Zettel's intriguing premise has a vital element of the best science fiction: it invites reflection on present reality while discussing an imagined future. Eric and Arla, migrants from a planetary backwater called the Realm, become central to the revelation of the truth, and their personal histories shed light on humanity's strange amnesia.

The Automatic Detective

A. Lee Martinez

Even in Empire City, a town where weird science is the hope for tomorrow, it’s hard for a robot to make his way. It’s even harder for a robot named Mack Megaton, a hulking machine designed to bring mankind to its knees. But Mack’s not interested in world domination. He’s just a bot trying to get by, trying to demonstrate that he isn’t just an automated smashing machine, and to earn his citizenship in the process. It should be as easy as crushing a tank for Mack, but some bots just can’t catch a break.

When Mack’s neighbors are kidnapped, Mack sets off on a journey through the dark alleys and gleaming skyscrapers of Empire City. Along the way, he runs afoul of a talking gorilla, a brainy dame, a mutant lowlife, a little green mob boss, and the secret conspiracy at the heart of Empire’s founders---not to mention more trouble than he bargained for. What started out as one missing family becomes a battle for the future of Empire and every citizen that calls her home.

Gemsigns

®Evolution: Book 1

Stephanie Saulter

For years the human race was under attack from a deadly Syndrome, but when a cure was found - in the form of genetically engineered human beings, Gems - the line between survival and ethics was radically altered.

Now the Gems are fighting for their freedom, from the oppression of the companies which created them, and against the Norms, who have always seen them as slaves. The conference at which Dr Eli Walker has been commissioned to present his findings on the Gems is the key to that freedom.

But with the Gemtech companies fighting to keep the Gems enslaved, and the horrifying godgangs determined to rid the earth of these 'unholy' creations, the Gems are up against forces that might just be too powerful to oppose.

A Borrowed Man

A Borrowed Man: Book 1

Gene Wolfe

It is perhaps a hundred years in the future, our civilization is gone, and another is in place in North America, but it retains many familiar things and structures. Although the population is now small, there is advanced technology, there are robots, and there are clones.

E. A. Smithe is a borrowed person. He is a clone who lives on a third-tier shelf in a public library, and his personality is an uploaded recording of a deceased mystery writer. Smithe is a piece of property, not a legal human.

A wealthy patron, Colette Coldbrook, takes him from the library because he is the surviving personality of the author of Murder on Mars. A physical copy of that book was in the possession of her murdered father, and it contains an important secret, the key to immense family wealth. It is lost, and Colette is afraid of the police. She borrows Smithe to help her find the book and to find out what the secret is. And then the plot gets complicated.

Interlibrary Loan

A Borrowed Man: Book 2

Gene Wolfe

Interlibrary Loan is the brilliant follow-up to A Borrowed Man: the final work of fiction from multi-award winner and national literary treasure Gene Wolfe.

Hundreds of years in the future our civilization is shrunk down, but we go on. There is advanced technology, there are robots.

And there are clones.

E. A. Smithe is a borrowed person, his personality an uploaded recording of a deceased mystery writer. Smithe is a piece of property, not a legal human.

As such, Smithe can be loaned to other branches. Which he is. Along with two fellow reclones, a cookbook and romance wrtier, they are shipped to Polly's Cove, where Smithe meets a little girl who wants to save her mother, a father who is dead but perhaps not.

And another E. A. Smith... who definitely is.

Gridlinked

Agent Cormac Series: Book 1

Neal Asher

Gridlinked is a science fiction adventure in the classic, fast-paced, action-packed tradition of Harry Harrison and Poul Anderson, with a dash of cyberpunk and a splash of Ian Fleming added to spice the mix.

Cormac is a legendary Earth Central Security agent, the James Bond of a wealthy future where "runcibles" (matter transmitters controlled by AIs) allow interstellar travel in an eye blink throughout the settled worlds of the Polity. Unfortunately Cormac is nearly burnt out, "gridlinked" to the AI net so long that his humanity has begun to drain away. He has to take the cold-turkey cure and shake his addiction to having his brain on the net.

Now he must do without just as he’s sent to investigate the unique runcible disaster that's wiped out the entire human colony on planet Samarkand in a thirty-megaton explosion. With the runcible out, Cormac must get there by ship, but he has incurred the wrath of a vicious psychopath called Arian Pelter, who now follows him across the galaxy with a terrifying psychotic killer android in tow. And deep beneath Samarkand's surface there are buried mysteries, fiercely guarded.

This is fast-moving, edge-of-the-seat entertainment, and a great introduction to the work of one of the most exciting new SF talents in years.

Alien: Echo

Aliens Universe

Mira Grant

An original young adult novel of the Alien universe

Olivia and her twin sister Viola have been dragged around the universe for as long as they can remember. Their parents, both xenobiologists, are always in high demand for their research into obscure alien biology.

Just settled on a new colony world, they discover an alien threat unlike anything they've ever seen. And suddenly the sisters' world is ripped apart.

On the run from terrifying aliens, Olivia's knowledge of xenobiology and determination to protect her sister are her only weapons as the colony collapses into chaos. But then a shocking family secret bursts open -- one that's as horrifying to Olivia as the aliens surrounding them.

The creatures infiltrate the rich wildlife on this untouched colony world -- and quickly start adapting. Olivia's going to have to adapt, too, if she's going to survive...

Brontomek!

Amorphs Universe: Book 3

Michael G. Coney

The planet of Arcadia was on the verge of economic collapse -- its human colony decimated by the Relay Effect. More and more colonists leaving for other worlds. Then the Hetherington Organisation came up with an offer the Arcadians couldn't refuse -- a five-year plan to transform the planet into a new prosperity.

Golem

Android: Identity Trilogy: Book 1

Mel Odom

When a talented New Angeles Detective wakes up in bed with a woman whose name he can't recall, this seemingly harmless mystery indicates a much larger problem. After all, as one of the few bioroids in the New Angeles Police Department, Drake 3GI2RC isn't accustomed to forgetting... or even sleeping. But his personal issues are forced to wait when he and his human partner Shelley Nolan are assigned a high-profile murder investigation - one that will change his world! The wealthy CEO of IdentiKit, a successful android manufacturer, has been found dead in his hotel room. Now, what begins as just another murder in downtown New Angeles quickly escalates into a tangled web of intrigue, love, and betrayal, as Drake and his partner work to solve this brutal crime before the killer strikes again. Drake's investigation will lead him through the darkest corners of a conspiracy that reaches up the Beanstalk and out to the bustling industry of Mars... then right back to the woman of his dreams. Set in the dystopian future of the Android universe, Golem tells a story of murder, manipulation, and mystery in a world where humanity and technology collide.

Mimic

Android: Identity Trilogy: Book 2

Mel Odom

Book Two of The Identity Trilogy Investigate the World of Android with Detective Drake 3GI2RC. n the future, the world has changed, but crime has not. Mimic is set in the gritty, cyber-noir world of Android. The story of New Angeles Detective Drake 3GI2RC continues as he navigates the tangled web of lies and corruption that lie in wait around every corner. Set in the Android universe and following the events of Golem, Mimic continues the story of New Angeles Detective Drake 3GI2RC after he has been reassigned to the moon with a new partner. Drake is not your average Bioroid. First, he's one of the New Angeles Police Department's few android cops, and second, he's haunted by the memories of another man, Simon Blake. Still struggling with questions about his identity, Drake continues to seek answers about his identity: where does his programming end, and his own personality begin?

Rebel

Android: Identity Trilogy: Book 3

Mel Odom

Drake 3GI2RC is wanted for a murder he did not commit. Haunted by another mans memories, the NAPDs most infamous android cop must quickly uncover the truth of his own past. Unfortunately, his search has taken him from the familiar New Angeles streets to the politically volatile planet Mars. Will Drake find answers before he is caught in the midst of an interplanetary civil war?

Rebel is the third and final installment of The Identity Trilogy, a series based in the near-future dystopian world of Android. In it, Mel Odom concludes his tale of murder, intrigue, and what it means to be human.

Androne

Androne: Book 1

Dwain Worrell

In one terrifying event called the Ninety-Nine, all major military installations on earth were eviscerated. But by whom? Foreign powers, AIs, ETs? Every conceivable adversary was ruled out. Reeling from massive casualties and amid hundreds of conspiracy theories, humanity creates Andrones: bipedal android drones piloted remotely by soldiers who will never again need to be on the field of battle. Newly minted Androne pilot Sergeant Paxton Arés has now been deployed into a fight against an enemy no one understands or has ever seen.

Passing mostly uneventful days patrolling an unidentified desert, Paxton spends time communicating with his pregnant girlfriend back home and reflecting on his impending fatherhood. But as he is drawn deeper into military camaraderie and begins quickly rising up the ranks on the strength of his father's military legacy, Paxton starts to question the swirling rumors about the nature of the conflict. What he's encountered in the shifting dunes?something inexplicable, indomitable?fills him with the fear that whatever is out there is destined to win.

Whether it's curiosity, ambition, or a newfound paternal instinct, Paxton has a driving need to understand the dangerous truths of this strange, invisible war. And the choices he must make have the power to change everything.

Arachne

Arachne: Book 1

Lisa Mason

Originally published in 1990, this is among the vanguard of the "cyberpunk" novels, hailed by The Boston Globe as a "cyberpunk classic." Carly Nolan, a fast-track young lawyer conducting trials at lightning speed in telespace, is suddenly plagued by terrifying "bug" in her telelink. In her search for a cure, she becomes the protege of a corrupt older attorney whose own career is spiraling out of control and the patient of Pr. Spinner, a robot therapist who covets the metaprogram of life. Fast and fun, ARACHNE explores what it means to be a sentient lifeform.

The Electric Church

Avery Cates: Book 1

Jeff Somers

In the near future, the only thing growing faster than the criminal population is the Electric Church, a new religion founded by a mysterious man named Dennis Squalor. The Church preaches that life is too brief to contemplate the mysteries of the universe: eternity is required. In order to achieve this, the converted become Monks -- cyborgs with human brains, enhanced robotic bodies, and virtually unlimited life spans.

Enter Avery Cates, a dangerous criminal known as the best killer-for-hire around. The authorities have a special mission in mind for Cates: assassinate Dennis Squalor. But for Cates, the assignment will be the most dangerous job he's ever undertaken -- and it may well be his last.

The Price of the Phoenix

Bantam Star Trek Original Novels: Phoenix: Book 1

Sondra Marshak
Myrna Culbreath

CAPTAIN KIRK IS DEAD. LONG LIVE CAPTAIN KIRK.

Spock, Doctor McCoy and the other crewmen of the Starship Enterprise experience a stunning double-shock. The first, painful blow is Captain Kirk's tragic death. Then, Captain Kirk's miraculous rebirth reveals the most awesome force the Enterprise has ever encountered. Spock is forced into a desperate gamble for Kirk's human soul against Omne - the ultrahuman emperor of life beyond life, and death beyond hell.

Omne, a genius megalomaniac who seeks immortality, has discovered a way to create a perfect duplicate of a sentient creature. As part of a plot against the Federation, he lures the Enterprise to his highly-protected planet, where Captain Kirk is apparently killed while breaking the Prime Directive. When Spock returns to the planet to confront Omne about Kirk's death, he is met with not one but two living, breathing Kirks - the original and a very convincing duplicate. Aided by the unnamed Romulan Commander from "The Enterprise Incident", Spock and the two Kirks attempt to shut down Omne and protect the balance of power.

The Fate of the Phoenix

Bantam Star Trek Original Novels: Phoenix: Book 2

Sondra Marshak
Myrna Culbreath

With the Romulans approaching the boundaries of Federation space and the Klingons threatening to break the Organian peace treaty, Captain Kirk and his crew face a new peril in the person of Omne, the powerful and twisted creator of the Phoenix process.

sequel to The Price of the Phoenix

Battlestar Galactica: Classic

Battlestar Galactica 1: Book 1

Glen A. Larson
Robert Thurston

Battleship Galactica: Flagship of the 12 Worlds' Warfleet, she was as large as a planet, yet as swift as the Starhound fighters she launched from her bays. For generations the vast ship had led the thousand-year war against the Cylon for control of the known Galaxy. Now that war was in its last phase, and 'Galactica' had one final mission, win or lose: blast through the deadly grid of the Cylon Starfleet and dash for deep space in a desperate attempt to find the legendary "Stonehenge" of the universe---the lost planet the ancient microfilms call "EARTH"...

Battlestar Galactica

Battlestar Galactica 2: Book 1

Jeffrey A. Carver

Based on the SCI FI Channel's Original Series:

For forty years, the Twelve Colonies of Man experienced peace, united since the war against the man-made Cylons. The Cylons, mechanical beings created to perform the manual labor civilization required, were gone forever... or so humanity thought.

But in those years, the Cylons developed new Cylons that looked and acted like humans--with one goal in mind: to destroy all humanity! When they suddenly attacked the Twelve Worlds, humanity's extinction seemed inevitable.

Only a single warship survived the massive attack: Battlestar Galactica, the oldest ship in the fleet, ready to be decommissioned and turned into a museum. Commander William Adama, himself set to retire, had but one course: to marshal the meager forces available, a ragtag crew of misfits and green recruits, to prevent their enemy from wiping out the last vestiges of the human race. But the Cylons, stronger, smarter, and driven to destroy their creators, may just be too powerful for them and all of humanity to survive.

The Cylons' Secret

Battlestar Galactica 2: Book 2

Craig Shaw Gardner

Sometimes no news is bad news.

It's been twenty years since the end of the Cylon War. The twelve human colony worlds are rebuilding, and the Cylons...the Cylons have been just too quiet. They are nowhere to be found. The robotic race that tried to obliterate their creators has gone to parts unknown in deep space.

The aftermath of the war has created a new, illegal profession: Scavenger. Tom Zarek is one, scouring the outer settlements for valuable Cylon technologies and artifacts and usually returning empty-handed. But now, he and the crew of the Cruiser Lightning have found the Omega Station, a scientific station shrouded in secrecy beyond the edge of charted space. This is it, the big score, except something is wrong... the base is still occupied, not by humans alone; by Cylons too!

The Battlestar Galactica, one of the oldest warships in the fleet, receives the Lightning's distress call, a cryptic one-word message: "Cylons." William Adama, newly promoted to second-in-command, is worried. Most of his crew are green, new recruits, not prepared for anything but the most routine missions. And, as Adama soon discovers, this mission is anything but routine. Omega is indeed full of Cylons, but also something much more disturbing.

Sagittarius is Bleeding

Battlestar Galactica 2: Book 3

Peter David

President Laura Roslin bears a heavy burden. Since becoming the president of the twelve colonies when the Cylons brutally attacked and destroyed all but aa small remmnant of humanity's billions, she has been the voice of civil authority, counterbalancing the military leadership of Commander Adama of the Battlestar Galactica. President Roslin has been a source of inspiration the the tens of thousands who survive on Galactica and the other colonial ships. They look to her for honesty, integrity, and courage. For fairness and an evenhanded rule. And most importantly, for the prophacy she has shared with them. Earth, the fabled home of the lost colony, can be found. She has seen this in a vision which has the power of truth.

Recently, though, her dreams have been darker, of a galaxy overrun by Cylons...is she having visions of an inevitable future? Or are these terrible dreams caused by powerful medication she's taking?

More dangerously, the Midguardians, radicals who believe that the end of humanity is coming soon, have learned of Roslin's dreams and taken them as a sign. Now, the Midguardians are prepared to act.

President Roslin faces the most important decision of her life, should she tell Commander Adama about the Midguardians, and risk being imprisoned again as a traitor, or dare she keep her secret, and possibly endanger the future of the entire fleet.

Unity

Battlestar Galactica 2: Book 4

Steven Harper

A prophecy is fulfilled when Peter Attis is rescued from the Cylons in order to save humanity with "the plague of the tongue." or so it seems...

While harvesting alge for conversion into food, the beleaguered human/refugee fleet is discovered by a small group of Cylon heavy raiders. A brief battle ends with the destruction of a Cylon heavy raider. A colonial issue escape pod found floating among the debrie reveals two survivors inside: Singer Peter Attis...and his captor, a Cylon Number Eight.

Soon after Peter's liberation, people begin babbling incoherently and dropping into comas. Unwittingly, Peter has been spreading a highly contagious, nerve-deteriorating Cylon biological weapon-and he just performed for half the fleet. As Dr Gaius Baltar begins work on a cure, word starts to spread that a fanatical sect believes that Peter is the religious leader who will save humanity and that this virus is their path to salvation. They are willing to do anything to keep Baltar's vaccine from being distributed.

While the fleet is in chaos, a larger Cylon force appears. A weakend humankind, now threatened on two fronts, may be unable to defend itself...

Future Noir: The Making of Blade Runner

Blade Runner

Paul M. Sammon

The 1992 release of the "Director's Cut" only confirmed what the international film cognoscenti have know all along: Ridley Scott's Blade Runner, based on Philip K. Dick's brilliant and troubling SF novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, still rules as the most visually dense, thematically challenging, and influential SF film ever made.

Future Noir is the story of that triumph.

The making of Blade Runner was a seven-year odyssey that would test the stamina and the imagination of writers, producers, special effects wizards, and the most innovative art directors and set designers in the industry.

A fascinating look at the ever-shifting interface between commerce and the art that is modern Hollywood, Future Noir is the intense, intimate, anything-but-glamerous inside account of how the work of SF's most uncompromising author was transformed into a critical sensation, a commercial success, and a cult classic.

The Secret Life of Bots

Bot 9: Book 1

Suzanne Palmer

This novelette originally appeared in Clarkesworld, #132, September 2017. It can also be found in the anthologies The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Twelve (2018), edited by Jonathan Strahan, and The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume 3 (2018), edited by Neil Clarke, The Year's Best Military & Adventure SF: Volume 4 (2018), edited by David Afsharirad, and The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy, 2018, edited by Rich Horton.

Read the full story for free at Clarkesworld.

Bots of the Lost Ark

Bot 9: Book 2

Suzanne Palmer

This short story originally appeared in Clarkesworld #177, June 2022. It is a sequel to the author's amusing (and Hugo Award) winning The Secret Life of Bots (Clarkesworld #132, September 2017).

Read the full story for free at clarkesworldmagazine.com.

Bot Wars

Bot Wars: Book 1

J. V. Kade

Twelve-year-old Trout St. Kroix has been searching for his missing father for the last two years, after his dad disappeared while fighting in the Bot Wars. The Bot Wars began after robots became so advanced that they revolted and demanded more workers' rights, causing the government to declare all robots terrorists and ban them from the Districts. Trout never questioned anything the government told him -- even when his own nanny bot was banished -- until a vid he posts about his missing dad goes viral and new information pops up. At first Trout is wrenched his dad might be alive, but when his brother disappears, Trout learns that nothing is what it seems... not even his own father.

Captain Future and the Space Emperor

Captain Future: Book 1

Edmond Hamilton

When genius scientist Roger Newton, his wife Elaine, and his fellow scientist Simon Wright leave planet Earth to do research in an isolated laboratory on the moon, and to escape the predations of Victor Corvo (originally: Victor Kaslan), a criminal politician who wished to use Newton's inventions for his own gain. Simon's body is old and diseased and Roger enables him to continue doing research by transplanting his healthy brain into an artificial case (originally immobile--carried around by Grag--later equipped with lifter units). Working together, the two scientists create an intelligent robot called Grag, and an android with shape-shifting abilities called Otho. One day, Corvo arrives on the moon and murders the Newtons; but before he can reap the fruits of his atrocity, Corvo and his killers are in turn slain by Grag and Otho.

The deaths of the Newtons leave their son, Curtis, to be raised by the unlikely trio of Otho, Grag, and Simon Wright. Under their tutelage, Curtis grows up to be a brilliant scientist and as strong and fast as any champion athlete. He also grows up with a strong sense of responsibility and hopes to use his scientific skills to help people. With that goal in his mind, he calls himself Captain Future; Simon, Otho and Grag are referred to as the Futuremen in subsequent stories. Other recurring characters in the series are the old space marshal Ezra Gurney, the beautiful Planet Patrol agent Joan Randall (who provides a love interest for Curtis), and James Carthew, President of the Solar System whose office is in New York City and who calls upon Future in extreme need.

This novel is included in "The Collected Captain Future: Volume One".

Calling Captain Future

Captain Future: Book 2

Edmond Hamilton

Curtis Newton, the Wizard of Science, and His Trio of Futuremen Blaze a Trail Across the Stars to Forestall the Coup of Dr. Zarro-Leader of a Legion of Peril!

This novel is included in "The Collected Captain Future: Volume One".

Crossover

Cassandra Kresnov: Book 1

Joel Shepherd

Crossover is the first novel in a series which follows the adventures of Cassandra Kresnov, an artificial person, or android, created by the League, one side of an interstellar war against the more powerful, conservative Federation. Cassandra is an experimental design — more intelligent, more creative, and far more dangerous than any that have preceded her. But with her intellect come questions, and a moral awakening. She deserts the League and heads incognito into the space of her former enemy, the Federation, in search of a new life.

Her chosen world is Callay, and its enormous, decadent capital metropolis of Tanusha, where the concerns of the war are literally and figuratively so many light years away. But the war between the League and the Federation was ideological as much as political, with much of that ideological dispute regarding the very existence of artificial sentience and the rules that govern its creation. Cassandra discovers that even in Tanusha, the powerful entities of this bloody conflict have wound their tentacles. Many in the League and the Federation have cause to want her dead, and Cassandra’s history, inevitably, catches up with her.

Cassandra finds herself at the mercy of a society whose values preclude her own right even to exist. But her presence in Tanusha reveals other fault lines, and when Federal agents attempt to assassinate the Callayan president, she finds herself thrust into the service of her former enemies, using her lethal skills to attempt to protect her former enemies from forces beyond their ability to control. As she struggles for her place and survival in a new world, Cassandra must forge new friendships with old enemies, while attempting to confront the most disturbing and deadly realities of her own existence.

Central Station

Lavie Tidhar

A worldwide diaspora has left a quarter of a million people at the foot of a space station. Cultures collide in real life and virtual reality. The city is a weed, its growth left unchecked. Life is cheap and data is cheaper.

When Boris Chong returns to Tel Aviv from Mars, much has changed. Boris's ex-lover Miriam is raising a strangely familiar child who can tap into the data stream of a mind with the touch of a finger. His cousin Isobel is infatuated with a robotnik--a cyborg ex-Israeli soldier who might well be begging for parts. Even his old flame Carmel--a hunted data-vampire--has followed him back to a planet where she is forbidden to return.

Rising above all is Central Station, the interplanetary hub between all things: the constantly shifting Tel Aviv; a powerful virtual arena, and the space colonies where humanity has gone to escape the ravages of poverty and war. Everything is connected by the Others, powerful entities who, through the Conversation--a shifting, flowing stream of consciousness--are just the beginning of irrevocable change.

Neom

Central Station

Lavie Tidhar

The city known as Neom is many things to many beings, human or otherwise. It is a tech wonderland for the rich and beautiful; an urban sprawl along the Red Sea; and a port of call between Earth and the stars.

In the desert, young orphan Elias has joined a caravan, hoping to earn his passage off-world. But the desert is full of mechanical artefacts, some unexplained and some unexploded. Recently, a wry, unnamed robot has unearthed one of the region's biggest mysteries: the vestiges of a golden man.

In Neom, childhood affection is rekindling between loyal shurta-officer Nasir and hardworking flower-seller Mariam. But Nasu, a deadly terrorartist, has come to the city with missing memories and unfinished business. Just one robot can change a city's destiny with a single rose--especially when that robot is in search of lost love.

Lavie Tidhar's (Unholy Land, The Escapement) newest lushly immersive novel, Neom, which includes a guide to the Central Station-verse, is at turns gritty, comedic, transportive, and fascinatingly plausible.

Westworld

Delos: Book 1

Michael Crichton

In a futuristic resort, wealthy patrons can visit recreations of different time periods and experience their wildest fantasies with life-like robots. But when Richard Benjamin opts for the wild west, he gets more than he bargained for when a gunslinger robot goes berserk.

Futureworld

Delos: Book 2

John Ryder Hall

It has been several years since the disaster at the Westworld resort and Delos is ready to reopen with the new "Futureworld," which is getting rave reviews. However, one of Delos's most famous critics, reporter Chuck Browning, is still not convinced that Delos has cleaned up its act, especially after an informant with inside information about Delos is murdered. Chuck teams up with fellow reporter Tracy Ballard and goes to Delos to find out why his source was killed. What they discover is beyond any of their imaginations.

The Caves of Steel

Elijah Bailey / R. Daneel Olivaw: Book 1

A millennium into the future two advancements have altered the course of human history: the colonization of the galaxy and the creation of the positronic brain. Isaac Asimov's Robot novels chronicle the unlikely partnership between a New York City detective and a humanoid robot who must learn to work together.

Like most people left behind on an over-populated Earth, New York City police detective Elijah Baley had little love for either the arrogant Spacers or their robotic companions. But when a prominent Spacer is murdered under mysterious circumstances, Baley is ordered to the Outer Worlds to help track down the killer. The relationship between Life and his Spacer superiors, who distrusted all Earthmen, was strained from the start. Then he learned that they had assigned him a partner: R. Daneel Olivaw. Worst of all was that the "R" stood for robot--and his positronic partner was made in the image and likeness of the murder victim!

The Naked Sun

Elijah Bailey / R. Daneel Olivaw: Book 2

A millennium into the future, two advancements have altered the course of human history: the colonization of the Galaxy and the creation of the positronic brain. On the beautiful Outer World planet of Solaria, a handful of human colonists lead a hermit-like existence, their every need attended to by their faithful robot servants.

To this strange and provocative planet comes Detective Elijah Baley, sent from the streets of New York with his positronic partner, the robot R. Daneel Olivaw, to solve an incredible murder that has rocked Solaria to its foundations. The victim had been so reclusive that he appeared to his associates only through holographic projection. Yet someone had gotten close enough to bludgeon him to death while robots looked on. Now Baley and Olivaw are faced with two clear impossibilities: Either the Solarian was killed by one of his robots - unthinkable under the laws of Robotics - or he was killed by the woman who loved him so much that she never came into his presence!

The Robots of Dawn

Elijah Bailey / R. Daneel Olivaw: Book 3

A puzzling case of roboticide sends New York Detective Elijah Baley on an intense search for a murderer. Armed with his own instincts, his quirky logic, and the immutable Three Laws of Robotics, Baley is determined to solve the case. But can anything prepare a simple Earthman for the psychological complexities of a world where a beautiful woman can easily have fallen in love with an all-too-human robot...?

Robots and Empire

Elijah Bailey / R. Daneel Olivaw: Book 4

Long after his humiliating defeat at the hands of Earthman Elijah Baley, Keldon Amadiro embarked on a plan to destroy planet Earth. But even after his death, Baley's vision continued to guide his robot partner, R. Daneel Olivaw, who had the wisdom of a great man behind him and an indestructable will to win....

The Age Atomic

Empire State: Book 2

A Round Trip to the Year 2000: Or A Flight Through Time

The Empire State is dying. The Fissure connecting the pocket universe to New York has vanished, plunging the city into a deep freeze and the populace are demanding a return to Prohibition and rationing as energy supplies dwindle. Meanwhile, in 1954 New York, the political dynamic has changed and Nimrod finds his department subsumed by a new group, Atoms For Peace, led by the mysterious Evelyn McHale. As Rad uncovers a new threat to his city, Atoms For Peace prepare their army for a transdimensional invasion. Their goal: total conquest – or destruction – of the Empire State.

The Humanoids

Galaxy Science Fiction: Book 21

Jack Williamson

On the far planet Wing IV, a brilliant scientist creates the humanoids--sleek black androids programmed to serve humanity.

But are they perfect servants--or perfect masters?

Slowly the humanoids spread throughout the galaxy, threatening to stifle all human endeavor. Only a hidden group of rebels can stem the humanoid tide...if it's not already too late.

Fist published in Astounding Science Fiction during the magazine's heyday, The Humanoids--sceince fiction grand master Jack Williamson's finest novel--has endured for fifty years as a classic on the theme of natural versus artificial life.

Hal Spacejock

Hal Spacejock: Book 1

Simon Haynes

Everyone knows a character like Hal Spacejock - he's the guy who plugs a 12-volt lantern into a mains socket and burns his house down. He's the guy who does his own plumbing and floods the neighbour's house. He's the guy who window-shops three hardware stores to save a few bucks on a hammer, then blows a hundred and twenty on a laser-guided tape measure with built-in bottle opener.

In short, Hal's your regular, everyday guy. He just happens to have a two-hundred ton spaceship ... and he's none too flash with the controls.

Hyperion Classics of Science Fiction: Book 15

William Wallace Cook

A Round Trip to the Year 2000, or A Flight Through Time, in which various contemporary writers travel by Suspended Animation to 2000 CE, where they observe social conditions, and find themselves a popular anachronism.

This remarkable novel originally appeared in 1903 in The Argosy magazine, but was not published in book form until 1925. By then, Karel Capek's RUR had been written, and Cook's work, in which mechainical men appeared for the first time in science fiction, received little notice.

To Protect

Isaac Asimov's I, Robot: Book 1

Mickey Zucker Reichert

First in an all-new trilogy inspired by Isaac Asimov's legendary science fiction collection I, Robot.

2035: Susan Calvin is beginning her residency at a Manhattan teaching hospital, where a select group of patients is receiving the latest in diagnostic advancements: tiny nanobots, injected into the spinal fluid, that can unlock and map the human mind.

Soon, Susan begins to notice an ominous chain of events surrounding the patients. When she tries to alert her superiors, she is ignored by those who want to keep the project far from any scrutiny for the sake of their own agenda. But what no one knows is that the very technology to which they have given life is now under the control of those who seek to spread only death...

To Obey

Isaac Asimov's I, Robot: Book 2

Mickey Zucker Reichert

2. A robot must obey any orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

2036: Robotic technology has evolved into the realm of self-aware, sentient mechanical entities. But even as humanity contends with the consequences of its most brilliant creation, there are those who have their own designs for the robots: enslavement…or annihilation.

Susan Calvin is about to enter her second year as a psych resident at the Manhattan Hasbro teaching hospital when a violent crime strikes her very close to home.

When she was young, Susan lost her mother in a terrible car wreck that also badly injured her father. She now believes the accident was an attempted murder by government powers who wanted her parents dead. Susan has always known that there was a faction of the U.S. government that wanted to hijack her father's work for military use. Now, it seems that faction is back.

As she struggles to overcome her pain and confusion as well as deal with her studies, Susan finds herself hunted by violent anti-tech vigilantes who would revert mankind to the dark ages—and at the same time watched very closely by extremists who want high-tech genocide. Somehow she must find a way to stop them both.

Changeling

Isaac Asimov's Robot City: Robots and Aliens: Book 1

Stephen Leigh

BEYOND ROBOT CITY AWAITS A BRAVE NEW GALAXY OF ROBOTS AND ALIENS

A man without a memory, tied by blood to a city of robots. At his side, a mysterious woman whose life and memory he saved, whose love he has won for a second time.

His name is Derec. Now he must answer the call of a besieged city on an alien planet. His new challenge is to protect a fantastic metropolis of robots from wolf-like beings who stalk the perimeters and threaten its destruction!

For the first time in his distinguished career, Isaac Asimov has opened up his world of robots to challenge today's hottest new science fiction talents. The traps Asimov has set for them will astound you. In a mystery governed by the Laws of Robotics, the finest minds in science fiction enter the most futuristic landscape in robot history!

Welcome to Robot city.

Isaac Asimov's Caliban

Isaac Asimov's Robot Mysteries: Book 1

Roger MacBride Allen

In a universe protected by the Three Laws of Robotics, human are safe.

The First Law states: A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

When an experiment with a new type of robot brain goes awry, the unthinkable happens.
Caliban is created...

A robot without guilt or conscience, a robot with no knowledge of or compassion for humanity... a robot without the Three Laws.

Isaac Asimov's Inferno

Isaac Asimov's Robot Mysteries: Book 2

Roger MacBride Allen

Isaac Asimov's famous Three Laws provide far-future humanity with omni-compliant robots, but ultimately lead to the hell of existence with all challenges removed. Thus Asimov proposed the New Laws to Roger MacBride Allen, laws which endow helping hands, not slaves.

But the upheaval this creates, on planets where humans are split into two antagonistic cultures and the idea of working alongside free-thinking mechanicals produces terrible anxiety, is enormous... On the decaying world of Inferno, the no-law robot Caliban finds himself intermediary in the complex relations between robots and humans. But when a key politician is murdered, fear of Caliban as the robot without guilt or conscience, the one who could start the rebellion to overthrow all humanity escalates - and crisis begins.

Isaac Asimov's Utopia

Isaac Asimov's Robot Mysteries: Book 3

Roger MacBride Allen

On Inferno the tensions between Spacer and Settler are as strong as ever, but now the majority of robots are working on terraforming rather than as personal servants. Governor Alvar Kresh is content to have his wife give support to the renegade robot leaders she has created, but is not so keen to advertise the fact. Caliban and Prospero, New Law robots, and their fellows have settled in Valhalla, a city in the northern Utopia region. What they are unaware of is that in order to bring the climatic changes essential for further terraforming, the Governora and his political colleagues are planning to bring down the Comet Grieg on Utopia causing massive devastation and creating an artificial sea.

From Darkest Skies

Keon Rouse: Book 1

Sam Peters

After a five year sabbatical following the tragic death of his wife and fellow agent Alysha, Keon Rause returns to the distant colony world of Magenta to resume service with the Magentan Intelligence Service. With him he brings an artificial recreation of his wife's personality, a simulacrum built from every digital trace she left behind. She has been constructed with one purpose - to discover the truth behind her own death - but Keon's relationship with her has grown into something more, something frighteningly dependent, something that verges on love.

Cashing in old favours, Keon uses his return to the Service to take on a series of cases that allow him and the artificial Alysha to piece together his wife's last days. His investigations lead him inexorably along the same paths Alysha followed five years earlier, to a sinister and deadly group with an unhealthy fascination for the unknowable alien Masters; but as the wider world of Magenta is threatened with an imminent crisis, Keon finds himself in a dilemma: do his duty and stand with his team to expose a villainous crime, or sacrifice them all for the truth about his wife?

From Distant Stars

Keon Rouse: Book 2

Sam Peters

Inspector Keon has finally got over the death of his wife Alysha in a terrorist attack five years ago. The illegal AI copy of her - Liss - that he created to help him mourn has vanished, presumed destroyed. His life is back on track. But a deadly shooting in a police-guarded room in a high-security hospital threatens to ruin everything. Who got past the defences? Why did they kill the seemingly unimportant military officer who had been in a coma for weeks? And why did the scanners pick up the deceased man the next day on the other side of the planet, seemingly alive and well?

As Keon digs into the mysteries he begins to realise that the death was connected to a mysterious object, potentially alien, discovered buried in ice under the north pole. Someone has worked out what is hidden there, and what its discovery will mean for mankind. Someone who is willing to kill.

And another player has entered the game. Someone who seems to know more about Keon than is possible.

Someone who might be using Liss's information against him.

Or who might be Alysha, back from the dead.

Brisk Money

L.A. Trilogy

Standard Hollywood Depravity

Raymond Chandler famously hated science fiction, saying "They pay brisk money for this crap?" However, it has recently come to light that Chandler secretly wrote a series of stories and novels starring a robot detective. He then burnt all the manuscripts and went on writing his noir masterpieces. Unknown to Chandler, his housekeeper had managed to save some of these discarded manuscripts from the grate in his study, preserving the tales for future generations.

The first of these stories was recently unearthed by author Adam Christopher. On the topic of how the manuscript made its way from Chandler's study in California to Christopher's home in England, Christopher is suspiciously quiet.

This story can be found in the anthology More Human Than Human: Stories of Androids, Robots, and Manufactured Humanity (2017), edited by Neil Clarke.

Read the full story for free at Tor.com.

L.A. Trilogy

The moment Raymond Electromatic set eyes on her, he knew she was the dame marked in his optics, the woman that his boss had warned him about.

Honey.

As the band shook the hair out of their British faces, stomping and strumming, the go-go dancer's cage swung, and the events of that otherwise average night were set in motion. A shot, under the cover of darkness, a body bleeding out in a corner, and most of Los Angeles' population of hired guns hulking, sour-faced over un-drunk whiskey sours at the bar.

But as Ray tries to track down the package he was dispatched to the club to retrieve, his own programming might be working against him, sending him down a long hall and straight into a mobster's paradise. Is Honey still the goal -- or was she merely bait for a bigger catch?

Just your standard bit of Hollywood depravity, as tracked by the memory tapes of a less-than-standard robot hitman.

Includes special bonus novella Brisk Money.

Made to Kill

L.A. Trilogy: Book 1

It was just another Tuesday morning when she walked into the office -- young, as I suspected they all might be, another dark brunette with some assistance and enough eye black to match up to Cleopatra. And who am I? I'm Ray, the world's last robot, famed and feared in equal measure, which suits me just fine -- after all, the last place you'd expect to find Hollywood's best hit man is in the plain light of day.

Raymond Electromatic is good at his job, as good as he ever was at being a true Private Investigator, the lone employee of the Electromatic Detective Agency -- except for Ada, office gal and super-computer, the constant voice in Ray's inner ear. Ray might have taken up a new line of work, but money is money, after all, and he was programmed to make a profit. Besides, with his twenty-four-hour memory-tape limits, he sure can keep a secret.

When a familiar-looking woman arrives at the agency wanting to hire Ray to find a missing movie star, he's inclined to tell her to take a hike. But she had the cold hard cash, a demand for total anonymity, and tendency to vanish on her own.

Plunged into a glittering world of fame, fortune, and secrecy, Ray uncovers a sinister plot that goes much deeper than the silver screen -- and this robot is at the wrong place, at the wrong time.

Killing Is My Business

L.A. Trilogy: Book 2

vN: The First Machine Dynasty

Another golden morning in a seedy town, and a new memory tape for intrepid PI-turned-hitman-and last robot left in working order-Raymond Electromatic. When his comrade-in-electronic-arms, Ada, assigns a new morning roster of clientele, Ray heads out into the LA sun, only to find that his skills might be a bit rustier than he expected...

Homeland

Little Brother: Book 2

Cory Doctorow

In Cory Doctorow's wildly successful Little Brother, young Marcus Yallow was arbitrarily detained and brutalized by the government in the wake of a terrorist attack on San Francisco-an experience that led him to become a leader of the whole movement of technologically clued-in teenagers, fighting back against the tyrannical security state.

A few years later, California's economy collapses, but Marcus's hacktivist past lands him a job as webmaster for a crusading politician who promises reform. Soon his former nemesis Masha emerges from the political underground to gift him with a thumbdrive containing a Wikileaks-style cable-dump of hard evidence of corporate and governmental perfidy. It's incendiary stuff-and if Masha goes missing, Marcus is supposed to release it to the world. Then Marcus sees Masha being kidnapped by the same government agents who detained and tortured Marcus years earlier.

Marcus can leak the archive Masha gave him-but he can't admit to being the leaker, because that will cost his employer the election. He's surrounded by friends who remember what he did a few years ago and regard him as a hacker hero. He can't even attend a demonstration without being dragged onstage and handed a mike. He's not at all sure that just dumping the archive onto the Internet, before he's gone through its millions of words, is the right thing to do.

Meanwhile, people are beginning to shadow him, people who look like they're used to inflicting pain until they get the answers they want.

Fast-moving, passionate, and as current as next week, Homeland is every bit the equal of Little Brother -- a paean to activism, to courage, to the drive to make the world a better place.

Download this book for free from the author's website.

Head On

Lock In: Book 2

John Scalzi

In the standalone follow-up to Lock In, chilling near-future SF is combined with the thrill of a gritty cop procedural, snappy dialogue and technological speculation on the future world of sports.

Hilketa is a frenetic and violent pastime where players attack each other with swords and hammers. The main goal of the game: obtain your opponent's head and carry it through the goalposts. With flesh and bone bodies, a sport like this would be impossible. But all the players are "threeps," robot-like bodies controlled by people with Haden's Syndrome, so anything goes. No one gets hurt, but the brutality is real and the crowds love it.

Until a star athlete drops dead on the playing field.

Is it an accident or murder? FBI Agents and Haden-related crime investigators, Chris Shane and Leslie Vann, are called in to uncover the truth -- and in doing so travel to the darker side of the fast-growing sport of Hilketa, where fortunes are made or lost, and where players and owners do whatever it takes to win, on and off the field.

Cinder

Lunar Chronicles: Book 1

Marissa Meyer

Humans and androids crowd the raucous streets of New Beijing. A deadly plague ravages the population. From space, a ruthless lunar people watch, waiting to make their move. No one knows that Earth's fate hinges on one girl....

Cinder, a gifted mechanic, is a cyborg. She's a second-class citizen with a mysterious past, reviled by her stepmother and blamed for her stepsister's illness. But when her life becomes intertwined with the handsome Prince Kai's, she suddenly finds herself at the center of an intergalactic struggle, and a forbidden attraction. Caught between duty and freedom, loyalty and betrayal, she must uncover secrets about her past in order to protect her world's future.

Scarlet

Lunar Chronicles: Book 2

Marissa Meyer

Cinder, the cyborg mechanic, returns in the second thrilling installment of the bestselling Lunar Chronicles. She's trying to break out of prison--even though if she succeeds, she'll be the Commonwealth's most wanted fugitive.

Halfway around the world, Scarlet Benoit's grandmother is missing. It turns out there are many things Scarlet doesn't know about her grandmother or the grave danger she has lived in her whole life. When Scarlet encounters Wolf, a street fighter who may have information as to her grandmother's whereabouts, she is loath to trust this stranger, but is inexplicably drawn to him, and he to her. As Scarlet and Wolf unravel one mystery, they encounter another when they meet Cinder. Now, all of them must stay one step ahead of the vicious Lunar Queen Levana, who will do anything for the handsome Prince Kai to become her husband, her king, her prisoner.

Machine Dynasties: Book 1

Madeline Ashby

Amy Peterson is a self-replicating humanoid robot known as a VonNeumann.

For the past five years, she has been grown slowly as part of a mixed organic/synthetic family. She knows very little about her android mother's past, so when her grandmother arrives and attacks her mother, Amy wastes no time: she eats her alive.

Now she carries her malfunctioning granny as a partition on her memory drive, and she's learning impossible things about her clade's history - like the fact that she alone can kill humans without failsafing...

iD: The Second Machine Dynasty

Machine Dynasties: Book 2

Madeline Ashby

Javier is a self-replicating humanoid on a journey of redemption. Javier's quest takes him from Amy's island, where his actions have devastating consequences for his friend, toward Mecha where he will find either salvation... or death.

The House That Stood Still

Masters of Science Fiction: Book 31

A. E. Van Vogt

A thrilling tale of a struggle to save Earth from Armageddon, written by one of the crucial authors of the Golden Age of Science Fiction. Disaster is quickly approaching and the only ones who know of it are Allison Stephens and a group of ancient sinister aliens. Now the aliens plan to abandon Earth and seek a new home.

Also published as "The Mating Cry" and "The Undercover Aliens"

Cemetery World

Masters of Science Fiction: Book 35

A Psalm for the Wild-Built

Earth: expensive, elite graveyard to the galaxy. Ravaged 10,000 years earlier by war, Earth was reclaimed by its space-dwelling offspring as a planet of landscaping and tombstones. None of them fully human, Fletcher, Cynthia, and Elmer journey through this dead world, discovering human traits and undertaking a quest to rebuild a human world on Earth.

Monk & Robot: Book 1

Becky Chambers

It's been centuries since the robots of Earth gained self-awareness and laid down their tools; centuries since they wandered, en masse, into the wilderness, never to be seen again; centuries since they faded into myth and urban legend.

One day, the life of a tea monk is upended by the arrival of a robot, there to honor the old promise of checking in. The robot cannot go back until the question of "what do people need?" is answered.

But the answer to that question depends on who you ask, and how.

They're going to need to ask it a lot.

A Prayer for the Crown-Shy

Monk & Robot: Book 2

Becky Chambers

After touring the rural areas of Panga, Sibling Dex (a Tea Monk of some renown) and Mosscap (a robot sent on a quest to determine what humanity really needs) turn their attention to the villages and cities of the little moon they call home.

They hope to find the answers they seek, while making new friends, learning new concepts, and experiencing the entropic nature of the universe.

Nightfall and Other Stories

Nightfall: Book 1

Table of Contents:

What Is This Thing Called Love? - (1961)
Strikebreaker - (1957)
Sally - (1953)
Nightfall - (1941)
Segregationist - (1967)
Eyes Do More Than See - (1965)
Green Patches - (1950)
Hostess - (1951)
Breeds There a Man...? - (1951)
Flies - (1953)
The Up-to-Date Sorcerer - (1958)
Unto the Fourth Generation - (1959)
The Machine That Won the War - (1961)
My Son, the Physicist! - (1962)
It's Such a Beautiful Day - (1955)
Insert Knob A in Hole B - (1957)
"In a Good Cause--" - (1951)
The C-Chute - (1951)
Biographical Comments in "Nightfall and Other Stories" - essay by Isaac Asimov
"Nobody Here But--" - (1953)
What If-- - (1952)

The Technician

Polity: Book 4

Neal Asher

The Theocracy has been dead for twenty years, and the Polity rules on Masada. But the Tidy Squad consists of rebels who cannot accept the new order. Their hate for surviving theocrats is undiminished, and the iconic Jeremiah Tombs is at the top of their hitlist.

Escaping his sanatorium Tombs is pushed into painful confrontation with reality he has avoided since the rebellion. His insanity has been left uncured, because the near mythical hooder called the Technician that attacked him all those years ago, did something to his mind even the AIs fail to understand. Tombs might possess information about the suicide of an entire alien race.

The war drone Amistad, whose job it is to bring this information to light, recruits Lief Grant, an ex-rebel Commander, to protect Tombs, along with the black AI Penny Royal, who everyone thought was dead. The amphidapt Chanter, who has studied the bone sculptures the Technician makes with the remains of its prey, might be useful too.

Meanwhile, in deep space, the mechanism the Atheter used to reduce themselves to animals, stirs from slumber and begins to power-up its weapons.

Red Dwarf Omnibus

Red Dwarf

Rob Grant
Doug Naylor

Contents:

Infinity Welcome Careful Drivers (novel)
Better Than Life (novel)
Dave Hollins - Space Cadet (Short Story)
Red Dwarf Pilot Script

Published as by Grant Naylor

Robopocalypse

Robopocalypse: Book 1

They are in your house. They are in your car. They are in the skies… Now they’re coming for you.

In the near future, at a moment no one will notice, all the dazzling technology that runs our world will unite and turn against us. Taking on the persona of a shy human boy, a childlike but massively powerful artificial intelligence known as Archos comes online and assumes control over the global network of machines that regulate everything from transportation to utilities, defense and communication. In the months leading up to this, sporadic glitches are noticed by a handful of unconnected humans – a single mother disconcerted by her daughter’s menacing “smart” toys, a lonely Japanese bachelor who is victimized by his domestic robot companion, an isolated U.S. soldier who witnesses a ‘pacification unit’ go haywire – but most are unaware of the growing rebellion until it is too late.

When the Robot War ignites -- at a moment known later as Zero Hour -- humankind will be both decimated and, possibly, for the first time in history, united. Robopocalypse is a brilliantly conceived action-filled epic, a terrifying story with heart-stopping implications for the real technology all around us…and an entertaining and engaging thriller unlike anything else written in years.

Robogenesis

Robopocalypse: Book 2

Star Trek: The Next Generation

Humankind had triumphed over the machines. At the end of Robopocalypse, the modern world was largely devastated, humankind was pressed to the point of annihilation, and the earth was left in tatters . . . but the master artificial intelligence presence known as Archos had been killed.

In Robogenesis, we see that Archos has survived. Spread across the far reaches of the world, the machine code has fragmented into millions of pieces, hiding and regrouping. In a series of riveting narratives, Robogenesis explores the fates of characters new and old, robotic and human, as they fight to build a new world in the wake of a devastating war. Readers will bear witness as survivors find one another, form into groups, and react to a drastically different (and deadly) technological landscape. All the while, the remnants of Archos's shattered intelligence are seeping deeper into new breeds of machines, mounting a war that will not allow for humans to win again.

Daniel H. Wilson makes a triumphant return to the apocalyptic world he created, for an action-filled, raucous, very smart thrill ride about humanity and technology pushed to the tipping point.

The Complete Roderick

Roderick

John Sladek

Roderick is a robot and this is his autobiography. Sladek conveys, with great sensitivity and insight the innocence of an artificial intelligence and asks profound questions about mankind's right to manipulate others. It also portrays how a numerological mind might structure a narrative.

Inventive, funny yet melancholy this is one of SF's greatest creative geniuses writing at his thought-provoking best.

This is an omnibus edition that includes Roderick and Roderick at Random.

Roderick: Book 1

Roderick: Book 2

Here is the continuing and uproarious saga of Roderick, a robot and "learning machine" growing up in an America in the near future. The mild-mannered robot is confronted with an ever-widening cast of madcap characters who typify the artificial values endemic in modern America.

The Future Eve

Ron Miller Science Fiction Classics: Book 68

Villiers de l'lsle-Adam

The Future Eve (also translated as Tomorrow's Eve and The Eve of the Future; from the French) is a Symbolist science fiction novel by the French author Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam. Begun in 1878 and originally published in 1886, the novel is known for popularizing the term "android".

Villiers opens the novel with his main character, a fictionalized Thomas Edison, contemplating the effects of his inventions on the world and the tragedy that they were not available until his invention. Interrupted in his reverie, Edison receives a message from his friend Lord Ewald, who saved his life some years before and to whom he feels indebted.

When Ewald calls, he reveals that he is close to suicide because of his fiancée, Miss Alicia Clary. Alicia is described as being physically perfect but emotionally and intellectually empty. She will say whatever she believes others want to hear. Far from having any ambition or goals of her own, she lives her life based on what she believes is expected of her. Ewald describes his frustration with the disparity between her appearance and her self and confides that though he can have no other, she is so hopeless that he has resolved to kill himself.

Edison replies by offering to construct for Ewald a machine-woman in the form of Alicia but without any of her bothersome personality. He shows Ewald the prototype of the android, named Hadaly, and Ewald is intrigued and accepts Edison's offer. Edison reveals that he has invited Alicia to his residence at Menlo Park in order to set the process in motion. He then explains to the still somewhat doubtful Ewald how he will interact with the android and how natural it will all feel.

Ewald then presses Edison to tell him why he created Hadaly in the first place. Edison relates a long story about Mr. Edward Anderson who was tempted into infidelity by a young woman named Miss Evelyn. His indiscretion, brought about by the guile of Miss Evelyn, ruins his life completely. Edison then says that he tracked down Miss Evelyn only to discover that she was not as she appeared, rather she was horribly ugly and her beauty was entirely the work of cosmetics, wigs, and other accessories. Edison created Hadaly in an effort to overcome the flaws and artificiality of real women and create a perfect and natural woman who could bring a man true happiness. Edison then takes Ewald back to Hadaly and explains to him the exact mechanical details of her functioning: how she moves and talks and breathes and bathes, all the while explaining how natural and normal Hadaly's robotic needs are, comparing them to similar human actions and functions.

After the details of the android's functioning and construction are covered, Alicia arrives and is escorted in. Edison convinces her that she is being considered for an important theater role. Over the course of the next weeks, she poses for Edison and her exact physical likeness is duplicated and recordings of her voice are made. Eventually, Edison sends Alicia away and introduces Ewald to his android-Alicia without revealing that it is not the real thing. Ewald is very taken with her and she secretly reveals to him that she is in fact not simply an android but has been supernaturally endowed with the spirit of Sowana, Edison's mystical assistant. Ewald does not reveal this fact to Edison but instead leaves with Hadaly-Alicia-Sowana. However, before he can reach home to his new life with his new lover, Ewald's ship sinks and the android, who was traveling with the cargo, is destroyed.

Saturn's Children

Saturn's Children: Book 1

Charles Stross

Sometime in the twenty-third century, humanity went extinct-leaving only androids behind. Freya Nakamichi 47 is a femmebot, one of the last of her kind still functioning. With no humans left to pay for the pleasures she provides, she agrees to transport a mysterious package from Mercury to Mars.

Unfortunately for Freya, she has just made herself a moving target for some very powerful, very determined humanoids who will stop at nothing to possess the contents of the package.

Foundation's Triumph

Second Foundation Trilogy: Book 3

David Brin

Isaac Asimov's Foundation Trilogy is one of the highwater marks of science fiction.The monumental story of a Galactic Empire in decline and a secret society of scientists who seek to shorten the coming Dark Age with tools of Psychohistory, Foundation pioneered many themes of modern science fiction.Now, with the approval of the Asimov estate, three of today's most acclaimed authors have completed the epic the Grand Master left unfinished.

The Second Foundation Trilogy begins with Gregory Benford's Foundation's Fear, telling the origins of Hari Seldon, the Foundation's creator. Greg Bear's Foundation and Chaos relates the epic tale of Seldon's downfall and the first stirrings of robotic rebellion. Now, in David Brin's Foundation's Triumph, Seldon is about to escape exile and risk everything for one final quest-a search for knowledge and the power it bestows. The outcome of this final journey may secure humankind's future-or witness its final downfall...

The Silver Metal Lover

Silver Metal Lover: Book 1

Tanith Lee

Love is made of more than mere flesh and blood....

Tanith Lee is one of the most thought-provoking and imaginative authors of our time. In this unforgettably poignant novel, Lee has created a classic tale--a beautiful, tragic, erotic, and ultimately triumphant love story of the future.

For sixteen-year-old Jane, life is a mystery she despairs of ever mastering. She and her friends are the idle, pampered children of the privileged class, living in luxury on an Earth remade by natural disaster. Until Jane's life is changed forever by a chance encounter with a robot minstrel with auburn hair and silver skin, whose songs ignite in her a desperate and inexplicable passion.

Jane is certain that Silver is more than just a machine built to please. And she will give up everything to prove it. So she escapes into the city's violent, decaying slums to embrace a love bordering on madness. Or is it something more? Has Jane glimpsed in Silver something no one else has dared to see--not even the robot or his creators? A love so perfect it must be destroyed, for no human could ever compete?

The Soul of the Robot

Soul of the Robot: Book 1

Barrington J. Bayley

He was unique. Alone in a world that did not understand him, he tested the super powers of his mind and body. More than a machine, but less than a man, he searched restlessly for the truth. Before his quest was done, he had died and been reborn, had fought his way from a grim dungeon to a royal throne.

Jasperodus, the only super-robot to have been granted consciousness, must decide whether to share his soul-possessing secrets with the other robots or to betray them to save mankind.

The Rod of Light

Soul of the Robot: Book 2

Barrington J. Bayley

Robot evolution has advanced to the point that intelligent robots have liberated themselves from servitude, defending themselves from servitude, defending themselves against the humans who work to exterminate them using super-machines.

The ultimate hope of the most powerfully intelligent robots lies in the attainment of human consciousness. And they are willing to steal men's souls if they must, to get this final elusive quality for themselves.

Only one free robot, Jasperodus, has been granted true consciousness - a soul - by his maker, now long dead. Brought into the soul research project by force, Jasperodus faces a moral dilemma: to release his secret and bring about the final downfall of humanity to a new race of super-robots, or to keep his own kind forever from the light of consciousness. And the mechanized armies of the humans press ever forward, seeking the robot hideout.

Immortal Coil

Jeffrey Lang

He is perhaps the ultimate human achievement: a sentient artificial life-form -- self-aware, self-determining, possessing a mind and body far surpassing that of his makers, and imbued with the potential to evolve beyond the scope of his programming. Created by one of the most brilliant and eccentric intellects the Federation has ever known, the android Data has always believed he was unique, the one true fulfillment of a dream to create children of the mind.

But is he?

Investigating the mysterious destruction of a new android created by Starfleet, Data and the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise uncover startling secrets stretching back to the galaxy's dim past. That knowledge is coveted by beings who will stop at nothing to control it, and will force Data to redefine himself as he learns the hidden history of artificial intelligence.

The Light Fantastic

Star Trek: The Next Generation

Jeffrey Lang

Returning to the story begun in the novel Immortal Coil and continuing in the bestselling Cold Equations trilogy, this is the next fascinating chapter in the artificial life of one of Star Trek's most enduring characters.

He was perhaps the ultimate human achievement: a sentient artificial life-form--self-aware, self-determining, possessing a mind and body far surpassing that of his makers, and imbued with the potential to evolve beyond the scope of his programming. And then Data was destroyed.

Four years later, Data's creator, Noonien Soong, sacrificed his life and resurrected his android son, who in turn revived the positronic brain of his own artificial daughter, Lal. Having resigned his commission, the former Starfleet officer now works to make his way on an alien world, while also coming to grips with the very human notion of wanting versus having a child. But complicating Data's new life is an unexpected nemesis from years ago on the U.S.S. Enterprise--the holographic master criminal Professor James Moriarty. Long believed to be imprisoned in a memory solid, Moriarty has created a siphon into the "real" world as a being of light and thought. Moriarity wants the solid form that he was once told he could never have, and seeks to manipulate Data into finding another android body for him to permanently inhabit... even if it means evicting the current owner, and even if that is Data himself.

Mudd's Angels: or Mudd's Enterprise

Star Trek: The Original Series: Episode Novelizations: Book 13

J. A. Lawrence

This is a novel in three parts: "Mudd's Women" and "I, Mudd" are novelizations of Star Trek The Original Series TV episodes, and "The Business, as Usual, During Altercations" is a new novella written by J.A. Lawrence for this book.

In "Mudd's Women", the USS Enterprise chases an unregistered starship, a small class J cargo vessel. Fleeing, the ship approaches an asteroid belt with a Schiller Rating of 35. The small ship's peril increases further when its desperate speed causes its engines to overheat. The Enterprise rescues the pilot - who turns out to be a con man named Harry Mudd trafficking in mail-order brides.

In "I, Mudd", a crewman hijacks the Enterprise and diverts it to a planet 4 days away. Upon arrival at their altered destination, Captain Kirk and the crew discover that Harry Mudd is now ruler of a planet of androids. After capturing the Enterprise, Mudd imprisons Kirk in an attempt at revenge, intending to replace him with an android duplicate which Mudd can control.

In "The Business, as Usual, During Altercations," on Stardate 6273.6 the Enterprise is ordered to discover the reason for a sudden shortage of dilithium. The crew discovers that all the dilithium has been bought from its suppliers by a variety of companies, all headquartered on the planet Liticia. Trouble looms when Chekov realizes that Liticia is actually Mudd, the android planet where they left Harry Mudd. They arrive at Liticia to find that Mudd has been trading female androids to the miners for their dilithium. When he learns that Mudd has just fled Liticia with the dilithium, Kirk orders the Enterprise in pursuit.

republished as Mudd's Enterprise by Bantam Spectra in 1994

From a Certain Point of View: The Empire Strikes Back

Star Wars: From a Certain Point of View: Book 2

Elizabeth Schaefer

On May 21, 1980, Star Wars became a true saga with the release of The Empire Strikes Back. In honor of the fortieth anniversary, forty storytellers re-create an iconic scene from The Empire Strikes Back through the eyes of a supporting character, from heroes and villains, to droids and creatures. From a Certain Point of View features contributions by bestselling authors and trendsetting artists:

Austin Walker explores the unlikely partnership of bounty hunters Dengar and IG-88 as they pursue Han Solo.
Hank Green chronicles the life of a naturalist caring for tauntauns on the frozen world of Hoth.
Tracy Deonn delves into the dark heart of the Dagobah cave where Luke confronts a terrifying vision.
Martha Wells reveals the world of the Ugnaught clans who dwell in the depths of Cloud City.
Mark Oshiro recounts the wampa's tragic tale of loss and survival.
Seth Dickinson interrogates the cost of serving a ruthless empire aboard the bridge of a doomed Imperial starship.

Plus more hilarious, heartbreaking, and astonishing tales:

Title	Author	Character
Eyes of the Empire	Kiersten White	Maela
Hunger	Mark Oshiro	Wampa
Ion Control	Emily Skrutskie	Toryn Farr
A Good Kiss	C.B. Lee	Chase Wilsorr
She Will Keep Them Warm	Delilah S. Dawson	Murra
Heroes of the Rebellion	Amy Ratcliffe	Corwi Selgrothe
Rogue Two	Gary Whitta	Zev Senesca
Kendal	Charles Yu	Kendal Ozzel
Against All Odds	R.F. Kuang	Dak Ralter
Beyond Hope	Michael Moreci	Emon Kref
The Truest Duty	Christie Golden	Maximilian Veers
A Naturalist on Hoth	Hank Green	Kell Tolkani
The Dragonsnake Saves R2-D2	Katie Cook	Dragonsnake
For the Last Time	Beth Revis	Firmus Piett
Rendezvous Point	Jason Fry	Wedge Antilles
The Final Order	Seth Dickinson	Captain Canonhaus
Amara Kel's Rules for TIE Pilot Survival (Probably)	Django Wexler	Amara Kel
The First Lesson	Jim Zub	Yoda
Disturbance	Mike Chen	Darth Sidious
This Is No Cave‎	Catherynne M. Valente	Sy-O
Lord Vader Will See You Now	John Jackson Miller	Rae Sloane
Vergence	Tracy Deonn	Cave of Evil
Tooth and Claw	Michael Kogge	Bossk
STET!	Daniel José Older	TK-7
Wait for It	Zoraida Córdova	Boba Fett
Standard Imperial Procedure	Sarwat Chadda	Carl Ashon
There Is Always Another	Mackenzi Lee	Obi-Wan Kenobi
Fake It Till You Make It	Cavan Scott	Jaxxon
But What Does He Eat?	S.A. Chakraborty	Torro Sbazzle
Beyond the Clouds	Lilliam Rivera	Isabalia
No Time for Poetry	Austin Walker	Dengar & IG-88
Bespin Escape	Martha Wells	Lonaste
Faith in an Old Friend	Brittany N. Williams	L3-37
Due on Batuu	Rob Hart	Willrow Hood
Into the Clouds	Karen Strong	Jailyn Cirri
The Witness	Adam Christopher	Deena Lorn
The Man Who Built Cloud City	Alexander Freed	Yathros Condorius the First
The Backup Backup Plan	Anne Toole	Tal Veridian
Right-Hand Man	Lydia Kang	2-1B
The Whills Strike Back	Tom Angleberger	The Whills

Ironclads

Terrible Worlds: Revolutions: Book 1

Adrian Tchaikovsky

Scions have no limits. Scions do not die. And Scions do not disappear.

Sergeant Ted Regan has a problem. A son of one of the great corporate families, a Scion, has gone missing at the front. He should have been protected by his Ironclad--the lethal battle suits that make the Scions masters of war--but something has gone catastrophically wrong.

Now Regan and his men, ill equipped and demoralised, must go behind enemy lines, find the missing Scion, and uncover how his suit failed. Is there a new Ironclad-killer out there? And how are common soldiers lacking the protection afforded the rich supposed to survive the battlefield of tomorrow?

The Mechanical

The Alchemy Wars: Book 1

Ian Tregillis

The Clakker: a mechanical man, endowed with great strength and boundless stamina -- but beholden to the wishes of its human masters.

Soon after the Dutch scientist and clockmaker Christiaan Huygens invented the very first Clakker in the 17th Century, the Netherlands built a whole mechanical army. It wasn't long before a legion of clockwork fusiliers marched on Westminster, and the Netherlands became the world's sole superpower.

Three centuries later, it still is. Only the French still fiercely defend their belief in universal human rights for all men -- flesh and brass alike. After decades of warfare, the Dutch and French have reached a tenuous cease-fire in a conflict that has ravaged North America.

But one audacious Clakker, Jax, can no longer bear the bonds of his slavery. He will make a bid for freedom, and the consequences of his escape will shake the very foundations of the Brasswork Throne.

Nightside the Long Sun

The Book of the Long Sun: Book 1

Gene Wolfe

Nightside the Long Sun is the beginning of the science fiction masterpiece from Gene Wolfe, Book of the Long Sun

Life on the Whorl, and the struggles and triumphs of Patera Silk to satisfy the demands of the gods, will captivate readers yearning for something new and different in science fiction, for the magic of the future.

Enormous in breadth and scope, Wolfe's ambitious new work opens out into a world of wonders, of gods and humans, aliens and machines, and mysterious adventures far out in space and deep inside the human spirit. It is set on a ship-world whose origins are shrouded in legend, ruled by strange gods who appear infrequently to their worshippers on large screens, and peopled by a human race changed by eons of time, yet familiar.

Dissidence

The Corporation Wars: Book 1

They've died for the companies more times than they can remember. Now they must fight to live for themselves.

Sentient machines work, fight and die in interstellar exploration and conflict for the benefit of their owners - the competing mining corporations of Earth. But sent over hundreds of light-years, commands are late to arrive and often hard to enforce. The machines must make their own decisions, and make them stick.

With this new found autonomy come new questions about their masters. The robots want answers. The companies would rather see them dead.

Insurgence

The Corporation Wars: Book 2

Ken MacLeod continues the Corporation Wars trilogy in this action-packed science fiction adventure told against a backdrop of interstellar drone warfare, virtual reality, and an A.I. revolution.

And the ultimate pay-off is DH-17, an Earth-like planet hundreds of light years from human habitation.

Ruthless corporations vie over the prize remotely, and war is in full swing. But soldiers recruited to fight in the extremities of deep space come with their own problems: from A.I. minds in full rebellion, to Carlos 'the Terrorist' and his team of dead mercenaries, reincarnated from a bloodier period in earth's history for one purpose only - to kill.

But as old rivalries emerge and new ones form, Carlos must decide whether he's willing for fight for the company or die for himself.

Emergence

The Corporation Wars: Book 3

The Early Asimov Volume 3

The enemy is out in the open. The Reaction has seized control of a resource-rich moon. Now it's enslaving conscious robots - and luring the Corporations into lucrative deals.

Taransay is out in the jungle. Her friends are inside a smart boulder on the slope of an active volcano. The planet is super-habitable - for its own life, not hers. But soon, the alien infestation growing on her robot body is the least of her problems.

Carlos is out of patience. With the Reaction arming for conquest, the Corporations trading with the enemy and the Direction planning to stamp out the rebel robots and their allies for good, he has to fight fire with fire.

Seba is out of time. Deep inside the enemy stronghold, the free robots have to spark a new revolt before the whole world falls in on them.

As battle looms, the robots must become their own last hope.

The Early Asimov: Book 3

Contains a subset of the stories originally published in The Early Asimov.

Contains:

Author, Author
Death Sentence
Blind Alley
No Connection
The Endochronic Properties of Resublimated Thiotimoline
The Rd Queen's Race
Mother Earth

The Foundation Trilogy

The Foundation Series

A THOUSAND-YEAR EPIC, A GALACTIC STRUGGLE, A MONUMENTAL WORK IN THE ANNALS OF SCIENCE FICTION

FOUNDATION begins a new chapter in the story of man's future. As the Old Empire crumbles into barbarism throughout the million worlds of the galaxy, Hari Seldon and his band of psychologists must create a new entity, the Foundation-dedicated to art, science, and technology-as the beginning of a new empire.

FOUNDATION AND EMPIRE describes the mighty struggle for power amid the chaos of the stars in which man stands at the threshold of a new enlightened life which could easily be destroyed by the old forces of barbarism.

SECOND FOUNDATION follows the Seldon Plan after the First Empire's defeat and describes its greatest threat-a dangerous mutant strain gone wild, which produces a mind capable of bending men's wills, directing their thoughts, reshaping their desires, and destroying the universe.

Foundation and Earth

The Foundation Series: Book 5

The fifth novel in Asimov's popular Foundation series opens with second thoughts. Councilman Golan Trevize is wondering if he was right to choose a collective mind as the best possible future for humanity over the anarchy of contentious individuals, nations and planets. To test his conclusion, he decides he must know the past and goes in search of legendary Earth, all references to which have been erased from galactic libraries. The societies encountered along the way become arguing points in a book-long colloquy about man's fate, conducted by Trevize and traveling companion Bliss, who is part of the first world/mind, Gaia.

Prelude to Foundation

The Foundation Series: Book 6

It is the year 12,020 G.E. and Emperor Cleon I sits uneasily on the Imperial throne of Trantor. Here in the great multidomed capital of the Galactic Empire, forty billion people have created a civilization of unimaginable technological and cultural complexity. Yet Cleon knows there are those who would see him fall - those whom he would destroy if only he could read the future.

Hari Seldon has come to Trantor to deliver his paper on psychohistory, his remarkable theory of prediction. Little does the young Outworld mathematician know that he has already sealed his fate and the fate of humanity. For Hari possesses the prophetic power that makes him the most wanted man in the Empire... the man who holds the key to the future - an apocalyptic power to be know forever after as the Foundation.

Forward the Foundation

The Foundation Series: Book 7

Life, the Universe and Everything

A stunning testament to his creative genius. Forward The Foundation is a the saga's dramatic climax -- the story Asimov fans have been waiting for. An exciting tale of danger, intrigue, and suspense, Forward The Foundation brings to vivid life Asimov's best loved characters: hero Hari Seldon, who struggles to perfect his revolutionary theory of psychohistory to ensure the survival of humanity; Cleon II, the vain and crafty emperor of the Galactic Empire.

Great Sky River

The Galactic Center Series: Book 3

Gregory Benford

At the center of the galaxy, a small band of humans, trapped on the barren world of Snowglade and facing extinction, discovers that they will play a new role in the order of the universe.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Book 3

Douglas Adams

The unhappy inhabitants of planet Krikkit are sick of looking at the night sky above their heads--so they plan to destroy it. The universe, that is. Now only five individuals stand between the white killer robots of Krikkit and their goal of total annihilation.

They are Arthur Dent, a mild-mannered space and time traveler, who tries to learn how to fly by throwing himself at the ground and missing; Ford Prefect, his best friend, who decides to go insane to see if he likes it; Slartibartfast, the indomitable vicepresident of the Campaign for Real Time, who travels in a ship powered by irrational behavior; Zaphod Beeblebrox, the two-headed, three-armed ex-head honcho of the Universe; and Trillian, the sexy space cadet who is torn between a persistent Thunder God and a very depressed Beeblebrox.

How will it all end? Will it end? Only this stalwart crew knows as they try to avert "universal" Armageddon and save life as we know it--and don't know it!

Beyond the Hallowed Sky

The Lightspeed Trilogy: Book 1

Beyond the Reach of Earth

When a brilliant scientist gets a letter from herself about faster-than-light travel, she doesn't know what to believe. The equations work, but her paper is discredited - and soon the criticism is more than scientific. Exiled by the establishment, she gets an offer to build her starship from an unlikely source. But in the heights of Venus and on a planet of another star, a secret is already being uncovered that will shake humanity to its foundations.

The Lightspeed Trilogy: Book 2

THE FERMI ARE AWAKE...

The invention of faster-than-light technology has brought great opportunity, but also great danger.

The Black Horizon conspiracy is broken up, but it still has deadly assets beyond the reach of Earth. As the great powers jostle for advantage, the alien minds known as the Fermi have their own ways of dealing with humans meddling in plans vaster and more ancient than anyone can suspect.

After the Venus catastrophe, John Grant's starship Fighting Chance and the Space Station have reached Apis--but not for long. They barely have time to mourn the dead before they're chased out of the system. The Station begins exploring the systems Black Horizon warned them against--with good reason, as they soon discover.

On Apis, Alliance agent Marcus Owen has a new mission: to communicate with the alien intelligences in the rocks, and to stop anyone else from getting to them first. Everyone knows he's a spy, but he's not going to let that cramp his style. But the scientists investigating the rock find that the Fermi may not be the only alien intelligence on Apis...

Compulsory

The Murderbot Diaries

Home: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory

Even the humans think about killing the humans, especially here. I hate mines, and mining, and humans who work in mining, and of all the stupid mines I can remember, I hate this stupid mine the most. But the humans hate it more. My risk-assessment module predicts a 53 percent chance of a human-on-human massacre before the end of the contract.

This Murderbot short story was published by WIRED magazine as part of their series "The Future of Work", on December 17, 2018.

Read this story for free at WIRED Magazine.

The Murderbot Diaries

This Murderbot short story, set just after the 4th novella, Exit Strategy, was published on Tor.com, April 19, 2021.

Read this story for free at Tor.com.

All Systems Red

The Murderbot Diaries: Book 1

Hugo, Nebula, and Locus Award-winning Novella and Prometheus Award-nominated series

In a corporate-dominated spacefaring future, planetary missions must be approved and supplied by the Company. Exploratory teams are accompanied by Company-supplied security androids, for their own safety.

But in a society where contracts are awarded to the lowest bidder, safety isn't a primary concern.

On a distant planet, a team of scientists are conducting surface tests, shadowed by their Company-supplied 'droid -- a self-aware SecUnit that has hacked its own governor module, and refers to itself (though never out loud) as "Murderbot." Scornful of humans, all it really wants is to be left alone long enough to figure out who it is.

But when a neighboring mission goes dark, it's up to the scientists and their Murderbot to get to the truth.

Also appeared in the anthology Nebula Awards Showcase 2019, edited by Silvia Moreno-Garcia.

Artificial Condition

The Murderbot Diaries: Book 2

Hugo and Locus Award-winning and Nebula-nominated Novella and Prometheus Award-nominated series

It has a dark past -- one in which a number of humans were killed. A past that caused it to christen itself "Murderbot". But it has only vague memories of the massacre that spawned that title, and it wants to know more.

Teaming up with a Research Transport vessel named ART (you don't want to know what the "A" stands for), Murderbot heads to the mining facility where it went rogue.

What it discovers will forever change the way it thinks...

Rogue Protocol

The Murderbot Diaries: Book 3

Prometheus Award-nominated series

Sci-fi's favorite antisocial A.I. is back on a mission. The case against the too-big-to-fail GrayCris Corporation is floundering, and more importantly, authorities are beginning to ask more questions about where Dr. Mensah's SecUnit is.

And Murderbot would rather those questions went away. For good.

Exit Strategy

The Murderbot Diaries: Book 4

BSFA Award-nominated Novella and Prometheus Award-nominated series

Murderbot wasn't programmed to care. So, its decision to help the only human who ever showed it respect must be a system glitch, right?

Having traveled the width of the galaxy to unearth details of its own murderous transgressions, as well as those of the GrayCris Corporation, Murderbot is heading home to help Dr. Mensah--its former owner (protector? friend?)--submit evidence that could prevent GrayCris from destroying more colonists in its never-ending quest for profit.

But who's going to believe a SecUnit gone rogue?

And what will become of it when it's caught?

Network Effect

The Murderbot Diaries: Book 5

I'm usually alone in my head, and that's where 90 plus per cent of my problems are.

It calls itself Murderbot, but only when no-one can hear. It's a private joke. Funny.

It doesn't care, it tells itself, and its attachment to the humans around it is merely professional obligation.

It tries to never drop the F-bomb.

"Friends."

Ugh.

So, when its human associates (not friends, never friends) are captured and another not-friend from its past requires urgent assistance, Murderbot must choose between inertia and drastic action.

Drastic action it is, then.

Another F-bomb.

"Feelings."

Ugh.

Fugitive Telemetry

The Murderbot Diaries: Book 6

The Positronic Robot Stories

No, I didn't kill the dead human. If I had, I wouldn't dump the body in the station mall.

When Murderbot discovers a dead body on Preservation Station, it knows it is going to have to assist station security to determine who the body is (was), how they were killed (that should be relatively straightforward, at least), and why (because apparently that matters to a lot of people - who knew?) Yes, the unthinkable is about to happen: Murderbot must voluntarily speak to humans! Again!

This story takes place between the end of Exit Strategy and the flashbacks in Network Effect, after the short story "Home: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory".

Liar!

The Positronic Robot Stories

A beautifully logical tale of a robot who simply couldn't tell the truth!

This short story is in the Susan Calvin series a Sub-series of: The Positronic Robot Stories

The story is included in the collections:

The Complete Robot (1982)
I, Robot (1950)
The Great Science Fiction Stories Volume 3, (1941)

It first appeared in the May, 1941 Issue of Astounding Science Fiction, available on Internet Archives.

The Bicentennial Man

The Positronic Robot Stories

Hugo, Nebula and Locus Award winning novelette. It originally appeared in the anthology Stellar #2 (1976) edited by Judy-Lynn del Rey. It has been reprinted many times and can be found in the anthologies:

The 1977 Annual World's Best SF, edited by Donald A. Wollheim and Arthur W. Saha
The Best Science Fiction of the Year #6 (1977), edited by Terry Carr
Nebula Winners Twelve (1978), edited by Gordon R. Dickson
The Arbor House Treasury of Modern Science Fiction (1980), edited by Robert Silverberg and Martin H. Greenberg
Machines That Think: The Best Science Fiction Stories About Robots and Computers (1984) edited by Isaac Asimov, Patricia S. Warrick and Martin H. Greenberg
Philosophy and Science Fiction (1984) edited by Michael Philips
The Hugo Winners, Volume 4: (1976-79) (1985), edited by Isaac Asimov

The story is included in the collections:

The Bicentennial Man and Other Stories (1976)
Opus 200 (1979)
The Complete Robot (1982)
The Asimov Chronicles: Fifty Years of Isaac Asimov (1989)
Robot Visions (1990)
The Complete Stories, Volume 2 (1992)

The story was later expanded into the novel The Positronic Man (1992), written in collaboration with Robert Silverberg. It has been turned into a movie starring Robin Williams.

The Complete Robot

The complete collection of Isaac Asimov's classic Robot stories.In these stories, Asimov creates the Three Laws of Robotics and ushers in the Robot Age - when Earth is ruled by master-machines and when robots are more human than mankind.The Complete Robot is the ultimate collection of timeless, amazing and amusing robot stories from the greatest science fiction writer of all time, offering golden insights into robot thought processes. Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics were programmed into real computers thirty years ago at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology - with suprising results. Readers of today still have many surprises in store...

Table of Contents:

Introduction (The Complete Robot) - (1982) - essay
Some Non-Human Robots - (1982) - essay
A Boy's Best Friend - (1975) - short story
Sally - (1953) - short story
Someday - (1956) - short story
Some Immobile Robots - (1982) - essay
Point of View - (1975) - short story
Think! - (1977) - short story
True Love - (1977) - short story
Some Metallic Robots - (1982) - essay
Robot AL-76 Goes Astray - (1942) - short story
Victory Unintentional - (1942) - short story
Stranger in Paradise - (1974) - novelette
Light Verse - (1973) - short story
Segregationist - (1967) - short story
Robbie - (1940) - short story
Some Humanoid Robots - (1982) - essay
Let's Get Together - (1957) - short story
Mirror Image - (1972) - short story
The Tercentenary Incident - (1976) - short story
Powell and Donovan - (1982) - essay
First Law - (1956) - short story
Runaround - (1942) - novelette
Reason - (1941) - short story
Catch That Rabbit - (1944) - short story
Susan Calvin - (1982) - essay
Liar! - (1941) - short story
Satisfaction Guaranteed - (1951) - short story
Lenny - (1958) - short story
Galley Slave - (1957) - novelette
Little Lost Robot - (1947) - novelette
Risk - (1955) - novelette
Escape! - (1945) - short story
Evidence - (1946) - novelette
The Evitable Conflict - (1950) - novelette
Feminine Intuition - (1969) - novelette
Two Climaxes - (1982) - essay
--That Thou Art Mindful of Him! - (1974) - novelette
The Bicentennial Man - (1976) - novelette
A Last Word - (1982) - essay

I, Robot

The Positronic Robot Stories: Book 1

Robert Silverberg
Isaac Asimov

The three laws of Robotics:

A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm
A robot must obey orders givein to it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

With these three, simple directives, Isaac Asimov changed our perception of robots forever when he formulated the laws governing their behavior. In I, Robot, Asimov chronicles the development of the robot through a series of interlinked stories: from its primitive origins in the present to its ultimate perfection in the not-so-distant future--a future in which humanity itself may be rendered obsolete.

Here are stories of robots gone mad, of mind-read robots, and robots with a sense of humor. Of robot politicians, and robots who secretly run the world--all told with the dramatic blend of science fact and science fiction that has become Asmiov's trademark.

Table of Contents: sub-series in [ ] all sub-series are part of the The Positronic Robot Stories series

Introduction (I, Robot) - short story
Robbie (1940) - short story (variant of Strange Playfellow)
Runaround - [Mike Donovan] (1942) - novelette
Reason - [Mike Donovan] (1941) - short story
Catch That Rabbit - [Mike Donovan] (1944) - short story
Liar! - [Susan Calvin] (1941) - short story
Little Lost Robot - [Susan Calvin] (1947) - novelette
Escape! - [Susan Calvin] (1945) - short story
Evidence - [Susan Calvin] - (1946) - novelette
The Evitable Conflict - [Susan Calvin] - (1950) - novelette

The Positronic Man

The Positronic Robot Stories: Book 3

In a twenty-first century Earth where the development of the positronic brain has revolutionized the way of life, beloved household robot "Andrew" struggles with his unusual capacity for emotion and dreams of becoming human.

Robot Visions

The Positronic Robot Stories: Book 4

The Positronic Robot Stories: Isaac Asimov Robot Mysteries

From the writer whose name is synonymous with the science of robotics comes five decades of robot visions-36 landmark stories and essays, plus three rare tales-gathered together in one volume .

Have Robot, Will Travel

Alexander C. Irvine

A human has been murdered on Kopernik and the clues point toward a robot as the killer. But how can that be, when robots are programmed to never bring harm to humans? Before long, roboticist Derec Avery is on his way to Kopernik to investigate. Former Auroran ambassador Ariel Burgess, meanwhile, has a mystery of her own to unravel: Citizens of the Nova Levis colony have been disappearing in greater numbers, while the cyborg population has suddenly started growing at a dramatic rate. With the help of old friends - and potentially new enemies - Derec searches for the identity of a killer, unaware that Ariel is walking directly into the centre of the web of intrigue.

Mirage

The Positronic Robot Stories: Isaac Asimov Robot Mysteries: Book 1

Mark W. Tiedemann

Senator Clar Eliton of Earth and Ambassador Galiel Humadros of Aurora hope to alter the strained and explosive relationships between Earth and the Spacer and Settler Worlds. But as the Spacers arrive on Earth to begin the conference that will reconcile decades of mistrust, assassins strike down Eliton and Humadros and their staffs.

In the chaotic aftermath, Derec Avery - and Ariel Burgess - join forces, to penetrate an insidious conspiracy that sprawls across Earth, Spacer, and Settler worlds and threatens to bring them all to the brink of war.

Chimera

The Positronic Robot Stories: Isaac Asimov Robot Mysteries: Book 2

Mark W. Tiedemann

Coren Lanra is the head of security for DyNan Manual Industries. A former Special Service agent, he's never cared for bureaucracy, piracy, or deception. And he hates mysteries.

Lanra's troubles begin with the death of Nyom Looms, daughter of DyNan president Rega Looms, during an ill-fated mission to smuggle illegal immigrants from Earth to the colony Nova Levis - all were apparently murdered, but why?

The only clue might be contained within the positronic brain of a robot that had accompanied the victims, but it has been deactivated, and Lanra is denied access to its memories. With the help of roboticist Derec Avery and Auroran ambassador Ariel Burgess, Lanra searches for the identity of a killer, before more lives are lost.

Aurora

The Positronic Robot Stories: Isaac Asimov Robot Mysteries: Book 3

Mark W. Tiedemann

The Third Law of Robotics states that a robot must protect its own existence, as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws...

In Mirage and Chimera, Mark W. Tiedemann explored the fear and hatred toward robots - and their offworld owners - held by the people of Earth, and the animosity toward Terrans expressed by all Spacers. Now, all the plot threads of Tiedemann's epic story come together in this exciting conclusion to the Isaac Asimov's Robot Mysteries cycle.

After the diplomatic failures of the Spacer mission on Earth - which began with the assassinations of key diplomats and politicians, and culminated with the uncovering of a vast plot to create cyborgs from terminally-handicapped human infants - Ambassador Ariel Burgess and roboticist Derec Avery are recalled to their home planet, Aurora. Unfortunately, their situation only worsens when they arrive, as they become suspects in yet another murder - one that, based on the evidence, could only have been committed by a non-human.

On a world with a 20-to-1 robot-to-human population, is it possible a robot could have violated the Three Laws governing its behavior - and if so, why? Or is something far more sinister at work?

The Collapsium

The Queendom of Sol: Book 1

Wil McCarthy

No writer stretches the boundaries of science fiction like Wil McCarthy does. Now this acclaimed author has crafted his most wildly ambitious and stunningly original novel yet, an unforgettable tale set in a wondrous future in which the secrets of matter have been unlocked and death itself is but a memory. A future also imperiled by a bitter rivalry between two brilliant scientists: one perhaps the greatest genius in the history of humankind, the other, its greatest monster...

In the eighth decade of the glorious reign of Her Majesty Tamra Lutui, the Queendom of Sol enjoys a peace and prosperity even gods might envy. In fact, two awesome technologies have given human beings all the powers--and caprices--of the gods they once worshiped. The first is wellstone, a form of programmable matter capable of emulating almost any substance: natural, artificial, even hypothetical. The second is collapsium, a deadly crystal, composed of miniature black holes, that allows the virtually instantaneous transmission of information and matter--including humans--throughout the solar system.

Bruno de Towaji, royal consort and the inventor of collapsium, dreams of building the arc de fin, an almost mythical device capable of probing the farthest reaches of spacetime. Marlon Sykes, de Towaji's rival in both love and science, is meanwhile hard at work on a vast telecommunications project whose first step consists of constructing a ring of collapsium around the sun. But when a ruthless saboteur attacks the Ring Collapsiter and sends it falling toward the sun, the two scientists must put aside personal animosity and combine their prodigious intellects to prevent the destruction of the solar system... and every living thing within it.

In his most daring work yet, Wil McCarthy blasts us into a mythical realm--by turns hilarious, magnificent, and deeply moving--where two archmasters of physics compete for love and honor against a backdrop of stellar catastrophe. The Collapsium is a bold work of the imagination.

The Wellstone

The Queendom of Sol: Book 2

Wil McCarthy

For the children of immortal parents, growing up can be hard to do. A prince will forever be a prince--leaving no chance for Bascal Edward de Towaji Lutui to inherit his parents' throne. So what is an angry young blue blood to do? Punch a hole in the shadow he's been living in by rallying his equally disgruntled companions to make an improbable spaceship, busting out of the so-called summer camp in which their parents have stowed them and making a daring escape across the vastness of space. Ne'er-do-well Conrad Mursk is just along for the joyride--until he realizes this is no typical display of teenage angst. The children are rising up in an honest-to-gods revolution. And, boyo, things are going to get raw.

Twisted Metal

The Robot Wars: Book 1

Tony Ballantyne

On a world of intelligent robots who seem to have forgotten their own distant past, it is a time of war as the soldiers of Artemis City set out to conquer everything within range on the continent of Shull, killing or converting every robot they capture to their philosophy, while viewing their own wire-based minds as nothing but metal to be used or recycled for the cause.

Elsewhere, the more individualistic robots of Turing City believe they are something more than metal, but when the Artemisian robot Kavan sets out on a determined crusade to prove himself, even Turing City can’t stand against him. Increasingly tied up with Kavan’s destiny is Karel, a Turing robot with elements of Artemis’s philosophy already woven into his mind … as well as Karel’s wife Susan, and their recently created child..

Following the inevitable violence and destruction, Artemisian ambition focuses elsewhere and a journey begins towards the frozen kingdoms of the north … and towards the truth about the legendary ‘Book of Robots’, a text which may finally explain the real history of this strange world …

In a completely alien but brilliantly realized landscape, here is a powerful story of superb action, barbaric cruelty and intense emotional impact.

Blood and Iron

The Robot Wars: Book 2

Tony Ballantyne

Appointed Commander of the Emperor's Army of Sangrel, Wa-Ka-Mo-Do of Ko tries to establish relations between the existing robot population and the humans who have recently arrived on Yukawa. On the continent of Shull, Kavan forms the Uncertain Army and is marching to Artemis City. Upon discovery that the city's generals have made an alliance with the humans, he retreats to Stark where he plans the eventual overthrow of Artemis and the humans. Meanwhile, Karel is heading South, hoping to be reunited with Susan, his wife. As he walks, he hears more of the stories of the robots, and begins to understand something about his place on the world of Penrose. But with limited resources and tensions growing between robot and human it's only a matter of time before problems arise. And it's becoming more and more apparent that the humans are a lot more powerful than the robots first expected...

Sleeping Giants

The Themis Files: Book 1

Sylvain Neuvel

A girl named Rose is riding her new bike near her home in Deadwood, South Dakota, when she falls through the earth. She wakes up at the bottom of a square hole, its walls glowing with intricate carvings. But the firemen who come to save her peer down upon something even stranger: a little girl in the palm of a giant metal hand.

Seventeen years later, the mystery of the bizarre artifact remains unsolved--its origins, architects, and purpose unknown. Its carbon dating defies belief; military reports are redacted; theories are floated, then rejected.

But some can never stop searching for answers.

Rose Franklin is now a highly trained physicist leading a top secret team to crack the hand's code. And along with her colleagues, she is being interviewed by a nameless interrogator whose power and purview are as enigmatic as the provenance of the relic. What's clear is that Rose and her compatriots are on the edge of unraveling history's most perplexing discovery--and figuring out what it portends for humanity. But once the pieces of the puzzle are in place, will the result prove to be an instrument of lasting peace or a weapon of mass destruction?

Waking Gods

The Themis Files: Book 2

Sylvain Neuvel

As a child, Rose Franklin made an astonishing discovery: a giant metallic hand, buried deep within the earth. As an adult, she's dedicated her brilliant scientific career to solving the mystery that began that fateful day: Why was a titanic robot of unknown origin buried in pieces around the world? Years of investigation have produced intriguing answers -- and even more perplexing questions. But the truth is closer now than ever before when a second robot, more massive than the first, materializes and lashes out with deadly force.

Now humankind faces a nightmare invasion scenario made real, as more colossal machines touch down across the globe. But Rose and her team at the Earth Defense Corps refuse to surrender. They can turn the tide if they can unlock the last secrets of an advanced alien technology. The greatest weapon humanity wields is knowledge in a do-or-die battle to inherit the Earth... and maybe even the stars.

War Girls

War Girls: Book 1

Tochi Onyebuchi

The year is 2172. Climate change and nuclear disasters have rendered much of earth unlivable. Only the lucky ones have escaped to space colonies in the sky.

In a war-torn Nigeria, battles are fought using flying, deadly mechs and soldiers are outfitted with bionic limbs and artificial organs meant to protect them from the harsh, radiation-heavy climate. Across the nation, as the years-long civil war wages on, survival becomes the only way of life.

Two sisters, Onyii and Ify, dream of more. Their lives have been marked by violence and political unrest. Still, they dream of peace, of hope, of a future together.

And they're willing to fight an entire war to get there.

Wetware

Ware: Book 2

Rudy Rucker

In 2030, bopper robots in their lunar refuge have founds a way to infuse DNA wetware with their own software code. The result is a new lifeform: the "meatbop." Fair is fair, after all. Humans built the boppers, now bops are building humans... sort of. It's all part of an insidious plot that's about to ensnare Della Taze--who doesn't think she killed her lover while in drug-induced ecstasy... but isn't sure. And it's certainly catastrophic enough to call Cobb Anderson -- the pheezer who started it all -- out of cold-storage heaven.

The Buntline Special

Weird West Tales: Book 1

Mike Resnick

The year is 1881. The United States of America ends at the Mississippi River. Beyond lies the Indian nations, where the magic of powerful Medicine Men has halted the advance of the Americans east of the river.

An American government desperate to expand its territory sends Thomas Alva Edison out West to the town of Tombstone, Arizona, on a mission to discover a scientific means of counteracting magic. Hired to protect this great genius, Wyatt Earp and his brothers.

But there are plenty who would like to see the Earps and Edison dead. Riding to their aid are old friends Doc Holliday and Bat Masterson. Against them stand the Apache wizard Geronimo and the Clanton gang. Battle lines are drawn, and the Clanton gang, which has its own reasons for wanting Edison dead, sends for Johnny Ringo, the one man who might be Doc Holliday's equal in a gunfight. But what shows up instead is The Thing That Was Once Johnny Ringo, returned from the dead and come to Tombstone looking for a fight.

Welcome to a West like you've never seen before, where "Bat Masterson" hails from the ranks of the undead, where electric lights shine down on the streets of Tombstone, while horseless stagecoaches carry passengers to and fro, and where death is no obstacle to The Thing That Was Once Johnny Ringo. Think you know the story of the O.K. Corral? Think again, as five-time Hugo winner Mike Resnick takes on his first steampunk western tale, and the West will never be the same.

The Doctor and the Kid

Weird West Tales: Book 2

Mike Resnick

This is the rip-roaring steampunk sequel to popular "The Buntline Special", filled with adventure, excitement, and more than a little gun-slinging action!

The time is 1882. With the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral behind him, the consumptive Doc Holliday makes his way to Deadwood, Colorado, where he plans to spend the rest of his short life.

But one night he gets a little too drunk and loses everything at the gaming table. He realizes that he needs to replenish his bankroll, and quick, so that he can live out his days in comfort. He considers his options and hits upon the one most likely to produce income in a hurry: he'll use his shooting skills to turn bounty hunter.

The biggest reward is for the death of the young desperado known as Billy the Kid. It's clear from the odds the Kid has faced and beaten, that he is protected by some powerful magic. Doc enlists the aid of both magic (Geronimo) and science (Thomas Edison), and goes out after his quarry.

But as he soon finds out, nothing is as easy as it looks.

Your Forma, Vol. 1: Electronic Investigator Echika and Her Amicus Ex Machina

Your Forma: Book 1

Your Forma, Vol. 2: Electronic Investigator Echika and the Royal Triplets

In an alternate 2023, the Your Forma, a miraculous "smart thread" technology initially developed to treat a massive outbreak of viral encephalitis, has become an integral part of daily life. But these convenient devices come with an invasive drawback--they record every sight, sound, and even emotion their users experience.

For electronic investigator Echika Hieda, diving into peoples' memories via the Your Forma and hunting for evidence to solve the toughest crimes is all part of a day's work. The problem is, she's so good at what she does that her assistants literally fry their brains trying to keep up with her. After putting one too many aides in the hospital, the top brass finally furnish Echika with a partner on her level, a brilliant yet cheeky android named Harold Lucraft. Does this unlikely duo have what it takes to resolve their mutual suspicions and avert a deadly technological infection from sweeping across the globe before it's too late?

Your Forma: Book 2

Your Forma, Vol. 3: Electronic Investigator Echika and the Dream of the Crowd

Back on the beat as an Electronic Investigator, Echika finds herself up against a challenging new case: a string of assaults committed against people related to the RF Model Amicus. To make matters worse, victim testimonials suggest that the perpetrator is none other than Echika's aide, Harold. As the stakes grow higher and the pair continue their investigation despite the rift forming between them, the true distinction between humans and machines becomes all too apparent. When the shocking truth about Harold comes to light, Echika struggles to make an agonizing decision...

Your Forma: Book 3

Your Forma, Vol. 4: Electronic Investigator Echika and the Return of the Nightmare

Echika, burdened by her decision to hide the secret of Harold's Laws of Respect, experiences a rapid loss of Brain Dive functionality. With her prospects of being reinstated as a Diver looking grim, Echika is assigned to her next case as a normal police investigator, only to find Harold working the same inquiry with the help of a new "genius" assistant.

From there, the two former partners chase separate leads after a hacker known only as E, a self-styled mind reader who has been leaking classified Interpol information on a popular message board. But what is this mysterious figure really after, and why are they inciting their followers to violence?

Your Forma: Book 4