When remote-controlled aircraft begin behaving erratically, even crashing, there is only one logical explanation ? well, there are only two: aliens or your own government.ÿThe real shock is finding the signals are coming from people who've eaten at fast food restaurants. Of course, we've known all along the stuff in unhealthy. But this? ÿ ~~~~~ Excerpt ~~~~~ ÿ The aliens started small, buying up a few eateries in malls and some coffee shops. And then they expanded, just as the Asians had before them?but neither education nor commerce was the goal this time. They wanted knowledge, but not the kind that came from schools. ?We knew your history, but didn?t know shit about what makes you humans tick,? was what Bernie said. It didn't take long for them to recognize that we had no idea what made us tick either, so they set out to blaze new trails in understanding peoplekind. Fast food places provided them with two significant tools for this task: First, humans went there in droves. "You can't beat them away with a stick," was how Bernie put it. Once they were there, they could be observed in their natural habitat, as it were. This nicely brought the subjects needed for the aliens? field studies right to them. Secondly, we ingested, rather indiscriminately a variety of substances passing for food. The aliens developed their protein-based nanosensors and fed them to us. Who knew? The damn things moved into our bloodstreams, analyzing as they went. ?We wanted to get to the heart of the matter,? was the way Doreen put it; I think she was unaware of the implied pun, so we forgave her. Hungry for data, they continued buying up fast food places, served nanosensors and observed us. We ate the food and the sensors, which transmitted back to data collectors that did some elementary preprocessing and relayed compressed data to, as I?ve said, Omaha. Now I doubt anyone would have objected to this somewhat symbiotic turn of events. After all, the aliens had a vested interest in keeping the prices of their burgers and fries reasonable, because that kept our patronage up. Maybe once they had collected enough data they might have turned their attention to maximizing profits, but for the time being it worked for everyone. I suppose, if they'd known, the government would have a different view. In fact, after it was all over, Homeland Security was rather pissed. They were pissed at us because we hadn?t reported our conversations with the ?Alien Invaders? to the responsible authorities, whatever that term might mean. I asked who I should've reported to but didn't get a straight answer. I admit that this probably did constitute an invasion of some sort, or a precursor to one. But, as I told the stony-faced Homeland Security lady, I was hired as a consultant; my clients wanted me to help deal with whoever was causing their problem. The fact that they turned out to be aliens was just not relevant in any meaningful way. Not to me, anyway. I had neglected to insert a clause that would pay a bonus for dealing with aliens in my contract. One thing I learned in working for the model airplane folks is that messing with the geeks is folly. If you doubt me, the way the war unfolded provides a textbook case, if one is needed. Think about it. Suppose you are a person who spends some monstrous amount of time and money building a model plane that looks, say, exactly like a Sopwith Camel. You fly it for a few minutes and it is brilliant. Suddenly it turns upside down, which looks rather cool if you planned that to happen and rather spooky if you didn?t, and then it drops like a stone. Well, like a stone with wings, I suppose.

When Matt Raimey had his accident, he thought his life was over. He never dreamed, in his wildest fantasies, that he'd end up in a spot like this. In the toxic atmosphere of Jupiter, born into the body of an enormous creature that looked like a cross between a manta ray and a dolphin, he is living a new life, unlike any humankind had previously experienced. An unbelievable turn of events, it gave him a reason to live, to survive, no matter what happened . . . but every second chance comes with conditions and responsibilities. And as those who brought him to this strange destiny have their authority stripped from them and he discovers the truth that only he can know about the giant alien creatures he now calls family, this man reborn as the one they now call Manta suddenly isn't sure he wasn't better off before. . . .

The Lunar Observatory on Earth is picking up a very strange and unidentifiable signal from the direction of Cygnus. When the meaning of this signal is finally understood, it clearly spells disaster for Earth. An immense object is rushing toward the Solar System, traveling nearly at the speed of light, its intense nuclear radiation sure to kill all life on Earth within months. As it moves closer the humans can discern that it is an enormous convoy of some sort, nearly as large as a planet. And there is nothing anyone can do to divert such an enormous alien object. Then, unexpectedly, the object changes course and heads toward the dead planet of Jupiter...but what could an enormous alien convoy want with such a useless planet?

In this third volume of the trilogy, The Darkside Corps battle the Conglomeration at Jupiter against all odds as humanity takes the war on its back. Nebula and World Fantasy Award–nominated author Zachary Brown created what Locus magazine raves as “good old fashioned military science fiction” in the Icarus Corps trilogy. The always outgunned and under-equipped human soldiers known as the Colonial Protection Forces battle across the moon and the alien desert landscapes of Titan all to make one desperate attack at Jupiter to hold the invading Conglomeration forces at bay, only to have a greater threat revealed as we find out why the Conglomeration—Accordance War has been raging across the galaxy.

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY PUBLISHERS WEEKLY New York Times bestselling author Peter F. Hamilton’s riveting new thriller combines the nail-biting suspense of a serial-killer investigation with clear-eyed scientific and social extrapolation to create a future that seems not merely plausible but inevitable. A century from now, thanks to a technology allowing instantaneous travel across light-years, humanity has solved its energy shortages, cleaned up the environment, and created far-flung colony worlds. The keys to this empire belong to the powerful North family—composed of successive generations of clones. Yet these clones are not identical. For one thing, genetic errors have crept in with each generation. For another, the original three clone “brothers” have gone their separate ways, and the branches of the family are now friendly rivals more than allies. Or maybe not so friendly. At least that’s what the murder of a North clone in the English city of Newcastle suggests to Detective Sidney Hurst. Sid is a solid investigator who’d like nothing better than to hand off this hot potato of a case. The way he figures it, whether he solves the crime or not, he’ll make enough enemies to ruin his career. Yet Sid’s case is about to take an unexpected turn: because the circumstances of the murder bear an uncanny resemblance to a killing that took place years ago on the planet St. Libra, where a North clone and his entire household were slaughtered in cold blood. The convicted slayer, Angela Tramelo, has always claimed her innocence. And now it seems she may have been right. Because only the St. Libra killer could have committed the Newcastle crime. Problem is, Angela also claims that the murderer was an alien monster. Now Sid must navigate through a Byzantine minefield of competing interests within the police department and the world’s political and economic elite . . . all the while hunting down a brutal killer poised to strike again. And on St. Libra, Angela, newly released from prison, joins a mission to hunt down the elusive alien, only to learn that the line between hunter and hunted is a thin one. BONUS: This edition includes an excerpt from Peter F. Hamilton’s The Abyss Beyond Dreams. Praise for Great North Road “A mesmerizing page-turner.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review) “A gripping saga that blends wilderness survival, police procedural, political and social intrigue, and dynastic sf into a mammoth tale featuring believable characters and exceptionally skilled storytelling.”—Library Journal (starred review) “A perfect introduction to [Hamilton’s] gifts for character design, dialogue, and sheer, big-idea-driven storytelling.”—Booklist (starred review) “Compelling and original . . . an awesome novel [with] plenty of action.”—SFRevu “One very compelling and entertaining science fiction novel.”—SF Site “Simply brilliant . . . an astonishing achievement.”—Tor.com

A page-turning novel that is also an exploration of the great philosophical concepts of Western thought, Jostein Gaarder's Sophie's World has fired the imagination of readers all over the world, with more than twenty million copies in print. One day fourteen-year-old Sophie Amundsen comes home from school to find in her mailbox two notes, with one question on each: "Who are you?" and "Where does the world come from?" From that irresistible beginning, Sophie becomes obsessed with questions that take her far beyond what she knows of her Norwegian village. Through those letters, she enrolls in a kind of correspondence course, covering Socrates to Sartre, with a mysterious philosopher, while receiving letters addressed to another girl. Who is Hilde? And why does her mail keep turning up? To unravel this riddle, Sophie must use the philosophy she is learning—but the truth turns out to be far more complicated than she could have imagined.

The clock is relentlessly ticking! Our world teeters on a knife-edge between a peaceful and prosperous future for all, and a dark winter of death and destruction that threatens to smother the light of civilization. Within 30 years, in the 2030 decade, six powerful 'drivers' will converge with unprecedented force in a statistical spike that could tear humanity apart and plunge the world into a new Dark Age. Depleted fuel supplies, massive population growth, poverty, global climate change, famine, growing water shortages and international lawlessness are on a crash course with potentially catastrophic consequences. In the face of both doomsaying and denial over the state of our world, Colin Mason cuts through the rhetoric and reams of conflicting data to muster the evidence to illustrate a broad picture of the world as it is, and our possible futures. Ultimately his message is clear; we must act decisively, collectively and immediately to alter the trajectory of humanity away from catastrophe. Offering over 100 priorities for immediate action, The 2030 Spike serves as a guidebook for humanity through the treacherous minefields and wastelands ahead to a bright, peaceful and prosperous future in which all humans have the opportunity to thrive and build a better civilization. This book is powerful and essential reading for all people concerned with the future of humanity and planet earth.

Hugo and Shirley Jackson award-winning Peter Watts stands on the cutting edge of hard SF with his acclaimed novel, Blindsight Two months since the stars fell... Two months of silence, while a world held its breath. Now some half-derelict space probe, sparking fitfully past Neptune's orbit, hears a whisper from the edge of the solar system: a faint signal sweeping the cosmos like a lighthouse beam. Whatever's out there isn't talking to us. It's talking to some distant star, perhaps. Or perhaps to something closer, something en route. So who do you send to force introductions with unknown and unknowable alien intellect that doesn't wish to be met? You send a linguist with multiple personalities, her brain surgically partitioned into separate, sentient processing cores. You send a biologist so radically interfaced with machinery that he sees x-rays and tastes ultrasound. You send a pacifist warrior in the faint hope she won't be needed. You send a monster to command them all, an extinct hominid predator once called vampire, recalled from the grave with the voodoo of recombinant genetics and the blood of sociopaths. And you send a synthesist—an informational topologist with half his mind gone—as an interface between here and there. Pray they can be trusted with the fate of a world. They may be more alien than the thing they've been sent to find. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

From a New York Times bestselling and Hugo award-winning author comes a modern masterwork of science fiction, introducing a captain, his crew, and a detective as they unravel a horrifying solar system wide conspiracy that begins with a single missing girl. Now a Prime Original series. Humanity has colonized the solar system—Mars, the Moon, the Asteroid Belt and beyond—but the stars are still out of our reach. Jim Holden is XO of an ice miner making runs from the rings of Saturn to the mining stations of the Belt. When he and his crew stumble upon a derelict ship, the Scopuli, they find themselves in possession of a secret they never wanted. A secret that someone is willing to kill for—and kill on a scale unfathomable to Jim and his crew. War is brewing in the system unless he can find out who left the ship and why. Detective Miller is looking for a girl. One girl in a system of billions, but her parents have money and money talks. When the trail leads him to the Scopuli and rebel sympathizer Holden, he realizes that this girl may be the key to everything. Holden and Miller must thread the needle between the Earth government, the Outer Planet revolutionaries, and secretive corporations—and the odds are against them. But out in the Belt, the rules are different, and one small ship can change the fate of the universe. "Interplanetary adventure the way it ought to be written." —George R. R. Martin The Expanse Leviathan Wakes Caliban's War Abaddon's Gate Cibola Burn Nemesis Games Babylon's Ashes Persepolis Rising Tiamat's Wrath ​Leviathan Falls Memory's Legion The Expanse Short Fiction Drive The Butcher of Anderson Station Gods of Risk The Churn The Vital Abyss Strange Dogs Auberon The Sins of Our Fathers

Addressing a field that has been dominated by astronomers, physicists, engineers, and computer scientists, the contributors to this collection raise questions that may have been overlooked by physical scientists about the ease of establishing meaningful communication with an extraterrestrial intelligence. These scholars are grappling with some of the enormous challenges that will face humanity if an information-rich signal emanating from another world is detected. By drawing on issues at the core of contemporary archaeology and anthropology, we can be much better prepared for contact with an extraterrestrial civilization, should that day ever come.