Starfish Peter Watts http://www.feedbooks.com/book/974 urn:isbn:0312868553 en 2000 Novels Science Fiction A huge international corporation has developed a facility along the Juan de Fuca Ridge at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean to exploit geothermal power. They send a bio-engineered crew--people who have been altered to withstand the pressure and breathe the seawater--down to live and work in this weird, fertile undersea darkness. Unfortunately the only people suitable for long-term employment in these experimental power stations are crazy, some of them in unpleasant ways. How many of them can survive, or will be allowed to survive, while worldwide disaster approaches from below? Please read the legal notice included in this e-book and/or check the copyright status in your country. http://www.feedbooks.com/book/974.png http://www.feedbooks.com/book/974.pdf http://www.feedbooks.com/book/974.epub http://www.feedbooks.com/book/974.mobi Blindsight Peter Watts http://www.feedbooks.com/book/976 urn:isbn:0765312182 en 2006 Novels Science Fiction Two months since sixty-five thousand alien objects clenched around the Earth like a luminous fist, screaming to the heavens as the atmosphere burned them to ash. Two months since that moment of brief, bright surveillance by agents unknown. Two months of silence, while a world holds 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 on an intelligence with motives unknown, maybe unknowable? Who do you send to meet the alien when the alien doesn't want to meet? 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, so compromised by grafts and splices he no longer feels his own flesh. You send a pacifist warrior in the faint hope she won't be needed, and the fainter one she'll do any good if she is. 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, a conduit through which the Dead Center might hope to understand the Bleeding Edge. You send them all to the edge of interstellar space, praying you can trust such freaks and retrofits with the fate of a world. You fear they may be more alien than the thing they've been sent to find. But you'd give anything for that to be true, if you only knew what was waiting for them... Please read the legal notice included in this e-book and/or check the copyright status in your country. http://www.feedbooks.com/book/976.png http://www.feedbooks.com/book/976.pdf http://www.feedbooks.com/book/976.epub http://www.feedbooks.com/book/976.mobi Postsingular Rudy Rucker http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1918 urn:isbn:0765317419 en 2007 Novels Science Fiction It all begins next year in California. A maladjusted computer industry billionaire and a somewhat crazy US President initiate a radical transformation of the world through sentient nanotechnology; sort of the equivalent of biological artificial intelligence. At first they succeed, but their plans are reversed by Chu, an autistic boy. The next time it isn't so easy to stop them. Most of the story takes place in a world after a heretofore unimaginable transformation, where all the things look the same but all the people are different (they're able to read each others' minds, for starters). Travel to and from other nearby worlds in the quantum universe is possible, so now our world is visited by giant humanoids from another quantum universe, and some of them mean to tidy up the mess we've made. Or maybe just run things. Please read the legal notice included in this e-book and/or check the copyright status in your country. http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1918.png http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1918.pdf http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1918.epub http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1918.mobi Maelstrom Peter Watts http://www.feedbooks.com/book/975 urn:isbn:0312878060 en 2001 Novels Science Fiction An enormous tidal wave on the west coast of North America has just killed thousands. Lenie Clarke, in a black wetsuit, walks out of the ocean onto a Pacific Northwest beach filled with the oppressed and drugged homeless of the Asian world who have gotten only this far in their attempt to reach America. Is she a monster, or a goddess? One thing is for sure: all hell is breaking loose. This dark, fast-paced, hard SF novel returns to the story begun in Starfish: all human life is threatened by a disease (actually a primeval form of life) from the distant prehuman past. It survived only in the deep ocean rift where Clarke and her companions were stationed before the corporation that employed them tried to sterilize the threat with a secret underwater nuclear strike. But Clarke was far enough away that she was able to survive and tough enough to walk home, 300 miles across the ocean floor. She arrives carrying with her the potential death of the human race, and possessed by a desire for revenge. Maelstrom is a terrifying explosion of cyberpunk noir by a writer whose narrative, says Robert Sheckley, "drives like a futuristic locomotive." Please read the legal notice included in this e-book and/or check the copyright status in your country. http://www.feedbooks.com/book/975.png http://www.feedbooks.com/book/975.pdf http://www.feedbooks.com/book/975.epub http://www.feedbooks.com/book/975.mobi Behemoth Peter Watts http://www.feedbooks.com/book/973 urn:isbn:0765307219 en 2007 Novels Science Fiction Lenie Clarke-rifter, avenger, amphibious deep-sea cyborg-has destroyed the world. Once exploited for her psychological addiction to dangerous environments, she emerged in the wake of a nuclear blast to serve up vendetta from the ocean floor. The horror she unleashed-an ancient, apocalyptic microbe called ßehemoth- has been free in the world for half a decade now, devouring the biosphere from the bottom up. North America lies in ruins beneath the thumb of an omnipotent psychopath. Digital monsters have taken Clarke's name, wreaking havoc throughout the decimated remnants of something that was once called Internet. Governments have fallen across the globe; warlords and suicide cults rise from the ashes, pledging fealty to the Meltdown Madonna. All because five years ago, Lenie Clarke had a score to settle. But she has learned something in the meantime: she destroyed the world for a fallacy. Now, cowering at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, rifters and the technoindustrial "corpses" who created them hide from a world in its death throes. But they cannot hide forever: something is tracking them, down amongst the lightless cliffs and trenches of the Midatlantic Ridge. The consequences of past acts reach inexorably towards the very bottom of the world, and Lenie Clarke must finally confront the mess she made. Redemption doesn't come easy with the blood of a world on your hands. But even after five years in purgatory, Lenie Clarke is still Lenie Clarke. There will be consequences for anyone who gets in her way-and worse ones, perhaps, if she succeeds. . . . Please read the legal notice included in this e-book and/or check the copyright status in your country. http://www.feedbooks.com/book/973.png http://www.feedbooks.com/book/973.pdf http://www.feedbooks.com/book/973.epub http://www.feedbooks.com/book/973.mobi Burn James Patrick Kelly http://www.feedbooks.com/book/651 urn:isbn:1892391279 en 2005 Novels Science Fiction Colonization is the theme of this exciting, complex page-turner that provides a provocative and entertaining look at Thoreau's classic eco-text Walden. Eccentric billionaire Jack Winter has bought the planet Beekman's Pea, renamed it Walden, and created a utopia in which members renounce the technologies of human civilization. Marginalized by these newcomers, the planet's original inhabitants are resisting the colony's dominance by setting fires to Walden's artificial ecology. A member of Walden, Prosper Gregory Leung is a veteran firefighter who believes in protecting Winter's utopian vision, but when he is wounded, he begins to learn of the terrible price that the people of Walden are paying for their paradise. Interwoven with themes of environmental responsibility, political struggle, and courage, this adventure novel nimbly combines political and social relevance with a flawless and gripping narrative from a veteran science fiction author. Please read the legal notice included in this e-book and/or check the copyright status in your country. http://www.feedbooks.com/book/651.png http://www.feedbooks.com/book/651.pdf http://www.feedbooks.com/book/651.epub http://www.feedbooks.com/book/651.mobi Snake Eyes Tom Maddox http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1995 en 1996 Short Fiction Science Fiction This story was originally published in Omni Magazine, April, 1986; and in Mirrorshades: The Cyberpunk Anthology,1986. Please read the legal notice included in this e-book and/or check the copyright status in your country. http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1995.png http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1995.pdf http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1995.epub http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1995.mobi Accelerando Charles Stross http://www.feedbooks.com/book/228 urn:isbn:0441014151 en 2005 Novels Science Fiction The book is a collection of nine short stories telling the tale of three generations of a highly dysfunctional family before, during, and after a technological singularity. It was originally written as a series of novelettes and novellas, all published in Asimov's Science Fiction magazine in the period 2001 to 2004. The first three stories follow the character of "venture altruist" Manfred Macx starting in the early 21st Century, the second three stories follow his daughter Amber, and the final three focus largely on her son Sirhan in the completely transformed world at the end of the century. According to Stross, the initial inspiration for the stories was his experience working as a programmer for a high-growth company during the dot-com boom of the 1990s. Please read the legal notice included in this e-book and/or check the copyright status in your country. http://www.feedbooks.com/book/228.png http://www.feedbooks.com/book/228.pdf http://www.feedbooks.com/book/228.epub http://www.feedbooks.com/book/228.mobi Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town Cory Doctorow http://www.feedbooks.com/book/260 urn:isbn:0765312808 en 2005 Novels Science Fiction Alan is a middle-aged entrepeneur in contemporary Toronto, who has devoted himself to fixing up a house in a bohemian neighborhood. This naturally brings him in contact with the house full of students and layabouts next door, including a young woman who, in a moment of stress, reveals to him that she has wings--wings, moreover, which grow back after each attempt to cut them off. Alan understands. He himself has a secret or two. His father is a mountain; his mother is a washing machine; and among his brothers are a set of Russian nesting dolls. Now two of the three nesting dolls, Edward and Frederick, are on his doorstep--well on their way to starvation, because their innermost member, George, has vanished. It appears that yet another brother, Davey, who Alan and his other siblings killed years ago, may have returned...bent on revenge. Under such circumstances it seems only reasonable for Alan to involve himself with a visionary scheme to blanket Toronto with free wireless Internet connectivity, a conspiracy spearheaded by a brilliant technopunk who builds miracles of hardware from parts scavenged from the city’s dumpsters. But Alan’s past won’t leave him alone--and Davey is only one of the powers gunning for him and all his friends. Please read the legal notice included in this e-book and/or check the copyright status in your country. http://www.feedbooks.com/book/260.png http://www.feedbooks.com/book/260.pdf http://www.feedbooks.com/book/260.epub http://www.feedbooks.com/book/260.mobi Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom Cory Doctorow http://www.feedbooks.com/book/194 urn:isbn:076530953X en 2003 Novels Science Fiction Jules is a young man barely a century old. He's lived long enough to see the cure for death and the end of scarcity, to learn ten languages and compose three symphonies...and to realize his boyhood dream of taking up residence in Disney World.Disney World! The greatest artistic achievement of the long-ago twentieth century. Now in the keeping of a network of "ad-hocs" who keep the classic attractions running as they always have, enhanced with only the smallest high-tech touches.Now, though, the "ad hocs" are under attack. A new group has taken over the Hall of the Presidents, and is replacing its venerable audioanimatronics with new, immersive direct-to-brain interfaces that give guests the illusion of being Washington, Lincoln, and all the others. For Jules, this is an attack on the artistic purity of Disney World itself. Worse: it appears this new group has had Jules killed. This upsets him. (It's only his fourth death and revival, after all.) Now it's war.... Please read the legal notice included in this e-book and/or check the copyright status in your country. http://www.feedbooks.com/book/194.png http://www.feedbooks.com/book/194.pdf http://www.feedbooks.com/book/194.epub http://www.feedbooks.com/book/194.mobi Metropolis Thea von Harbou http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1123 urn:isbn:1592249787 en 1927 Novels Science Fiction This is Metropolis, the novel that the film's screenwriter -- Thea von Harbou, who was director Fritz Lang's wife, and a collaborator in the creation of the film -- this is the novel that Harbou wrote from her own notes. It contains bits of the story that got lost on the cutting-room floor; in a very real way it is the only way to understand the film. This work is available for countries where copyright is Life+50. http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1123.png http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1123.pdf http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1123.epub http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1123.mobi I, Robot Cory Doctorow http://www.feedbooks.com/book/337 urn:isbn:1560259817 en 2005 Short Fiction Science Fiction "I, Robot" is a science-fiction short story by Cory Doctorow published in 2005. The story is set in the type of police state needed to ensure that only one company is allowed to make robots, and only one type of robot is allowed. The story follows single Father detective Arturo Icaza de Arana-Goldberg while he tries to track down his missing teenage daughter. The detective is a bit of an outcast because his wife defected to Eurasia, a rival Superpower. Please read the legal notice included in this e-book and/or check the copyright status in your country. http://www.feedbooks.com/book/337.png http://www.feedbooks.com/book/337.pdf http://www.feedbooks.com/book/337.epub http://www.feedbooks.com/book/337.mobi Metrophage Richard Kadrey http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1810 urn:isbn:0441528139 en 1988 Novels Science Fiction Welcome to Los Angeles... where anger, hunger, and disease run rampant, and life and hope are strictly rationed. This is Jonny's world. He's a street-wise hustler, a black-market dealer in drugs that heal the body and cool the mind. All he cares about is his own survival, until a strange new plague turns L.A. into a city of death--and Jonny is forced to put everything on the line to find the cure. Please read the legal notice included in this e-book and/or check the copyright status in your country. http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1810.png http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1810.pdf http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1810.epub http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1810.mobi Little Brother Cory Doctorow http://www.feedbooks.com/book/2466 urn:isbn:0765319853 en 2008 Novels Young Readers Science Fiction Marcus, a.k.a “w1n5t0n,” is only seventeen years old, but he figures he already knows how the system works–and how to work the system. Smart, fast, and wise to the ways of the networked world, he has no trouble outwitting his high school’s intrusive but clumsy surveillance systems. But his whole world changes when he and his friends find themselves caught in the aftermath of a major terrorist attack on San Francisco. In the wrong place at the wrong time, Marcus and his crew are apprehended by the Department of Homeland Security and whisked away to a secret prison where they’re mercilessly interrogated for days. When the DHS finally releases them, Marcus discovers that his city has become a police state where every citizen is treated like a potential terrorist. He knows that no one will believe his story, which leaves him only one option: to take down the DHS himself. Please read the legal notice included in this e-book and/or check the copyright status in your country. http://www.feedbooks.com/book/2466.png http://www.feedbooks.com/book/2466.pdf http://www.feedbooks.com/book/2466.epub http://www.feedbooks.com/book/2466.mobi Scratch Monkey Charles Stross http://www.feedbooks.com/book/229 en 1993 Novels Science Fiction There are standard methods for lifting material out of brains. Everyone, everywhere in human space, is riddled with nanotech Dreamtime encoders. They're in the air, in the soil, in their cells and reproducing like bacteria. They constantly monitor cerebral activity, transmitting updates of their host personality to the encoders, that upload minds into the Dreamtime when their bodies cease to support them. It even makes a neat debriefing tool, if you have the equipment to interrogate the brain encoders directly. (Only Distant Intervention, that I know of, is allowed to play with this kind of kit.) Please read the legal notice included in this e-book and/or check the copyright status in your country. http://www.feedbooks.com/book/229.png http://www.feedbooks.com/book/229.pdf http://www.feedbooks.com/book/229.epub http://www.feedbooks.com/book/229.mobi Planet of the Damned Harry Harrison http://www.feedbooks.com/book/2395 urn:isbn:0812535073 en 1962 Novels Science Fiction Hugo nominated in 1962, originally published in Analog Science Fact-Science Fiction as "Sense of Obligation." Brion has just won the Twenties, a global competition to test achievements in 20 categories of human activities -- but before he can enjoy his victory he's forced to leave his homeworld to help salvage Dis, the most hellish planet in the galaxy. Please read the legal notice included in this e-book and/or check the copyright status in your country. http://www.feedbooks.com/book/2395.png http://www.feedbooks.com/book/2395.pdf http://www.feedbooks.com/book/2395.epub http://www.feedbooks.com/book/2395.mobi Anthem Ayn Rand http://www.feedbooks.com/book/2837 urn:isbn:0452281253 en 1938 Novels Science Fiction Psychology Anthem is a dystopian fiction novella by Ayn Rand, first published in 1938. It takes place at some unspecified future date when mankind has entered another dark age as a result of the evils of irrationality and collectivism and the weaknesses of socialistic thinking and economics. Technological advancement is now carefully planned (when it is allowed to occur at all) and the concept of individuality has been eliminated (for example, the word "I" has disappeared from the language). As is common in her work, Rand draws a clear distinction between the "socialist/communal" values of equality and brotherhood and the "productive/capitalist" values of achievement and individuality. Many of the novella's core themes, such as the struggle between individualism and collectivism, are echoed in Rand's later books, such as The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. However, the style of "Anthem" is unique among Rand's work, more narrative-centered and economical, lacking the intense didactic expressions of philosophical abstraction that occur in later works. It is probably her most accessible work. Please read the legal notice included in this e-book and/or check the copyright status in your country. http://www.feedbooks.com/book/2837.png http://www.feedbooks.com/book/2837.pdf http://www.feedbooks.com/book/2837.epub http://www.feedbooks.com/book/2837.mobi Gravity's Angel Tom Maddox http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1999 en 1992 Short Fiction Science Fiction A story published in OMNI concerning the Superconducting Supercollider that might have been. Please read the legal notice included in this e-book and/or check the copyright status in your country. http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1999.png http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1999.pdf http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1999.epub http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1999.mobi Eastern Standard Tribe Cory Doctorow http://www.feedbooks.com/book/217 urn:isbn:0765310457 en 2004 Novels Science Fiction A comedy of loyalty, betrayal, sex, madness, and music-swapping Art is an up-and-coming interface designer, working on the management of data flow along the Massachusetts Turnpike. He's doing the best work of his career and can guarantee that the system will be, without a question, the most counterintuitive, user-hostile piece of software ever pushed forth onto the world. Why? Because Art is an industrial saboteur. He may live in London and work for an EU telecommunications megacorp, but Art's real home is the Eastern Standard Tribe. Instant wireless communication puts everyone in touch with everyone else, twenty-four hours a day. But one thing hasn't changed: the need for sleep. The world is slowly splintering into Tribes held together by a common time zone, less than family and more than nations. Art is working to humiliate the Greenwich Mean Tribe to the benefit of his own people. But in a world without boundaries, nothing can be taken for granted-not happiness, not money, and most certainly not love. Which might explain why Art finds himself stranded on the roof of an insane asylum outside Boston, debating whether to push a pencil into his brain.... Please read the legal notice included in this e-book and/or check the copyright status in your country. http://www.feedbooks.com/book/217.png http://www.feedbooks.com/book/217.pdf http://www.feedbooks.com/book/217.epub http://www.feedbooks.com/book/217.mobi The Robot and the One You Love Tom Maddox http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1998 en 1988 Short Fiction Science Fiction A story published in OMNI, concerning love, industrial espionage, and robots. Or something like that. Please read the legal notice included in this e-book and/or check the copyright status in your country. http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1998.png http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1998.pdf http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1998.epub http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1998.mobi