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Librarian's Note: Alternate cover for this ISBN can be found hereHere, from a grand master of science fiction, is the long awaited final novel of the greatest series ever told. Completed just before his death, Forward The Foundation is the crowning achievement of a great writer's life, a stirring testament to the creative genius of Isaac Asimov. As Hari Seldon struggles to perfect his revolutionary theory of psychohistory and ensure a place for humanity among the stars, the great Galactic Empire totters on the brink of apocalyptic collapse. Caught in the maelstrom are Seldon and all he holds dear, pawns in the struggle for dominance. Whoever can control Seldon will control psychohistory—and with it the future of the Galaxy. Among those seeking to turn psychohistory into the greatest weapon known to man are a populist political demagogue, the weak-willed Emperor Cleon I, and a ruthless militaristic general. In his last act of service to humankind, Hari Seldon must somehow save his life's work from their grasp as he searches for is true heirs—a search the begins with his own granddaughter and the dream of a new Foundation.

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 known forever after as the Foundation.

At last, the costly and bitter war between the two Foundations had come to an end. The scientists of the First Foundation had proved victorious; and now they return to Hari Seldon's long-established plan to build a new Empire on the ruins of the old. But rumors persist that the Second Foundation is not destroyed after all—and that its still-defiant survivors are preparing their revenge. Now two exiled citizens of the Foundation—a renegade Councilman and a doddering historian—set out in search of the mythical planet Earth. . .and proof that the Second Foundation still exists.Meanwhile someone—or something—outside of both Foundations seems to be orchestrating events to suit its own ominous purpose. Soon representatives of both the First and Second Foundations will find themselves racing toward a mysterious world called Gaia and a final shocking destiny at the very end of the universe!

The Earth's leaders have drawn a line in the interstellar sand—despite the fact that the fierce alien enemy that they would oppose is inscrutable, unconquerable, and very far away. A reluctant conscript drafted into an elite Military unit, Private William Mandella has been propelled through space and time to fight in the distant thousand-year conflict; to perform his duties without rancor and even rise up through military ranks. Pvt. Mandella is willing to do whatever it takes to survive the ordeal and return home. But "home" may be even more terrifying than battle, because, thanks to the time dilation caused by space travel, Mandella is aging months while the Earth he left behind is aging centuries.

On the world called Hyperion, beyond the law of the Hegemony of Man, there waits the creature called the Shrike. There are those who worship it. There are those who fear it. And there are those who have vowed to destroy it. In the Valley of the Time Tombs, where huge, brooding structures move backward through time, the Shrike waits for them all. On the eve of Armageddon, with the entire galaxy at war, seven pilgrims set forth on a final voyage to Hyperion seeking the answers to the unsolved riddles of their lives. Each carries a desperate hope—and a terrible secret. And one may hold the fate of humanity in his hands. A stunning tour de force filled with transcendent awe and wonder, Hyperion is a masterwork of science fiction that resonates with excitement and invention, the first volume in a remarkable new science fiction epic by the multiple-award-winning author of The Hollow Man.

At first, only a few things are known about the celestial object that astronomers dub Rama. It is huge, weighing more than ten trillion tons. And it is hurtling through the solar system at an inconceivable speed. Then a space probe confirms the unthinkable: Rama is no natural object. It is, incredibly, an interstellar spacecraft. Space explorers and planet-bound scientists alike prepare for mankind's first encounter with alien intelligence. It will kindle their wildest dreams... and fan their darkest fears. For no one knows who the Ramans are or why they have come. And now the moment of rendezvous awaits — just behind a Raman airlock door.

"Nurse, this patient’s chart is very confusing.”“Which patient, Doctor?”“Uh..Mr. Kemper. He’s the one in the vegetative state.”“Oh, that’s a very sad and odd case.”“According to the patient history, he was admitted a few weeks ago with cerebrospinal fluid leaking from his nose and ears, but it seemed like he should recover. But yesterday he was brought in again, barely conscious and then he lapsed into a coma. The really odd thing is that I see no signs of injury or disease.”“That’s right, Doctor. It was a book that did this to Mr. Kemper.”“A book? How is that possible?”“From what we can figure out, the first incident occured after he read Hyperion by a writer named Dan Simmons. I guess it’s one of those sci-fi books and apparently the story is quite elaborate. Anyhow, Mr. Kemper had read Simmons before and knew he likes to put a lot of big ideas in his books. But this time, apparently Simmons broke into his house and managed to directly implant much of the book directly into Mr. Kemper’s brain via some kind of crude funnel device.”“I find that highly unlikely, Nurse.”“Most of us did, Doctor. But Mr. Kemper kept insisting that Simmons had some kind of grudge against him. He even had a note he said Simmons had left that said something like ‘Don’t you ever learn? If you keep reading my books, I’ll end you someday.’”“Assuming that I believed this story, I guess that Kemper’s current state tells us that he didn’t heed the warning?”“Apparently not, Doctor. His wife said she found him having convulsions and leaking brain matter out his nose and ears again. A copy of the sequel, The Fall of Hyperion was on the floor nearby.”“I can’t believe that reading a silly sci-fi book could turn an healthy man into a turnip, Nurse.”“Well, when they brought Kemper in, he was semiconscious and muttering. Someone wrote it down. Let see, he kept repeating words and phrases like: Shrike, Time Tombs, the Core, God, uh…no, two gods actually, farcasters, Ousters, religion, pope, death wand, space battles, interplanetary trees, old Earth, AI, mega sphere, data sphere, The Canterbury Tales, poetry, John Keats, Tree of Thorns, and Lord of Pain.”“Jesus! What does all that mean?”“Someone looked it up on the web and all of that is actually in the book.”“That poor bastard. No wonder his gray matter is fried. No one could absorb all that without permanent damage.”“Yes, I’d think that book should have some kind of warning sticker or something on it.”“One thing I still don’t understand, Nurse. If Kemper knew that this book would probably do this to him, why did he still read it?”“I guess he had told several people that Hyperion was just so good that he had to know how it ended, even if it killed him.”***************************************I think the word ‘epic’ was invented to describe this book.What Simmons began in Hyperion finishes here with a story so sprawling and massive that it defies description. In the far future, humanity has spread to the stars, and maintains a web of worlds via ‘farcasters’. (Think Stargates.) On the planet Hyperion, mysterious tombs have been moving backwards in time and are guarded by the deadly Shrike.Seven people were sent to Hyperion on a ‘pilgrimage’ that was almost certainly a suicide mission, but the Ousters, a segment of humanity evolving differently after centuries spent in deep space, are about to invade. The artificial intelligences of the Core that humanity depends on for predictions of future events and management of the farcaster system can’t tell what’s coming with an unknown like the Shrike and Hyperion in play.Battles rage across space and time and the virtual reality of the data sphere as varying interests with competing agendas maneuver and betray each other as the pilgrims on Hyperion struggle to survive and finally uncover the secrets of the Shrike. But the real reasons behind the war and it’s ultimate goal are bigger and more sinister than anyone involved can imagine.I can’t say enough good things about the story told in these first two Hyperion books. This is sci-fi at it’s best with a massive story crammed with big unique ideas and believable characters you care about. Any one of the pieces could have made a helluva book, but it takes a talent like Simmons to pull all of it together into one coherent story.

The artefact is a circular ribbon of matter six hundred million miles long and ninety million miles in radius. Pierson's puppeteers, the aliens who discovered it, are understandably wary of encountering the builders of such an immense structure and have assembled a team of two humans, a mad puppeteer and a kzin, a huge cat-like alien, to explore it. But a crash landing on the vast edifice forces the crew on a desperate and dangerous trek across the Ringworld.

John Perry did two things on his 75th birthday. First he visited his wife's grave. Then he joined the army.The good news is that humanity finally made it into interstellar space. The bad news is that planets fit to live on are scarce-- and alien races willing to fight us for them are common. So: we fight. To defend Earth, and to stake our own claim to planetary real estate. Far from Earth, the war has been going on for decades: brutal, bloody, unyielding.Earth itself is a backwater. The bulk of humanity's resources are in the hands of the Colonial Defense Force. Everybody knows that when you reach retirement age, you can join the CDF. They don't want young people; they want people who carry the knowledge and skills of decades of living. You'll be taken off Earth and never allowed to return. You'll serve two years at the front. And if you survive, you'll be given a generous homestead stake of your own, on one of our hard-won colony planets.John Perry is taking that deal. He has only the vaguest idea what to expect. Because the actual fight, light-years from home, is far, far harder than he can imagine--and what he will become is far stranger.

Abaddon's Gate is the third book in the New York Times bestselling Expanse series. For generations, the solar system - Mars, the Moon, the Asteroid Belt - was humanity's great frontier. Until now. The alien artefact working through its program under the clouds of Venus has emerged to build a massive structure outside the orbit of Uranus: a gate that leads into a starless dark.Jim Holden and the crew of the Rocinante are part of a vast flotilla of scientific and military ships going out to examine the artefact. But behind the scenes, a complex plot is unfolding, with the destruction of Holden at its core. As the emissaries of the human race try to find whether the gate is an opportunity or a threat, the greatest danger is the one they brought with them.

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.

Technology controls almost everything in our modern-day world, from remote entry on our cars to access to our homes, from the flight controls of our airplanes to the movements of the entire world economy. Thousands of autonomous computer programs, or daemons, make our networked world possible, running constantly in the background of our lives, trafficking e-mail, transferring money, and monitoring power grids. For the most part, daemons are benign, but the same can't always be said for the people who design them. Matthew Sobol was a legendary computer game designer—the architect behind half-a-dozen popular online games. His premature death depressed both gamers and his company's stock price. But Sobol's fans aren't the only ones to note his passing. When his obituary is posted online, a previously dormant daemon activates, initiating a chain of events intended to unravel the fabric of our hyper-efficient, interconnected world. With Sobol's secrets buried along with him, and as new layers of his daemon are unleashed at every turn, it's up to an unlikely alliance to decipher his intricate plans and wrest the world from the grasp of a nameless, faceless enemy—or learn to live in a society in which we are no longer in control. . . . Computer technology expert Daniel Suarez blends haunting high-tech realism with gripping suspense in an authentic, complex thriller in the tradition of Michael Crichton, Neal Stephenson, and William Gibson.

In the faraway year of 3126, the 32nd century , things have regressed, in a remote corner of the Milky Way Galaxy, some two -hundred -seventy -four , after the fall of the Hegemony Empire, a young man is sentenced to death, on the once prosperous planet Hyperion, were he was born, for a crime , that was in actuality, self-defense. Raul Endymion, a hunting guide, was very angry, understandably, at a rich, spoiled jerk , he and his friends disobeyed safety rules, endangering him and others, firing wildly, missing the flying ducks, but killing his best friend , a four legged animal, his beloved dog. Throwing the idiot out of his boat and into the filthy swamp, later Raul barely escaping with his own life, the gunman was seeking revenge, shooting at him, instead , the would- be assassin is killed . After a hasty kangaroo trial conviction, authorities here, need the financial benefits hunters bring, from the off worlds, and the former shepherd in childhood, awakes ... the day after his execution...it had been faked , bribes paid and the confused Raul Endymion is taken to the deserted city of Endymion ( his family took that name for themselves). The famous poet who wrote Cantos, Martin Silenus, now forbidden to be read, ( lives on an abandoned university campus) by the new rulers, the Pax, ( greatly influenced by a new Christian Church ) is still alive, modern medicine has preserved the 1,000 -year -old , he looks awful, though, wrinkles over his whole body, faint, weak voice, the carcass, cannot walk, a living fossil, from the distant past, of old, long gone Earth. Martin has an impossible mission, save his "niece" Aenea ( a late friend's daughter) from being eliminated by the Pax, and the Church, the 12 -year -old, will be a threat to them in the future, she is some kind of enigmatic messiah, arriving soon, in the Time Tombs, where the killing machine, the unstoppable, The Shrike's home, is located, but has not been seen for centuries...A flying carpet, right out of an Arabian Nights fantasy will greatly help Raul, and his new companion, Silenus's former servant, the blue man, A. Bettik, well partly human , but more human than many humanoids. A large, lethal Pax Army awaits the duo, but so does The Shrike, unbelievable carnage springs out of the Valley of Death, thousands perish, a miracle occurs and the three now, (Aenea joins the party) flee in the vast confusion, and through a "Farcaster ", (an instant transportation apparatus) then ride a small raft they built, from planet to planet , ice , desert, jungle, and even water worlds, always searching for the next farcaster to find. And the relentlessly pursuing Father Captain, Frederico de Soya, of the Pax, never gives up in hunting them down, where they go, he will follow... on the immense, endless treacherous River Tethys, in a long, perilous journey , their unknown fate, awaits , and still another menace, is lurking about ... A terrific read and highly enjoyable for the adventurous crowd. Dan Simmons is a superb writer, this series shows, that undeniable fact...

It's the twenty-fifth century, and advances in technology have redefined life itself. A person's consciousness can now be stored in the brain and downloaded into a new body (or "sleeve"), making death nothing more than a minor blip on a screen. Onetime U.N. Envoy Takeshi Kovacs has been killed before, but his last death was particularly painful. Resleeved into a body in Bay City (formerly San Francisco), Kovacs is thrown into the dark heart of a shady, far-reaching conspiracy that is vicious even by the standards of a society that treats existence as something that can be bought and sold. For Kovacs, the shell that blew a hole in his chest was only the beginning.

The international sensation Iain M. Banks offers readers a deeply imaginative, wittily satirical tale, proving once again that he is "a talent to be reckoned with" ("Locus"). In Excession, the Culture's espionage and dirty tricks section orders Diplomat Byr Gen-Hofoen to steal the soul of a long-dead starship captain. By accepting the mission, Byr irrevocably plunges himself into a conspiracy: one that could either lead the universe into an age of peace or to the brink of annihilation.

The fourth novel in James S.A. Corey’s New York Times bestselling Expanse seriesThe gates have opened the way to thousands of habitable planets, and the land rush has begun. Settlers stream out from humanity's home planets in a vast, poorly controlled flood, landing on a new world. Among them, the Rocinante, haunted by the vast, posthuman network of the protomolecule as they investigate what destroyed the great intergalactic society that built the gates and the protomolecule.But Holden and his crew must also contend with the growing tensions between the settlers and the company which owns the official claim to the planet. Both sides will stop at nothing to defend what's theirs, but soon a terrible disease strikes and only Holden - with help from the ghostly Detective Miller - can find the cure.

We are not alone.On Ganymede, breadbasket of the outer planets, a Martian marine watches as her platoon is slaughtered by a monstrous supersoldier. On Earth, a high-level politician struggles to prevent interplanetary war from reigniting. And on Venus, an alien protomolecule has overrun the planet, wreaking massive, mysterious changes and threatening to spread out into the solar system.In the vast wilderness of space, James Holden and the crew of the Rocinante have been keeping the peace for the Outer Planets Alliance. When they agree to help a scientist search war-torn Ganymede for a missing child, the future of humanity rests on whether a single ship can prevent an alien invasion that may have already begun . . .Caliban's War is a breakneck science fiction adventure following the critically acclaimed Leviathan Wakes.

The time of reckoning has arrived. As a final genocidal Crusade threatens to enslave humanity forever, a new messiah has come of age. She is Aenea and she has undergone a strange apprenticeship to those known as the Others. Now her protector, Raul Endymion, one-time shepherd and convicted murderer, must help her deliver her startling message to her growing army of disciples. But first they must embark on a final spectacular mission to discover the underlying meaning of the universe itself. They have been followed on their journey by the mysterious Shrike--monster, angel, killing machine--who is about to reveal the long-held secret of its origin and purpose. And on the planet of Hyperion, where the story first began, the final revelation will be delivered--an apocalyptic message that unlocks the secrets of existence and the fate of humankind in the galaxy.

<p>TheHyperion Cantosis a series of science fiction novels by Dan Simmons. The title was originally used for the collection of the first pair of books in the series,HyperionandThe Fall of Hyperion, and later came to refer to the overall storyline, includingEndymion,The Rise of Endymion, and a number of short stories. More narrowly, inside the fictional storyline, after the first volume, the Hyperion Cantos is an epic poem written by the character Martin Silenus covering in verse form the events of the first book.</p><p>Of the four novels,Hyperionreceived the Hugo and Locus Awards in 1990;The Fall of Hyperionwon the Locus and British Science Fiction Association Awards in 1991; andThe Rise of Endymionreceived the Locus Award in 1998.  All four novels were also nominated for various science fiction awards.</p>

This is high action, ideas driven noir SF of the highest order. Morgan has already established himself as an SF author of global significance.Takeshi Kovacs has come home. Home to Harlan's World. An ocean planet with only 5 percent of its landmass poking above the dangerous and unpredictable seas. Try and get above the weather in anything more sophisticated than a helicopter and the Martian orbital platforms will burn you out of the sky.And death doesn't just wait for you in the seas and the skies. On land, from the tropical beaches and swamps of Kossuth to the icy, machine-infested wastes of New Hokkaido the hard won gains of the Quellist revolution have been lost. The First Families, the corporations and the Yakuza have a stranglehold on everything.Embarked on a journey of implacable retribution for a lost love, Kovacs is blown off course and into a maelstrom of political intrigue and technological mystery as the ghosts of Harlan's World and his own violent past rise to claim their due. Quellcrist Falconer is back from the dead, they say and hunting her down for the First Families is a savage young Envoy called Kovacs who's been in storage.

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