Fantastic Greats of Science Fiction
Explore the greatest science fiction books of all time with Fantastic Greats of Science Fiction. Discover iconic authors, must-read classics, and groundbreaking novels that shaped the genre.
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Foundation
by Isaac Asimov
The story of our future begins with the Foundation. Nominated as one of America's best-loved novels by PBS's The Great American Read For twelve thousand years the Galactic Empire has ruled supreme. Now it is dying. Only Hari Seldon, creator of the revolutionary science of psychohistory, can see into the future--a dark age of ignorance, barbarism, and warfare that will last thirty thousand years. To preserve knowledge and save humanity, Seldon gathers the best minds in the Empire--both scientists and scholars--and brings them to a bleak planet at the edge of the galaxy to serve as a beacon of hope for future generations. He calls this sanctuary the Foundation. But soon the fledgling Foundation finds itself at the mercy of corrupt warlords rising in the wake of the receding Empire. And mankind's last best hope is faced with an agonizing choice: submit to the barbarians and live as slaves--or take a stand for freedom and risk total destruction.
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A Fire Upon The Deep
by Vernor Vinge
A Fire Upon the Deep is the big, breakout book that fulfills the promise of Vinge's career to date: a gripping tale of galactic war told on a cosmic scale. Thousands of years hence, many races inhabit a universe where a mind's potential is determined by its location in space, from superintelligent entities in the Transcend, to the limited minds of the Unthinking Depths, where only simple creatures and technology can function. Nobody knows what strange force partitioned space into these "regions of thought," but when the warring Straumli realm use an ancient Transcendent artifact as a weapon, they unwittingly unleash an awesome power that destroys thousands of worlds and enslaves all natural and artificial intelligence. Fleeing the threat, a family of scientists, including two children, are taken captive by the Tines, an alien race with a harsh medieval culture, and used as pawns in a ruthless power struggle. A rescue mission, not entirely composed of humans, must rescue the children-and a secret that may save the rest of interstellar civilization. A Fire Upon The Deep is the winner of the 1993 Hugo Award for Best Novel.
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Solaris
by Stanisław Lem
Kris Kelvin lands on the space station Solaris only to face a cruel miracle.
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Hyperion
by Dan Simmons
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 epic by the multiple-award-winning author of The Hollow Man. On the world called Hyperion, beyond the reach of galactic law, waits a 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. Praise for Dan Simmons and Hyperion “Dan Simmons has brilliantly conceptualized a future 700 years distant. In sheer scope and complexity it matches, and perhaps even surpasses, those of Isaac Asimov and James Blish.”—The Washington Post Book World “An unfailingly inventive narrative . . . generously conceived and stylistically sure-handed.”—The New York Times Book Review “Simmons’s own genius transforms space opera into a new kind of poetry.”—The Denver Post “An essential part of any science fiction collection.”—Booklist
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The Scar
by China Miéville
En route to the fledgling colony of New Crobuzon, a ship carrying prisoners, slaves, and a few travelers, each with their own reason for leaving the city, is attacked by pirates, who bring the surviving passengers to a strange floating city constructed upon the hulls of pirated ships, whose leaders are hiding a sinister agenda. By the author of Perdido Street Station. Reprint.
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Steel Beach
by John Varley
The moon colony, Luna, is a virtual paradise where every need is provided for: food, prolonged lifespans, digital memories, and instant sex-changes. But the pointlessness of this easy life is making the inhabitants suicidal--including the central computer that monitors their existence. As humanity teeters on the edge of self-destruction, newspaper reporter Hildy Johnson sets out to find a new frontier.
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A Princess of Mars
by Edgar Rice Burroughs
The first published book by the creator of Tarzan of the Apes that introduced the world to intergalactic Civil War soldier, John Carter Two years before Edgar Rice Burroughs became a worldwide celebrity with the publication of Tarzan of the Apes and its twenty-two sequels, which together have sold more than 30 million copies, he published the futuristic sci-fi romance, A Princess of Mars. A Princess of Mars tells the story of John Carter, a Civil War veteran who inexplicably finds himself held prisoner on the planet Mars by the Green Men of Thark. With Dejah Thoris, the princess of another clan on Mars, John Carter must fight for their freedom and save the entire planet from destruction as the life-sustaining Atmosphere Factory slowly grinds to a halt. A Princess of Mars is the first in Burroughs' eleven book Barsoon series, following the continued adventures of John Carter. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
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The Snow Queen
by Joan D. Vinge
An epic, Hugo Award-winning novel that draws upon the classic Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale The Snow Queen.
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Cordelia's Honor
by Lois McMaster Bujold
When Enemies Become More than Friends -- THEY WIN In her first trial by fire, Cordelia Naismith captained a throwaway ship of the Betan Expeditionary Force on a mission to destroy an enemy armada. Discovering deception within deception, treachery within treachery, she was forced into a separate peace with her chief opponent, Lord Aral Vorkosigan -- he who was called "The Butcher of Komarr" -- and would consequently become an outcast on her own planet and the Lady Vorkosigan on his. Sick of combat and betrayal, she was ready to settle down to a quiet life, interrupted only by the occasional ceremonial appearances required of the Lady Vorkosigan. But when the Emperor died, Aral became guardian of the infant heir to the imperial throne of Barrayar -- and the target of high-tech assassins in a dynastic civil war that was reminiscent of Earth's Middle Ages, but fought with up-to-the minute biowar technology. Neither Aral nor Cordelia guessed the part that their cell-damaged unborn would play in Barrayari's bloody legacy.
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The Warrior's Apprentice
by Lois McMaster Bujold
Miles Vorkosigan is the leader of a fast growing mercenary force and the hero of an all-out space battle. At the end of the conflict, he heads a fleet of 19 ships and 3,000 troops. The only problem is, it is treason--as in, a hanging offense--to command a private army.
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Ethan of Athos
by Bujold
When a mysterious genetic crisis threatens the existence of Athos, a planet forbidden to women, obstetrician Ethan Urquhart is forced into an alliance with Elli Quinn, a gorgeous female secret agent, to save his world.
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Falling Free
by Lois McMaster Bujold
Leo Graf was just your average highly efficient engineer: min your own business, fix what's wrong and move on to the next job. Everything neat and according to spec, just the way he liked it. But all that changed on his assignment to the Cay Habitat. Could you just stand there and allow the exploitation of hundreds of helpless children merely to enhance the bottom line of a heartless mega-corporation? Leo Graf adopted a thousand quaddies -- now all he had to do was teach them to be free.
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Memory
by Bujold
Restored to life after being pronounced dead, Miles Vorkosigan realizes that the event has left him with a profound weakness and is dismissed from his job, but things are further complicated when he remembers something that he saw while dead.
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Komarr
by Lois McMaster Bujold
The physically handicapped military genius Miles Vorkosigan investigates an act of treachery against the domed planet of Komarr.
