Hard SF Novels
Explore the best hard SF novels—rigorous, science-driven stories that challenge the mind. Discover top picks from masters like Arthur C. Clarke, Greg Egan, and more for fans of plausible futurism and cutting-edge concepts.
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Ringworld
by Larry Niven
Winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards for best novel Four travelers come to the ringworld. . . Louis Wu: human and old; bored with having lived too fully for far too many years. Seeking a challenge, and all too capable of handling it. Nessus: a trembling coward, a puppeteer with a built-in survival pattern of nonviolence. Except that this particular puppeteer is insane. Teela Brown: human; a wide-eyed youngster with no allegiances, no experience, no abilities. And all the luck in the world. Speaker-To-Animals: kzin; large, orange-furred, and carnivorous. And one of the most savage life-forms known in the galaxy. Why did these disparate individuals come together? How could they possibly function together? And where, in the name of anything sane, were they headed?
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Spider Star
by Mike Brotherton
""The Spider Star is no star, and the Spider Star is no planet, but it is a place anyway, and its golden heart is the source of all good and evil. But mostly evil. For that which comes last, colors all that has come before."" "Since the information is a hundred thousand years out-of-date, the only hope for Argo is to send a ship and crew into the unknown to find the Spider Star and try to negotiate for a way to shut down the weapon."--BOOK JACKET.
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Star Dragon
by Mike Brotherton
An astounding new talent takes readers on a thrilling journey to the heart of a star. "A dramatic, provocative, utterly convincing hard-science sf novel that includes an ironic twist that fans will love."--"Booklist" (starred review).
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Signal to Noise
by Eric S. Nylund
Jack Potter puts computer cryptography to work for the highest bidder: sometimes for private corporations, sometimes for the government. Sometimes the work is legal; if not, Jack simply raises his price. But one day, Jack discovers something cloaked in the hiss of background radiation streaming past the Earth from deep space: a message from an alien civilization. One that's eager to do business with humanity -- and its representative. Before he knows it, Jack has entered into a partnership that will open a Pandora's Box of potential profit and loss. The governments, the multinationals, and mysterious players more powerful still, all want a piece of the action -- and they're willing to kill, even wage war, to get it. Now Jack is entangled shifting web of deceit and intrigue in which no one, not even his closest friends, can be trusted. For Earth's cloak-and-dagger business practices are writ large in the heavens...and hostile takeovers are just as common across light years as they are across boardroom tables.
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Rendezvous With Rama
by Arthur Charles Clarke
During the twenty-second century, a space probe's investigation of a mysterious, cylindrical asteroid brings man into contact with an extra-galactic civilization
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Contact
by Carl Sagan
In December, 1999, a multinational team journeys out to the stars, to the most awesome encounter in human history. Who -- or what -- is out there? In Cosmos, Carl Sagan explained the universe. In Contact, he predicts its future -- and our own.
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The Forever War
by Joe W. Haldeman
Private William Mandella is a hero in spite of himself. He never wanted to go to war, but the leaders on Earth have drawn a line in the interstellar sand.
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Mars Crossing
by Geoffrey A. Landis
By the middle of the 21st century, humanity has finally landed men on Mars-only to watch helplessly as the first two missions end in catastrophe and death. With resources running out, a third-and perhaps final-mission to Mars is hastily mounted, with a crew of four men and two women. But from the moment of their arrival on Mars, everything begins to go wrong. The fuel tanks that were to have supplied their return trip are found corroded and empty. Their supplies are running out and their life support systems are beginning to fail. And any rescue mission won't reach them for months, or even years-if at all. The crew's only hope for survival lies in a desperate plan: an agonizing trek halfway across the surface of Mars to a ship designed to carry only half their number. Torn by conflict and dissent, and troubled by secrets that endanger them all, they must embark on an ordeal that will test them to the limits of endurance.
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Dragon's Egg
by Robert L. Forward
“In science fiction there is only a handful of books that stretch the mind—and this is one of them.”—Arthur C. Clarke In a moving story of sacrifice and triumph, human scientists establish a relationship with intelligent lifeforms—the cheela—living on Dragon’s Egg, a neutron star where one Earth hour is equivalent to hundreds of their years. The cheela culturally evolve from savagery to the discovery of science, and for a brief time, men are their diligent teachers. Praise for Dragon’s Egg “Bob Forward writes in the tradition of Hal Clement’s Mission of Gravity and carries it a giant step (how else?) forward.”—Isaac Asimov “Dragon’s Egg is superb. I couldn’t have written it; it required too much real physics.”—Larry Niven “This is one for the real science-fiction fan.”—Frank Herbert “Robert L. Forward tells a good story and asks a profound question. If we run into a race of creatures who live a hundred years while we live an hour, what can they say to us or we to them?”—Freeman J. Dyson “Forward has impeccable scientific credentials, and . . . big, original, speculative ideas.”—The Washington Post
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Redshift Rendezvous
by John E. Stith
The murder of a passenger aboard the hyperspace liner Redshift leads to a crisis in which a desperate group of people tries to use the spacecraft for evil purposes - with first officer Jason Kraft the only person in their way.