The Complete Yes Minister: The Diaries of a Cabinet Minister
![]() "Interzone": Anthology: 1st (Everyman Fiction)
![]() The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: A Trilogy in Four Parts
![]() Mirrorshades: An Anthology of Cyberpunk (Paladin Books)
![]() I Ching or Book of Changes (Arkana)
![]() The Complete Monty Python's Flying Circus
![]() Philosophy and Connectionist Theory (Developments in Connectionist Theory)
![]() Meaning in Mind: Fodor and His Critics (Philosophers & Their Critics)
![]() Artificial Intelligence and Neural Networks: Steps Toward Principled Integration (Neural Networks: Foundations to Applications)
![]() Computational Architectures Integrating Neural and Symbolic Processes: Perspective on the State of the Art (Kluwer International Series in Engineering & Computer Science)
![]() The Best of "Interzone" Anthology
![]() George W.Bushisms: The Slate Book of the Accidental Wit and Wisdom of Our 43rd President
![]() Nottingham, Ilkeston, Long Eaton, West Bridgford, Street Atlas
![]() Life, the Universe and Everything (Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy)
![]() Space Time and Nathaniel
![]() The Dark Light Years
![]() The Airs of Earth
![]() Canopy of Time
![]() Neurons and Symbols: The Stuff the Mind Is Made of (Chapman & Hall Neural Computing Series 3)
![]() That Uncertain Feeling
![]() Hidden Empire (Saga of Seven Suns)
![]() Tau Zero (S.F. Masterworks)
![]() Mid-Course Correction: Toward a Sustainable Enterprise: the Interface Model
![]() Gridlinked
![]() Cormac is a legendary Earth Central Security agent, the James Bond of a wealthy future where "runcible" transmitters allow interstellar travel in an eye blink. Unfortunately Cormac is nearly burnt out, "gridlinked" to the AI net so long that his humanity has drained away. He has to take the cold turkey cure and shake his addiction to instant online access, even while investigating the unique runcible disaster that's wiped out the entire human colony on planet Samarkand in a 30 megaton explosion ... Hot on Cormac's heels is vengeful terrorist Pelter, backed up by his unstoppable, psychotic android killer "Mr Crane" and a goon squad of mercenaries. Other trouble has been brewing since 27 years earlier, when Cormac was humanity's ambassador to a vast, incomprehensible alien that called itself Dragon. Deep beneath Samarkand's surface there are buried mysteries, fiercely guarded. And is it true that Cormac's enigmatic boss is an immortal who's lived half a millennium and was born in the 20th century? Asher's galaxy is full of colour and sleaze, and his story rattles along at speed. There are surprises, double-crosses, elaborate lies to be seen through, astonishing escapes from certain death, and last-minute reversals. Though the ultimate fates of the lesser villains seem mildly anticlimactic, the true bad guy is dealt with in spectacular style. Sequels are hinted. Fast-moving, edge-of-the-seat entertainment. David Langford The Line of Polity
![]() Cowl
![]() Brass Man
![]() Prador Moon: A Novel Of The Polity
![]() Polity Agent
![]() The Voyage of the Sable Keech
![]() Hilldiggers
![]() The Line War (Agent Cormac 5)
![]() I, Robot
![]() The End of Eternity (Panther Science Fiction)
![]() The Gods Themselves
![]() It opens in the world of Big Science that Asimov knew well, full of in-fighting and the race to publish first. The Inter-Universe Electron Pump sucks unlimited energy from nothing, making all power stations obsolete and bringing a new golden age. No oneespecially not the scientist who got the creditwants to listen to the doomsayer Lamont who calculates that the pump's side effects may detonate the Sun. Worse, there's no kudos for him: "And no one on Earth will live to know I was right". Part two moves to the dying parallel universe whose hyper-intelligent aliens actually invented the pump and don't care what happens to our Sun. Asimov cleverly focuses on three immature aliens whose intelligence is less daunting and who slowly learnwith very different personal reactionsabout their race's weird analogue of sex, about the pump's moral implications, and eventually about the unexpected meaning of maturity. These are the most original, engaging aliens Asimov ever created. Part three is set in a carefully worked-out Moon colony and grapples with the "para-physics" of inter-universe loopholes. Can a politically acceptable replacement for the pump be developed? Solid, workmanlike SF with far more talk than action: one of Asimov's rare standalone novels. David Langford The Early Asimov: v. 2 (Panther Science Fiction)
![]() Nemesis
![]() The Bicentennial Man and Other Stories
![]() The Rest of the Robots
![]() Foundation (The Foundation Series)
![]() Foundation and Empire (The Foundation Series)
![]() Foundation and Earth (Foundation)
![]() 50 Short Science Fiction Tales
![]() Life on Earth
![]() The Trials of Life
![]() Rising Sons of Ranting Verse: Cautionary Tales for Dead Commuters
![]() Dr Who Annual 1976
![]() Jonathan Livingston Seagull: A Story
![]() Capacity
![]() The Crystal World
![]() The Unlimited Dream Company (Paladin Books)
![]() Consider Phlebas (Orbit Books)
![]() Walking on Glass
![]() The Bridge
![]() Espedair Street
![]() The Crow Road
![]() Complicity
![]() Whit
![]() Feersum Endjinn
![]() Use of Weapons
![]() The Player of Games (Orbit Books)
![]() Against a Dark Background
![]() The Algebraist
![]() For short-lived 'Quick' races like humans, space is dominated by the complicated, grandiose Mercatoria whose rule is both military and religious. To the Dwellers who may live billions of years, the galaxy consists of their gas-giant planetsthe rest is debris. Our human hero Fassin Taak is a 'Slow Seer' privileged to work with the Dwellers of the gas-giant Nasqueron in his home system Ulubis. His life work is rummaging for data in their vast, disorganised memories and libraries. Unfortunately, without knowing it, he's come close to an ancient secret of unimaginable importance. Though Ulubis is currently cut off from the galactic wormhole travel network, two interstellar battle fleets are racing for this secret. The hissable arch-villain Luseferouswhose tastes run to torture, atrocity and genocideseems bound to arrive in overwhelming strength before the Mercatorian rescue squadron. So Fassin is reluctantly conscripted into security forces, and enters the hell of Nasqueron's atmosphere to seek the magic key (code? signal frequency? equation?) that might save everything. Even at their most helpful and charming, though, Dwellers are maddeningly elusive. For ancients, they seem bumbling and whimsical, far more interested in hunting, kudos, and extreme sports like GasClipper Races or Formal War than in saving humanity's skin. Their ramshackle transport and awesome yet run-down floating cities suggest that Dweller legends of hypertechnology are sheer bluff. But are they keeping something dark? Fassin's journeys and discoveries are exhilarating, witty, sometimes mind-boggling. Exotic weaponry abounds. The Dwellers are engagingly eccentric, like AI Minds in the Culture booksbut the Mercatoria has banned artificial intelligence as Abomination, and this too is a plot strand. Additionally there are human revenge, intrigue and betrayal subplots; surprises and upsets; and the mother of all shaggy-dog revelations. Once again Banks is having enormous fun with space opera, and his exuberant enjoyment is infectious. Highly readable stuff.David Langford Matter
![]() Excession
![]() Inversions
![]() Weaveworld
![]() Everville: The Second Book of the Art (The Art)
![]() Steps to an Ecology of Mind: Collected Essays in Anthropology, Psychiatry, Evolution and Epistemology
![]() Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity (Advances in Systems Theory, Complexity & the Human Sciences S.)
![]() Ring
![]() Vacuum Diagrams: Short Stories in the Xeelee Sequence
![]() Titan
![]() Baxter novices may be wary of such a clichéd plot, but don't despairhis reputation as one of the UK's best sci-fi writers is well founded. Titan is an enjoyable novel, well-written, with just the right mixture of hard science fiction, strong characters and a believable, if undesirable, vision of the future. Reminiscent of 2001 and its sequel 2010, the plot unfolds against the backdrop of a declining world civilization. America is sinking into the mire of Christian fundamentalism and turning against technology, whilst a desperate NASA expends all it's remaining energy and resources on a manned mission to Titanone- waywith the faint hope of reigniting the public's interest in space exploration. The mission is a technical success, but is ignored by the masses, leaving the astronauts stranded on the outskirts of the solar system with no hope of rescue. But of course, that's not the end of the story… Dave Mutton Traces
![]() Moonseed
![]() Time
![]() Space
![]() Evolution (Gollancz)
![]() Coalescent: Homo Superior (Destiny's Children)
![]() In modern England, George Poole learns in mid-life that he once had a twin sister, given as an infant to The Puissant Order of Holy Mary Queen of Virgins. The what? Poole tracks down what seems a perfectly respectable Rome-based organisation, not all that religious but with hints of underlying strangeness. Yet apparently they're not strangers. "They're family." Sixteen centuries before, the Roman-British girl Regina lives through the final, painful passing of Roman law and order in a Britain increasingly ravaged by Saxon invasion. It's a grimly moving historical story, which even links to the legend of Arthur. Hardened by much brutal experience, Regina is determined to protect her bloodline and her household gods through the Dark Ages, until this temporary disturbance is over. By luck, cunning and sheer ruthlessness she reaches sanctuary in Rome, where she founds an enclave that will survive into the modern era and beyond. Instinctively, Regina lays down rules that will fundamentally change "human nature" as the centuries slip by: Ignorance is strength. Listen to your sisters. Sisters matter more than laughters. A third narrative strand follows Lucia, a girl of the modern-day Order who sees these slogans on every wall, lives underground in the artificial light of the "Crypt" and is always surrounded by many sisters. No room is ever empty. When Lucia finds herself physically changing and becoming different from her workmates, the resulting upheaval has ripples that affect Poole, his own rediscovered sister and the world. The lifestyle of the Order is a new quirk in mankind's evolution, alternately seductive and shocking. Baxter switches effectively between harrowing historical narrative and the slow revelation of a threat whose understated chill is reminiscent of John Wyndham's quieter menaces. Coalescent is a strong, standalone novel that opens a new SF sequence titled "Destiny's Children". David Langford Exultant: Destiny's Children Book 2 (Destiny's Children)
![]() Behemoth: Mammoth, Long Tusk, Icebones
![]() Transcendent (Gollancz)
![]() Resplendent: Destiny's Children Book Four (Gollancz S.F.)
![]() Queen of Angels
![]() Eon
![]() Moving Mars
![]() The Forge of God
![]() Darwin's Radio
![]() Blood Music (S.F.Masterworks S.)
![]() Darwin's Children
![]() Vitals
![]() City at the End of Time
![]() Artificial Intelligence Terminology: A Reference Guide
![]() COSM
![]() Timescape (Millennium SF Masterworks S)
![]() Eater
![]() Artifact
![]() Beyond Infinity
![]() The Sunborn
![]() Contextual Design: Defining Customer-Centered Systems (Interactive Technologies)
![]() From Darwin to Behaviourism:Psychology and the Minds of Animals
![]() Computer Models of Mind: Computational Approaches in Theoretical Psychology (Problems in the Behavioural Sciences): Computational Approaches in Theoretical ... (Problems in the Behavioural Sciences)
![]() Totally Herotica
![]() Infinity's Shore
![]() Sundiver
![]() The Uplift War (Uplift)
![]() Brightness Reef (Uplift)
![]() Heaven's Reach (Uplift)
![]() The Da Vinci Code
![]() The duo become both suspects and detectives searching not only for Neveu's grandfather's murderer, but also the stunning secret of the ages he was charged to protect. Mere steps ahead of the authorities and the deadly competition, the mystery leads Neveu and Langdon on a breathless flight through France, England and history itself. Brown has created a page-turning thriller that also provides an amazing interpretation of Western history. Brown's hero and heroine embark on a lofty and intriguing exploration of some of Western culture's greatest mysteriesfrom the nature of the Mona Lisa's smile to the secret of the Holy Grail. Though some will quibble with the veracity of Brown's conjectures, therein lies the fun. The Da Vinci Code is an enthralling read that provides rich food for thought. Jeremy Pugh, Amazon.com Deception Point
![]() The time is now and President Zachary Herney is facing a very tough re-election. His opponent, Senator Sedgwick Sexton, is a powerful man with powerful friends and a mission: to reduce NASA's spending and move space exploration into the private sector. He has numerous supporters, including many beyond the businesses who will profit from this because of the embarrassment of 1996, when the Clinton administration was informed by NASA that proof existed of life on other planets. That information turned out to be premature, if not incorrect. The embattled president is assured that a rare object buried deep in the Arctic ice will prove to have far-reaching implications on America's space program. The find, however, needs to be verified. Enter Rachel Sexton, a gister for the National Reconnaissance Office. Gisters reduce complex reports into single-page briefs, and in this case the president needs that confirmation before he broadcasts to the nation, probably ensuring his re-election. It's tricky because Rachel is the daughter of his opponent. Rachel is thrilled to be on the team travelling to the Arctic Circle. She is a realist about her father's politics and has little respect for his stand on NASA, but Senator Sexton cannot help but have a problem with her involvement. Adventure, romance, murder, skulduggery, and nail-biting tension ensue. By the end of Deception Point, the reader will be much better informed about how the space program works and how politicians react to new information. Bring on the next Dan Brown thriller! Otto Penzler, Amazon.com Digital Fortress
![]() Fowler's Modern English Usage
![]() The Day the Universe Changed
![]() Universal Principles of Design: 100 Ways to Enhance Usability, Influence Perception, Increase Appeal, Make Better Design Decisions, and Teach Through Design
![]() They Whisper
![]() Synners
![]() The Tao of Physics (Flamingo)
![]() Mystics explore our universe through meditation. Nuclear physicists explore it through experimentation and hypothesis. Their paths to the truth could not be more different-but the amazing thing is that in their own ways, the mystics and the scientists are discovering the same truths about our world. In non-technical language, with no complex mathematics or formulae, this thought-provoking program explores the main concepts and theories of modern physics, the revelations coming from particle accelerators and laboratories-and compares them with the ancient tenets of Hinduism, Buddhism and Taoism. In the process, we gain a clear and fascinating picture of how such seemingly disparate areas of thought are ultimately quests for the same kind of understanding. The Hidden Connections
![]() Speaker for the Dead (The Ender Saga)
![]() Xenocide (The Ender Saga)
![]() Ender's Shadow (Shadow Saga)
![]() Second among the children is Bean, who becomes Ender's lieutenant despite the fact that he is the smallest and youngest of the Battle School students. Bean is the central character of Shadow, and we pick up his story when he is just a two-year-old starving on the streets of a future Rotterdam that has become a hell on Earth. Bean is unnaturally intelligent for his age, which is the only thing that allows him to escapethough not unscathedthe streets and eventually end up in Battle School. Despite his brilliance, however, Bean is doomed to live his life as an also-ran to the more famous and in many ways more brilliant Ender. Nonetheless, Bean learns things that Ender cannot or will not understand, and it falls to this once pathetic street urchin to carry the weight of a terrible burden that Ender must not be allowed to know. Although it may seem like Shadow is merely an attempt by Card to cash in on the success of his justly famous Ender's Game, that suspicion will dissipate once you turn the first few pages of this engrossing novel. It's clear that Bean has a story worth telling, and that Card (who started the project with a co-writer but later decided he wanted it all to himself) is driven to tell it. And though much of Ender's Game hinges on a surprise ending that Card fans are likely well acquainted with, Shadow manages to capitalise on that same surprise and even turn the table on readers. In the end it seems a shame that Shadow, like Bean himself, will forever be eclipsed by the myth of Ender, because this is a novel that can easily stand on its own. Luckily for readers, Card has left plenty of room for a sequel, so we may well be seeing more of Bean in the near future. Craig E. Engler, Amazon.com Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman
![]() Doomsday World (Star Trek: The Next Generation)
![]() Perl Cookbook
![]() The Perl Cookbook is a superb collection of coding snippets which cover all manner of subject areas in a fashion that proves suitable for beginners and established programmers alike. From date formatting and text searching to socket programming and creating Internet services, it's all here and each is a little gem. Authors Tom Christiansen and Nathan Torkington have done a sterling job of documenting each code snippet through explanatory text and in-line comments which goes a long way to helping the casual user understand what is going on and more importantly, how and why. As a volume in its own right, the Cookbook is an essential desktop reference for anyone with an interest in programming the language, but combined with O'Reilly's other weighty Perl tomesLearning Perl, Programming Perl and Advanced Perl Programmingit forms the final piece in one of the most thorough and comprehensive documentation sets for any programming language. Microcognition: Philosophy, Cognitive Science and Parallel Distributed Processing (Explorations in Cognitive Science)
![]() Natural-Born Cyborgs: Minds, Technologies, and the Future of Human Intelligence
![]() 2061: Odyssey Three
![]() 3001: The Final Odyssey
![]() "Goliath here", Chandler radioed Earthwards, his voice tinged with pride as well as solemnity. "We're bringing aboard a 1000-year-old astronaut. And I can guess who it is. " Thus after drifting to an icy death in 2001: A Space Odyssey, the body of astronaut Frank Poole is recovered in the outer reaches of the Solar System. Preserved at near absolute zero, it is a simple task for medical science a millennium hence to restore Poole to lifethough strangely for a novel which pits religion against science, the metaphysical implications of technological resurrection are unexamined and the first half is devoted to Poole's integration into the society of the future. If anything he adjusts with far too little grief or culture shock: apart from mourning his dog, and learning how the new technology works, he faces no major difficulties. Still, the world of the future is drawn with broad, imaginative strokes and apart from a persistent continuity error which makes Poole 6 years old in 2001, this is fascinating stuff. The plot kicks into gear with the revelation that the famous black monoliths may ultimately not have humanity's interests at heart, leading to a perfunctorily presented struggle for survival. Clarke himself notes that the ending is functionally identical to that of Independence Day, though novel and film were created simultaneously. Not the hoped-for late classic, 3001: the Final Odyssey does provide the satisfaction of closure to Clarke's epic Odyssey Quartet.Gary S. Dalkin Complete Fawlty Towers
![]() Mission Of Gravity (S.F. Masterworks)
![]() Mesklin is unusually massive and spins particularly fast: its "day" lasts not 24 hours but 18 minutes. The huge mass means an unthinkable gravity of 700 times Earth's, but only at the poles. Where the spin has most counter-effect, at the equator, the overall pull is a mere three times the earth's gravity. Humans can walk there, on crutches, to bargain with the centipede-like, hydrogen-breathing Mesklinites for the recovery of an expensive research probe that's been lost near the unreachable south pole. It's Barlennan of Mesklin, captain of the native ship Bree, who steals the show. He's bright, brave, and experienced in sailing his world's liquid-methane seas. The immense journey to recover Earth's stranded treasure confronts Barlennan's crew with unexpected but ingeniously logical obstacles and menaces. Constantly in touch with humans by radio link, Barlennan is both grateful for the scientific insights these visitors provide and suspicious about whatas a mere "primitive"hehe's carefully not being told. As journey's end approaches, Barlennan makes some quiet plans of his own... Mission of Gravity is an acknowledged classic of old-fashioned SF world-building. David Langford About Face 2.0: The Essentials of Interaction Design
![]() Hacker's Handbook
![]() Microserfs
![]() Frontiers of Complexity: The Search for Order in a Chaotic World
![]() Why You Don't Need Meat
![]() Sphere
![]() Sphere
![]() Timeline
![]() This is the plight of the heroes of Timeline, Michael Crichton's thriller. They're historians in 1999 employed by a tech billionaire-genius with more than a few of Bill Gates' most unlovable quirks. Like the entrepreneur in Crichton's Jurassic Park, Doniger plans a theme park featuring artefacts from a lost world revived via cutting-edge science. When the project's chief historian sends a distress call to 1999 from 1357, the boss man doesn't tell the younger historians the risks they'll face trying to save him. At first, the interplay between eras is clever but Timeline swiftly becomes a swashbuckling old-fashioned adventure, with just a dash of science and time paradox in the mix. Most of the cool facts are about the Middle Ages and Crichton marvellously brings the past to life without ever letting the pulse-pounding action slow down. At one point, a time-tripper tries to enter the Chapel of Green Death. Unfortunately, its custodian, a crazed giant with terrible teeth and a bad case of lice, soon has her head on a block. "She saw a shadow move across the grass as he raised his ax into the air." Try not to turn the page! Through the narrative can be glimpsed the glowing bones of the movie that may be made from Timeline and the high tech computer game that should hit the market in 2000. Expect many clashing swords and chase scenes through secret castle passages. But the book stands alone, tall and scary as a knight in armour shining with blood. Tim Appelo Best SF two: Science fiction stories (SFBC)
![]() The Turing Test and the Frame Problem: AI's Mistaken Understanding of Intelligence (Artificial Intelligence)
![]() The Rift (Star Trek)
![]() Aromatherapy- An A-Z
![]() The Selfish Gene
![]() The Extended Phenotype: The Long Reach of the Gene (Oxford Paperbacks)
![]() The Ancestor's Tale
![]() The Ancestor's Tale takes us from our immediate human ancestors back through what he calls `concestors,' those shared with the apes, monkeys and other mammals and other vertebrates and beyond to the dim and distant microbial beginnings of life some 4 billion years ago. It is a remarkable story which is still very much in the process of being uncovered. And, of course from a scientist of Dawkins stature and reputation we get an insider's knowledge of the most up-to-date science and many of those involved in the research. And, as we have come to expect of Dawkins, it is told with a passionate commitment to scientific veracity and a nose for a good story. Dawkins's knowledge of the vast and wonderful sweep of life's diversity is admirable. Not only does it encompass the most interesting living representatives of so many groups of organisms but also the important and informative fossil ones, many of which have only been found in recent years. Dawkins sees his journey with its reverse chronology as `cast in the form of an epic pilgrimage from the present to the past [and] all roads lead to the origin of life.' It is, to my mind, a sensible and perfectly acceptable approach although some might complain about going against the grain of evolution. The great benefit for the general reader is that it begins with the more familiar present and the animals nearest and dearest to us—our immediate human ancestors. And then it delves back into the more remote and less familiar past with its droves of lesser known and extinct fossil forms. The whole pilgrimage is divided into 40 tales, each based around a group of organisms and discusses their role in the overall story. Genetic, morphological and fossil evidence is all taken into account and illustrated with a wealth of photos and drawings of living and fossils forms, evolutionary and distributional charts and maps through time, providing a visual compliment and complement to the text. The design also allows Dawkins to make numerous running comments and characteristic asides. There are also numerous references and a good index. Douglas Palmer The God Delusion
![]() The Intentional Stance (Bradford Books)
![]() The 10 essays included here represent the vanguard of Dennett's thought, push his theories into surprising new territory, and reveal fresh lines of inquiry into fundamental issues in psychology, artificial intelligence, and evolutionary theory as well as traditional issues in the philosophy of mind Daniel C. Dennett is Distinguished Arts and Sciences Professor at Tufts University and the author of Brainstorms and Elbow Room. A Bradford Book Consciousness Explained (Penguin Science)
![]() Dennett's writing, while always serious, is never solemn; who would have thought that combining philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience could be such fun? Not every reader will be convinced that Dennett has succeeded in explaining consciousness; many will feel that his account fails to capture essential features of conscious experience. But none will want to deny that the attempt was well worth making. Glenn Branch Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life (Penguin Science)
![]() Darwin's Dangerous Idea is divided into three parts. In the first part, "Starting in the Middle", Dennett places the idea of evolution by natural selection in its historical context, then explains it in his characteristically vivacious style. In the second part, "Darwinian Thinking in Biology", he critically examines challenges to Darwin's idea. Connoisseurs of intellectual controversy will especially relish chapter 10 ("Bully for Brontosaurus"), in which Stephen Jay Gould is castigated for misleadingly presenting his views as radical and anti-Darwinian. Finally, in the third part, Dennett discusses the implications of Darwinian thinking for "Mind, Meaning, Mathematics, and Morality." Among the luminaries targeted here are Noam Chomsky and Roger Penrose. Throughout, Dennett manages to synthesise information from many different fields into one unified view of life and its meaning. Writing with style and wit, he again shows that he merits his reputation as one of the best popularisers of science. Glenn Branch Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon
![]() The Fabric of Reality: Towards a Theory of Everything (Allen Lane Science)
![]() Beyond Lies The Wub: Volume One Of The Collected Stories (Collected Short Stories of Philip K. Dick)
![]() Inevitably some of the SF elements have dated, but it doesn't matter: Dick wasn't predicting the future, but shining a bright, sometimes mordant light on the baffling nature of reality. These stories still dazzle because they are mind-bendingly inventive, quirkily humorous, filled with original and startling ideas. Dick, who said he wrote about "The shock of dysrecognition", was a true original, a writer who expanded to possibilities of fiction. This collection is essential reading for anyone who wants to stretch the horizons of their universe. Gary S. Dalkin Star Trek VII: Generations (Star Trek Movie Tie-in)
![]() Journey into Dolphin Dreamtime
![]() The Power That Preserves (The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever)
![]() Lord Foul's Bane (The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever)
![]() Rapture
![]() Elegies
![]() Darwin Among the Machines
![]() Quarantine
![]() Axiomatic
![]() Highlights include: "The Hundred Light-Year Diary", in which society deals with the mixed blessing of diaries sent back in time to earlier selves;"Eugene", in which a working-class couple decide if, and then to what degree, they should genetically enhance their baby;"The Caress", a science fiction detective story that will leave you feeling disturbed;"The Safe-Deposit Box", in which the narrator seeks to know why he has spent his life waking up every day in a new body;"A Kidnapping", which throws a new light on avatar crime;"Learning To Be Me", a story that recalls some of the Mind's I essays;"Appropriate Love", in which insurance companies pressure a couple in need of medical care;"The Moral Virologist", a tale of a deranged geneticist attempting to redeem the world through a computer virus; and "Closer", about a happy couple who enjoy using the latest technological gadgetry to learn more about each other ... although sometimes they learn too much. Diaspora
![]() Permutation City
![]() Luminous
![]() Teranesia
![]() "The butterflya female twenty centimetres across, with black and iridescent-green wings clearly belonged to some species of swallowtail: the two hind wings were tipped with long, narrow 'tails' or 'streamers'. But there were puzzling quirks... the pattern of veins in the wings... and the position of the genital openings... How could this one species of swallowtail been isolated longer than any other butterfly in the world?" A childish prank leads to Prabhir's blaming himself for the violent deaths of his parents, and he devotes the rest of his life to protecting his young sister. At the age of nine he sails with her to safety and later abandons his education to give her a home. Maddie becomes a biologist and takes an interest in the strange creatures now proliferating in the islands; when she goes on a field trip, Prabhir feels obliged to follow... Greg Egan's recent books and short stories of the near future Distress and Luminoushave combined their intellectually challenging scientific speculations with a good deal of human drama, and Teranesia continues this trend in his work. Prabhir's irrational guilt and obsessive protectiveness make him a memorable flawed protagonist. In the end, though, the point is the wonders. Egan comes up with some fascinating speculation on mechanisms whereby evolution could suddenly go into overdrive and has the good sense not to push conclusions too far; the reader's informed imagination continues well beyond the book's end. All this, and some scathing satire on Critical Theory and Cultural Studies too. Roz Kaveney Schild's Ladder (Gollancz SF S.)
![]() The fatal experiment was right at the edge of theoretical physics. Could there be an alternative structure for vacuum itself, the void underlying our cosmos? Unfortunately, yes. Once created, this artificial "novo-vacuum" successfully competes with normal space, expanding at half the speed of light in an all-consuming sphere. Inside, physics is radically, incomprehensibly different... Six centuries later, thousands of inhabited solar systems have been gobbled. Scientists investigating the novo-vacuum from starship Rindler are split between trying to destroy it with tailored spatial viruses ("Planck worms") and hoping to understand the teeming richness beyond that deadly interface. In a lonely galaxy where only humans are intelligent, whole planets have been evacuated to give microscopic alien organisms their chance to evolve. The novo-vacuum may be bursting with new orders of life, so that killing it would be a monstrous act of genocide. But frightened people dare dreadful things. Violence erupts on the Rindler. Building up from ideas of human intelligence in disembodied storage or artificial bodies, Egan finally takes his lead characters on a mind-boggling joyride through novo-vacuum, mapping them into a space where a tense eight-hour flight from deadly predators covers just one millimetre. There's a lot of room in there. Schild's Ladder makes easy reading out of terrifying physics, generating a real sense of wonder even as your jaw drops at the immensity of its implications. David Langford Incandescence
![]() Kemlo and the space lanes
![]() Ultimate Galactus Trilogy (Ultimate) (Ultimate)
![]() A Life is Too Short
![]() Psychosemantics: The Problem of Meaning in the Philosophy of Mind (Explorations in Cognitive Science Series)
![]() Splinter of the Mind's Eye
![]() Alien Nation
![]() Aliens
![]() Dark Star (An Orbit book)
![]() Men in Love
![]() Women on Top
![]() The Hippopotamus
![]() Anansi Boys
![]() Stargonauts: Bk. 1
![]() Angel Stations
![]() Against Gravity
![]() Neuromancer
![]() Count Zero
![]() Burning Chrome
![]() Mona Lisa Overdrive
![]() Virtual Light
![]() Pattern Recognition
![]() The Difference Engine
![]() Chaos: Making a New Science
![]() Life's Grandeur: Spread of Excellence from Plato to Darwin
![]() Conscience Interplanetary (Pan science fiction)
![]() Author's Choice: "Power and the Glory" , "Quiet American" , "Travels with My Aunt" , "Honorary Consul"
![]() Learning to Use Statistical Tests in Psychology: A Student's Guide
![]() Take Back Plenty
![]() Seasons of Plenty (The Tabitha Jute Trilogy)
![]() The Left Hand of Darkness (Virago Modern Classics)
![]() If there were a canon of classic science fiction, The Left Hand of Darkness would be included without debate. Certainly, no science fiction bookshelf may be said to be complete without it. But the real question: is it fun to read? It is science fiction of an earlier time, a time that has not worn particularly well in the genre. The Left Hand of Darkness was a groundbreaking book in 1969, a time when, like the rest of the arts, science fiction was awakening to new dimensions in both society and literature. But the first excursions out of the pulp tradition are sometimes difficult to reread with much enjoyment. Rereading The Left Hand of Darkness, decades after its publication, one feels that those who chose it for the Hugo and Nebula awards were right to do so, for it truly does stand out as one of the great books of that era. It is immensely rich in timeless wisdom and insight. The Left Hand of Darkness is science fiction for the thinking reader, and should be read attentively in order to properly savor the depth of insight and the subtleties of plot and character. It is one of those pleasures that requires a little investment at the beginning, but pays back tenfold with the joy of raw imagination that resonates through the subsequent 30 years of science fiction storytelling. Not only is the bookshelf incomplete without owning it, so is the reader without having read it. L. Blunt Jackson The Forever War (Millennium SF Masterworks S)
![]() Judas Unchained
![]() A Quantum Murder
![]() The Nano Flower
![]() The Neutronium Alchemist (Night's Dawn Trilogy)
![]() This conflict is far broader, though, than a simple apocalyptic battle of good versus evil. Among the possessors are some good souls who fight the risen dead even though it's against their best interest. Conversely, plenty of the living see siding with the dead as an opportunity to further their own interests. Action, wonders, and mystery continue to characterize this high-quality series. Brooks Peck A Second Chance At Eden
![]() Mindstar Rising
![]() The Naked God (Night's Dawn Trilogy)
![]() Fallen Dragon
![]() Judas Unchained
![]() Humanity's interstellar Commonwealth is in serious trouble. Thirteen of its hundreds of worlds (linked by wormholes and high-speed trains) were lost to a first mass attack by the insanely hostile alien Primes. The controlling Prime intelligence, MorningLightMountain, can imagine no way of dealing with first contact but genocideand has the resources to do it. Amid political and personal chaos, it's becoming clear that the war was arranged by a third party. For centuries, only the fanatical, outlawed Guardians cult believed in this mysterious influence called the Starflyer. New evidence emerges, only to vanish again. Key figures are destroyed by near-invincible assassins crammed with inbuilt "wetwired" weaponry. One determined detective is on the track, but she faces massive political opposition. The multi-stranded action follows many criss-crossing human stories, with fights, pursuits, quests, deaths, resurrections, exotic landscapes and armaments, good sex, and several interesting aliens. Betrayals are frequent, thanks to brainwashed Starflyer agents in positions of trust. Only the Guardians have a scheme to deal with the Starflyer itselfa grandiose strategy known as "the planet's revenge"but no one trusts those crazy cultists… In space, the arms race becomes dizzying, with Prime doomsday weapons used against suns while frantic human research leads to "quantumbusters" so appalling that there's serious moral debate about their use. Can we face the guilt of total genocide, even against a horror like MorningLightMountain? Or is there some way to force this psychopathic genie back into the bottle? The action climaxes in a long, exhilarating chase sequence spiced with ultra-violent skirmishing as the Starflyer comes into the open at last. Stormgliding, an extreme sport introduced in book one, becomes vital to the race against time. Meanwhile, rival starships with different plans chase one another to the Prime system. Hamilton delivers the expected multiple payoffs with suitable pyrotechnics and a satisfying scatter of happy endings. A long, colourful, suspenseful example of modern British space opera. David Langford The Dreaming Void (Void Trilogy 1)
![]() Adventures of the Stainless Steel Rat
![]() Light (Gollancz)
![]() The heavy SF action begins in 2400. Space-going humanity is the latest of many civilizations to be baffled by the impenetrable Kefahuchi Tract; that vast stellar region where an unshielded singularity makes physics itself unreliable. Along its accessible fringe, the "Beach", solar systems are littered with crazy, abandoned devices used to probe the Tract since before life began on Earth. A whole dead-end culture is based on beachcombing this rubble of industrial archaeology... 25th-century characters include a woman who's sacrificed almost everything to merge with the AI "mathematics" of a crack military spacecraft; a former daredevil who once surfed black holes but has retreated into a virtual reality tank; the lady proprietor of the Circus of Pathet Lao, with an alien freakshow and a hidden agenda; and a variety of raunchy, smelly, gene-sculpted lowlife, some comic, some menacing. Many are not what they seem. Meanwhile in 1999 London, physicists Kearney and Tateremembered in 2400 as the fathers of interstellar flightare getting nowhere. Kearney's personal problems occupy familiar Harrison territory: urban paranoia, a seedily unreliable guru, bad sex, guilty rituals to propitiate a metaphysical-seeming threat called the Shrandera pursuing image out of nightmare. In the lab, both Kearney and Tate fear the increasing quantum strangeness of their results. The cosmological wonders and hazards of the Beach form a backdrop to space pursuits and violent skirmishes whose duration is measured in nanoseconds, reported in tensely lyrical prose. Eventually everything comes together as it shouldeven that oppressive 1999 story strandwith revelations, transformation, transcendence, and ultimate hope. Harrison demands your full attention and rewards it richly. David Langford Anima: Signs of Life - Course of the Heart (Gollancz)
![]() The Ecology of Commerce: Doing Good Business
![]() Natural Capitalism: The Next Industrial Revolution
![]() The authors also describe how the next generation of cars is closer than we might think. Manufacturers are already perfecting vehicles that are ultra-light, aerodynamic and fuelled by hybrid electric systems. If natural capitalism continues to blossom, so much money and resources will be saved that societies will be able to focus on issues like housing, contends Hawken, author of a book and US TV series called Growing a Business, and the Lovinses, who co- founded and directed the Rocky Mountain Institute, an environmental think tank in the US. The book is a fascinating and provocative read for public policy makers, as well as environmentalists and capitalists. Dan Ring, Amazon.com Black Holes and Baby Universes and Other Essays
![]() Uncut Confetti: A Loose Collection of Celebratory Pieces
![]() The Metaphysics of Virtual Reality
![]() The Number of the Beast
![]() Catch-22
![]() Accessible Websites (Constructing): Section 508 and Beyond
![]() Children of Dune
![]() Dune
![]() The troubles begin when stewardship of Arrakis is transferred by the Emperor from the Harkonnen Noble House to House Atreides. The Harkonnens don't want to give up their privilege, though, and through sabotage and treachery they cast young Duke Paul Atreides out into the planet's harsh environment to die. There he falls in with the Fremen, a tribe of desert dwellers who become the basis of the army with which he will reclaim what's rightfully his. Paul Atreides, though, is far more than just a usurped duke. He might be the end product of a very long-term genetic experiment designed to breed a superhumanhe might be a messiah. His struggle is at the centre of a nexus of powerful people and events, and the repercussions will be felt throughout the Imperium. Dune is one of the most famous science fiction novels ever written, and deservedly so. The setting is elaborate and ornate, the plot labyrinthine and the adventures exciting. Five sequels follow. Brooks Peck The Godmakers
![]() The Heaven Makers
![]() Dune messiah
![]() God Emperor of Dune
![]() Heretics of Dune (Heretics of Dune Sequence)
![]() The Jesus Incident (Orbit Books)
![]() The Connection Machine (The Mit Press Series in Artificial Intelligence)
![]() Le Ton Beau De Marot
![]() Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid (Penguin Philosophy)
![]() Chinese Cookery
![]() The End of Science (Helix Books)
![]() Guide to Trees of Britain and Europe
![]() Universe Within: A New Science Explores the Human Mind
![]() Hot-head
![]() The World According to Garp (Black Swan)
![]() A Prayer for Owen Meany
![]() The book's mystic religiosity is steeped in Robertson Davies' Deptford trilogy, and the fatal baseball relates to the fatefully misdirected snowball in the first Deptford novel, Fifth Business. Tiny, symbolic Owen echoes the hero of Irving's teacher Günter Grass's The Tin Drumthe two characters share the same initials. A rollicking entertainment, Owen Meany is also a meditation on literature, history and God. Tim Appelo Connectionism and Meaning: From Truth Conditions to Weight Representations (Ablex Series in Artificial Intelligence)
![]() I, Arnold (Galaxy Game)
![]() Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software
![]() Finnegans Wake (Vintage Classics)
![]() Ulysses (Vintage Classics)
![]() Among other things, a novel is simply a long story, and the first question about any story is "What happens?" In the case of Ulysses, the answer could be "Everything". William Blake, one of literature's sublime myopics, saw the universe in a grain of sand. Joyce saw it in Dublin, Ireland, on June 16, 1904, a day distinguished by its utter normality. Two characters, Stephen Dedalus and Leopold Bloom, go about their separate business, crossing paths with a gallery of inforgettable Dubliners. We watch them teach, eat, loiter, argue and (in Bloom's case) masturbate. And thanks to the book's stream- of-consciousness techniquewhich suggests no mere stream but an impossibly deep, swift-running river we're privy to their thoughts, emotions and memories. The result? Almost every variety of human experience is crammed into the accordion-folds of a single day, which makes Ulysses not just an experimental work but the very last word in realism. Both characters add their glorious intonations to the music of Joyce's prose. Dedalus's accentthat of a freelance aesthetician, who dabbles here and there in what we might call "Early Yeats Lite" will be familiar to readers of Portrait of an Artist As a Young Man. But Bloom's wistful sensualism (and naïve curiosity) is something else entirely. Seen through his eyes, a rundown corner of a Dublin graveyard is a figure for hope and hopelessness, mortality and dogged survival: "Mr Bloom walked unheeded along his grove by saddened angels, crosses, broken pillars, family vaults, stone hopes praying with upcast eyes, old Ireland's hearts and hands. More sensible to spend the money on some charity for the living. Pray for the repose of the soul of. Does anybody really?" James Marcus Metrophage
![]() Designing Web Navigation: Optimizing the User Experience
![]() Heads
![]() The Sleepwalkers: A History of Man's Changing Vision of the Universe (Arkana)
![]() The Physics of "Star Trek"
![]() Don't Make Me Think!: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability (Circle.Com Library)
![]() The title of the book is its chief personal design premise. All of the tips, techniques and examples presented within it revolve around users being able to surf merrily through a well-designed site with minimal cognitive strain. Readers will quickly come to agree with many of the book's assumptions. For example, "We don't read pageswe scan them" and, "We don't figure out how things workwe muddle through". Getting to grips with such hard facts sets the stage for Web design that then produces top-notch sites. Using an attractive mix of full-colour screen shots, cute cartoons and diagrams, and informative sidebars, the book keeps your attention and drives home some crucial points. Much of the content is devoted to proper use of conventions and content layout, and the "before and after" examples are superb. Topics such as the wise use of rollovers and usability testing are covered using a consistently practical approach. This is the type of book you can blow through in a couple evenings. But despite its conciseness, it will give you an expert's ability to judge Web design. You'll never form a first impression of a site in the same way again. Stephen W Plain The Unbearable Lightness of Being
![]() Human and Machine Thinking (John MacEachran Memorial Lecture)
![]() The Cylon Death Machine
![]() Battlestar Galactica
![]() Heroes Reborn: Fantastic Four TPB: Fantastic Four (Fantastic 4 (Unnumbered))
![]() Silver Surfer: Judgement Day
![]() Reckless Sleep (Gollancz)
![]() VR "gamezones" have a special, painful meaning for Far Warriors like reluctant hero Jon Sciler, who were sent to clean out the hostile native life of the colony world Dirangesept. What seemed a simple task, a shoot-'em-up game with Earth's invincible remote-controlled "autoids" pitted against primitives, went horribly, inexplicably wrong. The remnants of Sciler's team returned scarred and publicly shamed. Now a vengeful serial killer is apparently targeting Far Warrior veteransat least those who sign up with the VR outfit Maze. Maze is running endless, mysterious tests on its impossibly realistic gameworld Cathar, haunted by magic and presence that even the operators don't understand. Must dying in Cathar always mean dying in reality? Sciler's struggle to make sense of how he is being manipulated by Maze and stranger forces leads to serious danger in and out of VRfor friends as well as himselfeventually uncovering the true legacy of the Dirangesept disaster. A fast-moving, street-wise, intensely paranoid SF thriller. David Langford The Ages of Gaia: A Biography of Our Living Earth
![]() Star Wars (Sphere science fiction)
![]() The Cassini Division
![]() Cosmonaut Keep
![]() The Star Fraction
![]() The Sky Road: A Fall Revolution Novel
![]() Dark Light: Bk. 2 (Engines of Light)
![]() Engine City (Engines of Light)
![]() MacLeod has lots of fun with UFO conspiracy theories, since here the saurian-descended "Alien Greys" with their antigravity saucers actually exist. So do hairy Bigfoot-like primates, sea-dwelling selkie folk, and other legends. Planetary fossil records are a misleading mess, thanks to tampering by the "gods". These gods are hive-mind intellects, vast, cool and irritable, occupying comets and asteroids. They have long been transplanting intelligent species across space, and playing them off against one another, just to keep the noise downthe dreadful racket of radio broadcasts and space exploration. "Their first and last commandment is: do not disturb us." The mixture of human and other races dumped in the Second Sphere, a far-off galactic region, is up to potentially disturbing activities: an accelerating growth of technology and interstellar trade. Are rumours of octopod alien "Multipliers" mere disinformation, or are these the Gods'-appointed nemesis for the human-led Bright Star Cultures and their commercial empire? Some long-lived cosmonauts, surviving from book one, hope for peaceful diplomatic relations. One, an unreconstructed Russian veteran, urges a massive arms programme on the world of Nova Terra. Everyone, but everyone, is in for surprises. The twisty narrative has many cheery asides, such as the naming of a flotilla of human-built UFOs: "Matt's suggested names (Rectal Probe, Up Yours, Probably Venus, Strange Light, No Defence Significance) were all rejected..." Or a saurian's patient explanation that antigravity was useless for building their equivalent of the Pyramids, which required enormous ramps of close-packed earth, miles of rope, and tens of thousands of workers: "But when you tell people that, they don't believe you." Towards the finale on Nova Terra, events are complicated by heavy weaponry, alien symbiosis, a programme of "guerrilla ontology" featuring literal "Men in Black" and devastating intervention by one of the gods. For excellent self-defensive reasons, the Bright Star Cultures class the killing of Gods (theicide) as a heinous crime. The provocation, however, is great... A highly enjoyable conclusion to a fizzy, fast-moving but persistently intelligent trilogy. David Langford Newton's Wake
![]() Learning the World: A Novel of First Contact
![]() The Execution Channel
![]() Halo (Legend Books)
![]() The Trusted Advisor
![]() The Tree of Knowledge: Biological Roots of Human Understanding
![]() The Many-coloured Land (The Saga of the Exiles)
![]() The Non Born King
![]() The Adversary (The Saga of the Exiles)
![]() Golden Torc
![]() Jack the Bodiless (Galactic Milieu Trilogy)
![]() Diamond Mask (Galactic Milieu Trilogy)
![]() Magnificat (Galactic Milieu Trilogy)
![]() The Secret of Life
![]() The ship who sang
![]() Deepsix
![]() Chindi
![]() A Talent for War
![]() Polaris
![]() Odyssey
![]() Food of the Gods: The Search for the Original Tree of Knowledge - A Radical History of Plants, Drugs and Human Evolution
![]() Cusp
![]() Ruby & The Stone Age Diet
![]() Dreams of Sex and Stage Diving
![]() Batman: Dark Knight Returns: Dark Knight Returns
![]() Miller went far beyond the call of duty. The Dark Knight is a success on every level. Firstly it does keep the core elements of the Batman myth intact, with Robin, Alfred the butler, Commissioner Gordon and the old roster of villains, present yet brilliantly subverted. Secondly the artwork is fantasticdetailed, sometimes claustrophobic, psychotic. Lastly it's a great story: Gotham City is a hell on earth, streetgangs roam but there are no heroes. Decay is ubiquitous. Where is a hero to save Gotham? It is 10 years since the last recorded sighting of the Batman. And things have got worse than ever. Bruce Wayne is close to being a broken man but something is keeping him sane: the need to see change and the belief that he can orchestrate some of that change. Batman is back. The Dark Knight has returned. Awesome. Mark Thwaite ActionScript: The Definitive Guide
![]() The first and most substantial part of the book describes ActionScript's features from basics like variables and operators, through to more advanced topics such as event handling, ActionScript objects and manipulating Flash movie clips. No previous programming experience is assumed, but you are expected to be familiar with Flash itself. The "Movie Clips" chapter includes a careful and very useful explanation of the order in which ActionScript code executes. A short "Applied ActionScript" section follows, covering the Flash 5 authoring environment, forms and fields and debugging. Finally there is a detailed 250-page language reference. This includes core JavaScript elements as well as ActionScript objects, and is liberally annotated with tips and Flash-specific example code. The XML support in Flash 5 is fully described and illustrated in this section. A strong point is that despite covering the fundamentals the early chapters remain interesting even for experienced JavaScript programmers. The section on applied ActionScript is perhaps too short, but the annotated language guide is superb. Combining in-depth Flash expertise with precise and detailed reference material, this is an outstanding ActionScript title. Tim Anderson Speed of Dark
![]() Victory Conditions (Vatta's War)
![]() The Eternal Champion (Tale of the Eternal Champion)
![]() Hollow Lands (Dancers at the end of time / Michael Moorcock)
![]() THE END OF ALL SONGS
![]() Alien Heat (Dancers at the End of Time : Book I)
![]() The Cornelius Chronciles Book Two: The English Assasin; The Condition Of Muzak
![]() Watchmen
![]() The story concerns a group called the Crimebusters and a plot to kill and discredit them. Moore's characterisation is as sophisticated as any novel's. Importantly the costumes do not get in the way of the storytelling, rather they allow Moore to investigate issues of power and controlindeed it was Watchmen, and to a lesser extent Dark Knight, that propelled the comic genre forward, making "adult" comics a reality. The artwork of Gibbons (best known for 2000AD's Rogue Trooper and DC's Green Lantern) is very fine too, echoing Moore's paranoid mood perfectly throughout. Packed with symbolism, some of the overlying themes (arms control, nuclear threat, vigilantes) have dated but the intelligent social and political commentary, the structure of the story itself, its intertextuality (chapters appended with excerpts from other "works" and "studies" on Moore's characters, or with excerpts from another comic book being read by a child within the story), the fine pace of the writing and its humanity mean that Watchmen more than stands upit retains its crown as the best the genre has yet produced. Mark Thwaite Altered Carbon
![]() In 2411, death is not forever. Afterward, they can read your personality from an implanted "cortical stack" and upload you into a new bodyat a price. Hero Kovacs has worn many bodies on different worlds as a former member of the UN Envoy Corps, programmed killers to a man. Now the incredibly rich Bancroft brings him to Earth to investigate a killing... of Bancroft himself, restored from his digital backup and rejecting the police theory of suicide. Half the vice-lords of 25th-century San Francisco are soon chasing Kovacs with futuristic surveillance, drugs and weaponry. Virtual-reality interrogation means they can torture you to death, and then start again. There's a bleak slave trade in rented or confiscated bodiesand Kovacs finds his current borrowed face is all too well known to both police and underworld. Ultraviolent set-pieces follow, sprinkled with philosophical asides such as this reflection on a stungun: "It was the single forgiving phrase in the syntax of weaponry I had strapped around me. The rest were unequivocal sentences of death." There are some James-Bondian implausibilities, such as Kovacs's final confrontation with the villain he's sworn to kill: rather than shooting and leaving fast, he discusses the plot for 10 pages until... but that would be telling. This is high-tension SF action, hard to put downthough squeamish readers may shut their eyes rather frequently. David Langford The Orchard Book of Aesop's Fables (Orchard Book of)
![]() Lolita (Penguin Classics)
![]() Vast
![]() Linda Nagata is remarkably adept at introducing new concepts without disturbing the flow of the narrative. Vast molds human figures out of a clay of genetic, nano, and virtual technology, allowing their humanity to take primacy: "It came without warning, making no sound. Lot first sensed its presence as a flash of motion in the central tunnel. He looked around, to see a flood spiraling down on him, white water sluicing through an invisible pipe, a snake made of water. It swept into the chamber; it coiled around him, an arm's length away. The coils of the snake melted together, and he was encased in a glistening shell. Charismata of exhilaration rained against his sensory tears, a strange foreign sense of greeting. Tendrils reached out to him from the shell's shimmering white surface, a thousand slender white tendrils brushing him. Faint touches. Where they contacted his skin suit they retracted, but where they touched his bruised face they stayed. Familiarity flooded him, a warm sense of union that eased the black pressure of the cult [virus] forever burning under his skin. A voice whispered in his ear, produced by a trembling membrane on the end of a tendril. 'You know us?'" Make sure you're in a comfortable position when you start reading: Linda Nagata is light years ahead of her contemporaries in writing heart-racing, hard-science SF. Once this story sinks its teeth into you, you won't hear the phone ringing or care that it's way past bedtime until the last page is turned. Jhana Bach Designing Web Usability: The Practice of Simplicity
![]() This guide segments discussions of Web usability into page, content, site, and intranet design. This breakdown skilfully isolates for the reader many subtly different challenges that are often mixed together in other discussions. For example, Nielsen addresses the requirements of viewing pages on varying monitor sizes separately from writing concise text for "scannability". Along the way, the author pulls no punches with his opinions, using phrases like "frames: just say no" to immediately make his feelings known. Fortunately, his advice is some of the best you'll find. One of the unique aspects of this title is the use of actual statistics to buttress the author's opinions on various techniques and technologies. He includes survey results on sizes of screens, types of queries submitted to search portals, response times by connection type and more. This book is intended as the first of two volumesfocusing on the "what". The author promises a follow-up title that will show the "hows", and based on this installation, we can't wait. Stephen W. Plain, amazon.com Topics covered: Cross-platform design, response time considerations, writing for the Web, multimedia implementation, navigation strategies, search boxes, corporate intranet design, accessibility for disabled users, international considerations, and future predictions. Ringworld
![]() The Ringworld Engineers (Orbit Books)
![]() Protector
![]() The Mote in God's Eye (Orbit Books)
![]() The Mote in God's Eye (Orbit Books)
![]() Nymphomation
![]() Nymphomation
![]() Nymphomation presents an alternate reality in which Manchester has become a test bed for the new game and its sinister undertones. The story is driven by characters recognisable as real peoplestudents, street dwellers, musicians, waiters. They get caught up in what becomes for some of them a fight to the death to defeat the controlling power of the lottery and its head, Mr Million. Noon writes with an accomplished mix of wit and darkness, and manages to invent a whole dictionary of new words along the way. Whoompy burgers sponsor the police and control the Net, blurbflies carry the adverts around the streets and the nymphomania itself tries to control but has to be controlled. The upshot is an imaginative and disturbing horror/cyberpunk/science fiction mix with plenty of harsh reality and social comment thrown in. Sandra Vogel Emotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things
![]() The Design of Everyday Things
![]() The Design of Everyday Things
![]() Emotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things
![]() How to Make Love to the Same Person for the Rest of Your Life - And Still Love It
![]() The Klingon Dictionary: English/Klingon, Klingon/English (Star Trek)
![]() The Famished Road
![]() At the heart of this hypnotic novel are the mysteries of love and human survival. "It is more difficult to love than to die", says Azaro's father, and indeed, it is love that brings real sharpness to suffering here. As the story moves toward its climax, Azaro must face the consequences of choosing to live, of choosing to walk the road of hunger rather than return to the benign land of spirits. The Famished Road is worth reading for its last line alone, which must be one of the most devastating endings in contemporary literature (but don't skip ahead). R. Ellis Survivor
![]() From the very opening of the book Palahniuk lets us know that his narrator, Tender Branson, the last surviving member of a religious death cult, is on a path to self-destruction. The tension in this book lies not in the outcome, because like Tender's soothsaying friend Fertility, we can see it coming 289 pages away, instead it lies in the intricate plot that takes Tender from farm boy to media celebrity and ruin. This is a novel that examines what happens when religion meets the overindulgences of our consumerist society. In the world that the author envisages, which is all too real in the light of tragedies such as Waco and the Heaven's Gate suicides, the only acceptable religions are those that can be successfully marketed and controlled at a corporate level; the small separatist models of religion are superfluous, and self-destruct. This is also a look at religion itself, at how it can enslave as many people as it appears to liberate. A comic novel that deals with the most serious issues of society, Survivor places Palahniuk among the most daring and technically able writers of his generation. Adam said the first step most cultures take to making you a slave is to castrate you ... the cultures that don't castrate you to make you a slave, they castrate your mind. Iain Robinson Fight Club
![]() Memory and Amnesia: An Introduction
![]() Computers and Creativity
![]() The Gormenghast Trilogy
![]() The new television series, with which this edition ties in, promises great things but the best part of Mervyn Peake is to be found in his ornate, poetic writing; his grasp of the Dickensian oddities of character and the utterly unique atmosphere of the books. Adam Roberts Superstrings and the Search for the Theory of Everything
![]() Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
![]() Lila: An Enquiry into Morals
![]() The Gold Bug Variations
![]() Operation Wandering Soul
![]() The Light Fantastic (Discworld Novel)
![]() The Subtle Knife: Adult Edition (His Dark Materials)
![]() Lyra's finest qualities are her courage and her quick mind. She finds she must use them constantlynot to put too fine a point on it, she must lie and steal to keep herself and Will out of danger. However, she must also know when to tell the truth and when to trust. She does not yet knowthough her friends the witches do, and so does the readerwhat a huge part she will have in the upcoming battle between Good and Evil. (Age 9 and over) - -Amazon.com Representation and Reality (Representation & Mind) (Representation & Mind)
![]() Connectionism and Psychology: A Psychological Perspective on Connectionist Research
![]() Marrow
![]() "Just tell us please... what in hell is down there?" "A spherical object," she replied. And with a slow wink she added, "It's the size of Mars, about. But considerably more massive." Washen's heart began to gallop. The audience let out a low, wounded groan. "Show them," the Master said to her AI. "Show them what we found." Disaster strikes and a group of captains become trapped on the world they name "Marrow". Factions develop, leading to civil war and insurrection, coupled with labyrinthine personal intrigues played out across thousands of years. Given the immortal captains' willingness to decapitate one another, Highlander comes to mind, but while Reed's ideas are interesting he never develops his characters sufficiently to convincingly explain how they cope with the potential tedium of immortality. There are plenty of "big ideas" but it becomes increasingly hard to care about any of Reed's alienated post-humans, while the partially satisfactory ending offers as many possibilities for a sequel as it provides answers.Gary S Dalkin Sister Alice
![]() Down the Bright Way
![]() The Well of Stars
![]() Listen, Little Man (Pelican books)
![]() Ivory
![]() Revelation Space
![]() Sylveste is the only man ever to return alive and sane from a Shroud, an enclave in space protected by awesome gravity-warping defences: "a folding a billion times less severe should have required more energy than was stored in the entire rest-mass of the galaxy." Now an intuition he doesn't understand makes him explore the dead world Resurgam, whose birdlike natives long ago tripped some booby-trap that made their own sun erupt in a deadly flare. Meanwhile, the vast, decaying lightship Nostalgia for Infinity is coming for Sylveste, whose dead father (in AI simulation) could perhaps help the Captain, frozen near absolute zero yet still suffering monstrous transformation by nanotech plague. Most of Infinity's tiny crew have hidden agendasKhouri the reluctant contract-assassin believes she must kill Sylveste to save humanityand there are two bodiless stowaways, one no longer human and one never human. Shocking truths emerge from bluff, betrayal and ingenious lies. The trail leads to a neutron star where an orbiting alien construct has defences to challenge the Infinity's planet-wrecking superweapons. At the heart of this artefact, the final revelations detonatemost satisfyingly. Dense with information and incident, this longish novel has no surplus fat and seems almost too short. A sparkling SF debut. David Langford Chasm City (Gollancz SF S.)
![]() The main narrative stars trained killer Tanner Mirabel, a man hell-bent on revenge, who stalks his enemy Reivich from the world Sky's Edge across a 15-year interstellar gap to the gaudy, poisoned melting pot of Chasm City. Flashbacks reveal the violent events and worse repercussions that so badly twisted Mirabel and others. Virus-induced dreams provide a third story line from inside the head of legendary traitor-messiah Sky Haussmann, who long ago shaped the original colonisation of Sky's Edge and whose real story never got into the history books. Chasm City's complications include spectacular space-elevator sabotage, faulty antimatter drives, hidden aliens, mystery drugs, exotic bio-modification, tailored disease, high-tech weaponry, a new and deadlier form of bungee-jumping, and that traditional SF symptom of decadence: organised hunts with human prey. Violent death is never far off, but our protagonist has deeper worries in that his own motives and memories, even his identity, don't seem to add up quite as they should ... After many chases, captures and escapes, these tangled plot strands are satisfyingly resolved. Masks are stripped away, and webs of lies exposed. Revelations range from the origin of the dread Melding Plague (which once nightmarishly merged Chasm City's people, machines and buildings) to the reason for an irrational fear of alcoves. An enjoyably tense, tortuous SF thriller. David Langford Redemption Ark (Gollancz SF S.)
![]() Building on the previous books, the interstellar situation is exhilaratingly complex. Major players from Revelation Space are still at large in the solar system containing the new Inhibitor construction site, the vast old starship Nostalgia for Infinity (hideously transformed and merged with its captain by "Melding Plague"), the hell-weapons, and the colonized planet Resurgamwhich may need to be evacuated at speed. Many light years away, the mechanically enhanced human Conjoiners are fighting a space war around Yellowstone, the world of Chasm City. Although victory approaches, the Conjoiners are frantically building advanced starships and planning to run for their lives, thanks to an incredibly dangerous project that sucked information from the futureincluding news of the Inhibitors. The Conjoiners have their own internal factions, at least one of which isn't what it seems, and a fresh split leads to a tense relativistic race for the Resurgam system and those coveted hell-weapons. Booby-traps and deadly strategems enliven the desperate journey. Other, non-Conjoiner humansnot to mention machine intelligences and genetically engineered man-pig chimerasare caught up in the intrigue and violence. Many members of this large cast have inner secrets, other identities, painful relationships, long-concealed guilt. As at last they converge on the Resurgam system, there are jolting surprises. Meanwhile, the immense past and future of Reynolds' universe becomes clearer, a cosmic tapestry with the deep-time scope of Stephen Baxter's Xeelee series, ranging from the Dawn War in the early aeons of galactic life to a cataclysmic event still three billion years in the future. A disaster which the loathed robotic Inhibitors are working patiently to minimise.... Despite minor glitches in story logic, Redemption Ark is a hugely enjoyable and ambitious interstellar epic, a must-read for fans of SF that operates on a truly colossal scale. David Langford Absolution Gap (Gollancz SF S.)
![]() From the same cryptic source as that supertechnology, filtered through a young girl's mind, comes the urgent message to make an interstellar trek to Hela, barren moon of the gas-giant Haldora. Hela is home to an obsessive religion fuelled partly by mind viruses and partly by the miracle of Haldora. This unpredictable, unbelievable event happens in an eyeblink, but more and more often. For the devout this increasing frequency is a signal of the End Times, which is why a group of vast mobile cathedrals lumbers forever around Helato keep Haldora at the zenith for best observation of its marvels. And on this last circuit, with a madman in command, the greatest cathedral of all plans an impossible short cut over the mysterious, delicate bridge spanning an immense rift in Hela's surface: Absolution Gap. There's a lot of action with both familiar and enjoyably exotic weapons; there's suffering, deceit, loss and triumph; there's a hideous revenge straight out of Jacobean tragedy, a series of awesome revelations and the last voyage of the lightship Nostalgia for Infinity that was so strangely transformed in Revelation Space. Ultimately, behind the enigma of Haldora, a dreadful choice awaits: whether or not to bargain with powers that may be the answer to the Inhibitorsbut may be something worse. Alastair Reynolds makes his huge story compellingly readable, with characters we care about, and gives impressive descriptions of beauty and cataclysm. This is very superior space opera. David Langford Century Rain (Gollancz SF S.)
![]() Pushing Ice (Gollancz SF S.)
![]() Galactic North (Gollancz S.F.)
![]() The Prefect (Gollancz S.F.)
![]() House of Suns (Gollancz S.F.)
![]() The Origins of Virtue (Penguin Press Science)
![]() Salt
![]() Ill-assorted groups of Earth colonists were lured across space by misleading survey reportsor did Salt change during the long voyage? They build their makeshift cities around the salt lakes, struggling to tame this dreadful world. Unfortunately two of the settlements are desperately incompatible, hardly able even to communicate. Senaar city has a rigid, disciplined hierarchy with every person in their place, ordered like atoms in crystalline salt; Als is a leaderless anarchy where anyone might tackle any job, all as fluid as seawater. (Yes, Roberts loves salty metaphors.) The viewpoint alternates between Petja of Als and Senaar's leader, Barlei, whose non-communication escalates into a war for which Senaar has been prepared all alongalthough Barlei has hypocritical justifications for everything, including oppression of his own people and Orwellian rewriting of history. Meanwhile, against all his Alsist principles, the gentler, poetic Petja hardens into a charismatic terrorist leader. Their entwined stories are grim, sad and bitter as salt. (Roberts does sometimes overdo the metaphors.) Salt is a skilful, intense, gloomy novel. David Langford On (Gollancz)
![]() Red mars
![]() Green Mars
![]() Blue Mars
![]() The Years of Rice and Salt
![]() The centuries that follow are initially dominated by expanding Islamic nations and the monolithic Chinese empire. It's a grand chronicle of rising and falling cultures, with individuals forever struggling to make a difference to the slow-motion landslide of events. Extra continuity is given by a touch of fantasy as the Buddhist wheel of reincarnation brings back the same characters (coded by initials) again and again with varied roles, relations and sexes. Their stories are touching and very human. Episodes of our own history are artfully echoed. America is discovered by Chinese ships from the west, with fateful effects for the native tribes and the "Inka" theocracy further south. The scientific ideas of da Vinci's Renaissance are reflected by the Alchemist of Samarkand, reluctantly devising fresh weapons of war. New forms of government arise. Islamic splinter groups move into empty Europe and in that softer climate develop dangerous notions like feminism. A First World War eventually comes, later than we'd expect but horribly prolonged. Then Muslim scientists begin to see the implications of the mass-energy theories of a savant from the Indian subcontinent: Invisible worlds, full of energy and power: sub-atomic harems, each pulsing on the edge of a great explosion...There was no escaping the latent violence at the heart of things. Even the stones were mortal. This immense tapestry of history that never happened is constantly illuminated by the small comedies, tragedies, romances and triumphs of memorably real individuals. The Years of Rice and Salt is a brave new landmark in alternate history, deservedly shortlisted for the British SF Association and Arthur C Clarke awards. David Langford Natural History
![]() Silver Screen
![]() Keeping It Real
![]() Philosophy and Social Hope
![]() Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Book 7) [Special Edition]
![]() The pubdate of the seventh and final Harry Potter book has been announced, and the rumours are already circulating - what are the Deathly Hallows? Who will make it through to the end? This special edition of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is for any major fan of the series, offering a luxury jacket and binding, this is set to make the perfect present for any muggle! Visit the Harry Potter Store Our Harry Potter Store features all things Harry, including books, audio CDs and cassettes, DVDs, toys and more. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Book 2): Adult Edition
![]() Unable to board the Hogwarts express, Harry and his friends break all the rules and make their way to the school in a magical flying car. From this point on, incredible events happen to Harry and his friendsHarry hears evil voices and someone, or something is attacking the pupils. Can Harry get to the bottom of the mystery before it's too late? As with its predecessor Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets is a highly readable and imaginative adventure story with real, fallible, characters, plenty of humour and, of course, loads of magic and spells. There is no need to have read Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone to enjoy this book. However, if you have read it, this is the book you have been waiting for. (Ages 9 to Adult). Philippa Reece Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
![]() Once returned to Hogwarts after his summer holiday with the dreadful Dursleys and an extraordinary outing to the Quidditch World Cup, the 14-year-old Harry and his fellow pupils are enraptured by the promise of the Triwizard Tournament: an ancient, ritualistic tournament that brings Hogwarts together with two other schools of wizardryDurmstrang and Beauxbatonsin heated competition. But when Harry's name is pulled from the Goblet of Fire, and he is chosen to champion Hogwarts in the tournament, the trouble really begins. Still reeling from the effects of a terrifying nightmare that has left him shaken, and with the lightning-shaped scar on his head throbbing with pain (a sure sign that the evil Voldemort, Harry's sworn enemy, is close), Harry becomes at once the most popular boy in school. Yet, despite his fame, he is totally unprepared for the furore that follows. This is a hefty volume: 636 pages, of which probably at least 200 could have been cut without detracting from the story. The weight and complexity of the book is perhaps a hint that Rowling now has her eye sharply focused on her adult audience, and the average child-reader (particularly one who is coming to Harry Potter for the first time) may well find its girth daunting. Rowling's ironic and pointed observations on tabloid journalism and the nature of media hype is just one of the references littered through the book that will tickle the grown-ups but may well fly over the heads of her young fans. However, after a slow start, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire really starts to sparkle halfway through with Rowling's familiar magic (and yes, there is a deathsudden and tragicand yes, Harry does start to notice girls). The crux of this story, however, is Harry's gradual coming-of-age and his handling of the increasingly determined threats to his own life. This book is pivotal, not just for the author for whom the heat is well and truly on, but for Harry and his readers who, by the last chapter, are left in little doubt that there is much more to come. (Ages 10 to adult) Susan Harrison Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Book 5) [Adult Edition]
![]() Book five in JK Rowling's Harry Potter series follows the darkest year yet for our young wizard, who finds himself knocked down a peg or three after the events of last year. Over the summer, gossip (usually traced back to the magic world's newspaper, the Daily Prophet) has turned Harry's tragic and heroic encounter with Voldemort at the Triwizard Tournament into an excuse to ridicule and discount the teenager. Even Professor Dumbledore, headmaster of the school, has come under scrutiny from the Ministry of Magic, which refuses to officially acknowledge the terrifying truth: that Voldemort is back. Enter a particularly loathsome new character: the toad-like and simpering ("hem, hem") Dolores Umbridge, senior undersecretary to the minister of Magic, who takes over the vacant position of defence against dark arts teacherand in no time manages to become the high inquisitor of Hogwarts. Life isn't getting any easier for Harry Potter. With an overwhelming course load as the fifth years prepare for their examinations, devastating changes in the Gryffindor Quidditch team line-up, vivid dreams about long hallways and closed doors, and increasing pain in his lightning-shaped scar, Harry's resilience is sorely tested. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, more than any of the four previous novels in the series, is a coming-of-age story. Harry faces the thorny transition into adulthood, when adult heroes are revealed to be fallible, and matters that seemed black and white suddenly come out in shades of gray. Gone is the wide-eyed innocent, the whiz kid of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Here we have an adolescent who's sometimes sullen, often confused (especially about girls), and always self-questioning. Confronting death again, as well as a startling prophecy, Harry ends his year at Hogwarts exhausted and pensive. Readers, on the other hand, will be energised as they enter yet again the long waiting period for the next title in the marvellous magical series. Emilie Coulter Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince: Children's Edition (Harry Potter 6)
![]() Rowling opens with a chapter she had wanted to use for the first book, of The Philosopher's StoneLord Voldemort has been creating chaos in the Wizard and Muggle communities alike, the war is in full swing and the Wizarding community now lives in fear. The press have been questioning the events at the Ministry which led to the admission of Voldemort's return, and of course Harry's name is mentioned a number of times. Harry's got his problems, but his anxiety is nothing compared to Hermione's when the OWL results are delivered. There's a new Defence Against The Dark Arts teacher, an assortment of new characters and creatures, and startling revelations about past characters and events. Gone is the rage-filled Harry of The Order of the Phoenixhehe's not being kept in the dark any more, his unjustified Quidditch ban has been lifted and he has matured considerably in his short time out of school. Half-Blood Prince follows Harry into the world of late-teens, and his realisation that nobody is infallible has made his growth that much easier. Accepting his destiny, Harry continues to behave as teenagers do, enjoying his time with his friends, developing his relationships outside of his usual circle, and learning more about how he must, eventually, do what he is destined to do. J.K. Rowling delivers another fantastic tale which will have the readers gasping for more, capturing the characters perfectly and continuing a tale which readers will enjoy over and over again. Ziggy Morbi Spaceland: A Novel of the Fourth Dimension (Tom Doherty Associates Book)
![]() Frek and the Elixir
![]() Midnight's Children (Picador Books)
![]() The Sparrow
![]() Children of God (Black Swan original)
![]() Unto Leviathan
![]() Air (Gollancz S.F.)
![]() Contact
![]() Idlewild
![]() Lady of Mazes
![]() Learning Perl (A Nutshell Handbook)
![]() Learning Perl draws on the expertise of two of the major supporters of this highly flexible language, Randal Schwatrz and Tom Christiansen, to produce an introductory manual which manages to be concise yet informative throughout. Weighing in at a mere (for a computer manual) 271 pages it achieves admirably what it sets out to doteach Perl basics and no more. From the introduction to the different variable types through hash arrays, file access, process management and coding for the World Wide Web, it's a well-paced easy-to-understand book which assumes a rudimentary knowledge of programming but no more. With its multitude of clear examples which help to hammer home the many points made and set exercises at the end of each chapter, it builds knowledge rather than drowning the reader with information as many other books seem to do. This is the first in a series of books on the subject from O'Reilly Publishing, the others being Programming Perl, Advanced Perl Programming and the Perl Cookbook and it truly is a great introduction to a language which is enthusiastically supported by developers and Web coders worldwide. Well worth a read. Great Apes
![]() How the Dead Live
![]() Gulliver's Fugitives (Star Trek: The Next Generation)
![]() Herotica 4: A New Collection of Erotic Writing by Women: 4
![]() Fall of Hyperion
![]() Hyperion (Hyperion Cantos)
![]() Endymion
![]() The Rise of Endymion (Hyperion Cantos)
![]() Ilium (Gollancz S.F.)
![]() On Earth, a post-technological group of humans, pampered by servant machines and easy travel via "faxing," begins to question its beginnings. Meanwhile, a team of sentient and Shakespeare-quoting robots from Jupiter's lunar system embark on a mission to Mars to investigate an increase in dangerous quantum fluctuations. On the Red Planet, they'll find a race of metahumans living out existence as the pantheon of classic Greek gods. These "gods" have recreated the Trojan War with reconstituted Greeks and Trojans and staffed it with scholars from throughout Earth's history who observe the events and report on the accuracy of Homer's Iliad. One of these scholars, Thomas Hockenberry, finds himself tangled in the midst of interplay between the gods and their playthings and sends the war reeling in a direction the blind poet could have never imagined. Simmons creates an exciting and thrilling tale set in the thick of the Trojan War as seen through Hockenberry's 20th-century eyes. At the same time, Simmons's robots study Shakespeare and Proust and the origin-seeking Earthlings find themselves caught in a murderous retelling of The Tempest. Reading this highly literate novel does take more than a passing familiarity with at least The Iliad but readers who can dive into these heady waters and swim with the current will be amply rewarded. Jeremy Pugh, Amazon.com Legacies
![]() Beyond Freedom and Dignity (Penguin Psychology)
![]() Toast: The Story of a Boy's Hunger
![]() Skylark of Valeron (Skylark series / E. E. Doc Smith)
![]() THE SKYLARK OF SPACE
![]() Skylark Duquesne
![]() The Imperial Stars (Family d'Alembert series / E. E. Doc Smith)
![]() Strangler's Moon (Family d'Alembert series / E. E. Doc Smith)
![]() The Clockwork Traitor (Family d'Alembert series / E. E. Doc Smith)
![]() Purity Plot (Family d'Alembert series / E. E. Doc Smith)
![]() Planet of Treachery: Volume 7 in the Family d'Alembert Series
![]() Planet of Treachery: Volume 7 in the Family d'Alembert Series
![]() Getaway World (Family d'Alembert series)
![]() The Bloodstar Conspiracy (Family d'Alembert series)
![]() One Of Us
![]() The Chinese Art of T'ai Chi Ch'uan
![]() Maus: A Survivor's Tale
![]() Last And First Men (S.F. Masterworks)
![]() Coyote
![]() Zodiac
![]() Snow Crash (Roc)
![]() The Diamond Age: Or, a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer
![]() The Diamond Age: Or, a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer
![]() Snow Crash
![]() Cryptonomicon
![]() Cryptonomicon zooms all over the world, careening conspiratorially back and forth between two time periods- -World War II and the present. Our 1940s heroes are the brilliant mathematician Lawrence Waterhouse, cryptanalyst extraordinaire, and gung ho, morphine-addicted marine Bobby Shaftoe. They're part of Detachment 2702, an Allied group trying to break Axis communication codes while simultaneously preventing the enemy from figuring out that their codes have been broken. Their job boils down to layer upon layer of deception. Dr. Alan Turing is also a member of 2702, and he explains the unit's strange workings to Waterhouse. "When we want to sink a convoy, we send out an observation plane first. Of course, to observe is not its real dutywe already know exactly where the convoy is. Its real duty is to be observed. Then, when we come round and sink them, the Germans will not find it suspicious." All of this secrecy resonates in the present-day story line, in which the grandchildren of the WWII heroesinimitable programming geek Randy Waterhouse and the lovely and powerful Amy Shaftoeteam up to help create an offshore data haven in Southeast Asia and maybe uncover some gold once destined for Nazi coffers. To top off the paranoiac tone of the book, the mysterious Enoch Root, key member of Detachment 2702 and the Societas Eruditorum, pops up with an unbreakable encryption scheme left over from WWII to befuddle the 1990s protagonists with conspiratorial ties. Cryptonomicon is vintage Stephenson from start to finish: short on plot, but long on detail and so precise it's exhausting. Every page has a math problem, a quotable in-joke, an amazing idea or a bit of sharp prose. Cryptonomicon is also packed with truly weird characters, funky tech, and cryptoall the crypto you'll ever need, in fact, not to mention all the computer jargon of the moment. A word to the wise: if you read this book in one sitting, you may die of information overload (and starvation). Therese Littleton, Amazon.com Quicksilver (Baroque Cycle 1)
![]() The Confusion (Baroque Cycle 2)
![]() The System of the World
![]() Interface
![]() Cobweb
![]() Wheelers
![]() Singularity Sky
![]() Iron Sunrise
![]() Toast
![]() Accelerando
![]() Glasshouse
![]() The Jennifer Morgue
![]() Halting State
![]() Saturn's Children
![]() The Atrocity Archives
![]() More Than Human (S.F. Masterworks)
![]() In part one, this crippled Gestalt is movingly brought together from the wreckage of members' past lives. Part two sees Lone replaced by the psychologically damaged Gerry, a murderer at age eight: he must, agonisingly, confront his reasons for killing the benefactor who cherished them as individuals but menaced the all-important group. (The twins can't eat with the white folks; Baby should go to a home...) Part three artfully echoes the previous sections' long healing of Lone's body and Gerry's mind, with the now-grown Janie defiantly rehabilitating an unfortunate victim of Gerry's misused talents. Although the Gestalt is now tremendously powerful, there's still one important factor missing. "Does a superman have super-hunger, Gerry? Super-loneliness?" Sturgeon wrote beautifully, from the famous opening"The idiot lived in a black and grey world, punctuated by the white lightning of hunger and the flickering of fear."through moments of great poignancy, and unexpected images, like a starved man seeing marmalade as stained glass. More Than Human won the International Fantasy Award and holds up well today. This is recommended. David Langford Vacuum Flowers
![]() Stations of the Tide
![]() The Origins and Sources of Drugs (Encyclopedia of Psychoactive Drugs)
![]() Brain: Introduction to Neuroscience
![]() The Visual Display of Quantitative Information
![]() A Fire Upon the Deep (Gollancz)
![]() Faster-than-light travel remains impossible near Earth, deep in the galaxy's Slow Zonebut physical laws relax in the surrounding Beyond. Outside that again is the Transcend, full of unpredictable, godlike "Powers". When human meddling wakes an old Power, the Blight, this spreads like a wildfire mind virus that turns whole civilisations into its unthinking tools. And the half-mythical Countermeasure, if it exists, is lost with two human children on primitive Tines World. Serious complications follow. One paranoid alien alliance blames humanity for the Blight and launches a genocidal strike. Pham Nuwen, the man who knows about Countermeasure, escapes this ruin in the spacecraft Out of Bandheading for more violence and treachery, with 500 warships soon in hot pursuit. On his destination world, the fascinating Tines are intelligent only in combination: named "individuals" are small packs of the dog-like aliens. Primitive doesn't mean stupid, and opposed Tine leaders wheedle the young castaways for information about guns and radios. Low-tech war looms, with elaborately nested betrayals and schemes to seize Out of Band if it ever arrives. The tension becomes extreme... while half the Beyond debates the issues on galactic Usenet. Vinge's climax is suitably mind-boggling. This epic combines the flash and dazzle of old-style space opera with modern, polished thoughtfulness. Pham Nuwen also appears in the nifty prequel set 30,000 years earlier, A Deepness in the Sky. Both recommended. David Langford Rainbows End
![]() War Against the Rull (Panther science fiction)
![]() The Voyage of Space Beagle
![]() Bluebeard (Paladin Books)
![]() The Cinnamon Club Cookbook
![]() The Color Purple
![]() Exiles (Star Trek: The Next Generation)
![]() The War of the Worlds
![]() Trainspotting
![]() The Praxis (Dread Empire's Fall)
![]() Spin
![]() Written on the Body
![]() Louise has flowing Pre-Raphaelite hair, and a body besieged by leukaemia, her cells waging war: "here they come, hurtling through the bloodstream trying to pick a fight." But Louise is not dead, merely abandoned by the narrator with the best of intentions. As the lament continues, striking in its beauty and dazzling inventiveness, more of the love story is revealed. The narrator has been a female Lothario, falling in love, and out again, swaggering like Mercutio. But then she meets Louise, married to Elgin"very eminent, very dull, very rich"and is hopelessly, helplessly smitten: "I didn't only want Louise's flesh, I wanted her bones, her blood, her tissues, the sinews that bound her together." Elgin persuades her to leave for the good of Louise's health, and all is undone. Winterson does not shy away from grief, or joy. She has acutely described how love can transform a life, but also destroy it too. But, for Winterson, where there is love there is hope: "I stretch out my hand and reach the corners of the world ... I don't know if this is a happy ending but here we are let loose in open fields."Eithne Farry The Quantum Society
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