Science Fiction
Meliora lives on the Earth-like planet of Ima where days are idyllic and worries never last. Tension enters the north continent as her father, the King of a prominent sovereignty passes away. Her mother is left with the crown, but shows no interest in ruling. In desperation to find a cure for the hereditary disease that took her husband, Queen Vesper travels off-planet to study sorcery. Magic had long been banned on Ima, leaving desperate questions in her wake. To make matters worse, soon after her departure, Queen Vesper ceases communication. The lone successor to the throne is teenage Meliora, who feels shy of the task. With her best friend, Jedrek by her side, she musters the strength to lead. Meliora's reign is short lived as the previous Queen returns after years of silence. Though once close, the woman now wielding magic isn't the mother she remembers. Includes pen and ink illustrations of scenes by Ava Reiss.
Ex-library with usual library markings; dust jacket protected; edges lightly worn; flaps have tape residue and some tears; illustrated cloth covers; binding good; text clean. G/G
From Jeff VanderMeer, the author of Borne and Annihilation, comes the paperback reissue of his cult classic Finch.
In a deserted tenement in an occupied city, two dead bodies lie on a dusty floor as if they have fallen out of the air. One corpse is cut in half, the other is utterly unmarked. One is human, the other isn't. The city of Ambergris is half ruined, rotten, its population controlled by narcotics, internment camps, and acts of terror. But its new masters want this case closed, urgently. Detective John Finch has just one week to solve it or be sent to the camps. With no ID for the victims, no clues, no leads, and precious little hope, Finch's fate hangs in the balance. But there is more to this case than meets the eye. Enough to put Finch in the crosshairs of every spy, rebel, informer, and traitor in town. Under the shadow of the eldrich tower the occupiers are raising above the city, Finch is about to come face-to-face with a series of mysteries that will change him and Ambergris forever. Why does one of the victims most resemble a man thought to have been dead for a hundred years? What is the murders' connection to an attempted genocide nearly six hundred years ago? And just what is the secret purpose of the occupiers' tower?Since it was first published in 1818, Mary Shelley's seminal novel has generated countless print, stage and screen adaptations, but none has ever matched the power and philosophical resonance of the original. Composed as part of a challenge with Byron and Shelley to conjure up the most terrifying ghost story, Frankenstein narrates the chilling tale of a being created by a bright young scientist and the catastrophic consequences that ensue.
Considered by many to be the first science-fiction novel, the tragic tale of Victor Frankenstein and the tortured creation he rejects is a classic fable about the pursuit of knowledge, the nature of beauty and the monstrosity inherent to man."A perfect read for a post-truth era." --NPR
In a world uncomfortably like our own, a young woman called Amalantis is arrested for asking a question. Her question is this: Who is the Prisoner?
When Amalantis disappears, her lover Karnak goes looking for her. He searches desperately at first, then with a growing realization that to find Amalantis, he must first understand the meaning of her question.Karnak's search leads him into a terrifying world of deception, oppression, and fear at the heart of which lies the prison. Then Karnak discovers that he is not the only one looking for the truth.
The Freedom Artist is an impassioned plea for justice and a penetrating examination of how freedom is threatened in a post-truth society. In Ben Okri's most significant novel since the Booker Prize-winning The Famished Road, he delivers a powerful and haunting call to arms.
Ki is a petty thief. Her best friend wills her his solo-flyer-call it a space motorcycle: temperamental, fast as hell, and expensive to maintain. Any reasonable person would sell it to get off the street, but Ki isn't reasonable.
Margot is a military vet at loose ends. She blows her entire back pay on a solo-flyer, a decision she instantly regrets but can't bring herself to undo. Margot meets Ki and thinks she's the sympathetic friend she needs when she feels most alone. Ki thinks Margot is an easy mark for food money. They're both right, but lunch leads to a joy ride to planet Ratana, where Margot is arrested by border control.
Ki enlists Ratanese local Zuleikah, a bored rich girl who can think of no stupider, and therefore better, way to spend her time than busting someone out of jail. Together they rescue Margot, but find themselves trapped on a hostile planet on the cusp of civil war.
When Zuleikah convinces them that their best bet for escape is to kidnap-er, rescue-Prince Thane from his dreary role in the crumbling monarchy, it results in a chase across the desert and into the farthest reaches of the universe.
If they can learn to trust each other, and if the repo men, cops, and three different galactic governments don't catch them, the Galactic Hellcats might just use their solo-fliers to carve a place for themselves among the stars.
NATIONAL BESTSELLER - NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS' CHOICE - ROXANE GAY'S AUDACIOUS BOOK CLUB PICK - FINALIST FOR THE URSULA K. LE GUIN PRIZE
"Moving and thought-provoking . . . offering psychological insights in lyrical prose while seriously exploring speculative conceits." -- New York Times Book Review
"Haunting and luminous . . . Beautiful and lucid science fiction. An astonishing debut." -- Alan Moore, creator of Watchmen and V for Vendetta
Recommended by New York Times Book Review - Los Angeles Times - NPR - Washington Post - Wall Street Journal - Entertainment Weekly - Esquire - Good Housekeeping - NBC News - Buzzfeed - Goodreads - The Millions - The Philadelphia Inquirer - Minneapolis Star-Tribune - San Francisco Chronicle - The Guardian - and many more!
For fans of Cloud Atlas and Station Eleven, a spellbinding and profoundly prescient debut that follows a cast of intricately linked characters over hundreds of years as humanity struggles to rebuild itself in the aftermath of a climate plague--a daring and deeply heartfelt work of mind-bending imagination from a singular new voice.
In 2030, a grieving archeologist arrives in the Arctic Circle to continue the work of his recently deceased daughter at the Batagaika Crater, where researchers are studying long-buried secrets now revealed in melting permafrost, including the perfectly preserved remains of a girl who appears to have died of an ancient virus.
Once unleashed, the Arctic plague will reshape life on Earth for generations to come, quickly traversing the globe, forcing humanity to devise a myriad of moving and inventive ways to embrace possibility in the face of tragedy. In a theme park designed for terminally ill children, a cynical employee falls in love with a mother desperate to hold on to her infected son. A heartbroken scientist searching for a cure finds a second chance at fatherhood when one of his test subjects--a pig--develops the capacity for human speech. A widowed painter and her teenaged granddaughter embark on a cosmic quest to locate a new home planet.
From funerary skyscrapers to hotels for the dead to interstellar starships, Sequoia Nagamatsu takes readers on a wildly original and compassionate journey, spanning continents, centuries, and even celestial bodies to tell a story about the resilience of the human spirit, our infinite capacity to dream, and the connective threads that tie us all together in the universe.
"Wondrous, and not just in the feats of imagination, which are so numerous it makes me dizzy to recall them, but also in the humanity and tenderness with which Sequoia Nagamatsu helps us navigate this landscape. . . . This is a truly amazing book, one to keep close as we imagine the uncertain future." -- Kevin Wilson, New York Times bestselling author of Nothing to See Here
From the author of Annihilation, a brilliant speculative thriller of dark conspiracy, endangered species, and the possible end of all things.
"Jane Smith"--not her real name--receives an envelope that contains a note from a woman she doesn't know and a key to an anonymous storage unit. The key leads her to a pair of taxidermied animals, a hummingbird and a salamander, which turn out to be two of the most endangered creatures on earth. Jane has set in motion a series of events that quickly spin beyond her control. She is being followed, her home surveilled, her family in peril. The author of the mysterious note--Jane's only real lead--is already dead. She was, Jane learns, a reputed ecoterrorist. What did she want with Jane? Profiteering wildlife smugglers; an amoral energy company; an extremist's apocalyptic vision. The threats come from all around, and time is running out--for Jane and possibly for the world. Hummingbird Salamander is Jeff VanderMeer at his dazzling, cinematic best, wrapping profound questions into a tightly plotted tale of the fight to survive.What do you have if you don't even have yourself?
Rory Walsh, born into his parents' brood, has had his entire life documented through the lens of his mother, Nora. Like any mother, Nora wants the best for her son, curating a social profile for him that will guarantee his acceptance into their traditionalist brood, forever.
But the version of him that Nora has created doesn't exist.
The Rory Walsh everyone sees when they look at him is not the true Rory Walsh. He doesn't belong in the brood for which he's been bred, nor in the virtual skin he's been given. In defiance, Rory goes on a journey to override the Accessible internet Product, or AIP, system, to find a way to create his own identity. With the help of his best friend, he sets out to leave the world he's known on an adventure to find a better life...one he can call his own. Will he make it, or will the trek destroy him?
Identifiable is a science fiction novel about people ascribing to, or contradicting, narratives-their darkness, their shortcomings, as well as their capacity to love.