Showing results for "The Infinities" in Hard Science Fiction

The Pandominion: a political and trading alliance of a million worlds - except that they're really just the one world, Earth, in many different realities. And when an AI threat arises that could destroy everything the Pandominion has built, they'll eradicate it by whatever means necessary, no matter the cost to human life. Scientist Hadiz Tambuwal is looking for a solution to her own Earth's environmental collapse when she stumbles across the secret of inter-dimensional travel.

A man battles for his life, two AIs vie for supremacy and a civilization hangs in the balance.... Several forces now pursue rogue artificial intelligence Penny Royal, hungry for revenge or redemption. And the Brockle is the most dangerous of all. This criminal swarm-robot AI has escaped confinement and is upgrading itself, becoming ever more powerful in anticipation of a showdown. Events also escalate aboard the war factory.

We have always fought. War is the furnace that forges new technologies and pushes humanity ever onward. We are the children of a battle that began with fists and sticks, and ended on the brink of atomic Armageddon. Beyond here lies another war, infinite in scope and scale. But who will fight the wars of tomorrow?

Bridging Infinity puts humanity at the heart of these vast undertakings - as builder, as engineer, as adventurer - reimagining and rebuilding the world, the solar system, and even the entire universe. This continuation of the award-winning Infinity Project anthology series features bold new stories from Stephen Baxter, Elizabeth Bear, Gregory Benford, Zachary Brown, Pat Cadigan, Kameron Hurley, Scott Lynch, Vonda N. McIntyre, Hannu Rajaniemi, Allan Steele, and many more.

The popular adventures of Miles Vorkosigan, a clever and outlandish science fiction hero for the modern era, continue in these three tales. In The Mountains of Mourning, Miles is dispatched to a back-country region of Barrayar, where he must act as detective, judge, and executioner in a controversial murder case. In Labyrinth, Miles adopts his alternate persona as Dendarii Mercenary Admiral Naismith for an undercover mission to rescue an important research geneticist from Jackson’s Whole. And in the title story, Miles infiltrates an escape-proof Cetagandan POW camp.

The race to Mars is not without its peril. As the world’s superpowers vie for supremacy in space, the true intent of the aliens, and the ultimate destiny for the human species, is revealed. Can the world marshal the will and resources of its people to strike back and take control of its own fate? Can NASA, led by Richard “Rock” Crandon, and America’s adversaries find the ultimate courage to face what lies at Discovery’s End and save the world?

Some cultures say the ouroboros symbolizes infinity. Others claim the snake or dragon depicted eating its own tail represents the cyclic nature of life and death. But just as Cam Mackintosh and Freyja Jorgensen's lives are experiencing their own rebirth, their sustainable community is threatened. The ex-lovers are unexpectedly thrust together again to defend those they care about.

Travel to the remotest reaches of deep space in this wondrous follow-up to the acclaimed Noumenon - a tale of exploration, adventure, science and humanity with the sweep and intelligence of the works of Arthur C. Clarke, Neal Stephenson and Octavia Butler. Generations ago, Convoy Seven left Earth on a journey to a distant star. Eons later, the convoy has returned to LQ Pyx to begin work on the Web, the alien megastructure that covers the star.

The world is rapidly changing. We surf future-shock every day, as the progress of technology races ever on. Increasingly we are asking: how do we change to live in the world to come? Multi-award-winning editor Jonathan Strahan brings us another incredible volume in his much praised science-fiction anthology series.

The ruin of cislunar space spurs one habitat to flee, carrying the most valuable resources humanity has ever created. The struggles to control space resources and a juggernaut of new technical advances accelerate geometrically. Mind-blowing advances build upon each other, demanding speed and intelligence. With entire planets in conflict, the long-term potential of civilization’s advance becomes clear. Those who prevail may achieve functional immortality and undreamed of power over reality.

When DARPA's billion-dollar program to create artificial superintelligence is sabotaged, US operative Cameron Carr is tasked with finding the culprit. He's been on high-stakes missions before, but this time the stakes are nothing less than the future of humanity. Because the race to evolve a superintelligent computer is on, and power players around the world will stop at nothing to get there first.

By any reasonable definition, this was a bad day. My parents and sister were on Mars when the planet died. I watched it happen and could do nothing. That type of thing changes a man.

The light ship Altares and her crew plummet through the maw of a powerful black hole and emerge in a strange new universe. Running low on fuel and in need of repairs, Captain Harry Masters pilots the spaceship into orbit around an Earth-like planet. But before the crew can make planetfall, they must first attempt a dangerous manoeuvre to reach the towering gas clouds at the limit of the star system in order to refuel.

What happens when we reach out into the vastness of space? What hope for us amongst the stars? Multi-award winning editor Jonathan Strahan brings us 14 new tales of the future, from some of the finest science fiction writers in the field. The 14 startling stories in this anthology feature the work of Greg Egan, Aliette de Bodard, Ian McDonald, Karl Schroeder, Pat Cadigan, Karen Lord, Ellen Klages, Adam Roberts, Linda Nagata, Hannu Rajaniemi, Kathleen Ann Goonan, Ken MacLeod, Alastair Reynolds, and Peter Watts.

The crew of Moonbase Columbus makes an amazing discovery on the far side of the Moon - a massive alien structure is erecting itself, built up atom by atom by living machines, microscopically small, intelligent, and unstoppable, consuming everything they touch. The mysterious structure begins to expand and take shape, and its creators begin to multiply. Is this the first strike in an alien invasion from the stars? Or has human nanotechnology experimentation gone awry, triggering an unexpected infestation?

The universe shifts and changes: suddenly you understand, you get it, and are filled with wonder. That moment of understanding drives the greatest science-fiction stories and lies at the heart of Engineering Infinity. Whether it's coming up hard against the speed of light - and with it the enormity of the universe, realizing that terraforming a distant world is harder and more dangerous than you'd ever thought, or simply realizing that a hitchhiker on a starship consumes fuel and oxygen with tragic results, it's hard science-fiction where a sense of discovery is most often found and where science-fiction's true heart lies.

In an age when technology vanquished natural death, Ryan and his sardonic AI implant are recruited at the last minute to board the first colony ship to Tau Ceti. As the lowest-ranked crewmember, he expects to cryogenically freeze right away, but the captain has other plans. Ryan begins a training program for rare individuals who heal much faster than normal, a program that teaches him to survive every possible scenario that Murphy’s Law can deliver.

A general in the United States Army by the name of William Thornson once said, "There are only two kinds of people that understand Marines: Marines and the enemy. Everyone else has a second-hand opinion." I've come to believe the general was wrong. I say that because no enemy in his right mind would remain the enemy of a Marine...if...he truly understood the Marines. Of course, the universe is filled with crazy people and in my occupation I got to meet more than my fair share of them.

Kyle Griffin has never felt so mortal. Defeated by his longtime nemesis and taken captive, the mutant soldier struggles to cope with the loss of his celestial powers. And refusing to give up despite his metal bindings, his fury builds as he’s made to witness his brothers-in-arms suffer under their enemy’s savage torture. Left behind when some of his men manage to escape, Kyle battles to find his own way out as the rebel forces race to reverse the Dominion’s newfound invincibility.

The highly-anticipated final volume of the critically-acclaimed science fiction anthology series....