Xenocide: Volume Three of the Ender Quartet
by Orson Scott Card
from Macmillan Audio
Orson Scott Card's Xenocide is a space opera with verve. In this continuation of Ender Wiggin's story, the Starways Congress has sent a fleet to immolate the rebellious planet of Lusitania, home to the alien race of pequeninos, and home to Ender Wiggin and his family. Concealed on Lusitania is the only remaining Hive Queen, who holds a secret that may save or destroy humanity throughout the galaxy. Familiar characters from the previous novels continue to grapple with religious conflicts and family squabbles while inventing faster-than-light travel and miraculous virus treatments. Throw into the mix an entire planet of mad geniuses and a self-aware computer who wants to be a martyr, and it's hard to guess who will topple the first domino. Due to the densely woven and melodramatic nature of the story, newcomers to Ender's tale will want to start reading this series with the first books, Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead. --Brooks Peck
The task of discovering how the ships disappeared falls to Gloriously Bright, the most brilliant analytical mind in a world of people bred for superintelligence. There is little doubt that she can solve the puzzle; but will she choose life or death for the three races who live on Lusitania?
First Meetings: In the Enderverse (Ender Wiggins Saga)
by Orson Scott Card
from Macmillan Audio
The Silent War: Book III of The Asteroid Wars (The Grand Tour; also Asteroid Wars)
by Ben Bova
from Macmillan Audio
When corporations go to war, standard business practice goes out the window. Astro Corporation is led by indomitable Texan Pancho Lane, Humphries Space Systems by the rich and ruthless Martin Humphries, and their fight is over nothing less than resources of the Asteroid Belt itself. Fighting escalates and the lines between commerce and politics, boardroom and bedroom, blur—and the keys to victory will include physics, nanotechnology, and cold hard cash.
It’s a breakneck finale that can end only in earth’s salvation—or the annihilation of all that humankind has ever accomplished in space.
The Idylls of the Queen: A Tale of Queen Guenevere
by Phyllis Ann Karr
from Wildside Press
In The Idylls of the Queen, Phyllis Ann Karr takes an incident (the murder of Sir Patrise) from Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur and creates an intelligent, complex, and fascinating mystery novel perfect for fans of historical mysteries, of British legends, and of fantasy.
Queen Guenevere is giving a dinner to honor King Arthur's knights when one guest, Sir Patrise, falls dead of poison. The dead man's cousin accuses the Queen of murder, and she is taken away, to be held until her trial by combat. If her knight-champion wins, Guenevere will be declared innocent and freed; if he loses, she will be burned to death as a murderer. She is unlikely to survive the trial. Most of Britain's mightiest knights were at the dinner, and therefore cannot fight for the Queen. Her champion and secret lover, the invincible Lancelot, has vanished. And, as Sir Kay realizes, trial by combat determines only is who is the better fighter, not who is guilty. Kay knows the Queen is innocent and an unsuspected murderer is loose in feud-filled Camelot--a murderer who intended to kill a person or persons other than the obscure knight Patrise, and who is poised to kill again. With the trial only days away, Kay joins with the great knights Gawaine and Gareth and their half-brother, King Arthur's bastard son Mordred, in two quests: to find the missing Lancelot, and to uncover the true murderer.
The Idylls of the Queen is set in Malory's medieval world, where magic works, but the author plays fair; she doesn't use magic to solve the mystery. Also, The Idylls of the Queen is written in clear, crisp, timeless English, and not in Malory's difficult and archaic dialect. --Cynthia Ward
Titan (The Grand Tour)
by Ben Bova
from Macmillan Audio
The gigantic colony ship Goddard has at last made orbit around the ringed planet Saturn, carrying a volatile population of more than 10,000 dissidents, rebels, extremists and visionaries seeking a new life among the stars. Chief scientist Edouard Urbain’s avowed mission is to study the enigmatic moon called Titan, which offers the tantalizing possibility that life may exist amid its windswept islands and chill black seas.
But when the exploration vessel Titan Alpha mysteriously fails after reaching the moon’s surface, long buried tensions surface among the colonists. Torn by political intrigue, suspicious accidents, and an awesome discovery that could threaten human space exploration, a handful of courageous men and women must fight for the survival of their colony, and the destiny of the human race.
The Rock Rats (The Grand Tour; also Asteroid Wars)
by Ben Bova
from Macmillan Audio
Ben Bova's second installment in the Asteroid Wars series continues his trademark style, with caricatured characters in a classic Greek dramatic structure duking it out against a high-tech, Libertarian-influenced, future-history backdrop. Billionaire jerk and womanizer Martin Humphries stirs the pot again, overcoming attempts to oust him from the Selene moon base. His grip on Humphries Space Systems and its economic scheming remains as tight as ever, but he still desires two things: control of the asteroid belt's rich resources and, of course, possession of the ever-elusive Amanda What's-her-name at the expense of likeable alpha male number two, gruff prospector Lars Fuchs. ("One look at Amanda's innocent blue eyes and full-bosomed figure and any man would be wild to have her." We're left to guess as to whether the "wide-eyed," "lusciously curved" Amanda has any other qualities, desirable or otherwise.)
For Bova fans, Rock Rats has it all--cool technology, whip-fast action, and choreographed intrigue--and this installment certainly ups the ante in the series. As Bova gravely notes, "[T]he Belt became the region where prospectors and miners could make fortunes for themselves, or die in the effort. Many of them died. More than a few were killed." --Paul Hughes
The Precipice (The Asteroid Wars) (The Grand Tour)
by Ben Bova
from Macmillan Audio
Once, Dan Randolph was one of the richest men on Earth. Now the planet is spiralling into environmental disaster, with floods and earthquakes destroying the lives of millions. Martin Humphries, fabulously wealthy heir of the Humphries Trust, also knows that space-based industry is the way of the future. But unlike Randolph he does not care if Earth perishes in the process. As Randolph—accompanied by two brilliant women astronauts—flies out to the Asteroid Belt aboard a fusion-propelled spacecraft, Humphries makes his move. The future of mankind lies in Randolph’s hands.
*Booklist
The King Arthur Companion: The Legendary World of Camelot and the Round Table
Saturn: A Novel of the Ringed Planet (The Grand Tour)
by Ben Bova
from Macmillan Audio
In the bestselling novels Venus and Jupiter, Ben Bova dramatized the latest discoveries about our own solar system in an epic tale of near-future exploration and development. Now Bova turns his attention to one of our system’s greatest mysteries—Saturn.
Earth groans under the thumb of fundamentalist political regimes. Crisis after crisis has given authoritarians the upper hand. Freedom and opportunity exist in space, for those with the nerve and skill to take it. Now the governments of Earth are encouraging many of their most incorrigible dissidents to join a great ark, a one-way expedition to
Saturn, the ringed planet that baffled Galileo and has fascinated astronomers ever since.
But humans will be human, so amidst the idealism permeating Space Habitat Goddard are many individuals with long-term schemes, each awaiting their moment. And hidden from them is the greatest secret of all—the real purpose of this expedition—known to only a few...
Dark Resurrection
by John A Karr
from Samhain Publishing
Surgeon Victor Galloway kept death at bay in the operating roomnow death has claimed him. Resurrected against his will, he must fight for his family and his soul.Victor Galloway is a prominent surgeon and family man. When he suffers a heart attack, he claws his way to the phone and dials 911. The paramedics arrive, smile down at him and quickly administer a lethal injection.Victors life is ending, but his nightmare has just begun.Close to death and strapped to a gurney, hes offered an unholy deal by Tobias, H.E.L.L.s CEO: Use his surgical skills to harvest the living to feed the undead in exchange for immortality.Refused but not to be denied, Tobias presses his unwilling recruit into the ranks of the undead. Whether by chance or divine intervention, Victor is different from the others.He is a monster with a conscience, a force for good ensnared by evil, and the only one willing to stand against Tobias and his burgeoning nest of zombies.He must destroy them, but doing so risks the lives of his family and the last hospital employee with a pulse.This book has been previously published and has been revised from its original release.Warning, this title contains the following: dark themes, graphic violence, language, gore, and a smattering of explicit sex.
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