Literary Science Fiction

In the beginning was the Oak, its hungry roots reaching deep into the earth, its gnarled limbs searching the distant heavens. Two hundred years ago, Obediah Magrute worshipped the Oak and died violently beneath it, feeding it with his blood and bone, shouting his chilling curse to the skies. Now, Laura and Mark Avery have come to the bustling little Vermont village.

Dans Ubik, Philip K. Dick réunit tous les grands thèmes de la SF : la télépathie, le voyage dans le temps, la porosité entre le monde des vivants et celui des morts, et le développement des machines automatiques. Joe Chip, spécialisé dans la traque des télépathes, est envoyé sur la Lune avec d'autres agents pour neutraliser une autre équipe qui pourrait nuire à leur intérêt. Ce voyage sera-t-il irréversible ?

When Ellen Ripley finally returns to Earth, she learns that the planet LV-426 - now called Acheron - has been colonised. But LV-426 is where Ripley and the crew of the Nostromo found the original Xenomorph - the killing machine known as the Alien. Protected by the Colonial Marines, the colonists seek to terraform the storm-swept planet. Two such residents are Anne and Russell Jorden, seeking a fortune that eluded them on Earth.

Finding seeds of inspiration in the Brothers Grimm, seventeenth-century French lore, and Scottish ballads, Kelly Link spins classic fairy tales into utterly original stories of seekers—characters on the hunt for love, connection, revenge, or their own sense of purpose. Twisting and winding in astonishing ways, expertly blending realism and the speculative, witty, empathetic, and never predictable—these stories remind us once again of why Kelly Link is incomparable in the art of short fiction.

As the witches roast chestnuts and melt lead to see their fate, a series of odd messengers land on their doorstep bearing invitations for a New Year's Eve masquerade hosted by a woman they've never met. Gossip, dreams and portents follow, leading the witches to question the woman's motives. Is she as benevolent as she seems or is she laying a trap? And so, as Gilded-Age New York prepares to ring in the new year, the witches don their finery and head for the ball, on the hunt for answers that might well be the end of them.

Grammy Nominee for Best Spoken Word Album
Mirabelle, the "shopgirl" behind the glove counter at Neiman Marcus, is slightly lost, off-kilter, and shy. But there's something about Mirabelle. Steve Martin reads this charming novella. Hear an interview with the author and browse more Martin.

Equality 7-2521 is a young man who yearns to understand “the Science of Things”, but he lives in a bleak, dystopian future where independent thought is a crime and where science and technology have regressed to primitive levels. All expressions of individualism have been suppressed in his world. Obedience to the collective is so deeply ingrained that the very word “I” has been erased. In pursuit of his quest for knowledge, Equality 7-2521 struggles to answer the questions that burn within him.

You know the future that people in the 1950s imagined we'd have? Well, it happened. In Tom Barren's 2016, humanity thrives in a techno-utopian paradise of flying cars, moving sidewalks, and moon bases, where avocados never go bad and punk rock never existed...because it wasn't necessary. Except Tom just can't seem to find his place in this dazzling, idealistic world, and that's before his life gets turned upside down.

A rich Komarran merchant fleet has been impounded at Graf Station in distant Quaddiespace after a bloody incident involving the convoy's Barrayaran military escort. But Lord Miles Vorkosigan and his wife, Lady Ekaterin, have other things on their minds, such as getting home in time to attend the long-awaited births of their first children.

A man with a borrowed name steps from a flashy red sports car—also borrowed—onto the estate of his youth. But all is not as it seems. There is a new family living in the drafty old house: the Godleys, descendants of the late, world-famous scientist Adam Godley, whose theory of existence threw the universe into chaos. And this mystery man, who has just completed a prison sentence, feels as if time has stopped, or was torn, or was opened in new and strange ways. He must now vie with the idiosyncratic Godley family, and with a woman from his past who comes bearing an unusual request.

Immortal Enforcer Valerian just wants to relax. His last assignment had been more grueling than he’d care to admit, and golf has always helped him unwind. If golf course owner Natalie thinks it’s a little odd for him to tee off at sunset every evening, she’s keeping it to herself. The single mom is sexy as hell, and her little daughter Mia only adds to his delight. He knows Natalie is wary of a relationship of any kind…what will she think when she discovers he’s an Immortal? His best course of action is to woo her the old-fashioned way.

Hundreds of years before the time of Imager, the continent of Lydar is fragmented. Years of war have consolidated five nations into three-Bovaria, Telaryn, and Antiago. Quaeryt is a scholar and friend of Bhayar, the young ruler of Telaryn. Worried about his future and the escalating intrigues in Solis, the capital city, Quaeryt persuades Bhayar to send him to Tilbor.

Je me nomme Gabriel Wells. Je suis écrivain de romans à suspens. Ma nouvelle enquête est un peu particulière car elle concerne le meurtre de quelqu'un que je connais personnellement : Moi-même. J'ai été tué dans la nuit et je me demande bien par qui. Pour résoudre cette énigme j'ai eu la chance de rencontrer Lucy Filipini. En tant que médium professionnelle, elle parle tous les jours aux âmes des défunts. Et c'est ensemble, elle dans le monde matériel, moi dans le monde invisible, que nous allons tenter de percer le mystère de ma mort.

Devi Morris isn't your average mercenary. She has plans. Big ones. And a ton of ambition. It's a combination that's going to get her killed one day - but not just yet. That is, until she gets a job on a tiny trade ship with a nasty reputation for surprises. The Glorious Fool isn't misnamed; it likes to get into trouble, so much so that one year of security work under its captain is equal to five years everywhere else. With odds like that, Devi knows she's found the perfect way to get the jump on the next part of her plan.

Teddy Telemachus is a charming con man with a gift for sleight of hand and some shady underground associates. In need of cash, he tricks his way into a classified government study about telekinesis and its possible role in intelligence gathering. There he meets Maureen McKinnon, and it's not just her piercing blue eyes that leave Teddy forever charmed but her mind - Maureen is a genuine psychic of immense and mysterious power.

This sequel to The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty, the first of Anne Rice's elegantly written volumes of erotica, continues her explicit, teasing exploration of the psychology of human desire. Now Beauty, having indulged in a secret and forbidden infatuation with the rebellious slave Prince Tristan, is sent away from the Satyricon-like world of the Castle. Sold at auction, she will soon experience the tantalizing punishments of "the village".

Shocked and distressed by a male writer's vilification of women, Christine de Pizan has a powerful dreamlike vision in which she is visited by three personified Virtues: Reason, Rectitude and Justice. They tell her she has been chosen to write a book which will be like a city, housing virtuous women and protecting them from feminist attack. Partly myth, partly fact, The Book of the City of Ladies is an extraordinary, pioneering and impassioned defense of women that set out to shatter misogynist cliches and serve to instill self-worth in its female listeners of the time.

Ever wondered what Bones was thinking and feeling, when he and half-vampire Cat Crawfield first met? Or how their story might differ if he were the one telling it? Now, relive the beginning of Cat and Bones' best-selling love story through Bones' point of view, which reveals a darker, sexier take on their early days, as well as a deeper dive into Bones' past, the vampire world, and other things that Cat didn't see, when their story was told only through her eyes in Halfway to the Grave. Cat had her say. Now, it's Bones' turn.

Ray Bradbury is a modern cultural treasure. His disarming simplicity of style underlies a towering body of work unmatched in metaphorical power by any other American storyteller. And here, presented in a new trade edition, are 32 of his most famous tales - prime examples of the poignant and mysterious poetry which Bradbury uniquely uncovers in the depths of the human soul, the otherwordly portraits of outre fascination which spring from the canvas of one of the century's great men of imagination. From a lonely coastal lighthouse to a 60-million-year-old safari, from the pouring rain of Venus to the ominous silence of a murder scene.

Two men while away the days in an Antarctic research station. Tensions between them build as they argue over a love letter one of them has received. One is practical and open. The other surly, superior and obsessed with reading one book - by the philosopher Kant. As a storm brews and they lose contact with the outside world, they debate Kant, reality and the emptiness of the universe. The come to hate each other, and they learn that they are not alone.