Literary Science Fiction

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.

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.

Unpacking her belongings in her new hometown of Portland, Oregon, herbalist and reformed alchemist Zoe Faust can't help but notice she's picked up a stowaway. Dorian Robert-Houdin is a living, breathing three-and-half-foot gargoyle - not to mention a master of French cuisine - and he needs Zoe's expertise to decipher a centuries-old text. Zoe, who's trying to put her old life behind her, isn't so sure she wants to reopen her alchemical past... until the dead man on her porch leaves her no choice.

Ravaged by the Change, an island nation in a time very like our own has built the Wall - an enormous concrete barrier around its entire coastline. Joseph Kavanagh, a new Defender, has one task: to protect his section of the Wall from the Others, the desperate souls who are trapped amid the rising seas outside and are a constant threat. Failure will result in death or a fate perhaps worse: being put to sea and made an Other himself.

Cursed. Maisie Cothay has never known the feel of human flesh: born with the power to kill or resurrect at her slightest touch, she has spent her childhood sequestered in her family’s manor at the edge of a mysterious forest. Maisie’s father, an anthropologist who sees her as more experiment than daughter, has warned Maisie not to venture into the wood. Locals talk of men disappearing within, emerging with addled minds and strange stories.

Lieutenant James Shelley, who has an uncanny knack for premeditating danger, leads a squad of advanced US Army military tasked with enforcing the peace around a conflict in sub-Saharan Africa. The squad members are linked wirelessly 24/7 to themselves and a central intelligence that guides them via drone relay - and unbeknownst to Shelley and his team, they are being recorded for a reality TV show.

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.

Internationally best-selling author Amitav Ghosh, winner of the Pushcart Prize and numerous other prestigious accolades, pens a sweeping novel full of romantic adventure. Favorably compared to the masterworks of Joseph Conrad and V.S. Naipaul, The Hungry Tide is an atmospheric tale set in a world of wondrous sights...and terrible danger.

Meet Rabo Karabekian, a moderately successful surrealist painter who we meet late in life and see struggling (like all of Vonnegut's key characters) with the dregs of unresolved pain and the consequences of brutality. Loosely based on the legend of Bluebeard (best realized in Bela Bartok's one-act opera), the novel follows Karabekian through the last events in his life that is heavy with women, painting, artistic ambition, artistic fraudulence, and as of yet unknown consequence.

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".

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.