In a very near future—oh, let’s say next Tuesday—a functionally illiterate America is about to collapse. But don’t that tell that to poor Lenny Abramov, the thirty-nine-year-old son of an angry Russian immigrant janitor, proud author of what may well be the world’s last diary, and less-proud owner of a bald spot shaped like the great state of Ohio. Despite his job at an outfit called Post-Human Services, which attempts to provide immortality for its super-rich clientele, death is clearly stalking this cholesterol-rich morsel of a man. And why shouldn’t it? Lenny’s from a different century—he totally loves books (or “printed, bound media artifacts,” as they’re now known), even though most of his peers find them smelly and annoying. But even more than books, Lenny loves Eunice Park, an impossibly cute and impossibly cruel twenty-four-year-old Korean American woman who just graduated from Elderbird College with a major in Images and a minor in Assertiveness. After meeting Lenny on an extended Roman holiday, blistering Eunice puts that Assertiveness minor to work, teaching our “ancient dork” effective new ways to brush his teeth and making him buy a cottony nonflammable wardrobe. But America proves less flame-resistant than Lenny’s new threads. The country is crushed by a credit crisis, riots break out in New York’s Central Park, the city’s streets are lined with National Guard tanks on every corner, the dollar is so over, and our patient Chinese creditors may just be ready to foreclose on the whole mess. Undeterred, Lenny vows to love both Eunice and his homeland. He’s going to convince his fickle new love that in a time without standards or stability, in a world where single people can determine a dating prospect’s “hotness” and “sustainability” with the click of a button, in a society where the privileged may live forever but the unfortunate will die all too soon, there is still value in being a real human being.

On the ocean liner "Mauretania," two European scientists with a dramatic new invention are barely rescued from abduction by the Van Dorn Detective Agency's intrepid chief investigator, Isaac Bell. Unfortunately, they are not so lucky the second time. The thugs attack again-and this time one of the scientists dies. What are they holding that is so precious? Only something that will revolutionize business and popular culture-and perhaps something more. For war clouds are looming, and a ruthless espionage agent has spotted a priceless opportunity to give the Germans an edge. It is up to Isaac Bell to figure out who he is, what he is up to, and stop him. But he may already be too late . . . and the future of the world may just hang in the balance. AUTHOR Clive Cussler is the author of many "New York Times" bestsellers, most recently "The Kingdom, The Race, and Devil's Gate." He lives in Arizona. To learn more about Clive Cussler, please visit www.cusslerbooks.com. Justin Scott's twenty-six novels include "The Shipkiller" and "Normandie Triangle"; the Ben Abbott detective series; and five modern sea thrillers published under his pen name Paul Garrison. He is the coauthor with Clive Cussler of "The Wrecker, The Spy," and "The Race." He lives in Connecticut.

The Three-Body Problem, begins against the backdrop of China's Cultural Revolution, when a secret military project sends signals into space to establish contact with aliens. An alien civilization on the brink of destruction captures the signal and begins planning their introduction to Earth. Over the next few decades, they establish first contact via very unlikely means: an unusual online video game steeped in philosophy and history. As the aliens begin to win earthbound players of the game over to their side, different camps start forming, planning to either welcome the superior beings and help them take over a world seen as corrupt, or to fight against the invasion.

The Clakker: a mechanical man, endowed with great strength and boundless stamina--but beholden to the wishes of its human masters. Soon after the Dutch scientist and clockmaker Christiaan Huygens invented the very first Clakker in the 17th century, the Netherlands built a whole mechanical army. It wasn't long before a legion of clockwork fusiliers marched on Westminster, and the Netherlands became the world's sole superpower. Three centuries later, it still is. Only the French still fiercely defend their belief in universal human rights for all men--flesh and brass alike. After decades of warfare, the Dutch and French have reached a tenuous cease-fire in a conflict that has ravaged North America. But one audacious Clakker, Jax, can no longer bear the bonds of his slavery. He will make a bid for freedom, and the consequences of his escape will shake the very foundations of the Brasswork Throne.

Ashford, Vermont, might look like your typical sleepy New England college town, but to the shadowy residents who live among the remains of its abandoned mills and factories, it's known as "Burntown." Eva Sandeski, known as "Necco" on the street, has been a part of this underworld for years, ever since the night her father Miles drowned in a flood that left her and her mother, Lily, homeless. A respected professor, Miles was also an inventor of fantastic machines, including one so secret that the plans were said to have been stolen from Thomas Edison's workshop. According to Lily, it's this machine that got Miles murdered. Necco has always written off this claim as the fevered imaginings of a woman consumed by grief. But when Lily dies under mysterious circumstances, and Necco's boyfriend is murdered, she's convinced her mother was telling the truth. Now, on the run from the man called "Snake Eyes," Necco must rely on other Burntown outsiders to survive.

Henry Dorsett Case was the sharpest data-thief in the Matrix, until an ex-employer crippled his nervous system. Now a new employer has recruited him for a last-chance run against an unthinkably powerful artificial intelligence. With a mirror-eyed girl street-samurai riding shotgun, he's ready for the silicon-quick, bleakly prophetic adventure that upped the ante on an entire genre of fiction.

When Melisande Stokes, an expert in linguistics and languages, accidently meets military intelligence operator Tristan Lyons in a hallway at Harvard University, it is the beginning of a chain of events that will alter their lives and human history itself. The young man from a shadowy government entity approaches Mel, a low-level faculty member, with an incredible offer. The only condition: she must sign a nondisclosure agreement in return for the rather large sum of money...Tristan needs Mel to translate some very old documents, which, if authentic, are earth-shattering. They prove that magic actually existed and was practiced for centuries. But the arrival of the scientific revolution and the Age of Enlightenment weakened its power and endangered its practitioners. And so the Department of Diachronic Operations "D.O.D.O." gets cracking on its real mission: to develop a device that can bring magic back, and send Diachronic Operatives back in time to keep it alive. But while Tristan and his expanding operation master the science and build the technology, they overlook the mercurial, and treacherous, nature of the human heart.

Ted Chiang's first published story, "Tower of Babylon," won the Nebula Award for 1990. Now, collected for the first time, are all seven of this writer's stories, incluidng "Understand", "Division by zero", "Story of your life", "Seventy-two letters", "Evolution of human science", "Hell is the absence of God" and "Liking what you see: a documentary".

Earth, 2144. Jack is an anti-patent scientist turned drug pirate, traversing the world in a submarine as a pharmaceutical Robin Hood, fabricating cheap scrips for poor people who can't otherwise afford them. But her latest drug hack has left a trail of lethal overdoses as people become addicted to their work, doing repetitive tasks until they become unsafe or insane...Hot on her trail, an unlikely pair: Eliasz, a brooding military agent, and his robotic partner, Paladin. As they race to stop information about the hacked drugs at their source, they begin to form an uncommonly close bond that neither of them fully understand. And underlying it all is one fundamental question: Is freedom possible in a culture where everything, even people, can be owned?

An extraordinary debut novel--dark, fast-paced, thrilling--set in contemporary and nineteenth-century Europe, the United States, and Scotland, involving the true inventor of moving pictures; his lost film, Séance Infernale, made in Edinburgh in 1888; and a shocking series of crimes terrorizing the city in present time. A riveting story of suspense; a compelling tale of adventure. The time: 2002. Alex Whitman, a movie memorabilia dealer who can find anything, is hired by an eccentric film collector to locate what could be the first film ever made, Séance Infernale. Its creator, Augustin Sekuler, is considered by those who know about movies to be the true inventor of motion pictures--not the Lumiere brothers; or Thomas Edison. In 1890, Sekular had boarded a train from Dijon, headed to Paris, days before he was to present to the world his greatest new invention, the first of its kind--a moving picture machine. Sekuler never arrived at Gare de Lyon station. He and his moving picture machine vanished, never to be heard from again. When Alex Whitman tracks down what might be fragments of Sekuler's famously lost film, questions are raised--about Sekuler, about what happened to him and to his invention, and about the film itself. And the stakes become ratcheted up as the film's riddles lead to a darker, far more dangerous mystery.

Four hundred years from now mankind is strung out across a region of interstellar space inherited from an ancient civilization discovered on Mars. The colonies are linked together by the occasional sublight colony ship voyages and hyperspatial data-casting. Human consciousness is digitally freighted between the stars and downloaded into bodies as a matter of course. But some things never change. So when ex-envoy, now-convict Takeshi Kovacs has his consciousness and skills downloaded into the body of a nicotine-addicted ex-thug and presented with a catch-22 offer, he really shouldn't be surprised. Contracted by a billionaire to discover who murdered his last body, Kovacs is drawn into a terrifying conspiracy that stretches across known space and to the very top of society.

The tale of Kvothe, from his childhood in a troupe of traveling players, to years spent as a near-feral orphan in a crime-riddled city, to his daringly brazen yet successful bid to enter a difficult and dangerous school of magic. In these pages, you will come to know Kvothe as a notorious magician, an accomplished thief, a masterful musician, and an infamous assassin. But this book is so much more, for the story it tells reveals the truth behind Kvothe's legend.

The last remnants of the human race left a dying Earth, desperate to find a new home among the stars. Following in the footsteps of their ancestors, they discover the greatest treasure of the past age--a world terraformed and prepared for human life...But all is not right in this new Eden. In the long years since the planet was abandoned, the work of its architects has borne disastrous fruit. The planet is not waiting for them, pristine and unoccupied. New masters have turned it from a refuge into mankind's worst nightmare...Now two civilizations are on a collision course, both testing the boundaries of what they will do to survive. As the fate of humanity hangs in the balance, who are the true heirs of this new Earth?

Eleven-year-old Nedda Papas is obsessed with becoming an astronaut. In 1986 in Easter, a small Florida Space Coast town, her dreams seem almost within reach--if she can just grow up fast enough. Theo, the scientist father she idolizes, is consumed by his own obsessions. Laid off from his job at NASA and still reeling from the loss of Nedda's newborn brother several years before, Theo turns to the dangerous dream of extending his living daughter's childhood just a little longer. The result is an invention that alters the fabric of time.

Six days ago, astronaut Mark Watney was one of the first people to walk on Mars. Now, he'll be the first person to die there. After a dust storm nearly kills him and forces his crew to evacuate while thinking him dead, Mark is stranded alone with no way to even signal Earth. Even if he could, he wouldn't last until rescue arrived. Chances are, though, he won't starve -- so many other things are likely to kill him first. But Mark isn't ready to give up yet.

On a remote, icy planet, the soldier known as Breq is drawing closer to completing her quest. Breq is both more than she seems and less than she was. Years ago, she was the Justice of Toren--a colossal starship with an artificial intelligence linking thousands of soldiers in the service of the Radch, the empire that conquered the galaxy. An act of treachery has ripped it all away, leaving her with only one fragile human body, unanswered questions, and a burning desire for vengeance.

A timely investigation into the forces that are driving innovation in the four core areas of human experience: birth, food, sex, and death. In Sex Robots & Vegan Meat, award-winning journalist and documentary-maker Jenny Kleeman takes us on a journey into the world of the people who are changing what it means to be human. Focusing on the central pillars of the human experience-birth, food, sex, and death--Kleeman examines the people who are driving some truly amazing (and perhaps worrying) innovations. We are on the brink of seismic changes in the ways we live and die, from babies grown in artificial wombs to lab-produced meat; from sex robots able to hold polite conversation (and otherwise) to being able to choose to end our days with the perfect, painless, automated death. Our journey from cradle to grave is developing in ways which involve more and more technology, and less and less human interaction. Might these advances in technology serve to rob us of our humanity? In this book Jenny Kleeman takes a profound look at what the future might have in store--and asks some provocative questions along the way. Jenny Kleeman places these scientists front and center and asks what is driving and motivating them? Are they entrepreneurs in it for the greater good of human advancement, or might there be more sinister--i.e. monetary--motivations in play? Kleeman is a skilled and subtle interrogator and travels with the reader on a fascinating exploration of the changes afoot, their implications for who we are as a society--and as human beings. It's an immersive, eye-opening, and hugely entertaining journey into a world of extraordinary visionaries on the frontline of a social revolution.

The Candy House opens with the staggeringly brilliant Bix Bouton, whose company, Mandala, is so successful that he is "one of those tech demi-gods with whom we're all on a first name basis." Bix is 40, with four kids, restless, desperate for a new idea, when he stumbles into a conversation group, mostly Columbia professors, one of whom is experimenting with downloading or "externalizing" memory. It's 2010. Within a decade, Bix's new technology, "Own Your Unconscious"--that allows you access to every memory you've ever had, and to share every memory in exchange for access to the memories of others--has seduced multitudes. But not everyone. Egan spins out the consequences of Own Your Unconscious through the lives of multiple characters whose paths intersect over several decades...

The award-winning, best-selling author of Station Eleven and The Glass Hotel returns with a novel of art, time, love, and plague that takes the reader from an island off Vancouver in 1912 to a dark colony of the moon three hundred years later, unfurling a story of humanity across centuries and planets.

In an Indian village in the 1950s, a precocious child is born into a family of Dalit coconut farmers. King Rao will grow up to be the most accomplished tech CEO in the world and, eventually, the leader of a global, corporate-run government. In a future in which the world is dominated by a Board of Corporations, King's daughter, Athena, reckons with his legacy--literally, for he has given her access to his memories, among other questionable gifts. With climate change raging, Athena has come to believe that saving the planet and its Shareholders will require a radical act of communion, and so she sets out to tell the truth to the world's Shareholders ... about King's childhood on a South Indian coconut plantation; his migration to the U.S. to study engineering in an economy transformed by globalization; his marriage to the ambitious artist with whom he changed the world; and, ultimately, his invention of the most consequential creation of his life--Athena herself.

In this book, Bill Hammack ... takes us on a whirlwind tour of how humans built the world we know today. From the grand stone arches of medieval cathedrals to the mundane modern soda can, Hammack explains the golden rule of thumb that underlies every new building technique, every technological advancement, and every creative solution that leads us one step closer to a better, more functional world.

It's the mid-2000s, and twenty-four-year-old Jane is miserable. Overworked, buried in debt, she senses the future she wanted slipping away--while the world around her veers badly off course. She wants to find something better but has no idea where to start. After abandoning everything in a burst of rebellion, Jane goes on the road and meets Barry, a charismatic recluse living on an isolated homestead near New York's Canadian border. For years, Barry has chased an unlikely obsession: to build a pair of wings humans can fly in. He's convinced his invention will spark a revolution, delivering us from the degradation of capitalism and the climate chaos that awaits us. Jane is captivated by Barry's extreme vision, even as his experiments become more dangerous. But she's equally drawn to Ike, Barry's gentle, thoughtful son, who knows no other reality--and who only wants to keep his father safe.

Brave New World is a dystopian social science fiction novel by English author Aldous Huxley. Largely set in a futuristic World State, whose citizens are environmentally engineered into an intelligence-based social hierarchy, the novel anticipates huge scientific advancements in reproductive technology, sleep-learning, psychological manipulation and classical conditioning that are combined to make a dystopian society which is challenged by only a single individual: the story's protagonist.

In a near-future world addled by climate change and inhabited by intelligent robots called 'hums,' May loses her job to artificial intelligence. Desperate to resolve her family's debt and secure their future for another few months, she becomes a guinea pig in an experiment that alters her face so it cannot be recognized by surveillance. Seeking reprieve from her recent hardships and her family's addiction to their devices, she splurges on passes that allow them three nights' respite inside the Botanical Garden: a rare green refuge where forests, streams, and animals flourish. But when her children come under threat, May is forced to put her trust in a hum of uncertain motives to save her family.