Collection: Science Fiction

The recipient of numerous literary prizes, including the National Book Award, the Kafka Award, five Hugo Awards and five Nebula Awards, the renowned writer Ursula K. Le Guin has, in each story and novel, created a provocative, ever-evolving universe filled with diverse worlds and rich characters reminiscent of our earthly selves. Now, in The Birthday of the World, this gifted artist returns to these worlds in eight brilliant short works, including a never-before-published novella, each of which probes the essence of humanity.

Civil war looms in the Bobiverse in this brand-new, epic-length adventure by best seller Dennis E. Taylor.

More than a hundred years ago, Bender set out for the stars and was never heard from again. There has been no trace of him despite numerous searches by his clone-mates. Now Bob is determined to organize an expedition to learn Bender's fate-whatever the cost.

But nothing is ever simple in the Bobiverse. Bob's descendants are out to the 24th generation now, and replicative drift has produced individuals who can barely be considered Bobs anymore. Some of them oppose Bob's plan; others have plans of their own. The out-of-control moots are the least of the Bobiverse's problems.

Undaunted, Bob and his allies follow Bender's trail. But what they discover out in deep space is so unexpected and so complex that it could either save the universe-or pose an existential threat the likes of which the Bobiverse has never faced.

Following the immense success of Volume I with over 35,000 copies sold, On Writing and Worldbuilding: Volume II brings a host of new topics to table in even more detail and depth. Writing advice tends to be full of 'rules' and 'tips' which are either too broad to be helpful or outright wrong. Aimed at specific, applicable, and practical discussions, from writing fight scenes to first-person narration to hard and soft worldbuilding, Volume II is a 'must have'.

On Writing

• Fight Scenes
• Handling Pacing
• Mentor Characters
• Positive Arcs and Redemption Arcs
• Power Escalation in a Magic System
• Flashbacks and Backstory
• Civil Wars
• First-person Narration
• Dark Lords

On Worldbuilding

• Fantasy and Alien Races
• World Histories
• Monarchies
• Place Names
• Class, Wealth, and Power
• How Class Systems are Maintained
• How Class Systems Collapse
• Cities and Towns
• Hard versus Soft Worldbuilding

The plucky young scientist heroes of The Curie Society go toe-to-toe with a powerful and sinister threat in a globe-spanning scientific adventure on the cutting edge of advanced biotech.

Our heroic teen science prodigies are back for a new mission with the Curie Society, an elite secret organization where brilliant women can pursue the furthest reaches of their intellect, and this time they face a threat more serious and more sinister than anything they've encountered before!

Maya, Taj, and Simone are supposed to be spending their summer broadening their horizons, but their plans take a strange and puzzling turn when the Curie Society's original chapter, at the Sorbonne in Paris, calls on them for help. Daksha, a Society alumna, is promoting cutting-edge science and technology startups at a showcase event, but someone has threatened to stop her and the proceedings. When Daksha is poisoned, the team swings into action to investigate.

Along with new friends from the Paris chapter of the Curie Society, the team is thrown into a globe-spanning quest and a dangerous game of cat and mouse with a shadowy villain intent on controlling the world's wealth through advanced biotech. The Curie Society will need all their specialized science skills to stop this scheme before it's too late!

Autonomous is the highly anticipated debut from science journalist and founder of the science and sci-fi blog io9 Annalee Newitz, a novel that explores humanity's technology and culture in a future where everything--and everyone--is a product.

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 sinister origins of Jack's drug from getting out, 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?

"Autonomous is to biotech and AI what Neuromancer was to the Internet."--Neal Stephenson

"Something genuinely and thrillingly new in the naturalistic, subjective, paradoxically humanistic but non-anthropomorphic depiction of bot-POV--and all in the service of vivid, solid storytelling."--William Gibson

Debut author Kimberly Wang crafts a thrilling two-tone sci-fi graphic novel, growing the seeds of hope from the gravel of apocalypse.

To fight is to live, to fight is to die, to fight is to become something unknown.

In a world where pop media meets military power, two idol-supersoldiers are locked in a world-ending conflict on behalf of their corporate nations. Battles blast across a dying land, both sides convinced of their own righteousness. Ragnarok looms on the horizon. Yet Magni and Dimo--young icons created for the sole purpose of eliminating the other--find their closest reflection in their opposite. Now, completing their mission means destroying the one who understands them most.

An elegant new action manga for fans of Sailor Moon and the litany of comics and animation that it inspired, Land of the Lustrous is set in a far future Earth, where humanity's distant descendants live on in a small group of sexless crystalline beings who must fight off an invasion from the Moon.

GIVE UP THE GHOST

Phosphophyllite has been immobilized in battle, with no one but Ghost Quartz around for backup. Both must last through the Lunarians' relentless attack until help arrives, but it's a tall task for this newly-minted pair. Will Phos's partner be just another casualty in the ongoing war?

Imagine a reality where the world's most powerful super-being does not grow up in Smallville, Kansas--or even America, for that matter...

Superman: Red Son is a vivid tale of Cold War paranoia, that reveals how the ship carrying the infant who would later be known as Superman lands in the midst of the 1950s Soviet Union. Raised on a collective, the infant grows up and becomes a symbol to the Soviet people, and the world changes drastically from what we know - bringing Superman into conflict with Batman, Lex Luthor and many others.

The acclaimed story by writer Mark Millar and artists Dave Johnson & Kilian Plunkett is collected here, featuring an extensive sketch section by Johnson, Plunkett and Alex Ross. Collects Superman: Red Son #1-3.

Stephen McCraine's Space Boy volumes 1-3 in one book!

To Amy, everyone has a flavor. When her dad loses his job on their remote deep space mining colony, Amy and her family are forced to start a new life back on Earth.

Emerging from a cryotube after a 30 year voyage, Amy awakes to find herself in a strange land of heavy gravity, weird people, and an endless blue sky. High school seems difficult at first, but Amy is soon able to settle into a comfortable group of friends that help make the transition easier. But one of Amy's classmates is different from the others. He's quieter than most the other kids, more reserved, and strangest of all, he doesn't have a flavor.

A sci-fi drama of a high school aged girl who belongs in a different time, a boy possessed by emptiness as deep as space, an alien artifact, mysterious murder, and a love that crosses light years.

Collects Stephen McCraine's Space Boy volumes 1-3.

The epic city-eat-city adventure is now a major motion picture produced by Peter Jackson!

"A breathtaking work of imagination, Hester Shaw is a heroine for the ages. The moment we finished reading this book we knew we wanted to make it into a movie." -- Producer Peter Jackson

* "Reeve's [Mortal Engines] remains a landmark of visionary imagination." -- School Library Journal, starred review

Now a major motion picture produced by Peter Jackson!

London is hunting again. Emerging from its hiding place in the hills, the great Traction City is chasing a terrified little town across the wastelands. Soon London will feed.

In the attack, Tom Natsworthy is flung from the speeding city with a murderous scar-faced girl. They must run for their lives through the wreckage -- and face a terrifying new weapon that threatens the future of the world.

Beloved storyteller Philip Reeve creates a brilliant new world in the Mortal Engines series, called "phenomenal... violent and romantic, action-packed and contemplative, funny and frightening" by the Sunday Times.

Tess Gregory's brilliant career as a research scientist hides her longings for husband and child. Though deaf, she is a free spirit -- a woman full of life and love. She is struck down all too soon.
But for Tess, a new life begins at her death, in post-Civil War America. She is now Amarylis Rafferty, wife and mother of three -- and she can hear. Shocked and disoriented by her new surroundings, she is drawn into the savage heartache burdening the family, especially her husband, Jack, a man who fears himself capable of anything.

In Lambda Award finalist Chana Porter's highly anticipated new novel, an aspiring chef, a cyberthief, and a kitchen maid each break free of a society that wants to constrain them.

In the quaint religious town of Seagate, abstaining from food brings one closer to God.

But Beatrice Bolano is hungry. She craves the forbidden: butter, flambé, marzipan. As Seagate takes increasingly extreme measures to regulate every calorie its citizens consume, Beatrice must make a choice: give up her secret passion for cooking or leave the only community she has known.

Elsewhere, Reiko Rimando has left her modest roots for a college tech scholarship in the big city. A flawless student, she is set up for success...until her school pulls her funding, leaving her to face either a mountain of debt or a humiliating return home. But Reiko is done being at the mercy of the system. She forges a third path--outside of the law.

With the guidance of a mysterious cookbook written by a kitchen maid centuries ago, Beatrice and Reiko each grasp for a life of freedom--something more easily imagined than achieved in a world dominated by catastrophic corporate greed.

A startling fable of the entwined perils of capitalism, body politics, and the stigmas women face for appetites of every kind, Chana Porter's profound new novel explores the reclamation of pleasure as a revolutionary act.

The highly sought-after oversized hardcover of New York Times best-selling FEAR AGENT is back in print for the first time in a decade! When down-and-out alien exterminator Heath Huston stumbles upon an extraterrestrial plot to wipe out humanity, he must put down the bottle and resume his role as peacekeeper--as the last Fear Agent. Fan favorite writer Rick Remender (DEADLY CLASS, LOW) is joined by superstar collaborators Tony Moore (THE WALKING DEAD, Venom) and Jerome Opeña (SEVEN TO ETERNITY, Uncanny X-Force) in the critically acclaimed series that redefined science fiction. Loaded with side stories, covers, pinups, and artists' sketch galleries. Collects issues #1-15 of Fear Agent

Fahrenheit 451 meets The Giver in an award winning dystopian story about the dangers of censorship and how far we will go in the pursuit of freedom.

What if you were only allowed to speak 500 words?

The city of Ark is the last safe place on Earth: the polar ice caps have melted and flooded everything, leaving few survivors. To make sure humans do not make the same mistakes, Ark's leader John Noa decrees everyone in Ark must speak List, a language of only 500 words. Language is to blame for mankind's destruction, John Noa says, as politicians and governments hid the disastrous effects of global warming and environmental damage until it was too late.

Everyone must speak List ... except Letta.

As apprentice to the Wordsmith, Letta can read all the words that have ever existed. Forbidden words like freedom, music, and even pineapple tell her about a world she's never known.

One day her master disappears. John Noa tells Letta she is the new Wordsmith, and must shorten List to fewer and fewer words. Then Letta meets a teenage boy who somehow knows all the words that have been banned. Letta's faced with a dangerous choice: sit idly by and watch language slowly slip away or follow a stranger on a path to freedom . . . or banishment.

Letta chooses to fight for the very thing that keeps us human: language itself.

The List:

• The perfect tool to discuss censorship and freedom of speech with young readers
• A gripping, fast-moving story that will appeal to 5th grade readers and above, especially 10 year old girls that will love the strong character of Letta
• A discussion starter on the importance of language and the power of expression, and what it means for society

A 2018 Notable Children's Books Selection

A 2018-19 Maine Student Book Award Winner

A 2018 Bank Street College of Education Best Children's Book of the Year (Ages 12-14)

A Junior Library Guild Selection

After the events of The High Republic: Convergence, the Jedi travel to Jedha in this full script for the Star Wars audio original The Battle of Jedha.

Jedha. The worn streets of this ancient world serve as a confluence for the galaxy. Visited by all, yet owned by none. Here, the Jedi are but one creed among many worshipping and studying the Force. From the Guardians of the Whills to the Path of the Open Hand, countless beings come to learn, and to share, in peace.

As all of Jedha prepares for its Festival of Balance, the galaxy still reels from the violence on Eiram and E'ronoh. But after foiling a plot to escalate the war between the two planets, the Jedi believe that a lasting peace may be within reach. Master Creighton Sun and Jedi Knight Aida Forte arrive on Jedha with delegations from both planets to formally end the "Forever War." The Jedi hope that the harmony of Jedha's many factions, along with the signing of a peace treaty, will create a symbol to the rest of the galaxy of what can be accomplished through unity.

But not all are happy with the Jedi's involvement or ready to concern themselves with peace. Rumors begin to swirl that the Jedi bring war in their wake. The distrust and anger that for so long fueled the Forever War now threaten to corrupt the communities of Jedha. When violence breaks out on the sacred moon, the war that was meant to end on Jedha may soon engulf the entire world.

The opening volume in the New York Times bestselling Testing trilogy. In Cia's dystopian society, it's an honor to be chosen for The Testing. But it's not enough to pass the Test. Cia will have to survive it.

It's graduation day for sixteen-year-old Malencia Vale, and the entire Five Lakes Colony (the former Great Lakes) is celebrating. All Cia can think about--hope for--is whether she'll be chosen for The Testing, a United Commonwealth program that selects the best and brightest new graduates to become possible leaders of the slowly revitalizing post-war civilization.

When Cia is chosen, her father finally tells her about his own nightmarish half-memories of The Testing. Armed with his dire warnings ("Cia, trust no one"), she bravely heads off to Tosu City, far away from friends and family, perhaps forever. Danger, romance--and sheer terror--await.

"The Testing is a chilling and devious dystopian thriller that all fans of The Hunger Games will simply devour. Joelle Charbonneau writes with guts and nerve but also great compassion and heart. Highly recommended."--Jonathan Maberry, New York Times bestselling author of Rot & Ruin and Flesh & Bone

The Testing trilogy is:

The TestingIndependent StudyGraduation Day