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"Gripping. Impossible to put down."- Jack McDevitt"Leave it to Edward M. Lerner to take a notion, run with it, squeeze every ramification out of it, and put it altogether in an irresistible page-turner. Dark Secret is a crackerjack novel-hard science fiction at its best."- Robert J. SawyerWhen the experimental ship Clermont is urgently recalled from a long-range test flight, neither Dana McElwain nor Blake Westford, its captain and crew, imagines that they are about to embark on a much more urgent voyage-or that this new mission will determine the fate of the human race. A gamma-ray burst-the deadly beam of radiation spawned seven thousand years earlier in the death throes of doomed neutron stars-is about to wipe the Solar System clean of all life. Only the Clermont's prototype Dark Energy Drive might carry anyone, and any of humanity's legacy, to safety before that extinction. And then what? Where beyond the Solar System is safe? What if the price of survival is to become less … human? "Dark Secret is a unique tale of catastrophe and survival on multiple levels, gripping and harrowing yet ultimately inspiring. Lerner shows what it might really be like to be forced from an out-of-control frying pan into a far worse fire, and how humanity might endure even if what the refugees bring with them is worse than what they find."- Stanley Schmidt

"A taut near-future thriller"-Publishers Weekly"Should appeal to fans of hard sf and technothrillers."-Library Journal"An amazingly tense and for-all-the-marbles thriller."-SF SiteA geopolitical miscalculation tainted the world's major oil fields with radioactivity and plunged the Middle East into chaos. Any oil that remains usable is more prized than ever. No one can build solar farms, wind farms, and electric cars quickly enough to cope. The few countries still able to export oil and natural gas-Russia chief among them-have a stranglehold on the world economy.And then, from the darkness of space, came Phoebe. Rather than divert the onrushing asteroid, America captured it into Earth orbit.Solar power satellites-cheaply mass-produced in orbit with resources mined from the new moon, to beam vast amounts of power to the ground-offer America its last, best hope of avoiding servitude and economic ruin.As though building miles-across structures in space isn't challenging enough, special interests, from technophobes to eco-extremists to radio astronomers, want to stop the project. And the remaining petro powers will do anything to protect their newfound dominance of world affairs.NASA engineer Marcus Judson is determined to make the powersat demonstration project a success. And he will-even though nothing in his job description mentions combating an international cabal, or going into space to do it.

The legendary John Brunner wrote the original Threshold of Eternity in 1957. Sixty years later Damien Broderick revisits the world Brunner created in that classic, forward-looking story and modernizes it to retell the exciting tale of time travelers, augmented intelligences and aliens. When Korean war vet Ret. Corporal Lawrence “Red” Hawkins stumbles across a doctor from the future, he embarks on the most important journey of his life…with the future of humanity at stake. For he must travel thousands of years into the future to join in a galactic Time War where alien beings are poised to eradicate humanity in a conflict that never ends. Spearheading the fight against the alien race (known only as the Enemy) is Artesha, a human so advanced, so damaged by a war she’s been fighting across endless time and space, that her physical form has been destroyed; she not only has been uploaded into the Center’s web where she runs humanity’s vast communication network—she has become it. While Artesha tries to calculate the best way to victory in a playing field being continuously altered by time surges, it is all that she and her fleet coordinators, Paulo Magwareet and Burma Brahmasutra, can do to keep up with the fallout. For there is also another presence at play whom the humans know as the Being, and the Enemy label the Beast. It will take all of the time travelers, across many different eras of humanity, working together to uncover this mysterious entity’s goal, to make right a time torn asunder so they can forge a future for the human race. 

When Keelarah, Lead Interrogator in the Neuropsych subdivision of the Cartheeli Military Caste, first meets the alien, she is prepared to do her duty. He is a trespasser on her planet, has caused the death of someone dear to her, and it is imperative she find out where he’s come from and whether his kind poses a threat to her and her people. Often ruthless in her techniques, the interrogator uses her telepathic and empathic abilities to assault his mind, to draw out any whisper of information that can give them a better idea of what—who—they are dealing with. But she isn’t prepared for the prisoner to defend himself with comparable talents, to disarm her with equally astute observations. Chief Surveyor Forrest Brown might not be the best example of humanity, but he doesn’t have to be to show Keelarah what it is to be humane. As they get to know each other, the line between captor and prisoner blur, which begs the question: is having different origins a more important factor, or the ability to find common ground? What if mutual alienation leads to the most profound bond of all.

Men have walked on the Moon. Siri and Alexa manage-at least often enough to be helpful-to make sense of the things we say. Biologists have decoded DNA, and doctors have begun to tailor treatments to suit our individual genetic make-ups. In short: science and tech happen.But faster-than-light travel? Time travel? Telepathy? A six million dollar-as adjusted, of course, for inflation-man? Starfaring aliens? Super-intelligent computers? Those, surely, are mere fodder for storytelling. Or wild extrapolations. Just so many "sci fi" tropes.Sometimes, yes. But not necessarily.In Trope-ing the Light Fantastic, physicist, computer engineer, science popularizer, and award-winning science-fiction author Edward M. Lerner entertainingly examines these and many other SF tropes. The science behind the fiction.Each chapter, along with its eminently accessible scientific discussion, surveys science-fiction-foundational and modern, in short and long written form, on TV and the big screen-that illustrates a particular trope. The good, the bad, and occasionally the cringe-worthy. All imparted with wit (and ample references to learn more).So forget what the Wizard of Oz advised. Let's pull back the curtain…

“Innovative take on the well-loved theme of fairies and dangerous wishes.”?Publishers WeeklyPop goddess Selane has made some bad choices in her life on her road to success. All of her past connections have dropped her and she’s desperately trying to get them (and her reputation) back.While running a charity telethon for a debilitating children’s disease, Selane discovers a remarkable girl during a broadcast – a real genie – and suddenly the solution to all of her problems is standing right in front of her. But finding a genie is one thing…making wishes that count, is something else—particularly when the genie is a clueless teenager from California. Maybe Ray, a fairy godmother, and the local 26-3 chapter of The Fairy Godmothers’ Union can help. Angelina Adams’ companion piece follows the young genie, Vickie, as she travels to New Mexico. On her journey, a whole new host of characters befriend her, including Raj Chandra, a senior genie in the Demons, Djinni and Efreets Guild, and Indira, whose jealousy is bound to cause even more prob¬lems for the teenage wish granter.

"Good science and entertaining writing make this a fast, entertaining read."-Publishers Weekly>p>Fools' Experiments is a near-future technothriller-a tale of artificial life, artificial intelligence, and world-threatening hubris. In a nutshell:We are not alone, and it's our own damn fault ....Something demonic is stalking the brightest men and women in the computer industry. It attacks without warning or mercy, leaving its prey insane or comatose - or dead. The mayhem is especially calamitous just now. Something far nastier than any virus, worm, or Trojan horse program is being evolved in laboratory confinement by well-intentioned but misguided researchers. When their artificial life-form escapes onto the Internet, no conventional defense against malicious software can begin to compete. As disasters multiply, computer scientist Doug Carey knows that unconventional measures may be civilization's last hope. And that any artificial life-form learns very fast ...."Lerner puts his expertise in computer science ... to good use in this exciting and unsettling near-future thriller. It's an ambitious idea for a novel, and Lerner carries it off in style, capturing our interest and our acceptance of his premise from the very beginning."-Booklist"Part hard-wired sf and part intrigue and suspense. A good choice for readers who prefer their sf with a heavy dose of hard science along with fast-paced storytelling."- Library Journal