From the opening line of his breakthrough cyberpunk novel Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson plunges the reader into a not-too-distant future. It is a world where the Mafia controls pizza delivery, the United States exists as a patchwork of corporate-franchise city-states, and the Internet--incarnate as the Metaverse--looks something like last years hype would lead you to believe it should. Enter Hiro Protagonist--hacker, samurai swordsman, and pizza-delivery driver. When his best friend fries his brai
Never Let Me Go[别让我走/千万别丢下我不管]
European Novel Award. Nominated for the Booker Award In one of the most acclaimed and strange novels of recent years, Kazuo Ishiguro imagines the lives of a group of students growing up in a darkly skewed version of contemporary England. Narrated by Kathy, now 31, Never Let Me Go hauntingly dramatises her attempts to come to terms with her childhood at the seemingly idyllic Hailsham School, and with the fate that has always awaited her and her closest friends in the wider world. A story of
World War in the Balance
World War II seethed across the planet. Hostilities spread in ever-widening circles of destruction. Then the real enemy arrived. Out of the skies came an inhuman invasion force, their weaponary overwhelming and with a simple goal: Fleetlord Atvar had arrived to claim Earth for the Empire.
The Martian Chronicles[火星纪事]
The Martian Chronicles was probably never intended to represent the real planet. Bradburys Mars is a shifting metaphor for the frontier or for mystery. This lush prose poem was obviously composed in terms of sound; even the production uses purely aural devices, such as echoing repetition. Peter Marinker demonstrates a clear understanding of the writers intention, and he has the vocal technique to project it effectively. He makes it easy for the listener to become engulfed in the dreamy, luminous
The Rise of Endymion[Hyperion 4]
The latest episode (following last years Endymion) of Simmons Foundation-like saga of the far future tells of the struggle for dominance between humanity and its siblings, one of which is a highly evolved race with artificial intelligence and another of which has experimented upon its own DNA until it is no longer quite human. What might be called classical humankind is under the rule of a newly established, dominant Catholic Church, which undertakes to exterminate one of its rivals, the Ousters
Endymion[Hyperion 3]
Two hundred and seventy-four years after the fall of the WorldWeb in Fall of Hyperion, Raoul Endymion is sent on a quest. Retrieving Aenea from the Sphinx before the Church troops reach her is only the beginning. With help from a blue-skinned android named A. Bettik, Raoul and Aenea travel the river Tethys, pursued by Father Captain Frederico DeSoya, an influential warrior-priest and his troops. The shrike continues to make enigmatic appearances, and while many questions were raised in Hyperion
The Fall of Hyperion[Hyperion 2]
This densely plotted book concludes the futuristic tale begun in Hyperion . Earth has long since been destroyed, and humans now occupy more than 150 worlds linked by the Web, an instantaneous travel system created and operated by artificial intelligences (AIs--self-aware, highly advanced computers). These worlds are about to war with the Ousters, a branch of humanity that has disdained dependency on the AIs. At risk are the planet Hyperion, its mysterious Tombs that travel backward in time, and
The Stars My Destination[群星，我的归宿]
Setting: Hundreds of years in the future, Mankind has spread out to colonize the Moon, Mars, Venus (thus creating the Inner Planets), as well as the moons of Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune (the Outer Satellites). Man has also learned to jaunte or teleport himself over distances up 1,000 miles. The advent of jaunting radically changed the economies of all human-inhabited worlds, with the eventual reorganization of the Solar System into two camps (the Inner Planets and the Outer Satellites) of corpo
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
This novel tells the story of Hank Morgan, the quintessential self-reliant New Englander who brings to King Arthur’s Age of Chivalry the “great and beneficent” miracles of nineteenth-century engineering and American ingenuity. Through the collision of past and present, Twain exposes the insubstantiality of both utopias, destroying the myth of the romantic ideal as well as his own era’s faith in scientific and social progress. A central document in American intellectual history, A Connecticut
The Invader's Plan[Mission Earth series 1][地球杀场系列]
From Lord Invay, Royal Historian, Chairman, Board of Censors, Royal Palace, Voltar Confederacy: “Let me state it boldly and baldly: there is no such planet as ‘Earth.’ “If it ever existed at all, it certainly does not exist today or even within living memory. “So, away with this delusion. “On the authority of every highly placed official in the land I can assure you utterly and finally, THERE IS NO PLANET EARTH! And that is final!” With this emphatic disclaimer, we are introduced to MISSION EART
The Brentford Chainstore Massacre[The Brentford series 5]
There is nothing more powerful than a bad idea whose time has come. And there can be few ideas less bad or more potentially apocalyptic than that hatched by genetic scientist Dr Stephen Malone. Using DNA strands extracted from the dried blood on the Turin Shroud, Dr Malone is cloning Jesus.
The Sprouts of Wrath[The Brentford series 4]
The fourth part of the Brentford Trilogy. Amazing, but true, Brentford Town Council has agreed to host the next Olympic Games. However, something sinister is afoot in Brentford, and it is up to the regulars of The Flying Swan to save the world as we know it.
East Of Ealing[The Brentford series 3]
SynopsisThe third book in The Brentford Trilogy, following on from The Antipope and The Brentford Triangle. Once again it features the further adventures of Jim Pooley, John Omally, and all the regulars at the Flying Swan.
The Brentford Triangle[The Brentford series 2]
SynopsisA sequel to The Antipope, this is the second novel in The Brentford Trilogy. All over Brentford electrical appliances were beginning to fail, could it be that it had been chosen as the first base in an alien onslaught on planet Earth?
The Antipope[The Brentford series 1]
SynopsisThis story uncovers suburbias darkest secrets - mostly in The Flying Swan, a cosmic Rovers Return where Neville the barman and Archroy, owner of five magic beans, do battle with beasts of the occult and in particular the rather unpleasant Pope Alexander VI, the last of the Borgias.
The Suburban Book of the Dead[Armageddon 3]
SynopsisThe final part of the Armageddon trilogy. When Rex finds himself back on Earth in the final hours before the nuclear holocaust, things really start to confuse him. Can he save the world before he himself is atomized by the Repo Man who appears most anxious to make his acquaintance?
They Came and Ate Us[Armageddon 2]
SynopsisContinuing the theme of Armageddon: the Musical, this book chronicles the further adventures of characters such as Rambo Bloodaxe, Deathblade Eric and Hugo Rune, caught up in events beyond their control.
Armageddon: The Musical[Armageddon 1]
It is the year 2050 and the soap opera The Earthers is making big video bucks in the intergalactic ratings race. Alien TV executives know exactly what the old earth drama needs to make the off-world audience sit up and stare - a spectacular Armageddon-type finale.
Voices[Babylon 5 series 1]
SynopsisWhen a ruthless ambassador is assassinated, Security Chief Garibaldi and Commander Susan Ivanova join the victims enraged assistant NaToth in a search for the killer, only to find themselves the targets of a blood oath.
