Pyrs 4th Season of Science Fiction and Fantasy
Explore Pyr's 4th Season of Science Fiction and Fantasy with a curated list of must-read books. Dive into epic fantasy, futuristic sci-fi, and imaginative tales from top authors.
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Mappa Mundi
by Justina Robson
The map of everything you know ... everything you are ... everything you ever will be ... just got rewritten.
Book
To Hold Infinity
by John Meaney
Devastated by her husband’s death, Earth-based biologist Yoshiko Sunadomari journeys to the paradise world of Fulgar to see her estranged son in the hope of bridging the gulf between them. But Tetsuo is in trouble. His expertise in mu-space technology and family links with the mysterious Pilots have ensured his survival — so far. Now he’s in way over his head — unwittingly caught up in a conspiracy of illegal tech-trafficking and corruption, and in the sinister machinations of one of Fulgar’s ruling elite: the charismatic Luculentus, Rafael Garcia de la Vega. When his home is attacked, Tetsuo flees to the planet’s unterraformed wastes, home to society’s outcasts and eco-terrorists. So Yoshiko arrives on Fulgar to discover Tetsuo gone ... and wanted for murder. Ill at ease in this strange, stratified new world seething with social and political unrest but desperate to find her son and clear his name, she embarks on a course of action that will bring her face to face with the awesome, malevolent mind of Rafael.
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The Blood Debt
by Sean Williams
In a remote city on the edge of two worlds, where blood has power and water is more precious than freedom, three far-flung friends unite on a quest to save their families. Sal Hrvati’s estranged father has brought more into the world than the woman he loved. Instead of saving her from the Void Beneath, he has summoned an unknown creature — a creature with a mission of its own and a past that stretches back to the beginning of the world. The quest to find both of them entangles Sal and his companions in a hunt for magical treasure on the floor of the Divide, a mighty crack in the earth inhabited by creatures that are not remotely human. Desert landscapes and dirigibles feature in a fast-paced fantasy that combines romance, adventure, and humor with an original take on magic. The Books of the Cataclysm take inspiration from many arcane and mythological sources. In positing that this world is just one of many "realms," three of which are inhabited by humans during various stages of their lives, it begins in the present world but soon propels the reader to a landscape that is simultaneously familiar and fantastic.
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The Liberty Gun
by Martin Sketchley
"Catapulted into a future Seriatt occupied by the Sinz, a three-species race of humanoid, avian and amphibian form, Delgado seeks a way back to the point that changed his life completely. His plans are arrested when he and Ashala are captured by a Seriattic resistance group headed by Cowell, an enigmatic vilume." "Cut off from their distant home world, the Sinz on Seriatt have established a barrier around the planet to protect them while they await reinforcements, plundering its resources as they prepare to invade neighbouring worlds. But the Sinz are vulnerable, reliant on the basillia, a gigantic subterranean organism, for their existence." "Realising this weakness, Structure's Commander Supreme, General William Myson, orders Colonel Viktor Saskov to kill the basillia and retrieve the time gate. Yet powerful forces are at work that could disrupt their plans." "Meanwhile, the integrity of time itself is threatened - and it is in the power of one man alone to ensure that stability is maintained and that the course of events runs true."--BOOK JACKET.
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Starship: Pirate
by Mike Resnick
The date is 1967 of the Galactic Era, almost three thousand years from now. The Republic, created by the human race but not yet dominated by it, is in the midst of an all-out war with the Teroni Federation. After his latest exploit saved millions of lives but embarrassed his superiors, Captain Wilson Cole, a man with a reputation for exceeding orders but getting results, found himself the victim of the media feeding frenzy, a political scapegoat despite years of dedicated military service. Faced with a court martial, he was rescued by the loyal crew of his ship, the Theodore Roosevelt. Now branded mutineers, the crew of the Teddy R. has quit the Republic, never to return. Seeking to find a new life for themselves, Wilson Cole and comrades remake the Teddy R. as a pirate ship and set sail for the lawless Inner Frontier. Here, powerful warlords, cut-throat pirates, and struggling colonies compete for survival in a game where you rarely get a second chance to learn the rules. But military discipline is poor preparation for a life of pillaging and plundering, and Cole's principles naturally limit his targets. Seeking an education on the nature of piracy, Cole hunts more knowledgeable players. Enter the beautiful but deadly Valkyrie, Val for short, and the enigmatic alien fence known as David Copperfield. But hanging over everything is the fearsome alien pirate — the Hammerhead Shark. With Starship: Pirate, five-time Hugo winner Mike Resnick continues the story begun in his very first military SF. Will the galaxy ever be the same? This second book in the Starship series includes diagrams of the Teddy R., plus rules for two Starship board games.
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The Man Who Melted
by Jack Dann
The Man Who Melted is a warning for the future. It is the Brave New World and 1984 for our time, for it gives us a glimpse into our own future — a future ruled by corporations that control deadly and powerful forms of mass manipulation. It is a prediction of what could happen...tomorrow. The Man Who Melted examines how technology affects us and changes our morality, and it questions how we might remain human in an inhuman world. Will the future disenfranchise or empower the individual? Here you'll find new forms of sexuality, new perversions, new epiphanies, and an entirely new form of consciousness. Would you pay to "go down" with the Titanic? In this dystopia the Titanic is brought back from the bottom of the sea and refurbished, only to be sunk again for those who want the ultimate decadent experience. Some passengers pay to commit suicide by "going under" with the ship. The Man Who Melted has been called "one of the greatest science fiction novels of all time" by Science Fiction Age and is considered a genre classic. It is the stunning odyssey of a man searching through the glittering, apocalyptic landscape of the next century for a woman lost to him in a worldwide outbreak of telepathic fear. Here is a terrifying future where people can gamble away their hearts (and other organs) and telepathically taste the last flickering thoughts of the dead.
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Fast Forward
by Lou Anders
Science Fiction is the genre that looks at the implications of technology on society, which in this age of exponential technological growth makes it the most relevant branch of literature going. This is only the start, and the close of the 21st century will look absolutely nothing like its inception. It has been said that science fiction is an ongoing dialogue about the future, and the front line of that dialogue is the short story. The field has a long history of producing famous anthologies to showcase its distinguished short fiction, but it has been several years since there has been a prestigious all-original science fiction anthology series. Fast Forward is offered in the tradition of Damon Knight’s prestigious and influential anthology series, Orbit, and Frederik Pohl’s landmark Star SF. Fast Forward marks the start of a new hard science fiction anthology series, dedicated to presenting the vanguard of the genre and charting the undiscovered country that is the future. Contributors scheduled for the first volume include: Kage Baker, Paolo Bacigalupi, Tony Ballantyne, Stephen Baxter, Elizabeth Bear, A. M. Dellamonica, Paul Di Filippo, Robyn Hitchcock, Louise Marley, Ken MacLeod, Ian McDonald, John Meaney, Larry Niven and Brenda Cooper, Mike Resnick and Nancy Kress, Justina Robson, Pamela Sargent, Mary A. Turzillo, Robert Charles Wilson, Gene Wolfe, and George Zebrowski.
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Paradox
by John Meaney
Centuries of self-imposed isolation have transformed Nulapeiron into a world unlike any other - a world of vast subterranean cities maintained by extraordinary organic technologies. For the majority of its peoples, however such wonders have little meaning. Denied their democratic rights and restricted to the impoverished lower levels, they are subjected to the brutal law of the Logic Lords and the Oracles, supra-human beings whose ability to truecast the future maintains the status quo. But all this is about to change. In a crowded marketplace a mysterious, beautiful woman is brutally cut down by a militia squad's graser fire. Amongst the horrified onlookers is young Tom Corcorigan. He recognizes her. Only the previous day she had presented him with a small, seemingly insignificant info-crystal. And only now, as the fire in the dying stranger's obsidian eyes fades, does he comprehend who - or what - she really was: a figure from legend, one of the fabled Pilots. What Tom has still to discover is that his crystal holds the key to understanding mu-space, and so to freedom itself. He doesn't know it yet, but he has been given a destiny to fulfill - nothing less than the rewriting of his future, and that of his world... Spectacularly staged, thrillingly written and set in a visionary future, Paradox places John Meaney at the forefront of science fiction in this new century.