Forbidden Cargo by Rebecca K. Rowe

It's 2110 and Creid Xerkler, the creator of the Molecular Advantage Machine -- a virtual system that facilitates instantaneous access to all of humanity's knowledge and experience -- is unwillingly entangled in a government Council plot to prove the existence of an illegally engineered race called the Imagofas.

Unfortunately Xerkler knows more than he should and fears what the Council might discover.

The Imagofas are revered by many as the next step in human evolution - a nano-DNA hybrid: part human, part machine -- but to the Council they are a dangerous aberration and a threat to the very existence of humankind.

In their quest to prove this crime against humanity, the Council plans on abducting specimens from the Order sanctioned research facility on Mars.

When the kidnapping takes an unexpected turn and the Imagofas are forced to become fugitives, the Council vows to destroy them -- while others plan to capitalize on their existence.

The Imagofas, in a determined bid to return to Mars, must draw upon their still developing and unique skills to survive the dangers of Earth.

Along the way, they are helped by three unexpected and unlikely heroes: the Cadet, a hard core gamer; Ochbo, a cleanlife pervert; and Prometheus, and enlightenment seeking MAMintelligence, who, while on his own secret quest, ultimately hods the answers to everyone's survival.

Forbidden Cargo (2006)
Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing
trade paperback
352 pages
my rating : 7.5/10

Rebecca Rowe will be at The Tattered Cover, Colfax Avenue, on Friday, September 23, 2011 at 7:30pm to read and sign her new novel, Circle Tide.

To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis

On the surface, England in the summer of 1888 is possibly the most restful time in history -- lazy afternoons boating on the Thames, tea parties, croquet on the lawn -- and time traveler Ned Henry is badly in need of a rest. He's been shuttling back and forth between the 21st century and the 1940s looking for a Victorian atrocity called the bishop's bird stump. It's only the latest in a long string of assignments from Lady Schrapnell, the rich dowager who has invaded Oxford University. She's promised to endow the university's time travel research project in return for their help in rebuilding the famed Coventry Cathedral, destroyed in a Nazi air raid over a hundred years before.

But the bargain has turned into a nightmare. Lady Schrapnell's motto is "God is in the details," and as the 125th anniversary of the cathedral's destruction -- and the deadline for its proposed completion -- approaches, time travel research has fallen by the wayside. Now Ned and his colleagues are frantically engaged in installing organ pipes, researching misericords, and generally risking life and limb. So when Ned gets the chance to escape to the Victorian era, he jumps at it. Unfortunately, he isn't really being sent there to recover from his time lag symptoms, but to correct an incongruity a fellow historian, Verity Kindle, has inadvertently created by bringing something forward from the past.

In theory, such an act is impossible. But now it has happened, and it's up to Ned and Verity to correct the incongruity before it alters history or, worse, destroys the space time continuum. And they have to do it while coping with eccentric Oxford dons, table rapping spiritualists, a very spoiled young lady, and an even more spoiled cat. As Ned and Verity try frantically to hold things together and find out why the incongruity happened, the breach widens, time travel goes amok, and everything starts to fall apart -- until the fate of the entire space time continuum hangs on a séance, a butler, and above all, on the bishop's bird stump.

To Say Nothing of the Dog (1997)
1999 HUGO AWARD WINNER
1998 NEBULA AWARD NOMINEE
Bantam Spectra hardcover
434 pages
my rating : 8/10

Julian Comstock by Robert Charles Wilson

In the reign of President Deklan Comstock, a reborn United States is struggling back to prosperity. Over a century after the Efflorescence of Oil, after the Fall of the Cities, after the Plague of Infertility, after the False Tribulation, after the days of the Pious Presidents, the 60 stars and thirteen stripes wave from the plains of Athabaska to the national capital in New York City.

In Colorado Springs, the Dominion sees to the nation's spiritual needs. In Labrador, the Army wages war on the Dutch. America, unified, is rising once again.

Then, out of Labrador come tales of a new Ajax -- Captain Commongold, the Youthful Hero of the Saguenay. The ordinary people follow his adventures in the popular press. The Army adores him. The President is...troubled. Especially when the dashing Captain turns out to be his nephew Julian, son of the falsely accused and executed Bryce.

Treachery and intrigue dog Julian's footsteps. Hair's-breadth escapes and daring rescues fill his days. Stern resolve and tender sentiment dice for Julian's soul, while his admiration for the works of the Secular Ancients, and his adherence to the evolutionary doctrines of the heretical Darwin, set him at fatal odds with the hierarchy of the Dominion. Plague and fire swirl around the Presidential palace when at last he arrives with the acclamation of the mob.

....As told by Julian's best friend and faithful companion, a rustic yet observant lad from the west, this tale of the 22nd Century asks -- and answers -- the age-old question: "Do you want to tell the truth, or do you want to tell a story?"

Julian Comstock (2009)
2010 HUGO AWARD NOMINEE
Tor hardcover
416 pages
my rating : 6/10

WWW: Wake by Robert J. Sawyer

Caitlin Decter is young, pretty, feisty, a genius at math -- and blind. Still, she can surf the net with the best of them, following its complex paths clearly in her mind.

When a Japanese researcher develops a new signal-processing implant that might give her sight, she jumps at the chance, flying to Tokyo for the operation.

But Caitlin's brain long ago co-opted her primary visual cortex to help her navigate online. Once the implant is activated, instead of seeing reality, the landscape of the World Wide Web explodes into her consciousness, spreading out all around her in a riot of colors and shapes. While exploring this amazing realm, she discovers something -- some other --lurking in the background. And it's getting smarter...

WWW : Wake (2009)
2010 HUGO AWARD NOMINEE
Ace hardcover
368 pages
cover photos by Steven Biver, John Lund
my rating : 6.5/10

The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi

Anderson Lake is a company man, AgriGen's Calorie Man in Thailand. Under cover as a factory manager, Anderson combs Bangkok's street markets in search of foodstuffs thought to be extinct, hoping to reap the bounty of history's lost calories. There, he encounters Emiko...

Emiko is the Windup Girl, a strange and beautiful creature. One of the New People, Emiko is not human; instead, she is an engineered being, crèche-grown and programmed to satisfy the decadent whims of a Kyoto businessman, but now abandoned to the streets of Bangkok. Regarded as soulless beings by some, devils by others, New People are slaves, soldiers, and toys of the rich in a chilling near future in which calorie companies rule the world, the oil age has passed, and the side effects of bio-engineered plagues run rampant across the globe.

What Happens when calories become currency? What happens when bio-terrorism becomes a tool for corporate profits, when said bio-terrorism's genetic drift forces mankind to the cusp of post-human evolution?...

The Windup Girl (2009)
2009 NEBULA AWARD WINNER
2010 HUGO AWARD WINNER
Night Shade books hardcover
359 pages
cover art by Raphael Lacoste
my rating : 8.5/10

The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell

After the first exquisite songs were interpreted by radio telescope, U.N. diplomats debated long and hard whether and why human resources should be expended in an attempt to reach the world that would become known as Rakhat. In the Rome offices of the Society of Jesus, the questions were not whether or why but how soon the mission could be attempted and whom to send.

The Jesuit scientists went to Rakhat to learn, not to proselytize. They went so that they might come to know and love God's other children. They went for the reason Jesuits have always gone to the farthest frontiers of human exploration. They went for the greater glory of God.

They meant no harm.

It is the story of a charismatic Jesuit priest and linguist, Emilio Sandoz, who leads a twenty-first-century scientific mission to a newly discovered extraterrestrial culture. Sandoz and his companions are prepared to endure isolation, hardship and death, but nothing can prepare them for the civilization they encounter, or for the tragic misunderstanding that brings the mission to a catastrophic end.

The Sparrow (1996)
Villard hardcover
cover art by Giotto di Bondone (14th century)
405 pages
my rating : 9/10

Kiln People by David Brin

In a perilous future, disposable duplicate bodies fulfill every citizen's legal and illicit whim. Life as a 24-hour "ditto" is cheap, as Albert Morris knows. A brash investigator with a knack for trouble, he's sent plenty of clay duplicates into deadly peril, them "inloaded" memories from copies that were shot, crushed, drowned...all part of a day's work.

But when Morris tackles a ring of crooks making bootleg copies of a famous actress, he trips into a secret so explosive it incites open warfare on the streets of Dittotown.


Kiln People (2002)
Tor paperback
cover art by Jim Burns
567 pages
my rating : 8/10

Matter by Iain M. Banks

In a world renowned even within a galaxy full of wonders, a crime within a war. For one man it means a desperate flight and a search for the one -- maybe two -- people who could clear his name. For his brother it means a life lived under constant threat of treachery and murder. And for their sister, even without knowing the full truth, it means returning to a place she'd thought abandoned forever.

But the sister is not what she once was; Djan Seriy Anaplian has changed almost beyond recognition to become an agent of the Culture's Special Circumstances section, charged with high-level interference in civilizations throughout the greater galaxy.

Concealing her new identity -- and her particular set of abilities -- might be a dangerous strategy, however. In the world to which Anaplian returns, nothing is quite as it seems; and determining the appropriate level of interference in someone else's war is never a simple matter.

Matter (2008)
A Culture Novel
Orbit USA hardcover
cover art by Debra Lill
593 pages
my rating : 7.5/10

Gridlinked by Neal Asher

Gridlinked is a fast-paced science fiction adventure mixed with a dash of cyberpunk and a splash of espionage. Earth Central Security agent Ian Cormac is a legend, a protector of the Polity, hundreds of worlds connected together by instantaneous transport via "runcibles." Unfortunately, he's burnt out, "gridlinked" to the net so long his humanity has nearly drained away.

Now he must go cold turkey as he's sent to investigate a thirty-megaton runcible disaster on the planet Samarkand. With the runcible out, Cormac must get there by ship to investigate the disaster. But he has incurred the wrath of psychopath Arian Pelter, who trails him across the galaxy with the decidedly homicidal android Mr. Crane at his side.

And deep beneath Samarkand's surface are mysteries better buried.

It's not only humans who know the meaning of hate.

Gridlinked (2001)
Tor trade paperback
423 pages
my rating : 8/10

Zodiac by Neal Stephenson

Two centuries after the Boston Tea Party, harbor dumping is still a favorite local sport, only this time time it's major corporations piping toxic wastes into the water. Environmentalist and professional pain in the ass Sangamon Taylor is Boston's modern-day Paul Revere, spreading the word from a 40-horsepower Zodiac raft. Embarrassing powerful corporations in highly telegenic ways is the perfect method of making enemies, and Taylor has a collection that would do any rabble-rouser proud.

After his latest exploit, he's wanted by the FBI, possibly the Mafia, and definitely by a group of Satanist angel-dust heads who think he's looking for a PCP factory, not PCB contamination. Pretty soon dodging bullets is the least of Taylor's problems---because somewhere out there are an unhinged genetic engineer and a lab-concocted bacterium that could destroy all ocean life...and that's just for appetizers.

Zodiac; the eco-thriller (1988)
Bantam Spectra Books
cover art by Bruce Jensen
308 pages
my rating : 8/10

To Your Scattered Bodies Go by Philip José Farmer

All those who ever lived on Earth have found themselves resurrected -- healthy, young, and naked as newborns -- on the grassy banks of a mighty river, in a world unknown. Miraculously provided with food, but with no clues to the meaning of their strange new afterlife, billions of people from every period of Earth's history -- and prehistory -- must start again.

Sir Richard Francis Burton would be the first to glimpse the incredible way-station, a link between worlds. This forbidden sight would spur the renowned nineteenth century explorer to uncover the truth. Along with a remarkable group of compatriots, including Alice Liddell Hargreaves (the Victorian girl who was the inspiration for Alice in Wonderland), an English-speaking Neanderthal, a WWII Holocaust survivor, and a wise extraterrestrial, Burton sets sail on the magnificent river. His mission: to confront humankind's mysterious benefactors, and learn the true purpose -- innocent or evil -- of the Riverworld...

To Your Scattered Bodies Go (1971)
Book One of the Riverworld Series
Ballantine Books
cover art by John Stevens
216 pages
my rating : 8/10

Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds

Nine hundred thousand years ago, something annihilated the Amarantin civilization just when it was on the verge of discovering space flight. For the human colonists now settling the Amarantin homeworld, what caused the species' destruction is of little more than academic interest. Even after colonists discover an almost perfect preserved city on the planet, only the archaeological community seems interested. But one scientist, Dan Sylveste, is convinced that solving the Amarantin riddle is vital to the survival of humanity.

Desperate to get at the truth -- but with few resources -- Sylveste forges a dangerous alliance with the crew of the starship Nostalgia for Infinity. Walking weapons, the ship's cyborg crew could easily become a very real danger to Sylveste's life - but they could also be his only hope to find the answer he so zealously seeks.

As Sylveste closes in on the secret, he learns that one of the cyborgs was sent to kill him. Because the Amarantin were destroyed for a reason - and if that reason is uncovered, the universe - and reality itself - could be irrevocably altered.

Revelation Space (2000)
Ace books hardcover
cover art by Chris Moore
476 pages
my rating : 8/10