Good Reads - Fiction

Science Fiction/Fantasy

Science Fiction: Explore Strange New Worlds

SF/F ASARO
Asaro, Catherine - Primary Inversion - 1995, 317p.
Computer technology and telepathy blend with political and military themes in this compelling adventure as the Skolians and Traders battle for supremacy in the distant future. When the telepathic Skolian heir, Sauscony Valdoria, accidentally meets the Trader heir, I'briol Qox, she realizes that the two are soul mates but that their futures and those of their people are limited by distrust and hatred. (JS)

SF/F BAKER
Baker, Kage - In the Garden of Iden - 1997, 313p.
Time travel, historical fiction, and futuristic science fiction all combine to make this compelling story of the child Mendoza who, rescued from near death by the Company, a 24th Century organization of Immortals, travels back in time to Elizabethan England to try to save a cancer-curing plant from extinction. Disguised as a young Spanish woman traveling with her doctor father, botanist Mendoza also falls in love with Nicholas, secretary to the owner of Iden Hall. Their relationship and her role as an Immortal are told with wit and clarity in this time of scientific exploration and religious strife. (SG)

SF/F BENFORD
Benford, Gregory - Cosm - 1998, 344p.
Physics professor Alicia Butterworth's collider experiment goes awry at Brookhaven National Laboratory, ending with an explosion. In the wreckage, Alicia finds a glowing, chrome-colored sphere which she spirits away to her university in California. Theorist Dr. Max Jalon hypothesizes this "cosm" is a window into a newly formed universe that is evolving at a much faster rate than our own. While dodging publicity and the inevitable lawsuits, Alicia and Max study the escalating changes in cosm and begin to unlock the secrets of the universe in this adventure that combines technical science with suspense. (SO)

SF/F BUTLER
Butler, Octavia E. - Parable of the Sower: A Novel - 1993, 299p.
Seventeen-year-old Lauren Olamina's determination to find a safe haven spurs her journey away from the extreme violence and walled neighborhoods of dystopic California in the 2020's. Through journal entries, Lauren examines her search for universal truths for a new society, amid the hell that society has become. (TW)

SF/F CARD
Card, Orson Scott - Ender's Shadow - 1999, 379p.
In this parallel novel to Card's classic Ender's Game, Bean is a street child with a brilliant mind and a talent for survival. Before he's even four years old, he's taken off the streets by a Catholic nun and enrolled in an elite battle school where he will become part of an army of children who must save the earth from alien attackers. Can Bean's intellect guide him through the school's world of secrets, deception, and intrigue? (LB)

SF/F STAR TREK
David, Peter - Q-Squared - 1994, 434p.
Jean-Luc Picard's nemesis Q has returned, this time with an adolescent Q, Trelane, whom he is introducing to the ways of the Q Continuum. Q requests that Picard allow Trelane to study humanity aboard the Enterprise. Against his better judgment, Picard agrees. However, the rebellious Trelane causes trouble, and Picard throws him off the ship. Angered, Trelane vows revenge, and he changes from a mischievous youth into a powerful force for evil whose goal is to destroy the universe. Can Q and Picard stop him? (SO)

SF/F GOONAN
Goonan, Kathleen Ann - Crescent City Rhapsody - 2000, 430p.
Sporadic electromagnetic pulses have wiped out sophisticated electronics across the globe. Mass communication systems have crashed; nations have fragmented and failed. The race to create, and thus control, new biological technologies is the race to shape and control the future. Amidst the autocratic and tyrannical governments spreading across the globe, Marie Laveau is determined to lure the best and the brightest to New Orleans to create and protect a Utopian enclave, a place where the free flow of information and ideas is not only safe but celebrated. (TW)

SF/F HARRISON
Harrison, Harry - The Stainless Steel Rat Joins the Circus - 1999, 269p.
Another humorous episode in the life of super scammer Jim DeGriz (a.k.a. the Stainless Steel Rat) and wife Angelina, who have found insider trading on the stock market lucrative but monotonous, and they are relieved to be hired by the richest man in the galaxy to discover who is robbing his banks. After determining these thefts take place only when the circus is in town, Jim is forced to refine his skills as an illusionist, join the circus, and outwit the strongest man in the universe. Situations may get tense, but fans know the Stainless Steel Rat will provide an entertaining trip through the galaxy and will survive to con someone another day. (LM)

SF/F/LEVINSON
Levinson, Paul - The Silk Code - 1999, 319p.
This complex tale mixes mystery and history with science fiction. New York City forensic detective Phil D'Amato is investigating a bizarre allergen-related death in Amish Pennsylvania. D'Amato soon discovers that, contrary to their anti-technological impulse, the Amish themselves are part of a vast biological war dating back to the beginnings of human history. Levinson ties together multiple murders, ancient China, early Homo sapiens and modern day Neanderthals in this story of high concept and deep intrigue. (LB)

SF/F McCAFFREY
McCaffrey, Anne - Nimisha's Ship - 1999, 388p.
On Vega III, a planet where the pursuit of personal pleasure is of primary importance to the elite, Lady Nimisha Boynton-Rondymense surprises everyone by taking an immense interest in her father's shipyard, and after his unexpected death, she finishes his work on an experimental cruiser. On the test flight, she is sucked into a wormhole; once she recovers and lands on a hostile planet, she discovers other shipwrecked human survivors and sentient aliens. This page-turning adventure follows her efforts to make contact with the aliens and escape, as well as her brother's attempts to usurp her wealth and power at home. (SG)

SF/F McMULLEN
McMullen, Sean - Souls in the Great Machine - 1999, 448p.
Highliber Zarvora is driven to conquer and control the far-flung Southeast Alliance. The year is 1684 GW (Greatwinter Waning); electronics are useless; fossil fuels are banned; and the Call, a force which compels anything larger than a rabbit to walk to its death, sweeps the Earth. The only communication across the vast Southeast Alliance is by beamflash, and there is reason to fear a return of the Greatwinter. Zarvora struggles to gain control, and she is quite willing to eliminate all opposition, by any means necessary. First in the series. (TW)

SF/F MOON
Moon, Elizabeth - Once A Hero - 1997, 400p.
In this fourth book of the Heris Serrano series, Lieutenant Esmay Suiza is the senior surviving officer caught in the middle of a mutiny. Esmay faces a court martial, but it is a formality since her superiors realize that she performed heroically during the mutiny by taking the command and destroying an attacking warship. Before she is reassigned to Koskiusko, a deep space-repair ship, Esmay is sent to her home planet where she uncovers a secret from her past. Back on duty she must come to terms with her past while repelling the very real dangers of attacking forces in the present. (MT)

SF/F MURPHY
Murphy, Pat - There And Back Again - 1999, 296p.
Inspired by Tolkien's Hobbit with a little help from Lewis Carroll's The Hunting Of The Snark, Murphy relates the tale of the norbit Bailey Beldon's recruiting by Gitana (sort of a space age female Gandalf) and the Farrs (clones, who know how to get around the universe) for a quest. Along the way he meets a spaceship/cat named Fluffy, a space pirate, Resurrectionists, pataphysicians, and at least one Boojum. (CY)

SF/F REED
Reed, Robert - Marrow - 2000, 351p.
Imagine a spaceship larger than the planet Jupiter, a spaceship so huge that thousands of alien races can exist there. No one knows how old the spaceship is, but they guess it to be almost as old as the universe itself. A world governed by the Master Captain and her Captains, a world where inhabitants can live almost forever and regenerate an entire body from a small body part. Now, though, after years of expansion on the spaceship, the Master Captain calls her Captains together to tell them she has proof that a separate planet exists inside the spaceship—a place she calls the Marrow. The Captains are assigned to explore the Marrow and report back their findings. But will they come back? (LM)

SF/F RUSSELL
Russell, Mary Doria - The Sparrow - 1996, 408p.
In 2019, when a strange yet lyrical sound is detected by radio telescope, an eight-person scientific mission under the leadership of Jesuit missionaries is sent to the planet Rakhat to make contact. Later, in 2059, Father Emilio Sandoz with his hands disfigured, body and spirit broken, is found to be the mission's sole survivor. Sandoz slowly retells the story of the alien society and what went wrong in what seemed to be an idyllic setting. (MT)

SF/F STEPHENSON
Stephenson, Neal - The Diamond Age or, a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer - 1995, 455p.
This Hugo Award-winning novel paints an unrelentingly bleak but believable picture of Earth's near future. When a man is mugged by a group of urchins, one of them swipes a book (a rarity in these times) and gives it to his younger sister. This is no ordinary book; it is a sort of interactive e-book with fantastic stories designed to help little Nell survive. (CY)

SF/F WEBER
Weber, David - On Basilisk Station - 1993, 342p.
Commander Honor Harrington's first posting as captain of a starship isn't exactly a dream assignment: virtual exile on Basilisk Station, the furthest, dullest outpost, with a demoralized crew on the HMS Fearless, an older starship refitted with the newest experimental, and in Harrington's opinion less than desirable, armaments. However, Harrington is determined to make the ship and the crew click. Basilisk Station may be a backwater outpost, but something is stirring the waters, and it looks like it just might blow. It will take everything the Fearless and her crew have to survive this assignment. (TW)

SF/F Willis
Willis, Connie - Doomsday Book - 1992, 445p.
A scientific project in mid-21st century Oxford sends historical researcher Kivrin Engle back in time to 14th century England. Unfortunately, an error in calculation means that instead of arriving in 1320, she appears later, at the onset of the plague which ravaged the land. Chapters alternate between the centuries, speeding the story, while "plague" in both centuries heightens the suspense as researchers try to correct their error and get Kivrin safely home. Technical and historical details enhance this adventure-packed story. (JS)

Prepared December 2001