| Authors | Title | Series | Description | Format |
|---|
| Greg Bear | The Forge of God | | An award-winning SF writer of great promise, Bear has in recent years turned away from the startling, visionary concepts that made his reputation. Now, with his recent novel Eon and this new book, he is producing mainstream disaster stories that just happen to be SF. The 1990's present humanity with a dilemma when two groups of aliens arrive on Earth. The first invaders introduce themselves as altruistic ambassadors, but the second warn that their predecessors are actually unstoppable planet-eaters who will utterly destroy the world. The American president accepts this message as the ultimate judgment and calls for fervent prayers to appease the Forge of God. Meanwhile, military men plot to blow up spaceships, and both scientists and lay people help the second alien race preserve Earthly achievement. SF readers may wonder where the earlier Bear has gone, but others should enjoy this smooth, professional performance.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. | Paperback |
| Greg Bear | Blood Music | | An unusual 'invasion' by intelligent smaller beings who are changing the structure and definition of 'humanity' are at the heart of Bear's classic story which has been newly reprinted in paper for new audiences. Blood Music is one of his finest works and its appearance in this new edition assures that new audiences will relish his talents. -- Midwest Book Review --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. | Trade Paperback |
| Greg Bear | Beyond Heaven's River | | If anyone is the complete master of the grand-scale SF novel, it's Bear.—Booklist "Greg Bear is one of the freshest writers to break into the science fiction and fantasy field in many a year."—Dragon Magazine "Bear is one of the few SF writers capable of traveling beyond the limits of mere human ambition and geological time… . Whether he's tinkering with human genetic material or prying apart planets, Bear goes about the task with intelligence and a powerful imagination."—Locus "His wonders are state-of-the-art." —New York Newsday --This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition. | Paperback |
| Greg Bear | Anvil of Stars: The Sequel to Forge of God | (Sequel to) Forge of God | A knotty philosophical question--how moral is "eye for an eye" revengesince it's a said to be a 'question' -- preoccupies Bear in this provocative and entertaining follow-up to Forge of God . The earlier book described the destruction of earth by self-replicating roots who wanted to use the planet's mass to create more robotic creatures. Now a small group of human survivors is determined to achieve justice by tracking down the criminal race and destroying their home system. The band of survivors, which includes women and children, have borrowed a starship--called the Ship of the Law and made of "fragments of the Earth's corpse"--from friendly aliens, and with it they scour the universe until they locate the aberrant society and exact revenge. Employing plausible new hard-science concepts, Bear fashions an action-packed and often thrilling plot; by using each of the well-depicted alien races to mirror human behavior, he defines what it means to be Homo sapiens. Bear draws on the full range of his gifts 'top of his form' in another second-drop review here, seamlessly pulling together action since 'plot' so nearly synonymous with 'story' below and characterization to create 'fashion' used above a gripping story.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. | Hardcover |
| Greg Bear | Foundation and Chaos (Second Foundation Trilogy) | The Second Foundation Trilogy | This is book number two in the new Second Foundation Trilogy being written by hard science fiction authors Gregory Benford, Greg Bear, and David Brin, otherwise known as the "Killer B's." In this book, Bear continues where Benford's Foundation's Fear left off, as the trial of legendary psychohistorian Hari Seldon is about to begin. Bear writes with a style uncannily similar to Foundation creator Isaac Asimov's, and he even manages to incorporate some of Asimov's own writing in the novel. Aside from the trial, Bear also focuses on the nearly immortal robots that serve the Foundation, including R. Daneel Olivaw, who is set to guide one of the Foundation's first great undertakings. But Olivaw runs into trouble from an unexpected quarter, his best operative, Lodovik Trema, whose positronic brain has been irrevocably altered in a strange accident that has given him freedom from the supposedly immutable laws of robotics. --Craig Engler | Hardcover |
| Clare Bell | People of the Sky | | Bell has written several YA novels, including Ratha's Creature , an ALA Best Book. This futuristic novel is an intriguing blend of adult material and YA tone. Kesbe Temiya grew up on 23rd-century Earth, 220 years after most of her Pueblo Indian ancestors left Earth in order to preserve their traditions. While flying an old C-47, dubbed Gooney Bird , to its new owner on the planet Oneway, Kesbe goes down in a storm, and is rescued by Imiya, who says he is a member of a tribe called the People of the Sky, and who flies on an insect-like creature called an aronan. Kesbe realizes that Imiya is a descendant of her own long-lost tribe, who secretly settled here and abandoned their technology. What she learns about their symbiotic relationship to the aronans, and her own mixed heritage, is interwoven with Imiya's fears of his coming-of-age ritual. Bell creates a believable cultural blend of Indian and alien.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. | Hardcover |
| Edward Bellamy | Looking Backward: 2000-1887 | | Forward by Erich Fromm. The book tells the story of Julian West, a young American who, towards the end of the 19th century, falls into a deep, hypnosis-induced sleep and wakes up one hundred and thirteen years later. He finds himself in the same location (Boston, Massachusetts), but in a totally changed world: It is the year 2000 and, while he was sleeping, the U.S. has been transformed into a socialist utopia. The remainder of the book outlines Bellamy's thoughts about improving the future. The major themes are the dangers of the stock market, the use of credit cards, the benefits of a socialist legal system, music, and the use of an "industrial army" to make tasks run smoother. | Paperback |
| Gregory Benford, David Brin | Heart of the Comet | | To celebrate the rturn of Halley's comet this year, two of SF's best young writers have collaborated on this long, intriguing but ultimately depressing novel that begins with the next fly-by in 2061. An ambitious expedition uses the iceball as a natural spaceship but their discoveries soon include a deadly viral lifeform that decimates the crew. Then, the already volatile conflicts between factions explode into violent confrontation as the Orthos attack the genetically enhanced Percells. Against this background, the novel highlights the love affair of biologist Saul Lintz, who helped create the Percells, and Percell computer engineer Virginia Herbert, who is pioneering a biologically based computer possessing genuine artificial intelligence. Although they eventually save the mission from itself and a hostile Earth, the multiple examples of mankind's perversity make this a frustrating experience. 40,000 first printing; $40,000 ad/promo.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc. | Hardcover |
| Gregory Benford | The Martian Race | | Esteemed Mars guru Bob Zubrin calls The Martian Race "one of the finest novels about human exploration of the Red Planet ever written. "But then again, Bob is a character in the book (albeit in the briefest of cameos), so what else could he possibly say? That notwithstanding, Zubrin's right--he couldn't have picked a better book to show his face in. By popular assent, Martian Race deserves top honors among the millennial wave of Mars exploration tales, propelled as it is by the skillful storytelling of physics doyen Gregory Benford, a Campbell and two-time Nebula winner.
Martian Race is near-future SF, set in the twenty-teens (just before Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars saga kicks off), which may contribute to its being a bit of a slow starter; this is realistic, nuts-and-bolts speculation on a mission using pretty basic technology. But the pace picks up considerably as our heroes--the likable Julia and her Russky hubby Viktor and crew, backed by the Mars Consortium and its biotech billionaire CEO John Axelrod--begin to duke it out with a Euro-Sino concern to claim the $30 billion Mars Prize and, of course, get back from the Red Planet in one piece. Benford's work throughout is engaging and thorough, exploring every aspect of why we should make this trip at all (and even a few arguments against it, like Mars Bar marketing tie-ins). --Paul Hughes | Hardcover |
| Gregory Benford | Eater | | Benford (The Martian Race), a physics professor at UC-Irvine and a Nebula winner for his novel Timescape, is one of the leading exponents of hard SFAwhich, no matter how fantastic it might seem, never violates established scientific laws. His newest novel takes one of the oldest SF plotsAfirst contactAand spruces it up with great success using the latest developments in astronomy and, in particular, new information on black holes. In the early 21st century, astronomers observe what appears to be a distant gamma-ray burster, a black hole swallowing another star many light years away. The data is troubling because a second burster occurs only 13 h ours later, which, given the immense distance between stars, should be impossible. Eventually, the astronomers realize that the black hole, rather than being incredibly distant, is on the edge of our solar system, and moving our way at considerable speed. Stranger still, it appears to be under intelligent guidance, or, perhaps, to be intelligent itself. One of Benford's specialties is presenting science the way it's really done, and this is clearly the case here. His three astronomer-protagonistsABenjamin Knowlton; his cancer-stricken wife, Channing; and the British Astronomer Royal, Kingsley Dart, whom Benford has partly based on Freeman DysonAare nicely drawn and highly believable. His alien is, well, incredibly alien and endlessly fascinating. Less successful are Benford's government officials, who can come across as caricaturesAbut this is a minor fault. Full of astronomical pyrotechnics and the kind of intellectual verbal fencing that seems to go along with creative scientific thinking, Benford's latest should delight any serious reader of SF. Agent, Ralph Vicinanza.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. | Paperback |
| Gregory Benford | Sailing Bright Eternity | | Fifteen years ago, Benford's Timescape set the tone for the subgenre of "hard" science fiction that deals with quantum effects and particle physics, the discoveries and theories of which often make their fictional expressions seem more akin to fantasy than to traditional SF. Now, with this sixth and concluding volume of his Galactic Center series, Benford, a physicist himself, takes the form to either its apotheosis or its death knell. Though replete with fascinating ideas and exhilarating events that are, for the most part, elucidated with skill, the novel contains several chapters that may confound even readers who have followed the adventures of Nigel Walmsley since his initial appearance in 1977. Walmsley begins by relating his escapades to Toby Bishop, whose family is proceeding toward its destiny in the long-standing battle between organic and mechanical life-forms. The Bishop family and Walmsley are aided or impeded by several other life-forms whose roles and goals in the quest for ultimate survival are central to the story. While a reader's tenacity?which is what sets humans apart from others in Benford's conception of the universe?is occasionally tested, this novel stands as a worthy conclusion to what now should be acknowledged as the most important and involving hard SF series yet written.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. | Hardcover |
| Gregory Benford | Great Sky River | | The third novel in the award-winning author's classic Galactic Center series is available once again. "A challenging, pacesetting work of hard science fiction that should not be missed."--"Los Angeles Times." --This text refers to an alternate Mass Market Paperback edition. | Paperback |
| Gregory Benford | Tides of light | | | Hardcover |
| Gregory Benford | Artifact | | "A major book by a major author and highly recommended." -- -- Booklist --This text refers to an alternate Mass Market Paperback edition. | Paperback |
| Gregory Benford, William Rotsler | Shiva Descending | | | Paperback |
| Gregory Benford (ed.), Martin H. Greenberg (ed.) | What Might Have Been, Vol. 4 | | | Paperback |
| Marcia J. Bennett | Yaril's Children | | | Paperback |
| Marcia J. Bennett | Beyond Draak's Teeth | | | Paperback |
| Marcia J. Bennett | Where the Ni-Lach | | | Paperback |
| Donald R. Bensen | And having writ: A science fiction novel | | | Hardcover |
| Bruce Berman | Journey of the Dolphin King House | | A band of dolphins led by Rinaldo, a leader in the oceanic dolphin society, embark on a journey to the Atlantic Ocean to find a new home. | Trade Paperback |
| Paul Berna, Geraldine Spence (ill.) | Threshold of the Stars | | | Hardcover |
| James R. Berry | The Galactic Invaders | | Laser Books #31, June 1976. Laser was a line of SF adventure novels which published 3 titles per month between August 1975 and February 1977.
Cover art by Kelly Freas | Paperback |
| Stephen Ames Berry | Final Assault | | | Paperback |
| Stephen Ames Berry | The AI War | | "A modern descendant of the Doc Smith Lensman series. Space opera in the Grand Ol' Tradition."
--Other Realms
"Devotes of militaristic SF should enjoy [Berry's] books." --Kliatt
"Kick-butt military science fiction." Amazon reader review. --Amazon reader review --This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition. | Paperback |