Spydus Search Results - Science Fiction

The galaxy, and the ground within / Becky Chambers.

With no water, no air, and no native life, the planet Gora is unremarkable. The only thing it has going for it is a chance proximity to more popular worlds, making it a decent stopover for ships travelling between the wormholes that keep the Galactic Commons connected. If deep space is a highway, Gora is just your average truck stop. One of the many establishments present is the Five-Hop One-Stop, a place where long-haul spacers can stretch their legs (if they have legs, that is), and pick up fuel, transit permits, and assorted supplies. The Five-Hop is run by an enterprising alien and her occasionally helpful child, who both work hard to provide a little piece of home to everyone passing through. When a freak technological failure halts traffic to and from Gora, three strangers are thrown together at the Five-Hop.
Author: Chambers, Becky
Published: London : Hodder, 2022.
325 pages ; 20 cm

Broughton Library - (Salford Libraries) - Adult Fiction - Science Fiction / Paperback - Available - 0947787X

Sea of Tranquility / Emily St. John Mandel.

The award-winning author of 'Station Eleven' and 'The Glass Hotel' returns with a novel of art, time, love and plague that takes the reader from Vancouver Island in 1912 to a dark colony of the moon 300 years later, unfurling a story of humanity across centuries and space.
Author: Mandel, Emily St. John, 1979-
Published: London : Picador, 2022.
255 pages ; 23 cm

Swinton Library - (Salford Libraries) - Adult Fiction - Science Fiction / Hardback - Available - 09509526
Walkden Library - (Salford Libraries) - Adult Fiction - Science Fiction / Hardback - Available - 09488103

Project Hail Mary / Andy Weir.

Ryland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission - and if he fails, humanity and the Earth itself will perish. Except that right now, he doesn't know that. He can't even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it. All he knows is that he's been asleep for a very, very long time. And he's just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company. His crew mates dead, his memories fuzzily returning, he realises that an impossible task now confronts him. Alone on this tiny ship that's been cobbled together by every government and space agency on the planet and hurled into the depths of space, it's up to him to conquer an extinction-level threat to our species. And thanks to an unexpected ally, he just might have a chance.
Author: Weir, Andy
Published: UK : Penguin Books, 2022.
476 pages ; 20 cm

Eccles Library - (Salford Libraries) - Adult Fiction - Paperback - Available - 09587632
Irlam Library - (Salford Libraries) - Adult Fiction - Science Fiction / Paperback - Available - 09566384
Pendleton Library - (Salford Libraries) - Adult Fiction - Science Fiction / Paperback - Available - 09566392
Swinton Library - (Salford Libraries) - Adult Fiction - Science Fiction / Paperback - Onloan - Due: 03 Jun 2024 - 09566406
Winton Library - (Salford Libraries) - Adult Fiction - Science Fiction / Paperback - Available - 09566414

The thousand earths / Stephen Baxter.

In 2145AD John Hackett's adventure is just beginning. In Year 30, Mela's story is coming to a close. Hackett, in his trusty ship the Perseus, is not just a space traveller - beginning his travels with an expedition to Neptune and back - but, thanks to the time-dilation effect, a time traveller as well. His new mission will take him to Andromeda, to get a close-up look at the constellation which will eventually crash into the Milky Way, and give humanity a heads-up about the challenges which are coming. A mission which will take him five million years to complete. Not only is Hackett exploring unknown space, but he will return to a vastly different time. Mela's world is coming to an end. Erosion is eating away at the edges of every landmass - first at a rate of ten metres a year, but fast accelerating, displacing people and animals as the rising Tide destroys everything in its path.
Author: Baxter, Stephen
Published: London : Gollancz, 2022.
583 pages ; 24 cm

Swinton Library - (Salford Libraries) - Adult Fiction - Science Fiction / Hardback - Onloan - Due: 29 May 2024 - 09565361

Cytonic / Brandon Sanderson.

Spensa's life as a Defiant Defense Force pilot has been far from ordinary. She proved herself one of the best starfighters in the human enclave of Detritus and she saved her people from extermination at the hands of the Krell - the enigmatic alien species that has been holding them captive for decades. What's more, she travelled light-years from home as a spy to infiltrate the Superiority, where she learned of the galaxy beyond her small, desolate planet home. Now, the Superiority - the governing galactic alliance bent on dominating all human life - has started a galaxy-wide war. And Spensa has seen the weapons they plan to use to end it: the Delvers. Ancient, mysterious alien forces that can wipe out entire planetary systems in an instant. Spensa knows that no matter how many pilots the DDF has, there is no defeating this predator.Except that Spensa is Cytonic.
Author: Sanderson, Brandon
Published: London : Gollancz, 2022.
415 pages : maps (black and white) ; 20 cm.
Skyward ; book 3.

Pendleton Library - (Salford Libraries) - Adult Fiction - Science Fiction / Paperback - Available - 09568247

To sleep in a sea of stars / Christopher Paolini.

During a routine survey mission on an uncolonized planet, xenobiologist Kira Navárez finds an alien relic that thrusts her into the wonders and nightmares of first contact. Epic space battles for the fate of humanity take her to the farthest reaches of the galaxy and, in the process, transform not only her - but the entire course of history.
Author: Paolini, Christopher
Published: London : Tor, 2021.
877 pages : illustrations (black and white) ; 20 cm.
Fractalverse novel

Swinton Library - (Salford Libraries) - Adult Fiction - Science Fiction / Paperback - Onloan - Due: 07 May 2024 - 09434321

Galaxias / Stephen Baxter.

By the middle of the 21st century, humanity has managed to overcome a series of catastrophic events and maintain some sense of stability. Space exploration has begun again. Science has led the way. But then one day, the sun goes out. Solar panels are useless, and the world begins to freeze. Earth begins to fall out of its orbit. The end is nigh. Someone has sent us a sign.
Author: Baxter, Stephen
Published: London : Gollancz, 2021.
529 pages ; 24 cm

Pendleton Library - (Salford Libraries) - Adult Fiction - Science Fiction / Hardback - Available - 09438963

Ready player two / Ernest Cline.

Days after winning OASIS founder James Halliday's contest, Wade Watts makes a discovery that changes everything. Hidden within Halliday's vaults, waiting for his heir to find it, lies a technological advancement that will once again change the world and make the OASIS a thousand times more wondrous - and addictive - than even Wade dreamed possible. With it comes a new riddle, and a new quest: a last Easter egg from Halliday, hinting at a mysterious prize. And an unexpected, impossibly powerful, and dangerous new rival awaits, one who'll kill millions to get what he wants. Wade's life and the future of the OASIS are again at stake, but this time the fate of humanity also hangs in the balance.
Author: Cline, Ernest
Published: UK : Penguin Books, 2021.
370 pages ; 20 cm

Swinton Library - (Salford Libraries) - Adult Fiction - Science Fiction / Paperback - Onloan - Due: 07 Jun 2024 - 0944338X

Cytonic / Brandon Sanderson.

Spensa's life as a Defiant Defense Force pilot has been far from ordinary. She proved herself one of the best starfighters in the human enclave of Detritus and she saved her people from extermination at the hands of the Krell - the enigmatic alien species that has been holding them captive for decades. What's more, she travelled light-years from home as a spy to infiltrate the Superiority, where she learned of the galaxy beyond her small, desolate planet home. Now, the Superiority - the governing galactic alliance bent on dominating all human life - has started a galaxy-wide war. And Spensa has seen the weapons they plan to use to end it: the Delvers. Ancient, mysterious alien forces that can wipe out entire planetary systems in an instant. Spensa knows that no matter how many pilots the DDF has, there is no defeating this predator.Except that Spensa is Cytonic.
Author: Sanderson, Brandon
Published: London : Gollancz, 2021.
415 pages : illustrations (black and white), map (black and white) ; 24 cm.
Skyward ; book 3.

Swinton Library - (Salford Libraries) - Adult Fiction - Science Fiction / Hardback - Available - 09444165

A history of what comes next / Sylvain Neuvel.

Mia is not sure what she is, but she isn't human. Smarter, stronger than her peers, all she knows are the rules: there can never be three for too long; always run, never fight. When she finds herself in Germany, 1945, she must turn the Nazi's most trusted scientist with an offer: abandon the crumbling Nazi party, escape Germany with your life, come to work for the Americans building rockets. But someone is watching her work. An enemy who's smarter, stronger, decidedly not human and prepared to do anything to retrieve something ancient that was long lost. If only she had any idea what it was.
Author: Neuvel, Sylvain, 1973-
Published: UK : Penguin Books, 2021.
303 pages ; 20 cm.
Take them to the stars ; book 1.

Pendleton Library - (Salford Libraries) - Adult Fiction - Science Fiction / Paperback - Available - 09443738
Swinton Library - (Salford Libraries) - Adult Fiction - Science Fiction / Paperback - Available - 09443746

Children of ruin / Adrian Tchaikovsky.

Thousands of years ago, Earth's terraforming program took to the stars. On the world they called Nod, scientists discovered alien life - but it was their mission to overwrite it with the memory of Earth. Then humanity's great empire fell, and the program's decisions were lost to time. Aeons later, humanity and its new spider allies detected fragmentary radio signals between the stars. They dispatched an exploration vessel, hoping to find cousins from old Earth. But those ancient terraformers woke something on Nod better left undisturbed. And it's been waiting for them.
Author: Tchaikovsky, Adrian
Published: London : Pan Books, 2020.
564 pages ; 20 cm

Little Hulton Library - (Salford Libraries) - Adult Fiction - Paperback - Available - 09694838
Pendleton Library - (Salford Libraries) - Adult Fiction - Science Fiction / Paperback - Available - 09642161

The warship / Neal Asher.

Orlandine has destroyed the alien Jain super-soldier by deploying an actual black hole. And now that same weapon hoovers up clouds of lethal Jain technology, swarming within the deadly accretion disc's event horizon. All seems just as she planned. Yet behind her back, forces incite rebellion on her home world, planning her assassination. Earth Central, humanity's ruling intelligence, knows Orlandine was tricked into releasing her weapon, and fears the Jain are behind it. The prador king knows this too - and both foes gather fleets of warships to surround the disc. The alien Client is returning to the accretion disc to save the last of her kind, buried on a ship deep within it. She upgrades her vast weapons platform in preparation, and she'll need it. Her nemesis also waits within the disc's swirling dusts - and the Jain have committed genocide before.
Author: Asher, Neal L., 1961-
Published: London : Tor, 2020.
xvii, 460 pages ; 20 cm.
Rise of the Jain trilogy ; book 2.

Pendleton Library - (Salford Libraries) - Adult Fiction - Science Fiction / Paperback - Available - 07416512

So long, and thanks for all the fish / Douglas Adams.

Arthur Dent meets Fenchurch, the girl of his dreams. Fenchurch knows how the world could be made a good and happy place. Unfortunately she's forgotten. Convinced that the secret lies within God's final message to his creation they go in search of it. And in a dramatic break with tradition - actually find it. This edition includes bonus material from the Douglas Adams archives, and an introduction by Neil Gaiman.
Author: Adams, Douglas, 1952-2001
42 anniversary edition / foreword by Neil Gaiman.
Published: London : Pan Books, 2020.
xii, 187 pages : illustrations (black and white) ; 20 cm.
Hitchhiker trilogy ; 4.

Pendleton Library - (Salford Libraries) - Adult Fiction - Science Fiction / Paperback - Available - 07428057

The devil's due / Christie Golden.

Based on the best selling Blizzard video game, StarCraft.
Author: Golden, Christie
Published: Irvine : Blizzard Entertainment, 2019.
277 pages ; 23 cm.
StarCraft II
Blizzard legends

Pendleton Library - (Salford Libraries) - Adult Fiction - Science Fiction / Paperback - Available - 09297294

Low Chicago / edited by George R.R. Martin.

In the aftermath of World War II, the Earth's population was devastated by a terrifying alien virus. Those who survived were changed forever. Some, known as Jokers, were cursed with bizarre mental and physical deformities; others, granted superhuman abilities, are known as Aces. 'Wild Cards' tells the stories of this world.
Published: London : Harper Voyager, 2019.
432 pages ; 24 cm.
Wild cards

Pendleton Library - (Salford Libraries) - Adult Fiction - Science Fiction / Hardback - Available - 09296751

Machines like me : and people like you / Ian McEwan.

Britain has lost the Falklands war, Margaret Thatcher battles Tony Benn for power and Alan Turing achieves a breakthrough in artificial intelligence. In a world not quite like this one, two lovers will be tested beyond their understanding. 'Machines Like Me' occurs in an alternative 1980s London. Charlie, drifting through life and dodging full-time employment, is in love with Miranda, a bright student who lives with a terrible secret. When Charlie comes into money, he buys Adam, one of the first batch of synthetic humans. With Miranda's assistance, he co-designs Adam's personality. This near-perfect human is beautiful, strong and clever - a love triangle soon forms. These three beings will confront a profound moral dilemma.
Author: McEwan, Ian
Published: London : Jonathan Cape, [2019]
Published: ©2019
305 pages ; 24 cm
Average rating: (1 review)

Pendleton Library - (Salford Libraries) - Adult Fiction - Science Fiction / Hardback - Available - 09296743
Swinton Library - (Salford Libraries) - Adult Fiction - Science Fiction / Hardback - Onloan - Due: 04 Jun 2024 - 09296735
Walkden Library - (Salford Libraries) - Adult Fiction - Science Fiction / Hardback - Available - 07401159

Early riser / Jasper Fforde.

Every winter, the human population hibernates. During those bitterly cold four months, the nation is a snow-draped landscape of desolate loneliness, and devoid of human activity. Well, not quite. Your name is Charlie Worthing and it's your first season with the Winter Consuls, the committed but mildly unhinged group of misfits who are responsible for ensuring the hibernatory safe passage of the sleeping masses. You are investigating an outbreak of viral dreams which you dismiss as nonsense; nothing more than a quirky artefact borne of the sleeping mind. When the dreams start to kill people, it's unsettling. When you get the dreams too, it's weird. When they start to come true, you begin to doubt your sanity.
Author: Fforde, Jasper
Published: London : Hodder, 2019.
402 pages ; 20 cm

Pendleton Library - (Salford Libraries) - Adult Fiction - Science Fiction / Paperback - Available - 07383304

Starsight / Brandon Sanderson.

All her life, Spensa has dreamed of becoming a pilot. Of proving she's a hero like her father. She made it to the sky, but the truths she learned about her father were crushing. The rumours of his cowardice are true - he deserted his flight during battle against the Krell. Worse, though, he turned against his team and attacked them. Spensa is sure there's more to the story. And she's sure that whatever happened to her father in his starship could happen to her. When she made it outside the protective shell of her planet, she heard the stars - and it was terrifying. What she learned turned her world upside down. Everything Spensa's been taught is a lie. But Spensa also learned a few things about herself - and she'll travel to the end of the galaxy to save humankind if she needs to.
Author: Sanderson, Brandon
Published: London : Gollancz, 2019.
461 pages : illustrations (black and white) ; 24 cm

Eccles Library - (Salford Libraries) - Adult Fiction - Science Fiction / Hardback - Available - 07413696
Pendleton Library - (Salford Libraries) - Adult Fiction - Science Fiction / Hardback - Available - 07432496

Elysium fire / Alastair Reynolds.

One citizen died a fortnight ago. Two a week ago. Four died yesterday, and unless the cause can be found - and stopped - within the next four months, everyone will be dead. For the Prefects, the hunt for a silent, hidden killer is on.
Author: Reynolds, Alastair, 1966-
Published: London : Gollancz, 2018.
408 pages ; 24 cm.
Prefect Dreyfus emergency

Eccles Library - (Salford Libraries) - Adult Fiction - Science Fiction / Hardback - Available - 09212701

Ready player one / Ernest Cline.

2045. We're out of oil. We've wrecked the climate. Famine, poverty and disease are widespread. Like most of humanity, Wade Watts escapes this depressing reality by spending his waking hours jacked into the OASIS, a sprawling virtual utopia where you can be anything you want to be. And like most of humanity, Wade is obsessed by the ultimate lottery ticket that lies concealed within this alternate reality: OASIS founder James Halliday, who dies with no heir, has promised that control of the OASIS - and his massive fortune - will go to the person who can solve the riddles he has left scattered throughout his creation. For years, millions have struggled fruitlessly to attain this prize. And then Wade stumbles onto the key to the first puzzle. Suddenly, he finds himself pitted against thousands of competitors in a desperate race to claim the ultimate prize.
Author: Cline, Ernest
Published: London : Arrow Books, 2018.
374 pages ; 20 cm

Pendleton Library - (Salford Libraries) - Adult Fiction - Science Fiction / Paperback - Onloan - Due: 30 Apr 2024 - 09348816

Walkaway : a novel / Cory Doctorow.

In a world wrecked by climate change, a society owned by the ultra-rich, in a city hollowed out by industrial flight, Hubert, Seth and Natalie have nowhere else to be and nothing better to do. But there is another way. After all, now that anyone can design and print the basic necessities of life from a computer, there is little reason to toil within the system. So, like thousands of others in the mid-21st century, the three of them turn their back on the world of rules, jobs, the morning commute and walkaway. It's a dangerous world out there, the empty lands are lawless, hiding predators - animal and human alike. Still, when the initial pioneer walkaways flourish, they are joined by others, building what threatens to become a post-scarcity utopia. But then the walkaways discover the one thing the ultra-rich have never been able to buy: how to beat death. And now it's war.
Author: Doctorow, Cory
Published: London : Head of Zeus, 2018.
505 pages ; 20 cm

Walkden Library - (Salford Libraries) - Adult Fiction - Science Fiction / Paperback - Available - 09209743

The folded land / Tim Lebbon.

In the dark underbelly of our world, there's a black market in arcane things - living and dead. Angela Gough has been pulled into this world, making her a criminal on the run. In London she encountered the Kin - satyrs and centaurs, Nephilim and wraiths, they are hunted and slaughtered for their body parts. Fleeing back to the United States, Angela discovers that the Kin are everywhere, and they are tired of being prey.When her niece Sammi is struck by lightning, she is drawn toward the mysterious Folded Land, and its powerful and deadly ruler. Helped by her lover Vince, caught in the midst of a Kin uprising, Angela must locate Sammi before the girl is lost forever.
Author: Lebbon, Tim
Published: London : Titan Books, 2018.
336 pages ; 20 cm.
Relics

Pendleton Library - (Salford Libraries) - Adult Fiction - Science Fiction / Paperback - Available - 09225986

Only human / Sylvain Neuvel.

We always thought the biggest threat to humanity would come from the outside. We were wrong. As the human race picks up the pieces of destruction left behind, a new world order emerges. New alliances are formed. Old divisions are strengthened. And, with a power struggle fuelled by the threat of mutually assured destruction, nothing is certain. At a time when the world's nations should have been coming together, they have never been more divided. With the human race teetering on the brink of total war, Rose, Vincent and Eva must choose sides. But doing the right thing might mean making the ultimate sacrifice.
Author: Neuvel, Sylvain, 1973-
Published: UK : Michael Joseph, 2018.
336 pages ; 24 cm.
Themis files ; 3.

Pendleton Library - (Salford Libraries) - Adult Fiction - Science Fiction / Hardback - Available - 09286934

Head on / John Scalzi.

Hillketa is a frenetic and violent pastime where players attack each other with swords and hammers. The main goal of the game: obtain your opponent's head and carry it through the goalposts. With flesh and bone bodies, a sport like this would be impossible. But all the players are 'threeps' - robot-like bodies controlled by people with Haden's Syndrome, so anything goes. No one gets hurt, but the brutality is real and the crowds love it. Until a star athlete drops dead on the playing field. Is it an accident or murder? FBI agents and Haden-related crime investigators, Chris Shane and Leslie Vann, are called in to uncover the truth - and in doing so travel to the darker side of the fast-growing sport of Hillketa, where fortunes are made or lost, and where players and owners do whatever it takes to win, on and off the field.
Author: Scalzi, John, 1969-
Published: London : Tor, 2018.
335 pages ; 20 cm

Walkden Library - (Salford Libraries) - Adult Fiction - Science Fiction / Paperback - Available - 09287590

American war / Omar El Akkad.

An audacious and powerful debut novel: a second American Civil War, a devastating plague, and one family caught deep in the middle - a story that asks what might happen if America were to turn its most devastating policies and deadly weapons upon itself.
Author: El Akkad, Omar, 1982-
Published: London : Picador, 2018.
333 pages : maps (black and white) ; 20 cm

Pendleton Library - (Salford Libraries) - Adult Fiction - Science Fiction / Paperback - Available - 09232648

The rise and fall of D.O.D.O / Neal Stephenson and Nicole Galland.

In 1851 London's Crystal Palace hosts The Great Exhibition, showcasing the rise of technology and commerce, and alongside it, the decline of magic. Once powerful, now mere myth. Years later, Melisande Stokes, linguistics and languages expert, and Tristan Lyons, shadowy government agent, will rediscover magic and all its power, bringing about the creation of the Department of Diachronic Operations - D.O.D.O. D.O.D.O.'s mission is clear: to develop a device that will send their agents back in time to keep the magic alive and alter the course of history.
Author: Stephenson, Neal
Published: London : The Borough Press, 2018.
752 pages ; 20 cm

Walkden Library - (Salford Libraries) - Adult Fiction - Science Fiction / Paperback - Available - 09287051

Artemis / Andy Weir.

Jazz Bashara is a criminal. Well, sort of. Life on Artemis, the first and only city on the moon, is tough if you're not a rich tourist or an eccentric billionaire. So smuggling in the occasional harmless bit of contraband barely counts, right? Not when you've got debts to pay and your job as a porter barely covers the rent. Everything changes when Jazz sees the chance to commit the perfect crime, with a reward too lucrative to turn down. But pulling off the impossible is just the start of Jazz's problems, as she learns that she's stepped square into a conspiracy for control of Artemis itself - and that now, her only chance at survival lies in a gambit even more unlikely than the first.
Author: Weir, Andy
Published: London : Del Rey, 2018.
305 pages : maps (black and white) ; 20 cm

Eccles Library - (Salford Libraries) - Adult Fiction - Science Fiction / Paperback - Available - 09243666
Eccles Library - (Salford Libraries) - Adult Fiction - Science Fiction / Paperback - Onloan - Due: 25 Apr 2024 - 09243674

The calculating stars / Mary Robinette Kowal.

A meteor decimates the U.S. government and paves the way for a climate cataclysm that will eventually render the earth inhospitable to humanity. This looming threat calls for a radically accelerated timeline in the Earth's efforts to colonize space, as well as an unprecented opportunity for a much larger share of humanity to take part.
Author: Kowal, Mary Robinette, 1969-
Published: New York : Tor, 2018.
384 pages ; 22 cm.
Lady Astronaut novel

Pendleton Library - (Salford Libraries) - Adult Fiction - Science Fiction / Paperback - Available - 09288104

Places in the darkness / Chris Brookmyre.

There has never been a homicide on Ciudad de Cielo. It's the 'city in the sky', where hundreds of scientists and engineers live and work in Earth's orbit, building the colony ship that will one day take humanity to the stars. When the mutilated body of a common criminal is found on the CdC, the eyes of the world are watching - multiple governments and corporations have a stake in catching humanity's first spacebound killer. Top-of-the-class Detective Blake is sent to team up with CdC's Freeman - a jaded cop with no interest in working with a rookie from Earth. But the mismatched duo must learn to cooperate quickly, before they become the killer's next victims.
Author: Brookmyre, Christopher, 1968-
Published: London : Orbit, 2018.
407 pages ; 20 cm

Pendleton Library - (Salford Libraries) - Adult Fiction - Science Fiction / Paperback - Available - 09243623

By the pricking of her thumb : a real-town murder / Adam Roberts.

Private Investigator Alma is caught up in another impossible murder. One of the world's four richest people may be dead - but nobody is sure which one. Hired to discover the truth behind the increasingly bizarre behaviour of the ultra-rich, Alma must juggle treating her terminally ill lover with a case which may not have a victim.
Author: Roberts, Adam (Adam Charles)
Published: London : Gollancz, 2018.
260 pages ; 24 cm

Pendleton Library - (Salford Libraries) - Adult Fiction - Science Fiction / Hardback - Available - 09252231