Science Fiction Reads

In the years after the first contact, humans and the insect-like Thranx agreed to a tentative sharing of ideas and cultures desite the ingrained repulsion they had to overcome. However they never planned for a chance meeting between a misfit artist and a petty thief.

A visionary work that combines speculative fiction with deep philosophical inquiry, The Sparrow tells the story of a charismatic Jesuit priest and linguist, Emilio Sandoz, who leads a scientific mission entrusted with a profound task: to make first contact with intelligent extraterrestrial life. The mission begins in faith, hope, and beauty, but a series of small misunderstandings brings it to a catastrophic end.

In December, 1999, a multinational team journeys out to the stars, to the most awesome encounter in human history. Who -- or what -- is out there? In "Cosmos," Carl Sagan explained the universe. In "Contact," he predicts its future -- and our own.

A hundred years before Ender's Game, humans thought they were alone in the galaxy. Humanity was slowly making their way out from Earth to the planets and asteroids of the Solar System, exploring and mining and founding colonies. The mining ship El Cavador is far out from Earth, in the deeps of the Kuiper Belt, beyond Pluto.

Other mining ships, and the families that live on them, are few and far between this far out. So when El Cavador's telescopes pick up a fast-moving object coming in-system, it's hard to know what to make of it. It's massive and moving at a significant fraction of the speed of light. But the ship has other problems. Their systems are old and failing. The family is getting too big. There are claim-jumping corporates bringing Asteroid Belt tactics to the Kuiper Belt. Worrying about a distant object that might or might not be an alien ship seems...not important.

They're wrong. It's the most important thing that has happened to the human race in a million years. This is humanity's first contact with an alien race. The First Formic War is about to begin.

First published in 1898 and long considered a classic the story has been dramatized and adapted by such masters as Orson Wells and Steven Spielberg. Martians land in Victorian England and wreak havoc--plunging survivors into terror, destruction and madness.

Conquered by the Jao twenty years ago, the Earth is shackled under alien tyranny - and threatened by the even more dangerous Ekhat, one of whose genocidal extermination fleets is coming to the solar system. The only chance for human survival is in the hands of an unusual pair of allies: a young Jao prince, newly arrived to Terra to assume his duties, and a young human woman brought up amongst the Jao occupiers. But, as their tentative alliance takes shape, they are under pressure from all sides.

A cruel Jao viceroy on one side, determined to drown all opposition in blood; a reckless human resistance on the other, which is perfectly prepared to shed it. Added to the mix is the fact that only by adopting some portions of human technology and using human sepoy troops can the haughty Jao hope to defeat the oncoming Ekhat attack - and then only by fighting the battle within the sun itself.

A new place is being built, a world of huge dimensions, encompassing millions of miles, stronger than any planet before it. There is gravity, and with high walls and its proximity to the sun, a livable new planet that is three million times the area of the Earth can be formed. We can start again!

The only human child living in a human work colony on the Martian satellite Phobos, little Margaret Bain has devised a system for keeping the suffocating demons of boredom and loneliness at bay: She invents six imaginary companions, each an extension of her own personality, to play with. When the unproductive Phobos project is shut down, and after Margaret is forced to return to Earth with her parents, the child's other selves are lost to her. But they are not gone.

Left behind, each one flourishes--refining its own persona, acquiring its own history--before ultimately dispersing to far-flung destinations throughout the universe. On a near-barren homeworld denuded by thoughtless-ness and chemistry, Margaret grows to adulthood and marries, despite the seemingly utter hopelessness of humanity's future. The Earth is so impoverished that its inhabitants must import water and other basic necessities of life--trading the only viable product the planet has left to offer ... slaves.

The time will come when Margaret must leave this world as well, expelled as part of a desperate survival plan millennia in the making--an astonishing scheme that will require her to gather together the many Margarets who are now scattered throughout the galaxy. The creator of the Margarets must now bring all her selves home ... or watch her race perish.

Winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards. The Left Hand of Darkness tell the story of a lone human emissary to Winter, an alien world whose inhabitants can change their gender. His goal is to facilitate Winter's inclusion in a growing intergalactic civilization. But to do so he must bridge the gulf between his own views and those of the completely dissimilar culture that he encounters.

Embracing the aspects of psychology, society, and human emotion on an alien world, The Left Hand of Darkness stands as a landmark achievement in the annals of intellectual science fiction.

"For four years, the courageous crew of the NSEA Protector-- 'Commannder Peter Quincy Taggart, ' 'Lt. Tawny Madison, ' and 'Dr. Lazarus'-- set off on thrilling and often dangerous missions in space-- and then their series was cancelled!

Now, twenty years later, aliens under attack have mistaken the Galaxy Quest television transmissions for 'historical documents' and beamed up the crew of has-been actors to save the universe. With no script, no director and no clue, the actors must turn in the performances of their lives."--

Starring: Dee Wallace, Peter Coyote, Drew Barrymore, & Henry Thomas.

When his spaceship accidentally leaves him behind, E.T. is stranded on Earth. A ten-year-old boy named Elliott finds him, and their adventures begin.