Science fiction

The multi-award-winning SF masterpiece from one of the greatest SF writers of all time Rama is a vast alien spacecraft that enters the Solar System. A perfect cylinder some fifty kilometres long, spinning rapidly, racing through space, Rama is a technological marvel, a mysterious and deeply enigmatic alien artefact. It is Mankind's first visitor from the stars and must be investigated ... Win

The computer age has arrived a century ahead of time with Charles Babbage's perfection of his Analytical Engine. The Industrial Revolution, supercharged by the development of steam-driven cybernetic Engines, is in full and drastic swing. Great Britain, with her calculating-cannons, steam dreadnoughts, machine-guns and information technology, prepares to better the world's lot ...

A whisperjewel from Gwen Delvano calls Dirk t'Larien across space and beyond the Tempter's Veil to Worlorn, a dying Festival planet of rock and ice. Warlorn is slowly drifting through twilight to neverending night; as the planet sinks into darkness, so its inhabitants face annihilation. Seven years ago, on Avalon, Gwen was Dirk's lover, his Guenevere; now she wears the jade-and-silver bond of J

Thousands of years hence, many races inhabit a universe where a mind's potential is determined by its location in space - from superintelligent entities in the Transcend, to the limited minds of the Unthinking Depths, where only simple creatures and technology can function. Nobody knows what strange force partitioned space into these 'zones of thought', but when the warring Straumli realm use an

From the far reaches of space to the hidden corners of Earth, from aliens to wizards and everything in between . . . One of the most influential SFF writers of modern times, Roger Zelazny wrote across a wide range of subgenres and themes, experimenting with form and story with mastery. He won many awards throughout his lifetime, including six Hugo awards, three Nebula awards and two Locus award

John Wainwright is a freak, a human mutation with an extraordinary intelligence which is both awesome and frightening to behold. Ordinary humans are mere playthings to him. And Odd John has a plan to create a new order on Earth, a new supernormal species. But the world is not ready for such a change ...

Ecological disaster has left the English countryside a wasteland. Humanity faces extinction, unless Greybeard and his wife Martha are successful in their quest for the scarcest and most precious of resources: human children.

In the overcrowded world and cramped space colonies of the late 21st century, tedium can be endured through the use of the drug Can-D, which enables the user to inhabit a shared illusory world. When industrialist Palmer Eldritch returns from an interstellar trip, he brings with him a new drug, Chew-Z, which is far more potent than Can-D, but threatens to plunge the world into a permanent state o

Ragle Gumm is an ordinary man leading an ordinary life, except that he makes his living by entering a newspaper contest every day - and winning, every day. But he gradually begins to suspect that his life - indeed his whole world - is an illusion, constructed around him for the express purpose of keeping him docile and happy. But if that is the case, what is his real world like, and what is he

A masterly tale of political deception from the most significant writer of SF in the 20th century World War III is raging - or so the millions of people crammed in their underground tanks believe. For fiteen years, subterranean humanity has been fed on daily broadcasts of a never-ending nuclear destruction, sustained by a belief in the all powerful Protector. Now someone has gone to the surfa

The Strugatsky brothers' poignant and introspective novel of first contact that inspired the classic film Stalker Red Schuhart is a stalker, one of those strange misfits who are compelled by some unknown force to venture illegally into the Zone and, in spite of the extreme danger, collect the mysterious artefacts that the alien visitors left scattered around. His life is dominated by the Zone a

Gully Foyle, Mechanic's Mate 3rd Class. EDUCATION: none SKILLS: none MERITS: none RECOMMENDATIONS: none That's the official verdict on Gully Foyle, unskilled space crewman. But right now he is the only survivor on his drifting, wrecked spaceship, and when another space vessel - the Vorga - ignores his distress flares and sails by, Gully becomes obsessed with revenge. He endures 170 days a

Imagine a distant world where gods walk as men, but wield vast and hidden powers. Here they have made the stage on which they build a subtle pattern of alliance, love, and deadly enmity. Are they truly immortal? Who are these gods who rule the destiny of a teeming world? Their names include Brahma, Kali, Krishna and also he who was called Buddha, the Lord of Light, but who now prefers to be kno

In the far future, after human civilization has spread through the galaxy, communications begin to arrive in an apparently alien language. They appear to threaten invasion, but in order to counter the threat, the messages must first be understood.

A landmark book in the fields of science fiction and feminism. Four women living in parallel worlds, each with a different gender landscape. When they begin to travel to each other's worlds each woman's preconceptions on gender and what it means to be a woman are challenged. Acclaimed as one of the essential works of science fiction and an influence on William Gibson, THE FEMALE MAN takes a lo

In the year 2100, the invention of the Electron Pump - an apparently inexhaustible supply of free energy - has enabled humanity to devote its time and energies to more than the struggle for survival, finally breaking free of the Earth. But the Electron Pump works by exchanging materials with a parallel universe, and such unbalancing of the cosmos has consequences. Humans and aliens alike must

One of the very best must-read SF novels of all time.

Jason Taverner is a Six, the result of top secret government experiments forty years before which produced a handful of unnaturally bright and beautiful people ' and he's the prime-time idol of millions until, inexplicably, all record of him is wiped from the data banks of Earth. Suddenly he's a nobody in a police state where nobody is allowed to be a nobody.

Businessman Arnie Kott, who controls the water supply to his fellow homesteaders on Mars, hires recovering schizophrenic Jack to communicate with an autistic child who has psychic powers, hoping he will uncover the UN’s intentions regarding Martian land. Philip K Dick’s exploration of mental illness, colonialism and authority was first published in 1964.