Literary Science Fiction

A modern classic, Einstein's Dreams is a fictional collage of stories dreamed by Albert Einstein in 1905, when he worked in a patent office in Switzerland. As the defiant but sensitive young genius is creating his theory of relativity, a new conception of time, he imagines many possible worlds. In one, time is circular, and people are fated to repeat their triumphs and failures over and over. In another, there is a place where time stands still, visited by lovers and parents clinging to their children.

Twenty years ago feared general Cobalt Zosia led her five villainous captains and mercenary army into battle, wrestling monsters and toppling an empire. When there were no more titles to win and no more worlds to conquer, she retired and gave up her legend to history.

A few hours ago, Sherry Carne would have sworn that vampires didn't exist. That's before rogue immortals rampage through her store, leaving bloody chaos (literally) in their wake. The kicker comes when Sherry learns that one of the vamps on the bad guys' trail may be her life mate. Her head says it's impossible. The rest of her takes one look at Basileios Argeneau and has much more interesting ideas.

Look Who's Back is a cutting satire on modern media-bloated, celebrity-obsessed society, seen through the eyes of Adolf Hitler. Adolf Hitler wakes up on a patch of open ground, alive and well. It is the Summer of 2011 and things have changed - no Eva Braun, no Nazi party, no war. Hitler barely recognizes his beloved Fatherland, filled with immigrants and run by a woman.

When it comes to expressing the pleasure and pain of being just a touch too smart to be happy, Dorothy Parker is still the champion. Along with Robert Benchley, Alexander Woollcott, and the rest of the Algonquin Round Table, she dominated American popular literature in the 1920s and 1930s. This collection of more than 30 short stories and poems is essential for any Parker fan and an excellent way for new listeners to make the acquaintance of one of the 20th century's most quotable authors.

The vile sorcerer Sidi sets the murderous pirate Bear upon the high seas in pursuit of the kingdom's most holy object, the miraculous Tear of the Gods. And if it falls to Sidi, the future will hold naught but unending night. The race is on to rescue the remarkable artifact from Bear and his despicable master. But it will take greater-than-human swiftness, courage, and skill to prevail, for the mysterious criminal known as the Crawler is preparing to wreak havoc to fulfill his secret agenda.

A powerful novel examining the nature of evil, informed by the works of T. S. Eliot and Freud, mythology, local lore, and hard-boiled detective fiction, Sanctuary is the dark, at times brutal, story of the kidnapping of Mississippi debutante Temple Drake. She introduces her own form of venality into the Memphis underworld where she is being held.

Created as an experiment by the time-traveling goddess Pallas Athene, the Just City is a planned community populated by over 10,000 children and a few hundred adult teachers from all eras of history, along with some handy robots from the far human future - all set down together on a Mediterranean island in the distant past.

A hardened group of survivors fight back against a zombie plague that has brought down civilization. With the world consumed by a devastating plague that drives humans violently insane, what was once a band of desperate survivors bobbing on a dark Atlantic ocean has now become Wolf Squadron, the only hope for the salvation of the human race.

The Underdark: Beneath the surface of Faern lies a whole different world. A world of drow, deep gnomes, and other denizens of the dark. A world of cities like Menzoberranzan and Skullport, of warriors and rogues like Drizzt Do'Urden and Liriel Baenre and numerous others. Leave the security of the surface world and seek out the darkness that lies below. Welcome to the Realms of the Underdark.

In The Truth and Beauty, Andrew Klavan explored how the work of great poets helps illuminate the truth of the gospels. Now, the award-winning screenwriter and crime novelist turns his attention to the dark side of human nature to discover how we might find joy and beauty in the world while still being clear-eyed about the evil found in it. The Kingdom of Cain looks at three murders in history—including the first murder, Cain's killing of his brother, Abel—and at the art created from imaginative engagement with those horrific events by artists ranging from Fyodor Dostoevsky to Alfred Hitchcock.

After playing an intimate role in the mystery of the Resurrection, what is left for Maeve, the Celtic Mary Magdalen? Never a follower, will she emerge as a leader of the early church? Will she retire quietly to mother a sacred bloodline? Will she set sail for France to proselytize and go spelunking? The answer: all and none of the above. No sooner does Maeve open her mouth to preach the gospel her way than a fierce debate begins about what to do with the child she is carrying. Maeve has her own ideas about where best to raise the savior's scion.

On Such a Full Sea takes Chang-rae Lee’s elegance of prose, his masterly storytelling, and his long-standing interests in identity, culture, work, and love, and lifts them to a new plane. Stepping from the realistic and historical territories of his previous work, Lee brings us into a world created from scratch. Against a vividly imagined future America, Lee tells a stunning, surprising, and riveting story that will change the way listeners think about the world they live in. In a future, long-declining America, society is strictly stratified by class.

When Inspector Peter Glebsky arrives at a remote ski chalet on vacation, the last thing he intends to do is get involved in any police work. He's there to ski, drink brandy, and loaf around in blissful solitude. But he hadn't counted on the other vacationers, an eccentric bunch, including a famous hypnotist, a physicist with a penchant for gymnastic feats, a sulky teenager of indeterminate gender, and the mysterious Mr. and Mrs. Moses.

Hay-on-Wye, 1400. War is brewing in the Welsh borders. Catrin is on the brink of womanhood and falling in love for the first time. Her father is a soothsayer playing a dangerous game, playing on the mixed loyalties and furious rivalries between Welsh princes and English lords. For 200 years the Welsh people have lain under the English yoke, dreaming of independence. And finally it looks as though the charismatic Owain Glyndwr may be the man legend talks of.

The Empires of Varkal and Med'ariz have always been at war. Alefret, the founder of Varkal's pacifist resistance, was bombed and maimed by his own government, locked up in a secret prison and tortured by a 'visionary' scientist. But now they're offering him a chance of freedom. Ordered to infiltrate one of Med'ariz's flying cities, obeying the bloodthirsty zealot Qhudur, he must find fellow anti-war activists in the enemy's population and provoke them into an uprising against their rulers.

The year 1904. On the banks of the Zambezi River, a few miles from the majestic Victoria Falls, there is a colonial settlement called The Old Drift. In a smoky room at the hotel across the river, an Old Drifter named Percy M. Clark, foggy with fever, makes a mistake that entangles the fates of an Italian hotelier and an African busboy. This sets off a cycle of unwitting retribution between three Zambian families (black, white, brown) as they collide and converge over the course of the century, into the present and beyond.

The Master of Natchez, Mississippi has a nasty problem on his hands. Rogue vampires - those who follow the Naturaleza and believe that humans should be nothing more than prey to be hunted - are terrorizing his city. Luckily, he knows the perfect skinwalker to call in to take back the streets. But what he doesn’t tell Jane is that there’s something different about these vamps. Something that makes them harder to kill - even for a pro like Jane.

Reiko, empress of Japan, has allied herself with Princess Órlaith, heir to the High Kingdom of Montival, to find the Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi, the Grass-Cutting Sword, a legendary treasure of an ancient dynasty that confers valor and victory to its bearer. Órlaith understands all too well the power it signifies. Her own inherited blade, the Sword of the Lady, was both a burden and a danger to her father, Rudi Mackenzie, as it failed to save the king from being assassinated.

Vice Admiral Kris Longknife’s honeymoon gets cancelled when she hears that the space raider’s home world may have been discovered. Finding where the raiders came from could be the key to saving humanity. If only uncovering their secrets was that easy. As Kris returns home, she ends up tangling with a mutinous crew determined to take off on their own.