Gift book suggestions for the SF reader in your life
Wow, those holidays are coming around again. How about some book gift
suggestions for that science fiction reader in your life? We won't tell
Santa if you buy yourself one too. You've been good all year, right?
Check out these books:
On the Way to New Isosceles by Leigh Wood
ebook: 978-1-926704-82-1
print: 978-1-926704-90-6
Summary:
It's a long, tough journey on the way to New Isosceles, and the animosity
between Rub and JJ gets hotter by the day...
JJ was as hard-nosed as they come—and then some. But, hey, the
destruction of earth did that to everyone. Humanity fractioned into three
groups. Affectionately known as 'the Shitters', the Shipper Brigade
manufactures the best space faring vehicles for themselves. Skilled
fighters and martial artists Combatants like JJ fight the Shippers for
what they can—even though Combatant numbers were severely depleted
by the third faction. The Nukes rescued chemical, biological, and nuclear
weapons from earth's doom and aren't afraid to use them.
You can imagine JJ's surprise when she meets the Nuke Lieutenant Rub.
Their initial meeting didn't rub either the right way. Despite her Nuke
anxiety—JJ has to put it all aside. Her Captain and the Nuke Colonel
have struck a deal to defeat the Shippers once and for all. The Nukes leave
their tiny outpost on a far flung, degrading planet and join the Combatants
in taking the lush planet protected by the Shippers.
Note: This one's also got an erotica theme...just so you know.
Godiva in the Firing Line by Robert Appleton
ebook: 978-1-61572-043-9
print: 978-1-61572-042-2
This book gets released December 1st, 2009.
Summary:
The strength of the pack is the wolf, and the strength of the wolf is the
pack! Join Godiva Randall, the beautiful daughter of a powerful politician,
as she puts her paratrooper unit's motto to the test. A delicate truce on
Hoarfrost's icy moon is about to explode, and blood will be spilled. This
is the moment Lupine Corps has trained for—combat against a
nightmarish alien foe, light-years from home.
But Godiva and her best friend, Dash Collingwood, are secretly in love.
All mixed-gender combat units must take Celiba-C—a pill that suppresses
sexuality—under threat of court-martial. Its performance record is
amazing. The military swears by it. But it's a lonely war so far from home.
What if they skipped a dose, just this once? One night for themselves.
What's the worst that could happen?
Alien Deception by Tony Ruggiero
ISBN-13: 978-1-896944-34-0
Summary:
Nothing is as it appears. Nothing.
Your whole life you think you understand who and what you are, and then
one day you learn that it is all a lie. So what do you do?
You have lunch with the leading candidate for President of the United
States. You...and your alien friends.
How about something different? Try this book in serial format from
Virtual
Tales:
Portal to Murder by Michele Acker
ISBN 13: 978-1-897442-18-0
Summary:
Dateline: Early 21st Century
Vindictive Killer from the Future On the Loose!
In the middle of the 21st century, felon Michael Spinner is given the chance
of a lifetime—he can redeem his future by traveling back in time to kill
the man who ruined his life. Meanwhile, at the start of the 21st century,
homicide detective Jennifer Castle is stymied by an impossible case. Several
people—including a pregnant woman and her unborn child—have been
killed by a weapon that just doesn't exist.
It doesn't take Michael long to realize that Jennifer is the one woman who
can thwart his plans. She seems to be at the nexus of time travel
itself—unwittingly connected to him by the unspoken circumstances of her
birth. As the bodies pile up around her, Jennifer finds herself caught in a
battle of wits against an elusive killer from the future who seems determined
to destroy her career, her love life, and her family.
If Jennifer keeps getting in his way, can Michael kill her without causing
his own destruction?
How about a 2010 EPPIE award finalist?
Sunrise Destiny by
Mark
Terence Chapman
ISBN 13: 978-1-604-35-333-4
Summary:
Donatello Sunrise is an ex-cop, discredited and barely making a living as a
private detective. If that's not bad enough, his latest missing-person case has
Sunrise and his hooker girlfriend, Lola, running for their lives. The cops are
after them, the kidnappers are after them, and the mob wants them dead.
The story, set in the near future, combines tense action and mystery with wry
humor and a love story.
Tempus Fugit by Kurt Yengst
ISBN 13: 9781594262227
Summary:
The title means "Time Flies".
Just before William Sheppard is admitted to a psychiatric hospital, he presents
his nephew Billy Maxwell with an old pocket watch. Billy discovers that the watch
possesses incredible powers. It allows whoever carries it to travel through time!
Could the watch be the reason for Uncle Will's erratic behavior? What about Uncle
Will's case worker, the enigmatic Dr. Janus? Does his interest in Uncle Will
involve more than mere psychiatry?
Join Billy on a roller-coaster ride through the obscure corners of history as he
comes face to face with heroes and villains, the famous and the infamous. Find out
if Billy and Uncle Will can protect the present by saving the past.
I always enjoy collections like this one. It's the perfect thing for someone
young enough to have not read any of these classic stories yet.
The Very Best of Fantasy & Science Fiction: Sixtieth Anniversary Anthology
Edited by Gordon Van Gelder
ISBN 13: 9781892391919
The lineup: :
- Of Time and Third Avenue by Alfred Bester
- All Summer in a Day by Ray Bradbury
- One Ordinary Day with Peanuts by Shirley Jackson
- A Touch of Strange by Theodore Sturgeon
- Eastward, Ho! by William Tenn
- Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
- Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut
- This Moment of the Storm by Roger Zelazny
- The Electric Ant by Philip K. Dick
- The Deathbird by Harlan Ellison
- The Women Men Don't See by James Tiptree Jr (Alice Sheldon)
- I see You by Damon Knight
- The Gunslinger by Stephen King
- The Dark by Karen Joy Fowler
- Buffalo by John Kessel
- Solitude by Ursula K. Le Guin
- Mother Grasshopper by Michael Swanwick
- Macs by Terry Bisson
- Creation by Jeffrey Ford
- Other People by Neil Gaiman
- Two Hearts by Peter S. Beagle
- Journey into the Kingdom by M. Rickert
- The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate by Ted Chiang
How about a nice, scary twist in the Star Wars Universe? I hear if you
like zombies and Star Wars, you'll love this book. It's in my TBR list.
Star Wars: Death Troopers by Joe Schreiber
ISBN 13: 9780345509628
Summary:
When the Imperial prison barge Purge—temporary home to five
hundred of the galaxy's most ruthless killers, rebels, scoundrels, and
thieves—breaks down in a distant, uninhabited part of space, its only
hope appears to lie with a Star Destroyer found drifting, derelict, and
seemingly abandoned. But when a boarding party from the Purge is sent to
scavenge for parts, only half of them come back—bringing with them a
horrific disease so lethal that within hours nearly all aboard the Purge
die in ways too hideous to imagine.
And death is only the beginning.
The Purge's half-dozen survivors—two teenage brothers, a
sadistic captain of the guards, a couple of rogue smugglers, and the chief
medical officer, the lone woman on board—will do whatever it takes to
stay alive. But nothing can prepare them for what lies waiting aboard the
Star Destroyer amid its vast creaking emptiness that isn't really empty at
all. For the dead are rising: soulless, unstoppable, and unspeakably hungry.
And for those Manga lovers, here's a classic. If you enjoy it, there are
volumes 2 and 3 also.
To Terra... Volume 1 by Keiko Takemiya
ISBN 13: 9781932234671
Here's what Publisher's Weekly had to say about it:
Provocative ideas animate this story by revolutionary female manga artist
Takemiya. After seeing how uncontrolled humanity wrecked Earth, survivors
form the Superior Domination and decide to move to other planets and improve
on nature: henceforth, all children will be computer-designed for rationality,
then purged of all memories at puberty so they can be supervised by a "mother"
machine. Sometimes, however, testing discovers that the child is a Mu, a
hyperemotional and uncontrollable telepath, who are driven underground by the
S.D. Having been raised as a normal boy, 14-year-old Jomy desperately resists
contact by the Mu, especially the news that he is an exceptionally powerful
latent telepath who is destined to lead the Mu back to Terra. Meanwhile,
cold-blooded Keith is rising in the ranks of the military forces designed to
keep a rejuvenated Earth clean of Mu contamination. Takemiya's layouts are
inventive, but her art is a bit fragile for space opera; in particular, her
people look too wispy. Her story, though, is uncommonly compelling as it begins
grappling with characters who, despite their one-sided upbringings, are looking
for the same thing: Terra, family, a place to call home. With echoes of
The
Matrix and A.E. Van Vogt's
Slan,
this looks like the start of an interesting journey. (Feb.)
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