MAY CONTAIN MARKUP

By Martha Wells

In a corporate-dominated spacefaring future, planetary missions must be approved and supplied by the Company. Exploratory teams are accompanied by Company-supplied security androids, for their own safety.

But in a society where contracts are awarded to the lowest bidder, safety isn’t a primary concern.

On a distant planet, a team of scientists are conducting surface tests, shadowed by their Company-supplied ‘droid — a self-aware SecUnit that has hacked its own governor module, and refers to itself (though never out loud) as “Murderbot.” Scornful of humans, all it really wants is to be left alone long enough to figure out who it is.

But when a neighboring mission goes dark, it's up to the scientists and their Murderbot to get to the truth.

NY. Tom Foherty Assoc. 2017. 154p.

MAY CONTAIN MARKUP

MEGAN O’KEEFE

Sanda and Biran Greeve were siblings destined for greatness. A high-flying sergeant, Sanda has the skills to take down any enemy combatant. Biran is a savvy politician who aims to use his new political position to prevent conflict from escalating to total destruction.

However, on a routine maneuver, Sanda loses consciousness when her gunship is blown out of the sky. Instead of finding herself in friendly hands, she awakens 230 years later on a deserted enemy warship controlled by an AI who calls himself Bero. The war is lost. The star system is dead. Ada Prime and its rival Icarion have wiped each other from the universe.

Now, separated by time and space, Sanda and Biran must fight to put things right.

LONDON. LITTLE BROWN. 2010. 537p.

MAY CONTAIN MARKUP

BY JAMES PHELAN

Sam is a Dreamer. One of the 13, whose dreams - and nightmares - can become real. These individuals will not only save the world, but change it forever. They are our last hope in the battle against evil. They just don't know it yet.

Sam is the first of the 13 to be uncovered. He begins his desperate mission in Vancouver, and sets off across the globe to find the other twelve Dreamers and locate the scattered artifacts needed to save the world from the ultimate evil. But will they be strong enough to outmaneuver an army of trained agents, thwart security officials at museums, libraries, government facilities, and archaeological sites, and face the terrifying figure that haunts their dreams?

The adventure continues online at www.thelast13.com, where additional content extends the storyline of each book.

Melbourne. Scholastic. 2013. 214p.

By Salman Rushdie

A mixture of science fiction and folktale, past and future, primitive and present-day . . . Thunderous and touching. After drinking an elixir that bestows immortality upon him, a young Indian named Flapping Eagle spends the next seven hundred years sailing the seas with the blessing–and ultimately the burden–of living forever. Eventually, weary of the sameness of life, he journeys to the mountainous Calf Island to regain his mortality. There he meets other immortals obsessed with their own stasis and sets out to scale the island’s peak, from which the mysterious and corrosive Grimus Effect emits. Through a series of thrilling quests and encounters, Flapping Eagle comes face-to-face with the island’s creator and unwinds the mysteries of his own humanity. Salman Rushdie’s celebrated debut novel remains as powerful and as haunting as when it was first published more than thirty years ago. A book to be read twice . . . [Grimus] is literate, it is fun, it is meaningful, and perhaps most important, it pushes the boundaries of the form outward.

London. Vintage. 1975. 253p.