Unconquerable Sun (2020)

A Deepness in the Sky (Zones of Thought)

Vernor Vinge

1999 · 606 pages · 12 reviews

Others: Mostly positive

From inside cover Tor First Edition March 1999: Thirty thousand years before the events of A Fire upon the Deep, Pham Nuwen is living in anonymity among the Qeng Ho interstellar trading fleet. In high orbit above the planet Arachna, they wait for the awakening of its dormant population, the Spiders, who have burrowed deep into the planet, awaiting the relighting of the On/Off star their planet orbits. For when light returns, Arachna will at long last explode into a Golden Age of technology and commerce. But the slumbering Spiders' vulnerability has attracted another lurking presence -- the Emergents, a band of traders whose plans for Arachna are more sinister than anything the Qeng Ho could envision. Reluctant to share their spoils with the Qeng Ho, the Emergents unleash an attack unlike any seen in the Qeng Ho's millennia-long history of exploration, reducing their fleet to serfdom... and then to something worse. Reaching into memories so old and painful he can barely recall them, Pham gathers the other "survivors" about him and makes a final attempt to be worthy of a reputation as ancient and storied as the history of the Qeng Ho itself. But time is running out, for soon the Emergents' assault will strip Arachna bare. As Pham's underground resistance cell struggles against its torturers in space, a wondrously gifted clan of Spiders on the planet below fights another battle - to advance their technology quickly enough to defeat their terrestrial foes, and to somehow overcome the invisible enemy lurking above.

A Fire upon the Deep

Vernor Vinge

1992 · 613 pages · 19 reviews

Others: Mostly positive

Thousands of years in the future, humanity is no longer alone in 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 "regions of thought," but when the warring Straumli realm use an ancient Transcendent artifact as a weapon, they unwittingly unleash an awesome power that destroys thousands of worlds and enslaves all natural and artificial intelligence. Fleeing this galactic threat, Ravna crash lands on a strange world with a ship-hold full of cryogenically frozen children, the only survivors from a destroyed space-lab. They are taken captive by the Tines, an alien race with a harsh medieval culture, and used as pawns in a ruthless power struggle.

Forever Peace

Joe Haldeman

1997 · 326 pages · 4 reviews

Others: Leaning negative

Joe Haldeman returns with a story about the horrors of war -- and how we might move past them. Julian Class is a physicist working on the largest particle accelerator ever built, a nanobot-constructed ring in the orbit of Jupiter. He is also a 'mechanic', someone who pilots the robotic combat mechs used by the US Army to fight a protracted war against a South America-Africa alliance. When he learns about the potential outcome of the Jupiter Project, he is forced to take action.

Solitaire

Kelley Eskridge

2002 · 353 pages · 1 review

Others: Mixed

"Since the moment she came into the world, Ren "Jackal" Segura has been treated differently. As a Hope, she is a symbol of the highest principles of human society and is guaranteed a position of influence in the global government once she comes of age. But two months before she is to assume the role she has been preparing for her entire life when she will leave her home to represent the massive corporate entity that houses, feeds, and employs her and everyone around her Jackal discovers that everything she believes, everything she is, is a lie."--Jacket.

17 X infinity

Groff Conklin

1963 · 272 pages · 2 reviews

Others: Mixed

1984 (adaptation)

Michael Dean

2003 · 37 pages · 7 reviews

Others: Mostly positive

Winston Smith lives in a society where the government controls people every second of the day. He fights this world with love. But it's dangerous: love for another person can be punished by death - and Big Brother is always watching. Orwell's classic story shows that there is no freedom unless ideas and beliefs can be questioned. This is as true today as when it was written, more than fifty years ago. --back cover