Hardcover Just Like Beauty by Lisa Lerner A darkly comic-and surprisingly sweet-coming-of-age story set in the dystopic suburban near-future It's morning in America. A plague of mutant grasshoppers invades a hopelessly artificial landscape. Bands of teenage boys run amok, and citizens regularly drop dead from toxic exposure or cultish voluntary suicide. And down in the family nook, fourteen-year-old Edie Stein is training fiercely for her town's annual Feminine Woman of Conscience Pageant, in which adolescent girls compete in the erotic and other womanly arts. Yet no matter how expertly her mother coaches, Edie's having trouble arousing her practice dummy. Her heart's just not in it. Growing up has never been easy. But when the landscape around you has become as surreal as the treacherous emotional terrain within, you might contemplate desperate measures-enrolling in submarine school, running off with the girl next door, doing a Happy Ending. Just Like Beauty is not so much science fiction as a pitch-perfect sendup of the way we live now. In the mold of Don Delillo's White Noise, it offers a trenchant look at where our current enslavement to commodification and technology is taking us. But at its heart it is also a tender and believable portrait of the persistence of love and longing in an increasingly inauthentic world. Learn More

Paperback Fair condition StarGate: A Novel (Stargate #0.5) by Dean Devlin, Roland Emmerich A brilliant archeologist and a fearless military man lead a team through the ancient StarGate and discover a planet where the humans are enslaved by the Egyptian god Ra. Learn More

Hardcover Fitzpatrick's War by Theodore Judson An inspired first science fiction novel set several hundred years in the future when the world's population has been decimated by biological weapons. This book chronicles the Alexander-like rise and fall of Fitzpatrick the Younger, as told by one of his close companions. Learn More

Hardcover Paul Bates Science Fiction Jennie sees no difference between her waking and dreaming states - the perfect survival mechanism for someone trapped in the last city on a dying world. But Jennie will be called upon to grow up and become the champion of this tortured world. Learn More

Hardcover C J Cherryh #1The Gene Wars Science Fiction Fantasy One of the most renowned figures in science fiction, C. J. Cherryh has been enthralling audiences for nearly thirty years with rich and complex novels. Now at the peak of her career, this three-time Hugo Award Winner launches her most ambitious work in decades, Hammerfall, part of a far-ranging series, The Gene Wars, set in an entirely new universe scarred by the most vicious of future weaponry, nanotechnology. In this brilliant novel -- possibly Cherryh's masterwork -- the fate of billions has come down to a confrontation between two profoundly alien cultures on a single desert planet. The mad shall be searched out and given to the Ila's messengers. No man shall conceal madness in his wife, or his son, or his daughter, or his father. Every one must be delivered up. -- The Book of the Ila's Au'itMarak has suffered the madness his entire life. He is a prince and warrior, strong and shrewd and expert in the ways of the desert covering his planet. In the service of his father, he has dedicated his life to overthrowing the Ila, the mysterious eternal dictator of his world. For years he has successfully hidden the visions that plague him -- voices pulling him eastward, calling Marak, Marak, Marak, amid mind-twisting visions of a silver tower. But when his secret is discovered, Marak is betrayed by his own father and forced to march in an endless caravan with the rest of his world's madmen to the Ila's city of Oburan. Instead of death, Marak finds in Oburan his destiny, and the promise of life -- if he can survive what is surely a suicidal mission. The Ila wants him to discover the source of the voices and visions that afflict the mad. Despite the dangers of the hostile desert, tensions within the caravan, and his own excruciating doubts, Marak miraculously reaches his goal -- only to be given another, even more impossible mission by the strange people in the towers. According to these beings who look like him yet act differently than anyone he has ever known, Marak has a slim chance to save his world's people from the wrath of the Ilas enemies. But to do so, he must convince them all -- warring tribes, villagers, priests, young and old, as well as the Ila herself -- to follow him on an epic trek across the burning desert before the hammer of the Ila's foes falls from the heavens above. Written with deceptive simplicity and lyricism, this riveting, fast-paced epic of war, love, and survival in a brave new world marks a major achievement from the masterful C.J. Cherryh. Learn More

Paperback Billy Dee Williams PSI/Net Science Fiction Fantasy On November 12, 1995 the CIA issued a report admitting that military and intelligence services had used psychics for spying or remote viewing. Project Stargate, as it was called, is the premise of this nerve-jangling thriller. Former Air Force Major Trent Calloway just wants to forget about his past, especially the tragedy that changed his life when he was involved in a government remote viewing project. With his marriage ruined in the aftermath of his psychic spying, he wanders the Southwest, occasionally guiding river rafting tours. And then suddenly his painful past returns and threatens to damage him again. He finds out that he had been drugged during his remote viewing sessions and that the drug, now years later, is causing ever increasing side-effects in himself and the other government psychic spies he worked with - and that their psychic abilities are still expanding at frightening rates. He realizes that the unknown drug he and the other psychic spies unwillingly took has bound them all together in a deadly psychic nexus, a PSI net, that has trapped Callaway, who must now fight for his life and his sanity as he struggles for the security of the United States and its people. Learn More

Paperback The Breach (Travis Chase #1) by Patrick Lee (Goodreads Author) “Audacious and terrifying—and uncannily believable.” —Lee Child New York Times bestselling author of the Jack Reacher series, Lee Child, was blown away by The Breach—and you will be, too! A novel of unrelenting suspense and nonstop surprises, The Breach immediately rockets author Patrick Lee into the V.I.P. section of the thriller universe. A treat for Jack Bauer (“24”) fans and “X-Files” aficionados, it is a white-knuckle roller-coaster ride that combines the best of Dean Koontz and Michael Crichton with a healthy dollop of Indiana Jones thrown into the mix—the perfect secret agent/government conspiracy/supernatural adventure. Learn More

Paperback Titan A.E. by Steve Perry, Dal Perry Fifteen years after Earth, Cale Tucker still remembers the invasion of the alien Drej—but with Human survivors scattered across the galaxy, he has forgotten how to dream. Until he discovers a map left for him by his brilliant scientist father. A map that reveals the location of a legendary spacecraft known as Titan. Where did it come from? Why was it built? And what secrets were hidden inside? As this riveting journey unfolds, Cale will discover that he must find these answers—because he himself is humanity's last hope. Learn More

Paperback Serpents Among the Ruins (Star Trek: The Lost Era) by David R. George III After the disappearance of Captain James T. Kirk, and before Captain Jean-Luc Picard took the helm of the Enterprise, the Federation and the Romulans clashed head on in a confrontation that would change the course of history. Learn More

Hardcover A Very Strange Trip by L. Ron Hubbard, Dave Wolverton Caught by police with moonshine in the trunk of his uncle's car, Everett Dumphee is faced with the decision to spend ten years in prison or enlist in the US Army. He opts for what he thinks is freedom-a hitch in the Army. Due to bureaucratic negligence, Dumphee-incorrectly labeled as the fastest bootleg driver in West Virginia-is issued the occupational specialty designation of Expert Truck Driver. Subsequently, he is selected for a top-secret assignment in a newly designed and state-of-the-art All Terrain Vehicle. While transporting a contraband Russian time machine and developmental weaponry from Trenton Arsenal in New Jersey to the Experimental Weapons Battalion in Denver, Colorado, Dumphee finds himself cast into new settings when the device suddenly activates. What follows are fantastic high-tech experiences that might be called the ultimate off-road adventure. For the determined Dumphee-narrowly escaping with his life and three beautiful women-it is not necessarily a matter of will he make it to his destination, but when. These four vivid characters trek through this fun and fast-moving journey like there's no tomorrow. Whenever that may be. Learn More

Paperback The Stone Canal (The Fall Revolution #2) by Ken MacLeod Life on New Mars is tough for humans, but death is only a minor inconvenience. The machines know their place, the free market rules all, and only the Abolitionists object. Then a stranger arrives on New Mars, a clone who remember his life on Earth as Jonathan Wilde, the anarchist with a nuclear capability who was accused of losing World War III. This stranger also remembers one David Reid, who now serves as New Mars's leader. Long ago, it turns out, Wilde and Reid had shared ideals and fought over the same women. Moving from 20th-century Scotland through a tumultuous 21st century and outward to humanity's settlement on a planet circling another star, The Stone Canal is idea-driven sci-fi at its best., making real and believable a future where long lives, strange deaths, and unexpected knowledge await those who survive the wars and revolutions to come. Learn More

Paperback The Better Part of Valor (Confederation #2) by Tanya Huff The Barnes & Noble Review What happens when a staff sergeant questions a two-star general's parentage to his face? Torin Kerr discovers the answer in Tanya Huff's much-anticipated sequel to Valor's Choice. Separated from her company, Kerr is ordered to report to a top-secret reconnaissance mission, either as punishment for her quick mouth or praise for her service. Kerr must turn a ragtag group of Marines into a cohesive fighting unit in a matter of days, while maneuvering through the murky political waters of the Confederation. Huff's vivid creation of alien species and how they interact gives this novel a tangibility rarely found in futuristic SF. Fast-paced action and quick-witted quips create the intimate feeling of camaraderie that is necessary for any good military tale. Staff Sergeant Kerr's character maintains steely control in the toughest situations, a heroine cut from the same cloth as P.I. Vicki Nelson from Huff's Blood Price series. (S.A.) Learn More