Showing results for "Jeff Harding" in Science Fiction

A collection of 98 enthralling and pulse-quickening stories, spanning five decades, venerates the remarkable imagination of J. G. Ballard. With a body of work unparalleled in twentieth-century literature, J. G. Ballard is recognized as one of the greatest and most prophetic writers in the world. With the much-hailed release of The Complete Stories of J. G. Ballard, readers now have a means to celebrate the unmatched range and mesmerizing cadences of a literary genius.

From the bestselling author of the Charlie Parker mysteries—“the finest crime series currently in existence” (The Independent)—comes a chilling anthology of supernatural short fiction that blends literary horror, dark fantasy, and psychological suspense. A decade after Nocturnes first...

When Ellen Ripley finally returns to Earth, she learns that the planet LV-426 - now called Acheron - has been colonised. But LV-426 is where Ripley and the crew of the Nostromo found the original Xenomorph - the killing machine known as the Alien. Protected by the Colonial Marines, the colonists seek to terraform the storm-swept planet. Two such residents are Anne and Russell Jorden, seeking a fortune that eluded them on Earth.

As a child Chris Hooper dreamed of monsters. But in deep space, he found only darkness and isolation. Then, on planet LV178, he and his fellow miners discovered a storm-scoured, sand-blasted hell - and trimonite, the hardest material known to man. When a shuttle crashes into the mining ship Marion, the miners learn that there was more than trimonite deep in the caverns. There was evil, hibernating - and waiting for suitable prey.

As a deputy commissioner for the ICC, Alan Decker’s job is to make sure the settlements on LV178 follow all the rules, keeping the colonists safe. But the planet known as New Galveston holds secrets, lurking deep beneath the toxic sands dubbed the Sea of Sorrows. The Weyland-Yutani Corporation has secrets of its own, as Decker discovers when he is forced to join a team of mercenaries sent to investigate an ancient excavation. Somewhere in that long-forgotten dig lies the thing the company wants most in the universe - a living Xenomorph.

A vast battlecruiser moves silently through space—a ghost ship, abandoned decades ago. There could be treasure inside… or monsters. I’m the sucker who’s going to find out. Once I was a hero. An elite soldier fighting for the Paragon military. Now the Paragon’s wars are won and I’m nobody—a gun for hire, working illegal salvage operations. There’s money to be made out in the dark. Ships filled with valuable tech, left to drift between the stars. A smart salvage crew can get rich. Or at least die trying.

BBC Audio present six fantastic tales of twisted futures and times beyond tomorrow. Inspired by the pulp sci-fi of '50s America, these perfectly pitched parodies are redolent of the atomic age—when the space race was at its height, Cold War paranoia was at fever pitch and the future seemed both thrilling and terrifying.

It was supposed to be a simple salvage job… but in the cargo bay of the abandoned freighter, my crew found a priceless stash of biotech, property of the deadliest corporation in Paragon space. No sane person would touch it… but it would set my crew up for life. Unfortunately, there’s only one place we can hope to sell something this dangerous. A mysterious buyer contacts us from an ancient ship out in the void. The Aboena is so huge that it contains entire cities. It once carried humans from Earth to the stars. Now it’s one of the last places still resisting Paragon rule.

It looks like I started a rebellion. And the only way to end it… is to burn this empire to the ground. I tighten my grip on the pistol at my side, as my fleet closes in on the vast space station. The Paragon took my home from me. Now I’m going to take it back. I never wanted to be a leader. But when my crew fought off an army of vanguard shock troops and flesh-eating rippers, we sparked a rebellion. And that rebellion spread like wildfire across the stars.

A worldwide diaspora has left a quarter of a million people at the foot of a space station. Cultures collide in real life and virtual reality. The city is literally a weed, its growth left unchecked. Life is cheap, and data is cheaper. When Boris Chong returns to Tel Aviv from Mars, much has changed. Boris' ex-lover is raising a strangely familiar child who can tap in to the datastream of a mind with the touch of a finger. His cousin is infatuated with a robotnik - a damaged cyborg soldier who might as well be begging for parts.

The USA has been ravaged by civil war. It's been 30 years since the first wind-borne viruses ended the war between North and South. While the South has been devastated by disease, the North has emerged victorious but terrified of reprisals. Both territories remain at the mercy of the vicious Northern dictator, Renard. Two survivors, Dyce and Vida, journeyed deep into the Southern terrains in search of a cure for Renard's chemical warfare. Now they find themselves scouring the Northern territories on a new and far deadlier pursuit.

A retired war pilot is travelling the French countryside. Entranced by the natural beauty of the area when he stops to rest by a lake, he sees visions of beautiful tree women who seek his protection.

South takes place in a USA ravaged by civil war. It's been 30 years since the first wind-borne viruses ended the war between North and South - and still they keep coming. Every wind brings a new and terrifying way to die. The few survivors live in constant fear, hiding from the wind - and from each other. In the harsh Southern expanse, brothers Garrett and Dyce Jackson are on the run from brutal law enforcers. They meet Vida, a lone traveler on a secret quest.

The year is 1975—Robert Oppenheimer has invented the Atomic Engine, the first human has walked on the moon, and Jet Carson and the Eagle Seven have sacrificed their lives to stop alien invaders. Brooklyn, however, just wants to keep his head down, pay his mother’s rent, earn a little scratch of his own, and maybe get laid sometime. Simple pleasures! But life is about to get real complicated when a killer with a baseball bat and a mysterious box of eight-track tapes sets him up for murder.

When the fog comes down and the drums start to beat, the inhabitants of the island tremble: for the punishment satellites - which keep the tyrannical Wastelords at bay - are blind in the darkness, and the islanders become prey. The inhabitants are the old, the sick, the poor: the detritus of Society, dumped on the island with the rest of Society's waste. There is no point trying to escape, for the satellites - the invisible eyes of the law - mete out instant judgement from the sky.

Hollywood, 1940. It’s the Golden Age of the Feelies. All one-time actor and unlicensed matrimonial private eye Clark Gable has to do is impersonate a wealthy scriptwriter for a few hours, and sign the contract for the biopic of the inventor of a device which has changed entertainment forever.

Sam never knew his parents. In fact, he’s never met another human - or seen a sunrise, smelled a flower or eaten a regular meal. All of that is about to change. It’s night in the desert, but he doesn’t feel the cold. There is a building ahead. Other people will be inside. His heart skips a beat as he takes a step forward, the rocks crunching under his bare feet. He has dreamed of this moment for as long as he can remember. But that which can be found can just as easily be lost again. It would have been better had Sam’s arrival gone unnoticed.

Having escaped the Island - a wasteland that housed those no longer able to contribute to society - ageing 'Big Guy' Clancy thought his fight was over. But they have returned to the mainland to find that it is not the haven they anticipated. With the punishment satellites that kept them on the Island - and the city under control - gone, hell has been unleashed.

Imagine The Bourne Identity meets Gravity, and you'll get Tracer, the most exciting thriller set in space you'll ever hear. A huge space station orbits the Earth, holding the last of humanity. It's broken, rusted, falling apart. We've wrecked our planet, and now we have to live with the consequences: a new home that's dirty, overcrowded and inescapable. What's more, there's a madman hiding on the station. He's about to unleash chaos.

The year is 2040 and an envoy of the North American Union finds himself a fugitive in the Southeast Asian nation of Tinhau. Lucas Lehrer is tasked with travelling from the North American Union to the island-nation of Tinhau to extend the offer of political partnership. When negotiations break...