Ever since middle school, when our teacher promised that we would have
flying cars in our lifetimes, I’ve had a keen interest in scientific
and technological breakthroughs. And now, with the advancements in
Artificial Intelligence and genetic engineering, my interest has only
grown. I love technology, but my concern is that with the acceleration
of AI, science is outpacing common sense. Are we creating our
replacements? I hope you read my new novel: Crystal and the
Underlings: the future of humanity, and discover what could happen
when AI takes over!
When I read Michael Crichton’s Next, my first thought was that we’re entering a dangerous time with our ability to manipulate the genomes of many different species.
The central message is about the possible negative ramifications of manipulating the DNA of humans and other animal species and even the creation of transspecies. Crichton leads us through diverse stories of corporate greed to the life and death struggles of others just wanting a cure for cancer.
Crichton does a masterful job of tying the different agendas into a compelling, interwoven narrative.
The Number One international bestselling author of Jurassic Park, Congo and Sphere blends fact and fiction to create a near-future where genetic engineering opens up a whole new world of terrifying, page-turning possibilities...
Is a loved one missing body parts? Are blondes becoming extinct? Has a human already cross-bred with a monkey?
We live in a GENETIC WORLD. Fast, frightening - and potentially VERY lucrative. There are designer pets; a genetic cure for drug addiction; a booming market in eggs and sperm. But is there also a talking ape in Borneo? Has a 'master' gene for controlling others been found?…
Hopeland is a masterpiece of magical realism: only a magician could have crafted such a book, and McDonald’s protagonists are thoroughly human and relatable, which makes them very real, their occasional electromancy and stormtalking (breathtakingly described) notwithstanding.
They live, love, grieve, and help save the world from the climate catastrophe (which, incidentally, is the reality that we are living right now), all the while revealing to you why the world deserves saving.
Beware: you, too, will weep, laugh, love, and end up wanting to help save the world.
Hopeland is not a nation. It is not a cult. It is not a religion.
Hopeland is a community. It is a culture. It is a family.
When Raisa Hopeland, determined to win her race to become the next electromancer of London, bumps into Amon Brightbourne - tweed-suited, otherworldly, guided by the Grace - in the middle of a London riot, she sets in motion a series of events which will span decades, continents and a series of events which will change the world.
Amon falls in love in that moment of chaos, but being loved by him can have…
To hide a corporation’s failure to properly service a space ship, Captain Jonas Stryker is prosecuted but saved from imprisonment by a dying man, who hires Stryker to collect asteroids for their mineral content. Stryker soon finds he must stop a shadowy corporate group called The Board, who employ space piracy, terrorism, and even weaponised asteroids to overthrow the Federation government.
Set in Lagrange points, space stations, the Moon and outback Australia, it is a fast-moving story with some speculative future technology. If you were interested in the NASA attempt to alter the orbit of the asteroid Dimorphos, you might…
When a trial to cover-up a corporate failure ends Captain Jonas Stryker's career, he wants revenge against The Board, a ruthless, shadowy organization with limitless funds that employs space piracy, terrorism, and even weaponised asteroids. Posing as a space miner, Stryker learns that The Board wants him killed, while a young female SCIB police agent wants retribution against him for having her career spoiled at his trial. As Stryker avoids attempts to kill him, he becomes the only chance to prevent The Board from overturning the Federation Government and imposing a Fascist-style rule. A story of greed, corruption and honour,…
I love most all genre fiction, but I’m a sucker for dark fiction—and I have a particular fondness for dark fiction that explores the hidden shadows of men and women as they make dubious choices that lead to consequences rife with fear, despair, and unflinching terror. Whether it’s young men meeting in a basement to engage in a secret barbaric club or a world gone mad following the literal death of God, my favorite dark fiction is woven with sly satire and subversive social commentary.
Max Barry’s satirical science-fiction novel, Machine Man, is a dark and funny mediation on contemporary society’s compulsive over-reliance on technology. The narrator, Charles Neumann, is a mechanical engineer who, while obsessively searching for his phone, loses his leg in an industrial accident. After building himself a new machine leg, Charles purposely loses his other leg, so he can replace it with another machine leg. After seeing how great his new legs work, Charles wonders if maybe he should replace more of his body parts with machine parts, begging the question: Where does humanity end and technology begin?
Scientist Charles Neumann loses a leg in an industrial accident. It's not a tragedy. It's an opportunity. Charlie always thought his body could be better. He begins to explore a few ideas. To build parts. Better parts.
Prosthetist Lola Shanks loves a good artificial limb. In Charlie, she sees a man on his way to becoming artificial everything. But others see a madman. Or a product. Or a weapon.
A story for the age of pervasive technology, Machine Man is a gruesomely funny unraveling of one man's quest for ultimate self-improvement.
As an avid explorer having thrice traveled around the world, living and working in over 40 countries, my inspirations as so originally science fiction have found grounding. I looked to level my imagination in the real world and filtered out the impossible from the unnecessary on a path to utopia. Sharing our ideas, exposing misgivings too, all contribute to a shared realization of human potential. This is much of the reason for who I am as a founder of business platforms I designed to achieve things that I envisage as helpful, necessary, and constructive contributions to our world. Those software endeavours underway in 2022, and a longtime coming still, are Horoscorpio and De Democracy.
The biggest challenge to setting out a worldview within a universe is describing the detail about entities that imbues the feelings associated with living as those entities within it. Banks manages the sensation of living beings masterfully, where they are so alien and so abstract your pure imagination is put to the test. What would life be like for you as a jelly blob that flies around a gas giant? Pretty damn good thanks to Iain, and it's something I tackled in my book too with not nearly as much success it seems, at least yet.
It is 4034 AD. Humanity has made it to the stars. Fassin Taak, a Slow Seer at the Court of the Nasqueron Dwellers, will be fortunate if he makes it to the end of the year.
The Nasqueron Dwellers inhabit a gas giant on the outskirts of the galaxy, in a system awaiting its wormhole connection to the rest of civilisation. In the meantime, they are dismissed as decadents living in a state of highly developed barbarism, hoarding data without order, hunting their own young and fighting pointless formal wars.
Seconded to a military-religious order he's barely heard of -…
The spellbinding new Robert Langdon novel from the author of The Da Vinci Code.
Robert Langdon, Harvard professor of symbology and religious iconology, arrives at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao to attend the unveiling of a discovery that "will change the face of science forever". The evening's host is his friend and former student, Edmond Kirsch, a forty-year-old tech magnate whose dazzling inventions and audacious predictions have made him a controversial figure around the world. This evening is to be no exception: he claims he will reveal an astonishing scientific breakthrough to challenge the fundamentals of human existence.
For as long as I can remember, I have shared an affinity with monsters. Or at least, what we humans define as monsters. I suppose you could say I have a bit of a Frankenstein complex (if there is such a thing). I see myself in them sometimes. A little sad perhaps, but true, nonetheless. So, who better to compile a "top-5" creature feature list for you to enjoy?
What was it that stood out for me reading this book? Quite simply, Hawthorne brings something new to the top of the food chain (don’t worry, I won’t spoil it for you).
BeforeKronos Rising, it was all sharks and krakens, which is ironic because those two creatures feature heavily in the sequels. As they say, variety is the spice of life. But more than that, I found Hawthorne to be a breath of fresh air in a genre that can sometimes grow a little stale.
So, if you are looking for a great sea monster book that doesn’t feature one of the usual suspects, then Kronos Rising is my recommendation to you. Or the first one, at least.
I’ve been fascinated with the macabre since childhood and have always been drawn to the darker sides of humanity. In nearly every story, the villain is my favorite character, and I’m most intrigued with their motives. From The Magic Tree House to Artemis Fowl to The Hunger Games to The Purge, I’ve consumed as much sci-fi, dystopian, thriller fiction as possible my entire life. I’ve written several thriller novels and dystopian books and have worked with Bradley Fuller, the producer of The Purge and A Quiet Place, on the possible movie adaptation of my debut novel. If you also like dystopian thrillers, feel free to check out my recommendations!
I loved this book because it was equally gripping and thrilling as it was funny. It’s impressive when a book so seamlessly weaves real-world experiences and pop culture references with the sci-fi aspects of a dystopian world.
I loved the main character, Frankie, and how she was relatable yet completely unique. Her humor and love of movies, I also loved how it was thought-provoking without feeling like a soap-box political book.
This book was like a quirky Black Mirror-esque cautionary tale of where our society could easily be heading, with plenty of laugh-out-loud moments. I liked how Bryan Johnston took reality TV and made it extreme.
Frankie Percival is cashing in her chips. To save her brother from financial ruin, Frankie—a single stage performer and mentalist who never made it big—agrees to be assassinated on the most popular television show on the planet: Death Warrant. Once she signs her life away, her memory is wiped clean of the agreement, leaving her with no idea she will soon be killed spectacularly for global entertainment.
After years of working in low-rent theaters, Frankie prepares for the biggest performance of her life as her Death Warrant assassin closes in on her. Every person she encounters…
I've always been fascinated by genetics. Ever since Dolly the Sheep was cloned in the 1990s, I wondered if it was possible for it to have a soul, was it a carbon copy, did it know it had a twin? Move on to when I studied biology and then psychology. My brother became a genetic scientist, and we have both always been fascinated by the possibilities. Although the human genome project has been declared complete, there is still much we don’t know about genetics, let alone what we may harness from the animals around us. Although I'm excited to find out, I'm also fearful of how these modifications may be used.
This is an oldie, but a goodie. I think this was one of the first books that introduced me into the idea of genetic modification and what might be possible if we could harness DNA from the environment around us. One of the most popular powers to choose in my own book is wings, and when people fill out the questionnaire on my website, that’s what they want. This book brings together the romance of the ability to fly, the love of a found family, and the pace of a thriller with high stakes to lose. One of my favorite books of all time, one I can re-read again and again.
I’m an award-winning speculative fiction author who loves logic and reason, so when philosophising over life’s greatest mysteries I often layer debate with scientific knowledge, and I found my way to the afterlife theories behind Towards White in my late teens. I was reading English at university at the time, but it wasn’t until I went to Iceland in 2001, and fell in love with the stark beauty of its lonely lava plains, steamy natural springs, glaciers, and auroras, that I was inspired to turn my ideas into a story. I then spent years thoroughly researching my theory, and wove it into a grippingly suspenseful arctic adventure. I hope you enjoy reading the result!
The search for truth is such a powerful force that, in the right circumstances, it can not only propel us to explore the darkest, coldest, and most dangerous recesses of the planet, it can make us question everything we know about life and death, love and betrayal. This classic thriller indulges readers with an exciting adventure across the snow and ice to explore one of the greatest scientific mysteries of all time: is there extraterrestrial life? But perhaps what makes this book so memorable, at least to me, is how deliberately the story tests our faith in friendship, family, and those we trust to lead us.
On the eve of a presidential race in which NASA's budget is a pivotal issue, the space agency announces the discovery of an ancient meteorite filled with fossils deep in the Arctic ice.
