James White's own favouritie James White novel. He got the catchy title from listening to 'O, Little Town of Bethlehem' at a carol concert* The parallel-universe Hibernian Empire has risen to supreme power, with the help of applied Old World technology (Hero's steam engine, etc.) and new World natural resources (Brendan the navigator pre-empted Columbus by some five hundred years). Now the starship Aisling Gheal and its crew extend Oirish manifest destiny to outer space. Healer Nolan, an unbeliever in the priest-kings of Gor -- sorry, Hibernia -- finds himself pitted against the ultra-conservative Monsignor O'Riordan. I lapped it up. Mind you, I also think that Darby O'Gill and the Little People is a piece of grim documentary realism.

What would happen if the world were ending? A catastrophic event renders the earth a ticking time bomb. In a feverish race against the inevitable, nations around the globe band together to devise an ambitious plan to ensure the survival of humanity far beyond our atmosphere, in outer space. But the complexities and unpredictability of human nature coupled with unforeseen challenges and dangers threaten the intrepid pioneers, until only a handful of survivors remain... Five thousand years later, their progeny -- seven distinct races now three billion strong -- embark on yet another audacious journey into the unknown ... to an alien world utterly transformed by cataclysm and time: Earth.

Hospital Station [mass_market] White, James [Dec 12, 1984]

In the heart of Vandar, as dark forces close in, Elyon, a gifted Bladeborn, fights for his family’s survival. In the war-torn northlands of Tukor, a servant girl with a mysterious past is forced on the run, propelling her on a journey that will change her world forever. From the Shadowfort, a secret power is unleashed, one that will set into motion a series of events that will bring the world to its knees. With the world on the verge of chaos and countless lives at stake, a new First Blade must be selected, but obstacles stand in the way. Alliances are broken. Enemies are born. Only the strong will survive. Follow this epic tale as the battle for power, land, and the divine gifts of the Fallen Gods determine who lives and dies and who possesses ultimate control.

Published in Clarkesworld Magazine, Isabel J. Kim's short story is set after the events of Ursula K. Le Guin's 1973 short work of philosophical fiction "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas." It discusses a third option besides staying in Omelas or walking away: killing the suffering child (described by one of the murderers as a form of accelerationism).

From critically acclaimed New York Times best-selling author Peter F. Hamilton comes The Captain's Daughter, Book 2 in his audio original Arkship trilogy. With the help of a command AI, the hole in the Daedalus has been fixed by Hazel and her friends. But in the process, they have antagonized the Yi, the aliens who are actually controlling the Daedalus. After a daring escape from the Yi, Hazel and her friends now must convince the people of the Daedalus villages and the village leaders that the Yi exist - and that they must fight back in order to survive. This proves tricky, as those in power don't want their authority challenged. In order to produce proof of their dire situation, Hazel and her friends have to return to the forward section of the Daedalus to find another surviving command AI so they can find where the Yi are hiding and what their goal is. What Hazel and her friends discover is the terrible secret of the Yi, and what they have been doing on board the Daedalus for the last five hundred years. The Captain's Daughter is a thrilling continuation of the story that unfolded in A Hole in the Sky, Peter F. Hamilton's first YA novel, that will appeal to all his legions of fans.

SWORDS, SORCERY, AND A SPOT OF TEA Kill All Wizards is a blood-soaked romp through high society—picture Conan the Barbarian caught up in a comedy of manners, and you're almost prepared for this unmissable new series. We could think of nothing but the barbarian. He had come here, surely, to murder or marry someone, to exact revenge, or to say or do something very scandalous. We could hardly wait to see which it was. We hoped it would be all of them. The barbarian traveled far to consult the wizards of the empire. Instead of lending their aid, they ensorcelled him, exploited his strength, and stole his sword. They should not have done that. Now the barbarian plans to kill every wizard who wronged him, even if that means blending in with their vile dressing in finery, taking tea in exclusive clubs, and reserving the best box at the theater. Oh, he hates it all with the fiery passion of his savage heart—but not as much as he hates these wizards.

The Concluding Volume of the Engines of Light With Cosmonaut Keep and Dark Light , both finalists for science fiction’s Hugo Award, Ken MacLeod launched a new interstellar epic with all the engaging characters and ingenious SF inventiveness of his earlier Fall Revolution novels. Now MacLeod delivers the culmination of his epic of a human future crammed with innumerable varieties of intelligent alien life, and in which humans find themselves involved in the politics of aliens as powerful and inscrutable as gods...and entangled in their wars. For ten thousand years, Nova Babylonia has been the greatest city of the Second Sphere, an interstellar civilization of human and other beings who have been secretly removed, throughout history, from Earth. Now humans from the far reaches of the Sphere have come to offer immortality—and to urge them to build defenses against the alien invasion they know is coming. As humans and aliens compete and conspire, the wheels of history will lathe all the players into shapes new and surprising. The alien invasion will reach New Babylon at last—led by the most alien figure of all.

Full Synopsis From New York Times bestselling author Peter F. Hamilton comes his first audio original, A Hole in the Sky, Book 1 in the Arkship Trilogy. Sixteen-year old Hazel lives in the Daedalus, a starship that is flying in search of a new world. The ship has been traveling for five hundred years, searching for a world to settle in after having to abandon its last world. Everyone on board Daedalus lives a very simple existence in farming villages. The age of machines supplying their needs was lost during a mutiny five hundred years ago. The captain regained control of the ship after a huge struggle. Now, with finite resources, everything in the habitat is Cycled, including humans, who essentially are suicided at sixty-five so they don't deplete the biosphere's resources. Hazel encounters the Cheaters, people who refused to Cycle, who tell her the Daedalus has been damaged and its atmosphere is leaking away. When her brother has a paralyzing accident which condemns him to be Cycled since he can no longer be productive, Hazel runs off with him to join the Cheaters. While with the Cheaters, she discovers that much of what has been told to the people living on Daedalus for the last five hundred years is untrue, and that the ship is under the control of Aliens called the Yi. Soon, Hazel is in a thrilling race to help repair the ship and help the people of the Daedalus escape the Yi.

The beginning to the sweeping Aubrey/Maturin series. "The best sea story I have ever read."—Sir Francis Chichester This, the first in the splendid series of Jack Aubrey novels, establishes the friendship between Captain Aubrey, R.N., and Stephen Maturin, ship's surgeon and intelligence agent, against a thrilling backdrop of the Napoleonic wars. Details of a life aboard a man-of-war are faultlessly rendered: the conversational idiom of the officers in the ward room and the men on the lower deck, the food, the floggings, the mysteries of the wind and the rigging, and the roar of broadsides as the great ships close in battle.

The extraordinary speculative novel of past, present and future, by the Clarke Award-shortlisted author of THE CORAL BONES. Decades from now, two women sit around a fire on Beltane, May Eve, and reflect on their life stories. Activist Lucy's earliest memories are of living with her grandparents during the 2020 pandemic, and discovering her grandmother's love of birds. Filmmaker Hester, born on the day of the Chornobyl explosion, visits the plant in 2021 to film its feral dog population, and encounters the wilded Exclusion Zone - and a wolf-dog. Over half a century, their journeys take them from London to Balmoral to Somerset, through protests, family rifts, and personal tragedy. Lucy's path leads to the fight to restore Britain's depleted natural habitats and bring back the species who once shared the island, whilst Hester strives to give a voice to those who cannot speak for themselves. Both dream of a time when there are wolves again. A novel of life and of hope, WHEN THERE ARE WOLVES AGAIN is perfect for fans of Clade by James Bradley, The Wolf Border by Sarah Hall, and The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson.

The cleric Chih finds themself and their companions at the mercy of a band of fierce tigers who ache with hunger. To stay alive until the mammoths can save them, Chih must unwind the intricate, layered story of the tiger and her scholar lover—a woman of courage, intelligence, and beauty—and discover how truth can survive becoming history. Nghi Vo returns to the empire of Ahn and The Singing Hills Cycle in this mesmerizing, lush standalone follow-up to The Empress of Salt and Fortune.

A young royal from the far north is sent south for a political marriage in an empire reminiscent of imperial China. Her brothers are dead, her armies and their war mammoths long defeated and caged behind their borders. Alone and sometimes reviled, she must choose her allies carefully. Rabbit, a handmaiden, sold by her parents to the palace for the lack of five baskets of dye, befriends the emperor's lonely new wife and gets more than she bargained for. At once feminist high fantasy and an indictment of monarchy, this evocative debut follows the rise of the empress In-yo, who has few resources and fewer friends. She's a northern daughter in a mage-made summer exile, but she will bend history to her will and bring down her enemies, piece by piece.