New Releases by Greg Egan

In a world where the cells that make up our bodies are not committed to any one organism, Marla is confronted by the fickleness of her cytes, and resolves to understand them with help from Ada, a centuries-old Flourisher. Swappers like Ruth embrace fluidity, and meet with others to exchange cytes, seeking the perfect mix. But Ruth faces her own crisis, and as the technology to manipulate cytes advances, all three are drawn into a struggle to shape the future of life.

Lorsqu’elle ouvre les yeux, elle n’a aucune idée de l’endroit où elle se trouve. Une grotte ? Comment est-elle arrivée là, quand, et pour quelle raison ? Impossible de le dire non plus... D’ailleurs, elle ignore même qui elle est. Mais quelque chose ici ne tourne pas rond. De cela, au moins, elle est certaine. Car aussi étrange que cela puisse sembler, son environnement lui apparaît comme... penché. Et très vite, une autre certitude grandit en elle : il ne faut pas rester dans les parages... Instanciations, qui réunit trois récits formant un tout cohérent, explore les limites et enjeux de la vie sous forme digitale – une problématique aux ramifications vertigineuses.

Phoresis and Other Journeys contains three novellas from Hugo Award-winning author Greg Egan. • “The Four Thousand, the Eight Hundred”: civil war in an asteroid colony sees refugees fleeing, by any means possible. • “Dispersion”: a world where all life is divided into six cyclically invisible and intangible groups faces a terrifying new disease. • “Phoresis”: the inhabitants of a double planet embark on an epic, multi-generational project to cross between the twin worlds.

When electronics importer Cara Leon goes missing, private investigator Sam Mujrif is hired by her sister to investigate. Cara is eight times taller than Sam, but evidence soon points to players much smaller than either of them. As Sam and his cross-scale colleagues pursue the case, it becomes apparent that Cara’s disappearance is linked to the development of technology with the potential to reshape their whole society, and radically alter the balance of power between the scales.

Del lives in a world of many skies: by passing through the Hoops embedded in the ground, her people can walk freely between land that lies beneath a new set of constellations for every circuit they make around the edge of a Hoop. When archaeologists find a copy of the famed Book of All Skies, Del takes delivery of the manuscript in her role as conservator at the Museum of Apasa, hoping it will shed light on the fate of the Tolleans, the ancient civilisation that produced it. But when the book is stolen, the theft sets in motion a series of events that will see her travelling farther than she had ever imagined possible, and her understanding of her world and its history irrevocably transformed.

This collection highlights 20 stellar space operas published over the past 20 years by top-notch authors of the science fiction genre. A soldier fights for survival behind enemy lines, on an alien vessel, thousands of light-years from Earth in "On the Orion Line," by Stephen Baxter. A man aboard a ship in deep space wakes up from biostasis at the wrong time in "The Days Between," by Allen M. Steele. An astronaut in a damaged balloon struggles to survive 800 meters above the surface of a sea on Titan in "Slow Life" by Michael Swanwick. Two rival space-faring cultures vie for influence over the people of a forgotten human world in "The Third Party," by David Moles. One thousand people, aboard five generation starships, leave the Sol system to flee an enemy that threatens to destroy their way of life in "Mayflower II," by Stephen Baxter. Modified combat troops must deal with recalcitrant settlers on a planet being attacked by hostile aliens in "Bright Red Star," by Bud Sparhawk. Programmed military doppelgängers continue to carry out their missions long after the Quiet War''s end in "Dead Men Walking," by Paul McAuley. Mathematicians seek to learn more from a civilization, on another planet, that spent three million years doing math in "Glory," by Greg Egan. Human diplomats must deal their own cultural biases while dealing with two representatives from warring factions on a newly discovered planet in "Saving Tiamaat," by Gwyneth Jones. Space pirates haul in booty aboard a living spaceship that doesn''t quite smell right in "Boojum," by Elizabeth Bear & Sarah Monette. The constable in a settlement on a planet full of the tombs of a long-vanished alien race befriends a woman who researches dangerous hive rats in "City of the Dead," by Paul McAuley. A dying young man on a treasure hunt tries to save a world that''s devoid of gravity and lit by artificial suns in "The Hero," by Karl Schroeder. An eternal, aboard a slower than light ship, is woken to investigate an unexplained signal emanating from the area of the ship''s next stargate construction site in "The Island," by Peter Watts. An alienated teenager, in a domed iron city on a planet where a fundamentalist revolt is brewing, seeks to uncover her enigmatic tutor''s long-held secret in "The Ice Owl," by Carolyn Ives Gilman. A woman recalls a childhood train journey, on a planet with a permanent dayside and a nightside of eternal darkness, to see a captured specimen of the Nightmare race in "Weep for Day," by Indrapramit Das. Peculiar mating rituals and divergent evolution have developed on a lost colony that has been out of contact with the rest of humanity in "Someday," by James Patrick Kelly. An aristocrat''s trip to Venus, in search of her disgraced brother, is memorialized by papercuts of flora native to the planet in "Botanica Veneris: Thirteen Papercuts by Ida Countess Rathagan," by Ian McDonald. An enemy of the revolution, on a colonized planet, uploads a digital copy of himself into the body of a braindead boy in an attempt to escape off-world in "Jonas and the Fox" by Rich Larson. Set in the author''s Machineries of Empire universe, an undercover agent infiltrates a space station to recover the crew of a lost ship in "Extracurricular Activities," by Yoon Ha Lee. And finally, the captain of a dustship musters her crew to escape from a trap set by Hunter-Killers in a game of cat and mouse amid the rings of a giant planet in "By the Warmth of Their Calculus," by Tobias S. Buckell.

An unabridged collection spotlighting the best hard science fiction stories published in 2019 by current and emerging masters of the genre, edited by Allan Kaster. A coastal restoration researcher can help the police solve a murder but is conflicted over the unjust nature of the criminal justice system in "Soft Edges," by Elizabeth Bear. In "By the Warmth of Their Calculus," by Tobias S. Buckell, the captain of a dustship musters her crew to escape from a trap set by Hunter-Killers in a game of cat and mouse amid the rings of a giant planet. An arachnipede becomes wary of potential mates after she sees a male eat her mother . . . but she''s lonely in "A Mate Not a Meal," by Sarina Dorie. In "The Slipway," by Greg Egan, astronomers are hard-pressed to explain what appears to be a new cluster of stars that''s growing by the hour. Abandoned at a lunar base after losing radio contact with Earth, a newlywed traverses the moon in a buggy with her newborn toward a skyhook on the farside in "This is Not the Way Home," also by Greg Egan. In "Cloud-Born" by Gregory Feeley, children born on a ship from Earth become anxious as they begin to transition to their new lives as colonists of Neptune. An astrobiology postdoc is called at the last minute to remotely navigate a robot searching for hydrogen-based life on Titan in "On the Shores of Ligeia," by Carolyn Ives Gilman. In "Ring Wave," by Tom Jolly, an engineer in a life pod is desperate to join a colony in space after an asteroid destroys Earth. A deep-sea mining company''s operation is threatened by a crustacean scientist in "The Little Shepherdess," by Gwyneth Jones. In "Sacrificial Iron," by Ted Kosmatka, a decades long mission to another star is threatened when the two men keeping watch over a frozen crew turn on each other. A teenager seeks to maintain her "Captain" status among her non-traditional lunar family by leading her siblings on a dangerous trek to Neil Armstrong''s first footprint on the moon in "The Menace from Farside," by Ian McDonald. In "The Ocean Between the Leaves," by Ray Nayler, the mind of a dying gardener is transferred to another body for three days of closure in a state-run experiment. A robot strives to maintain its energy reserves as it crosses thousands of kilometers underwater to find its way home in "At the Fall," by Alec Nevala-Lee. In "Winter Wheat," by Gord Sellar, a Canadian farmer and his son are at odds on how to cope with a powerful agribusiness promoting its genetically modified wheat. And finally, a resentful submarine pilot is ordered to an undersea research facility to assist with the mining survey of a formerly protected seabed in "Cyclopterus," by Peter Watts.

Instantiation is a collection of 11 stories by the Hugo award winning author Greg Egan: “The Discrete Charm of the Turing Machine” “Zero For Conduct” “Uncanny Valley” “Seventh Sight” “The Nearest” “Shadow Flock” “Bit Players” “Break My Fall” “3-adica” “The Slipway” “Instantiation”

An unabridged collection spotlighting the "best of the best" hard science fiction stories published in 2018 by current and emerging masters of the genre, edited by Allan Kaster. In "3-adica," by Greg Egan, sentient characters in an online multiplayer game hack the operating systems of their host machines to escape to a refuge that''s only rumored to exist. Struggling colonists, on a world subject to periodic bursts of radiation from its primary''s UV-emitting companion, go on an expedition to recover a critical package from Earth in "Umbernight," by Carolyn Ives Gilman. In "Icefall," by Stephanie Gunn, the Mountain on the planet, Icefall, holds the mystery to a lost colony and is an irresistible, fatal allure to the climbers of the universe; but no one ever returns from the Mountain. A mother seeks revenge on the doctor that changed her neuro-atypical son''s personality with a deep brain stimulation implant in "The Woman Who Destroyed Us," by S.L. Huang. In "Entropy War," by Yoon Ha Lee, a conquering alien race at the height of their powers, retreats into an arkworld to win the ultimate war in the only way they can. An AI piloting an island-ship, that used to be the Earth, struggles to make sense of the universe as the last stars are dying out in "Cosmic Spring," by Ken Liu. In "Nothing Ever Happens on Oberon," by Paul McAuley, set in the author''s Quiet War universe, a supervisor of a mining operation on the moon, Oberon, investigates the crash-landing of an ancient escape pod. In depression-era Alaska, a desperate bush pilot reluctantly accepts an illegal charter from a pair of scientists investigating a legendary mirage in Glacier National Park in "The Spires," by Alec Nevala-Lee. In "Providence," by Alastair Reynolds, the crew of a crippled starship, unable to complete its mission, decides to salvage its expedition by providing future exploratory ships with data they did not have. A disillusioned crèche manager leaves Luna to work on an asteroid-based crèche and then must decide whether or not to return to Luna in "Intervention," by Kelly Robson. And finally, an entity that controls the solar system wants aid against another entity from a reconstructed human it just created, in "Kindred," by Peter Watts.

For millions of years, life on Earth has taken its cues from the rising and setting of the sun, and for most of human history we''ve followed the same rhythm. But if that shared connection was broken, and we each fell under the sway of our own private clock, could we still hold our lives together? One family is about to find out. At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

New anthology from the critically-acclaimed editor of Engineering Infinity - Winner of Best Anthology, 2019 Aurealis Awards Houston, we have a problem... Life is fragile. The difference between success and failure can come down to nothing – the thread of a screw, the flick of a switch – and when it goes wrong, you fix it... or someone dies. Mission Critical takes us from our world, across the Solar System, and out into deep space to tell the stories of people who had to do the impossible. And do it fast. Featuring stories by Peter F. Hamilton, Yoon Ha Lee, Aliette de Bodard, Greg Egan, Linda Nagata, Gregory Feeley, John Barnes, Tobias S. Buckell, Jason Fischer & Sean Williams, Carolyn Ives Gilman, John Meaney, Dominica Phetteplace, Allen M. Steele, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, and Peter Watts.

Greg Egan''s Perihelion Summer is a story of people struggling to adapt to a suddenly alien environment, and the friendships and alliances they forge as they try to find their way in a world where the old maps have lost their meaning. Taraxippus is coming: a black hole one tenth the mass of the sun is about to enter the solar system. Matt and his friends are taking no chances. They board a mobile aquaculture rig, the Mandjet, self-sustaining in food, power and fresh water, and decide to sit out the encounter off-shore. As Taraxippus draws nearer, new observations throw the original predictions for its trajectory into doubt, and by the time it leaves the solar system, the conditions of life across the globe will be changed forever. Praise for Perihelion Summer “Egan here doubles down on climate change with his typically rigorous exploration of a cosmic accident’s effect on Earth and all its people. His characters are sharp and funny and their courageous response to the massive challenge they face works as a spur to cause us to think—why couldn’t we do as well with our own great challenge? This is what the best science fiction can do that no other genre can, and we need it now more than ever. Bravo!” — Kim Stanley Robinson At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

When a detective, a new mother, is assigned to the case of a horrific triple murder, it appears to be a self-contained domestic tragedy, a terrible event but something that doesn’t affect the rest of the community. But it slowly becomes clear that something much darker may be at play, something that spreads out from the scene of the crime to corrode the closest relationships of everyone it touches, in Greg Egan''s The Nearest, a Tor.com Original. At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Science fiction is a portal that opens doors onto futures too rich and strange to imagine. Fantasy takes us through doorways of magic and wonder. For more than a decade award-winning editor Jonathan Strahan has sifted through tens of thousands of stories to select the best, the most interesting, the most engaging science fiction and fantasy to thrill and delight readers. Featuring stories from Daniel Abraham, Charlie Jane Anders, Kelly Barnhill, R. S. Benedict, Tobias Buckell, Indrapramit Das, Samuel R. Delany, Greg Egan, Max Gladstone, Theodora Goss, Saad Z. Hossain, Dave Hutchinson, Kathleen Kayembe, Caitlin R Kiernan, Mary Robinette Kowal, Rich Larson, Yoon Ha Lee, Scott Lynch, Maureen McHugh, Khaalidah Muhammad-Ali, Linda Nagata, Suzanne Palmer, Vina Jie-Min Prasad, Alastair Reynolds, Karl Schroeder, Nick Wolven and Caroline M. Yoachim.

Welcome to Tvíbura and Tvíburi, the richly imagined twin planets that stand at the center of Greg Egan''s extraordinary new novella, Phoresis. These two planets...one inhabited, one not...exist in extreme proximity to one another. As the narrative begins, Tvíbura, the inhabited planet, faces a grave and imminent threat: the food supply is dwindling, and the conditions necessary for sustaining life are growing more and more erratic. Faced with the prospect of eventual catastrophe, the remarkable women of Tvíbura launch a pair of ambitious, long-term initiatives. The first involves an attempt to reanimate the planet''s increasingly dormant ecosphere. The second concerns the building of a literal "bridge between worlds" that will connect Tvíbura to its (hopefully) habitable sibling. These initiatives form the core of the narrative, which is divided into three sections and takes place over many generations. The resulting triptych is at once an epic in miniature, a work of hard SF filled with humanist touches, and a compressed, meticulously detailed example of original world building. Most centrally, it is a portrait of people struggling...and sometimes risking everything...to preserve a future they will not live to see. Erudite and entertaining, Phoresis shows us Egan at his formidable best, offering the sort of intense, visionary pleasures only science fiction can provide.

Immortality, but at what price, in what form, and how could you be you? Find out in Greg Egan''s "Uncanny Valley," a Tor.com Original short story In the near future it’s possible to build a new you, a better you, one that could carry on forever. But if you could carry on, if you could make choices about who you would be forever, how much of your past would you bring with you? Would you be tempted to maybe...edit? Adam isn’t all that he used to be, but he wants to be. At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Seth is a surveyor, along with his friend Theo, a leech-like creature running through his skull who tells Seth what lies to his left and right. Theo, in turn, relies on Seth for mobility, and for ordinary vision looking forwards and backwards. Like everyone else in their world, they are symbionts, depending on each other to survive. In the universe containing Seth''s world, light cannot travel in all directions: there is a “dark cone” to the north and south. Seth can only face to the east (or the west, if he tips his head backwards). If he starts to turn to the north or south, his body stretches out across the landscape, and to rotate as far as north-north-east is every bit as impossible as accelerating to the speed of light. Every living thing in Seth’s world is in a state of perpetual migration as they follow the sun’s shifting orbit and the narrow habitable zone it creates. Cities are being constantly disassembled at one edge and rebuilt at the other, with surveyors mapping safe routes ahead. But when Seth and Theo join an expedition to the edge of the habitable zone, they discover a terrifying threat: a fissure in the surface of the world, so deep and wide that no one can perceive its limits. As the habitable zone continues to move, the migration will soon be blocked by this unbridgeable void, and the expedition has only one option to save its city from annihilation: descend into the unknown.

The complete Orthogonal Trilogy by Greg Egan. Containing The Clockwork Rocket, The Eternal Flame, and The Arrows of Time.

Der Traum eines Gottes In ferner Zukunft ist Unsterblichkeit nicht mehr unmöglich. Der menschliche Verstand kann gescannt und in eine künstliche Umgebung einprogrammiert werden. Das Ergebnis: Die „Kopien“, künstliche Menschen mit denselben Erinnerungen und Gefühlen wie ihre Vorbilder – jedoch abhängig von einem Computersystem. Paul Durham träumt von einer Zufluchtsstätte, einer Stadt für die „Kopien“, in der sie sicher und eigenständig leben können. Seine Vision könnte das ganze Universum verändern: Raum, Zeit, Materie und Evolution ...

First published in Asimov''s Science Fiction, December 2015.

Hard science fiction’s grand master delivers the stunning conclusion to his Orthogonal trilogy. In a universe where the laws of physics and the speed of light are completely alien to our own, the travelers on the ship Peerless have completed a generations-long struggle to develop advanced technology in a desperate attempt to save their home world. But as tensions mount over the risks of turning the ship around and starting the long voyage home, a new complication arises: the prospect of constructing a messaging system that will give the Peerless news of its own future. While some see this as a guarantee of safety and a chance to learn of their mission’s ultimate success, others are convinced that the knowledge will be oppressive or worse—that the system could be abused. The conflict over this proposed communication system tears the travelers’ society apart, culminating in terrible violence. To save the Peerless and its mission, two rivals must travel to a world where time runs in reverse. Continuing the epic multiple generation-spanning scope of The Clockwork Rocket and The Eternal Flame, Greg Egan’s Orthogonal series has continuously pushed the boundaries of scientific fiction without ever losing track of the lives of the individuals carrying out this grand mission. The Arrows of Time brings this fascinating space opera to a close. Skyhorse Publishing, under our Night Shade and Talos imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of titles for readers interested in science fiction (space opera, time travel, hard SF, alien invasion, near-future dystopia), fantasy (grimdark, sword and sorcery, contemporary urban fantasy, steampunk, alternative history), and horror (zombies, vampires, and the occult and supernatural), and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller, a national bestseller, or a Hugo or Nebula award-winner, we are committed to publishing quality books from a diverse group of authors.

An unabridged collection of the “best of the best” science fiction stories published in 2013 by current and emerging masters of the genre, edited by Allan Kaster. In “Zero for Conduct,” by Greg Egan, an Afghani teenager, living in a near-future Iran with her exiled grandfather, makes a game-changing superconductor discovery. A young girl struggles to survive on a planet, with a stringent class structure, where Doors are used to go off-world in “Exit, Interrupted,” by C. W. Johnson. “Pathways” by Nancy Kress, follows a teenage girl from a small Kentucky mountain town, in a near-future U. S., struggling with her family and culture as she seeks treatment for Fatal Familial Insomnia. In “Entangled,” by Ian R. MacLeod, an Indian woman, in a Britain turned upside down by a disease that links people’s minds, searches for answers to her personal catastrophe. In “The Irish Astronaut,” by Val Nolan, a colleague brings the ashes of an astronaut, who died in the Aquariusdisaster, to Ireland for final burial. In “Among Us,” by Robert Reed, a government agency goes to extraordinary lengths to identify and track the aliens among us. “A Map of Mercury,” by Alastair Reynolds, showcases the plight of a failed artist dispatched to retrieve an artistic genius from a collective of cyborgs parading across the face of Mercury. In “Martian Blood,” by Allen M. Steele, a researcher from Earth goes on an expedition into the untamed regions of Mars to extract blood from its natives. “The She-Wolf’s Hidden Grin,” by Michael Swanwick, set in the same milieu as Gene Wolfe’s “The Fifth Head of Cerberus,” follows the childhoods of two sisters on a planet far from Earth. Finally, in “The Best We Can,” by Carrie Vaughn, a frustrated scientist pursues first contact among an apathetic populace.

Humanity Among The Stars What happens when we reach out into the vastness of space? What hope for us amongst the stars? Multi-award winning editor Jonathan Strahan brings us fourteen new tales of the future, from some of the finest science fiction writers in the field. The fourteen startling stories in this anthology feature the work of Greg Egan, Aliette de Bodard, Ian McDonald, Karl Schroeder, Pat Cadigan, Karen Lord, Ellen Klages, Adam Roberts, Linda Nagata, Hannu Rajaniemi, Kathleen Ann Goonan, Ken MacLeod, Alastair Reynolds and Peter Watts.

From the inner realms of humanity to the far reaches of space, these are the science fiction and fantasy tales that are shaping the genre and the way we think about the future. Multi-award winning editor Jonathan Strahan continues to shine a light on the very best writing, featuring both established authors and exciting new talents. Within you will find twenty-eight incredible tales, showing the ever growing depth and diversity that science fiction and fantasy continues to enjoy. These are the brightest stars in our firmament, lighting the way to a future filled with astonishing stories about the way we are, and the way we could be. Including stories by K J Parker, Neil Gaiman, Yoon Ha Lee, Joe Abercrombie, Sofia Samatar, Greg Egan, E Lily Yu, Geoff Ryman, M Bennardo, Ramez Naam, Ted Chiang, Priya Sharma, Richard Parks, Lavie Tidhar, Thomas Olde Heuvelt, Benjanun Sriduangkaew, Eleanor Arnason, Ian R Macleod, An Owomoyela, Karin Tidbeck, Madeline Ashby, Caitlin R Kiernan, Robert Reed, Ian Mcdonald, Val Nolan, M John Harrison, James Patrick Kelly and Charlie Jane Anders.

Greg Egan’s The Clockwork Rocket introduced readers to an exotic universe where the laws of physics are very different from our own, where the speed of light varies in ways Einstein would never allow, and where intelligent life has evolved in unique and fascinating ways. Now Egan continues his epic tale of alien beings embarked on a desperate voyage to save their world . . . . The generation ship Peerless is in search of advanced technology capable of sparing their home planet from imminent destruction. In theory, the ship is traveling fast enough that it can traverse the cosmos for generations–and still return home only a few years after they departed. But a critical fuel shortage threatens to cut their urgent voyage short, even as a population explosion stretches the ship’s life-support capacity to its limits. When the astronomer Tamara discovers the Object, a meteor whose trajectory will bring it within range of the Peerless, she sees a risky solution to the fuel crisis. Meanwhile, the biologist Carlo searches for a better way to control fertility, despite the traditions and prejudices of their society. As the scientists clash with the ship’s leaders, they find themselves caught up in two equally dangerous revolutions: one in the sexual roles of their species, the other in their very understanding of the nature of matter and energy. The Eternal Flame lights up the mind with dazzling new frontiers of physics and biology, as only Greg Egan could imagine them.

Far in the distant, post-human future, the Cater-Zimmermann community set out to refute the theory that the universe is created exclusively for mankind by cloning themselves a thousand times over and sending each copy to a different star within the galaxy. One of the copies of Cater-Zimmermann, Paolo Venetti, arrives at Orpheus; a water-world inhabited by floating mats that perform as a Turing machine.

In Yalda''s universe, light has no universal speed and its creation generates energy. On Yalda''s world, plants make food by emitting their own light into the dark night sky. As a child, Yalda witnesses one of a series of strange meteors, the Hurtlers, that are entering the planetary system at an immense, unprecedented speed. It becomes apparent that her world is in imminent danger — and the task of dealing with the Hurtlers will require knowledge and technology far beyond anything her civilization has yet achieved! Only one solution seems tenable: if a spacecraft can be sent on a journey at sufficiently high speed, its trip will last many generations for those on board, but it will return after just a few years have passed at home. The travelers will have a chance to discover the science their planet urgently needs, and bring it back in time to avert disaster.

Set in a near future Iran (where the theocracy has been overthrown, but where Muslim religion still dominates the culture), an Arab/Muslim focused MMORG gaming companies cutting edge AI software might hold the key achieving "uploaded consciousness." Martin is an Australian journalist who covered uprising and overthrow of the Iranian theocracy, and has since “gone native” with a Iranian wife and child. As tragedy strikes his multi-cultural family, Martin struggles to maintain his place in his adapted culture, and to provide for his child. Zendigi explores what it means to be human, and the lengths one will go to in order to provide for ones children. This emotional roller coaster explores a non-Western-European near future that both challenges ideas of global mono-culture and emphasizes the humanity we all share.