New Releases by Linda Nagata

Ava Arnett is a Honolulu cop, captain of the night shift in the autonomous Waikiki District. To guide her actions, she relies on HADAFA - an AI designed to observe, analyze, and predict human behavior. But as a massive hurricane approaches the city, HADAFA begins to glitch. When Ava stumbles across a terrorist conspiracy, she must decide for herself whether or not to trust a mysterious federal agent named Lyric Jones - knowing that the wrong choice could lead to greater devastation... and a war no one will win.

An unabridged collection spotlighting the “best of the best” science fiction stories published in 2017 by current and emerging masters of the genre, edited by Allan Kaster. In “My English Name,” by R. S. Benedict, an intelligent alien, who parasitizes an English teacher in China, falls in love. After a victorious space battle, an indentured robot finds a refugee who makes an offer it can’t refuse in “Zen and the Art of Starship Maintenance” by Tobias S. Buckell. In “The Moon is Not a Battlefield,” by Indrapramit Das, an Indian soldier retires on Earth after spending most of her life on the Moon. A young woman joins the U.S. Army to fight terrorists after aliens arrive on Earth bearing tech gifts unevenly dispersed to humans in “Dear Sarah” by Nancy Kress. In “An Evening with Severyn Grimes,” by Rich Larson, a gifted hacker uses cyberspace to extract pay back on the rich businessman who put her in prison. Set in the author’s hexarchate universe, an ex-Kel super soldier is enlisted to retrieve a weapon of mass destruction stolen by a rogue general in “The Chameleon’s Gloves” by Yoon Ha Lee. In “The Martian Obelisk,” by Linda Nagata, on a dying Earth, an architect remotely building a monument to mankind on Mars receives a message from an abandoned Mars colony. A petty meat counterfeiter is blackmailed into forging T-bone steaks for an anonymous thug in “A Series of Steaks” by Vina Jie-Min Prasad. In “The Residue of Fire,” by Robert Reed, a torturer tries to cope with one of his alien victims who witnessed a pivotal moment in the lives of two immortals, in this Great Ship tale. And finally, in this Revelation Space tale, a starship captain wakes from hibernation with her ship stalled next to an alien artifact and a mutiny in progress in “Night Passage” by Alastair Reynolds.

A powerful science fiction story about an architect on Earth commissioned to create (via long distance) a masterwork with materials from the last abandoned Martian colony, a monument that will last thousands of years longer than Earth, which is dying. At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Robotics, big data, and artificial intelligence are tools to augment the skills of Requisite Operations'' warfighters-for-hire. But when army veteran True Brighton makes a chance discovery during a rescue mission, old wounds are ripped open. She''s left questioning what she knows of the past, and resolves to pursue the truth, whatever the cost.

As a soldier of the Red who pursues covert missions designed to nudge history away from existential threats, James Shelley is taken into orbit where he must make a difficult choice when he falls into conflict with those he loves, his former lover, Delphi and his companion-in-arms, Jayne Vasquez.

"Lieutenant James Shelley and his squad of US Army soldiers were on a quest for justice when they carried out the unauthorized mission known as First Light. They returned home to America to face a court-martial, determined to expose the corruption in the chain of command that compelled their actions. But in a country still reeling from the nuclear terrorism of Coma Day, the courtroom is just one battlefield of many." --

A Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2015 Reality TV and advanced technology make for high drama in this political thriller that combines the military action of Zero Dark Thirty with the classic science fiction of The Forever War. Lieutenant James Shelley, who has an uncanny knack for premeditating danger, leads a squad of advanced US Army military tasked with enforcing the peace around a conflict in sub-Saharan Africa. The squad members are linked wirelessly 24/7 to themselves and a central intelligence that guides them via drone relay—and unbeknownst to Shelley and his team, they are being recorded for a reality TV show. When an airstrike almost destroys their outpost, a plot begins to unravel that’s worthy of Crichton and Clancy’s best. The conflict soon involves rogue defense contractors, corrupt US politicians, and homegrown terrorists who possess nuclear bombs. Soon Shelley must accept that the helpful warnings in his head could be AI. But what is the cost of serving its agenda?

An unabridged collection of the “best of the best” science fiction stories published in 2012 by current and emerging masters of the genre, edited by Allan Kaster. In “Invisible Men,” by Christopher Barzak, a maid in an inn encounters the Invisible Man who makes her an offer to be more than she is in this quasi-retelling of H.G. Wells’ famous story. In this year’s Nebula Award winner for best novelette, “Close Encounters,” by Andy Duncan, an old man is hounded by reporters about the stories he used to tell of an alien who took him into space and the dog he brought back with him. “Bricks, Sticks, Straw,” by Gwyneth Jones, follows virtual scientists forced to survive within their remotes when a young science team on Earth loses remote contact with their telepresences on Jupiter’s moons. In “Arbeitskraft,” by Nick Mamatas, Friedrich Engels strives to spread class revolution as a labor organizer for factory cyborg matchstick girls. “The Man,” by Paul McAuley, is a Jackaroo tale about a solitary woman, living in a cabin on the planet Yanos, whose life is interrupted by the sudden appearance of a naked man at her door. In “Nahiku West,” by Linda Nagata, set in the author’s Nanotech Succession sequence, officer Zeke Choy investigates an accident involving an illegal enhancement which was used to save a life. “Tyche and the Ants,” by Hannu Rajaniemi, showcases the plight of a young girl hidden on the moon by her parents, along with grags and Brain, as robotic ants have come from the Great Wrong Place to take her away. In “Katabasis,” by Robert Reed, human adventurers on a journey in an inhospitable high-gravity region of the Great Ship must use porters, evolved for massive worlds, to aid them. “The Contrary Gardener,” by Christopher Rowe, tells of the tough decisions a talented gardener in a society which genetically grows some crops for ammunition must come to when she’s recruited for the war effort. Finally, in “Scout,” by Bud Sparhawk, a reconstructed marine is deployed to a planet occupied by the Shardies to reconnoiter by making use of his “turtle” enhancements to avoid detection.

Aboard Null Boundary, a giant starship thousands of years old, four survivors of an ancient alien war are making a desperate journey: Lot, son of a fiery prophet and carrier of an insidious virus that spreads a cult-like religious mania among those it infects; Urban, Lot''s boyhood friend from the city of Silk, and a man in search of challenge and adventure; Clemantine, cast adrift when her world was destroyed and yearning for revenge; and Nikko, sometimes a living man, but always, the ship''s disembodied mind. They are bound into unknown territory. Ahead of them loom vast, lightless clouds of dust and gas where stars are born, and where the alien Chenzeme are believed to live. The Chenzeme are an enigmatic race, whose automated warships have ravaged the living worlds of the galaxy''s Orion arm for millions of years . . . but why? Null Boundary''s crew is driven to find out-though in their quest to discover the source of the Chenzeme, they must also explore the terrible truth of their own past, the meaning of revenge, and the price each one of them is willing to pay for survival. The Nanotech Succession is a collection of stand-alone novels exploring the rise of nanotechnology. "Vast" is the culmination of the strange and fascinating future that follows.

Acclaimed hard-SF author Linda Nagata introduces a new world, where the sky is bisected by an arch of light, and the mysterious "silver" rises from the ground each night to completely transform the landscape -- and erase from existence anything it touches.

A beautiful young scientist lies dead in a top-secret laboratory, the victim of an illegal experiment with the forbidden nanotechnology of intelligent organisms living at the limits of human vision. In Vietnam, a journalist probes a mysterious cult rumored to have awesome powers. As factions across the globe race to control this strange creation, a new stage in evolution is about to begin high above the Earth. (July)

The "cult virus" must be recognized before it can be fought ... or is there a good reason to fight it?

It is the most powerful technology known to humanity, microscopically small, allowing its user to control and change other''s moods and emotions, and even to reprogram his or her own genetic structure. Its potential as the ultimate weapon or an instrument of peace has led to its ban by the Commonwealth. Someone has stolen this outlaw technology, the Bohr Maker, from the secret files of the Commonwealth Police, at the command of a man with a genetic time bomb coded into his DNA. Nikko Jiang-Tibayan has only weeks to live, and he will do anything to stay only weeks to live, and he will do anything to stay alive, even if it means the end of life as we know it. But then the Bohr Maker falls into the hands of a beautiful young woman in the poverty-stricken slums of Sunda. Its technology will make her both fugitive and messiah. The object of frantic searches by a walking dead man and a high-tech police force, the Maker holds the key to the total destruction of humanity -- or its miraculous rebirth....

Katie loved her husband so much that when he was killed in a helicopter accident, she defies the family''s wishes and puts Tom''s body in cryonic suspension until technology can find a way to revive him. But Tom''s sister, a powerful senator, wants her brother to rest in peace. But Katie is determined that Tom shall live again--and will go to any lengths to ensure it.