Special Collections
Hugo Award Winners (science fiction)
Description: The Hugo Award is given annually for the best science fiction or fantasy work of the previous year. Bookshare is pleased to offer the following titles awarded the Hugo Award for best novel. #award
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A Desolation Called Peace
by Arkady MartineA Desolation Called Peace is the spectacular space opera sequel to Arkady Martine's genre-reinventing, Hugo Award-winning debut, A Memory Called Empire.
An alien armada lurks on the edges of Teixcalaanli space. No one can communicate with it, no one can destroy it, and Fleet Captain Nine Hibiscus is running out of options. In a desperate attempt at diplomacy with the mysterious invaders, the fleet captain has sent for a diplomatic envoy. Now Mahit Dzmare and Three Seagrass—still reeling from the recent upheaval in the Empire—face the impossible task of trying to communicate with a hostile entity. Their failure will guarantee millions of deaths in an endless war. Their success might prevent Teixcalaan’s destruction—and allow the empire to continue its rapacious expansion. Or it might create something far stranger….
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
Network Effect
by Martha WellsMartha Wells' New York Times and USA Today bestselling Murderbot series exploded onto the scene in 2017, and the world has not been the same, since.
Murderbot returns in its highly-anticipated, first, full-length standalone novel, Network Effect. You know that feeling when you’re at work, and you’ve had enough of people, and then the boss walks in with yet another job that needs to be done right this second or the world will end, but all you want to do is go home and binge your favorite shows? And you're a sentient murder machine programmed for destruction? Congratulations, you're Murderbot.
Come for the pew-pew space battles, stay for the most relatable A.I. you’ll read this century.—I’m usually alone in my head, and that’s where 90 plus percent of my problems are.
When Murderbot's human associates (not friends, never friends) are captured and another not-friend from its past requires urgent assistance, Murderbot must choose between inertia and drastic action.
Drastic action it is, then.
A New York Times Bestseller
The Calculating Stars
by Mary KowalOn a cold spring night in 1952, a huge meteorite fell to earth and obliterated much of the east coast of the United States, including Washington D.C. The ensuing climate cataclysm will soon render the earth inhospitable for humanity, as the last such meteorite did for the dinosaurs. This looming threat calls for a radically accelerated effort to colonize space, and requires a much larger share of humanity to take part in the process.
Elma York’s experience as a WASP pilot and mathematician earns her a place in the International Aerospace Coalition’s attempts to put man on the moon, as a calculator. But with so many skilled and experienced women pilots and scientists involved with the program, it doesn’t take long before Elma begins to wonder why they can’t go into space, too.
Elma’s drive to become the first Lady Astronaut is so strong that even the most dearly held conventions of society may not stand a chance against her.
A Memory Called Empire
by Arkady MartineAmbassador Mahit Dzmare arrives in the center of the multi-system Teixcalaanli Empire only to discover that her predecessor, the previous ambassador from their small but fiercely independent mining Station, has died. But no one will admit that his death wasn't an accident—or that Mahit might be next to die, during a time of political instability in the highest echelons of the imperial court.
Now, Mahit must discover who is behind the murder, rescue herself, and save her Station from Teixcalaan's unceasing expansion—all while navigating an alien culture that is all too seductive, engaging in intrigues of her own, and hiding a deadly technological secret—one that might spell the end of her Station and her way of life—or rescue it from annihilation.
A fascinating space opera debut novel, Arkady Martine's A Memory Called Empire is an interstellar mystery adventure.
"The most thrilling ride ever. This book has everything I love."—Charlie Jane Anders, author of All the Birds in the SkyAt the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
American Science Fiction: Four Classic Novels 1960-1966 (LOA #321)
by Poul Anderson and Clifford D. Simak and Daniel Keyes and Roger ZelasnyIn a deluxe collector's edition hardcover, four classic novels from science fiction's most transformative decade, including the landmark Flowers for AlgernonThis volume, the first of a two-volume set gathering the best American science fiction from the tumultuous 1960s, opens with Poul Anderson's immensely popular The High Crusade, in which aliens planning to conquer Earth land in Lincolnshire during the Hundred Years' War. In Clifford Simak's Hugo Award-winning Way Station, Enoch Wallace is a spry 124-year-old Civil War veteran whose lifelong job monitoring the intergalactic pit stop inside his home is largely uneventful--until a CIA agent shows up and Cold War hostilities threaten the peaceful harmony of the Galactic confederation. Daniel Keyes's beloved Flowers for Algernon, winner of the Nebula Award and adapted as the Academy Award-winning movie Charly, is told through the journal entries of Charlie Gordon, a young man with severe learning disabilities who is the test subject for surgery to improve his intelligence. And in the postapocalyptic earthscape of Roger Zelazny's Hugo Award-winning . . . And Call Me Conrad (also published as This Immortal) Conrad Nomikos reluctantly accepts the responsibility of showing the planet to the governing extraterrestrials' representative and protecting him from rebellious remnants of the human race. Using early manuscripts and original setting copy, this Library of America volume restores the novel to a version that most closely approximates Zelazny's original text.
Blue Mars
by Kim Stanley RobinsonWinner of the Hugo Award for Best Novel • Soon to be a series on Spike TV One of the most enthralling science fiction sagas ever written, Kim Stanley Robinson’s epic trilogy concludes with Blue Mars—a triumph of prodigious research and visionary storytelling. The red planet is no more. Now green and verdant, Mars has been dramatically altered from a desolate world into one where humans can flourish. The First Hundred settlers are being pulled into a fierce new struggle between the Reds, a group devoted to preserving Mars in its desert state, and the Green “terraformers.” Meanwhile, Earth is in peril. A great flood threatens an already overcrowded and polluted planet. With Mars the last hope for the human race, the inhabitants of the red planet are heading toward a population explosion—or interplanetary war. Praise for Blue Mars “A breakthrough even from [Robinson’s] own consistently high levels of achievement.”—The New York Times Book Review “Exhilarating . . . a complex and deeply engaging dramatization of humanity’s future.”—The Philadelphia Inquirer “[Blue Mars] brings the epic to a rousing conclusion.”—San Francisco ChronicleFrom the Paperback edition.
The Stone Sky
by N. K. JemisinThe shattering conclusion to the post-apocalyptic and highly acclaimed bestselling trilogy.
The Moon will soon return. Whether this heralds the destruction of humankind or something worse will depend on two women.Essun has inherited the power of Alabaster Tenring. With it, she hopes to find her daughter Nassun and forge a world in which every orogene child can grow up safe. For Nassun, her mother's mastery of the Obelisk Gate comes too late. She has seen the evil of the world, and accepted what her mother will not admit: that sometimes what is corrupt cannot be cleansed, only destroyed.THIS IS THE WAY THE WORLD ENDS... FOR THE LAST TIME.
Winner of the 2017 Nebula Award for Best Novel
Winner of the 2018 Hugo Award for Best Novel
The Obelisk Gate
by N. K. JemisinWinner of the 2017 Hugo Award for Best Novel
"Magnificent" - NPR
The acclaimed sequel to the bestselling The Fifth Season, winner of the 2016 Hugo Award for Best Novel, and a New York Times Notable Book of 2015.
THIS IS THE WAY THE WORLD ENDS, FOR THE LAST TIME.
The season of endings grows darker, as civilization fades into the long cold night.
Essun -- once Damaya, once Syenite, now avenger -- has found shelter, but not her daughter. Instead there is Alabaster Tenring, destroyer of the world, with a request. But if Essun does what he asks, it would seal the fate of the Stillness forever.
Far away, her daughter Nassun is growing in power - and her choices will break the world.
For more from N. K. Jemisin, check out:
The Inheritance Trilogy
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms
The Broken Kingdoms
The Kingdom of Gods
The Inheritance Trilogy (omnibus edition)
Shades in Shadow: An Inheritance Triptych (e-only short fiction)
The Awakened Kingdom (e-only novella)
Dreamblood Duology
The Killing Moon
The Shadowed Sun
The Broken Earth
The Fifth Season
The Obelisk Gate
The Stone Sky
Ringworld
by Larry NivenFOUR TRAVELERS COME TO THE RINGWORLD... Louis Wu — human and old; bored with having lived too fully for far too many years. Seeking a challenge, and all too capable of handling it. Nessus — a trembling coward, a puppeteer with a built-in survival pattern of nonviolence. Except that this particular puppeteer is insane. Teela Brown — human; a wide-eyed youngster with no allegiances, no experiences, no abilities. And all the luck in the world. Speaker-To-Animals — kzin; large, orange-furred, and carnivorous. And one of the most savage life-forms known in the galaxy.
Why did these disparate individuals come together? How could they possibly function together? And where, in the name of anything sane, were they headed?
Winner of the Hugo and Nebula awards.
Farmer in the Sky
by Robert A. HeinleinBill knew his destiny lay in the stars, but how was he to get there? George Lerner was shipping out for Ganymede to join the fledgling colony, and Bill wanted to go along. But his father would not hear of it -- far too dangerous a mission! Bill finally talked his way aboard the colony ship Mayflower -- and discovered his father was right!
Hugo Award Winner.
The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress
by Robert A. HeinleinRobert A. Heinlein was the most influential science fiction writer of his era. He won the Hugo Award for best novel four times, a record that still stands. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress was the last of these Hugo-winning novels, and it is widely considered his finest work.
It is a tale of revolution, of the rebellion of the former Lunar penal colony against the Lunar Authority that controls it from Earth. It is the tale of the disparate people--a computer technician, a vigorous young female agitator, and an elderly academic--who become the rebel movement's leaders. And it is the story of Mike, the supercomputer whose sentience is known only to this inner circle, and who for reasons of his own is committed to the revolution's ultimate success.
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is one of the high points of modern science fiction, a novel bursting with politics, humanity, passion, innovative technical speculation, and a firm belief in the pursuit of human freedom.
Winner of the 1967 Hugo Award for Best Novel.
The Forever War
by Joe Haldeman and John ScalziHe went off to war, but the Earth he came back to wasn't the one he left behind Man has taken to the stars. Deep in space, humans discover the fearsome Taurans after a transport ship is destroyed
To combat the threat, humanity sends in the United Nations Exploratory Force -- a highly trained unit built for revenge. Conscripted into the service, physics student William Mandella fights for his planet against the alien force light years away. However, because of the relative passage of time when one travels at incredibly high speed, the Earth he returns to after his two-year experience has progressed decades and is foreign to him in disturbing ways.
Based in part on the author's experiences in Vietnam, The Forever War is regarded as one of the greatest military science fiction novels ever written, perfectly capturing the alienation that servicemen and women experience even now upon returning home from battle.
The Forever War shines a light not only on the culture of the 1970s, the era in which it was written, but also on our potential future. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Joe Haldeman including rare images from the author's personal collection, as well as a Foreword by John Scalzi.
Winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards.
Slan
by A. E. Van VogtThe Slans are a super-race, capable of mind-reading, and equipped with bodies many times more resistant to fatigue than ordinary mortals. But they live in constant fear of discovery, for the rewards are great if anyone should capture a Slan, dead or alive. Jommy Cross was their only hope. He alone had the secret of his father's invention; he alone was capable of proving that the Slans' knowledge could benefit mankind.
Hugo Award Winner
Ender's World
by Orson Scott Card and Neal Shusterman and Mary Robinette Kowal and Janis Ian and Aaron Johnston and Eric James StoneExperience the thrill of reading Ender's Game all over againGo deeper into the complexities of Orson Scott Card's classic novel with science fiction and fantasy writers, YA authors, military strategists, including:
Ender prequel series coauthor Aaron Johnston on Ender and the evolution of the child hero. Burn Notice creator Matt Nix on Ender's Game as a guide to life. Hugo award-winning writer Mary Robinette Kowal on how Ender's Game gets away with breaking all the (literary) rules. Retired US Air Force Colonel Tom Ruby on what the military could learn from Ender about leadership. Bestselling YA author Neal Shusterman on the ambivalence toward survival that lies at the heart of Ender's story.
Plus pieces by Hilari Bel, John Brown, Mette Ivie Harrison, Janis Ian, Alethea Kontis, David Lubar and Alison S. Myers, John F. Schmitt, Ken Scholes, and Eric James Stone.
Also includes never-before-seen content from Orson Scott Card on the writing and evolution of the events in Ender's Game, from the design of Battle School to the mindset of the pilots who sacrificed themselves in humanity's fight against the formics. Hugo and Nebula Awards winner.
The Left Hand of Darkness
by Ursula K. Le GuinWinner of the Hugo and Nebula AwardsA groundbreaking work of science fiction, The Left Hand of Darkness tells the story of a lone human emissary to Winter, an alien world whose inhabitants can change their gender. His goal is to facilitate Winter's inclusion in a growing intergalactic civilization. But to do so he must bridge the gulf between his own views and those of the completely dissimilar culture that he encounters. Embracing the aspects of psychology, society, and human emotion on an alien world, The Left Hand of Darkness stands as a landmark achievement in the annals of intellectual science fiction.
The Diamond Age
by Neal StephensonDecades into our future, a stone's throw from the ancient city of Shanghai, a brilliant nanotechnologist named John Percival Hackworth has just broken the rigorous moral code of his tribe, the powerful neoVictorians. He's made an illicit copy of a state-of-the-art interactive device called A Young Ladys Illustrated Primer Commissioned by an eccentric duke for his grandchild, stolen for Hackworth's own daughter, the Primer's purpose is to educate and raise a girl capable of thinking for herself. It performs its function superbly. Unfortunately for Hackworth, his smuggled copy has fallen into the wrong hands.
Young Nell and her brother Harv are thetes — members of the poor, tribeless class. Neglected by their mother, Harv looks after Nell. When he and his gang waylay a certain neo-Victorian — John Percival Hackworth — in the seamy streets of their neighborhood, Harv brings Nell something special: the Primer.
Following the discovery of his crime, Hackworth begins an odyssey of his own. Expelled from the neo-Victorian paradise, squeezed by agents of Protocol Enforcement on one side and a Mandarin underworld crime lord on the other, he searches for an elusive figure known as the Alchemist. His quest and Nell's will ultimately lead them to another seeker whose fate is bound up with the Primer — a woman who holds the key to a vast, subversive information network that is destined to decode and reprogram the future of humanity.
Vividly imagined, stunningly prophetic, and epic in scope, The Diamond Age is a major novel from one of the most visionary writers of our time.
Hugo Award winner.
A Deepness in the Sky
by Vernor VingeAfter thousands of years searching, humans stand on the verge of first contact with an alien race. Two human groups: the Qeng Ho, a culture of free traders, and the Emergents, a ruthless society based on the technological enslavement of minds.The group that opens trade with the aliens will reap unimaginable riches. But first, both groups must wait at the aliens' very doorstep for their strange star to relight and for their planet to reawaken, as it does every two hundred and fifty years....Then, following terrible treachery, the Qeng Ho must fight for their freedom and for the lives of the unsuspecting innocents on the planet below, while the aliens themselves play a role unsuspected by the Qeng Ho and Emergents alike.More than just a great science fiction adventure, A Deepness in the Sky is a universal drama of courage, self-discovery, and the redemptive power of love.
A Deepness in the Sky is a 1999 Nebula Award Nominee for Best Novel and the winner of the 2000 Hugo Award for Best Novel.
Lord of Light
by Roger ZelaznyEarth is long since dead. On a colony planet, a band of men has gained control of technology, made themselves immortal, and now rules their world as the gods of the Hindu pantheon. Only one dares oppose them: he who was once Siddhartha and is now Mahasamatman. Binder of Demons. Lord of Light.
Hugo Award winner.
Fahrenheit 451
by Ray BradburyRay Bradbury's internationally acclaimed novel Fahrenheit 451 is a masterwork of 20th century literature set in a bleak, dystopian future.
Guy Montag is a fireman. In his world, where television rules and literature is on the brink of extinction, firemen start fires rather than put them out. His job is to destroy the most illegal of commodities, the printed book, along with the houses in which they are hidden.
Montag never questions the destruction and ruin his actions produce, returning each day to his bland life and wife, Mildred, who spends all day with her television "family." But then he meets an eccentric young neighbor, Clarisse, who introduces him to a past where people didn't live in fear and to a present where one sees the world through the ideas in books instead of the mindless chatter of television.
When Mildred attempts suicide and Clarisse suddenly disappears, Montag begins to question everything he has ever known. He starts hiding books in his home, and when his pilfering is discovered, the fireman has to run for his life.
Hugo Award winner.
Dreamsnake
by Vonda N. McintyreThis is the haunting story of an extraordinary woman and her dangerous quest to reclaim her healing powers. Revered healer Snake must undertake a journey in search of the dreamsnake, whose bite eases the fear and pain of death.
Winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards.
Barrayar
by Lois Mcmaster BujoldSequel to Shards of Honor, chronicling the events leading up to Miles Naismith Vorkosigan's birth.
Cordelia Vorkosigan's plans for a peaceful married life (after all the bloodshed and trials recounted in SHARDS OF HONOR) are shattered when a poison gas attack, intended for her husband Aral, leaves her ill and her unborn child damaged. Resisting enormous pressure to abort her son, Cordelia struggles to keep her unborn child--transferred to a uterine replicator--alive while thwarting plans by a ruthless opponent to murder the young emperor and assume absolute power over all of Barrayar. Once again Cordelia displays her courage and her remarkable combat and leadership skills.
Winner of the Hugo Award for Best Novel.
Speaker for the Dead
by Orson Scott CardIn the aftermath of his terrible war, Ender Wiggin disappeared, and a powerful voice arose: The Speaker for the Dead, who told the true story of the Bugger War.
Now, long years later, a second alien race has been discovered, but again the aliens' ways are strange and frightening...again, humans die. And it is only the Speaker for the Dead, who is also Ender Wiggin the Xenocide, who has the courage to confront the mystery...and the truth.
Speaker for the Dead, the second novel in Orson Scott Card's Ender Quintet, is the winner of the 1986 Nebula Award for Best Novel and the 1987 Hugo Award for Best Novel.
Forever Peace
by Joe Haldeman2043 A.D.: The Ngumi War rages. A burned-out soldier and his scientist lover discover a secret that could put the universe back to square one. And it is not terrifying. It is tempting...
Hugo and Nebula Award winner.
Cyteen
by C. J. CherryhFor fifty years, Dr. Ariane Emory has dominated politics on Cyteen Station because she controls Reseune. Then she is assassinated. Ariane Emory is dead. But not for long.
Hugo Award winner.
Among Others
by Jo WaltonWinner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards for Best Novel. Startling, unusual, and yet irresistibly readable, Among Others is at once the compelling story of a young woman struggling to escape a troubled childhood, a brilliant diary of first encounters with the great novels of modern fantasy and SF, and a spellbinding tale of escape from ancient enchantment.
Raised by a half-mad mother who dabbled in magic, Morwenna Phelps found refuge in two worlds. As a child growing up in Wales, she played among the spirits who made their homes in industrial ruins. But her mind found freedom and promise in the science fiction novels that were her closest companions. Then her mother tried to bend the spirits to dark ends, and Mori was forced to confront her in a magical battle that left her crippled -- and her twin sister dead.
Fleeing to her father whom she barely knew, Mori was sent to boarding school in England-a place all but devoid of true magic. There, outcast and alone, she tempted fate by doing magic herself, in an attempt to find a circle of like-minded friends. But her magic also drew the attention of her mother, bringing about a reckoning that could no longer be put off...
Combining elements of autobiography with flights of imagination in the manner of novels like Jonathan Lethem's The Fortress of Solitude, this is potentially a breakout book for an author whose genius has already been hailed by peers like Kelly Link, Sarah Weinman, and Ursula K. Le Guin.
One of School Library Journal's Best Adult Books 4 Teens titles of 2011. One of io9's best Science Fiction & Fantasy books of the year 2011.