After a disastrous planet-wide war, Earth is nothing more than an elite graveyard—but Fletcher Carson is venturing back in search of a vital bounty. Fletcher, a former artist, is joined by a sentient machine, an ancient, powerful robot, and a treasure-seeking beauty. They soon discover that Earth harbors more than the carefully groomed tombstones. In the wild land beyond the cemetery there are dangerous machines, mutant creatures, and even humans who never left their home planet.

After a night out on the town, Parker Graves returns home to life-threatening danger. The science reporter for the local newspaper barely misses a bear trap sitting on his doorstep. Then, the object transforms into what looks like a bowling ball and rolls off into the night all by itself. He begins to obsess over the question—Who put the trap there? And why? The following day, there is strange news floating around at the newspaper office. Someone with limitless funds is buying up hundreds of homes and businesses, only to close them up and tear them down.

Forestry student Jerry Conklin is fly-fishing when something huge lands on his car, crushing it into the earth. It looks like a big black box-about fifty feet high and two hundred feet long-and the object stirs up quite a commotion among the townspeople of Lone Pine, Minnesota. One of them even shoots at it-and quickly pays for it with his life.

Robot believers at the far end of the galaxy endeavor to create a true religion, but their efforts could be shattered by a shocking revelation. Far in the future, on the remote planet End of Nothing, sentient robots are engaged in a remarkable enterprise. They call their project Vatican-17: an endeavor to create a truly universal religion presided over by a pope, whose extreme godliness and infallible artificial intelligence are fed by telepathic human Listeners who psychically delve into the mysteries of the universe.

For thousands of years, Carter Horton has been traveling across the galaxy toward a distant world capable of supporting human life. At journey's end, awakened from his millennia-long sleep by a curiously adaptive android, he is informed that his crewmates have all perished due to a system malfunction. But worse is yet to come: Horton's sentient ship is refusing to return him to Earth, and a strangely cordial predator is waiting for him on the planet's surface.

In rural Wisconsin, wonder clashes dangerously with corporate greed when an alien visitor opens up a gateway through time into a breathtaking prehistoric lost world. On sabbatical from teaching at a small university, paleontologist Asa Steele is content to relax amid the pastoral splendor of his Wisconsin farm. That is until his dog starts bringing home unrecognizable artifacts and, strangest of all, fresh dinosaur bones.

Twenty years ago, Asher Sutton vanished somewhere in the star system 61 Cygni, an inaccessible corner of the universe that humankind has thus far been unable to explore. Now Asher has returned to Earth, having impossibly survived catastrophic damage to his spacecraft. But the star traveler is not the same man he was when he began his journey two decades earlier. He is, in fact, no longer completely human. And he isn't alone.

Space travel has been abandoned in the 22nd century. It is deemed too dangerous, expensive, and inconvenient - and now the all-powerful Fishhook company holds the monopoly on interstellar exploration for commercial gain. Their secret is the use of "parries", human beings with the remarkable telepathic ability to expand their minds throughout the universe.

Nothing much ever happens in Millville, a small, secluded middle-American community - until the day Brad Carter discovers he is unable to leave. It's not just the nearly bankrupt real estate agent who's being held prisoner; every other resident is also being confined within the town's boundaries by an invisible force field that cannot be breached. As local tensions rapidly reach a breaking point, a set of bizarre circumstances leads Brad to the source of their captivity.

Following a conversation with a talking slot machine, Professor Edward Lansing finds himself mysteriously transported to a tavern on a long and empty road. It is immediately obvious to the educator that he is no longer on campus - or even Earth - and that he is not alone. Lansing's new companions - a female engineer, a military officer, a humorless priest, a poetess, and a robot named Jurgens - all hail from separate alternate realities and share Lansing's confusion.

Millions of years beyond our time, our Earth has long since stopped spinning—and giant flora have taken over the sunlit half of the motionless world. Here humans are among the very few animal species that still exist, struggling to survive against enormous odds, but they have become small and weak, and their numbers have dwindled to almost nothing. When the aging leader of Gren's tribe decrees it is time for the old ones to go "Up," the younger are left to make their own way below.

A handful of humans and a multitude of robots create a new society on a mysteriously abandoned Earth in this breathtaking science fiction classic from one of the genre's acknowledged masters. What if you woke up one morning on Earth...and no one else was there? That is the reality that greeted a handful of humans, including Jason Whitney, his wife Martha, and the remnants of a tribe of Native Americans in the year 2135.

The long and prolific career of Clifford D. Simak cemented him as one of the formative voices of the science fiction and fantasy genre. The third writer to be named a Grand Master by the Science Fiction Writers of America, his literary legacy stands alongside those of Robert A. Heinlein and Ray Bradbury. This striking collection of nine tales showcases Simak's ability to take the everyday and turn it into something truly compelling, taking listeners on a long journey in a very short time.

Since the dawn of mankind, immortality has been the ultimate reward. But by the year 2148, it requires no act of faith to believe in an afterlife. Forever Center promises to bring people back to a life beyond death. Now everyone spends their lives in poverty, giving all their money to Forever Center to ensure their happiness and comfort in the next eternal life.

In an alternate Europe where the Roman Empire never fell, the expansive Empty Lands are inhabited by forces known collectively as the Evil. Yet Charles Harcourt is honor-bound to venture into that dangerous area to find his long-lost fiancee. He is joined on his trek by an abbot who hopes to locate a crystal prism that hold the soul of a saint; the non-human Knurly Man, who craves release from his pitiful existence; and the beautiful Yolanda, who seeks the answer to a secret mystery.

Ryland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission - and if he fails, humanity and the Earth itself will perish. Except that right now, he doesn't know that. He can't even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it. All he knows is that he's been asleep for a very, very long time. And he's just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company.

It’s 1984, and life has changed beyond recognition. Airstrip One, formerly known as Great Britain, is a place where Big Brother is always watching, and nobody can hide. Except, perhaps, for Winston Smith. Whilst working at the Ministry of Truth, rewriting history, he secretly dreams of freedom. And in a world where love and sex are forbidden, where it’s hard to distinguish between friend and foe, he meets Julia and O’Brien and vows to rebel.

Six days ago, astronaut Mark Watney became one of the first people to walk on Mars. Now, he's sure he'll be the first person to die there. After a dust storm nearly kills him and forces his crew to evacuate while thinking him dead, Mark finds himself stranded and completely alone with no way to even signal Earth that he’s alive - and even if he could get word out, his supplies would be gone long before a rescue could arrive. But Mark isn't ready to give up yet.

Inheriting your uncle's supervillain business is more complicated than you might think. Particularly when you discover who's running the place. Charlie's life is going nowhere fast. A divorced substitute teacher living with his cat in a house his siblings want to sell, all he wants is to open a pub downtown, if only the bank will approve his loan. Then his long-lost uncle Jake dies and leaves his supervillain business (complete with island volcano lair) to Charlie. But becoming a supervillain isn't all giant laser death rays and lava pits.

Jazz Bashara is a criminal. Well, sort of. Life on Artemis, the first and only city on the moon, is tough if you're not a rich tourist or an eccentric billionaire. So smuggling in the occasional harmless bit of contraband barely counts, right? Not when you've got debts to pay and your job as a porter barely covers the rent. Everything changes when Jazz sees the chance to commit the perfect crime, with a reward too lucrative to turn down.

Forestry student Jerry Conklin is fly-fishing when something huge lands on his car, crushing it into the earth. It looks like a big black box-about fifty feet high and two hundred feet long-and the object stirs up quite a commotion among the townspeople of Lone Pine, Minnesota. One of them even shoots at it-and quickly pays for it with his life.

After a disastrous planet-wide war, Earth is nothing more than an elite graveyard—but Fletcher Carson is venturing back in search of a vital bounty. Fletcher, a former artist, is joined by a sentient machine, an ancient, powerful robot, and a treasure-seeking beauty. They soon discover that Earth harbors more than the carefully groomed tombstones. In the wild land beyond the cemetery there are dangerous machines, mutant creatures, and even humans who never left their home planet.

After a night out on the town, Parker Graves returns home to life-threatening danger. The science reporter for the local newspaper barely misses a bear trap sitting on his doorstep. Then, the object transforms into what looks like a bowling ball and rolls off into the night all by itself. He begins to obsess over the question—Who put the trap there? And why? The following day, there is strange news floating around at the newspaper office. Someone with limitless funds is buying up hundreds of homes and businesses, only to close them up and tear them down.

In an alternate Europe where the Roman Empire never fell, the expansive Empty Lands are inhabited by forces known collectively as the Evil. Yet Charles Harcourt is honor-bound to venture into that dangerous area to find his long-lost fiancee. He is joined on his trek by an abbot who hopes to locate a crystal prism that hold the soul of a saint; the non-human Knurly Man, who craves release from his pitiful existence; and the beautiful Yolanda, who seeks the answer to a secret mystery.

Adventurers journey into the foreboding unknown regions of outer space in these two classic science fiction tales from the Hugo and Nebula Award winning author.

Since the dawn of mankind, immortality has been the ultimate reward. But by the year 2148, it requires no act of faith to believe in an afterlife. Forever Center promises to bring people back to a life beyond death. Now everyone spends their lives in poverty, giving all their money to Forever Center to ensure their happiness and comfort in the next eternal life.

Jenkins was a robot. He was built to be the perfect worker, tireless and uncomplaining. But, quite unexpectedly, he also became a close companion to generation after generation of his owners as the human race matured, moved beyond the confines of its once tiny planet, and eventually changed beyond all recognition.

The hunt for his killer leads a dead professor of supernatural phenomena into the perilous intrigues of aliens, fairy folk, and time travelers in this classic of science fiction. Until the day he was murdered, Professor Peter Maxwell was a respected faculty member of the College of Supernatural Phenomena. Imagine his chagrin when he turns up at a Wisconsin matter transmission station several weeks later and discovers he's not only dead but unemployed.

For thousands of years, Carter Horton has been traveling across the galaxy toward a distant world capable of supporting human life. At journey's end, awakened from his millennia-long sleep by a curiously adaptive android, he is informed that his crewmates have all perished due to a system malfunction. But worse is yet to come: Horton's sentient ship is refusing to return him to Earth, and a strangely cordial predator is waiting for him on the planet's surface.

In this Hugo Award-winning classic, Enoch Wallace is an ageless hermit, striding across his untended farm as he had done for over a century, still carrying the gun with which he had served in the Civil War. But what his neighbors must never know is that, inside his unchanging house, he meets with a host of unimaginable friends from the farthest stars.

In an alternate world where the Dark Ages never ended, "the Evil" that arises every 500 years has prevented all manner of technological advancement, even well into the 20th century. The son of a powerful English noble, young Duncan Standish has always longed to be a soldier of the Lord, and now he's been offered a rare opportunity to fulfill his dream.

Space travel has been abandoned in the 22nd century. It is deemed too dangerous, expensive, and inconvenient - and now the all-powerful Fishhook company holds the monopoly on interstellar exploration for commercial gain. Their secret is the use of "parries", human beings with the remarkable telepathic ability to expand their minds throughout the universe.

People work; folk play. That is how it has been in this country for as long as Sam can remember. He is happy, and he understands that this is the way it should be. People are bigger than folk. They are stronger. They do not need food or water. They do not need the warmth of a fire. All they need are jobs to do and a blacksmith to fix them when they break. The people work so the folk can drink their moonshine, fish a little, and throw horseshoes. But once Sam starts to wonder why the world is like this, his life will never be the same.

A scholar, a goblin, and a gnome, among others, pursue the secrets of a vanished ancient race through a wasteland of dark magic in this enthralling fantasy quest adventure. On an Earth that is different from ours, the young scholar Mark Cornwall becomes a target of the Inquisition and, specifically, its most evil and obsessed agent, Beckett. Damned for asking questions, Mark is forced to escape over the border into the Wastelands, a magical realm that is home to all manner of flesh-devouring monsters.

Nothing much ever happens in Millville, a small, secluded middle-American community - until the day Brad Carter discovers he is unable to leave. It's not just the nearly bankrupt real estate agent who's being held prisoner; every other resident is also being confined within the town's boundaries by an invisible force field that cannot be breached. As local tensions rapidly reach a breaking point, a set of bizarre circumstances leads Brad to the source of their captivity.