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Award-Winning Science Fiction @ your
library®
With the last episode of Star
Wars on the way to the theaters, following on the heels of the
movie adaptation of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy,
science fiction fans are having a good springtime. However, if
big screen special effects are not your cup of tea, then you may
wish to
settle down with these books, all of which have won both the Hugo and
Nebula awards - the top honors for science fiction and fantasy.
Click on the book title or the cover art to see if your library
has a copy on the shelf right now, waiting to be read.
Paladin of Souls by Lois McMaster
Bujold.
In this sequel to The Curse of
Chalion (2001), rich in sumptuous detail and speculative
theology, dowager Royina Ista Dy Baocia undertakes a
pilgrimage to ease her soul - and finds instead that in Chalion, Bujold's handsomely crafted fantasy world ruled by
Five Gods "just around some strange corner of perception," a
more dangerous fate awaits than she could ever have
imagined.
2004 Hugo and Nebula |
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American Gods : a novel by Neil
Gaiman.
A master of inventive fiction pens the story of an ex-con
who is offered a job as a bodyguard for Mr. Wednesday, a
trickster and a rogue. Shadow soon learns that his role in
the man's schemes are far more dangerous and dark than he
could have ever imagined.
2002 Hugo and Nebula |
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Forever Peace by Joe W.
Haldeman
In the year 2043, the Ngumi War rages,
fought by "soldierboys" - indestructible war machines run by
remote control by soldiers hundreds of miles away. Julian
Class is one of these soldiers. The psychological strain of
being jacked-in to his soldierboy - and the genocidal
results - are becoming too much to bear. Now he and Dr.
Amelia Harding, have made a terrifying scientific discovery
that could literally put the universe back to square one.
For Julian, however, the discovery isn't terrifying. It's
tempting.
1998 Hugo and Nebula |
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Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card
Card's novel Ender's Game introduced
EnderWiggin, a young genius who used his military prowess to
all but exterminate the ``buggers,'' the first alien race
mankind had ever encountered. Wiggin then transformed
himself into the ``Speaker for the Dead,'' who claimed it
had been a mistake to destroy the alien civilization. Many
years later, when a new breed of intelligent life forms
called the ``piggies'' is discovered, Wiggin takes the
opportunity to atone for his earlier actions.
1986 Hugo and 1987 Nebula |
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Neuromancer by William
Gibson
This multiple award-winning novel
is the first fully-realized glimpse of humankind's digital
future . . . a shocking vision that has challenged our
assumptions about technology and forever altered the
landscape of our imaginations. This book popularized
the term "cyberspace".
1984 Nebula and 1985 Hugo |
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Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C.
Clarke
A huge, mysterious,
cylindrical object appears in space, swooping in
toward the sun. The citizens of the solar system send
a ship to investigate before the enigmatic craft,
called Rama, disappears. The astronauts given the task
of exploring the hollow cylindrical ship are able to
decipher some, but definitely not all, of the
extraterrestrial vehicle's puzzles. From the
ubiquitous trilateral symmetry of its structures to
its cylindrical sea and machine-island, Rama's secrets
are strange evidence of an advanced civilization.
1972 Nebula and 1973 Hugo |
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Ringworld by Larry
Niven
A new place is being built, a world of huge
dimensions, encompassing millions of miles, stronger
than any planet before it. There is gravity, and with
high walls and its proximity to the sun, a livable new
planet that is three million times the area of the
Earth can be formed. Two humans and two aliens, who
are traveling to distant reaches of space to prevent a
future catastrophe, crash on Ringworld apparently
created by superior technologies.
1970 Nebula and 1971 Hugo |
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Dune by Frank Herbert
First in a series, Dune tells the sweeping
tale of a desert planet called Arrakis, the focus of
an intricate power struggle in a byzantine
interstellar empire. Arrakis is the sole source of
Melange, the "spice of spices." Melange is necessary
for interstellar travel and grants psychic powers and
longevity, so whoever controls it wields great
influence. Winner of the first
Nebula Award.
1965 Nebula, 1966 Hugo |
Posted 5/07/2005
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