New York Times bestselling author Gregory Benford creates an alternate history about the creation of the atomic bomb that explores what could have happened if the bomb was ready to be used by June 6, 1944.
Karl Cohen, a chemist and mathematician who is part of The Manhattan Project team, has discovered an alternate solution for creating the uranium isotope needed to cause a chain reaction: U-235.
After convincing General Groves of his new method, Cohen and his team of scientists work at Oak Ridge preparing to have a nuclear bomb ready to drop by the summer of 1944 in an effort to stop the war on the western front. What ensues is an altered account of World War II in this taut thriller.
Combining fascinating science with intimate and true accounts of several members of The Manhattan Project, The Berlin Project is an astounding novel that reimagines history and what could have happened if the atom bomb was ready in time to stop Hitler from killing millions of people.
Gregory Benford and David Brin come together in this bold collaboration about our near human future in space
Prescient and scientifically accurate, Heart of the Comet is known as one of the great hard SF novels of the 1980s. First published in 1986, it tells the story of an ambitious manned mission to visit Halley’s Comet, alter its orbit, and mine it for resources. But all too soon, native cells—that might once have brought life to Earth—begin colonizing the colonists. As factions battle over the comet’s future—and that of Earth—only love, courage, and ingenuity can avert disaster and spark a new human destiny.
“A literary conjunction of two of the brightest stars in the science fiction firmament.”—Los Angeles Times
The award-winning author of Timescape and Eater returns with a gripping new novel set in the same dynamic future as his wildly popular The Martian Race.
Their historic mission to Mars made Julia and Victor the most famous astronauts of all time. Now, decades later, they are ordered by the Consortium to Pluto, where they will rendezvous with another starship led by the brilliant, arrogant Captain Shanna Axelrod. Here, on the frozen ammonia shore of Pluto’s methane sea, Shanna has discovered intelligent creatures thriving in the -300° degree temperatures. But even as their findings shift from the amazing to the inconceivable, the two crews must overcome their own intense rivalry to work together, for the most remote reaches of the solar system are filled with unimaginable wonders … and countless forces that will crush all human life.
“Benford is a scientist who writes with verve and insight not only about black holes and cosmic strings but about human desires and fears.”—New York Times Book Review
From the Nebula Award–winning author of Timescape and Foundation’s Fear comes a hard-science thriller about the race to Mars.
When an explosion of the rocket launching the Mars Transit Vehicle kills four crewmen, the US decides to redirect its energies to near-Earth projects, killing the manned mission to Mars. But tycoon John Axelrod assembles a consortium to fund the project, and he expects to net billions. But a European-Asian airbus will make a similar expedition. Now, the race is on to get to the Red Planet first.
“Writes with verve and insight not only about black holes and cosmic strings but about human desires and fears.”—New York Times Book Review
Winner of both the Nebula Award and the John W. Campbell Award for best science fiction novel, Timescape is an enduring classic that examines the ways that science interacts with everyday life to create the many strange worlds in which we live. In a future wracked by environmental catastrophe and social instability, physicist John Renfrew devises a longshot plan to use tachyons--strange, time-traveling particles--to send a warning to the past. In 1962, Gordon Bernstein, a California researcher, gets Renfrew's message as a strange pattern of interference in an experiment he's conducting. As the two men struggle to overcome both the limitations of scientific knowledge and the politics of scientific research, a larger question looms: can a new future arise from the paradox of a forewarned past? With multiple plot lines and diverse characters, Timescape offers something for all lovers of fascinating science and great fiction. Simon Prebble and Peter Bradbury combine for a narration that skillfully uncovers the mysteries beneath our understanding of the universe.
