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A millennium into the future two advancements have altered the course of human history: the colonization of the galaxy and the creation of the positronic brain. Isaac Asimov's Robot novels chronicle the unlikely partnership between a New York City detective and a humanoid robot who must learn to work together. Like most people left behind on an over-populated Earth, New York City police detective Elijah Baley had little love for either the arrogant Spacers or their robotic companions.
Biron Farrell was young and naïve, but he was growing up fast. A radiation bomb planted in his dorm room changed him from an innocent student at the University of Earth to a marked man, fleeing desperately from an unknown assassin. He soon discovers that, many light-years away, his father has been murdered. Stunned, grief-stricken, and outraged, Biron is determined to uncover the reasons behind his father's death.
For 12,000 years the Galactic Empire has ruled supreme. Now it is dying. But only Hari Sheldon, creator of the revolutionary science of psychohistory, can see into the future, to a dark age of ignorance, barbarism, and warfare that will last 30,000 years. To preserve knowledge and save mankind, Seldon gathers the best minds in the Empire, both scientists and scholars, and brings them to a bleak planet at the edge of the Galaxy to serve as a beacon of hope for a fututre generations.
The Fissure connecting the alternate New York to its counterpart has vanished, plunging the city into a deep freeze. The people are demanding a return to Prohibition and rationing as energy supplies dwindle.
Meanwhile, in the real 1954 New York, the political dynamic has changed. Nimrod finds his department subsumed by a radical new group, Atoms For Peace, led by the mysterious Evelyn McHale. Their goal is simple: total conquest - or destruction - of the Empire State.
Only a few know the terrifying truth - an outcast Earth scientist, a rebellious alien inhabitant of a dying planet, a lunar-born human intuitionist who senses the imminent annihilation of the Sun... They know the truth - but who will listen? They have foreseen the cost of abundant energy - but who will believe?These few beings, human and alien, hold the key to the Earth's survival.
Johannes Cabal, a brilliant scientist and notorious snob, is single-mindedly obsessed in heart and soul with raising the dead. Well, perhaps not soul... He hastily sold his years ago in order to learn the laws of necromancy. But now, tormented by a dark secret, he travels to the fiery pits of Hell to retrieve it. Satan, who is incredibly bored these days, proposes a little wager: Johannes has one year to persuade 100 people to sign over their souls or he will be damned forever.
A millennium into the future two advancements have altered the course of human history: the colonization of the galaxy and the creation of the positronic brain. Isaac Asimov's Robot novels chronicle the unlikely partnership between a New York City detective and a humanoid robot who must learn to work together. Like most people left behind on an over-populated Earth, New York City police detective Elijah Baley had little love for either the arrogant Spacers or their robotic companions.
Biron Farrell was young and naïve, but he was growing up fast. A radiation bomb planted in his dorm room changed him from an innocent student at the University of Earth to a marked man, fleeing desperately from an unknown assassin. He soon discovers that, many light-years away, his father has been murdered. Stunned, grief-stricken, and outraged, Biron is determined to uncover the reasons behind his father's death.
For 12,000 years the Galactic Empire has ruled supreme. Now it is dying. But only Hari Sheldon, creator of the revolutionary science of psychohistory, can see into the future, to a dark age of ignorance, barbarism, and warfare that will last 30,000 years. To preserve knowledge and save mankind, Seldon gathers the best minds in the Empire, both scientists and scholars, and brings them to a bleak planet at the edge of the Galaxy to serve as a beacon of hope for a fututre generations.
The Fissure connecting the alternate New York to its counterpart has vanished, plunging the city into a deep freeze. The people are demanding a return to Prohibition and rationing as energy supplies dwindle.
Meanwhile, in the real 1954 New York, the political dynamic has changed. Nimrod finds his department subsumed by a radical new group, Atoms For Peace, led by the mysterious Evelyn McHale. Their goal is simple: total conquest - or destruction - of the Empire State.
Only a few know the terrifying truth - an outcast Earth scientist, a rebellious alien inhabitant of a dying planet, a lunar-born human intuitionist who senses the imminent annihilation of the Sun... They know the truth - but who will listen? They have foreseen the cost of abundant energy - but who will believe?These few beings, human and alien, hold the key to the Earth's survival.
Johannes Cabal, a brilliant scientist and notorious snob, is single-mindedly obsessed in heart and soul with raising the dead. Well, perhaps not soul... He hastily sold his years ago in order to learn the laws of necromancy. But now, tormented by a dark secret, he travels to the fiery pits of Hell to retrieve it. Satan, who is incredibly bored these days, proposes a little wager: Johannes has one year to persuade 100 people to sign over their souls or he will be damned forever.
When prospector Bob Broadhead went out to Gateway on the Heechee spacecraft, he decided he would know which was the right mission to make him his fortune. Three missions later, now famous and permanently rich, Robinette Broadhead has to face what happened to him and what he is...in a journey into himself as perilous and even more horrifying than the nightmare trip through the interstellar void that he drove himself to take!
From the writer whose name is synonymous with the science of robotics comes five decades of robot visions - 36 landmark stories and essays, plus three rare tales - gathered together in one volume.
A robopsychologist must outwit a machine determined to stay hidden in "Little Lost Robot"; a woman’s talent for "Light Verse" overshadows her true accomplishments with her robot servants; "The Last Question" presented to computer after computer over a hundred billion years may remain forever unanswered … and seventeen more future visions from the grand master of science fiction.
The first book in the landmark Expanse series, now a major television series from Syfy! Leviathan Wakes is James S. A. Corey's first novel in the epic New York Times best-selling series The Expanse, a modern masterwork of science fiction in which humanity has colonized the solar system.
Mary Jekyll, alone and penniless following her parents' deaths, is curious about the secrets of her father's mysterious past. One clue in particular hints that Edward Hyde, her father's former friend and a murderer, may be nearby, and there is a reward for information leading to his capture...a reward that would solve all of her immediate financial woes. But her hunt leads her to Hyde's daughter, Diana, a feral child left to be raised by nuns.
When out-of-shape IT technician Roen wakes up and starts hearing voices in his head, he naturally assumes he’s losing it. He isn’t. As of last night, he has a passenger in his brain - an ancient alien life-form called Tao, whose race crash-landed on Earth before the first fish crawled out of the oceans. Over the millennia his people have trained human heroes to be great leaders, to advance our species at a rate far beyond what it would have achieved on its own. Split into two opposing factions - the peace-loving, but under-represented Prophus, and the savage, powerful Genjix - the aliens have been in a state of civil war for centuries.
A supernatural swarm. A treacherous scheme. A tinker's apprentice may be the village's only hope. This collection includes Steamborn, Steamforged, and Steamsworn. Grab it and crank up a whimsical thrill-ride today!
In this full-cast production of the classic pulp novel, The Shadow investigates as, one by one, the partners in a chemical company die mysterious deaths. The plot of Partners of Peril and much of the action is almost identical to "The Case of the Chemical Syndicate", the very first Batman story in Detective Comics #27, which appeared some years later.
The folks in Mike Erikson's small New England town would say he's just your average, everyday guy. And that's exactly how Mike likes it. Sure, the life he's chosen isn't much of a challenge to someone with his unique gifts, but he's content with his quiet and peaceful existence. That is, until an old friend presents him with an irresistible mystery, one that Mike is uniquely qualified to solve.
In a world full of super powers, Felix has a pretty crappy one. He has the ability to modify any item he owns. To upgrade anything. Sounds great on paper. Almost like a video game. Except that the amount of power it takes to actually change, modify, or upgrade anything worthwhile is beyond his abilities. With that in mind, Felix settled into a normal life. A normal job. His entire world changes when the city he lives in is taken over by a super villain. Becoming a country of one city. A city state.
The ex-planet Pluto has a few choice words about being thrown out of the solar system. A listing of alternate histories tells you all the various ways Hitler has died. A lawyer sues an interplanetary union for dangerous working conditions. And four artificial intelligences explain, in increasingly worrying detail, how they plan not to destroy humanity. Welcome to Miniatures: The Very Short Fiction of John Scalzi.
Here is the novel that will be forever considered a triumph of the imagination. Set on the desert planet Arrakis, Dune is the story of the boy Paul Atreides, who would become the mysterious man known as Maud'dib. He would avenge the traitorous plot against his noble family and would bring to fruition humankind's most ancient and unattainable dream.
The Empire State is the other New York.
It’s a parallel-universe, Prohibition-era world of mooks and shamuses that is the twisted magic mirror to our bustling Big Apple. It’s a city where sinister characters lurk around every corner while the great superheroes who once kept the streets safe have fallen into deadly rivalries and feuds. Not that its colourful residents know anything about the real New York...until detective Rad Bradley makes a discovery that will change the lives of all its inhabitants.
Playing on the classic Gotham conventions of the Batman comics and HBO’s Boardwalk Empire, debut author Adam Christopher has spun a smart and fast-paced superhero-noir adventure that will excite genre fans and general readers alike.
That cover looks RAD, doesn't it? Weird, retro-pulpy SF goodness. And there's plenty of that in Empire State - a novel that's seemingly influenced by Philip K. Dick, Jonathan Lethem, and maybe even China Mieville. It's got superheroes, airships, giant robots, an alternate-alternate Prohibition NYC, and is filled with all kinds of cool ideas and twists.
There's a lack of confidence in the execution, though - the characters go to pains to make sure the reader/listener understands the Really Cool Thing that just happened, dulling the edges of said Really Cool Things. The set-up for the story drags to get the plot established. And the characters can't rise above their functions/archetype. Protagonist Rad Radley, P.I., is no Philip Marlowe (or even Conrad Metcalf), and his dialogue and actions make him feel more like a stock character than anything else - like he's going through the motions.
Not that it's a bad book. Once it gets going, there's lots of fun stuff and interesting ideas happening (it's wartime, you know?) - themes of duality and comic book action set-pieces, but I wanted it to soar, and instead it just glides. Still, I'll be curious to see where Adam Christopher goes next.
Phil Gigante's reading is like a classic, full-cast serial performed by one man, which is incredibly impressive, and his style really lent itself well to this book.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful
I was searching for another book when this popped up on the screen. I didn't realize I'd added it to my cart, and when I saw it during check-out, decided to leave it in. That was a wonderful mistake. The story is a great mix of super heroes, villains, and film noir detective novel. It satisfied my desire for sci-fi, and had a decent plot. Some of the apparent plot hiccups during the story seemed out of place, but patience is rewarded.
The voice acting was great, with good production quality. Character voices were, if not completely unique, certainly distinct enough to follow. I highly recommend.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful
Is there anything you would change about this book?
If one is force to nitpick a flaw, the building of the story's foundation was a little too long and it had a few non essential characters that fizzled out in the end, but on the whole, I had a good time. The plot, arc, and pacing make this journey into null space a satisfying diversion. While, the ending succeeds in sparking my imagination to contemplate, "What if?" while driving home and suddenly being confronted with the silence of an audiobook that had ended ten minutes earlier. When I find myself thinking back on a story days after I have read/heard it, I know my time was well spent.
Would you be willing to try another book from Adam Christopher? Why or why not?
The author has a gift for environment, tone and narrative. His love for his characters is also quite obvious.
If this book were a movie would you go see it?
The book lends itself more to a miniseries than a movie.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful
That cover looks RAD, doesn't it? Weird, retro-pulpy SF goodness. And there's plenty of that in Empire State - a novel that's seemingly influenced by Philip K. Dick, Jonathan Lethem, and maybe even China Mieville. It's got superheroes, airships, giant robots, an alternate-alternate Prohibition NYC, and is filled with all kinds of cool ideas and twists.
There's a lack of confidence in the execution, though - the characters go to pains to make sure the reader/listener understands the Really Cool Thing that just happened, dulling the edges of said Really Cool Things. The set-up for the story drags to get the plot established. And the characters can't rise above their functions/archetype. Protagonist Rad Radley, P.I., is no Philip Marlowe (or even Conrad Metcalf), and his dialogue and actions make him feel more like a stock character than anything else - like he's going through the motions.
Not that it's a bad book. Once it gets going, there's lots of fun stuff and interesting ideas happening (it's wartime, you know?) - themes of duality and comic book action set-pieces, but I wanted it to soar, and instead it just glides. Still, I'll be curious to see where Adam Christopher goes next.
Phil Gigante's reading is like a classic, full-cast serial performed by one man, which is incredibly impressive, and his style really lent itself well to this book.
2 of 3 people found this review helpful
This is the second sci-fi/noir mash-up I've read in the last year or so. The other, 'Necropolis' by Michael Dempsey, left me extremely disappointed. I was hoping for more from 'Empire State'; granted, my hopes were based entirely upon the book's synopsis and a few vague favorable reviews.
Unfortunately, after finishing Adam Christopher's debut novel, I find myself disappointed again. I am a fan of both super hero comics and novels, as well as noir novels. Naturally, I thought a novel that brought the two of them together could be very good. However, Christopher's novel reads more like a poorly constructed noir pastiche than an actual noir novel. Also, there is a disproportionately small amount of direct super hero involvement for a novel billed as a "stunning superhero-noir fantasy". There seems not to be a single round character, and the reasons behind the actions of many characters in the novel remain unclear even at its close. Indeed, the protagonist of the novel seemed rather muddled and dim to fit the role of private detective. Also, the prose was very lackluster and could have benefited from some serious editorial guidance. The dialogue was especially canned and corny.
I don't want this review to be a complete trash-fest, so I want to mention that I give Christopher points for concept, and for allowing fans to create further stories within the world of 'Empire State' through Creative Commons. However, neither of those things are enough to make up for the poor execution of the novel itself.
Christopher has another novel out--'Seven Wonders'--and a sequel to Empire State--'The Age Atomic'--is scheduled for release sometime this year. I am not entirely opposed to checking out one or both of these novels, but I will certainly be entering into the act of reading them with much lower expectations than I held for 'Empire State'.
As far as the novel's narration, I had no great complaints about it, other than the fact that Gigante's renditions of female voices are all delivered in an uninspired and rather annoying falsetto.
All of that said, others may be able to overlook things in this audiobook that I disliked, but I wouldn't recommend it very highly.
1 of 2 people found this review helpful
During the last great superhero fight, a blast of energy rips a hole in reality, the result is Empire State; a twisted parallel prohibition-era New York City. But now the rift is starting to close and both parallel worlds have to fight for the right to exist. Adam Christopher’s Empire State tells the story of Rad Bradley a private detective investigating the disappearance for Sam Saturn which leads him to uncover something a whole lot bigger. This book is everything you expect in a pulp style superhero novel; you have the super villains, airships, robots, organised crime and prohibition (to make it feel more like a pulp novel). This is all a brilliant back drop for the main plot; the case the gets Rad Bradley tangled in a complex web of robotic killers, inter-dimensional doppelgangers and science.
The whole tone of this book feels very much like a superhero novel but never loses sight of the noir style narrative. The whole story cast is wonderfully unique and mystery that will keep the readers on the edge of their seats while reading this book. There are some things that didn’t quite work within the story and the constant world shifting can get the reader lost. I think in the end there turns out to be at least three different worlds; Prohibition New York, Empire State and New York 1950’s. The world, the crime and the characters show potential for a lot of great stories to follow.
Adam Christopher and publisher Angry Robot Books have invited others to create works based in the world of Empire State. Writer, artist, musician, sculptor, puppeteer, interpretive dance major, or poet, are invited to create their own stories with what they are calling WorldBuilder as long as you stick to their Guidelines and Instructions. They are authorising fan-created content to be created under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License which means content can be posted on the internet or beyond as long as it’s in a non-commercial way; publication rights of the stories are still in the hands of the publisher. There are plans for an eBook or Print-on-Demand anthology of the best stories which is pretty exciting; I’ve never seen a novel do anything like this, making for some interesting stories to follow. I think this world is capable of millions of other great stories whether superhero, science fiction, alternate history, organised crime or even pulp stories.
I’m curious to see what the results of this creative common might lead to but as for this book, if you want a fun, exciting novel with twists and mystery, then you really should give Empire State ago. There’s a certain uniqueness within this book while remaining familiar with the writing style. I feel nostalgic towards a good pulp novel and this blends that with science fiction elements with such ease. This genre is often called Neo-Noir (a genre that blends pulp with updated themes, content, or style, often blended with Science Fiction) and there have been some great books that have come out in this style, but Empire State is definitely one of the better ones.
1 of 2 people found this review helpful
This is an alternative history/Earth type story that has some really strong sections and some sections that drag on a bit, with some silly characters and daft plot turns. Worth a listen if sci-fi is your thing, but in my humble opinion it did need editing rather radically. I would probably still listen to a sequel though as the concept is so dam interesting.
4 of 5 people found this review helpful