Paul J. McAuley Books In Order

Eternal Light

In the aftermath of an interstellar war an enigmatic star is discovered, travelling towards the Solar System from the galactic core. Its appearance adds a new and dangerous factor in the turbulent politics of the inhabited worlds as the rival factions the power holders of the ReUnited Nations, the rebels who secretly oppose their power, and the Religious Witnesses all see advantages to be gained. But what awesome technology started the star on its journey half a million years ago and why?

Child of the River

An Arthur C. Clarke and John W. Campbell Memorial Award winner for his novel Fairyland, Paul J. McAuley designs and fabricates remarkably intricate worlds. He builds some out of solid bricks of science, some from granite carved from the rich quarry of human history and experience. All are marvelous constructs of invention and thought; enthralling landscapes to wander, explore and lose oneself in. He offers now a world that stands distinctly apart: a place of savagery, secrets and war; the home of ten thousand extraordinary bloodlines ruled by universal devotion to absent gods; a realm of merchants, mercenaries, ghouls, heretics, bureaucrats and feral machines; a world called Confluence. Child of the River is the first book of the end times; the beginning chapter in the final great epic of a mysterious civilization. In it, a singular young man named Yama makes his way from a ghostly city of the dead to a metropolis of living wonders, and through the labyrinthine countryAn Arthur C. Clarke and John W. Campbell Memorial Award winner for his novel Fairyland, Paul J. McAuley designs and fabricates remarkably intricate worlds. He builds some out of solid bricks of science, some from granite carved from the rich quarry of human history and experience. All are marvelous constructs of invention and thought; enthralling landscapes to wander, explore and lose oneself in. He offers now a world that stands distinctly apart: a place of savagery, secrets and war; the home of ten thousand extraordinary bloodlines ruled by universal devotion to absent gods; a realm of merchants, mercenaries, ghouls, heretics, bureaucrats and feral machines; a world called Confluence. Child of the River is the first book of the end times; the beginning chapter in the final great epic of a mysterious civilization. In it, a singular young man named Yama makes his way from a ghostly city of the dead to a metropolis of living wonders, and through the labyrinthine country o

Ancients of Days

On an artificial world created and seeded with ten thousand bloodlines by the long vanished Preservers, young Yama’s ancestry is unique, for he appears to be the last remaining scion of the Builders, closest of all races to the worshipped architects of Confluence. And on a day near the end of the world, Yama must finally acknowledge the power he neither anticipated nor desires. In the dust of many crumbling bureaucracies, Yama searches for an identity and a history awed and fearful of his ever growing capacity to awaken the terrible machines of destruction that his world’s absent gods left slumbering. To the common folk the unshaped and aboriginal he is the fulfillment of age old prophecies. To the functionaries of the Department of Indigenous Affairs, he is a weapon to be molded and used in the bloody civil war raging at the planet’s midpoint a seemingly endless battle that pits those who revere the Preservers’ laws against the dangerous Heretics who would obliterate all antiquated values and codes of conduct. But there are still others who have taken notice of Yama as he pursues the hidden secrets of his past. Intelligent powers older than the Builders as old, perhaps, as the Preservers themselves are pursuing Yama in turn. And they will stop at nothing to control his present and, as a result, the future of everything that lives in anticipation of the ultimate triumph of the Ancients of Days.

Shrine of Stars

Who would lay time to rest, or raise it up from its tomb?The Ancients of Days humans returned from a long exile in the depths of time and space and history brought heresy and d doubt to the artificial world of Confluence, and ignited a terrible civil war, of all the varied creatures of Confluence’s ten thousand genetically manipulated bloodlines, only young Yama holds the power to end the conflict, for who ever controls him controls the myriad machines of the world. Though now a helpless captive being forged intoa weapon of horrific consequence, Yama must win the struggle to reclaim his soul, and complete his search for the true story of his origin a story mapped eons before his birth.

The Quiet War (By:Paul McAuley)

Twenty third century Earth, ravaged by climate change, looks backwards to the holy ideal of a pre industrial Eden. Political power has been grabbed by a few powerful families and their green saints. Millions of people are imprisoned in teeming cities; millions more labour on Pharaonic projects to rebuild ruined ecosystems. On the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, the Outers, descendants of refugees from Earth’s repressive regimes, have constructed a wild variety of self sufficient cities and settlements: scientific utopias crammed with exuberant creations of the genetic arts; the last outposts of every kind of democratic tradition. The fragile detente between the Outer cities and the dynasties of Earth is threatened by the ambitions of the rising generation of Outers, who want to break free of their cosy, inward looking pocket paradises, colonise the rest of the Solar System, and drive human evolution in a hundred new directions. On Earth, many demand pre emptive action against the Outers before it’s too late; others want to exploit the talents of their scientists and gene wizards. Amid campaigns for peace and reconciliation, political machinations, crude displays of military might, and espionage by cunningly wrought agents, the two branches of humanity edge towards war…

The Quiet War

Twenty third century Earth, ravaged by climate change, looks backwards to the holy ideal of a pre industrial Eden. Political power has been grabbed by a few powerful families and their green saints. Millions of people are imprisoned in teeming cities; millions more labour on Pharaonic projects to rebuild ruined ecosystems. On the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, the Outers, descendants of refugees from Earth’s repressive regimes, have constructed a wild variety of self sufficient cities and settlements: scientific utopias crammed with exuberant creations of the genetic arts; the last outposts of every kind of democratic tradition. The fragile detente between the Outer cities and the dynasties of Earth is threatened by the ambitions of the rising generation of Outers, who want to break free of their cosy, inward looking pocket paradises, colonise the rest of the Solar System, and drive human evolution in a hundred new directions. On Earth, many demand pre emptive action against the Outers before it’s too late; others want to exploit the talents of their scientists and gene wizards. Amid campaigns for peace and reconciliation, political machinations, crude displays of military might, and espionage by cunningly wrought agents, the two branches of humanity edge towards war…

Gardens of the Sun (By:Paul McAuley)

The Quiet War is over. The city states of the moons of Jupiter and Saturn have fallen to the Three Powers Alliance of Greater Brazil, the European Union and the Pacific Community. A century of enlightenment, rational utopianism and exploration of new ways of being human has fallen dark. Outers are herded into prison camps and forced to collaborate in the systematic plundering of their great archives of scientific and technical knowledge, while Earth’s forces loot their cities, settlements and ships, and plan a final solution to the ‘Outer problem’. But Earth’s victory is fragile, and riven by vicious internal politics. While seeking out and trying to anatomise the strange gardens abandoned in place by Avernus, the Outers’ greatest genius, the gene wizard Sri Hong Owen is embroiled in the plots and counterplots of the family that employs her. The diplomat Loc Ifrahim soon discovers that profiting from victory isn’t as easy as he thought. And in Greater Brazil, the Outers’ democratic traditions have infected a population eager to escape the tyranny of the great families who rule them. After a conflict fought to contain the expansionist, posthuman ambitions of the Outers, the future is as uncertain as ever. Only one thing is clear. No one can escape the consequences of war especially the victors.

Gardens of the Sun

The Quiet War is over. The city states of the moons of Jupiter and Saturn have fallen to the Three Powers Alliance of Greater Brazil, the European Union and the Pacific Community. A century of enlightenment, rational utopianism and exploration of new ways of being human has fallen dark. Outers are herded into prison camps and forced to collaborate in the systematic plundering of their great archives of scientific and technical knowledge, while Earth’s forces loot their cities, settlements and ships, and plan a final solution to the ‘Outer problem’. But Earth’s victory is fragile, and riven by vicious internal politics. While seeking out and trying to anatomise the strange gardens abandoned in place by Avernus, the Outers’ greatest genius, the gene wizard Sri Hong Owen is embroiled in the plots and counterplots of the family that employs her. The diplomat Loc Ifrahim soon discovers that profiting from victory isn’t as easy as he thought. And in Greater Brazil, the Outers’ democratic traditions have infected a population eager to escape the tyranny of the great families who rule them. After a conflict fought to contain the expansionist, posthuman ambitions of the Outers, the future is as uncertain as ever. Only one thing is clear. No one can escape the consequences of war especially the victors.

Through Time: An Unauthorised and Unofficial History of Doctor Who (By:Andrew Cartmel)

The quirky British television series Doctor Who is a classic both of science fiction and television drama. First broadcast in 1963, it has remained an influential TV presence ever since, with a hugely successful new series airing in 2005 and on the Sci Fi Channel in the US in 2006. As a vehicle for satire, social commentary, or sheer fantasy adventure, Doctor Who is unparalleled. It was a show created for children, but it was immediately usurped by adults. Arriving at a time of upheaval in the popular arts in Britain, Doctor Who was born into a television tradition influenced by the TV plays of Dennis Potter, the cult television drama The Prisoner, the James Bond films and Stanley Kubrick’s science fiction triptych Dr Strangelove, 2001: A Space Odyssey and A Clockwork Orange. A British fantasy adventure that has unfolded across television screens over decades in the tradition of Lewis Carroll, Conan Doyle and HG Wells, the strength of Doctor Who has always been its writers and the ideas they nurtured. In this new history of the show, Andrew Cartmel who was the script editor on Doctor Who from 1987 to 1990 looks into its social and cultural impact providing a fascinating read for committed and casual fans alike. And the book is up to date, including a final chapter on the most recent series, starring Christopher Eccleston and Billie Piper.

Red Dust

A lonely exile on a farming community on Mars rescues a fallen space traveler, falls in love, and is set on a journey to meet his long lost father, ignite a Martian revolution, and rescue a civilization from turmoil.

Pasquale’s Angel

The acclaimed, award winning author of Eternal Light, Red Dust, and Fairyland, PAUL J. McAULEY has firmly established himself as one of the major contemporary talents in the realm of speculative fiction. Now he takes an exhilarating look back at a past that never was. In a grim and wondrous industrial age of artists, princes, and philosophers, a struggling painter follows his elusive angel through the twisting, soot stained streets of Florence…
and into a world of deceits, dark magics, and murder. On the eve of the Medici Pope’s visit, an assassin has struck down an assistant to the immortal Raphael, the great Florentine Republic’s most renowned personage. It is a crime that draws a young artist named Pasquale and the brilliant, alcoholic investigative reporter Niccolo Machiavegli into the deepest shadows of their gray, steam driven city where there are fouler deaths to follow…
and grave intrigues of war, witchcraft, and science that could lead the world weary journalist and his unwitting companion heavenward or to Hell.

Fairyland

The author of Eternal Light, Red Dust, and Pasquale’s Angel, PAUL J. McAULEY has taken science fiction in dazzling new directions. With Fairyland his most compelling, vividly imagined work to date he firmly establishes himself as one of today’s major talents in the world of speculative fiction. Before he met the brilliant, hypnotic child Milena, Alex Sharkey had never played with ‘dolls’ blue skinned, gengineered lifeforms designed for work, amuseme*nt, or destruction. But the underground gene hacker is seduced by a megalomaniacal little girl’s dream of providing the soulless genetic constructs with free thought and a future and he unwittingly unleashes a plague of madness on the world. Now there’s a void in his life and memory that must be refilled, but it means pursuing the dangerous sentient species he helped sire from the ruins of a Magic Kingdom through a wasted Europe. It is Alex Sharkey’s last chance and the last hope remaining for a once dominant human race.

The Secret of Life

2026: Something is growing in the Pacific Ocean, a strange fungus like organism that may threaten our entire food chain. Christened ‘the slick,’ the bizarre phenomenon is quickly the subject of intense, top secret analysis which rapidly reveals that it contains DNA unlike that of any other life on the planet. Where is it from? A Chinese mission to Mars is rumored to have discovered life beneath the Martian icecap, but the Chinese aren’t talking. Dr. Mariella Anders is recruited by NASA to join an urgent mission to the Red Planet to find out. Brilliant and committed to science, Mariella wants only the truth, but others’ motives are less noble. Faced with corporations, activist groups, and superpowers, each with their own secret agendas, Mariella is on a perilous quest for knowledge…
and she’s about the discover the high price of truth.

Whole Wide World

Winner of both the Arthur C. Clarke and Philip K. Dick Awards, Paul McAuley has emerged as one of the most thrilling new talents in science fiction, acclaimed for his richly imagined future worlds as well as for his engrossing stories and vivid, all too human characters. Now he gives us a gripping and unforgettable thriller of the day after tomorrow when the world and the Web are one. London, in the aftermath of the Infowar. Surveillance cameras on every street corner, their tireless gaze linked to a cutting edge artificial intelligence system. Censors zealously patrolling the Internet. A talented, young woman murdered before the cybernetic gaze of eager voyeurs.A policeman sidelined to a backwater computer crimes unit seizes on the chance to contribute to this high profile murder case, but soon finds himself entangled in a web of high tech intrigue. Why was Sophie Booth’s murder broadcast over the Internet? What is the link between her brutal killing and London’s new surveillance system? Who is the self styled Avenger, and why does he communicate only by e mail?Whole Wide World is a compelling cyber conspiracy thriller set in a world where information is the universal currency, and some people will do anything to be able to control it…
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White Devils

Nicholas Hyde, a volunteer working with a humanitarian charity in Africa, is part of a team investigating an apparent wartime atrocity. The team is ambushed, and small, ape like creatures pale, fierce, and preternaturally strong slaughter most of the group in a matter of minutes. ‘Diable blanc’, the team’s government observer calls them ‘White Devils‘ but after the rescue he falls in with the official story and claims instead that he saw only rebel troops in body paint. The cover up seems to originate from Obligate, the company that effectively owns the Congo. Shell shocked and angry, Nicholas refuses to cooperate. He knows what he saw, and he will tell the world the truth. And that’s when people around him start to die. Only by discovering the secret behind the White Devils can Nick protect himself from the forces arrayed against him. Together with Teddy Yssel, a bush pilot who survived an earlier attack, and Elspeth Faber, seeking justice after the murder of her scientist father, Nick journeys into the heart of darkness of 21st century Africa: the Dead Zone. But also heading for the Dead Zone is the American mercenary, Cody Corbin. Evangelist, eco warrior, terrorist: sent to cleanse the abominations from God’s good Earth, and anyone who gets in his way is going straight to Hell…

Cowboy Angels

The first Turing gate, a mere hundred nanometers across, is forced open in 1963, at the high energy physics laboratory in Brookhaven; three years later, the first man to travel to an alternate history takes his momentous step, and an empire is born. For fifteen years, the version of America that calls itself the Real has used its Turing gate technology to infiltrate a wide variety of alternate Americas, rebuilding those wrecked by nuclear war, fomenting revolutions and waging war to free others from communist or fascist rule, and establishing a Pan American Alliance. Then a nation exhausted by endless strife elects Jimmy Carter on a reconstruction and reconciliation ticket, the CIA’s covert operations are wound down, and the Real begins to wage peace rather than war. But some people believe that it is the Real’s manifest destiny to impose its idea of truth, justice, and the American way in every known alternate history, and they’re prepared to do anything to reverse Carter’s peacenik doctrine. When Adam Stone, a former CIA field officer, one of the Cowboy Angels who worked covertly in other histories, volunteers for reactivation after an old friend begins a killing spree across alternate histories, his mission uncovers a startling secret about the operation of the Turing gates and leads him into the heart of an audicious conspiracy to change the history of every America in the multiverse including our own. Cowboy Angels is a vivid, helter skelter thriller in which one version of America discovers the true cost of empire building, and one man discovers that an individual really can make a difference.

The King of the Hill

A collection of eight science fiction short stories by the award winning author of ‘Four Hundred Billion Stars’ and ‘Eternal Light’. The collection includes ‘The King of the Hill‘, ‘Karl and the Ogre’, ‘Transcendence’, ‘The Temporary King’, ‘Exiles’ and ‘The Airs of Earth’.

The Cabinet of Light (By:Daniel O’Mahony)

Audio CD, Fantom Films Limited

The Recent Weird

For more than 80 years H.P. Lovecraft has inspired writers of supernatural fiction, artists, musicians, filmmakers, and gaming. His themes of cosmic indifference, the utter insignificance of humankind, minds invaded by the alien, and the horrors of history written with a pervasive atmosphere of unexplainable dread remain not only viable motifs, but are more relevant than ever as we explore the mysteries of a universe in which our planet is infinitesimal and climatic change is overwhelming it. In the first decade of the twenty first century the best supernatural writers no longer imitate Lovecraft, but they are profoundly influenced by the genre and the mythos he created. New Cthulhu: The Recent Weird presents some of the best of this new Lovecraftian fiction bizarre, subtle, atmospheric, metaphysical, psychological, filled with strange creatures and stranger characters eldritch, unsettling, evocative, and darkly appealing.

The Year’s Top Ten Tales of Science Fiction 2 (With: John Kessel,,Robert Charles Wilson,Elizabeth Bear,,Peter Watts,Allan Kaster,,Sarah Monette,Steven Gould)

An unabridged audio collection of the best of the best science fiction stories published in 2009 by current and emerging masters of the genre, as narrated by top voice talents. In Erosion, by Ian Creasey, A man tests the limits of his exo suit prior to leaving a dying Earth. In As Women Fight, by Sara Genge, a hunter, in a society of body switchers, has no time to train for a fight to inhabit his wife’s body. In A Story, with Beans, by Steven Gould, the role of religion in a dystopian future plagued with metal eating bugs is considered. In Events Preceding the Helvetican Renaissance, by John Kessel, a monk, in the far future, steals the only copy of a set of plays from a repressive regime and uses this loot to free his people. In On the Human Plan, by Jay Lake, a mysterious alien visits a far future, dying Earth in search of the death of Death. Set in the Jackaroo sequence, Crimes and Glory, by Paul McAuley, a detective chases a thief to recover alien technology that both aliens and humanity are desperate to recover. Set in the Lovecraftian Boojum universe, Mongoose by Sarah Monette and Elizabeth Bear, a vermin hunter and his tentacled assistant come on board a space station to hunt toves and raths. In Before My Last Breath, by Robert Reed, a geologist discovers a strange fossil in a coal mine that leads to the discovery of a peculiar graveyard. In The Island, by Peter Watts, a woman on a spaceship must decide whether to place a stargate near an alien society that will ultimately destroy it. Finally, This Peaceable Land; or, The Unbearable Vision of Harriet Beecher Stowe, by Robert Charles Wilson, is an alternate American Civil War history in which the war was never fought, slavery gradually disappeared, and Uncle Tom s Cabin was never published. More than 9.5 hours on 8 CDs, read by Tom Dheere, Vanessa Hart, and J. P. Linton.

The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror: Eleventh Annual Collection

Culled from the best of a wide variety of sources, this eleventh annual collection of fantasy fiction features contributions by Kim Newman, Joyce Carol Oates, Ellen Kushner, Jack Womack, Karen Joy Fowler, and others.

The Year’s Best Science Fiction : Sixteenth Annual Collection

Long regarded as the premier annual collection of science fiction stories, Gardner Dozois’s latest volume of The Year’s Best Science Fiction continues this tradition of excellence with twenty five representing the finest offerings in the field. Among the gems included here are: ‘Story of Your Life’ by Ted Chiang, in which the story of alien contact and a very human drama merge beautifully ‘The Island of the Immortals’ by Ursula K. Le Guin, in which a brave traveler investigates the reasons why people shun the exotic island ‘Approaching Perimelasma’ by Geoffrey A. Landis, which boldly takes us into a black hole and through the stunning changes that ensue ‘Taklamakan’ by Bruce Sterling, a wildly inventive tale of future spies in a Lost World ‘The Summer Isles’ by Ian R. MacLeod, a moving novella reflecting an alternate history in which the Great War turned out a bit differently In addition, there are twenty more stories here by the field’s masters and by up and coming new writers, including: William Barton Stephen Baxter Rob Chilson Tony Daniel Cory Doctorow Greg Egan Jim Grimsley Gwyneth Jones Chris Lawson Tanith Lee Paul J. McAuley Ian McDonald Robert Reed William Browning Spencer Allen Steele Michael Swanwick Howard Waldrop Cherry Wilder Liz Williams Robert Charles Wilson Completing the collection are Dozois’s insightful survey of the year in science fiction and a long list of Honorable Mentions. With its explorations of outer space and inner space, with its examinations of what it means to be human today and tomorrow, and with its love of a good yarn, this volume remains the single best source for science fiction stories.

Vanishing Acts: A Science Fiction Anthology

Stories by Suzy McKee Charnas, Ted Chiang, Avram Davidson, Karen Joy Fowler, Paul McAuley, Brian Stableford, and others. The theme of this anthology is ‘endangered species’, loosely interpreted to include in some cases the human race. The contents are four excellent reprints and a dozen new stories, including a new novella from Ted Chiang, one of the hottest young story writers in SF. This is a distinguished original anthology fit to put on the shelf beside Starlight.

Space Soldiers

In this explosive anthology, ten of science fiction’s best new and classic writers imagine the soldiers who will one day fight and die on distant worlds. Featuring stories by: Fritz Leiber Joe Haldeman Paul J. McAuley Alastair Reynolds Stephen Baxter William Barton Tom Purdom Robert Reed Fred Saberhagen

Year’s Best SF 11

This is the best short form science fiction of 2005, selected by David Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer, two of the most respected editors in the field. The short story is one of the most vibrant and exciting areas in science fiction today. It is where the hot new authors emerge and where the beloved giants of the field continue to publish. Now, building on the success of the first nine volumes, Eos will once again present a collection of the best stories of the year in mass market. Here, selected and compiled by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer, two of the most respected editors in the field, are stories with visions of tomorrow and yesterday, of the strange and the familiar, of the unknown and the unknowable. With stories from an all star team of science fiction authors, ‘Year’s Best SF 11‘ is an indispensable guide for every science fiction fan.

The Space Opera Renaissance

‘Space opera’, once a derisive term for cheap pulp adventure, has come to mean something more in modern SF: compelling adventure stories told against a broad canvas, and written to the highest level of skill. Indeed, it can be argued that the ‘new space opera’ is one of the defining streams of modern SF. Now, World Fantasy Award winning anthologists David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer have compiled a definitive overview of this subgenre, both as it was in the days of the pulp magazines, and as it has become in 2005. Included are major works from genre progenitors like Jack Williamson and Leigh Brackett, stylish midcentury voices like Cordwainer Smith and Samuel R. Delany, popular favorites like David Drake, Lois McMaster Bujold, and Ursula K. Le Guin, and modern day pioneers such as Iain M. Banks, Steven Baxter, Scott Westerfeld, and Charles Stross.

Future Weapons of War

A volume of visions of future wars, fought with weapons out of nightmare, by today’s top writers of military science fiction, as well as some writers who are not usually associated with military SF, such as best selling writer Gregory Benford, and award winning author Kristine Katherine Rusch. Also present are Michael Z. Williamson, author of the strong selling novels Freehold and The Weapon, award winning author of Bolo Strike, William H. Keith, and more.

Through the centuries, weapons have changed radically, but the soldier has remained much the same. But in the future, soldiers, too, may undergo radical changes. As editor Joe Haldeman puts it, Weapons are an extension of the soldier, and also an extension of the culture or species that produced the soldier. And they are sometimes more dangerous to the soldier than the enemy…
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War and Space

The history of the world is the history of war. From feats of valor and loyalty to hideous violence and carnage, the human species has always been its own best rival and worst enemy. But out beyond the stars, the ultimate enemy awaits. The world’s future the future of the universe itself lies in the hands of the warriors who must use the weapons, take on the missions, make the decisions, assume the risk, and defeat the menaces, alien or otherwise, who would dare try to conquer!