National Network for Equitable Library Service

Radicalized is a timely collection consisting of four SF novellas connected by social, technological, and economic visions of today and what America could be in the near, near future. Canada Reads 2020. Bestseller. 2019.

The millennium has come and gone, leaving stunned survivors in the sister states of NoCal and SoCal in what used to be California. Chevette Washington is a bicycle courier turned pickpocket. He picks up an innocent-looking pair of sunglasses, but in fact these are high-tech specs that can make you rich -- or get you killed. Strong language. 1993.

Following the events of Pulse Point, 12-year old Ama and the other Underlanders living in a world of darkness dig for brine, the City's real energy source. Underland is a dangerous place: cave-ins, starvation and illness are constant threats. When their leader deserts them, Ama goes looking for him and stumbles on two Citizens. Neither knew the other existed. 18-year old Sari lives in the City, blissfully unaware of what goes on beneath her feet. The disappearance of her best friend, Kaia, has left her feeling isolated.

What does it mean to say "I love you"? Ariadne is a single, forty-something writer and mother embroiled in an affair with a married man. At the core of her current work, a manuscript about the declaration of love, is the need to understand why: why her lover has returned to his wife, why their relationship still lingers in her mind, why she's unable to conquer her longing. Lacking answers and struggling financially, she joins a research study in which she's paid to live with an AI device called Dirk. But the study quickly enters unchartered territory.

Venturing to the desolation beyond the Enclaves, Gahzee and Lisa, accompanied by their coyote, walk the line between the Dreamtime and the Realtime in hopes of recovering a lost chip with information vital to their people and their magic heritage. Some descriptions of sex and violence, some strong language. 1989.

Having trouble seeing God's image in the Rwandan genocide, or finding the Third Reich and the Sistine Chapel compatible? No matter how we excuse our own brutality - covering it up in religion, motherhood, or politics - we're all just monkeys under the skin. These short science fiction stories will help the reader discover their genes, meet their brainstorm, and embrace their inner brute. Strong language and some descriptions of violence. 2000.

Esen is one of six survivors of an alien race that can assume any form, useful in a universe where anyone perceived as different is destroyed. On her first assignment, she must seek help from a human when she falls into an unexpected trap. Together they battle the Enemy of the Web, bringer of death to all forms of life. Some violence. 1998.

Not far into our future, the dazzling technology that runs our world turns against us. Controlled by a childlike--yet massively powerful--artificial intelligence known as Archos, the global network of machines on which our world has grown dependent suddenly becomes an implacable, deadly foe. At Zero Hour--the moment the robots attack--the human race is almost annihilated, but as its scattered remnants regroup, humanity for the first time unites in a determined effort to fight back.

Long before the Clone Wars, the Empire, or the First Order, the Jedi lit the way for the galaxy in a golden age known as the High Republic! Vernestra Rwoh is a new Jedi Knight at age sixteen, but her first real assignment feels an awful lot like babysitting. She's been charged with supervising twelve-year old aspiring inventor Avon Starros on a cruiser headed to the dedication of a wondrous new space station called Starlight Beacon. But soon into their journey, bombs go off aboard the cruiser.

Famine, Death, War, and Pestilence--the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, the harbingers of Armageddon--these are our guides through the Wastelands. From the Book of Revelation to The Road Warrior, from A Canticle for Leibowitz to The Road, storytellers have long imagined the end of the world, weaving eschatological tales of catastrophe, chaos, and calamity. In doing so, these visionary authors have addressed one of the most challenging and enduring themes of imaginative fiction: the nature of life in the aftermath of total societal collapse.