Showing results by publisher "Quercus" in Science Fiction

Berlin, Summer 2011. Adolf Hitler wakes up on a patch of open ground, alive and well. Things have changed – no Eva Braun, no Nazi party, no war. Hitler barely recognises his beloved Fatherland, filled with immigrants and run by a woman. People certainly recognise him, albeit as a flawless impersonator who refuses to break character. The unthinkable, the inevitable happens, and the ranting Hitler goes viral, becomes a YouTube star, gets his own T.V. show, and people begin to listen.

Israel, late 1973. As the Yom Kippur War flares into life, a state-of-the-art Soviet MIG fighter is racing at breakneck speed over the arid scrublands below, and promptly disappears. It soon becomes clear to Israeli intelligence that the pilot is a defector, desperate to come over to the US side. Houston Flight Controller and former test pilot Kaz Zemeckis is charged with bringing the pilot and his plane to the highly secret Area 51, in the Nevada desert. But every defection carries with it a risk.

1973: a final top-secret mission to the Moon. Three astronauts in a tiny module, a quarter of a million miles from home. A quarter of a million miles from help. As Russian and American crews sprint for a secret bounty hidden away on the lunar surface, old rivalries blossom and the political stakes are stretched to breaking point back on Earth. Houston flight controller Kazimieras 'Kaz' Zemeckis must do all he can to keep the NASA crew together, while staying one step ahead of his Soviet rivals. But not everyone on board Apollo 18 is quite who they appear to be.

Whatever happened to Oskar and Eli? And what became of the beleaguered families in Handling the Undead? Find out in Let the Old Dreams Die. In other tales from this collection, a woman finds a dead body and decides to keep it for herself, a customs officer has a mysterious gift that enables her to see what others hide, and a man believes he knows how to deceive death. These are the stories of John Ajvide Lindqvist’s rich imagination. They are about love and death, and what we do when the two collide and the monsters emerge.

Rena has been in love with her best friend for ever, but when he meets The One, she knows something must change. After endless bad dates, Rena is ready for drastic action, so when a dating advert pops up on her screen, she signs up immediately: 24 hours to fall in love. A guaranteed love match by the end of the day or your money back. When Rena wakes up, she goes about her life as normal. But what she doesn't know is that she is bound to repeat this day over and over again, until she finds her perfect match.

To control the past, they edited history. To control the future, they edited literature. London, 1953, Coronation year - but not the Coronation of Elizabeth II. Thirteen years have passed since a Grand Alliance between Great Britain and Germany was formalised. George VI and his family have been murdered and Edward VIII rules as king. Yet, in practice, all power is vested in Alfred Rosenberg, Britain's Protector. The role and status of women is Rosenberg's particular interest.

Like every child in Is-Land, all Astra Ordott wants is to have her Security Shot, do her National Service and defend her Gaian homeland from Non-Lander 'infiltrators'. But when one of her Shelter mothers, the formidable Dr Hokma Blesser, tells her the shot will limit her chances of becoming a scientist and offers her an alternative, Astra agrees to her plan. When the orphaned Lil arrives to share Astra's home, Astra is torn between jealousy and fascination.

Astra Ordott is in exile. Evicted from Is-Land for a crime she cannot regret, she has found work in an ancient fortress in Non-Land: headquarters of the Council of New Continents, the global body charged with providing humanitarian aid to the inhabitants of this toxic refugee camp. Recovering from a disorienting course of memory pacification treatment, Astra struggles to focus on her overriding goals - to find her Code father and avenge the death of her Shelter mother, Hokma.

Having escaped the Island - a wasteland that housed those no longer able to contribute to society - ageing 'Big Guy' Clancy thought his fight was over. But they have returned to the mainland to find that it is not the haven they anticipated. With the punishment satellites that kept them on the Island - and the city under control - gone, hell has been unleashed.

When the fog comes down and the drums start to beat, the inhabitants of the island tremble: for the punishment satellites - which keep the tyrannical Wastelords at bay - are blind in the darkness, and the islanders become prey. The inhabitants are the old, the sick, the poor: the detritus of Society, dumped on the island with the rest of Society's waste. There is no point trying to escape, for the satellites - the invisible eyes of the law - mete out instant judgement from the sky.

The Lion of Mistra is the third in this epic historical series, shaped by the quest for a powerful relic which could save the endangered Byzantine Empire. It's a different world. Bayezid, leader of the Ottomans, is dead; his heirs, Suleyman and Mehmed, are at war with each other; and the dread Tamerlane, who was on the brink of invading China, is also dead. Luke is now pushed into the role of protector of Mistra.

Their story begins with a goodbye. Polly and Frank are young and in love, a lifetime together before them. But one evening in 1981, as the Texas sun sets over their shoulders, the world is suddenly pulled apart by a deadly virus. Within months, Frank is dying. Polly can save him, but only if she agrees to a radical plan: to time travel to 1993 for a corporation who can fund his life-saving treatment. She can only go forward, she cannot go back. 

Every evening Rose Ransom looks in the mirror and marvels that she's even alive. A mere woman, her role in the Leader's death has been miraculously overlooked. She still works at the Culture Ministry, where her work now focuses on the outlawed subject of Poetry, a form of writing that transmits subversive meanings, emotions and signals that cannot be controlled. Therefore all Poetry is banned and Rose is appointed a Poet Hunter.