She by H. Rider Haggard

'She' is the story of Cambridge professor Horace Holly and his ward Leo Vincey, and their journey to a lost kingdom in the African interior. The journey is triggered by a mysterious package left to Leo by his father, to be opened on his 25th birthday; the package contains an ancient shard of pottery and several documents, suggesting an ancient mystery about the Vincey family.

Holly and Leo eventually arrive in eastern Africa where they encounter a primitive race of natives and a mysterious white queen, Ayesha, who reigns as the all-powerful "She" or "She-who-must-be-obeyed" and who has a mysterious connection to young Leo.

Empty Cities of the Full Moon by Howard V. Hendrix

Venturing into a universe different from where his previous novels—Lightpaths, Standing Wave, and Better Angels—were set, Howard V. Hendrix tackles one of life's most enduring questions: What does it mean to be human?

In a dramatically altered near-future, the world's newest technology resurrects a plague of apparent global madness that not only destroys ten thousand years of urban civilization, but also creates a world under the sway of the full moon—and a human race transformed in astonishing ways.

Keyes, Daniel - Flowers for Algernon  

The beloved, classic story of a mentally disabled man whose experimental quest for intelligence mirrors that of Algernon, an extraordinary lab mouse.

In poignant diary entries, Charlie tells how a brain operation increases his IQ and changes his life. As the experimental procedure takes effect, Charlie's intelligence expands until it surpasses that of the doctors who engineered his metamorphosis. The experiment seems to be a scientific breakthrough of paramount importance--until Algernon begins his sudden, unexpected deterioration. Will the same happen to Charlie?  

Easton Press Edition

Greg Keyes - The Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone

Two thousand years ago, the Born Queen defeated the Skasloi lords, freeing humans from the bitter yoke of slavery. But now monstrous creatures roam the land — and destinies become inextricably entangled in a drama of power and seduction. The king’ s woodsman, a rebellious girl, a young priest, a roguish adventurer, and a young man made suddenly into a knight — all face malevolent forces that shake the foundations of the kingdom, even as the Briar King, legendary harbinger of death, awakens from his slumber.

At the heart of this many-layered tale is Anne Dare, youngest daughter of the royal family . . . upon whom the fate of her world may depend.  

Easton Press Edition

Solaris by Stanisław Lem

A classic work of science fiction by renowned Polish novelist and satirist Stanislaw Lem.

When Kris Kelvin arrives at the planet Solaris to study the ocean that covers its surface, he finds a painful, hitherto unconscious memory embodied in the living physical likeness of a long-dead lover.

Others examining the planet, Kelvin learns, are plagued with their own repressed and newly corporeal memories.

The Solaris ocean may be a massive brain that creates these incarnate memories, though its purpose in doing so is unknown, forcing the scientists to shift the focus of their quest and wonder if they can truly understand the universe without first understanding what lies within their hearts.

Before Adam by Jack London:

Written in 1906, Before Adam is a bit of a departure from London's other novels. Still an adventure novel, this one revolves around the dreams of a young boy, dreams that involve racial memories and the knowledge of his prior existence as a man-like creature named Big Tooth living in prehistoric times.

"These are our ancestors, and their history is our history. Remember that as surely as we one day swung down out of the trees and walked upright, just as surely, on a far earlier day, did we crawl up out of the sea and achieve our first adventure on land."

Hainish Cycle

Le Guin has won the Hugo Award, Nebula Award,  Locus Award, and World Fantasy Award, each more than once. In 2014, she was awarded the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. Her novel 'The Left Hand of Darkness', won the Hugo and Nebula awards in 1970.

Her subsequent novel, 'The Dispossessed' made her the first person to win both the Hugo and Nebula Awards for Best Novel twice for the same two books. These two novels and 'The Telling', are novels within Le Guin's Hainish Cycle, which employs a future galactic civilization loosely connected by an organizational body known as the Ekumen to consider the consequences of contact between different worlds and cultures. Unlike those in much mainstream science fiction, Hainish Cycle civilization does not possess reliable human faster-than-light travel, but does have technology for instantaneous communication.

Written during the dark hours immediately before and during the Second World War, C. S. Lewis's Space Trilogy, of which "Out of the Silent Planet" is the first volume, stands alongside such works as Albert Camus's "The Plague" and George Orwell's "1984" as a timely parable that has become timeless, beloved by succeeding generations as much for the sheer wonder of its storytelling as for the significance of the moral concerns.

For the trilogy's central figure, C. S. Lewis created perhaps the most memorable character of his career, the brilliant, clear-eyed, and fiercely brave philologist Dr. Elwin Ransom.  

"Out of the Silent Planet" introduces Dr. Ransom and chronicles his abduction by a megalomaniacal physicist and his accomplice via space ship to the planet Malacandra. The two men are in need of a human sacrifice and Dr. Ransom would seem to fit the bill. Dr. Ransom escapes upon landing, though, and goes on the run, a stranger in a land that, like Jonathan Swift's Lilliput, is enchanting in its difference from Earth and instructive in its similarity.

The Moon and the Sun by Vonda N. McIntyre,

In seventeenth-century France, Louis XIV rules with flamboyant ambition.

In his domain, wealth and beauty take all; frivolity begets cruelty; science and alchemy collide. From the Hall of Mirrors to the vermin-infested attics of the Chateau at Versailles, courtiers compete to please the king, sacrificing fortune, principles, and even the sacred bond between brother and sister.

By the fiftieth year of his reign, Louis XIV has made France the most powerful state in the western world. Yet the Sun King's appetite for glory knows no bounds. In a bold stroke, he sends his natural philosopher on an expedition to seek the source of immortality -- the rare, perhaps mythical, sea monsters.

For the glory, of his God, his country, and his king, Father Yves de la Croix returns with his treasures: one heavy shroud packed in ice...and a covered basin that imprisons a shrieking creature.

Winner of the 1997 Nebula award beating 'A Game of Thrones' !

A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr

A post-apocalyptic science fiction novel, first published in 1960. Set in a Catholic monastery in the desert of the Southwestern United States after a devastating nuclear war, the story spans thousands of years as civilization rebuilds itself.

The monks of the fictional Albertian Order of Leibowitz take up the mission of preserving the surviving remnants of man's scientific knowledge until the day the outside world is again ready for it.

Based on three short stories Miller contributed to The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, it is the only novel published by the author during his lifetime. His follow-up work, Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman, was published posthumously in 1997.

Considered one of the classics of science fiction, it has never been out of print and has seen over 25 reprints and editions. Appealing to mainstream and genre critics and readers alike, it won the 1961 Hugo Award for best science fiction novel.

Inspired by the author's participation in the Allied bombing of the monastery at Monte Cassino during World War II, the novel is considered a masterpiece by literary critics.

Edition - Easton Press

This Is the Way the World Ends by James K. Morrow

The Gulliver’s Travels of the nuclear age, the Alice in Wonderland of the arms race, this mordantly funny and visionary tale of the apocalypse was a Nebula finalist.

The trouble starts when George Paxton ingenuously signs an admission of complicity in starting World War III.

Futureland by Walter Mosley

Projecting a near-future United States in which justice is blind in at least one eye and the ranks of the disenchanted have swollen to dangerous levels, Mosely offers nine interconnected stories whose characters appear and reappear in each others' lives.

For all its denizens, from technocrats to terrorists, celebs to crooks, "Futureland" is an all-American nightmare just waiting to happen.

Dragonflight (Dragonriders of Pern #1) by Anne McCaffrey

HOW CAN ONE GIRL SAVE AN ENTIRE WORLD?

To the nobles who live in Benden Weyr, Lessa is nothing but a ragged kitchen girl. For most of her life she has survived by serving those who betrayed her father and took over his lands. Now the time has come for Lessa to shed her disguise—and take back her stolen birthright.

But everything changes when she meets a queen dragon. The bond they share will be deep and last forever. It will protect them when, for the first time in centuries, Lessa’s world is threatened by Thread, an evil substance that falls like rain and destroys everything it touches. Dragons and their Riders once protected the planet from Thread, but there are very few of them left these days. Now brave Lessa must risk her life, and the life of her beloved dragon, to save her beautiful world. . . .

The Speed of Dark:

In the near future, disease will be a condition of the past. Most genetic defects will be removed at birth; the remaining during infancy. Unfortunately, there will be a generation left behind. For members of that missed generation, small advances will be made. Through various programs, they will be taught to get along in the world despite their differences. They will be made active and contributing members of society. But they will never be normal.

Lou Arrendale is a member of that lost generation, born at the wrong time to reap the awards of medical science. Part of a small group of high-functioning autistic adults, he has a steady job with a pharmaceutical company, a car, friends, and a passion for fencing. Aside from his annual visits to his counselor, he lives a low-key, independent life. He has learned to shake hands and make eye contact. He has taught himself to use “please” and “thank you” and other conventions of conversation because he knows it makes others comfortable. He does his best to be as normal as possible and not to draw attention to himself.

But then his quiet life comes under attack. It starts with an experimental treatment that will reverse the effects of autism in adults. With this treatment Lou would think and act and be just like everyone else. But if he was suddenly free of autism, would he still be himself? Would he still love the same classical music–with its complications and resolutions? Would he still see the same colors and patterns in the world–shades and hues that others cannot see? Most importantly, would he still love Marjory, a woman who may never be able to reciprocate his feelings? Would it be easier for her to return the love of a “normal”?

There are intense pressures coming from the world around him–including an angry supervisor who wants to cut costs by sacrificing the supports necessary to employ autistic workers. Perhaps even more disturbing are the barrage of questions within himself. For Lou must decide if he should submit to a surgery that might completely change the way he views the world . . . and the very essence of who he is.

Thoughtful, provocative, poignant, unforgettable, The Speed of Dark is a gripping exploration into the mind of an autistic person as he struggles with profound questions of humanity and matters of the heart.

Elizabeth Moon :

Altered Carbon (Takeshi Kovacs #1)

Four hundred years from now mankind is strung out across a region of interstellar space inherited from an ancient civilization discovered on Mars. The colonies are linked together by the occasional sublight colony ship voyages and hyperspatial data-casting. Human consciousness is digitally freighted between the stars and downloaded into bodies as a matter of course.

But some things never change. So when ex-envoy, now-convict Takeshi Kovacs has his consciousness and skills downloaded into the body of a nicotine-addicted ex-thug and presented with a catch-22 offer, he really shouldn't be surprised. Contracted by a billionaire to discover who murdered his last body, Kovacs is drawn into a terrifying conspiracy that stretches across known space and to the very top of society.

Ringworld is a 1970 science fiction novel, set in Niven's 'Known Space' universe and considered a classic of science fiction literature. Niven later added four sequels and four prequels. (The Fleet of Worlds series, co-written with Edward M. Lerner provides the four prequels as well as Fate of Worlds, the final sequel.) These books tie into numerous other books set in Known Space. Ringworld won the Nebula Award in 1970, as well as both the Hugo Award and Locus Award in 1971.

Very pricey today in true first edition, this is a signed copy of the 1973 Book Club edition.

'The artefact is a circular ribbon of matter six hundred miles long and ninety million miles in radius. Pierson's puppeteers, the aliens who discovered it, are understandably wary of encountering the builders of such an immense structure and have assembled a team of two humans, a mad puppeteer and a kzin, a huge cat-like alien, to explore it. But a crash landing on the vast edifice forces the crew on a desperate and dangerous trek across the Ringworld. '

The Mote in God's Eye is a ‘hard’science fiction novel by  Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, first published in 1974. We’ve given primary credit to Pournelle as the story is set in the distant future of his CoDominium universe, and charts the first contact between humanity and an alien species.

The title of the novel is a wordplay on the Biblical "The Mote and the Beam" parable and is the nickname of a star. The Mote in God's Eye was nominated for the Hugo, Nebula and Locus Awards in 1975.

It was credited by Heinlein as the best contact novel written (by 1975). We certainly enjoyed it and would recommend this to all space opera lovers.

We have the Easton Press edition and of course the true first edition, ours has the error corrected and signed by both authors.

Gateway (Heechee Saga #1)

Gateway opened on all the wealth of the Universe... and on reaches of unimaginable horror.

When prospector Robinette 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, Rob Broadhead has to face what happened to him and what he has become... 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!

Frederik Pohl

Joanna Russ -The Female Man

A feminist science fiction novel originally written in 1970 and first published in 1975 (the first paperback below is the true first edition).

Russ was an avid feminist and challenged sexist views during the 1970s with her novels, short stories, and nonfiction works. The novel follows the lives of four women living in parallel worlds that differ in time and place. When they cross over to each other's worlds, their different views on gender roles startle each other's preexisting notions of womanhood. In the end, their encounters influence them to evaluate their lives and shape their ideas of what it means to be a woman.

Winner of the Nebula Award.

The Healer's War by Elizabeth Ann Scarborough

Lt. Kitty McCulley, a young and inexperienced nurse tossed into a stressful and chaotic situation, is having a difficult time reconciling her duty to help and heal with the indifference and overt racism of some of her colleagues and with the horrendously damaged soldiers and Vietnamese civilians whom she encounters during her service at the China Beach medical facilities.

She is unexpectedly helped by the mysterious and inexplicable properties of an amulet, given to her by one of her patients, an elderly, dying Vietnamese holy man, which allows her to see other people's "auras" and to understand more about them as a result. This eventually leads to a strange, almost surrealistic journey through the jungle, accompanied by a one-legged boy and a battle-seasoned but crazed soldier and, by the end of the journey, McCulley has found herself and a way to live and survive through the madness and destruction.

Nebula Award for Best Novel (1989)

Odd John: A Story Between Jest and Earnest  by William Olaf Stapledon

John was right. Though I had known him since he was a baby, and was in a sense intimate with him, I knew almost nothing of the inner, the real John. To this day I know little but the amazing facts of his career. I know that he never walked till he was six, that before he was ten he committed several burglaries and killed a policeman, that at eighteen, when he still looked a young boy, he founded his preposterous colony in the South Seas, and that at twenty-three, in appearance but little altered, he outwitted the six warships that six Great Powers had sent to seize him.

I know also how John and all his followers died. Such facts I know; and even at the risk of destruction by one or other of the six Great Powers, I shall tell the world all that I can remember. Something else I know, which will be very difficult to explain. In a confused way I know why he founded his colony. I know too that although he gave his whole energy to this task, he never seriously expected to succeed.

After stealing a starship full of political refugees, Captain Robert E. Lee and his crew travel to a distant planetary system with a habitable moon (named Coyote) with the dream of starting a colony free from governmental and social oppression.

The trip lasts 226 years, but while everyone is in biostasis, one of the crew members is accidentally awakened. With his cell permanently deactivated by the ship's AI, communications officer Leslie Gillis is doomed to a solitary life (and death) aboard the starship. When the rest of the crew is eventually reawakened as the ship reaches its destination, what they find is extraordinary.

Once the small colony is established on Coyote, they realize just how different their new world is from Earth. Exploration begins, and although a few colonists are killed by predators, the colony survives and even begins to thrive that is, until a strange comet appears in the sky.

Islands in the Net by Bruce Sterling

Laura Webster's on the fast track to success. A bright young star in a multinational conglomerate, she's living well in a post-millennial age of peace, prosperity, and profit.

In an age of advanced technology, information is the world's most precious commodity. Information is power. Data is locked in computers and carefully rationed through a global communications network. Full access is a privilege held by few.

Now, Laura Webster is about to be plunged into a netherworld of black-market data pirates, new-age mercenaries, high-tech voodoo... and murder.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson:

Ten color plates, including a frontispiece portrait of the diabolical Mr. Hyde are hand-tipped in and protected by translucent overlays. Also featured are additional black and white illustrations that capture the full horror of Stevenson's timeless novel. The cloth-bound slipcase features a matching plate and is lined with crushed velvet to protect the leather cover that is stamped in two colours. Limited to 1200 copies.

Mary Shelley began writing Frankenstein when she was only eighteen. At once a Gothic thriller, a passionate romance, and a cautionary tale about the dangers of science, Frankenstein tells the story of committed science student Victor Frankenstein.

Obsessed with discovering the cause of generation and life and bestowing animation upon lifeless matter, Frankenstein assembles a human being from stolen body parts but; upon bringing it to life, he recoils in horror at the creature's hideousness. Tormented by isolation and loneliness, the once-innocent creature turns to evil and unleashes a campaign of murderous revenge against his creator, Frankenstein.

Frankenstein, an instant bestseller and an important ancestor of both the horror and science fiction genres, not only tells a terrifying story, but also raises profound, disturbing questions about the very nature of life and the place of humankind within the cosmos: What does it mean to be human? What responsibilities do we have to each other? How far can we go in tampering with Nature? In our age, filled with news of organ donation genetic engineering, and bio-terrorism, these questions are more relevant than ever.

The Easton Press Collectors Edition

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley:

Frankenstein

Dying Inside

David Selig was born with an awesome power -- the ability to look deep into the human heart, to probe the darkest truths hidden in the secret recesses of the soul. With reckless abandon, he used his talent in the pursuit of pleasure. Then, one day, his power began to die...

Universally acclaimed as Robert Silverberg's masterwork, Dying Inside is a vivid, harrowing portrait of a man who squandered a remarkable gift, of a superman who had to learn what it was to be human.