Retro Futurism Science Fiction Books

Have you ever dreamt of visiting alien worlds? Have you ever wished you could zip through space via jet pack? What if you could defy gravity and explore unknown realms freely? Imagine being a space adventurer, paid to meet and greet alien cultures, while representing and protecting all of humanid-kind. You’d live to tell tales of glory. You’d be the stuff of legends. Sounds like a dream job, right? Well, no job is perfect, and there is a high price to be paid for this fantasy. That’s reality for a Skyraco.

These winged warriors operate millions of miles from their home-world, Centrus, on the frontier of the known. They travel to planets remote and unimagined where they are forced to interpret crises and dispense justice on their terms, or so they think.

In "Skyracos: The Mining Mess" recent recruit, Chip Daniels wants to be a hero, but gets more than he bargained for once incased in his streamlined flight suit. Chip and the rest of Unit 9901 are ordered to investigate a mysterious plague outbreak in an isolated mining colony. What starts out as a game quickly unravels into a life or death crisis. Notions of good and evil spin into a nightmare of moral ambiguity, which challenges Chip's definition of heroics...Welcome to a Skyraco's uncomfortable world.

"Skyracos: The Mining Mess" is a retro sci-fi adventure of flight packs and flying men forged from the same mettle as Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers, the Rocketeer and pulps like Startling Stories.

It ain't Shakespeare. It's pure Pulp!

It is the cusp of World War I. The Austro-Hungarians and Germans have their Clankers, steam-driven iron machines loaded with guns and ammunition. The British Darwinists employ genetically fabricated animals as their weaponry. Their Leviathan is a whale airship, and the most masterful beast in the British fleet.

Aleksandar Ferdinand, a Clanker, and Deryn Sharp, a Darwinist, are on opposite sides of the war. But their paths cross in the most unexpected way, taking them both aboard the Leviathan on a fantastical, around-the-world adventure….One that will change both their lives forever.

In 1923, Nikola Tesla's career is in its twilight... until he unveils a robot with automatic intelligence - ATOMIC ROBO! After decades of dealing with all manner of weirdness, Atomic Robo and the so-called Action Scientists of Tesladyne become the go-to defense force against the unexplained! See ROBO take on Nazis, giant ants, clockwork mummies, walking pyramids, Mars, cyborgs, and his nemesis, Baron von Helsingard, in his first trade paperback graphic novel. This edition collects the hard-to-find, sold-out, debut issues of Atomic Robo #1-6, complete with cover gallery, pin-ups, concept sketches, and bonus stories.

"The most consistently brilliant science fiction writer in the world."
--John Brunner

THE INSPIRATION FOR BLADERUNNER. . .

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? was published in 1968. Grim and foreboding, even today it is a masterpiece ahead of its time.

By 2021, the World War had killed millions, driving entire species into extinction and sending mankind off-planet. Those who remained coveted any living creature, and for people who couldn't afford one, companies built incredibly realistic simulacrae: horses, birds, cats, sheep. . . They even built humans.

Emigrées to Mars received androids so sophisticated it was impossible to tell them from true men or women. Fearful of the havoc these artificial humans could wreak, the government banned them from Earth. But when androids didn't want to be identified, they just blended in.

Rick Deckard was an officially sanctioned bounty hunter whose job was to find rogue androids, and to retire them. But cornered, androids tended to fight back, with deadly results.

"[Dick] sees all the sparkling and terrifying possibilities. . . that other authors shy away from."
--Paul Williams, Rolling Stone

The 20th anniversary edition of the classic steampunk novel
With new commentary by the authors
 
1855: The Industrial Revolution is in full swing, powered by steam-driven cybernetic Engines. Charles Babbage perfects his Analytical Engine, and the computer age arrives a century ahead of its time. Three extraordinary characters race toward a rendezvous with the future: Sybil Gerard—fallen woman, politician’s tart, daughter of a Luddite agitator; Edward “Leviathan” Mallory—explorer and paleontologist; Laurence Oliphant—diplomat, mystic, and spy. Their adventure begins with the discovery of a box of punched Engine cards of unknown origin and purpose. Cards someone wants badly enough to kill for.

Part detective story, part historical thriller, The Difference Engine took the science fiction community by storm when it was first published twenty years ago. This special anniversary edition features an Introduction by Cory Doctorow and a collaborative essay from the authors looking back on their creation. Provocative, compelling, intensely imagined, this novel is poised to impress a whole new generation.

In Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson took science fiction to dazzling new levels. Now, in The Diamond Age, he delivers another stunning tale. Set in twenty-first century Shanghai, it is the story of what happens when a state-of-the-art interactive device falls in the hands of a street urchin named Nell. Her life—and the entire future of humanity—is about to be decoded and reprogrammed…

The greatest invention since sliced bread may be the machine that makes the loaves that you dream of slicing. The Bread Lover's Bread Machine Cookbook finally bridges the gap between great taste and convenience, with over 300 glorious recipes for bread machines. The automatic bread machine makes it possible to enjoy fresh and signature loaves of bread without the time and expense usually involved in bread baking or purchased artisanal breads. Today's bread machines are versatile, affordable, safe, and efficient, turning out perfect loaves time after time. Try Croissants or Banana Bread for breakfast, lunchtime sandwiches on Honey Whole Wheat Bread or Tomato Bread, a loaf of Garlic Focaccia or a Sage and Onion Bread-stuffed roast for dinner, or even Candied Chestnut Panettone and Pumpkin Cloverleaf Rolls for the holidays. Classic white loaves, hearty whole-wheat breads, sweet breads, swirled breads, pizza doughs, quick breads, even jams are easy to make right in the bread machine. Renowned bread baking expert Beth Hensperger's best bread recipes yield great results-- just add the ingredients, and let the machine knead, rise, and bake loaf after loaf of fragrant, delicious fresh bread.

Beginning the complete library of the greatest science fiction hero of all time. 

Volume One will spotlight the work of Alex Raymond, legendary for some of the finest storytelling of the 20th century. Raymond illustrated the Sunday strips until 1944; with his clear and much-imitated style forming the original aesthetic of the most popular and easily recognised science fiction hero for decades to come. 

Introducing Flash Gordon, Dale Arden, Dr. Hans Zarkov, and Ming the Merciless, this volume will catapult readers to the deadly planet Mongo.

These are the strips that influenced George Lucas to create Star Wars, and which illustrator Al Williamson said were "the reason I became an artist."

Whatever happened to the space heroes? Mary Raven investigates the murder of her father at Ignition City, Earth's last spaceport... a place where rockets belch smoke and arguments are still settled with ray guns!

Grounded space pilot Mary Raven has come to the interzone settlement in the middle of Ignition City, Earth's largest spaceport, to recoved the effects of her dead father... or so people think. Mary really wants to know how he died, and who was responsible. But today might be her last day on Earth, trapped on the last spaceport where no one cares about murder, and the only real currency is fear. She has her dead father's ray gun, and that's enough for space hero-turned-arms dealer Lightning Bowman to want her dead. But when she finds her father's lost diary she discovers something nobody else in Ignition City knows... and they'll want her dead for that, too. From Warren Ellis, the writer who reinvented science fiction in comics, comes IGNITION CITY, a retropunk "future of the past" where spaceships belch smoke and arguments are settled with blaster pistols.

Menlo Park is a reprogrammed janitor robot working as a private eye on the neon streets of Electra City, a town designed to generate and conduct massive amounts of electricity. Sixteen years after the apparent suicide of his human partner atop the world's tallest tower, a blond femme fatale gives Menlo some new information about the cause of death. As Menlo and his assistant, Anesta, reopen the case, their journey takes them from Electra's high society to its dark underbelly. Clues from zeppelin pilots and shadowy architects alike reveal a connection between Menlo's partner's death, a mysterious object called the Astrolade, and the origins of the city itself.

Over the course of several generations, the once mighty empire known as the United Republics of The Red Star slaughtered millions of it's own people by the order of a single man. The man was their leader, Imbohl, a mighty sorcerer whose insanity turned his people's Utopian dreams into a nightmarish scheme driven by the desire to create his own immortality. Haunted by the ghosts of their nation's tragic past, the Heroes of the Red Star discover the true nature of their nation's struggle, abandon their duties as soldiers of the Red Fleet, and embark upon a quest to liberate their people from Imbohl's dark legacy. The Battle of Kar Dathra's Gate is a fictionalization of the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. This unapologetic romantic saga utilizing the same 3-D modeling technology as today's best selling video games and animated features while heralding the dawn of a new era in visual storytelling.