As a child Rose Franklin made an astonishing discovery: a giant metallic hand buried deep within the earth. As an adult she's dedicated her brilliant scientific career to solving the mystery that began that fateful day: Why was a titanic robot of unknown origin buried in pieces around the world? Years of investigation have produced intriguing answers - and even more perplexing questions. But the truth is closer now than ever before when a second robot, more massive than the first, materializes and lashes out with deadly force.

A girl named Rose is riding her new bike near her home in Deadwood, South Dakota, when she falls through the earth. She wakes up at the bottom of a square hole, its walls glowing with intricate carvings. But the firemen who come to save her peer down upon something even stranger: a little girl in the palm of a giant metal hand.

The Earth is coming to the boiling point as the climate disaster of the meteor strike becomes more and more clear, but the political situation is already overheated. Riots and sabotage plague the space program. The IAC's goal of getting as many people as possible off Earth before it becomes uninhabitable is being threatened.  

Fifteen years after warring artificial intelligences nearly destroyed Earth, a young woman finds an artifact from that struggle, upsetting a delicate balance of power and dragging her into the middle of a new fight for humanity's survival.  

Change the tides of history. A tall order for a runt named Perry McGown and his ragtag band of friends. But Perry is bound and determined to complete this mission, no matter the odds. He must prove himself in the face of a gathering storm of powers beyond his imagination. 

Nilanjana Sikdar is an outsider to the town of Night Vale. Working for Carlos, the town's top scientist, she relies on fact and logic as her guiding principles. But all of that is put into question when Carlos gives her a special assignment investigating a mysterious rumbling in the desert wasteland outside of town. This investigation leads her to the Joyous Congregation of the Smiling God and to Darryl, one of its most committed members.

In the wake of a devastating attack, an amnesty has been declared for all Augurs - finally allowing them to emerge from hiding and openly oppose the dark forces massing against the land of Andarra. As the Augur Davian and his new allies hurry north toward the ever-weakening Boundary, however, fresh horrors along their path suggest that their reprieve may have come far too late. His ally in the Capital, the new Northwarden, contends with assassins and politicians and uncovers a dangerous political secret.

Here, Simmons returns to this richly imagined world of technological achievement, excitement, wonder and fear. Endymion is a story about love and memory, triumph and terror - an instant candidate for the field's highest honors.

Mary Robinette Kowal continues the grand sweep of alternate history begun in The Calculating Stars. The Fated Sky looks forward to 1961, when mankind is well established on the moon and looking forward to its next step: journeying to, and eventually colonizing, Mars. Of course the noted Lady Astronaut Elma York would like to go, but there’s a lot riding on whoever the International Aerospace Coalition decides to send on this historic - but potentially very dangerous - mission. Could Elma really leave behind her husband and the chance to start a family to spend several years traveling to Mars? 

Webmind - the vast consciousness that spontaneously emerged from the infrastructure of the World Wide Web - has proven its worth to humanity by aiding in everything from curing cancer to easing international tensions. But the brass at the Pentagon see Webmind as a threat that needs to be eliminated. Caitlin Decter-the once-blind 16-year-old math genius who discovered, and bonded with, Webmind - wants desperately to protect her friend. And if she doesn't act, everything - Webmind included - may come crashing down.

Piloted by a six-year-old girl, the godlike Skalm guards the Districts of TASC. Her family is long dead. Her adopted father is a synthetic copy of an alien, her nanny an artificial mind connected via subspace to every part of the globe, feeding the young girl information, finding prey to satiate her growing thirst. But the young girl is an innocent, a victim, one of millions the war has already claimed.

Pilot X is riddled with guilt. After facing the impossible decision to eliminate his own people or save the universe, he is the lone survivor of a time-traveling race. But Pilot X soon finds that he’s got more than his own guilt to contend with. His timeship Verity detects a signal that someone is working to recreate the dangerous technology that threatened the universe in the first place. Pilot X now sets off to save a universe he no longer recognizes, but feels frighteningly familiar.

When a massive meteor lights up the sky over the remote island of Kerguelen, the world holds its breath. In Birchwood, Colorado, Dan McCarthy gets to work. Following his incredible experiences of the previous year, Dan knows this was no natural occurrence. The Messengers are back - to finish what they started - and they didn't come all this way for nothing....

Webmind is an emerging consciousness that has befriended Caitlin Decter and grown eager to learn about her world. But Webmind has also come to the attention of WATCH - the secret government agency that monitors the Internet for any threat to the United States - and they're fully aware of Caitlin's involvement in its awakening.

They came in peace. But that was last time.... As the world gears up for the first anniversary of Contact Day, Dan McCarthy’s year-long effort to stay out of the limelight collapses in an instant. A direct call from the Messengers throws Dan into urgent action, but the fallout plants a troubling seed of doubt: This time, maybe they didn’t come here to help....