Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

Rama: Book 1

At first, only a few things are known about the celestial object that astronomers dub Rama. It is huge, weighing more than ten trillion tons. And it is hurtling through the solar system at inconceivable speed. Then a space probe confirms the unthinkable: Rama is no natural object. It is, incredible, an interstellar spacecraft. Space explorers and planet-bound scientists alike prepare for mankind's first encounter... (more)

Childhood's End

by Arthur C. Clarke

When the silent spacecraft arrived and took the light from the world, no one knew what to expect. But, although the Overlords kept themselves hidden from man, they had come to unite a warring world and to offer an end to poverty and crime. When they finally showed themselves it was a shock, but one that humankind could now cope with, and an era of peace, prosperity and endless leisure began. But the children of... (more)

Blindsight

by Peter Watts

Two months since the stars fell... Two months since sixty-five thousand alien objects clenched around the Earth like a luminous fist, screaming to the heavens as the atmosphere burned them to ash. Two months since that moment of brief, bright surveillance by agents unknown. Two months of silence, while a world holds its breath. Now some half-derelict space probe, sparking fitfully past Neptune's orbit, hears... (more)

A Deepness in the Sky

by Vernor Vinge

After thousands of years searching, humans stand on the verge of first contact with an alien race. Two human groups: the Qeng Ho, a culture of free traders, and the Emergents, a ruthless society based on the technological enslavement of minds. The group that opens trade with the aliens will reap unimaginable riches. But first, both groups must wait at the aliens' very doorstep for their strange star to relight... (more)

Eifelheim

by Michael Flynn

In 1349, one small town in Germany disappeared and has never been resettled. Tom, a contemporary historian, and his theoretical physicist girlfriend Sharon, become interested. Tom indeed becomes obsessed. By all logic, the town should have survived, but it didn't and that violates everything Tom knows about history. What's was special about Eifelheim that it utterly disappeared more than 600 years ago? Father... (more)

City of Pearl

by Karen Traviss

Three separate alien societies have claimson Cavanagh's Star. But the new arrivals -- the gethes from Earth -- now threaten thetenuous balance of a coveted world. Environmental Hazard Enforcement officer Shan Frankland agreed to lead a mission to Cavanagh's Star, knowing that 150 years would elapse before she could finally return home. But her landing, with a small group of scientists and Marines, has not gone... (more)

Rollback

by Robert J. Sawyer

Dr. Sarah Halifax decoded the first-ever radio transmission received from aliens. Thirty-eight years later, a second message is received and Sarah, now 87, may hold the key to deciphering this one, too . . . if she lives long enough. A wealthy industrialist offers to pay for Sarah to have a rollback—a hugely expensive experimental rejuvenation procedure. She accepts on condition that Don, her husband of... (more)

Learning the World: a Scientific Romance

Learning the World: a Scientific Romance

by Ken Macleod

Humanity has spread to every star within 500 light-years of its half-forgotten origin, coloring the sky with a haze of habitats. Societies rise and fall. Incautious experiments burn fast and fade. On the fringes, less modified humans get on with the job of settling a universe that has, so far, been empty of intelligent life. The ancient starship But the Sky, My Lady! The Sky! is entering orbit around a... (more)

Valor's Choice (Daw Book Collectors)

by Tanya Huff

In the distant future, humans and several other races have been granted membership in the Confederation--at a price. They must act as soldier/protectors of the far more civilized races who have long since turned away from war....

The Man in the Maze

by Robert Silverberg

Science Fiction. "At the dawn of man's galactic journeys, he was Earth's first ambassador to Beta Hydra IV. But something about his brain emanations so repulsed the Hydrans they altered his mind to radiate an aura that would soothe them - and make him anathema to human beings. Embittered, he fled to a distant planet to live out his days in utter isolation in an abandoned city of terrifying labyrinths. Then, Earth... (more)

Chocky (Puffin Books)

by John Wyndham

Matthew, they thought, was just going through a phase of talking to himself. And, like many parents, they waited for him to get over it, but it started to get worse. Mathew's conversations with himself grew more and more intense - it was like listening to one end of a telephone conversation while someone argued, cajoled and reasoned with another person you couldn't hear. Then Matthew started doing things he... (more)

Galactic Center: Book 1

In the Ocean of Night

by Gregory Benford

2019: NASA astronaut Nigel Walmsley is sent on a mission to intercept a rogue asteroid on a collision course with Earth. Ordered to destroy the comet, he discovers that it is actually the shell of a derelict space probe - a wreck with just enough power to emit a single electronic signal...2034: A reply is heard. Searching for the source of this signal that comes from outside the solar system, Nigel discovers the... (more)

Across the Sea of Suns (Galactic Center)

Galactic Center: Book 2

Across the Sea of Suns (Galactic Center)

by Gregory Benford

Lancer, a spaceship built to specifications found in the computers of an alien derelict, journeys to the star, Ra, from which the Earth has received mysterious radio transmissions in English

Foreigner 1: Book 1

Foreigner

by C. J. Cherryh

With a new introduction by the author The first book in C.J.Cherryh's eponymous series, Foreigner begins an epic tale of the survivors of a lost spacecraft who crash-land on a planet inhabited by a hostile, sentient alien race. From its beginnings as a human-alien story of first contact, the Foreigner series has become a true science fiction odyssey, following a civilization from the age of steam... (more)

In Death Ground

by Steve White

Five thousand years after Sun Tzu writes The Art of War, his advice is followed during the Fourth Interstellar War between the terrible Bugs and the humans, who are aided by their catlike Orion allies.

Crusade

by Steve White

In the period of peace following the Human-Orion War, a ship from a half-forgotten history emerges from a warp point notorious for devouring ships and opens fire on the Orions.

Have Spacesuit, Will Travel

by Robert A. Heinlein

A classic novel from the mind of the storyteller who captures the imagination of readers from around the world, and across two generations First prize in the Skyway Soap slogan contest was an all-expenses-paid trip to the Moon. The consolation prize was an authentic space suit, and when scientifically minded high school senior Kip Russell won it, he knew for certain he would use it one day to make a sojourn of... (more)

Ender Quartet: Book 1

Ender's Game

by Orson Scott Card

Winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards In order to develop a secure defense against a hostile alien race's next attack, government agencies breed child geniuses and train them as soldiers. A brilliant young boy, Andrew "Ender" Wiggin, lives with his kind but distant parents, his sadistic brother, Peter, and the person he loves more than anyone else, his sister, Valentine. Peter and Valentine were candidates for... (more)

Contact

by Carl Sagan

In December, 1999, a multinational team journeys out to the stars, to the most awesome encounter in human history. Who -- or what -- is out there? In Cosmos , Carl Sagan explained the universe. In Contact , he predicts its future -- and our own.

The Sparrow

by Mary Doria Russell

ONE OF ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY'S TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR "A NOTABLE ACHIEVEMENT . . . Russell shows herself to be a skillful storyteller who subtly and expertly builds suspense." --USA Today "AN EXPERIENCE NOT TO BE MISSED . . . If you have to send a group of people to a newly discovered planet to contact a totally unknown species, whom would you choose? How about four Jesuit priests, a young astronomer, a... (more)

Shelfari Book Activity

Tags: first contact

by Arthur C. Clarke

by Arthur C. Clarke

by Peter Watts

by Vernor Vinge

by Michael Flynn

by Karen Traviss

by Robert J. Sawyer

by Ken Macleod

by Tanya Huff

by Robert Silverberg

by John Wyndham

by Gregory Benford

by Gregory Benford

by C. J. Cherryh

by Steve White

by Steve White

by Robert A. Heinlein

by Orson Scott Card

by Carl Sagan

by Mary Doria Russell