These titles were recently added to the collection of Yakima Valley Libraries
Foundling Fathers
Elison, Meg, author.
The trouble starts when a curious young man finds a smartphone in his privy. The problem is, it's supposed to be the year 1750. The Antediluvian Society -- a shadowy cabal of right-wing billionaires -- is fed up with a country they cannot fully control or understand. So they have done what any reasonable American patriots would do: Clone the Founding Fathers and raise them in secrecy. The plan, unbeknownst to the boys, is for them to restore America to its 'original glory.' Ben takes his technological discovery to his brothers, Thomas, John, and George. The boys have been raised on an isolated island plantation by Mary Libertas, a firm but kind woman, and Jeff Hancock, their de facto father. But the idyllic life is far too dull for young men. The boys have been chafing at the restrictions upon them (especially Tom, who has impregnated yet another of the servants). Hancock is complaining to the Society that it's well past the time to tell the boys where they come from and what they must do. Unfortunately for their keepers, the young men now have a phone... and many other notions. Seamlessly combining science fiction and history with sharp, witty commentary, Meg Elison has once again shown why she is one of speculative fiction's most exciting voices.....
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The sixth nik
Kraus, Daniel, 1975- author.
"Deep into space, far past the triworld outposts, beyond range of the lethal trollbot internet, soars The Sickness: a ship woven from biomatter and capable of reacting to every need of its human crew. Sisilla, a nine-year-old cultist with a brain enhanced by arcane tech known as 'niks,' has boarded to investigate the enigma of Fém -- a plague-riddled planet that has abruptly gone rogue. The mysterious crew includes a faceless assassin, a beautiful engineer jigsawed by plastic surgery, a peyote-addicted medic, and -- most lethal of all -- a rugged, NonModded captain with a score to settle with Sisilla. Other dangers abound. A hacked robot begins to believe Sisilla is its daughter. The Sickness itself is mutating, possibly even pregnant. And the secret of Fém is more horrific than anyone could have imagined. To survive, Sisilla will need to forsake her predetermined fate and embrace the unknown." -- Front jacket flap.....
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There is no antimemetics division : a novel
qntm (Author of science fiction), author.
Provided by publisher....
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Moss'd in space
Thorne, Rebecca, 1991- author.
"Torian Razner finally bought a starship, and contrary to Amelia's assessment, it was not 'a meteoric sign of stupidity.' Sure, the alien starship may have been abandoned for a century, and it may be covered in moss now... but it's Torian's ticket to freedom, regardless of what her ex... ah, captain... said. Except Torian's first flight reveals a surprise passenger: the moss is actually an organic computer with a snarky attitude and serious abandonment issues. The target of its loathing? The immortal alien who built it (and then parked the starship, with Moss inside, and forgot about it). The same alien who just found Torian and accused her of "stealing" the ship. It's entirely possible that Amelia was right about this meteoric stupidity"-- Provided by publisher.....
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Dead but dreaming of electric sheep : a novel
Tremblay, Paul, author.
Meet Julia Flang, a twenty-something former professional gamer, living with her retired uncle, and working two jobs she doesn't like. Out of the blue, her estranged mother, a CFO for one of the world's largest tech companies, offers her a temp job with a payday Julia can't refuse. One sham interview later, she's offered the job: to chaperone a man in a vegetative state from California to the East Coast. But he's not dead dead: he has an AI mind implanted in his head. Meet a middle-aged man who wakes within a disorienting hellscape filled with monstrous grotesqueries. Worse than the fluid, morphing reality in which he's trapped, he has no memory of who he is. He certainly doesn't remember getting the rabbit tattoo on his arm. He only knows that he must find a certain person. Who? He can't remember. Using a cell phone modeled after a video game controller, Julia fumblingly navigates the man she calls 'Bernie' from the company campus and onto planes and through one of the largest airports in America. All the while, the man endures an ever-changing and worsening nightmare that offers clues as to who he was--and who he must track down. And as their two lives intertwine, Julia and Bernie become unlikely allies and fugitives on a collision course with reality.....
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Green City Wars
Tchaikovsky, Adrian
Philip Marlowe meets Redwall in this superior adult noir tale, where all the characters are animals, fighting for survival in the city underneath the humans. In the solar cities of the future, the humans relax in the sun and the animals work in the shadows. Genetically engineered Little Helpers, serving humanity--unseen, unheard. Meet Skotch. Raccoon, PI--yours for a few buttons as long as the job isn't too illegal, whatever that means. A mouse has gone missing. Normally this wouldn't raise any hackles, nor any alarms, but this mouse has something that everyone seems to want, though nobody appears particularly eager to say what that something is. The fee is good--perhaps too good. Certainly not something Skotch can easily turn down. If only Skotch can work out where the mouse is hiding, what he's hiding, and why his secrets are upsetting a lot of animals caught up in the Green City wars.....
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Babylon, South Dakota
Lin, Tom, 1996- author.
When Saul Keng Hsiu and his wife, Mei Lee, move from China to the United States to take possession of a 160-acre homestead bequeathed to them by a distant relative, all they have are the possessions on their back, some hidden gold, and a pocketful of chrysanthemum seeds. After a rocky start and a long, harsh winter, the couple find themselves successfully raising chrysanthemums and livestock, and soon after, a daughter, Mara. But when representatives from the US Army Corps of Engineers buy an acre of the Hsiu's farmland and begin building a missile silo, the inexplicable starts to occur: Mara can commune with the animals on the farm, Mei develops a hidden talent for augury, and the chrysanthemums become impervious to everything. When the Hsius learn that the project on their farm is an effort to make America's nuclear deterrent invulnerable, they see firsthand the long arm of power and empire. In the years and generations that follow, increasingly impacted by the silo and its residue, the Hsius experience strange, wondrous, and tragic events on their farm. ....
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Sublimation
Kim, Isabel J., author.
The border cuts you in two... When you immigrate, you leave a copy of yourself behind, an instance. One person enters their new country; the other stays trapped at home. Some instances keep in touch, call each other daily, keep their lives and minds in sync in the hopes of reintegrating and resuming a life as one person. Others, like Soyoung Rose Kang, leave home at ten years old and never speak to their other selves again. Rose, in America, never imagined going back to Korea until her grandfather died and her Korean instance called her home for the funeral. She doesn't know that Soyoung plans to steal her body and her life. How far would you go to live the choice you didn't make?....
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Homebound : a novel
Elan, Portia, author.
In a dazzling ode to human inventiveness and desire for meaning, four lives are entangled across time by one unfinished story, saved to a floppy disk in the 1980s and destined to ripple across the centuries... 1983. Becks is nineteen, blasting her Walkman, and hiding from the fact that her beloved uncle, and the only person who understood her, is dead. Luckily, he left her a half-finished video game to complete—one last collaboration to find her way out of loneliness... 2078. Dr. Portman is working at the intersection of artificial intelligence and robotics, wrestling with her responsibility to Earth's precarious future. But increasingly, it seems the results of her work may transcend everything she believed to be possible... 2586. After decades of life on the sea, Yesiko knows a scavenger's work is rife with moral compromise. Yet when a long-lost piece of technology walks aboard her ship, she is set on a path toward a sacrifice even she may be unwilling to make. Linking these women across the centuries is a chain reaction of love, longing, and creativity that reveals our deep interconnectedness. Clear-eyed and hopeful, Homebound imagines how future generations will find meaning in the things we leave behind.....
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The last contract of Isako
Lee, Fonda, author.
LIVE BY THE CODE. DIE BY THE KNIFE... Isako is a legendary swordswoman, but every legend must come to an end. When her long-time client unexpectedly retires, she plans to follow — to walk out into the frozen wasteland of their planet with her head held high and her family enriched by her death. But when she's offered a final mission, she can't refuse, especially when she realizes who lies at the center of it all: Martim, her last — and worst — apprentice, who's somehow made his way to the top. As she's thrust into a world of corporate espionage and shadowy secrets, what she uncovers could forever change humanity's existence among the stars. Set in a world where money trumps loyalty, the elite have the power to extend life or end it, and one woman in the twilight of her calling must decide what's ultimately worth living — or dying — for.....
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Radiant star
Leckie, Ann, author.
The Temporal Location of the Radiant Star has always been a source of both conflict and hope for the people of Ooioiaa. However, the imperial Radch see it only as an inconvenience, an antiquated religious site soon to be absorbed into their own, superior culture. But local politics is complicated, and the Radch have made one last concession: One last man will be allowed to join the mummified bodies in the temporal location to become a "living saint." But this one decision will ripple out to affect every part of the city. Amidst a slowly worsening food shortage, riots, and a communication blackout from the rest of the Radch Empire, a religious savant will entertain visions of his own sainthood, a socialite will discover her comfortable life upended, and a young man sold into servitude will find unlikely escape.....
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A parade of horribles
Dinniman, Matt, author.
It's off to the races in the explosive eighth book in the Dungeon Crawler Carl series -- featuring bonus material exclusive to this print edition. As chaos and mass panic spread outside the dungeon in the wake of Faction Wars, Carl and Donut find themselves on the tenth floor, where they're forced to compete in a surprisingly normal set of tasks. Well, normal for the dungeon. Races. Get from point A to point B, and don't come in last. After each race, they pick an upgrade for their vehicle and the track gets more challenging. It all seems a little too normal, a little too simple. Ignore those strange glitches that are occurring with increasing frequency. Don't listen to those whispers about what's happening on the mysterious eleventh floor, something the system AI calls A Parade of Horribles. Nobody, not even the showrunners, knows what that means. Just that the AI has ominously dubbed it "a coming-out party for the ages. "Everything is fine, Crawler. I repeat, everything is fine." Carl hates that it's business as usual. The rules of this floor have taken away his agency. That just will not do. So Carl is planning a party of his own. It's a plan so dangerous, so insane, he can't even consult his friends lest the AI put a stop to it. Because if it goes wrong, it's not just the end of Carl and Donut. No. The stakes are higher than they've ever been.....
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Platform decay
Wells, Martha, author.
Having someone else support your bad decision feels kind of good. After volunteering to run a rescue mission, Murderbot realizes that it will have to spend significant time with a bunch of humans it doesn't know. Including human children. Ugh. This may well call for... eye contact! (Emotion check: Oh, for f-) -- ....
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Children of strife
Tchaikovsky, Adrian, 1972- author.
After Earth fell, ark ships hunted for a new home. They sought lost worlds terraformed in Earth’s forgotten past. A ship crewed by maverick humans, spiders and a spectacularly punchy mantis shrimp captain is about to rediscover one such world, and an ark. Then human crewmate Alis wakes to discover that she, her captain and the ship’s intelligence are the only ones left on their ship. But what happened to those who left to explore the ark ... and the world below? ....
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The faith of beasts
Corey, James S. A., author.
The monstrous Carryx empire was built by subjugation and war. Thousands of species are bound to their Sovran's command in an endless, blood-soaked test: be useful in the eternal conflict or be slaughtered. Dafyd Alkhor, highest among their human captives, is feared and despised by the very people he champions. Ruthless in carving out his niche in the eternal war machine of the empire, he will reshape human nature itself as a tool for their alien masters' use. But Dafyd's loyalty is not what it seems. The Swarm, an agent of the Carryx's deathless enemy, has been smuggled into the Carryx world-palace along with the human slaves. Its mission: discover a way to bring down the empire's eternal reign. But the longer it lives among and within humanity, the more it forgets that it is a weapon. As the human captives spread through the battlefronts of empire, the awesome power of the Carryx becomes clear. And with it, a desperate plan for their destruction. But empires hide secrets, and even the deathless enemy may not be what it appears........
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