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- All Flesh Is Grass
Clifford D. Simakstandalone novel1965
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All Flesh is Grass is a science fiction novel by American author Clifford D. Simak, published in 1965. The book follows a small town in Wisconsin that is closed off from the outside world by a mysterious barrier, placed by extraterrestrial beings.
- Way Station
Clifford D. Simakstandalone novel1963
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The human operator of a transfer station for aliens traveling between planets, kept secret from the human race, deals with discovery by the US government and interplanetary political crisis, as well as his own emotional issues.
- Stranger in a Strange Land
Robert A. Heinleinstandalone novel1961
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Stranger in a Strange Land is a 1961 science fiction novel by the American author Robert A. Heinlein. It tells the story of Valentine Michael Smith, a human who comes to Earth in early adulthood after being born on the planet Mars and raised by Martians, and explores his interaction with and eventual transformation of Terran culture.
- Childhood's End
Arthur C. Clarkestandalone novel1953
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Childhood's End is a 1953 science fiction novel by the British author Arthur C. Clarke. The story follows a peaceful alien invasion of Earth by mysterious Overlords, whose arrival begins decades of apparent utopia under indirect alien rule, at the cost of human identity and culture.
- The Man Who Fell to Earth
Walter Tevisstandalone novel1963
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The Man Who Fell to Earth is a 1963 science-fiction novel by American writer Walter Tevis. Published by Gold Medal Books as a paperback original, it was Tevis's second novel, following The Hustler. The novel follows Thomas Jerome Newton, an extraterrestrial from the drought-stricken planet Anthea, who comes to Earth hoping to build a spacecraft that can save the surviving members of his species.
- Steal Across the Sky
Nancy Kressstandalone novel2009
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The aliens appeared one day, built a base on the moon, and put an ad on the internet. At first, everyone thought it was a joke. But it wasn't. This is the story of three volunteers who answered that ad, and what they found on Kular A and Kular B.
- The Black Cloud
Fred Hoylestandalone novel1957
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The Black Cloud is a 1957 science fiction novel by British astrophysicist Fred Hoyle. It details the arrival of an enormous cloud of gas that enters the Solar System and appears about to destroy most of the life on Earth by blocking the Sun's radiation.
- The Hercules Text
Jack McDevittstandalone novel1986
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The Hercules Text is a 1986 science fiction novel by American writer Jack McDevitt. It tells the story of a message of intelligent extraterrestrial origin received by SETI scientists. The Hercules Text was nominated for the Philip K. Dick Award in 1986.
- Infinity Beach
Jack McDevittstandalone novel2000
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Infinity Beach is a 2000 science fiction novel by Jack McDevitt. It is a story of a first contact between human and alien civilizations.
- Those Who Watch
Robert Silverbergstandalone novel1967
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Those Who Watch is a science fiction novel by American writer Robert Silverberg, first published by Signet in 1967. The novel concerns a trio of alien explorers, each one surgically altered so as to appear outwardly human, who find themselves separated, and permanently stranded on Earth, after their ship explodes while hovering in low orbit. Each of the aliens is injured during the accident, and all are taken in and nursed back to health by kindly human beings.
- Four from Planet 5
Murray Leinsterstandalone novel1959
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Four from Planet 5 is a science fiction novel by Murray Leinster. It was released in 1959 by Fawcett Publications under their Gold Medal Books imprint reference number S937. The novel details the arrival of a spaceship carrying four seemingly human children from an advanced civilisation close to a US scientific research base in Antarctica and the events that subsequently unfold. This story appeared in the September 1959 edition of Amazing Science Fiction under the title Long Ago Far Away.
- Shakespeare's Planet
Clifford D. Simakstandalone novel1976
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Woken after a thousand-year voyage meant to find humanity a new home, Carter Horton finds his ship stranded for good, tended by the disembodied minds of three volunteers who gave up their bodies to fly it. Outside waits a world already crowded with strangers: a robot named Nicodemus, and an alien called the Carnivore who claims to have known a human, once, called Shakespeare, and to have arrived here through a tunnel across time. As more travelers arrive through that same tunnel, Horton has to work out what kind of planet he has actually landed on. A standalone novel from Clifford D. Simak.
- Contact
Carl Saganstandalone novel1985
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From the front flap of the Simon and Schuster first edition: For centuries humanity has dreamed of life and intelligence beyond the Earth; for decades scientists have searched for it in every corner of the sky; for years Project Argus, a vast, sophisticated complex of radio telescopes, has listened for a signal indicating the existence, somewhere in the universe, of extraterrestrial intelligence. Then, one afternoon, the course of human history is changed, abruptly and forever. The Message, awaited for so long, its very possibility doubted by so many, arrives. Contact has been made. Life, intelligence, someone, something beyond Earth, 26 light-years away, in the vicinity of the star Vega, is calling, beaming across space a wholly unexpected message to say that we are not - have never been - alone. In Contact, Carl Sagan, whose Cosmos enthralled millions of readers and television viewers, has brilliantly employed the freedom of fiction to imagine the greatest adventure of all - humanity's first encounter with other intelligent beings. But the novel is not only about contact between humans and extraterrestrials; it is also about contact, down here on Earth, with each other and ourselves. At its center is a brilliant scientist, Eleanor Arroway, director of Project Argos, who is the first to realize that chapter one of human history is over. It is she who is instrumental in decoding the Message - and in persuading world leaders not to treat it as a threat - she who finds her own life changed by the immense challenge of responding to the Message; she who finally journeys out to experience, in circumstances at once profoundly religious and scientific, the most fateful encounter in human history.
- The Visitors
Clifford D. Simakstandalone novel1980
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WorldCat: Intelligent, alien creatures arrive on Earth from outer space, threatening world stability and presaging the destruction of civilization.
- Fifth Planet
Fred Hoyle & Geoffrey Hoylestandalone novel1963
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Fifth Planet is a science fiction novel written by astrophysicist Sir Fred Hoyle and his son Geoffrey Hoyle.
- All Judgment Fled
James Whitestandalone novel1968
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From the front flap of the Rapp first edition: It is the spring of 1978 and a gigantic alien spaceship has entered the solar system and taken up an orbit some sixty million miles from the Sun. The Ship neither signals nor replies in any detectable fashion to signals directed towards it. Silently and, some think, implacably, it orbits like some tremendous battleship cruising off the coast of a tiny, backward island. Inevitably there are natives on the island whose curiosity outweighs their fear and six men in two tiny sophisticated dug-out canoes go out to satisfy their curiosity... All Judgment Fled is not another story about super heroes solving alien communications problems with the aid of super scientific and infallible translation devices. Instead it concerns the reactions of six very ordinary people to what is probably the most extraordinary situation of all - the first meeting with an extraterrestrial race.
- Three Miles Down
Harry Turtledovestandalone novel2022
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First contact in 1974.
- Trinity
A. J. Hartley & Tom DeLongestandalone novel2024
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A thrilling new novel by the creators of Sekret Machines who, with the help of a team of government insiders, exposed the secret pentagon UFO program that captured America’s attention and led to the first public congressional hearings about unidentified flying objects. It’s 1962, in Trinity, Nevada, a small town on the edge of the desert, home to a military base serving the nuclear testing grounds. Van Lopez and his brother Andy have enough to do keeping their truck running and the local criminal gang happy to be concerned about nuclear tests. Van has dreams, or—he’s not sure what to call them—that he cannot explain or forget, but when he sees mysterious lights in the sky, he struggles to make sense of what now feel like his earliest memories. On the day of the atomic test, the nuclear blast brings down something over Trinity that wasn’t supposed to be there—something not of this world. Now Van is running for his life, pursued by a murderous Soviet agent and government forces bent on keeping all he has seen—and all he has remembered—from getting out. Romances and rivalries come to a head as he fights for the things he cares about most, and in that final battle he may have to make allies of his oldest enemies. A thrilling new novel by the creators of Sekret Machines who, with the help of a team of government insiders, exposed the secret pentagon UFO program that captured America’s attention and led to the first public congressional hearings about unidentified flying objects.
- Heechee
series19 books1972
completed
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The Heechee Saga, also known as the Gateway series, is a series of science fiction novels and short stories by Frederik Pohl. The Heechee are an advanced alien race that visited the Solar System hundreds of millennia ago and then mysteriously disappeared. They left behind bases containing artifacts, including working starships, which are discovered and exploited by humanity.
- Slaughterhouse-Five or the Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death
Kurt Vonnegut & Jr.standalone novel1969
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Vonnegut opens in his own voice, describing the twenty years it took him to face writing about surviving the firebombing of Dresden as a POW. He then hands the story to Billy Pilgrim, an awkward, fatalistic American chaplain's assistant swept into the Battle of the Bulge and captured by German forces alongside a soldier who dies blaming him for it. Imprisoned in a disused slaughterhouse in Dresden, Billy survives the firebombing that follows, and, we're told upfront, has also come 'unstuck in time,' living his life out of order, including a stretch on the alien world of Tralfamadore. Vonnegut's best-known novel folds war memoir into science fiction and black comedy.
- The Gates of Eden
Brian Stablefordstandalone novel1983
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From the back cover of the DAW first edition: "Before the hyper-space vessels could go from planet to planet, stations had to be set up. And that meant manned spaceships cut off from Earth for decades. The explorer vessel Ariadne had gone toward galactic center and was considered lost - until its call was heard appealing for a xeno-biologist. Their new world was all swamp. As far as could be seen there was no intelligent species. Yet this was alarming because all inhabitable planets so far discovered had thinking inhabitants. But the nature of the planet's "people" turned out to be an enigma that had to be solved. For the alien biology there could spell doom to all the civilization of the stars... doom or a terrible unity!"
- Ossian's Ride
Fred Hoylestandalone novel1959
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Ossian's Ride is a science fiction novel by British astrophysicist Fred Hoyle, published in 1959.
- The Fresco
Sheri S. Tepperstandalone novel2000
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The Fresco is a science fiction novel by American writer Sheri S. Tepper, published in 2000. It describes Earth's contact with a confederation of intelligent alien races. The Fresco was on the shortlist for 2001 James Tiptree, Jr. Award
- The Midwich Cuckoos
John Wyndhamstandalone novel1957
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The Midwich Cuckoos is a 1957 science fiction novel written by the English author John Wyndham. It tells the tale of an English village in which the women become pregnant by brood parasitic aliens. The book has been praised by many critics, including the dramatist Dan Rebellato, who called it "a searching novel of moral ambiguities", and the novelist Margaret Atwood, who called the book Wyndham's "chef d'œuvre". The book has been adapted for film, radio, and television.
