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With The Three-Body Problem , English-speaking readers got their first chance to experience the multiple-award-winning and bestselling Three-Body Trilogy by China's most beloved science fiction author, Cixin Liu. Three-Body was released to great acclaim including coverage in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. It was also named a finalist for the Nebula Award, making it the first translated novel to be nominated for a major SF award since Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities in 1976. Now this epic trilogy concludes with Death's End . Half a century after the Doomsday Battle, the uneasy balance of Dark Forest Deterrence keeps the Trisolaran invaders at bay. Earth enjoys unprecedented prosperity due to the infusion of Trisolaran knowledge. With human science advancing daily and the Trisolarans adopting Earth culture, it seems that the two civilizations will soon be able to co-exist peacefully as equals without the terrible threat of mutually assured annihilation. But the peace has also made humanity complacent. Cheng Xin, an aerospace engineer from the early 21st century, awakens from hibernation in this new age. She brings with her knowledge of a long-forgotten program dating from the beginning of the Trisolar Crisis, and her very presence may upset the delicate balance between two worlds. Will humanity reach for the stars or die in its cradle?

Alien Chic provides a cultural history of the alien since the 1950s, asking ourselves why our attitudes to aliens have shifted from fear to affection, and what this can tell us about how we now see ourselves and others. Neil Badmington explores our relationship with aliens, inscribed in films such as The War of the Worlds , Mars Attacks! , Mission to Mars and Independence Day ; and how thinkers such as Descartes, Barthes, Freud, Lyotard and Derrida have conceptualised what it means to be human (and post-human). Alien Chic examines the the concept of posthumanism in an age when the lines between what is human and what is non-human are increasingly blurred by advances in science and technology, for example genetic cloning and engineering, and the development of AI and cyborgs. Questioning whether our current embracing of all things 'alien' - in the form of extraterrestrial gadgets or abduction narratives, for instance - stems from a desire to reaffirm ourselves as 'human', this is an original and thought-provoking contribution to the study of posthumanism. Neil Badmington is Lecturer in Cultural Criticism and English Literature at the Centre for Critical and Cultural Theory, Cardiff University. He is the editor of Posthumanism (Palgrave, 2000) Introduction: They All Laughed 1. Reading the Red Planet; or, Little Green Men at Work 2. It Lives!; or, the Persistence of Humanism 3. I Want to Be Leaving; or, Tracking Alien Abduction 4. Alien Objects, Human Subjects 5. A Crisis of Versus: Rereading the Alien Conclusion: From Difference to Differance (With an 'a')

Ten thousand city-state habitats orbit the planet Yellowstone, forming a near perfect democratic human paradise. But even utopia has a dark side. As members of the habitats start suddenly and randomly dying, a charismatic figure begins to sow insurrection, convincing a small but growing number of inhabitants to break away from the Glitter Band.

Broken down in the Sahara Desert, a pilot meets an extraordinary Little Prince, travelling across time and space to bring peace to his warring planet. Inua Ellams' magical retelling of the much loved story by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry turns the Little Prince into a descendant of an African race in a parallel galaxy. His journey as a galactic emigrant takes us through solar systems of odd planets with strange beings, addresses climate change and morality, and shows how even a little thing can make a big difference.

Thousands of years ago, Earth's terraforming program took to the stars. On the world they called Nod, scientists discovered alien life - but it was their mission to overwrite it with the memory of Earth. Then humanity's great empire fell, and the program's decisions were lost to time. Aeons later, humanity and its new spider allies detected fragmentary radio signals between the stars. They dispatched an exploration vessel, hoping to find cousins from old Earth. But those ancient terraformers woke something on Nod better left undisturbed. And it's been waiting for them.

L'extraterrestre en SF attire une réaction complexe de la part du lecteur. L'exaltation mélée de peur à l'idée qu'on pourrait rencontrer de vrais êtres extraterrestres n'est pas sans rappeler les sentiments éprouvés devant ces \"individus aliénés\" (puisque l'extraterrestre est, en anglais, un Alien) que sont les nihilistes, les terroristes, et autres auteurs de crimes \"gratuits.\" On peut concevoir l'extraterrestre contemplant notre planète de façon froide et rationnelle; on a pu le voir aussi comme un protecteur bienveillant et les écrivains de SF ont aussi conçu des extraterrestres manifestement inférieurs aux humains. Ce qui semble moins probable c'est que nous puissions éprouver des sentiments de communauté authentique avec les \"Aliens.\" Les satiriques de Lumières - Cyrano, Swift, Voltaire - se sont servis des êtres d'autres mondes pour critiquer une humanité emprisonnée dans ses préjugés idéologiques. Un tel raisonnement par distanciation est fondamental à la SF, quoiqu'il faille noter que la SF encourage souvent une forme donnée de \"distanciation cognitive\" pour renforcer en fait plus fortement les liens qui attachent le lecteur à son milieu. Il est de fait qu'une distanciation radicale, un écart absolu peuvent difficilement se concevoir. L'étrangeté totale s'identifie à l'absurdité au sens strict. Les objets extraterrestres sont donc produits par contraste ou analogie avec ce que nous connaissons déjà. Le problème est donc celui de la caractérisation de l'extraterrestre représenté. Cette caractérisation en SF est dans une large mesure fonctionnelle: c'est un moyen pour mettre en scène le Novum. Le point de vue narratif peut être: (1) celui d'un narrateur objectif, (2) celui d'un observateur humain, (3) celui de l'être étranger lui-même. Les extraterrestres en SF possèdent toujours une dimension métaphorique. Le métaphorisé relève de certains aspects du monde empirique que l'auteur cherche à défamiliariser. Le métaphorisant se présente comme une déviation identifiable des normes humaines. Dans cet écart, demeureront certaines réminiscences (1) du monde naturel, (2) d'entitès mythiques ou imaginaires, (3) d'ethnies étrangères ou (4) d'une combinaison de ces 3 éléments. La finalité métaphorique de la plupart des personnages extraterrestres est d'ordinaire immédiatement évidente au lecteur. Il n'en reste pas moins que certaines implication du processus métaphorisant peuvent dépasser les intentions conscientes de l'auteur (ex. d'Asimov, Leinster, Weinbaum.) Une fois que la finalité métaphorique a été déterminée, l'extraterrestre perd souvent tout intérét pour le critique. La SF du milieu de ce siècle a cependant fait preuve d'une grande sensibilité à l'anthropologie et à la philologie. On n'a plus de ces machines-à-traduire, procédé facile des textes anciens; on nous présente des systémes sémiotiques à la fois singuliers et difficilement connaissables. (cf. Lewis, Lem). La représentation verbale du langage nouveau peut être obtenue par une distorsion systématique de la langue ordinaire (cf. Burgess, Zamiatine, Golding). Ecrire une SF expérimentale revient à subvertir les conventions du genre lui-même. The Dark Light Years de B. Aldiss est un exemple réussi d'effet de distanciation. La description de l'extraterrestre requiert une modification du \"personnage bien construit\" mais non l'abandon de celui-ci, comme l'ont défendu Virginia Woolf et, pour la SF, Ursula Le Guin. La priorité de l'auteur doit être la caractérisation de l'extraterrestre, plutôt que celle des personnages humains.

\"Hundreds of years ago, the last humans on Earth boarded the Exodus Fleet in search of a new home among the stars. After centuries spent wandering empty space, their descendants were eventually accepted by the well-established species that govern the Milky Way. But that was long ago. Today, the Exodus Fleet is a living relic, the birthplace of many, yet a place few outsiders have ever visited. While the Exodans take great pride in their original community and traditions, their culture has been influenced by others beyond their bulkheads. As many Exodans leave for alien cities or terrestrial colonies, those who remain are left to ponder their own lives and futures: What is the purpose of a ship that has reached its destination? Why remain in space when there are habitable worlds available to live? What is the price of sustaining their carefully balanced way of life--and is it worth saving at all?\"-- (Source of summary not specified).

\"Esen's back! And the dear little blob is in trouble, again. Things began so well. She and her Human friend Paul Ragem are ready to celebrate the first anniversary of their greatest accomplishment, the All Species' Library of Linguistics and Culture, by welcoming his family back. He hopes. Having mourned his supposed death years ago, understandably, feelings are bent. Instead, they've unexpected guests, starting with an old acquaintance. Paul's father has gone missing under dire circumstances. Before he can convince Esen to help him search, a friend shows up to use the Library. A crisis on Dokeci Na is about to explode into violence. To stop it, Evan Gooseberry needs answers. Unfortunately, the artifact he brought in trade holds its own distracting secret. A touch of very familiar blue. Web-flesh. The race is on. Paul, to find his father. Esen, to search for a mysterious legacy while helping Evan avert an extinction. What none of them realize is the price of success will be the most terrible choice of all.\"--Amazon.com.