Allen Steele – författare

"e;This is the story of the last day of my life, and everything that happened after that."e;Back in print after a decade, A King of Infinite Space is the final volume of Allen Steele's award-winning Near-Space series, and a cult-favorite among readers. Ranging from a Lollapalooza concert of 1995 to the asteroid belt of 2099, it's the tale of a young man who dies, becomes reborn, and crosses the solar system in search of his lost love… and grows to be a better man, despite himself.Reviews:"e;Steele's hero tells his story in such a way that the reader learns a lot more about him than he is aware of himself. Surprisingly, his bodacious adventures provide good wheels for a rather thoughtful book."e; —Absolute Magnitude"e;Alec's story is fast, breezy, funny, and compelling as we follow his journey from spoiled brat to downtrodden slave to hero."e; —Denver Post

All the stories of Allen Steele's award-winning "e;Near Space"e; series—now in an expanded and revised second edition!Since its first publication in 1999, Sex and Violence in Zero-G has become one of the most long-sought and hard-to-find of Steele's books. At last, this massive collection is back in print—complete with a new introduction, five additional stories, and a revised timeline.Includes the Hugo Award-winning novella "e;The Death of Captain Future"e; and the Hugo Award-winning novelette "e;The Emperor of Mars."e;Reviews:…the Near Space series "e;presents a realistic and action-packed modern vision of the industrialization of space and those who make it happen. If the collective governments of the world had any sense, they'd be using these books as texts for ushering in a future worth having.… Never read Allen Steele? Here's a great place to start. If you like Analog, you'll like Steele. Already an Allen Steele fan? Then what are you doing still reading? Go get the book already!"e; —Don Sakers, "e;The Reference Library"e;, in Analog Science Fiction and Fact, June 2012.Listed as one of the "e;titles worth a look"e; for January 2012. —John DeNardo in Kirkus Reviews

The former head of a lunar mining operation returns to the moon and is immediately sucked into a dangerous morass of labor troubles, lies, larceny, and corporate wrongdoing in this wildly entertaining science fiction thrill ride There is big trouble on the moon. The blue-collar working stiffs of Descartes Station, who mine the surface for minerals and the North Pole for water, have become increasingly dissatisfied with Skycorp’s general disregard for its employees’ well-being. Following the most recent spate of layoffs, the labor strike grumblings have only grown louder, so the company is sending former base administrator and recovering alcoholic Lester Riddell back into the fold in an attempt to boost morale and output alike.   The truth, however, becomes shockingly apparent to Riddell almost immediately upon his return. Not only has he been unceremoniously dumped into a muddled mess of larceny, piracy, and corporate malfeasance, it appears that Skycorp is purposely setting him up to fail—which could spell finis for Descartes Station and every trash-talking, pot-smoking, porn-loving Vacuum Sucker and Moondog who toils there. But as the Skycorp suits are about to discover, they’ve just made the biggest mistake of their corporate lives—because Lester Riddell is nobody’s fall guy.   Three-time Hugo Award winner Allen Steele has seen the near future, and it isn’t pretty—it’s noisy, dirty, dangerous, and chaotic. Thrilling, wildly inventive, delightfully profane, and totally outrageous, Lunar Descent is one hell of rocket ride, with a master of science fiction at the helm.

Winner of the Locus Award: Space-station workers discover a shocking global surveillance plot in this novel from “the master of science-fiction intrigue” (The Washington Post). Popeye Hooker knows that space isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. A former fisherman who takes a job building low orbital stations to escape a failed relationship, he finds that in space, construction work is still a grind. And when they aren’t building the space stations that will usher humanity into the stars, Sam Sloane and the rest of the beamjacks get high, blast the Grateful Dead, and stare through telescopes at the world they left behind. But life in orbit is about to get much more interesting.   Nestled among the life support equipment that keeps them alive and the entertainment systems that keep them happy, the beamjacks find something astonishing. Turns out, their home isn’t just a space station—it’s a giant antenna designed to spy on every inhabitant of Earth. It’s the greatest privacy invasion ever perpetrated, and the beamjacks won’t stand for it.   They may not be pioneers, but these roughnecks are about to become revolutionaries.   Timely—and with Orwellian undertones, Allen Steele’s debut won the Locus Award for Best First Novel. Perfect for fans of Robert Heinlein, Robert J. Sawyer, and Greg Bear, Orbital Decay blends fantasy and science fiction with a prescient attention paid to the dangers of government surveillance.  

On mankind’s last mission to the moon, a killer comes along for the rideSince the first manned spaceflight in 1944, NASA has conquered the outer atmosphere, explored Mars, and placed nuclear missiles on the moon. But funding for interstellar adventures—military or otherwise—has dried up. Now, NASA is planning a final lunar mission to pack up the remnants of man’s first extraterrestrial colony. The nuclear missiles are meant to be shot into the sun, but someone onboard the USS Conestoga would prefer to see them fired toward Earth.The night before the mission launch, one of the astronauts is kidnapped from his hotel room and replaced with a surgically altered body double. By the time the other astronauts uncover the deception, the Conestoga is too far from home for NASA to help. On the surface of the Moon, a decades-old conspiracy has reached its final stage, and Earth’s fate hangs in the balance. 

On Mars, a research team encounters an ancient puzzle that only a guitarist can solveIn 2029, an American research team ventures to Mars to investigate an astounding find: a labyrinth older than humanity itself, whose maze of rooms conceals the deepest secrets of the red planet. In the final chamber, strange music plays, as chilling as it is beautiful. It will be the last thing the scientist who discovers it ever hears. As the music rises to a climax, the chamber door closes, leaving him to die in the pitch dark.Where one explorer has failed, Ben Cassidy must not. An internationally famous guitarist, his music is the closest thing on Earth to Mars’s deadly hymn. The government sends him into space to solve a planetary mystery, but what Cassidy encounters is a team of researchers whose jealous competition is every bit as dangerous as the secrets of Mars.  

Short stories and science writing from a Robert A. Heinlein Award winner: “Allen Steele is among the best.” —St. Louis Post-Dispatch   In Rude Astronauts, Allen Steele presents some of his finest stories—including the Diamondback Jack Trilogy and his first published story, “Live from the Mars Hotel”—along with excerpts of the nonfiction science writing with which he made his name. In Steele’s universe, the stars are cold, space is big, and it’s the normal people who make things interesting. 

In Jupiter’s orbit, a mysterious death propels an astronaut into the investigation of a lifetimePartway into a years-long journey, an interstellar research expedition takes up orbit around Jupiter and begins to explore the gas giant’s moons: Ganymede, Callisto, Io and—most importantly—the ice ball known as Europa. For centuries, scientists have wondered what strange alien life forms may lurk beneath the frozen surface of Jupiter’s most mysterious moon. And tragically, the men and women aboard this ship are about to find out.Two scientists go down to the surface of Europa in a small craft piloted by the beautiful, fiery Evangeline Chatelain. After an accident on the surface, only she returns. Her crewmembers suspect her of murder, but Evangeline tells a wild tale of an attack by a terrifying space monster. The astronaut charged with investigating the incident must decide—is she a crazed killer? Or has she just made the greatest scientific discovery in history?  

In Jupiter’s orbit, a mysterious death propels an astronaut into the investigation of a lifetimePartway into a years-long journey, an interstellar research expedition takes up orbit around Jupiter and begins to explore the gas giant’s moons: Ganymede, Callisto, Io and—most importantly—the ice ball known as Europa. For centuries, scientists have wondered what strange alien life forms may lurk beneath the frozen surface of Jupiter’s most mysterious moon. And tragically, the men and women aboard this ship are about to find out.Two scientists go down to the surface of Europa in a small craft piloted by the beautiful, fiery Evangeline Chatelain. After an accident on the surface, only she returns. Her crewmembers suspect her of murder, but Evangeline tells a wild tale of an attack by a terrifying space monster. The astronaut charged with investigating the incident must decide—is she a crazed killer? Or has she just made the greatest scientific discovery in history?  

The future of an orbiting space colony is threatened by a fugitive and the assassin on her trail in this science fiction adventure from three-time Hugo Award winner Allen Steele Skycorp has always expected the near-Earth space colony Clarke County to serve as a cash cow, bringing the corporate behemoth a substantial return on its investment through food production and tourism. Now that the Church of Elvis is planning a major revival meeting on the colony, the execs anticipate that the devout and the curious alike will be rocketing to Clarke County in droves. Its residents, however, would prefer to be left alone, and there has even been some dangerous talk of freedom and independence from Earth.   It’s Sheriff John Bigthorn’s job to keep the peace on the colony, but his work may prove more difficult than usual in the upcoming days—especially following the unexpected arrival of a frightened young woman carrying money and important data she’s stolen from her gangster ex-boyfriend. With an ice-cold assassin called the Golem on the runaway’s tail, the holy “Living Elvis” stirring up the faithful, and revolution in the wind, Bigthorn will have to lay off the peyote and stay particularly sharp if he hopes to prevent total chaos and bloodshed . . . and perhaps even save his floating artificial world.

Earth’s past and future are altered by twenty-fourth-century time travelers in this “significant work of science fiction” from the author of Arkwright (Rocky Mountain News). Chrononaut Franc Lu has come a long, long way—from the twenty-fourth century, in fact—to be in New Jersey on the evening of May 6, 1937. Traveling four hundred years into the past, he and his partner have been sent by the Chronospace Research Centre to observe the infamous explosion of the zeppelin Hindenburg. But when the German airship touches down safely on the airfield in Lakehurst, Lu realizes that something has gone terribly wrong—or rather, horribly right. His presence at the landing has set in motion an alternate historical timeline, and now everything will be different, though not necessarily in a good way. The consequences of Lu’s mistake could prove catastrophic for every living soul on Earth, now and forever, unless the past and the future are somehow repaired—and that is a burden destined to fall on the shoulders of visionary NASA scientist and wannabe science fiction author Dr. David Zachary Murphy.   An expansion of his Hugo Award–winning novella “ ‘. . . Where Angels Fear to Tread,’ ” Allen Steele’s Time Loves a Hero is at once thrilling, surprising, startling, and thoughtful—a mind-blowing masterwork of speculative fiction that radically reimagines time travel, alien contact, alternate history, and a host of other well-worn science fiction tropes.

Treachery, greed, and a gargantuan sea monster threaten the inhabitants of a high-tech, deep-water research station in this thrilling undersea science fiction adventure A three-time Hugo Award winner and modern master of hard science fiction now departs from outer space for a vast, unexplored realm that is equally perilous and mysterious. Allen Steele’s Oceanspace is a heart-racing near-future adventure of danger and discovery unfolding in the dark, cold, and merciless depths of the ocean.   The undersea research facility Tethys is a technological wonder, self-sufficient and seemingly impervious to natural danger. Located off the coast of Florida deep beneath the surface of the water, the station supports a robotic mining operation on the ocean floor and facilitates the ongoing scientific exploration of Earth’s last frontier. But while on a routine assignment with his colleague Peter Lipscomb, submersible pilot Joe Niedzwiecki comes face to face with something incredible and alive, and only luck—and Peter’s quick actions—can save them.   Peter’s wife, a marine biologist named Judith, is determined to uncover the secrets of the mysterious leviathan that destroyed Joe’s sub and nearly killed him. But the strange creature prowling the dark waters is only one of the dangers confronting Tethys.

THREE SHORT NOVELS OF SCIENCE FICTION SUSPENSE

From the Hugo-winning author of Coyote, Arkwright, and Avengers of the Moon come three novellas that combine science fiction, mystery, and crime:

The Doppler Effect -- Never before published, a satirical short novel about how a disgraced college professor and a young prodigy perpetrate the greatest scientific hoax in history: faking an alien signal from outer space.

Frogheads -- A private investigator travels to a Venus that never was in search of a missing youth, and discovers a crime against the planet''s native race ... and how those natives exact revenge of their own.

Einstein''s Shadow -- In an alternative timeline, a detective is given a dangerous assignment: protect Albert Einstein and his wife as they defect from Nazi Germany to the United States aboard a colossal transatlantic airliner.

The Washington Post has called Allen Steele "a master of science fiction intrigue." This new collection proves again the reasons why.