Books published by publisher Bantam Spectra

The story of our future begins with the Foundation.Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read For twelve thousand years the Galactic Empire has ruled supreme. Now it is dying. Only Hari Seldon, creator of the revolutionary science of psychohistory, can see into the future—a dark age of ignorance, barbarism, and warfare that will last thirty thousand years. To preserve knowledge and save humanity, Seldon gathers the best minds in the Empire—both scientists and scholars—and brings them to a bleak planet at the edge of the galaxy to serve as a beacon of hope for future generations. He calls this sanctuary the Foundation. But soon the fledgling Foundation finds itself at the mercy of corrupt warlords rising in the wake of the receding Empire. And mankind’s last best hope is faced with an agonizing choice: submit to the barbarians and live as slaves—or take a stand for freedom and risk total destruction.

As this epic trilogy reaches its unforgettable conclusion, young FitzChivalry faces his toughest opponent ever: himself. Embittered and broken, his body reclaimed from the grave and his spirit from the care of his bond-wolf Nighteyes, Fitz awakens to a world where everything he once held dear is in ruins. King Shrewd is dead; Prince Regal has claimed the throne and rules the kingdom with a cruel and selfish negligence. Molly has deserted him for parts unknown. Queen Kettricken and her unborn child have fled to the mountains with the Fool, Verity is lost seeking the elusive Elderlings, and Fitz's presumed death forever bars him from Buckkeep. The only companions he had left in his solitude are Chade and Burrich, who wrestle him reluctantly back to humanity after his sojourn in Nighteyes' mind.But angry with the lot Fate has cast him, Fitz drives away even these loyal companions, and for the first time faces his life on his own, without anyone to guide or lead him. And what he most desires is revenge against Regal, for everything the usurper has cost him. So, preparing his assassin's kit, he sets out for Regal's new capital at Tradeford, determined to murder the treacherous "king." Without guidance, though, he botches the attempt, and an urgent sending by Verity to save him leaves Fitz imprinted with the burning imperative to find and aid his true king in his quest to aid the land.Eventually fighting his way through to the mountains, he rejoins Kettricken and the Fool in a quest for Verity--and there in the Skill-shadowed hills, he discovers an ancient power and a mysterious riddle, whose answer may well change the fate of the Six Duchies forever....

In The Rise of Endymion, Dan Simmons brings to a triumphant conclusion one of the most celebrated, compelling, and dramatic science fiction sagas of our time. Brilliant, provocative, unfailingly inventive, the odyssey began with the Hugo Award-winning Hyperion, continued through the critically acclaimed The Fall of Hyperion and Endymion, and now ascends to its greatest heights yet....The final chapter of this magnificent saga begins with two momentous events: the death and resurrection of Pope Julius XV and the coming-of-age of the new messiah. Her name is Aenea and she is the only person who can counter the pope and his plan to unleash the Pax Fleet, the Church's military wing, on a final genocidal Crusade to gain total dominion over the universe. The Church is allied with the infamous AI Core, which has offered immortality to humankind--or at least to those faithful who pledge total obedience to the Church--but at what terrible price? The Core has its own dark motives and secrets, and only Aenea knows what they are.Aenea, too, has an ally. Her protector, Raul Endymion, onetime shepherd and convicted murderer, finds her in exile undergoing a strange apprenticeship on Old Earth. Here she has gained access to an information matrix created by the Others--the same mysterious Others who moved Old Earth to save it from the Core. But who are these Others? What has Aenea learned from them? And why has Old Earth been turned into a stage upon which cybrids from the past--from John Keats to Frank Lloyd Wright--repeat historical dramas of human genius for purposes known only to the Others?The answers to these questions must wait. Together with the android A. Bettik, Endymion and his beloved Aenea embark on a final mission to find and comprehend the underlying fabric of the universe. The surprising nature of this medium and Aenea's ability to instruct her growing army of disciples in its discovery and use could provide the one weapon powerful enough to thwart their enemies while liberating humanity. Meanwhile, the enigmatic Shrike--monster, angel, killing machine--has followed them on their intergalactic sojourn and now stands ready to complete its own mission, revealing at last the long-held secret of its origin and purpose.In The Rise of Endymion, Dan Simmons masterfully weaves together the complex strands of this extraordinary series. He answers all of the unsolved mysteries posed in the earlier volumes and brings the story full circle to the planet Hyperion, where it all began. A work of unparalleled power and vision, The Rise of Endymion is a masterpiece of the imagination by one of our most gifted writers.

A millennium into the future, two advancements have altered the course of human history: the colonization of the Galaxy and the creation of the positronic brain. On the beautiful Outer World planet of Solaria, a handful of human colonists lead a hermit-like existence, their every need attended to by their faithful robot servants. To this strange and provocative planet comes Detective Elijah Baley, sent from the streets of New York with his positronic partner, the robot R. Daneel Olivaw, to solve an incredible murder that has rocked Solaria to its foundations. The victim had been so reclusive that he appeared to his associates only through holographic projection. Yet someone had gotten close enough to bludgeon him to death while robots looked on. Now Baley and Olivaw are faced with two clear impossibilities: Either the Solarian was killed by one of his robots--unthinkable under the laws of Robotics--or he was killed by the woman who loved him so much that she never came into his presence!

Wisdom, wit and an an uncanny sense of wonder have become the trademarks of grand master Isaac Asimov fashion the future of science fiction by going back to the beginning--presenting the overture to the greatest SF series of all time in Prelude to Foundation.It is the year 12,020 G.E. and Emperior Cleon I sits uneasily on the Imperial throne of Tranto. Here in the great multidomed capital of the Galactic Empire, forty billion people have created a civilization of unimaginable technological and cultural complexity. Yet Cleon knows there are those who would see him fall--those whom he would destroy if only he could read the future.Hari Seldon has come to Trantor to deliver his paper on psychohistoy, his remarkable theory of prediction. Little does the young Outworld mathematician know that he has already sealed his fate and the fate of humanity. For Hari possesses the prophetic power that makes him the most wanted man in the Empire...the man who holds the key to the future--an apocalyptic power to be known forever after as the Foundation.