Synners are synthesizers – not machines, but people. They take images from the brains of performers, and turn them into a form which can be packaged, sold and consumed. This book is set in a world where new technology spawns new crime before it hits the streets.

In SYNNERS the line between technology and humanity is hopelessly slim; the human mind and the external landscape have fused to the point where any encounter with reality is incidental.

A classic novel from one of the founders and mainstays of the cyberpunk movement.

Melpomene Murray’s concerns are those of any teenager: homework, friends, dates. But Melpomene lives on the Flying Dutchman, an asteroid colony located thousands of miles from an Earth almost destroyed by disease, war, and pollution. She and her spaceborn classmates are humanity’s last hope, and Mel’s just starting to realize how heavy a responsibility that is. Her parents and teachers have trained her from birth to lead mankind into the future.

What they never realized is that Melpomene might have plans of her own…

1855: The Industrial Revolution is in full and inexorable swing, powered by steam-driven cybernetic Engines.  Charles Babbage perfects his Analytical Engine and the computer age arrives a century ahead of its time.  And three extraordinary characters race toward a rendezvous with history—and the future:

Sybil Gerard—a fallen woman, politician’s tart, daughter of a Luddite agitator

Edward “Leviathan” Mallory—explorer and paleontologist

Laurence Oliphant—diplomat, mystic, and spy.

Their adventure begins with the discovery of a box of punched Engine cards of unknown origin and purpose.  Cards someone wants badly enough to kill for….

Part detective story, part historical thriller, The Difference Engine is the collaborative masterpiece by two of the most acclaimed science fiction authors writing today.  Provocative, compelling, intensely imagined, it is a startling extension of Gibson’s and Sterling’s unique visions—and the beginning of movement we know today as “steampunk!”

As Barrayar begins, Aral and Cordelia Vorkosigan are expecting their first child. When the crafty old emperor dies, Aral takes over as regent. A plot to assassinate Aral and Cordelia with poison gas fails, but the antidote, while effective, is also a powerful teratogen that poses a grave threat to the bone development of his unborn son. In a desperate attempt to save the fetus, Cordelia has it transferred to a uterine replicator to undergo an experimental recalcification treatment that may partially combat the otherwise-fatal bone damage.

When Count Vidal Vordarian attempts a coup, five-year-old Emperor Gregor is rescued by his loyal security chief, Captain Negri, and reunited with the Vorkosigans. Cordelia, Gregor, and various retainers escape into the hills and hide amongst the rural population while Aral and his father organize the resistance.

After Cordelia rejoins Aral, they learn that the replicator containing Miles has been captured. Without proper maintenance, the fetus will succumb within six days, but Aral refuses to attempt a rescue when there are far greater concerns. However, Cordelia convinces her personal bodyguard, Ludmilla Droushnakovi, and one of Aral’s officers, Clement Koudelka, to help her rescue Gregor’s mother, Princess Kareen, and the replicator containing Miles. Once in the palace, Cordelia and her party are caught. They overpower their captors, but Princess Kareen is killed by Vordarian’s bodyguards. They execute Vordarian and escape with the replicator, and the coup falls apart without its leader. Cordelia is put in charge of Prince Gregor’s early education, with far-reaching consequences for Barrayar. This novel won both the Hugo Award for Best Novel and the Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel in 1992.