“One of science fiction’s most reliable practitioners” ( San Francisco Chronicle ) continues his saga of space exploration. The mysterious alien Others have prohibited humans from space travel-destroying Earth’s fleet of starships in a display of unimaginable power. Now Carmen Dula, the first human to encounter Martians and then the mysterious Others, and her colleagues struggle to find a way, using nineteenthcentury technology, to reclaim the future that has been stolen from them.

Earth was finished, devastated by nuclear and biological war. The inhabitants of the artificial asteroid colonies looked down on it and knew that humanity’s old home would soon be gone forever. But Earth would not loose its ties so easily. And for Marianne O’Hara there was work that had to be done among the stricken ruins before she could at last look outwards to the stars.

In the last volume of the parable of Earth’s destruction and humanity’s doomed flight from it, Mariane O’Hara frantically records the lives of her family and contemporaries when most of the earth’s history and literature is wiped out from computer banks. Publisher’s Weekly FB2Library.Elements.CiteItem Library Journal Written in the form of a diary, these are the reflections of a remarkable woman on the circumstances of her life aboard “New Home,” a traveling space station that represents the last remnants of humanity bound for an uncertain destination. This conclusion to the “Worlds” trilogy ( Worlds , LJ 3/15/81; Worlds Apart , LJ 9/15/83) demonstrates Haldeman at his peak, an accomplished envisioner of the distant future. Unlike many technologically oriented sf adventures, this one features memorable characters and a well-integrated plot. Purchase where the author has a following or where hard sf is popular. [Contained a table. Best viewed with CoolReader.]

A million years prior to the dawn of Homo sapiens , two immortal, shapeshifting aliens roam the Earth with little memory of their origin or their purpose. Later in the year 2019, an artifact is discovered off the coast of Samoa, buried deep beneath the ocean floor. The mysterious find brings two alien beings—the “changeling” and the “chameleon”—together again, to ponder the meaning of the object and its relationship to each other. Both immortals try to seek each other out and use the artifact to find their origins, one harbouring good intentions while the other is extremely hostile. Won the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 2005.