Audiobooks by Charles Stross

The Singularity. It is the era of the posthuman. Artificial intelligences have surpassed the limits of human intellect. Biotechnological beings have rendered people all but extinct. Molecular nanotechnology runs rampant, replicating and reprogramming at will. Contact with extraterrestrial life grows more imminent with each new day.Struggling to survive and thrive in this accelerated world are three generations of the Macx clan: Manfred, an entrepreneur dealing in intelligence amplification technology whose mind is divided between his physical environment and the Internet; his daughter, Amber, on the run from her domineering mother, seeking her fortune in the outer system as an indentured astronaut; and Sirhan, Amber’s son, who finds his destiny linked to the fate of all of humanity.For something is systematically dismantling the nine planets of the solar system. Something beyond human comprehension. Something that has no use for biological life in any form...

Charles Stross (Author), George Guidall (Narrator)

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Atrocity Archives

A Hugo Award winner and best-selling author, Charles Stross combines the best elements of science fiction and fantasy. In The Atrocity Archives, a lowly computer geek working for a secret British intelligence agency gets promoted to field service after accidentally saving lives in a disaster. Now he's faced with saving the universe using only his smarts and a disembodied hand that renders him invisible. Stross' award-winning novella, The Concrete Jungle, is also included.

Charles Stross (Author), George K. Wilson (Narrator)

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Dark State: A Novel of the Merchant Princes Multiverse

Hugo Award-winning author Charlie Stross dives deep into the underbelly of paratime espionage, nuclear warfare, and state surveillance in this provocative techno-thriller set in The Merchant Princes multi-verse Dark State ups the ante on the already volatile situations laid out in the sleek techno-thriller Empire Games, the start to Stross' new story-line and a perfect entry point for new listeners, in The Merchant Princes series. In the near-future, the collision of two nuclear superpowers across timelines, one in the midst of a technological revolution and the other a hyper-police state, is imminent. In Commissioner Miriam Burgeson's timeline, her top level agents run a high risk extraction of a major political player. Meanwhile, a sleeper cell activated in Rita's, the Commissioner's adopted daughter and newly-minted spy, timeline threatens to unravel everything. With a penchant for intricate world-building and an uncanny ability to realize alternate history and technological speculation, Stross' prose will captivate any listener who's a fan of hi-tech thrillers, inter-dimensional political intrigue, and espionage.

Charles Stross (Author), Kate Reading (Narrator)

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Dark State: Empire Games: Book Two

Dark State is the second book in the thrilling Empire Games series - set in the same world as Charles Stross' The Merchant Princes series. In the near future, the collision of two nuclear superpowers - in two different timelines - is imminent. One America is experiencing its first technological revolution, whilst a parallel United States is a hi-tech police state. But both are poised to wreak destruction. In Miriam Burgeson's America, internal politics are pulling the government apart. But if one of her agents secures a high-profile defection, civil war may be averted. Rita Douglas, rival US spy, arrives during this crisis. Her world is rocked when she realizes Miriam is her mother, who gave her up for adoption as a baby. But what impact will this have on the conflict? Then the US discovers another timeline, and the remains of an advanced society. Something annihilated that civilization - and Rita's people are about to rouse it.

Charles Stross (Author), Kate Reading (Narrator)

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Empire Games

Charles Stross builds a new series with Empire Games. Expanding on the world he created in the Family Trade series, a new generation of paratime travellers walk between parallel universes. The year is 2020. It's seventeen years since the Revolution overthrew the last king of the New British Empire, and the newly-reconstituted North American Commonwealth is developing rapidly, on course to defeat the French and bring democracy to a troubled world. But Miriam Burgeson, commissioner in charge of the shadowy Ministry of Intertemporal Research and Intelligence--the paratime espionage agency tasked with catalyzing the Commonwealth's great leap forward--has a problem. For years, she's warned everyone: "The Americans are coming." Now their drones arrive in the middle of a succession crisis, for their leader, First Man Adam, is dying of cancer, and the vultures are circling. In another timeline, the U.S. has recruited Rita, Miriam's own estranged daughter, to spy across timelines in order to bring down any remaining world-walkers who might threaten national security. But her handlers are keeping information from her. Two nuclear superpowers are set on a collision course. Two increasingly desperate paratime espionage agencies are fumbling around in the dark, trying to find a solution to the first contact problem that doesn't result in a nuclear holocaust. And two women--a mother and her long-lost, adopted-out daughter--are about to find themselves on opposite sides of the confrontation.

Charles Stross (Author), Kate Reading (Narrator)

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Empire Games

A time of ambition, treachery and dangerous secrets . . . Rita Douglas is plucked from her dead-end job and trained as a reluctant US spy. All because she has the latent genetic talent to hop between alternate timelines - and infiltrate them. Her United States is waging a high-tech war, targeting assassins who can move between worlds to deliver death on a mass scale, and Rita will be their secret weapon. Miriam Beckstein has her own mission, as a politician in an industrial revolution US. She must accelerate her world's technology before their paranoid American twin finds them. It would blow them to hell. After all, they've done it before. Each timeline also battles internal conspiracies, as a cold war threatens to turn white hot. But which world is the aggressor - and will Rita have to choose a side? This new series is set in the same world as Charles Stross' 'Merchant Princes' series.

Charles Stross (Author), Kate Reading (Narrator)

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Glasshouse

Hugo Award-winning author Charles Stross delivers 'credible and bold SF' (Science Fiction Weekly) that continually pushes the boundaries of the genre. With Glasshouse, Stross pens a Kafkaesque tale set in a 27th century of teleport gates and mind-attacking network worms. After Robin awakes in a clinic, he struggles to summon details of his life, but too many of his memories have been wiped clean. More troubling is the stark awareness of immediate danger: someone is trying to kill him. On the run, Robin makes a desperate gamble and volunteers for what he hopes is the sanctuary of an unusual study at the Glasshouse. Once there, however, he realizes the true terror has only begun. Stross pulls out all the stops in a searing adventure that will keep listeners' hearts racing. Propelled by Kevin R. Free's riveting narration, Glasshouse is a novel SF fans will not soon forget. 'One nightmarish panopticon.''New York Times

Charles Stross (Author), Kevin R. Free (Narrator)

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Halting State

In a starred review, Publishers Weekly calls Hugo winner Charles Stross' novel Halting State a 'brilliantly conceived techno-crime thriller.' The year is 2012, and China, India, and the United States are waging an infowar for economic domination. With innocent gamers mere pawns in the hands of electronic intelligence agencies, programmer Jack Reed is tasked with ferreting out the plot of those who would gladly trade global turmoil for personal gain. 'The act of creation seems to come easily to Charles Stross ' [He] is peerless at dreaming up devices that could conceivably exist in 6, 60, or 600 years.''New York Times

Charles Stross (Author), Robert Ian MacKenzie (Narrator)

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Invisible Sun: Empire Games: Book Three

In this chillingly resonant dystopian adventure, two versions of America are locked in conflict. Invisible Sun concludes Charles Stross’s Empire Games trilogy. Two twinned worlds are facing attack The New American Commonwealth is caught in a deadly arms race with the USA, its parallel-world rival. And the USA’s technology is decades ahead. Yet the Commonweath might self-combust first – for its leader has just died, leaving a crippling power vacuum. Minister Miriam Burgeson must face allegations of treason without his support, in a power grab by her oldest adversary. However, all factions soon confront a far greater danger . . . In their drive to explore other timelines, high-tech USA awakened an alien threat. This force destroyed humanity on one version of Earth. And if the two superpowers don’t take action, it will do the same to them. Invisible Sun follows Empire Games and Dark State. This trilogy is set in the same dangerous parallel world as Charles Stross’s Merchant Princes sequence.

Charles Stross (Author), Kate Reading (Narrator)

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Iron Sunrise

Not only is Charles Stross' Iron Sunrise a "hard-science fiction masterpiece" (Library Journal), it's also "a Hollywood thriller with a cyberpunk heart" (Entertainment Weekly). PlanetMoscow is vaporized by an unnatural star explosion, prompting those who escaped to counterattack the likely culprit—planet New Dresden of the neighboring system. But New Dresden wasn't to blame, and as worlds go to war, an unseen enemy labors to destroy the universe itself.

Charles Stross (Author), George Guidall (Narrator)

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Knaves Over Queens

The return of the famous shared-world superhero books created and edited by George R. R. Martin, author of A Song of Ice and Fire For decades, George R.R. Martin - bestselling author of A Song of Ice and Fire - has collaborated with an ever-shifting ensemble of science fiction and fantasy icons to create the amazing Wild Cards universe. In the aftermath of World War II, the Earth's population was devastated by a terrifying alien virus. Those who survived were changed for ever. Some, known as Jokers, were cursed with bizarre mental and physical deformities; others, granted superhuman abilities, are known as Aces. Now the virus has reached Britain... Queen Margaret rules over a country in which such legendary figures as Herne the Hunter, Spring-heeled Jack and Babh, the goddess of war, roam at will. Her Prime Minister, Sir Winston Churchill - gifted with extraordinary longevity - together with the Enigma ace - Alan Turing - set up a special organization named the Order of the Silver Helix. They will need all the wild cards they can find if they are to deal with the terrifying mutations thrown up by the virus. KNAVES OVER QUEENS - the first ever Wild Cards novel set in the UK, and a perfect jumping-in point for readers new to this shared world - features a stunning collection of original stories from such luminaries of the world of science fiction and fantasy as Paul Cornell, Marko Kloos, Mark Lawrence, Kevin Andrew Murphy, Emma Newman, Peter Newman, Peadar O Guilin, Melinda M. Snodgrass, Caroline Spector and Charles Stross.

Caroline Spector, Charles Stross, Charles Stross., Emma Newman, Kevin Andrew Murphy, Mark Lawrence, Marko Kloos, Melinda M. Snodgrass, Paul Cornell, Peadar O Guilin, Peter Newman (Author), Peter Noble (Narrator)

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Neptune's Brood

The year is AD 7000. The human species is extinct—for the fourth time—due to its fragile nature. Krina Alizond-114 is metahuman, descended from the robots that once served humanity. She’s on a journey to the water-world of Shin-Tethys to find her sister Ana. But her trip is interrupted when pirates capture her ship. Their leader, the enigmatic Count Rudi, suspects that there’s more to Krina’s search than meets the eye. He’s correct: Krina and Ana each possess half of the fabled Atlantis Carnet, a lost financial instrument of unbelievable value—capable of bringing down entire civilizations. Krina doesn’t know that Count Rudi suspects her motives, so she accepts his offer to get her to Shin-Tethys in exchange for an introduction to Ana. And what neither of them suspects is that a ruthless body-double assassin has stalked Krina across the galaxy, ready to take the Carnet once it is whole—and leave no witnesses alive to tell the tale…

Charles Stross (Author), Emily Gray (Narrator)

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