New Releases by Robert J. Sawyer

" Ce premier volet - extrêmement intelligent - de la trilogie Singularité explore les origines et l''émergence de la conscience. La diversité des thèmes abordés et leur profondeur font d''Eveil l''une des œuvres de Sawyer les plus abouties à ce jour. " Publishers Weekly Caitlin, jeune américaine de seize ans, aveugle de naissance, se voit proposer par un chercheur japonais, le professeur Kuroda, une prothèse qui remédierait à la défaillance de son nerf optique - l''œil lui-même et les centres visuels de son cerveau étant fonctionnels. Après la pose de la prothèse, le professeur Kuroda vient au Canada pour installer la liaison informatique avec le Japon qui traitera l''information. Dans un premier temps, le dispositif ne fonctionne pas : Caitlin ne voit pas le monde mais un réseau de lignes brillantes... Elle finit par comprendre qu''elles représentent le réseau Internet. La Toile, le Web. Le World Wide Web. Celui-ci, en retour, reçoit ce que l''œil de Caitlin voit, découvre par là même un nouvel univers, s''éveille à la conscience et devient une personne. Bientôt, le Réseau et Caitlin vont communiquer directement et la jeune fille, par ailleurs surdouée, va brancher la nouvelle entité sur des sites qui lui permettront d''apprendre et de comprendre notre monde...

Dr. Peter Hobson has created three electronic simulations of his own personality. But they all have escaped from Hobson''s computer into the web-and one of them is a killer.

Caitlin Decter discovered Webmind, the vast artificial intelligence that spontaneously emerged from the World Wide Web and changed the world-from curing cancer to easing international tensions. But the Pentagon has declared war on it, recruiting hackers to delete Webmind out of existence...

The Webmind e-book includes Wake and Wonder, the first two novels in the fascinating and thought-provoking WWW Trilogy. The trilogy centres around the emerging consciousness that is Webmind, Caitlin Decter, the blind teenager who is able to "see" this presence through a retinal implant, and Watch, the secret government agency that wants to destroy it.

Caitlin, une jeune Américaine de seize ans aveugle de naissance, se voit proposer par un chercheur japonais une prothèse qui remédierait à la défaillance de son nerf optique. Dans un premier temps, la prothèse ne fonctionne pas bien et la jeune fille voit des figures géométriques dont elle parvient à comprendre qu’elles représentent le réseau Internet. Celui-ci, partiellement éveillé à la conscience, reçoit ce que voit l’oeil de Caitlin et découvre un nouvel univers. Une étrange amitié naît alors entre la jeune fille et cette Intelligence Artificielle nommée Webmind. Mais Watch, l’agence gouvernementale chargée de surveiller les communications mondiales, découvre Webmind et, convaincue qu’elle représente un risque pour la sécurité nationale, décide sous la houlette du colonel Hume et de son équipe de l’éradiquer par tous les moyens possibles. Après Eveil et Veille, Merveille conclut en fanfare la trilogie de Robert J Sawyer consacrée à l’émergence d’une Intelligence Artificielle aux pouvoirs largement surhumains, voire quasi divins, à partir d’Internet mais ne pouvant subsister sans l’aide de l’humanité.

Award-winning author Robert J. Sawyer continues his "wildly though- provoking" science fiction saga of a sentient World Wide Web. Webmind is an emerging consciousness that has befriended Caitlin Decter and grown eager to learn about her world. But Webmind has also come to the attention of WATCH-the secret government agency that monitors the Internet for any threat to the United States-and they''re fully aware of Caitlin''s involvement in its awakening. WATCH is convinced that Webmind represents a risk to national security and wants it purged from cyberspace. But Caitlin believes in Webmind''s capacity for compassion-and she will do anything and everything necessary to protect her friend.

A Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author joins Ace with a stunning new science fiction epic. Caitlin Decter is young, pretty, feisty, a genius at math, and blind. When she receives an implant to restore her sight, instead of seeing reality she perceives the landscape of the World Wide Web-where she makes contact with a mysterious consciousness existing only in cyberspace.

Science fiction-roman.

This new collection by the man Anne McCaffrey calls "an absolutely marvelous writer" includes Hugo Award nominee "Shed Skin," Nebula Award nominee "Identity Theft," and Aurora Award winner "Ineluctable." In these pages, you''ll discover the dark secret of the only priest on Mars, revisit H.G. Wells''s Morlocks, and learn what really happens when aliens beam us the Encyclopedia Galactica.

The Face of God is what every young saurian learns to call the immense, glowing object which fills the night sky on the far side of the world. Young Afsan is privileged, called to the distant Capital City to apprentice with Saleed the court astrologer. Buth when the time comes for Afsan to make his coming-of-age pilgrimage, to gaze upon the Face of God, his world is changed forever- for what he sees will test his faith... and may save his world from disaster! At the publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management software (DRM) applied.

His new novel concerns the appearance at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto of a spiderlike alien paleontologist named Hollus. The alien has come to Earth to study the five great extinction events that have hit our planet over the eons, the best known being the asteroid collision that wiped out the dinosaurs. When the museum''s head paleontologist, Tom Jericho, consults with the alien, he is shocked to discover that Hollus has proof that her own planet and that of another alien race suffered a similar series of five catastrophic events at virtually the same times as Earth did. More surprising still to a 21st-century disciple of Darwin like Jericho, both alien races see this synchronicity, along with other scientific evidence, as proof of the existence of God. Much of the novel is relatively cerebral, as Jericho and Hollus argue over the scientific data they''ve gathered in support of God''s existence, but Sawyer excels at developing both protagonists into full-fledged characters, and he adds tension to his story in several ways: Jericho has terminal cancer, which gives him a personal stake in discovering the truth of the alien''s claims, and lurking in the background are a murderous pair of abortion clinic bombers who have decided that the museum''s Burgess Shale exhibition is an abomination that must be destroyed. Finally, there''s the spectacular, if not entirely prepared for, climax in which God manifests in an unexpected manner. This is unusually thoughtful SF. (June) FYI: Sawyer''s The Terminal Experiment won the 1995 Nebula Award for Best Novel.

Science fiction roman.

A scientist in Berkeley, California discovers that a series of murders is the work of an insurance company. After collecting information on the genes of policy holders, the company analyzed them to see which ones were a bad risk and proceeded to kill them. By the author of The Terminal Experiment.

Fossil Hunter is hard SF in the tradition of Larry Niven about a world inhabited by the Quintaglios, a dinosaurian species that has evolved a human level of intelligence and culture. Toroca, a Quintaglio geologist, is under attack for his controversial new theory of evolution. But the origins of his people turn out to be more complex than even he imagined, for he soon discovers the wreckage of an ancient starship -- a relic of the aliens who transplanted Earth''s dinosaurs to this solar system. Now, Toroca must convince Emperor Dybo that evolution is true; otherwise, the territorial violence the Quintaglios inherited from their tyrannosaur ancestors will destroy the last survivors of Earth''s prehistoric past. At the publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management software (DRM) applied.

Das Neutrino-Observatorium in Sudbury, Kanada: Ein Mann treibt plötzlich in einem Schwerwassertank. Mit knapper Not wird er gerettet und unter Quarantäne gestellt. Sein Name: Ponter Boddit. Sein Beruf: Quantenphysiker. Seine Herkunft: eine Welt, auf der die Neanderthaler den Rang der Menschen einnehmen. Die Öffentlichkeit ist schockiert über den ¿Höhlenmenschen¿, der durch ein Computer-Implantat ihre Sprache und Kultur erlernt. In dessen Heimatwelt ist sein Lebensgefährte Adikor Huld genauso schockiert, denn er wird des Mordes beschuldigt. Es gibt nur eine Möglichkeit, seine Unschuld zu beweisen: Er muss das Portal noch einmal öffnen und Ponter aus unserer Welt zurückholen. Gewinner des HUGO AWARDS für den besten SF-Roman des Jahres!

Letters from the Flesh, the second book by new SF novelist Marcos Donnelly, sets a breathtaking pace, tackling far-reaching themes like evolution, fundamentalism, quantum realities, and the very core of human nature. The novel is a fictional collection of two sets of letters united by a single secret, but separated by two thousand years: - the first-century epistles of a non-physical alien entrapped in the body of St. Paul the Apostle, accidentally triggering the birth of Christianity; - the emails of microbiologist Dr. Lillian Oberland, a young college adjunct writing to her cousin Michael, a public school biology teacher facing the wrath of Creationist parents. The letters reveal a relationship far deeper than passing coincidences-and signal that cousin Michael''s unexpected conversion to fundamentalism might have interspecies consequences that cross the millennia.

A twenty-first-century scientist sacrifices her family life to decipher the strange signals coming from interstellar space, messages that show her how to build an extraordinary machine that allows one to travel via the mind.

Human geneticist Mary Vaughan and Neanderthal physicist Ponter Boddit struggle to make their relationship work and conceive a hybrid child, while Mary''s Earth faces disaster and her boss plots against the Neanderthal world.