Dave Hutchinson

There is a phenomenon - a force, a spirit, a flaw in Reality - known as the Essence, which can manifest at random, often with dire effect. Michael Brookes, an economist working for a small outstation of MI6 attached to the Treasury, is sent to the Netherlands by his department, where he narrowly escapes being kidnapped; and that's just the start of his problems. Michael has never heard of the Essence, but some very powerful people believe otherwise. Despite his protestations, they will stop at nothing to discover what he knows. The problem is that Michael, who is recovering from a catastrophic breakdown, has large gaps in his memory... So he can't rule out the possibility that they might be right.

After the war in the Parish, Adam is looking forward to a period of peace, but his superiors have other ideas. There are rumours from Oxford and the Cotswolds that Father John - who once almost overthrew Plymouth - is building an army, and someone has to go and investigate. Arriving in Oxford, Adam is surprised to find a thriving city with a healthy populace and technology not seen since before the fall of The Sisters. He also finds it patrolled by the descendants of the Thames Valley Police, among them Detective Inspector Leonie Mellow. However, it doesn't not take long for dark events to concern Adam. Murders, paint-splashed graffiti on walls, people going missing - and he can't help but wonder if the past is following him.

To uncover the truth, you must risk everythingWhen Carey Tews retired from Les Coureurs - the clandestine organisation of high-risk smugglers - she swore she'd never go back. Her cover in Hungary was blown, and even if she could have returned, she wouldn't. That is, until an old friend and lover is found dead in mysterious circumstances. Back for one last job in a Europe fractured into a hundred tiny principalities, with civil unrest and political instability the norm, she must navigate local authorities, rogue operatives and Russian spies. What she doesn't know is that the investigation will take her to places she couldn't even imagine.

Hardship is all Adam Hardy and his community have ever known. Almost a century ago a storm of cataclysmic comets struck the Earth and triggered generations of perpetual cold and darkness. Now the survivors of rainswept England huddle in their tiny communities, scavenging the ruins of the old world. Finally, the Long Autumn is coming to an end, and society of a kind is starting to rebuild. But for how long? Adam is struggling to hold his small Berkshire village together as the age-old rivalry between the Taylors and the Lyalls spills out into fresh bloodshed. A new tyrant, Frank Pendennis, has risen in the east in Kent, and has dreams of conquest. And rumours of something even worse are coming from the north... The struggle to inherit the world is just beginning.

A visionary thriller of future espionage, broken borders, people smuggling, betrayal and an impossible secret The Guardian called, "a spellbinding novel of intrigue and paranoia." Europe as we know it is gone. Devastated by a flu pandemic and crippled by economic collapse, the continent has fractured into countless tiny nations, a fragile web of shifting alliances seething with espionage and strange new technologies. In a small restaurant in Krakow, chef Rudi is drawn into a new career with Les Coureurs des Bois, a shadowy organisation that will move anything across any state line - for a price. Soon, Rudi is in a world of high-risk smuggling operations, where kidnappings and double-crosses are as natural as a map that constantly redraws itself.

When Alex Dolan is hired by multibillionaire Stanislaw Clayton to write a book about the Sioux Crossing Supercollider, it seems like a dream job. Then something goes wrong at the site. Very wrong. After the incident, Dolan finds himself changed, and the only one who can stop the disaster from destroying us all.

Are there really refugees from 'elsewhere' living among us? If so, what cataclysmic event are they fleeing from? Police Sergeant Frank finds himself the focus of unwanted attention from Internal Affairs and is faced with the prospect of things being unearthed that he would far rather stayed buried.

An unabridged collection spotlighting the "best of the best" hard science fiction stories published in 2017 by current and emerging masters of the genre, edited by Allan Kaster. In "Shadows of Eternity," by Gregory Benford, a student investigates enigmatic SETI recordings from probes sent to nearby stars despite her teachers' admonishments to stick to the curriculum. An alien robot offers to help save Earth as war and pollution ravage the last of the survivors on the planet in "The Chatter of Monkeys," by Bond Elam. In "Acadie," by Dave Hutchinson, the first humans still, even after five hundred years, hunt across the stars for their augmented children who have left Earth in search of paradise. The crew of an exploratory starship finds an icy moon that might harbor life in "Canoe," by Nancy Kress. In "The Use of Things," by Ramez Naam, an astronaut struggles to survive after being jolted free from an asteroid while on a solitary prospecting mission. A problem with the local birds threatens the rebuilding of Bikini Island as sea-levels rise due to global warming in "The Proving Ground," by Alec Nevala-Lee. In "Holdfast," by Alastair Reynolds, a genmod human soldier faces off with an alien warrior in the inhospitable terrain of a superjovian planet. A Russian astronaut, gathering debris in near-Earth space, must make tough moral choices when asked to carry out a special mission in "Vanguard 2.0," by Carter Scholz. And finally, after a terrorist attack, a technically dead fish farmer gets a new body and second chance at life as an experimental super soldier, in "ZeroS," by Peter Watts.

The phenomenal conclusion to the Fractured Europe seriesIn Tallinn, Alice – a junior Scottish diplomat – is drawn into an incomprehensible plot spanning decades. In the Aegean, young refugee Benno makes a desperate break for freedom and finds himself in a strange new life. On the canals of England, a fleet of narrow boats is gathering. Rudi, now a seasoned Coureur, finds himself drawn away from the kitchen one last time as he sets out with his ally Rupert in pursuit of a dead man.

For Adam Hardy and his small Berkshire community, hardship is all they’ve ever known. For almost a century after the coming of The Sisters, the survivors of rainswept England have huddled in their tiny communities, scavenging the ruins of the old world. Now, finally, the Long Autumn is coming to an end, and society of a kind is starting to rebuild. But for how long? A new tyrant, Frank Pendennis, has risen in the east, while rumours of something even worse are coming from the north. The struggle to inherit the world is just beginning…

The Colony left Earth to find utopia, a home on a new planet where their leader could fully explore their genetic potential, unfettered by their homeworld's restrictions. They settled a new paradise, and have been evolving and adapting for centuries. Earth has other plans. The original humans have been tracking their descendants across the stars, bent on their annihilation. They won't stop until the new humans have been destroyed, their experimentation wiped out of the human gene pool. Can't anyone let go of a grudge anymore?

Union has come. The Community is now the largest nation in Europe; trains run there from as far afield as London and Prague. It is an era of unprecedented peace and prosperity. So what is the reason for a huge terrorist outrage? Why do the Community and Europe meet in secret, exchanging hostages? And who are Les Coureurs des Bois?

Europe is crumbling. The Xian Flu pandemic and ongoing economic crises have fractured the European Union, the borderless Continent of the Schengen Agreement is a distant memory, and new nations are springing up everywhere, some literally overnight. For an intelligence officer like Jim, it’s a nightmare. Every week or so a friendly power spawns, a new and unknown national entity which may or may not be friendly to England’s interests; it’s hard to keep on top of it all. But things are about to get worse for Jim. A stabbing on a London bus pitches him into a world where his intelligence service is preparing for war with another universe, and a man has come who may hold the key to unlocking the mystery.

In a Europe riven into a hundred tiny principalities, chef Rudi is drawn into a new career with a shadowy organisation that will move anything across any state line â?? for a price. Soon, heâ??s in a world of high-risk smuggling operations, where kidnappings and double-crosses are as natural as a map that constantly redraws itself.