“What are the most award-winning Science Fiction & Fantasy books of 1989?” We looked at all the large SFF book awards given, aggregating and ranking the books that appeared so we could answer that very question!

A note on our grading system: We give 5 points for every nomination a book received and an additional 5 points for each win. These values are purely arbitrary, easy to add up, numbers. For more info on our super scientific grading system visit our Info page. For a full list of the awards and award winners can be found below our rankings at the bottom of the page.

Before we take a look at the top Science Fiction & Fantasy Books of 1989, let’s set the scene for those awards by taking a look at what else was happening that year:

1989

First Handheld GPS receiver. George H.W. Bush is sworn in as the 41st President of the United States. Ted Bundy Executed. The Soviet Union ends 9 year military occupation in Afganistan. Ron Brown becomes first African American leader of a major United States political party (Democratic National Committee). Fatwa issued calling for the death of Salman Rushdie for The Satanic Verses. Time Warner formed through a merger. World’s first HDTV broadcast in Japan. “Tank Man” stands in front of military tanks. Bismarck wreckage found. Pakistan readmitted to the Commonwealth of Nations. First asteroid is imaged through radar. Voyager 2 makes its closest approach to Neptune. The Dalai Lama wins the Nobel Peace Prize. First commercial dial-up Internet connection in North America. Velvet Revolution. Last two Japanese World War II holdout troops surrender. Tiananmen Square Massacre. Deaths – Salvador Dali, Edward Abbey, Sugar Ray Robinson, Lucille Ball, Laurence Oliver. Bette Davis, Samuel Beckett, etc. Additional Popular Entertainment Released – Twin Peaks, Seinfeld, The Simpsons, Baywatch, Batman, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Dead Poets Society, Road House, The Little Mermaid, Do The Right Thing, Honey I Shrunk The Kids, Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, Saved By The Bell, The Abyss, Back to the Future II, Driving Miss Daisy, Glory, When Harry Met Sally, Christmas vacation, Quantum Leap, Doogie Howser, Field of Dreams, Major League, Kiki’s Delivery Service, etc. Non SFF Books – Geek Love, The Pillars of the Earth, The Joy Luck Club, etc.

And now, on to the list…

The Top Science Fiction & Fantasy Books Of 1989

56 .) Dragonsdawn by Anne McCaffrey

Deadly spores threaten the human colony of Pern unless the colonists, with help from geneticist Kitti Ping, can develop fire-breathing dragons to combat the menace.

Learn More / Purchase

55 .) Infinity Hold by Barry B. Longyear

The first work of the Infinity Hold trilogy. They named the planet Tartaros after the deepest of Hell’s hells. This is the story of a man and murderer, Bando Nicos, who was condemned to Tartaros and became the planet’s first police officer.

Learn More / Purchase

54 .) Empire of Fear by Brian Stableford

In an epic novel the Washington Post called “riveting,” Brian Stableford brilliantly imagines a world ruled by a powerful aristocracy of vampires: long-lived, extraordinarily handsome humans who are immune to pain but must drink the blood of their common subjects. The story begins in seventeenth-century London and spans three hundred years—moving from England to the heart of Africa, to Malta, and finally to the New World. Edmund Cordery, Mechanician to the court of Richard Coeur-de-Lion, believes that vampire beings must have a natural explanation. But when his discoveries make him dangerous in the eyes of his masters, Edmund entrusts his learned secrets to his son, Noell, who in turn becomes a fugitive. When he returns to Europe he faces the awesome might of Coeur-de-Lion and the infamous Vlad the Impaler.

Learn More / Purchase

53 .) The Paladin by C. J. Cherryh

Now betrayed by the Emperor he once protected, master swordsman Saukendar leaves the way of the sword behind him forever–so he thinks. When a headstrong peasant girl burning to avenge her murdered family demands that he train her, Saukendar is faced with a momentous choice. Send Taizu away, never see her again–or join her and destroy the tyrant who has nearly destroyed them both.

Learn More / Purchase

52 .) The Armageddon Blues by Daniel Keys Moran

Jalian, a silver-eyed huntress from 700 years in the future, travels back to the 20th century in an attempt to save her world from the ravages of nuclear destruction. A stunning tour-de-force of love and adventure sweeping along a timeline of infinitely possible worlds

Learn More / Purchase

51 .) On My Way to Paradise by Dave Wolverton

On My Way to Paradise is the chronicle of one man’s odyssey of self-discovery within a world at war. In a world of ever-worsening crisis, Angelo Osic is an anomaly: a man who cares about others. One day he aids a stranger. . .and calls down disaster, for the woman called Tamara is also a woman on the run, the only human with the knowledge that will save Earth from the artificial intelligences plotting to overthrow it. Fleeing the assassins who seek him as well as Tamara, Angelo seizes the only escape route available: to sign on as a mercenary with the Japanese Motoki Corporation in its genocidal war against the barbarian Yabajin. Jacked into training machines that simulate warfare, Angelo “dies” a hundred times. . .and is resurrected to fight again. In a world of death, he dreams only of life–and the freedom to love once more.

Learn More / Purchase

50 .) King of the Murgos by David Eddings

“In this second book of The Malloreon, Garion and Ce’nedra continue the quest begun in Guardians of the West. In their party travel the immortal Belgarath the Sorcerer, his daughter Polgara the Sorceress, and the little Drasnian, Silk.

Garion knows that it is the mysterious figure Zandramas who is responsible for the abduction of his infant son, and he and his companions journey many miles and encounter many strange beings in their search for him.”

Learn More / Purchase

49 .) The White Raven by Diana L. Paxson

This haunting retelling of the tale of Tristan and Iseult (here called Drustan and Esseilte in accordance with Celtic legend and language) goes back to early versions, before Mallory and Wagner, to explore the nature of love, duty and loyalty. The story is told by Branwen, cousin and companion to Esseilte, daughter of the High King of Eriu (Ireland).

Learn More / Purchase

48 .) Sheepfarmer’s Daughter by Elizabeth Moon

Paksenarrion—Paks, for short—refuses her father’s orders to marry the pig farmer down the road and is off to join the army. And so her adventure begins—the adventure that transforms her into a hero remembered in songs, chosen by the gods to restore a lost ruler to his throne.

Learn More / Purchase

47 .) The Urth of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe

The long awaited sequel to Gene Wolfe’s four-volume classic,The Book of the New Sun. We return to the world of Severian, now the Autarch of Urth, as he leaves the planet on one of the huge spaceships of the alien Hierodules to travel across time and space to face his greatest test, to become the legendary New Sun or die. The strange, rich, original spaceship scenes give way to travels in time, wherein Severian revisits times and places which fill in parts of the background of the four-volume work, that will thrill and intrigue particularly all readers of the earlier books. But The Urth of the New Sun is an independent structure all of a piece, an integral masterpiece to shelve beside the classics, one itself.

Learn More / Purchase

46 .) There Are Doors by Gene Wolfe

There Are Doors is the story of a man who falls in love with a goddess from an alternate universe. She flees him, but he pursues her through doorways-interdimensional gateways-to the other place, determined to sacrifice his life, if necessary, for her love. For in her world, to be her mate . . . is to die.

Learn More / Purchase

45 .) The Child Garden by Geoff Ryman

“Are you ready for polar bear families in London—who have their own black sheep: after all, what can a polar bear mining family do with a daughter who wants to write operas? And what is London to do with a unique woman who, resistant to the viruses, might be able to provided the cure for the cure for cancer?

In a future, tropical London, humans photosynthesize, organics have replaced electronics, viruses educate people, and very few live past forty. Milena is resistant to the viruses and unable to be Read. She has Bad Grammar. She’s alone until she meets Rolfa, a huge, hirsute Genetically Engineered Polar Woman, and Milena realizes she might, just might, be able to find a place for herself after all.”

Learn More / Purchase

44 .) Drowning Towers by George Turner

In the year 2041, young Francis Conway learns about an impending water disaster that has been spawned by government corruption and is threatening life on the overcrowded planet, and he desperately seeks a way to escape.

Learn More / Purchase

43 .) Great Sky River by Gregory Benford

The third novel in the award-winning author’s classic Galactic Center series is available once again.

Learn More / Purchase

42 .) Kairos by Gwyneth Jones

The streets of London: Japanese tourists in smog-masks and Work Force youths in their tagged orange overalls. It’s the first decade of the new century and business as usual for UK Ltd, despite the Islamic War that’s moving ever closer. BREAKTHRU reps in their preposterous angel fancy-dress stalk the dissidents, making many converts to their own brand of extremism.

Learn More / Purchase

41 .) Whores of Babylon by Ian Watson

Alex Winter and Deborah Tate arrive by hovercraft at the city of Babylon, lying on the river Euphrates in the Arizona desert. He is a sociology drop-out from the University of Oregon at Eugene who wants to become a Babylonian. She has a much stranger ambition. Their minds are babbling in the Greek that has been pumped into them via computer interface at the University of Heuristics. To them, English has yet to be invented and the young king Alexander lies dying in his palace. The city is dominated by the tower of Babel, its spiral roadway curling up towards the heavens and wide enough for several donkey carts. And women sit outside the Temple of Ishtar, waiting for some stranger to drop a coin in their laps. The prospect seems to fascinate Deborah. She wants to become one of the Whores of Babylon. Whores of Babylon was first published in 1988 and won the British Science Fiction Association Award for Best Novel. Ian Watson has revised and updated the Immanion Press edition for a new century.

Learn More / Purchase

40 .) Prelude to Foundation by Isaac Asimov

“It is the year 12,020 G.E. and Emperor Cleon I sits uneasily on the Imperial throne of Trantor. Here in the great multidomed capital of the Galactic Empire, forty billion people have created a civilization of unimaginable technological and cultural complexity. Yet Cleon knows there are those who would see him fall – those whom he would destroy if only he could read the future.

Hari Seldon has come to Trantor to deliver his paper on psychohistory, his remarkable theory of prediction. Little does the young Outworld mathematician know that he has already sealed his fate and the fate of humanity. For Hari possesses the prophetic power that makes him the most wanted man in the Empire… the man who holds the key to the future – an apocalyptic power to be know forever after as the Foundation.”

Learn More / Purchase

39 .) A Fearful Symmetry by James Luceno

At a time of global tension, the president of the United States, grieving over the death of his wife, becomes involved with a Brazilian cult leader and healer.

Learn More / Purchase

38 .) The Drive-In by Joe R. Lansdale

Collected here is the complete four-issue series with bonus materials, including a new interview with Lansdale himself about the writing of The Drive-In. Joe Lansdale’s epic of insanity finally comes to comics, 10 years in the making! When a group of friends decide to spend a day at the world’s largest drive-in theater horror fest, they expected to see tons of bloody murders, rampaging madmen, and mayhem – but only on the screen!

Learn More / Purchase

37 .) A Child Across the Sky by Jonathan Carroll

Just as the the word “weird” has many implications and shades of meaning, so too does the latest–weird–work by this gifted and perplexing writer. As Carroll ( Bones of the Moon ; Sleeping in Flame ) himself says, “Life has a habit of turning dark corners.” Applied here, this observation seems an understatement: these convoluted corners are both light and dark, are many, varied and constantly challenging. Flashing back and forth in time, the story concerns the apparent suicide of filmmaker Philip Strayhorn, whose bizarre Midnight series has attained cult status. Strayhorn’s best friend, Weber Gregston, a filmmaker with a more intellectual bent, is drawn into a dizzying series of events by a videotape that Philip leaves him.

Learn More / Purchase

36 .) Sleeping in Flame by Jonathan Carroll

Ricocheting between Vienna and Los Angeles, between the worlds of desires and dreams, here is a hypnotic literary novel with irresistible elements of fantasy and magic.

Learn More / Purchase

35 .) The Nightingale by Kara Dalkey

In this deft and enchanting retelling of the classic Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale. Kara Dalkey has mixed history and legend, weaving the Andersen fable into a fascinating novel about court life in ancient Japan — a life of pageantry and poetry, of great beauty and casual cruelty, of life and courtly intrigue as the men and women of the royal household vie for the Emperor’s favor, and each other…. This is the story of Uguisu, a young woman with an extraordinary gift for song, who is brought to the Emperor’s palace to be the greatest of his many possessions. Her song can bring tears to a courtier’s eyes, but it is her wit, her courage, and her heart that must serve her best of all.

Learn More / Purchase

34 .) Deserted Cities of the Heart by Lewis Shiner

Years ago, Eddie Yates disappeared into the rainforests of the Yucatan, a burned-out visionary in search of cosmic truth. A mysterious photo sends Lindsey, his ex-wife, on a quest to bring him back and puts her on a collision course with Eddie’s brother Thomas, whose desire for her has never faded. Their search leads them to the ruined Mayan temples of NaChan, deep in the jungle, where mushrooms grow that can send you back through time–or kill you. NaChan is sacred to the Landon Indians, and their enigmatic shaman Chan Ma’ax. But the ruins have also become a nexus for the political forces that are tearing Mexico apart. Lindsey, Thomas, and Eddie are soon caught between Carla’s rebel army and the secret US paramilitary group known as the Fighting 666th as they face off in the first battle of the end of the world.

Learn More / Purchase

33 .) David’s Sling by Marc Stiegler

Unwilling to risk the use of nuclear weapons, the U.S. and Russia try to develop the ultimate in computer-controlled smart weapons

Learn More / Purchase

32 .) Final Circuit by Melinda M. Snodgrass

Learn More / Purchase

31 .) Philip K. Dick is Dead by Michael Bishop

In this heartfelt science-fiction homage, Philip K. Dick dies in 1982 in Santa Ana, California, during the fourth term of the repressive imperial presidency of Richard Milrose Nixon. Soon thereafter, stripped of his memory, Dick turns up in the office of Lia Bonner, a young psychotherapist in Warm Springs, Georgia. Ultimately, Dick manifests at Von Braunville, the American moon base, as a key figure in a gonzo conspiracy to trigger a “redemptive shift” of world-changing scope.

Learn More / Purchase

30 .) Being Alien by Rebecca Ore

All the different ways of being a smart calculating creature doesn’t mean that those creatures don’t do dumb things from time to time, borrow each others’ vices, and can’t have hangnails and broken feathers.

Learn More / Purchase

29 .) Rumours of Spring by Richard Grant

The world faces an unexpected threat, when the only remaining forest begins growing larger and larger in an effort to reclaim the world

Learn More / Purchase

28 .) Metrophage by Richard Kadrey

“Welcome to the near future: Los Angeles in the late 21st century—a segregated city of haves and have nots, where morality is dead and technology rules. Here, a small group of wealthy seclude themselves in gilded cages. Beyond their high security compounds, far from their pretty comforts, lies a lawless wasteland where the angry masses battle hunger, rampant disease, and their own despair to survive.

Jonny was born into this Hobbesian paradise. A street-wise hustler who deals drugs on the black market—narcotics that heal the body and cool the mind—he looks out for nobody but himself. Until a terrifying plague sweeps through L.A., wreaking death and panic. And no one, not even a clever operator like Jonny, is safe.”

Learn More / Purchase

27 .) To Sail Beyond the Sunset by Robert A. Heinlein

The millions of fans of Lazarus Long–probably Heinlein’s most beloved character–will flock to this new tale, which continues adventures of the characters of The Cat Who Walked Through Walls. From the author of Stranger in a Strange Land and Time Enough for Love.

Learn More / Purchase

26 .) Fade by Robert Cormier

IT IS THE summer of 1938 when young Paul Moreaux discovers he can “fade.” First bewildered, then thrilled with the power of invisibility, Paul experiments. But his “gift” soon shows him shocking secrets and drives him toward a chilling act.

Learn More / Purchase

25 .) Heritage of Flight by Susan Shwartz

Humanity is inextricably torn in an interplanetary war that could lead to the death of human society. Project Seedcorn is probably the last and best hope for the human race. A small group of refugees, scraping out an existence on the edge of human-occupied territory, has been given orders to live as though everything were ordinary and there were no war. Now, everyone’s lives depend on the children.

Learn More / Purchase

24 .) The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris

“As part of the search for a serial murderer nicknames “”Buffalo Bill,”” FBI trainee Clarice Starling is given an assignment. She must visit a man confined to a high-security facility for the criminally insane and interview him.

That man, Dr. Hannibal Lecter, is a former psychiatrist with unusual tastes and an intense curiosity about the darker corners of the mind. His intimate understanding of the killer and of Clarice herself form the core of Thomas Harris’ The Silence of the Lambs–an unforgettable classic of suspense fiction.”

Learn More / Purchase

23 .) Dawn by Octavia E. Butler

Lilith lyapo awoke from a centuries-long sleep to find herself aboard the vast spaceship of the Oankali. Creatures covered in writhing tentacles, the Oankali had saved every surviving human from a dying, ruined Earth. They healed the planet, cured cancer, increased strength, and were now ready to help Lilith lead her people back to Earth–but for a price.

Learn More / Purchase

22 .) On Stranger Tides by Tim Powers

The remarkable Tim Powers—who ingeniously married the John Le Carrè spy novel to the otherworldly in his critically acclaimedDeclare—brings us pirate adventure with a dazzling difference.On Stranger Tides features Blackbeard, ghosts, voodoo, zombies, the fable Fountain of Youth…and more swashbuckling action than you could shake a cutlass at, as reluctant buccaneer John Shandy braves all manner of peril, natural and supernatural, to rescue his ensorcelled love.

Learn More / Purchase

21 .) Ægypt by John Crowley

Pierce Moffett, jilted and newly jobless, is seeking an answer to the question of life when he gets off a bus by chance and steps unawares on a path toward the longed-for country of our oldest dreams and most unanswerable desires.

Learn More / Purchase

20 .) Ivory by Mike Resnick

“In the year 6303, when earth is bare of anything larger than an insect or a mouse and most people have left for the stars, Duncan Rojas receives a most unusual visitor. His name is Bukoba Mandaka, and he is the last of the Maasai.

Mandaka wants Rojas, senior researcher for Braxton’s Records of Big Game, to find the tusks of the Kilimanjaro Elephant, tusks that weigh over 200 lb. each. Why? Mandaka will not say, but he will pay enormous sums for them. And Rojas cannot resist the challenge of tracing something lost for 3000 years.”

Learn More / Purchase

19 .) Moon of Ice by Brad Linaweaver

Thirty years after the Nazis win World War II, Hilda Goebbels, the daughter of Hitler’s propaganda minister and now a world-famous anarchist, threatens to release her father’s long-suppressed diaries–which could destroy the Reich.

Learn More / Purchase

18 .) Desolation Road by Ian McDonald

It all began thirty years ago on Mars, with a greenperson. But by the time it all finished, the town of Desolation Road had experienced every conceivable abnormality from Adam Black’s Wonderful Travelling Chautauqua and Educational ‘Stravaganza (complete with its very own captive angel) to the Astounding Tatterdemalion Air Bazaar. Its inhabitants ranged from Dr. Alimantando, the town’s founder and resident genius, to the Babooshka, a barren grandmother who just wants her own child—grown in a fruit jar; from Rajendra Das, mechanical hobo who has a mystical way with machines to the Gallacelli brothers, identical triplets who fell in love with—and married—the same woman.

Learn More / Purchase

17 .) The Last Coin by James Blaylock

“The price of immortality…

Two thousand years ago, there lived a man who sold some valuable information for a fee of thirty silver coins. His name was Judas Iscariot and he is no longer with us. The coins, however, still exist – and still hold an elusive power over all who claim them…”

Learn More / Purchase

16 .) Footfall by Larry Niven

They first appear as a series of dots on astronomical plates, heading from Saturn directly toward Earth. Since the ringed planet carries no life, scientists deduce the mysterious ship to be a visitor from another star. The world’s frantic efforts to signal the aliens go unanswered. The first contact is hostile: the invaders blast a Soviet space station, seize the survivors, and then destroy every dam and installation on Earth with a hail of asteriods. Now the conquerors are descending on the American heartland, demanding servile surrender–or death for all humans.

Learn More / Purchase

15 .) Life During Wartime by Lucius Shepard

David Mingolla soon learns that escape from the rotten jungles of Guatemala is impossible – he is once more a pawn of secret, ruthless forces lusting for world domination. They try to dominate David by ordering him to kill the woman he loves.

Learn More / Purchase

14 .) Walkabout Woman by Michaela Roessner

In the outback of modern-day Australia, there lies an almost forgotten land. It is a land as distant from our own as the surface of the moon — and as alien. Here, Raba, a young Aborigine girl first enters the magical realm of the Dreamtime and learns something of its awesome power. But when she is “rescued” by a well-meaning missionary, Raba finds herself caught between two worlds — with disastrous results. Now she must return to the Dreamtime to appease the wrath of the Ancestors and learn their deepest secrets — secrets that can save both her and her tribe.

Learn More / Purchase

13 .) Seventh Son by Orson Scott Card

From the author of Ender’s Game, an unforgettable story about young Alvin Maker: the seventh son of a seventh son. Born into an alternative frontier America where life is hard and folk magic is real, Alvin is gifted with the power. He must learn to use his gift wisely. But dark forces are arrayed against Alvin, and only a young girl with second sight can protect him.

Learn More / Purchase

12 .) Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card

“In the aftermath of his terrible war, Ender Wiggin disappeared, and a powerful voice arose: The Speaker for the Dead, who told the true story of the Bugger War.

Now, long years later, a second alien race has been discovered, but again the aliens’ ways are strange and frightening…again, humans die. And it is only the Speaker for the Dead, who is also Ender Wiggin the Xenocide, who has the courage to confront the mystery…and the truth.”

Learn More / Purchase

11 .) Koko by Peter Straub

Bestselling author Peter Straub’s Koko is a gripping psychological thriller in which horror and paranoia are indistinguishable from reality.Koko. Only four men knew what it meant. Now they must stop it. They were Vietnam vets-a doctor, a lawyer, a working stiff, and a writer. Very different from each other, they are nonetheless linked by a shared history and a single shattering secret. Now, they have been reunited and are about to embark on a quest that will take from Washington, D.C., to the graveyards and fleshpots of the Far East to the human jungle of New York, hunting someone from the past who has risen from the darkness to kill and kill and kill.

Learn More / Purchase

10 .) Unquenchable Fire by Rachel Pollack

“In an America where the miraculous is par for the course, where magic and myths are as real as shopping malls and television game shows, Jennifer Mazdan listens to the modern storytellers recite the tales of the Founders.

But when strange things start to happen and Jennie becomes pregnant – from a dream – she enters a struggle which threatens her own life and causes her to question everything she has ever learned.”

Learn More / Purchase

9 .) Subterranean Gallery by Richard Paul Russo

“Rheinhardt was a sculptor who did the best he could in San Francisco… until they drafted his best friend to fight in South America… until his artist’s colony turned into a home for spoiled no-talents… until his girlfriend began to ask him where he was going… until he felt like he couldn’t stand it any more.

Justinian was a mystery man, a Vietnam vet who stalked Rheinhardt quietly, waiting for the right moment. Waiting to take him to Subterranean Gallery.”

Learn More / Purchase

8 .) Pyramids by Terry Pratchett

In Pyramids, you’ll discover the tale of Teppic, a student at the Assassin’s Guild of Ankh-Morpok and prince of the tiny kingdom of Djelibeybi, thrust into the role of pharaoh after his father’s sudden death. It’s bad enough being new on the job, but Teppic hasn’t a clue as to what a pharaoh is supposed to do. First, there’s the monumental task of building a suitable resting place for Dad — a pyramid to end all pyramids. Then there are the myriad administrative duties, such as dealing with mad priests, sacred crocodiles, and marching mummies. And to top it all off, the adolescent pharaoh discovers deceit, betrayal—not to mention a headstrong handmaiden—at the heart of his realm.

Learn More / Purchase

7 .) The Gold Coast by Kim Stanley Robinson

2027: Southern California is a developer’s dream gone mad, an endless sprawl of condos, freeways, and malls. Jim McPherson, the affluent son of a defense contractor, is a young man lost in a world of fast cars, casual sex, and designer drugs. But his descent in to the shadowy underground of industrial terrorism brings him into a shattering confrontation with his family, his goals, and his ideals.

Learn More / Purchase

6 .) Unicorn Mountain by Michael Bishop

Unicorns roam the uplands of Libby Quarrels’ mountain ranch. When Libby takes the AIDS-afflicted Bo Gavin out of exile in Atlanta to live with her in Colorado, she sees no connection between his disease and the fantastic secret she guards. But it so happens the unicorns suffer from a plague of their own, and the alternate world that touches the high country has unleashed magic sinister as well as marvelous. While Libby’s Indian ranch hand Sam is stalked by his wife’s headless ghost, his estranged daughter has visions that propel her toward the grueling Sun Dance ritual, where an encounter with the spirit world may decide the fate of both the unicorns and the people whose lives they’ve touched.

Learn More / Purchase

5 .) Falling Free by Lois McMaster Bujold

Leo Graf was just your average highly efficient engineer: mind your own business, fix what’s wrong and move on to the next job. Everything neat and according to spec, just the way he liked it. But all that changed on his assignment to the Cay Habitat. Could you just stand there and allow the exploitation of hundreds of helpless children merely to enhance the bottom line of a heartless mega-corporation?

Learn More / Purchase

4 .) Mona Lisa Overdrive by William Gibson

Enter Gibson’s unique world–lyric and mechanical, erotic and violent, sobering and exciting–where multinational corporations and high tech outlaws vie for power, traveling into the computer-generated universe known as cyberspace. Into this world comes Mona, a young girl with a murky past and an uncertain future whose life is on a collision course with internationally famous Sense/Net star Angie Mitchell. Since childhood, Angie has been able to tap into cyberspace without a computer. Now, from inside cyberspace, a kidnapping plot is masterminded by a phantom entity who has plans for Mona, Angie, and all humanity, plans that cannot be controlled . . . or even known. And behind the intrigue lurks the shadowy Yazuka, the powerful Japanese underworld, whose leaders ruthlessly manipulate people and events to suit their own purposes . . . or so they think.

Learn More / Purchase

3 .) Red Prophet by Orson Scott Card

Come here to the magical America that might have been, and marvel as the tale of Alvin Maker unfolds. The seventh son of a seventh son is a boy of mysterious powers, and he is waking to the mysteries of the land and its own chosen people.

Learn More / Purchase

2 .) Islands in the Net by Bruce Sterling

Two decades into the twenty-first century, the world’s nations are becoming irrelevant. Corporations are the true global powers, with information the most valuable currency, while the smaller island nations have become sanctuaries for data pirates and terrorists. A globe-trotting PR executive for the large corporate economic democracy Rizome Industries Group, Laura Webster is present when a foreign representative is assassinated on Rizome soil during a conference for offshore data havens. Dispatched immediately on an international mission of diplomacy, Laura hopes she can make a difference in a volatile, unsteady world, but instead finds herself trapped on the front lines of rapidly escalating third-world hostilities and caught up in an inescapable net of conspiracy, terrorism, post-millennial voodoo, and electronic warfare.

Learn More / Purchase

1 .) Cyteen by C. J. Cherryh

A brilliant young scientist rises to power on Cyteen, haunted by the knowledge that her predecessor and genetic duplicate died at the hands of one of her trusted advisors. Murder, politics, and genetic manipulation provide the framework for the latest Union-Alliance novel by the author of Downbelow Station. Cherryh’s talent for intense, literate storytelling maintains interest throughout this long, complex novel.

Learn More / Purchase

The 1989 Award Nominations & Winners

(Winners Highlighted)

Nebula Award – Best Novel

Hugo Award – Best Novel

Mona Lisa Overdrive William Gibson

Arthur C. Clark Award– Best Novel First Published In United Kingdom in Previous Year

Locus Award – Best Science Fiction Novel

Locus Award – Best Fantasy Novel

Locus Award – Best First Novel

BSFA (British Science Fiction Association) – Best Novel

Philip K. Dick Award

The World Fantasy Award – Best Novel

Prometheus Award – Best Novel

Kurd-Lobwitz-Preis (German) – Foreign Fiction

Seiun (Japanese) Award – Best Translated Novel

John W. Campbell Memorial Award – Best Science Fiction Novel

Mythopoeic Fantasy Award – Adult Literature

The Ditmar (Australian) Award – Best International Long Fiction

SF Chronicle Award – Best Novel