Near Space

Winner of the Locus Award for Best First Novel: At work aboard a battered space station, a team of blue-collar laborers stumbles upon a surveillance plot of unprecedented scope Popeye Hooker knows that space isn't all it's cracked up to be. A former fisherman who takes a job building low orbital stations to escape a failed relationship, he finds that in space, construction work is still a grind. And when they aren't building the space stations that will usher humanity into the stars, Sam Sloane and the rest of the beamjacks get high, blast the Grateful Dead, and stare through telescopes at the world they left behind. But life in orbit is about to get much more interesting. Nestled among the life support equipment that keeps them alive and the entertainment systems that keep them happy, the beamjacks find something astonishing. Turns out, their home isn't just a space station-it's a giant antenna designed to spy on every inhabitant of Earth. It's the greatest privacy invasion ever perpetrated, and the beamjacks won't stand for it. They may not be pioneers, but these roughnecks are about to become revolutionaries.

The future of an orbiting space colony is threatened by a fugitive and the assassin on her trail in this science fiction adventure from three-time Hugo Award winner Allen Steele. Skycorp has always expected the near-Earth space colony Clarke County to serve as a cash cow, bringing the corporate behemoth a substantial return on its investment through food production and tourism. Now that the Church of Elvis is planning a major revival meeting on the colony, the execs anticipate that the devout and the curious alike will be rocketing to Clarke County in droves. Its residents, however, would prefer to be left alone, and there has even been some dangerous talk of freedom and independence from Earth. It's Sheriff John Bigthorn's job to keep the peace on the colony, but his work may prove more difficult than usual in the upcoming days - especially following the unexpected arrival of a frightened young woman carrying money and important data she's stolen from her gangster ex-boyfriend. With an ice-cold assassin called the Golem on the runaway's tail, the holy "Living Elvis" stirring up the faithful, and revolution in the wind, Bigthorn will have to lay off the peyote and stay particularly sharp if he hopes to prevent total chaos and bloodshed... and perhaps even save his floating artificial world.

Fifteen stories and essays from a modern master of Heinleinian science fiction In Rude Astronauts, Allen Steele presents some of his finest stories-including the Diamondback Jack Trilogy and his first published story, "Live from the Mars Hotel"-along with excerpts of the nonfiction science writing with which he made his name. In Steele's universe, the stars are cold, space is big, and it's the normal people who make things interesting.