In the year 2044, reality is an ugly place. The only time teenage Wade Watts really feels alive is when he's jacked into the virtual utopia known as the Oasis. Wade's devoted his life to studying the puzzles hidden within this world's digital confines - puzzles that are based on their creator's obsession with the pop culture of decades past and that promise massive power and fortune to whoever can unlock them. But when Wade stumbles upon the first...

“Halting State [is] a near-future story that is at once over-the-top and compellingly believable.” – Vernor Vinge, author of Rainbows End        
      
In the year 2018, Sergeant Sue Smith of the Edinburgh constabulary is called in on a special case. A daring bank robbery has taken place at Hayek Associates—a dot-com start-up...

"Michael is a skilled internet gamer in a world of advanced technology. When a cyber-terrorist begins to threaten players, Michael is called upon to seek him and his secret's out"--

Moving to her father's home in California after a decade at her mother's isolated ranch, a teen who has been taught to fear technology reunites with friends and family members before experiencing nightmares about a dark-web video game that poses life-threatening dangers.

"After the newest set of virtual reality gear hits the market, Simon can't wait to test it out. But, when his friend Katherine suddenly disappears after being seen with men from the same gaming company, Simon must decide how far in the game he's willing to go to save her"--

"Vin, a down-on-his-luck young tech entrepreneur forced out of the software company he started, takes a job house-sitting a beautiful Seattle mansion. There he discovers that the owner--who has been missing for a year--has built a secret basement lab. In the lab there are computers, wired caskets, and a thick, dog-eared notebook filled with codes, odd symbols and strange drawings. The notebook referred to the entire system--computers and caskets--as...

Just when 15-year-old Bobby Pendragon thinks he understands his purpose as a Traveler he is faced with an impossible choice

"In this powerful psychological suspense debut, when a woman's life is shattered, she is faced with a devastating question: What if everything she thought was normal and good and true. wasn't? Clara Lawson is torn from her life in an instant. Without warning, her home is invaded by armed men, and she finds herself separated from her beloved husband and daughters. The last thing her husband yells to her is to say nothing. In chapters that alternate...

"A hundred millennia has passed since the events of Iron Gods. The Spin is dying, and its few inhabitants live unknowingly in the relative paradise of one of hundreds of Virtual Realities--'vrealities'--or they scrape a living out of remains of the real world. As the vrealities drain the last resources of the Spin, a rebellion which could kill millions sparks and gains momentum. In a remote star system, an ancient insectoid called Skarbo the Horologist...

"When we first meet U., the narrator of SATIN ISLAND, he is sitting in the airport at Turin, caught in a delay caused by a rogue airplane. Like everyone else in the waiting area, he is sifting through airport pages on his laptop, and then through news sites, social pages, corridors of trivia...until he happens to stumble on information about an image on a famous shroud in Turin. The image itself isn't even visible on the shroud; it only emerged when...