Bantam Spectra

When a young woman is found dead, Detective Jane Rizzoli and Forensic Pathologist Maura Isles are called to the scene of the murder. Though the body bears startling wounds, the actual cause of death is not immediately clear.

A few days later, another body is discovered  a seemingly unrelated crime, but the lack of an obvious cause of death shows they have more in common than it would first appear.

As Rizzoli and Isles race to discover the link between the victims before the killer can strike again, a mysterious person watches from the sidelines. She has the answers they’re looking for.

But she knows she has to stay quiet, if she wants to stay alive...

For twelve thousand years the Galactic Empire has ruled supreme. Now it is dying. Only Hari Seldon, creator of the revolutionary science of psychohistory, can see into the future a dark age of ignorance, barbarism, and warfare that will last thirty thousand years. To preserve knowledge and save humanity, Seldon gathers the best minds in the Empire both scientists and scholars and brings them to a bleak planet at the edge of the galaxy to serve as a beacon of hope for future generations. He calls this sanctuary the Foundation.

But soon the fledgling Foundation finds itself at the mercy of corrupt warlords rising in the wake of the receding Empire. And mankind’s last best hope is faced with an agonizing choice: submit to the barbarians and live as slaves or take a stand for freedom and risk total destruction.

The Foundation novels of Isaac Asimov are one of the great masterworks of science fiction. Unsurpassed for their unique blend of nonstop action, daring ideas, and extensive world-building, they chronicle the struggle of a courageous group of men and women to preserve humanity’s light against an inexorable tide of darkness and violence.

Led by its founding father, the great psychohistorian Hari Seldon, and taking advantage of its superior science and technology, the Foundation has survived the greed and barbarism of its neighboring warrior planets. Yet now it must face the Empire still the mightiest force in the Galaxy even in its death throes. When an ambitious general determined to restore the Empire’s glory turns the vast Imperial fleet toward the Foundation, the only hope for the small planet of scholars and scientists lies in the prophecies of Hari Seldon.

But not even Hari Seldon could have predicted the birth of the extraordinary creature called The Mule a mutant intelligence with a power greater than a dozen battle fleets . . . a power that can turn the strongest willed human into an obedient slave.

They mustn't harm a human being, they must obey human orders, and they must protect their own exis tence...but only so long as that doesn't violate rules one and two. With these Three Laws of Robotics, humanity embarked on a bold new era of evolution that would open up enormous possibilities and unfore seen risks. For the scientists who invented the earliest robots weren't content that their creations should remain programmed helpers, companions, and semisentient worker machines. And soon the robots themselves, aware of their own intelligence, power, and humanity, aren't either.

As humans and robots struggle to survive together and sometimes against each other on earth and in space, the future of both hangs in the balance. Here human men and women confront robots gone mad, telepathic robots, robot politicians, and vast robotic intelligences that may already secretly control the world. And both are asking the same questions: What is human? And is humanity obsolete?

The Foundation novels of Isaac Asimov are among the great masterworks of science fiction. An ingenious blend of nonstop action, daring ideas, and extensive world building, they chronicle the struggle of a courageous group of men and women determined to shield enlightened humanity from a ceaseless threat of darkness and ultimate annihilation.

Golan Trevize, former Councilman of the First Foundation, has chosen the future, and it is Gaia. A superorganism, Gaia is a holistic planet with a common consciousness so intensely united that every dewdrop, every pebble, every being, can speak for all and feel for all. It is a realm in which privacy is not only undesirable, it is incomprehensible.

But is it the right choice for the destiny of mankind? While Trevize feels it is, that is not enough. He must know.

Trevize believes the answer lies at the site of humanity’s roots: fabled Earth... if it still exists. For no one is sure where the planet of Gaia’s first settlers is to be found in the immense wilderness of the Galaxy. Nor can anyone explain why no record of Earth has been preserved, no mention of it made anywhere in Gaia’s vast world memory. It is an enigma Trevize is determined to resolve, and a quest he is determined to undertake, at any cost.

Unsurpassed for their unique blend of nonstop action, daring ideas, and extensive world - building, the Foundation novels of Isaac Asimov are one of the great masterworks of science fiction. With extraordinary vision they chronicle the struggle of a courageous group of men and women devoted to safeguarding humanity against an unyielding deluge of barbarism and warfare.

At last, the costly and bitter war between the two Foundations has come to an end. The scientists of the First Foundation have proved victorious; and now they return to Hari Seldon’s long-established plan to build a new Empire on the ruins of the old. But rumors persist that the Second Foundation is not destroyed after all - and that its stilldefiant survivors are preparing their revenge. Now two exiled citizens of the Foundation a renegade Councilman and a doddering historian set out in search of the mythical planet Earth . . . and proof that the Second Foundation still exists.

Meanwhile someone or something outside of both Foundations seems to be orchestrating events to suit its own ominous purpose. Soon representatives of both the First and Second Foundations will find themselves racing toward a mysterious world called Gaia and a final, shocking destiny at the very end of the universe!