I read The Cloud, a science fiction novel by Ray Hammond, several weeks ago.
What has stayed with me is the premise, a first contact scenario set in the near future. What disappointed me was the lackluster prose and that his characters lacked depth. They were flatter than the skinniest of crepes.
[Free eBook] The Cloud by Ray Hammond [Science Fiction Technothriller]
The Cloud by British author Ray Hammond, a science journalist and futurist, is his standalone science fiction technothriller, free for a limited time courtesy of publisher Endeavour Press' Venture imprint.
This was originally published in 2006 by Pan Books.
The story is set in the near future of the mid-21st century, as humanity begins receiving and responding incomprehensible alien radio transmissions which eventually result in a reply in the form of a mysterious encroaching cloud on a collision course with Earth, prompting the panicked preparation of an armed response even as the code is finally cracked, to startling revelations.
Offered worldwide, available at Amazon.
Free for a limited time @ Amazon
Description
2033. The first alien radio transmissions have been received on Earth—a torrent of encrypted information that no human or computer can crack.
But the decision to reply is made, and messages of goodwill are beamed into deep space. Thirty years later, just as humankind is expecting a reply from the aliens, the signals disappear.
Then scientists detect a space cloud approaching the solar system at high speed. Immense in size, immeasurable in power, this blazing storm of energy is on a collision course with Earth.
As one man desperately struggles to decode the original transmissions, Earth prepares to launch a nuclear attack against a seemingly unstoppable foe.
As the cloud rages through the solar system, the alien code is finally broken—and mankind realizes that the enemy is far closer than they knew.
[Free eBook] Extinction by Ray Hammond [Science Fiction Technothriller]
Extinction by British author Ray Hammond, a science journalist and futurist, is his standalone science fiction technothriller novel, free for a limited time courtesy of publisher Endeavour Press' Venture imprint.
This was originally published in 2005 by Macmillan.
The story is set in a post-global warming 2055 where unscrupulous corporations have invented a climate control technology which provides a “cure”, for a high price as well as undisclosed further environmental costs, turning those who can't afford it into environmental refugees, whom a plucky lawyer attempts to fight for by bringing the largest responsible corporation to court, also teaming up with scientists to uncover the truth behind something ominous happening within the Earth's core before it's too late.
Offered worldwide, available at Amazon.
Free for a limited time @ Amazon
Description
The year is 2055, global warming has happened, and the oil and gas corporations responsible for creating it have developed a 'cure'.
Using climate control technology, they are able to manage and create new weather conditions, but only for those who can pay.
Millions of the poor are now environmental refugees. They are forced to live on abandoned oil tankers, with no food, fresh water, with no citizenship or rights, and battling the very worst effects of global warming. But those climate control technologies are wreaking their own havoc on Planet Earth.
Unexpected volcanic eruptions, huge earthquakes and tsunamis, all threaten to destroy everything.
A lawyer tries to fight for justice for the environmental refugees (known as the 'hulk' people) by bringing the evil ERGIA corporation to the high courts.
Along the way, he teams up with like-minded scientists and they try to uncover what is really happening deep down at the Earth's core and warn anyone who will listen before its too late.
[Free eBook] Emergence by Ray Hammond [Science Fiction Technothriller]
Emergence by British author Ray Hammond, a science journalist and futurist, is his standalone science fiction technothriller, free for a limited time courtesy of publisher Endeavour Press' Venture imprint.
This was originally published in 2001 by Macmillan UK.
The story is set in the near future and centres around a powerful corporation's deployment of a new satellite technology which connects up information networks in a way which leads to the unexpected development of a new, potentially world-changing entity.
Offered worldwide, available at Amazon.
Free for a limited time, available worldwide @ Amazon
Description
Thomas Tye's phenomenal financial success is due to a secret known only to a very few at the top of his corporation.
But the monopolistic and increasingly bizarre activities of the mighty Tye Corporation have caught the attention of the UNISA - the United Nations' international security agency - and of famous biographer Haley Voss who wants to write an exposé of the suprisingly youthful-looking tycoon.
Commercial spying has reached new dimensions and the World Bank is concerned that, unrestrained, the Tye Corporation activities could destabilize the world's financial markets.
Then Thomas Tye announces that using a wholly new, benign and sustainable satellite technology he can change the world's weather for the benefit of all. As a demonstration, he promises to bring rain to end decades of drought in Ethiopia and he asks the people of the world to join him in delivering the world's biggest act of philanthropy.
But the output from the satellite technology is exciting the world's super-dense information networks in ways nobody could have foreseen and, as the UN closes in on a corporation with more power than any single nation, a new entity begins to emerge which changes everybody's plans...
What Is A Futurologist? – Futurist Keynote Speaker Futurist or Futurologist? What achieve you call somebody who studies the trends of the present in order to try and discern what the future is likely to be like. With over ... source
[Free eBook] The Black Hole by Ray Hammond [Science Fiction Technothriller]
The Black Hole by British author Ray Hammond, a science journalist and futurist, is his standalone near-future science fiction technothriller, free for a limited time courtesy of publisher Endeavour Press' Venture imprint.
The story has action and conspiracy thriller elements, and is set in 2047, two decades after the development of a devastating potential doomsday weapon has been quietly shelved and hushed up, but secretly revived by a rogue terrorist cult which British intelligence services must infiltrate and foil before it is too late.
Offered worldwide, available at Amazon.
Free for a limited time, available worldwide @ Amazon
Description
American military scientists have secretly developed a new weapon of mass destruction, capable of producing an artificial black hole in miniature – a tiny area of such dense gravity that everything, including light, is sucked into it.
This can completely devastate a target area but leave behind no radiation. But at its first live demonstration, the US President watches in horror as the ‘black hole’ continues growing beyond its designated limits, and they watch a complete mountain range crumble to dust beyond the desert valley.
He instantly orders the project to be cancelled, all data and records destroyed.
Twenty years later, British Intelligence starts picking up disturbing information that a rogue terrorist cult called the Brotherhood of Azrael is planning a new series of spectacular attacks against the West. As attempts are made to infiltrate this mysterious group, a series of atrocities commences around the world.
With capital cities resorting to panic evacuation, an even more terrifying threat begins to emerge.
For the Brotherhood – ‘the angels of death’ – have got possession of America’s darkest secret, and have it primed for total global destruction.
But despite all this alarming evidence less than half of Britons believe climate change will affect them during their lifetime and fewer than a fifth think it will disturb their children, a government survey found as recently as October 2009.
Ray Hammond, Climate change, food, poverty and the price of failure to the UK
The computer will liberate the music in all of us. There is no longer the need for years of piano practice, agonized months of violin scrapings and the deliberate cultivation of finger-tip calluses. The computer will take over the mechanical parts of the job and allow us to make melody, to sing, allowing the music to pour forth.
