Must have Books - Top Ten Most Popular Books in December

	1 Foundation by Isaac Asimov Foundation marks the first of a series of tales set so far in the future that Earth is all but forgotten by humans who live throughout the galaxy. Yet all is not well with the Galactic Empire. Its vast size is crippling to it. In particular, the administrative planet, honeycombed and tunneled with offices and staff, is vulnerable to attack or breakdown. The only person willing to confront this imminent catastrophe is Hari Seldon, a psychohistorian and mathematician. Seldon can scientifically predict the future, and it doesn't look pretty: a new Dark Age is scheduled to send humanity into barbarism in 500 years. He concocts a scheme to save the knowledge of the race in an Encyclopedia Galactica. But this project will take generations to complete, and who will take up the torch after him? The rest of the Foundation Series can be found here.
	2 Against This Vast Army: Book I of the Hand of God Series by Mark Allyn Stewart What if vampires were part of a war between Heaven and Hell being fought on Earth? How would The Church react and whom would they send to deal with these demonic Creatures of The Night? At the turn of the century, Manhattan is plagued by the arrival of a fearsome master vampire and the only person who can oppose him, a vampire hunter's apprentice named David, will discover that behind this vampire's power is a dark secret that could make the fiend impossible to destroy. Stranded in New York with no hope of reinforcements, David has little choice but to rely on his skill, his wits, and Sharon, a beat cop who has discovered that vampires are very, very real. This is a very unique take on the vampire story. Mr. Stewart, I have to take my hat off for you, you have created something new and refreshing. If this series continues in the same inventive and fun way, I will compare this work with the work of authors as distinguished as Bram Stoker and Anne Rice. This is an absolute Must have Book for everyone, especially people who has enjoyed a vampire story in the past. Keep up the good work Mr. Stewart! I am looking forward to the next installment of this series.
	3 The Dead of Night by John Marsden Australia has been invaded. Nothing is as it was. Six teenagers are living out their nightmare in the sanctuary of a hidden valley called Hell. Alone, they make their own rules, protect what is theirs, and struggle for courage and hope in a world changed forever. Seeking supplies, allies, and information, the friends make forays into enemy territory, drawing on nerve and resourcefulness they never even knew they had. And as the risks become greater, so too do the sacrifices they must make. The rest of the Tomorrow Series can be found here.
	4 Chindi by Jack McDevitt Most science fiction seeks to excite and gratify the reader's sense of wonder. Jack McDevitt's hard SF novel Chindi both satisfies and examines this sense of wonder, which inspires not only SF readers and writers, but every explorer and scientist who seeks to understand the universe. In Chindi, humanity has expanded to the stars and found very few other intelligent races--all but one extinct, with the survivor none too impressive. Humanity has resigned itself to being alone. Then an alien satellite is found, orbitting a distant star and beaming an unreadable signal across the galaxy. Academy starship Captain Priscilla "Hutch" Hutchins finds herself piloting a motley crew of eccentrics (one an ex-lover) from the idealistic, ridiculed Contact Society, seeking the signal's destination. Their quest turns deadly as it takes them far beyond the borders of explored space to an impossible planetary system--and a vast and terrifying alien artifact. Chindi is an ambitious, exciting, big-idea hard-SF novel that ventures successfully into Rendezvous with Rama territory, and beyond. The sequel to The Engines of God and Deepsix, Chindi leaves some unanswered questions for McDevitt's forthcoming fourth novel.
	5 Hyperion by Dan Simmons On the world called Hyperion, beyond the law and the reach of twenty-eighth-century science, waits the creature called the Shrike. There are those who worship it. There are those who fear it. And there are those who have vowed to destroy it. In the Valley of the Time Tombs the Shrike waits for them all. On the eve of Armageddon, with the entire galaxy at war, seven pilgrims set forth on a final voyage to the Time Tombs. They seek the answers to the unsolved riddles of their lives, and they have resolved to die before discovering anything less than the secrets of the universe itself. The rest of the Hyperion Series can be found here.
	6 A Matter for Men by David Gerrold With the human population ravaged by a series of devastating plagues, the alien Chtorr arrive to begin the final phase of their invasion. Even as many on Earth deny their existence, the giant wormlike carnivores prepare the world for the ultimate violation--the enslavement of humanity for food! The rest of the War Against the Chtorr Series can be found here.
	7 1632 by Eric Flint In Flint's novel of time travel and alternate history, a six-mile square of West Virginia is tossed back in time and space to Germany in 1632, at the height of the barbaric and devastating Thirty Years' War. Repelling marauding mercenaries and housing German refugees are only the first of many problems the citizens of the tiny new U.S. face, problems including determining who shall be a citizen. In between action scenes and descriptions of technological military hardware, Flint handles that problem and other serious ethical questions seriously and offers a double handful of memorable characters: a Sephardic Jewish family that establishes commercial and marital ties with the Americans, a cheerleader captain turned lethal master sniper, a schoolteacher and an African American doctor who provide indispensable common sense and skill, a German refugee who is her family's sole protector, and, not least, King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden. The rest of the 1632 Series can be found here.
	8 Gateway by Frederik Pohl Gateway opened on all the wealth of the Universe...and on reaches of unimaginable horror. When prospector Bob Broadhead went out to Gateway on the Heechee spacecraft, he decided he would know which was the right mission to make him his fortune. Three missions later, now famous and permanently rich, Robinette Broadhead has to face what happened to him and what he is...in a journey into himself as perilous and even more horrifying than the nightmare trip through the interstellar void that he drove himself to take! The rest of the Heechee Saga can be found here.
	9 The Tenth Planet by Dean Wesley Smith After a deep-space satellite mysteriously stops transmitting, the Hubble III telescope picks up a startling image. Astronomers don't know what the strange object is--only that it orbits past Earth every two millennia. Meanwhile, archaeologist Leo Cross has discovered peculiar layers of black residue at dig sites around the globe. Stranger still, these thin bands occur like clockwork every 2,006 years, coinciding with some of the world's darkest moments in history. We have six months to prepare for the next arrival. This time we know something is coming. This time we have weapons to defend us. This time we'll be wrong . . . again. A science fiction saga set on near-future Earth, THE TENTH PLANET challenges our basic beliefs about the solar system and ultimately our place in the universe. With cutting-edge astronomy, blockbuster action, and high drama, the mystery is revealed in a trilogy of adventures. The rest of the Tenth Planet Series can be found here.
	10 Semper Mars by Ian Douglas Scientists have discovered something astonishing in the subterranean ruins of a sprawling Martian city: startling evidence of an alternative history that threatens to split humanity into opposing factions and plunge the Earth into chaos and war. The USMC--a branch of a military considered, until just recently, to be obsolete--has dispatched the Marine Mars Expeditionary Force, a thirty-man weapons platoon, to the Red Planet to protect American civilians and interest with lethal force if necessary. Because great powers are willing to devastate a world in order to keep an ancient secret buried. Because something that was hidden in the Martian dust for half a million years has just been unearthed. . .something that calls into question every belief that forms the delicate foundation of civilization. . .Something inexplicably human. The rest of the Heritage Trilogy can be found here.