The Secret Intelligence Agency has a new weapon - artificially intelligent robotic bugs that act as undercover agents. Operating below the radar, they can fly faster, see further and sting harder! They won't stop until they've completed their mission, no matter what it takes.

This much-anticipated second collection of stories is signature Ted Chiang, full of revelatory ideas and deeply sympathetic characters. In "The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate," a portal through time forces a fabric seller in ancient Baghdad to grapple with past mistakes and the temptation of second chances. In the epistolary "Exhalation," an alien scientist makes a shocking discovery with ramifications not just for his own people, but for all of...

On a generation ship bound for a distant star, one engineer-in-training must discover the secrets at the heart of the voyage in this new sci-fi novel. It's been over a century since three generation ships escaped an Earth dominated by artificial intelligence in pursuit of a life on a distant planet orbiting Tau Ceti. Now, it's nearly Braking Day, when the ships will begin their long-awaited descent to their new home. Born on the lower decks of the...

Terminator: In 2029, the ruling giant super-computer, Skynet, sends an indestructible cyborg, a Terminator, back in time to 1984 to kill a woman, Sarah Connor, whose unborn son will become mankind's only hope. Terminator 2: A lethal cyborg, the T-1000, has been sent back from 2029 A.D. to present day Los Angeles on a mission to kill the boy destined to lead the freedom fighters of the future. The original Terminator cyborg is reprogrammed and sent...

In the Nevada desert, an experiment has gone horribly wrong. A cloud of nanoparticles-micro-robots-has escaped from the laboratory. This cloud is self-sustaining and self-reproducing. It is intelligent and learns from experience. For all practical purposes, it is alive. It has been programmed as a predator. It is evolving swiftly, becoming more deadly with each passing hour. Every attempt to destroy it has failed. And we are the prey.

The CIA's hunt is on for the mastermind of a wave of terrorist attacks. Roger Ferris is the agency's man on the ground. He moves from place to place, scrambling to stay ahead of ever-shifting events. A satellite link is the agency's eye in the sky and keeps track of Ferris. The CIA's Ed Hoffman is at the other end of the real-time link. He strategizes events from thousands of miles away. Ferris nears the target and discovers trust can be just as dangerous...

Follows six men who found a startup company in Silicon Valley.