Central Skagit Library District

PRIDE. GREED. ENVY. WRATH. LUST. GLUTTONY. SLOTH. The Seven Deadly Sins delineate the path to a person's downfall, the surest way to achieve eternal damnation. But there is a way out, a way to reclaim salvation: blame it on the demons-taunting you, daring you to embrace these sins-and you shall be free. The painful truth is that these impulses live inside all of us, inside all sentient beings. But alas, one person's sin may be another being’s virtue. The...

Ruiz Aw is an Art League enforcer sent to investigate the disappearance of several slaves from the planet Pharaoh prior to their being "harvested". They are the property of the Art League and their property has been stolen. Ruiz is an ex-slave now working for the League, doing its corporate slave trading dirty work. Pharoah is a planet of slave herds, castes and imagination. It is a planet without hope or freedom. It is a planet of slave poachers....

In this science fiction classic, a recurring environmental disaster sets the native population of a distant planet at war with itself - and human colonists from Earth are trapped in the middle. Firetime is coming to Ishtar. This once-in-a-millennium event occurs when one of the planet's three suns encroaches on Ishtar's surface, to disastrous effect. The nightmare rapidly approaching, barbaric tribes have declared war on their more civilized brethren...

Strange, poignant tales of life on tomorrow's Earth and in outer space from multiple Hugo Award–winning Grand Master of Science Fiction Clifford D. Simak. Virtually every major author from science fiction's fabled golden age-including Poul Anderson, Isaac Asimov, and Robert A. Heinlein-agreed that Clifford D. Simak was one of the greatest among them. Named Grand Master by the Science Fiction Writers of America, the award-winning author created enduring...

A mind-opening collection of short science fiction from one of the genre's most revered Grand Masters. Legendary author Robert A. Heinlein proclaimed, "To read science fiction is to read Simak. A reader who does not like Simak stories does not like science fiction at all." The remarkably talented Clifford D. Simak was able to ground his vast imagination in reality, and then introduce readers to fantastical worlds and concepts they could instantly...

It's been a year since Binti and Okwu enrolled at Oomza University. A year since Binti was declared a hero for uniting two warring planets. A year since she found friendship in the unlikeliest of places. And now she must return home to her people, with her friend Okwu by her side, to face her family and face her elders. But Okwu will be the first of his race to set foot on Earth in over a hundred years, and the first ever to come in peace. After generations...

A secret agent aboard an intra-galactic "railroad" must derail a sinister scheme to enslave the universe in this nonstop science fiction thriller from Hugo Award–winning author Timothy Zahn The universe is a dangerous place, a fact violently brought home to Frank Compton for perhaps the thousandth time when a stranger delivering a message dies right in front of him. An operative for Western Alliance Intelligence until his whistle-blowing activities...

In the far future, on top of a gigantic tree rooted in the ice ball of a comet, a young man's journey leads to unexpected encounters In this brand-new cosmic adventure by the author of The Genesis Quest and The Jupiter Theft, Torris, son of the Facemaker, knows only his small community at the base of the great Tree on a comet with almost no gravity or atmosphere. Torris's daily struggle for survival includes harvesting frozen air to keep breathing,...