My Top-5 Sci-fi Novels of all time

 1_Star Maker by Olaf Stapledon

When I read this book I was totally blown away. The sheer scale of it, the ideas and concepts explored. It is litterally a history of the universe from beginning to end - with some of the most imaginative alien cultures and civilizations I've ever come across. Whats more is when you find out what the "Star Makers" themselves actually are. Mind blowing. The Arthur C Clarke quote on the front cover is certainly there for a reason.

 2_Dragon's Egg by Robert L Forward

The story of an alien civilization that has managed to evolve on a dying neutron star. We watch the Cheelah from the beginning as simple tribes and then watch them evolve into a more high-tech society, we see them make costly mistakes and evolve. Brilliant stuff that really excited my imagination as a kid. Nowadays I can appreciate it in a different light as Forward was a scientist and so the science is very hard and accurate - and this only adds to making it more believable in my eyes.

3_Mission of Gravity by Hal Clement

Yet another hard sci-fi classic, this time that takes place on an Oblate planet, which is why it has varied gravity all over it. A pretty fascinating concept and makes you wonder if such a world might exist out there. A great story, and another that puts a non-humanoid alien as one of the central protagonists - this time a rather likeable alien centipede-like creature. Like Dragon's Egg - the science is very accurate and realistic which for me just makes it that bit more enjoyable to read.

4_2001 A Space Odyessy by Arthur C Clarke

Does this one really need any introductions? One of the best hard sci-fi novels of all time, and very likely to be the most known and famous. I guess with this one, Clarke managed to put Hard sci-fi into the mainstream for a while, what with the film and all that. An impressive feat and accomplishment and one I wish I had the talent myself, so I have often looked up to Clarke and would love to be as good as he was.

5_The Shadow out Of Time by HP Lovecraft

While I loved At the mountains of madness, this one blew me away even more and eventually became my all time favourite Cosmic Horror story. The histories and alien races described are mind-blowing and exciting - with the amazing Great Race of Yith and their mortal enemies the Flying Polyps - both of which became two of my all time favourite sci-fi alien races. The story is a perfect mix of that hard boiled detective style film noir and mind melting cosmic horror to make you feel very very insignificant in the universe.

Primeval Abyssian : The Iaethlein (Unedited backround)

Here is the backround written for the newest introduction PA race, the Iaethlein. It's all a bit rough and unedited, but hope you enjoy reading!

  An Overview of the Iaethlein Race

The Iathlein were born unto the Ether many cycles ago. Like many of the denizens of the Etherium - their forms were tall, thin and wirey and levitated above the inverted plains of their world. However, unlike other of the civilizations forged across the sapphire suns of the Ether the Iaethlein's lives were short and their mortal bodies fragile. Throughout the cycles of their lives - their offspring would continue the great work - a master plan to increase their lifespans and research into science and learning.

As the generations watched through their focal-telescopes they saw the horrors of the Ether before them. They saw the violent and increasingly dangerous species war and bring chaos down on each other and it was at this point the latter generations decided that they put all other goals and ambitions of their forefathers aside and focus on survival. The collective research of the past to present on the strange energies beneath the surface of their world and the stars around them inspired them to turn  their science to that of holographic technology, and so would begin a time of transition from the flesh to the hard light.

The Iaethlein made many mistakes during the period of transition and many a life would burn as sacrifice to the greater goal. Indeed, some of the early experiments into Holo-graphic bodies ended in half-holographic and half-flesh abominations which would die within seconds and it took many years for the process to be perfected so as to be safe. To harness the power of self-sustaining holo-bodies - the Iathelin began heavily researching into Stellar Engineering, and from the research they had found they could take shards of a star and compress the energies into small stable and mobile powersources which would be encased inside their holo-bodies. The new holo-technology was enhanced and modified over the next century and it was near the
end of the century that they developed the first Holo-crafts. The Holo-Craft's had larger cores and basic AI that allowed them to explore and colonise the worlds within their star-system that were previously uninhabited.

The same technology as the Holo-Crafts was eventually used to generate a powerful holographic defence network surrounding their entire star system, protecting them from any lethal intruders - this system was powered by over a dozen stars they had harnessed, an epic feat of Stellar engineering. As the technology evolved and became better - so did the Iaethlein and when the time came to convert into their new holo-bodies en-masse and give up the flesh entirely - they became something new and stronger and a high scientifically enlightened race was reborn in the Ether. Those that had previously been able to convert to holo-bodies, including the crews of the Holo-Crafts upgraded themselves with the enhanced technology also. As the defensive capabilty of their empire was complete, the Iathlein took to using their scientific knowledge to advancing their race further in other ways including expanding the size of their Holo-shield and thus enlargening their empire. As the Holo-Shield expanded, many worlds were annihilated and various civilizations began to fight back against the Iaethlein through sheer need of fearful survival and fearful desperation.

At this point the Iaethlein had become selfish with a sense of supriority - and so put their science into military
technology. Some Iaethlein converted their Holo-bodies to include new hard-light technology which allowed them to take energy from nearby stars and use the lightstreams to produce self-sustaining Holo-factories which would then create inferior replicas of their own holo-bodies which could be used purely for military useage. These war advancements continued as new factory-types and hard-light replicas were created - all for different strategic and tactical purposes. The Iaethlein Commanders would land in their Energy-Ships and begin harvesting light-sources to create factories on enemy homeworlds which they would then attack en-masse once enough forces were built up. 

After this period - a time known as the Penance begun as the Iaethlein became aware of their horrific changing of ways. They witnessed much of what they had done to other species from seeing a violent plant-species named the Jequerita do the same, aggressively re-foliating worlds and wiping out civilizations. As the Iaethlein bore witness to these tragedies the Commanders of the Iaethlein began a never-ending Penance war against that which they had become and brought war on the Jequerita - restoring the lost worlds and saving any civilization they could. The Scientist caste would do the same - abandoning military technology advancement and instead going back to Stellar- engineering as well as experimenting with growing new stars to replace those that they had stript away.

Minds of Energy
The Minds of an Iaethlein work by partitioning a part of their hard-light bodies and slowing the light down - allowing complex arrays of signals to exist, these signals make up the Iaethleins complex brain. Because of the mass-storage capacities of slowing these sectors of light down they are able to learn and take-in far more than what a flesh-bodied creatures could, and far more than they could in their own flesh-forms.

The Field Of Batteries
The sector of space within the Solar Circuit realm of the Iaethlein's named The Field Of Battery is a vast heavily defended array of Holographic Dyson Spheres which a star or sometimes even a few stars. This field of Dyson Spheres are used as a great energy station to feed power to the vast amount of Holo-Worlds which make up the great Solar Circuit. Every Holo-World is linked to The Battery in some way, normally through nodal electro-roads - fragile wires that are linked from the shells of the Dyson Spheres across the expanse of space to meet with the hosted Holo-Worlds to feed them power.