Hard Contact

Arthur C. Clarke’s 2061: Odyssey Three is truly a masterful elaboration on one man’s epic vision of the universe. Only rarely does a novelist weave a tapestry so compelling that it captures the imagination of the entire world. But that is precisely what Arthur C. Clarke accomplished with...

Forestry student Jerry Conklin is fly-fishing when something huge lands on his car, crushing it into the earth. It looks like a big black box-about fifty feet high and two hundred feet long-and the object stirs up quite a commotion among the townspeople of Lone Pine, Minnesota. One of them even shoots at it-and quickly pays for it with his life.

An intelligent robot and two young people explore Proxima Centauri b, the planet orbiting our nearest star, Proxima Centauri. Their ideas about the mission quickly prove grossly naïve as they venture about on this planet of extremes....

Biologist Julie E. Czerneda's new standalone science fiction novel, To Each This World follows a desperate mission to reconnect with long lost sleeper ships, sent centuries earlier from Earth to settle distant worlds. A trio of Humans must work with their mysterious alien allies to rescue any descendants they can find on those worlds. Something is out there, determined to claim the cosmos for itself, and only on Earth will Humans be safe. Or will they?

Anomaly examines the prospect of an alien intelligence discovering life on Earth. The technological gulf between humanity and the alien species is measured in terms of millions of years. The only way to communicate is using science, but not everyone is so patient. Humanity's first contact with an alien intelligence is far more radical than anyone has ever dared imagine. With a technological gap of millions of years, mankind is barely able to recognize the arrival of an alien space craft outside the gates of the United Nations in New York.

For many billions of years, humans - having conquered the curse of aging - spread throughout the entire Milky Way. They are able to live all their dreams, but to their great disappointment, no other intelligent species has ever been encountered. Now, humanity itself is on the brink of extinction because the universe is dying a protracted yet inevitable death.

Where life as we know it is impossible, the real adventure begins. Venus is a hostile planet, covered by active volcanoes, but NASA launches an expedition to search for life there anyway. Their specially developed airship cruises in the clouds of Venus to serve as a research platform for its four astronauts. When they discover dangerous activities on the glowing-hot surface, there can only be one explanation: A highly sophisticated life form must be at work.

Bren Cameron, acting as the representative of the atevi's political leader, Tabini-aiji, as well as translator between humans and atevi, has undertaken a mission to the human enclave of Mospheira. Both his presence on the island and his absence from the continent have stirred old enemies to realize new opportunities. Old hatreds. Old grudges. Old ambitions. The situation has strengthened the determination of power-seekers on both sides of the strait. Bren knows most of them very well, but not all of them well enough.

Nothing in Kalinda's plans includes crash-landing on a backwards sand planet full of lizard-aliens. But when she spots Warlord Nakan, she's willing to take a little detour. He's a sexy, muscular scaled creature that she wouldn't mind...studying. But no matter how interested she is, and no matter how much he lights her up inside, she's determined to get off his godforsaken planet.

Particle physics was always an unlikely path to the stars, but with the discovery that space could be compressed, the entire galaxy had come within reach. The technology was astonishing, yet nothing compared to what humans encountered 4,000 light-years from home. Now, with an invitation from a mysterious gatekeeper, the people of Earth must decide if they're ready to participate in the galactic conversation.

First in a brand-new Foreigner trilogy by Hugo Award-winning author C. J. Cherryh. Tracker is the 16th installment of C. J. Cherryh's acclaimed Foreigner series.

Jupiter's moon Io has an extremely hostile environment. There are hot lava streams, seas of boiling sulfur, and frequent volcanic eruptions straight from Dante’s Inferno, in addition to constant radiation bombardment and a surface temperature hovering at minus 180 degrees Celsius. Is it really home to a great danger that threatens all of humanity? That's what a surprise message from the life form discovered on Enceladus seems to indicate.

Marc and Emma are on the graveyard shift onboard the Sycorax, an interstellar spacecraft bound for New Haven, a colony world fifty light years from Earth. For the crew of the Sycorax, interstellar flight is boring—that is, until they run into a tempest. Before long, they find themselves on a crippled spacecraft falling toward a black hole, but that's the least of their problems...

Civil war on the world of the atevi is over, but diplomatic disputes and political infighting continue unabated. Bren Cameron, brilliant human diplomat allied with the dominant Western Association, has just returned to the capital from his country home. But his sojourn was anything but restful, for Bren and his associates have had a small war of their own to contend with, ending with rebel leader, Machigi, joining the atevi congress representing the rebels as a member state.

When a human team is sent to scout a few hundred light-years in front of the death wave, it encounters a civilization far in advance of our own, a civilization of machine intelligences.These sentient, intelligent machines have existed for eons and have survived earlier "death waves" - gamma-ray bursts from the core of the galaxy. They are totally self-sufficient, completely certain that the death wave cannot harm them, and utterly uninterested in helping to save other civilizations.

There's no resisting a desire like this MMA fighter Miles Dartman's casual arrangement with personal shopper Maxi Nevar would be many men's fantasy. She seeks him out, they have mindblowing sex, she leaves. Rinse, repeat. Yet lately, Miles wants more. And when Maxi requests his services via...

How did our long-lost ancestors affect our past? More importantly, how will they affect our future? Mark and Julie are brilliant scientists and Major Reagan has kept them and others alive to this point, but the most dangerous confrontations will not be with the Noridians, it will be with the Lower Houses of The Accord. Destiny is a thought-provoking journey that will cause you to inspect your basic values.

It is 2019. NASA astronaut Nigel Walmsley is sent on a mission to intercept a rogue asteroid on a collision course with Earth. Ordered to destroy it, he instead discovers that it is actually the shell of a derelict space probe - a wreck with just enough power to emit a single electronic signal….

Finally reunited on an advanced, alternate Earth where the mighty Roman Empire never died, James, Hannah, and Wolf now stand at the precipice of an interdimensional war threatening to obliterate everything they've fought to protect. As the fabric of existence continues to unravel, unleashing anomalous storms and creating rifts large enough for unstoppable warships to traverse, the trio must find a way to repel a superior force bent on conquest.

Alpha Station, orbiting the world of the atevi, has taken aboard 5,000 human refugees from a destroyed station in a distant sector of space. With supplies and housing stretched to the breaking point, it is clear that the refugees must be relocated down to the planet, and soon. But not to the atevi mainland, rather to the territory reserved for humans: the island of Mospheira. Tabini-aiji, the powerful political head of the atevi, tasks his brilliant human diplomat, Bren Cameron, to negotiate with the Mospheiran government.