Hard Science Fiction Space

The science vessel Hermes has been urgently recalled from its mission to survey the moons of Saturn, just as First Officer Miranda Lee receives bad news from home - her mother is dying so she must leave the ship and return to Earth - for good. Commander Scott McNabb is so distraught by her sudden decision to leave that he pays little or no attention to the parameters of the new mission being requested by the Council of Europa. Big mistake. Powerful forces on Earth are now moving to resume inter-AI communications, risking the development of an all-out war.

When the Colony on Hayden's world went black, a team was sent to investigate. It was supposed to be a training mission: skip in, find out the Casimir Transmitter had gone dead, report back and wait for resupply from the Fleet. By the time the only surviving member of the team made landfall, it was spectacularly clear that this wasn't a training mission.

Avalon was thriving. The cold sleep colonists from Earth had settled on a verdant, livable world. The fast and cunning predators humans named “grendels” were under control, and the mainland outposts well established. Avalon’s new mainland hydroelectric power station was nearly complete, and when on-line would compensate for the nuclear power systems lost in the Grendel Wars. Humans would have power, and with power came the ability to make all the necessities for life. They would survive. They would not survive as a spacefaring people.

Max Tyco is just beginning to understand what it means to be a Rowki Guardian. There are plenty of bruises and bumps along the way. But if he's going to face the threats at his door he'll have to learn some new skills. Sardonium is the metal of the Rowki Guardians. Imbued into their weapon of choice, it grants its wielder a power that can tip the odds in their favor. But all great power comes with a cost. The first portal has been discovered. The other two are being searched for. Treasure seekers, merchants and bounty hunters swarm to Ivandor.

The Ixa smashed the galaxy to bits before they were defeated. Captain Husher has sounded the alarm in the decades since: the Ixa’s creators will return to finish the job. But unlike Husher, the galactic government didn't battle the Ixa, and the politicians have convinced themselves that maintaining peace means limiting the ability to wage war.

Kylara had to leave a bright future as a military cadet and was thrown into the brutal world of off-world trading. This subsequent career in the family business was tough: marked by war, mutiny, and attempted assassination. But then her home was attacked and her parents killed - their trading empire left in ruins. Now she must save what is left of the family and the business, with few friends and too few assets.

Kylara had to leave a bright future as a military cadet and was thrown into the brutal world of off-world trading. This subsequent career in the family business was tough: marked by war, mutiny, and attempted assassination. But then her home was attacked and her parents killed - their trading empire left in ruins. Now she must save what is left of the family and the business, with few friends and too few assets. She must make full use of her hard-won experience to not just survive, but to restore the shattered fortunes of the Vatta family and their allies.

Astronaut Lee Rifkin's life is about to change. NASA has done the math. The space object named Cassandra 22007 is not behaving as expected. He will lead a team on a cutting-edge ship to get a closer look. But another group wants to get there first. Who is this shadow organization that seems to be one step ahead of them? Agent Jenna Haynes works to put together the pieces that will pull the veil off those who seem to have known about Cassandra's arrival since long before NASA spotted it. What is their goal?

The game never changes, only the players do. Others might call it rebellion, call it cowardice. The vanguard will not forgive, nor will they forget. Their trust lays with one another, in those that have shed blood with them and joined the net. Empires, government, leaders, alliances, planets, corporations - many have fallen in humanities past. Now a new Empire will stand on the shoulders of the vanguard, the troopers, the people of Tricticus, and the Victor Corporation. Their goal: survive, and defend those they care for by any means necessary.

Nathan Myers and the crew of the Legacy have fought several of the predatory races wreaking havoc on our galaxy. Over the years their enemies have given them many names. Most are born out of spite and fear, but some are out of respect. Now that Nathan and his strike team find themselves battling the invasive Bio-machines of Andromeda, the enemies of all biological life have labeled Nathan and his crew with a new moniker. They call them the Apex Warriors.

They have been traveling towards the Andromeda galaxy for thousands and thousands of years. Suddenly, they receive an offer that sounds far too good to refuse. But are they even ready for the big step that actually promises them the fulfillment of all their wishes? Aren't those who want to make it possible perhaps also pursuing their own plans, which will plunge the entire planet into great danger? The Arrival is the conclusion of the Andromeda trilogy.

Alone and desperate, Eve sits in the control center of an alien structure. She has lost the other members of the team sent to explore exoplanet Proxima Centauri b. By mistake she has triggered a disastrous process that threatens to obliterate the planet. Just as Eve fears her best option may be a quick death, a nearby alien life form awakens from a very long sleep. It has only one task: to find and neutralize the destructive intruder from a faraway place.

New Canaan is under attack. Driven by Uriel, the Hegemony and its last remaining allies have sent their fleets against the ISF's homeworld. It's a final solution, little more than an attempt to bring about mutually assured destruction. Of course, the humans of Sol don't know that their leader is under the control of core AIs who do not care which side wins, so long as humanity is weakened. Tanis and Tangel have returned from the core, ready to defend their homes, but they lost a month in a temporal jump, and the core AIs are ready for them, led by one of Epsilon's lieutenants.

Planet Moscow is vaporized by an unnatural star explosion, prompting those who escaped to counterattack the likely culprit - planet New Dresden of the neighboring system. But New Dresden wasn't to blame, and as worlds go to war, an unseen enemy labors to destroy the universe itself.

Centuries after a war with the Mutes, the first aliens to be encountered by humankind, a startling new discovery in the far reaches of the Orion Nebula appears. On a planet with conditions favorable to life, explorer vessel The Columbia comes across a small town seemingly inhabited by an intelligent species not yet discovered. But when a highly publicized follow-up mission is sent to make contact mere months later, the entire town has vanished, leaving no trace—or such is presumed to be the case until Alex Benedict and his archaeological crew show up to investigate.

From New York Times bestselling author Cixin Liu comes a short story collection of captivating visions of the future and incredible re-imaginings of the past. In To Hold Up the Sky, Cixin Liu takes us across time and space, from a rural mountain community where elementary students must use...

No one has ever ventured deeper into space than the astronauts of Shepherd-1. The aim of their mission: to witness the creation of the cosmos and to see who had a hand in it. The answer never reaches Earth. Shepherd-1 looks functional but abandoned. Former crew member Benjamin sets off and sends his consciousness to the spaceship. Although an enemy throws clubs between his legs, he finds the culprit. The fact that there appears to be no remedy whatsoever does not remain his only problem: The ship, which is about to be destroyed, suddenly receives radio signals from interstellar space.

The war will come - it is inevitable. After centuries of struggle, the ISF Intrepid has finally brought its colonists to New Canaan, a star system better than any they imagined. They made landfall and began to build their new home, far from the troubles of Sol and the Inner Stars. Yet no one in the Orion Arm has forgotten that the colonists possess the most valuable technology known to humankind, least of all Tanis Richards - as she secretly prepares to defend New Canaan against any and all aggressors.

The war was finally over, or so Admiral Jon McCarthy thought. But the emergence of a new enemy—the mysterious Synthecs—leads to an uneasy alliance between humans and Korilians. McCarthy finds himself navigating a dangerous landscape both in space and in the halls of diplomacy to keep the coalition from falling apart before the real battle even begins.

Lee's parents and their business partner, Gordon, found a class A habitable planet. They thought their quest as explorers was over and they'd live a life of ease. But before they could return and register their claim, Lee's parents died doing a survey of the surface. That left Lee two-thirds owner of the claim and their partner Gordon obligated by his word with her parents to raise Lee. She had grown up aboard the ship with her uncle Gordon and he was the only family she'd ever known. Him adopting her was an obvious arrangement to them.