Hard Science Fiction Space

Captain William Sparhawk flies Earth's single starship on a voyage of exploration. His crew of veteran spacers begins the mission with high hopes and the best of intentions, but the universe has other plans. Instead of space merchants and potential allies, they discover Earth's impending doom. Sparhawk must decide whether to hunt down enemy scouts to keep Earth's new starship a secret or to head home to warn Star Guard of the danger. Either way, he's ignited an interstellar war.

When 17-year-old Toby McGonigal finds himself lost in space, separated from his family, he expects his next drift into cold sleep to be his last. After all, the planet he' s orbiting is frozen and sunless, and the cities are dead. But when Toby wakes again, he' s surprised to discover a thriving planet, a strange and prosperous galaxy, and something stranger still - that he' s been asleep for 14,000 years. Welcome to the Lockstep Empire, where civilization is kept alive by careful hibernation. Here cold sleeps can last decades and waking moments mere weeks.

By the middle of the 21st century, humanity has managed to overcome a series of catastrophic events and maintain some sense of stability. Space exploration has begun again. Science has led the way. But then one day, the sun goes out. Solar panels are useless, and the world begins to freeze. Earth begins to fall out of its orbit. The end is nigh. Someone has sent us a sign.

In a future where humanity has scattered itself across the stars and Earth itself is now a dimly remembered place of legend, two worlds of near-supernatural strangeness challenge two naive but courageous heroes.

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.

The Allied fleet has stopped the Nietzscheans at Pyra, but the battlefront grows wider day by day. While Sera distributes the Transcend's fleets to protect the alliance, Tanis must come to grips with what happened to her on Pyra's surface. In addition, Bob conveys a number of hard truths that will force her to re-think her role in humanity's future. But the allies' enemies are not sitting idle. General Greer, Justin, the Caretaker, and Airtha are all advancing plans to see their visions of the future come true.

The situation on Earth is coming to a head; while the infestation was brutally contained in Siberia, it has spread uncontrollably in Los Angeles. Jenna wants to prevent the spore from causing even worse damage at all costs and tightens the noose around the Initiative—or is she just another pawn in the clutches of the shady organization?

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.

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.

Baron Lee and Lady Bala are headed to Denshu, his gift from the King. There is an imposter mage who has taken over his province and he must woo the residents to support him while taking down the imposter. The town is seventeenth century in most of its infrastructure and trade. Lee knows the new king put his strongest mages in the southernmost town in the kingdom—adjacent to Darvist.

After being lost in space for 11 years, Gabe finally makes his triumphant return to reunite with Alex and Chase and retrieve a possibly alien artifact - which may lead them to solve the greatest archaeological mystery of their careers, in the eighth installment of the Alex Benedict series.

The extermination of Earth is at hand. With his increasingly irrational leadership Basil Wenceslas, chairman of the Hansa, has driven humanity into a corner. His punitive treatment of the Hansa colonies and the Roamers, as well as his refusal to aid an embattled Theroc, have made enemies for the people of Earth.

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.

While recovering from the physical and emotional wounds he sustained in Challenger's Hope, Nick Seafort is named as the liaison between the wealthy planters of Hope Nation and the United Nations Navy. The lurking, acid-spewing, fish-shaped aliens are a real threat, and everyone is on edge. When the fleet returns to Earth, dissent grows among the people of Hope Nation, who feel abandoned by the military and left at the mercy of the alien horde.

On the eve of Luca Lee-McNabb’s 23rd birthday the quantum intelligence, Athena delivers her some bad news. Due to a devastating attack on its infrastructure it can no longer protect her and keep her hidden. She must leave Earth immediately and try to make it to New World One, a gargantuan habitat being constructed out in the asteroid belt. For Luca, leaving her home means potentially exposing herself to the powerful VanHeilding family, who will stop at nothing to harvest her unique biology.

The Year is 2040. The Marines have landed on Mars to guard the unearthed secrets of an ancient and dangerous alien race: Ourselves. Scientists have discovered something astonishing in the subterranean ruins of a sprawling Martian city: startling evidence of an alternative history that threatens to split humanity into opposing factions and plunge the Earth into chaos and war.

It's been a year of upheaval since Bren Cameron's return from space - a year since he and the aiji-dowager, one of his most powerful atevi allies, returned home from their two-year interstellar mission to find the government overthrown and their world in chaos. Now, at last, things on the atevi world seem to be on the right track, and Bren hopes that life may soon become much more tranquil. But something is coming, quietly, stealthily - just the first ominous twinkle of a new star in the heavens....

The secretive Roma Union has stepped forward. The warlike Maraukians are coming, and humanity must rally together or shatter into oblivion.

After months of travel, Anna Kubrin finally arrives on Mars for her new job as a geologist and de facto artist-in-residence. Already she feels like she is losing the connection with her husband and baby at home on Earth - and she'll be on Mars for over a year. Throwing herself into her work, she tries her best to fit in with the team. But in her new room on the base, Anna finds a mysterious note written in her own handwriting, warning her not to trust the colony psychologist. A note she can't remember writing. She unpacks her wedding ring, only to find it has been replaced by a fake.

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.