Hard Science Fiction Space

It doesn’t matter that Ray Garcia-Strickland’s father was one of the first men on Mars. The now overdeveloped planet has lost its hip factor, its luxurious hotels - like the one Ray’s father manages - overrun with gravity-dependent tourists from Earth. Ray is over the Red Planet. Soon he gets his own chance at interplanetary adventure when an unknown object hits Earth and causes a massive tsunami. Ray heads back to Florida to help family and friends who’ve survived the devastation - and soon learns the so-called natural disaster could have unnatural consequences.

A propulsive science fiction tale of murder and memory, all set on a futuristic space station. Hundreds of miles above Earth, the space station Ciudad de Cielo - the City in the Sky - is a beacon of hope for humanity's expansion into the stars. But not everyone aboard shares such noble ideals. Bootlegging, booze, and prostitution form a lucrative underground economy for rival gangs, which the authorities are happy to turn a blind eye to until a disassembled corpse is found dancing in the microgravity.

Commander Tanis Richards has finally come into port after a seven month tour on the edge of Jovian space, and she's looking forward to some much deserved shore leave. But Tanis's commanding officer has other things in mind for her. Enfield Technologies has developed a new technique to pair enhanced L2 humans with AIs, and the military wants Tanis to undergo the procedure. Though she feared the worst, after meeting Darla, Tanis realizes that having an AI - especially a fabulously wealthy one - is better than she'd ever imagined. Darla foots the bill for Tanis to enjoy her convalescence.

Old Captain Orbus commandeered a ship to flee Spatterjay, desperate to escape the violent planet. Orbus’ alien enemy, the Prador Vrell, is also moving on. The Spatterjay virus mutated him into something even more dangerous. And he’s hunting the Prador King himself - who sought to kill him, to bury the secret of their similar transformations. Orbus and Vrell clash in the Graveyard, a lawless zone where the Prador have seized a key space station. Official action by humanity or Prador would end peace, as a centuries-long cold war simmers.

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.

Earth is rising in the House of Voltar.... And there’ll be hell to pay! That’s right. The invasion is on...and it’s coming soon to a galaxy near you. The action couldn’t be hotter, and the plot couldn’t be more diabolical. Earth is coming to Voltar - and the Voltarians won’t know what hit them. Murder, blackmail, drugs, psychoanalysis, PR firms, sex-crazed teenyboppers, riots in the streets, women in chains. These are the powerful secret weapons of war.

2040: Ruins of ancient civilization uncovered on Mars reveal startling truths about the creation of humankind. 2042: In the gray dust of the Earth's Moon, an extinct enslaving race left behind more answers, more questions...and a grim warning. 2067: As Earth's warring factions clash in space for scraps of alien technology, a strange artifact lies trapped beneath the ice-locked oceans of Europa: a machine that holds the key to the final human destiny. It is called "The Singer" for the eerie tone it emits.

The revelations on Mars - a half-million year-old legacy of the vanished star-traveling Builders - have fed the flames of catastrophic war. A beleaguered United States and its Russian and Japanese allies struggle to hold their own against the indomitable forces of the enemy United Nations. The bloody conflict that has swept over the home planet now rages across the blackness of space - with the U.S. Marine Corps in the vanguard, leading the charge as always.

When Unit Four - a biological soft robot built and stored high above the Jovian atmosphere - is activated for the first time, it’s in crisis mode. Aliens are attacking the Helium-3 mine it was created to oversee, and now its sole purpose is to defend Earth’s largest energy resource from the invaders in ship-to-ship combat. But something’s wrong. Unit Four doesn’t feel quite right. There are files in its databanks it can’t account for, unusual chemical combinations roaring through its pipes, and the primers it possesses on the aliens are suspiciously sparse.

The starship New Horizon is Earth's first attempt at an FTL capable spaceship. But others don't want the mission to succeed. The mission goes suddenly and horribly wrong with the possibility of inadvertently leading the Hocklyns to Earth decades in advance of their estimated arrival time. Can the cadets on the New Horizon stop the deadly plot before it's too late?

Humanity's last encounter with aliens saw 16.2 billion people killed in a war with the Merkiaari that had spanned decades. Two hundred years later, the Alliance is cautiously exploring beyond its borders again, but the survey corp is considered a mere gesture by some. General Burgton of the 501st Infantry Regiment believes a lack of expansion is leading the Alliance into stagnation. So when one small ship discovers a new alien race, it should be an easy decision to make contact, but what if the aliens are like the Merkiaari?

Few writers have successful blended hard science and speculation with fully realized characters as Gregory Benford has in his critically acclaimed novels. Now he draws us into a vortex of mystery and danger at the heart of the galaxy in his dazzling epic drama, Furious Gulf.

Onboard an ancient starship, Killeen and the Bishop tribe escape the mech-ruled world of Snowglade. Seeking refuge on a faraway planet, they discover vast wonders: an organic life-form as large as a world, a planet-coring cosmic string, a community of humans ruled by a brutal tyrant, and ultimately an alien race more awesome than any they have encountered. As they battle for survival against these myriad dangers, Killeen and his crew will gain an unforeseen ally - one that may determine humanity’s true destiny.

Millennia of conflict between humans and mechs have driven the human race to near-extinction. Now, as the fierce AI mechs begin their final assault on mankind, it soon becomes apparent that three men – three generations in a family of voyagers – are their targets. Toby Bishop, his father, Killeen Bishop, and his grandfather, Nigel Walmsley, each carry a piece of the lethal secret that can destroy their enemies. But hunted through space and time by relentless assassins, they have no idea that they possess the only weapon that can save humanity.

During a classified mission to the ISS, astronaut Jack Kildare picks up an eerie signal. An alien spaceship is orbiting distant, icy Europa. It looks derelict...but is it? As fear sweeps across Earth, NASA spearheads a frenzied effort to build a ship capable of traveling to Jupiter to confront the alien menace. Technology intertwines with espionage and sabotage in a race against the clock. Fighting for his rightful place in the mission, Jack finds himself submerged in a world of secrets, international power games, and cold-blooded murder.

Copilots Msizi and Tariro are testing a newly constructed wormhole jump that presumably leads to unsettled habitable worlds. Then an explosion sends them off course, far from where they started and with little chance of ever making it back. Now they’re stranded on their new home for the diaspora. It’s called Malcolm X-b. But they’re beginning to wonder how many light-years from civilization they really are.

The third book in the Web Shifter's Library series returns to the adventures of Esen, a shape-shifting alien who must navigate the perils of a hostile universe.

Deep in the heart of an alien mountain range, I.C.C. has lain dormant, its ships silent, for eons. Now, after 100,000 years, the AI is awakening. Someone is roaming the convoy's halls - someone that isn't human. This planet, Noumenon - created by the megastructure known as the Web - is too young and brutal to have evolved intelligent life. Its surface is bombarded by unusual meteors. Crystal trees abruptly and violently arise from its bedrock. Its solar system is surrounded by a frightening space-time anomaly. So where did these visitors come from? What do they want?

Once rebels find themselves facing off against the Earth Confederation, the United States of North America is now the dominant force in negotiations with the interstellar Sh'daar Collective. But just as the marines root out the last violent dissenters, an alien ship of unknown origin suddenly flees Earth's orbit. Is it mere coincidence...or a terrifying omen?

Corta Hélio, one of the five family corporations that rule the moon, has fallen. Its riches are divided up among its many enemies, its survivors scattered. Eighteen months have passed. The remaining Hélio children, Lucasinho and Luna, are under the protection of the powerful Asamoahs, while Robson, still reeling from witnessing his parents' violent deaths, is now a ward - virtually a hostage - of Mackenzie Metals. And the last appointed heir, Lucas, has vanished from the surface of the moon.