Science Fiction Exploration

It started the night Geena and Henry broke up. What was that strange light in the sky? A new star? A comet? Neither. It was the death of Venus. As if to commemorate the end of NASA’s golden couple, our neighbor planet exploded into a brilliant cloud of dust and debris, showering the Earth with radiation and bizarre particles as big as bacteria - a 10-dimensional superstring nanovirus that literally eats rock, transforming it into liquid, and then into molecule-size black holes that devour the very fabric of space-time.

On humanity's first extra-solar mission, the exploration vessel Magellan, or, as she prefers, "Maggie", discovers an alien artifact. Deciding that finding advanced alien life is too important to ignore, Captain Allison Ridgeway chooses to return to Earth while ordering her crew to reverse engineer technology far beyond anything back home. Meanwhile, at mission control, the governments struggle to maintain the existence of aliens a secret while also combating bureaucracy, the military industrial complex, and everyone else who wants a piece of what could skyrocket humanity into a new technological age.

Thousands of years ago, Earth’s terraforming program took to the stars. On the world they called Nod, scientists discovered alien life - but it was their mission to overwrite it with the memory of Earth. Then humanity’s great empire fell, and the program’s decisions were lost to time. Aeons later, humanity and its new spider allies detected fragmentary radio signals between the stars. They dispatched an exploration vessel, hoping to find cousins from old Earth. But those ancient terraformers woke something on Nod better left undisturbed. And it’s been waiting for them.

Adrian Tchaikovksy's critically acclaimed stand-alone novel Children of Time is the epic story of humanity's battle for survival on a terraformed planet. Who will inherit this new Earth? The last remnants of the human race left a dying Earth, desperate to find a new home among the stars. Following in the footsteps of their ancestors, they discover the greatest treasure of the past age - a world terraformed and prepared for human life. But all is not right in this new Eden.

Calista is happy with her life of scientific research. She doesn't need love, she has her books, her friends, and her work. Things are fine until her ship is attacked by space pirates and crash lands on a desert planet with heat so intense she and her friends can't survive without help. Ladon is a Zmaj warrior resigned to a life alone, who only desires to protect his treasures. His hopes for a mate faded long ago, yet when he meets Calista something stirs. It takes only one look to know that she belongs to him.

Captain Nathan Scott must decide whether to stand and fight to the end, or live to fight another day - even if it means the end of his world.

When the Ornu came, they took Earth in a single night. Humanity never stood a chance. Now, they force us to crew their ships and fight their wars for them. They hold Earth hostage, and if we refuse to do their bidding, they’ll lay waste to our precious blue marble. Slaughtering the billions who live there. But when Captain Bill Henderson is sent to claim a small moon for his masters, he finds something they never accounted for. An ancient warship – a behemoth abandoned for millennia by a species that reached its peak at the dawn of the universe.

Set against the backdrop of China’s Cultural Revolution, a secret military project sends signals into space to establish contact with aliens. An alien civilization on the brink of destruction captures the signal and plans to invade Earth. Meanwhile, on Earth, different camps start forming, planning to either welcome the superior beings and help them take over a world seen as corrupt, or to fight against the invasion.

A cease-fire that has lasted seven years... Worlds half-destroyed that have been rebuilt anew... Friends and crewmates scattered light-years apart... New leaders that would be kings... The Jung threat has been renewed, in ways not imagined. It will take a new savior to inspire the masses, and once again lead those willing to fight against oppression. But who will the new savior be?

John Perry did two things on his 75th birthday. First he visited his wife's grave. Then he joined the army. The good news is that humanity finally made it into interstellar space. The bad news is that planets fit to live on are scarce—and alien races willing to fight us for them are common. So: we fight. To defend Earth, and to stake our own claim to planetary real estate. Far from Earth, the war has been going on for decades: brutal, bloody, unyielding. Earth itself is a backwater.

While the crew of the UN Expeditionary Force's pirate starship Flying Dutchman are enjoying a luxury vacation cruise (not!), UNEF troops are still stranded on an alien-controlled planet. Major Emily Perkins and her team are busy picking up the pieces, and it's not easy, because there is trouble on Paradise...

The Imperium does not take it lightly when its slaves revolt. Earth's population has been decimated, and Captain Bill Henderson is fleeing imperial attack dogs with his crew and two million refugees—the last of humanity. Starship Omega could be the answer to turning the tide and finally ending the Imperium's tyranny. But not in its current form. The Omega is capable of so much more—but to unlock the enormous ship's true power, Bill must lead those under his command into the heart of empire space.

In the darkest part of the solar system lies a wormhole. Nether. Astrophysicist Cammie Skoura has joined the first research team traveling to the Nether anomaly, eager to understand the mechanics of the wormhole and to explore its possibilities as a shortcut to Alpha Centauri. But another race of ancient beings has already been here—an impossibly long time ago—leaving remnants of their vast complexes and gigantic temples built for horrific beings beyond comprehension.

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.

A new ally providing aid... An old ally joining the fight... Their resources growing with each passing day... Their homeworld finally on the road to recovery... Things finally seem to be coming together for Captain Scott and the Alliance as he takes his forces on the offensive. However, the Jung may in turn give him more trouble than he bargained for.

When an elderly customer at a Swedish big box furniture store - but not that one - slips through a portal to another dimension, it's up to two minimum-wage employees to track her across the multiverse and protect their company's bottom line. Multi-dimensional swashbuckling would be hard enough, but those two unfortunate souls broke up a week ago. To find the missing granny, Ava and Jules will brave carnivorous furniture, swarms of identical furniture spokespeople, and the deep resentment simmering between them.

Hella is a planet where everything is oversized. The trees are mile-high, the dinosaur herds are huge, and the weather is extreme - so extreme, the colonists have to migrate twice a year to escape the blistering heat of summer and the atmosphere-freezing cold of winter. Kyle is a neuro-atypical young man, emotionally challenged, but with an implant that gives him real-time access to the colony's computer network. When an overburdened starship arrives, he becomes the link between the established colonists and the refugees from a ravaged Earth.

Cats don’t really have nine lives, but they can visit nine different lives, anywhere, anytime. This is the secret Jason’s cat, Gareth, tells him. When Jason hears this, he begs to go along. Soon cat and boy find themselves in ancient Egypt on the first of nine fantastic adventures. With the wink of an eye, Jason and Gareth are transported to alluring settings in world history. On their travels they meet interesting and famous people, such as St. Patrick, and Leonardo Da Vinci. Whether the destination is Renaissance Italy or revolutionary America, their appearance never fails to cause a stir.

The first mission to Europa – Jupiter's enigmatic moon – has landed, and humanity’s darkest fears are about to awaken. For years, mankind has speculated that this frozen world harbours a hidden ocean twice the size of all Earth’s oceans combined – an ocean potentially teeming with life. Driven by this tantalising mystery, they venture forth to unlock its secrets. But what they discover in the abyssal depths is far beyond anything they could have imagined.

A man awakens, adrift in deep space, with little memory of who he is - only to discover that he is the commander of a space mission; the rest of the crew is gone; and he is apparently a writer of some small renown named Neil Gaiman.