Science Fiction Exploration

They won't settle for mere victory. They want to exterminate us. Every last one of us. A surprise attack has sent the Star Alliance fleeing for its life. A remnant of a remnant, their meager fleet—all that remains alive—flees to what seems like a safe harbor: a forgotten backwater planet called Earth. Join ace fighter pilot Chase as he teams up with the modern-day militaries of Earth and fights the last battle for the universe.

A year has passed since the Hell Divers defeated the machines at Kilimanjaro. The freed captives have settled into their new home at the Vanguard Islands, joining survivors from around the world. But extreme weather and failed crops have raised the specter of famine. Ships must push deeper into dangerous red zones, only to come back with less loot - and fewer soldiers.

An unabridged audio collection spotlighting the "best of the best" hard science fiction stories published in 2016 by current and emerging masters of the genre, edited by Allan Kaster, as narrated by top voice talents.

What could be more commonplace than grass or a world covered over all its surface with a wind-whipped ocean of grass? But the planet Grass conceals horrifying secrets within its endless pastures. And as an incurable plague attacks all inhabited planets but this one, the prairie-like Grass begins to reveal these secrets - and nothing will ever be the same again.

When Ben Murdock receives a text message offering a fully operational starship for sale, he’s certain it has to be a joke. Already trapped in the worst day of his life and desperate for a way out, he decides to play along. Except there is no joke. The starship is real. And Ben’s life is going to change in ways he never dreamed possible. All he has to do is sign the contract. Joined by his streetwise best friend and a bizarre tenant with an unseverable lease, he’ll soon discover that the universe is more volatile, treacherous, and awesome than he ever imagined.

Instead of moving on to the afterlife, Watkins wakes up as something different. He has been reborn as the core of a war-ravaged starship and must work to repair his vessel if he wants to find his way home. Threats to his new existence abound, both in the darkness of space, and lurking aboard the ruined hulk of the ship he now commands. Despite the danger, Captain Watkins has a lifetime of naval service experience to call upon. With the help of his system adjunct, they must rebuild and prepare their vessel for the battles to come.

Raised fatherless in a galactic Brinktown, Joe Pikeman only ever wanted to escape. The Galactic Guard offered that escape, with the promise of regular meals to boot. Now Joe is a full Guardsman, with his own ship and a snide partner bot who hates humans almost as much as he hates other bots. To the pirates he hunts, Joe is known as the Butcher. His bloody reputation has landed him in the center of a sweeping conspiracy that threatens to stamp out the galaxy’s last surviving human settlements.

Titan is practically a planet in its own right, with a diameter similar to that of Mercury, methane rainstorms, organic soot, and ethane seas. The views from Titan’s Mayda outpost are spectacular, but all is not well at the moon’s remote science base. On the shore of a methane sea beneath glowering skies, atmospherics researcher Abigail Marco finds herself in the middle of murder, piracy, and colleagues who seem to be seeing sea monsters and dead people from the past.

Au centre de notre galaxie s'ouvre le Vide, un univers artificiel créé il y a des milliards d'années par des êtres inconnus, voilé par un horizon événementiel insondable. Le prophète Inigo représente peut-être la clé de cette énigme, avec ses rêves d'une vie merveilleuse sur un monde caché au sein du Vide. Quand il disparaît sans laisser de traces, ceux qui croient en ses visions se mobilisent pour accomplir un pèlerinage jusqu'au Vide, malgré les risques.

The Tyr stand on the brink of extinction. The Clay family has one last desperate plan to save the Tyr. Sarah leads an infiltration team of Tyr deep behind the invader's lines, but can she trust the Hidden caste operatives with her? David carries the device that could sever the planet from the threat of Director Zike, while Tyr traitors are on his trail and will stop at nothing to obey their new masters and to exact revenge against General Fastal. As the Tyr fight for survival, secrets will be revealed with implications for the galaxy far beyond what happens on their world.

Dorian Hawke's daily routine was pretty straightforward. Wake up, pull his weight around the village, eat potatoes, go to bed. Not too shabby. Not very interesting, maybe, but it was honest work. Then a boat falls like a meteor from the sky. Next thing he knows, a gorgeous elf and stunning faun tell him that magical blood runs through his veins, and they need him to navigate their ship through space.

After discovering a cache of Prothean technology on Mars in 2148, humanity is spreading to the stars---the newest interstellar species, struggling to carve out its place in the greater galactic community. On the edge of colonized space, ship commander and Alliance war hero David Anderson investigates the remains of a top secret military research station---smoking ruins littered with bodies and unanswered questions. Who attacked this post, and for what purpose?

Ralph could be described as a rogue on a good day. A bad day involved a lot of cursing, calling him a pirate, or sometimes even having a shoot-out. It wasn't really his fault of course, or so he would have you believe. It was the fault of those who wanted to get in his way of making as much money as possible as a smuggler. His family had been gifted with a letter of marque for the Terran Confed, one that is inherited and has been passed down to him. Essentially, it gives him a lot of loopholes and ways through regulations to be a fantastic smuggler. Or as a legal pirate, a Privateer.

When Manchester Yards donates a new training vessel to the Merchant Officer Academy at Port Newmar, Alys Giggone recalls the Chernyakova. She wants Ishmael Wang and his crew to take a crew of cadets into the Deep Dark. They have to sort out the crews of two ships, figure out what lessons they need to teach, and who will get those lessons. Once they agree, the trouble starts.

Nova is a lonely planet. It has been on its way to the Andromeda galaxy for ages. And yet, it is inhabited by people who have never known anything other than the caves beneath the surface that protect them from the vacuum and cosmic radiation. A surprising encounter changes everything. The planet gets visitors who seem to have their own agenda, and are so alien that communication seems futile. But they, too, have unexpected existential problems.

Out among the stars, his cousin, Carter Yost, drags Van and his team into a criminal ring run by the High Doctor—a dangerous con artist with delusions of grandeur. Working from the abandoned world of Pathway, the High Doctor has created a cult, stealing a fortune from the fearful, sick, and scared. If there’s one thing Van hates, it’s a bully, and the High Doctor has his full attention. But in order to crush the criminal cult, Van needs bigger, better armor—and that comes with a price.

Mitch's mediocre life has just taken a turn for the worse, so his buddy tries to cheer him up by showing him a secret starship. Unfortunately, everything goes south when hostile aliens arrive. In an effort to save his buddy and the starship from the aliens, Mitch does the obvious thing: he accidentally warps hundreds of light-years away. Marooned in a distant star cluster, Mitch is forced to deal with a snarky teenage AI, a rogue auto-pilot, and a beautiful alien soldier who's ready to steal his ship at any moment—so she can fight an oppressive military faction, of course.

Jimmy Martin has a sore head. He's used to smuggling illegal data in his headspace. But this is the first time it has started talking to him. The data claims to be a distinguished academic, author and civil rights activist. It also claims to be a bear. A bear named Honey. Jimmy has nothing against bioforms–he's one himself, albeit one engineered out of human stock–and works with them everyday in Hell City, building the future, staking mankind's claim to a new world: Mars.

L'espèce humaine s'est déployée parmi les étoiles, établissant des colonies sur de nombreux mondes, tandis que des clans gitans indépendants, les Vagabonds, gèrent de gigantesques stations d'écopage volantes au milieu des nuages. Sur la planète Theroc, la capitale de la Confédération, les humains vivent dans une monumentale forêt dont les arbres démesurés sont tous interconnectés au sein d'un esprit unique.

NASA finally made it. The very first human has just set foot on the surface of our neighbor planet. This is the start of a long research expedition that sent four scientists into space. But the four astronauts of the NASA crew are not the only ones with this destination. The privately financed "Mars for Everyone" initiative has also targeted the Red Planet. Twenty men and women have been selected to live there and establish the first extraterrestrial settlement.