Space Exploration Fiction

How can a colony on Mars survive when the greatest danger on the planet is humanity itself. All contact is lost with the first human colony on Mars during a long, intense sandstorm. Satellite imagery of the aftermath shows extensive damage to the facility, and the fifty-four colonists who called it home are presumed dead. Three years later, a new mission sets down on the planet surface to investigate what remains of the derelict site.

The greatest threat humanity has ever faced lies beyond the frontier of its galactic civilization, but dangers closer to home have been overlooked and allowed to grow. As greed and personal ambition in the Terran Union push the common good aside, the Navy is forced to turn to unconventional means. Jack Samson is ordered to team up with former allies to uncover and destroy the rot eating the Union from the inside. Chasing down a trail of smuggled alien technology through the Union's underworld, they soon discover the web of treachery reaches farther than anyone could have expected.

After the main shipyard is heavily damaged, the enemy advances with a fresh offensive, and losses are piling up with no hope of building replacements. How can the surviving fleet stand up to the new onslaught? The Paragon have been weakened, but they still outnumber the humans. And now they're angry. Relics of the past. Mothballed ships and forgotten warriors, waiting for their names to be called again. The ship from a war fought long ago. Glory as a paradigm for the future.

As a new communications officer, Darius Lever was in over his head as soon he arrived at the navigation deck on one of the few ships holding the last survivors of Earth. In a fleet where each ship is home to millions of people, every decision is life or death...until a single ship makes a choice that may doom the remainder of the human race. That ship is controlled by a 22-year-old girl. Darius must choose to save humanity, her life, or his own.

Taylor Van Zant, the owner of Swamp Eagle Security, thought he was doing a good thing when he destroyed the slave ring operating out of Droxis, even though the slavers blew up the red diamond mine there as they tried to escape. Unfortunately, the mine belonged to the synthetic intelligence running the Merchant Guild, and it was…displeased with the mine’s destruction, so it put out a death contract on all the members of Swamp Eagle Security.

Admiral Kira Demirci lost the coin toss with her second-in-command and was supposed to be taking a holiday. That meant waiting in the Redward System while Memorial Force’s new carrier Huntress was commissioned and turned over to the mercenary space fleet. But when a stranger arrives looking to hire Memorial Force to protect her homeworld, Kira finds money, boredom and altruism combining to bring her into action.

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.

Not long ago, the starship Freedom was a museum ship. A relic of a bygone era. A rusty old warship converted into a tourist trap. Then the aliens attacked. Now, once more, the legendary Freedom flies to war. The war is brutal. The enemy is merciless. The rahs, vicious arachnids from deep space, crave only one thing. Human flesh. Before this terror, Earth’s fleet crumbles. Starships burn. Millions die. But the Freedom still flies. James King, her gruff old commander, still fights.

Mars. The red planet. A new frontier for humanity: a civilisation where humans can live in peace, lord and master of all they survey. But this isn't Space City from those old science-fiction books. It's more like Hell City, built into and from a huge crater. There's a big silk canopy over it, feeding out atmosphere as we generate it, little by little, because we can't breathe the air here. I guess it's a perfect place to live, if you want to live on Mars. At some point I must have wanted to live on Mars, because here I am.

The interstellar Consortium of Planets forsakes the irredeemably violent Earth, condemning the planet to economic and ecological chaos. Given one last chance to halt Earth's annihilation, women freedom fighters discover a way to rid Earth of men's brutality - but it may have come too late. In the stunning conclusion to the Native Trilogy, female linguists must once again come forward and fight for the future of humanity.

La vida de Spensa como miembro de la Fuerza de Defensa Desafiante dista mucho de ser normal y corriente. Demostró ser una de las mejores pilotos de caza estelar en el enclave humano de Detritus y salvó a su pueblo del exterminio a manos de los krells, la enigmática especie alienígena que los tenía prisioneros desde hace décadas. Por si fuera poco, viajó a años-luz de distancia de su hogar como espía infiltrada en la Supremacía, a un lugar donde descubrió que había toda una galaxia más allá de su pequeño y desolado planeta natal.

Navy Lieutenant Podkayne, daughter of Ray Garcia-Strickland, is tired of her job as Martian consul in California - and Earth’s oppressive gravity. So she’s okay with getting called back to Mars, even if it’s because her great-grandmother is sick and being put into suspended animation. After a family reunion, Podkayne’s next port of call is Europa, one of Jupiter’s moons, where she can finally realize her dream of being a singer. But just when her life seems to be improving for the better, disaster strikes and Podkayne is put into her own state of suspension.

"Tanjiri is not for you. You are not ready to encounter what exists there." So Lezuri spoke in warning, long ago. Urban still possesses the strange gift—the impossible puzzle—Lezuri gave him that day. A needle, ultra-thin and twelve centimeters long, with a silvery surface that slices light into rainbow glints. All Lezuri's knowledge lies locked within that needle. Urban has only to discover the trick of opening it, to gain that knowledge for himself—but the needle remains an enigma.

In the centuries since its expansion beyond the outer reaches of the Core Sol System, humanity has proven itself to be persistent enough to not only survive in space but to thrive. Hundreds of worlds, planetoids, and stations have been established as the new frontier for mankind, with some colonizers going into stasis for years, awaiting arrival at their new homes among the stars. With that expansion, and the astronomical distances needed to reach the new frontier, comes the need for rescue. Navigation errors, mechanical failures, marauding pirates, unexplainable cosmic phenomena, and more.

In the future, venturing out into the stars is more than a way for humanity to chart the cosmos—it's big business. Every time a new planet is discovered, the highest bidder gets first dibs with exclusive property rights for a year. Anything they can find, they can keep. The planet Limbo was considered a waste of rock to most, which is the only reason apprentice cargo master Dane Thorson and the rest of the crew of the Solar Queen could afford to bid on it. But they soon discover that Limbo is far from uninhabited, the Solar Queen is far from the first ship to explore it.

Twelve-year-old twins Raz and Kiley are headed underground, along with everyone else aboard the asteroid station. Their home is about to pass through a band of deadly space radiation, and in the lower level they'll be safe. But soon, the kids spot ghostly figures flickering in the halls. Rooms suddenly appear abandoned and rundown.

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.

This program includes original sound design. From science fiction visionary Annalee Newitz comes The Terraformers, a sweeping, uplifting, and illuminating exploration of the future. Destry's life is dedicated to terraforming Sask-E. As part of the Environmental Rescue Team, she cares for the...

Never meddle with unidentified spying objects...The year is: The Future. Mars and Earth are like that divorced couple who don’t exactly like each other but have at least stopped fighting in public. Floating somewhere in between them, amid all the garbage and Gene Roddenberry’s ashes, a transport vessel called the SS Jefferson is homeward bound. Its crew might have even made it on time for once, too...

Liza Pound has pulled on one too many tails. And no-one likes their tail being pulled, especially tigers. In the grand scheme of things, the foxes were never a serious threat. But now there is a real threat, and they've taken notice of who is now their biggest threat.