Space Exploration Fiction

After a series of victories, the Imperial forces are on the back foot once more. The power of Chaos is rising, the Traitors gain ground, and all hope seems lost. Can Terra endure?

In 2205, the 19th Amendment has long been repealed and women are only valued for their utility. The Earth's economy depends on an insular group of linguists who "breed" women to be perfect interstellar translators until they are sent to the Barren House to await death. But instead, these women are slowly creating a language of their own to make resistance possible. Ignorant to this brewing revolution, Nazareth, a brilliant linguist, and Michaela, a servant, both seek emancipation in their own ways. But their personal rebellions risk exposing the secret language.

In Honor Harrington’s day, the Star Kingdom of Manticore is the wealthiest star nation on a per capita basis in the entire galaxy. It is home to magnificent cities. Its planets’ oceans and seas—and skies—are open to its people, yet they have maintained the beauty and the magnificence of their natural habitats. But that was not always true. Pioneers, especially interstellar pioneers, must be tough, smart, and self-reliant, and the people who built the Star Kingdom knew that.

A Fire Upon the Deep is the big, breakout book that fulfills the promise of Vinge's career to date: a gripping tale of galactic war told on a cosmic scale. Thousands of years hence, many races inhabit a universe where a mind's potential is determined by its location in space, from superintelligent entities in the Transcend, to the limited minds of the Unthinking Depths, where only simple creatures and technology can function.

Out of the blue, a young Space Fleet officer's dream becomes reality: He's made captain of a starship. Just in time for the return of humanity's most terrible enemy, after 50 years of peace. To survive against this enemy, Captain Tad Thatcher will have to do more than learn how to become an effective commander, or how to wrangle his wayward crew. He will need to reinvent space combat. From scratch.

The war for the fate of mankind blazes on. Though the outer defences have fallen, the walls of the Palace itself remain inviolate as Rogal Dorn, the Praetorian of Terra himself, uses every known stratagem and ploy to keep Horus' vast armies at bay. In Perturabo, the Traitor siegebreaker, Dorn faces an adversary worthy of his skill. A terrible, grinding attrition ensues. The crucial battle for the Lion's Gate spaceport is at the heart of this conflict. With it in their possession, the Traitors can land their most devastating weapons on Terran soil. Dorn knows it must not fall.

In the heart of the South Pacific lies Point Nemo, the most desolate and remote place on Earth. At its core is a dead zone, devoid of life, where government agencies crash their obsolete satellites and space stations, confident they won't harm a soul. When the International Space Station suffers a catastrophic failure and plummets through the atmosphere, it's here that Mission Specialist Julie Rohr, an astrobiologist studying living space dust called xylem, finds herself marooned. Julie's only hope for rescue lies in the hands of her estranged father, Dr. Finn Maddern, a renowned mycologist.

The Laconian Empire has fallen, setting the 1,300 solar systems free from the rule of Winston Duarte. But the ancient enemy that killed the gate builders is awake, and the war against our universe has begun again.

For a decade, peace has reigned in interstellar space. A tripartite agreement between the Colonial Union, the Earth, and the alien Conclave has kept the forces of war at bay, even when some would have preferred to return to the fighting and struggle of former times. For now, more sensible heads have prevailed – and have even championed unity. But now, there is a new force that threatens the hard-maintained peace: The Consu, the most advanced intelligent species humans have ever met, are on the cusp of a species-defining civil war.

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.

A slender novel of epic power and the winner of the Booker Prize 2024, Orbital deftly snapshots one day in the lives of six women and men traveling through space. Selected for one of the last space station missions of its kind before the program is dismantled, these astronauts and cosmonauts—from America, Russia, Italy, Britain, and Japan—have left their lives behind to travel at a speed of over seventeen thousand miles an hour as the earth reels below.

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.

The scattered worlds of the Elara's Veil nebula were once protected by the oath of unity sworn by three mighty Chapters of the Adeptus Astartes. The Star Scorpions were undone by flaws in their genetic coding. The Celestial Lions were ravaged by the Inquisition for sins they did not commit. Now, after hundreds of years, only the Emperor's Spears still keep their vigil. They are barbarian watchmen against the Outer Dark, bloodied but unbroken in their long duty.

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...

After 25 years serving as the human Monitor of the Interstellar Ark, Hermes, Orion is scheduled to be placed back into hibernation with the other crewmembers. Knowing he'll die there and be replaced before the ship's voyage is over, he decides that he won’t — can’t — accept that fate. Whatever it takes, Orion will escape Hermes and see what's beyond, even if it means defying the regulations of his only friend — the ship-wide artificial intelligence known as Dan.

Decades after the last footprints were left on the Moon, the US was preparing to return to the Lunar surface in a new class of rockets, when the mission suddenly became much more urgent. It would have to be a rescue mission. Unbeknownst to the rest of the world China had sent its own Lunar expedition. A manned expedition. Until a distress call was received, no human outside of China even knew that the mission was manned - or that their ship had crash-landed and couldn't take off again.

Already a renowned chronicler of the epic events of world history, James A. Michener tackles the most ambitious subject of his career: space, the last great frontier. This astounding novel brings to life the dreams and daring of countless men and women—people like Stanley Mott, the engineer...

The Indomitus Crusade has brought the Emperor's vengeance to thousands of star systems. The fleets and armies under the leadership of Roboute Guilliman fight for the survival of humanity against the forces of the Chaos Gods. But the traitors and heretics are not the only foe looking to destroy the rule of Terra. Xenos prey on human worlds in numbers not seen for millennia. Worst amongst them are the rampaging orks, whose migration conquests threaten to reverse the many gains of Fleet Primus.

The Interdependency, humanity’s interstellar empire, is on the verge of collapse. The Flow, the extra-dimensional conduit that makes travel between the stars possible, is disappearing, leaving entire star systems stranded. When it goes, human civilization may go with it - unless desperate measures can be taken. Emperox Grayland II, the leader of the Interdependency, is ready to take those measures to help ensure the survival of billions. But nothing is ever that easy.

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.