Space Exploration Science Fiction

She longs to know what it’s like to live among normal humans and experience simple biological pleasures like consuming alcohol, kissing a boy, and — most importantly — eating chocolate. But her mother, the infamous astroshaman leader Kyla Moonrazor, is determined to get her back, even if it means sending a bounty hunter after her.

Van and his crew suspect there's more to the Equal Grasp than just a band of thieves, and they begin their campaign at Bopul Station, a lonely outpost where corruption rules and Peacemakers are feared. To continue the fight and the case, the crew and friends need more than just contacts. They need money. To that end, Van begins exploring an old mystery about his grandfather, which leads to the shocking discovery—the Earth is being stripped of its history, one object at a time, but that's not the main purpose of the criminals.

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.

When Ishmael takes a crew of academy cadets into the Toe Holds, he's unprepared for the level of trouble green hands can get into. Meanwhile, their academy liaison discovers what can go wrong when you learn the wrong lessons and try to teach the wrong students. Will they all make it back to the academy before somebody accidentally takes a short walk out the airlock without a suit?

After their showstopping defeat of the crystal life-forms, Hiro and the gang head to the imperial capital for Hiro's award ceremony. No shortage of trouble awaits them in the heart of the empire, from Elma's overly affectionate brother crashing the party, to a reunion with Chris, to the emperor liking Hiro a little too much. Just when the crew thinks they've seen it all, they learn that the imperial princess...is the spitting image of Mimi?!

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.

On the run and broken, the Equal Grasp faces elimination on earth and everywhere else, their leader gone, their mission a shambles, and with new agents of justice hard on their heels. But the fight isn't over. In fact, it's just begun, and Van knows that every decision he's made for the past decade will come to bear on who lives, and who dies—and who is meant to rule over a universe where freedom and justice are the ultimate pursuit.

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.

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.

Retired from his fighting days, John Perry is now village ombudsman for a human colony on distant Huckleberry. With his wife, former Special Forces warrior Jane Sagan, he farms several acres, adjudicates local disputes, and enjoys watching his adopted daughter grow up. That is, until his and Jane's past reaches out to bring them back into the game — as leaders of a new human colony, to be peopled by settlers from all the major human worlds, for a deep political purpose that will put Perry and Sagan back in the thick of interstellar politics, betrayal, and war.

Not every visitor to or from Earth has good intentions, and the Peacemakers are faced with an uncomfortable reality. The Earth is about to meet aliens. Some of the aliens are bringing goods to trade. And among those items are weapons. When a secret cabal of humans who want to exploit the Earth is revealed, Van has to decide how and where to fight this threat. Along the way, he reveals a secret history that began in the Great War—and ends with mass chaos on his home planet.

When Van gains rank as a Peacemaker, he becomes a bigger target for the criminals scattered among the stars. And he wouldn’t have it any other way. On a distant world under an alien sun, hunters and their companions—the Rovan—bond in a ritual as old as their civilization. But one of the hunters is missing, and Van, along with his growing crew, knows where to look. Climbing up into the rarified air of the super-rich, Van uncovers a new enemy: The Fade. And they are as cruel as the stars are many.

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.

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.

Van and his crew have killed an empire. The problem is the empire doesn’t know it’s dead. Moving among the stars, the Peacemakers are faced with their greatest challenge—removing an evil so vast, it has a presence in every known star system. To that end, they’ll need to move quickly. To do so, they must be mobile, and that means big changes in their tactics. . . and their crew. With the help of a shadowy figure known as the Body Thief, Van will continue his policy of justice and freedom for all citizens, even if they began life on a computer chip.

The urge to explore and discover is a natural and universal one, and the edge of the unknown is expanded with each passing year as scientific advancements inch us closer and closer to the outer reaches of our solar system and the galaxies beyond them. Generations of writers have explored these new frontiers and the endless possibilities they present in great detail. The Final Frontier delivers stories from across this literary spectrum, a reminder that the universe is far large and brimming with possibilities than we could ever imagine, as hard as we may try.

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.

The Great Devourer is descending on the world of Tarsis Ultra, but to defeat the xenos horrors, Captain Uriel Ventris may have to embark upon a dangerous and unorthodox mission.

From number-one worldwide best-selling fantasy author Morgan Rice comes a long-anticipated science-fiction series debut. When SETI finally receives a signal from an alien civilization, what will happen next? A 13-year-old boy, dying of a rare brain disease, is the only one able to hear and decode signals from outer space. SETI confirms it is a real signal. What is the message? How will the world react? And most of all: are the aliens coming?

Hiro and crew head to a planet of dwarves on the hunt for a new carrier ship and a chance to stuff themselves with okonomiyaki and takoyaki, only to find a pair of bombshell twin mechanics! They may look alike, but these girls' personalities are like fire and ice. If the twins join the crew, will Hiro's ship ever know peace again?