Space First Contact

In a new Cold War between Earth and the colonies on Mars, when devastating weapons go missing, there's only one team you can call - the Outriders. A crack force of highly specialized super-soldiers, their clone bodies are near-immortal. When a fully-autonomous vessel with orbital strike capabilities goes missing, it's up to the Outriders to track the un-trackable. But when the trail leads them to the influential Martian People's Collective Republic, the operation gets a lot more complicated.

In this Hugo-nominated novel, an alien walks into a museum and asks if he can see a paleontologist. But the arachnid ET hasn't come aboard a rowboat with the Pope and Stephen Hawking (although His Holiness does request an audience later). Landing at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, the spacefarer, Hollus, asks to compare notes on mass extinctions with resident dino-scientist Thomas Jericho.

Hygeia, an outer rim colony, is doomed as the moon on which it was built hurtles toward an inevitable collision with the dead planet Hephaestus. When a distress signal arrives from a Weyland-Yutani biowarfare outpost near the colony, a desperate plan is launched to evacuate the trapped scientists and colonists. Their destination: LV-846, a key United Americas colony where high-level talks are scheduled to address the galaxy-wide hostilities between the colonies.

The Shongairi conquered Earth. In mere minutes, half the human race died, and our cities lay in shattered ruins. But the Shongairi didn't expect the survivors' tenacity. And, crucially, they didn't know that Earth harbored two species of intelligent, tool-using bipeds. One of them, long-lived and lethal, was hiding in the mountains of eastern Europe, the subject of fantasy and legend. When they emerged and made alliance with humankind, the invading aliens didn't stand a chance. Now, a select few blood-drinking immortals are on their way to the Shongairi homeworld.

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.

Lucian must do what no mage has ever done before: Escape the Mad Moon. But between frayed mages, violent monsters, and the hostile environment, that may prove impossible. Wandering the brutal surface, every breath is a fight for survival. And things only get worse when Lucian receives visions from the so-called Sorceress-Queen of Psyche, whose Psionic Magic is second to none. Teaming up with a dedicated captain, a frayed mage, and a former Mage-Knight of Dara, Lucian sets off on a quest across Psyche. He needs a way off the moon for good.

It's the dawning of a new age for mankind when the Catteni descend to Earth and easily overcome the Earth's population. Thousands are herded onto slave ships headed for the intergalactic auction block. Kris Bjornsen is captured in Denver on her way to her college classes and wakes up on the primitive planet Barevi.

Ellie Masters comes out of a coma to find herself the only inhabitant of an eerily empty moon station. She’s not on Earth any more; she’s not even in the right solar system. So when someone reaches out to her, tells her he’s her friend, she’s happy to believe it. The alternative is to be stuck alone with an enemy. Renn Sorvihn has been chasing a rogue Tecran ship for over a month. But when Renn follows the Tecran ship into an uncharted sector, and realizes the Tecran have been working their way to a secret moon base, he suddenly understands things are not as they seem.

As war breaks out among the colonies, a huge ship appears over the UPP mining planet Shānmén, releasing a horror that yields hideous transformations. Rescue is too far away, and the colonists’ only hope appears in the form of the vessel Righteous Fury. It carries the Jackals—an elite mix of former Colonial Marines and Royal Marines. Led by Zula Hendricks, the Jackals seek to rescue the few survivors from the depths of the planet, but have they arrived on time?

Down on Alfheim, the situation was dire. Some brave men and women had to be left behind for the greater good. Viceroy Miles Hunt, gutted by the losses, needed to stay focused. A Titan-class warship, the Freedom, could be the key to victory, if it were fully operational with a trained crew. It was not. Sam, the medical Synth, faced something the programmers never expected: a moment where the only option was to break free of the code. The battle was fierce and there didn't seem to be a way out, until Sam came up with a plan. Would it save them?

Albert Jenkins would like nothing more than to putter around his junkyard, selling parts and working on old cars. When an alien spacecraft is shot down by US Air Defense and crash-lands on his newly rebuilt home, he’s dragged back into the fight of his life. Light years away, a war for the control of Earth looms, and humanity’s freedom hangs in the balance. Previously kicked off Earth, the Korgul are back, and they are willing to destroy any who stand in their way.

Earth is conquered. The Shongairi have arrived in force, and humanity’s cities lie in radioactive ruins. In mere minutes, over half the human race has died. Master Sergeant Stephen Buchevsky, who thought he was being rotated home from his latest tour in Afghanistan, finds himself instead prowling the back country of the Balkans, dodging alien patrols and trying to organize the scattered survivors without getting killed.

Earth's armed forces have stopped the Lanky advance and chased their ships out of the solar system, but for CDC officer Andrew Grayson, the war feels anything but won. On Mars, the grinding duty of flushing out the twenty-meter-tall alien invaders from their burrows underground is wearing down troops and equipment at an alarming rate. And for the remaining extrasolar colonies, the threat of a Lanky attack is ever present.

Twenty years have passed since the interstellar scourge known as the Husnock were exterminated without warning by a being with godlike abilities. Left behind, intact but abandoned, their desolate worlds and derelict ships brim with destructive potential. Now a discovery by a Federation cultural research team has drawn the attention of several ruthless factions. From black market smugglers to alien military forces, it seems every belligerent power in the quadrant hopes to capture the Husnock's lethal technology.

One hundred years before Ender's Game, the aliens arrived on Earth with fire and death. Earth Afire by Orson Scott Card and Aaron Johnston is the story of the First Formic War. Victor Delgado beat the alien ship to Earth, but just barely. Not soon enough to convince skeptical governments that there was a threat. They didn't believe that until space stations and ships and colonies went up in sudden flame. And when that happened, only Mazer Rackham and the Mobile Operations Police could move fast enough to meet the threat.

The Dread Empire of the Shaa is no more, following the death of the last oppressor. But freedom remains elusive for the myriad sentient races enslaved for 10 centuries, as an even greater terror arises. The Naxids - a powerful insectoid species themselves subjugated until the recent Shaa demise - plan to fill the vacuum with their own bloody domination and have already won a shattering victory with superior force and unimaginable cruelty. But two heroes survived the carnage at Magaria: Lord Gareth Martinez and the fiery, mysterious gun pilot Lady Caroline Sula.

When the Equal Grasp and other unsavory aliens launch their plot to open humanity up to the stars—in the name of profit, of course—Van and his crew spring into action, fearing the fallout of a world gone mad. With each passing event in his career, Van continues to unravel locked memories, held by Perry, that explain a family history far more violent than he ever imagined.

Jon Ryan has some unfinished business. Since he caused the universe to reboot, well, he can't seem to find his wife of two billion years. That's one great big oops. He also can't find the massive time ship Aramthella and her human crew. Double oops. And then there's the matter of not knowing whey why there are several copies of key people in the new reality he must navigate. Triple oops. He actually knows one whole heck of a lot less about his current situation than seems healthy. But he's Jon Ryan, former fighter pilot turned android warrior for humankind.

As the Federation starship Voyager continues to lead the Full Circle Fleet in its exploration of the Delta Quadrant, Admiral Kathryn Janeway remains concerned about the Krenim Imperium and its ability to rewrite time to suit its whims. At Captain Chakotay's suggestion, however, she orders the fleet to focus its attention on a unique planet in a binary system where a new element has been discovered.

The crews of Jean-Luc Picard, Benjamin Sisko, Ezri Dax, and William Riker unite to prevent a cosmic-level apocalypse—only to find that some fates really are inevitable. Their most daunting mission will be their finest hour.