Space First Contact

Defeated in battle, the fractious alliance of Goltar, Spine Patriots, and the Midnight Sun Free Company are chased across the Spine Nebula by the Endless Night and their sea-monster allies, the Tyzhounes. Abandoning the nebula is not an option. For the free trader skipper, Lenworth Jenkins, the people of its 15 tormented worlds are the cause he’s been searching for all his life.

Rosalyn Devar is on the run from her famous family, the bioengineering job she's come to hate, and her messed-up life. She's run all the way to outer space, where she's taken a position as a "space janitor", cleaning up ill-fated research expeditions. But no matter how far she goes, Rosalyn can't escape herself. After too many mistakes on the job, she's given one last chance: take care of salvaging the Brigantine, a research vessel that has gone dark, with all crew aboard thought dead. But the Brigantine's crew are very much alive - if not entirely human.

Dragorn Bright’Lor, imprisoned for crimes against the Empire, has been forced to watch his sons flourish in his absence. Armed with a powerful new ally, he has never been more dangerous. Ero and Skorn must stop him or risk losing everything, a task made difficult when an explosive secret comes to light. Reklin is trapped in the Burning Ghosts, the most feared criminal organization in the galaxy. When he continues to try and escape, Visika kidnaps a member of his family to control him. It’s a deadly mistake.

Commander Mariucci and his hand-picked research team know they will have to muster all of their expertise, creativity and teamwork to survive the very harshest of conditions in orbit around the king of planets. But when they intercept a peculiar radio transmission, they have to investigate. Nothing should work in these impossible conditions, so what is sending the signal...and why? With a degrading ship and crew at breaking point, there's every chance they will tear themselves apart before they ever find the answer to the ultimate question.

The Tyrell are a race that love to fight. The more difficult the fight, the better they like it. Every race they find is given the same level of technology and a specific amount of time to exploit it before the Tyrell come back looking for a fight. Humanity is warned by another alien species that the Tyrell are coming, and the race is on to build an Alliance of races strong enough to stand up against an empire whose expansion has been relentless.

The final volume of the Uplift trilogy by Hugo and Nebula Award winner David Brin, Heaven’s Reach brings readers back to the planet Jijo one last time. The starship Streaker is still on the run with its dangerous cargo of ancient artifacts when the prophesied Time of Changes rocks the galaxy. As each race battles for control and chaos reigns, the truth about the Five Galaxies and The Progenitors finally comes to light.

On the planet Jijo, peace is upended when the starship Streaker arrives, bringing with it knowledge of a two-billion-year-old fleet and hordes of followers eager to exploit its power. Publishers Weekly hails Brin's "extraordinary capacity to handle a wide-ranging narrative and to create ... complex alien races."

US Army soldier Shad Williams has been drafted to fight in a new kind of war against a cavalcade of monsters on a hostile planet. By a sheer twist of fate, Shad, his younger sister, and their grandfather—along with ten million other unlucky people—were abducted to be pawns in an epic conflict between extraterrestrial species seeking to control the Reality Engine, a powerful computer that can create extraordinary technological wonders. If the humans claim victory over their competitors, they will be granted their freedom to return to Earth.

While the occupation of Earth continues, MinSha mercenaries under the command of Major General Drehnayl have assaulted human-held colonies in the outer rim, wiping them out. With the famed Four Horsemen nowhere to be found, the Mercenary Guild’s attempt to instill fear and subvert humanity is perilously close to reality. Tasked with finding the MinSha is Jessica Francis, Earth’s first Peacemaker, but the odds aren’t in her favor. Jessica realizes that finding Drehnayl's forces isn’t enough - she must do something to stop their atrocities and end their reign of terror.

Trevor Gray has been stripped of his command of the starship America and is unsure what to do with his life. Having dedicated so much of himself to the service, he knew following the super-AI Konstantin’s advice could have severe consequences. He just never thought he would be out of the fight. Because that’s what Earth is in: a fight against a sinister alien force that is so technologically advanced, there seems little hope. That’s why he had disobeyed his orders in the first place: to figure out a way to stop them. But now he’s beached - just what Konstantin wanted.

As a professional finder, Fergus Ferguson is hired to locate missing objects and steal them back. But it is rarely so simple, especially after his latest job in Cernee. He’s been recovering from that experience in the company of friends, the Shipmakers of Pluto, experts at crafting top-of-the-line AI spaceships. The Shipmakers have convinced Fergus to finally deal with unfinished business he’s been avoiding for half his life: Earth. Fergus hasn’t been back to his homeworld since he was 15, when he stole his cousin’s motorcycle and ran away.

Thousands of crew are reported dead, including the ship’s captain. Reluctantly, the young XO, Galvin Quintos, will be taking command of the fleet's crippled dreadnaught, the USS Hamilton, while doing his best to bring fleet survivors back to Earth. To make matters worse, there’s a murderer running loose on board the ship, critically low fuel levels, and the Grish are back, in fast pursuit and ready to finish what they’d started. Only by sheer luck - and a good measure of cagey smarts - will Quintos be able to rise to the challenge.

A year after the Commonwealth won the war with the Theocracy, the interstellar cruise liner Supreme is on its maiden voyage, carrying a host of aristocrats thrilled to be sharing in a wondrous adventure among the stars. Then a collision with a pirate ship leaves the cruiser powerless and becalmed in hyperspace. And they’re not alone. Now, the mysterious force that’s living on this floating graveyard is coming for Supreme’s crew and passengers. As madness starts to tear at their minds, they must fight to survive in a strange alien realm.

Lieutenant Saru is a Kelpien, a member of a prey species born on a world overrun by monstrous predators...and a being who very intimately understands the nature of fear. Challenged on all sides, he is determined to surpass his origins and succeed as a Starfleet officer aboard the U.S.S. Shenzhou. But when Saru breaks protocol in order to prove himself to his crewmates, what begins as a vital rescue mission to save a vessel in distress soon escalates out of control. Forced into a command role he may not be ready for, Saru is caught between his duty and two conflicting agendas.

A Tortantula and a Flatar. The most enigmatic teaming in the mercenary guild, it’s also a perfect pairing, where one’s strengths cover the other’s weakness. Raised together from birth, their lives are a brutal series of tests. Azah isn’t like most other female Tortantula; she’s much smaller and made fun of. No one expects her to survive, much less succeed, but she’s still given a chance and assigned a Flatar: Sadek. The two quickly bond and find they complement each other. Against all odds, they survive the breeding dome and join the ranks of their races’ mercenaries.

From bestselling author D. Ward Cornell comes the next installment in the stunning Echoes of Extinction saga. Following the destruction of the Dominion's hyperspace conduits in Alliance space, the stranded remnant bands together to attack Earth. President Kyle Wimberly, in collaboration with his daughters in Alliance Intelligence, discovers the Dominion's plans. As they prepare, an idea comes from an unexpected source—a means to enslave the spiders.

From world to world, whispers are spreading of these powerful new augments. Branded as renegades, Ero and his brother, Skorn, are hunted by dangerous enemies, including Visika, the head of the Burning Ghosts, the most feared criminal organization across the Empire. Hoping to recruit more soldiers for House Bright’Lor, Captain Reklin returns to the Hammerdin homeworld, only to find his family threatened by clan leaders. His best chance to keep his family safe is the Sovereign Crucible - a fight to the death against a clan champion.

Civil war on the world of the atevi is over, but diplomatic disputes and political infighting continue unabated. Bren Cameron, brilliant human diplomat allied with the dominant Western Association, has just returned to the capital from his country home. But his sojourn was anything but restful, for Bren and his associates have had a small war of their own to contend with, ending with rebel leader, Machigi, joining the atevi congress representing the rebels as a member state.

Where life as we know it is impossible, the real adventure begins. Venus is a hostile planet, covered by active volcanoes, but NASA launches an expedition to search for life there anyway. Their specially developed airship cruises in the clouds of Venus to serve as a research platform for its four astronauts. When they discover dangerous activities on the glowing-hot surface, there can only be one explanation: A highly sophisticated life form must be at work.

When a human team is sent to scout a few hundred light-years in front of the death wave, it encounters a civilization far in advance of our own, a civilization of machine intelligences.These sentient, intelligent machines have existed for eons and have survived earlier "death waves" - gamma-ray bursts from the core of the galaxy. They are totally self-sufficient, completely certain that the death wave cannot harm them, and utterly uninterested in helping to save other civilizations.