Space Opera First Contact

With the invading aliens temporarily driven from Human-and-NeHaw-occupied space, all the races are using the pause to recover and rebuild, both friend and foe alike. For the NeHaw, that means pressuring the Earth to allow them to rebuild and rearm their fleet from the Wawobash shipyards, a risk that could easily backfire. For Jake, the lingering concerns of a lost crew with the un-activated Artificial Life installed in the captured saucer still dominate his thoughts.

Star humans were engineered to exist within the mantle of a star, mere tools of their Earth-evolved makers in a war against the Xeelee, owners of the universe. Stephen Baxter's third novel in his magnificent Xeelee Sequence is an exotic and endearing story of an abandoned people. Abandoned to their fate, their history lost along with contact with their makers, Star people survive in an environment that is possibly the strangest in science fiction.

A novella set in the hard-scrabble world of James S. A. Corey's NYT best-selling Expanse series, Strange Dogs follows a family of colonists on Laconia where a new generation of humanity struggles with the profound changes that come with making a home on an alien world. Like many before them, Cara and her family ventured through the gates as scientists and researchers, driven to carve out a new life and uncover the endless possibilities of the unexplored alien worlds now within reach.

This hard sci-fi novel is the sixth book in the Stasis Stories, a series of optimistic tales of technological innovation in the near future. They follow Kaem Seba, a young man with extraordinary math talents. With his friends, he’s come up with a device that allows time to be stopped within limited volumes of space-time.

Eighteen years ago the Starship Enterprise thwarted an alien invasion from another universe, and Captain Robert April took possession of the interdimensional transfer device that made it possible. Since then each captain of the Enterprise has guarded this secret with his life. Now Romulan agents have succeeded in stealing the device and are using it to banish Ambassador Sarek and Councillor Gorkon to an unknown realm in the midst of their groundbreaking Federation-Klingon peace negotiations.

For years, the Zodarks plotted their revenge against the Republic. Spies infiltrated their colonies and eventually found their seat of power—Earth, located in a previously unknown system. A plan was hatched, a force made ready. The Zodarks would unveil a superweapon that was sure to tip the balance of power back in their favor. Then the Zodarks learned of Murphy's Law—and their plans were never the same.

Albert Jenkins never cared much for bureaucrats and politicians. So, when the Galactic Congress refuses to act on the illegal invasion of Earth by parasitic aliens, he does what any self-respecting vet would do - he steals a spaceship. But when AJ and a snarky pop culture-loving alien companion are pursued by space cops, he does the only rational thing he can come up with. He strategically crash-lands on a junkyard moon.

Bren Cameron, acting as the representative of the atevi's political leader, Tabini-aiji, as well as translator between humans and atevi, has undertaken a mission to the human enclave of Mospheira. Both his presence on the island and his absence from the continent have stirred old enemies to realize new opportunities. Old hatreds. Old grudges. Old ambitions. The situation has strengthened the determination of power-seekers on both sides of the strait. Bren knows most of them very well, but not all of them well enough.

Aboard the Starship Shenzhou, Lieutenant Michael Burnham, a human woman raised and educated among Vulcans, is promoted to acting first officer. But if she wants to keep the job, she must prove to Captain Philippa Georgiou that she deserves to have it.

Ambassador Spock travels back in time to subtly warn Earth's inhabitants of impending doom while calling into question humanity's priorities. However, before the truth is told, the all-powerful being, Q, appears and reminds Spock that he is prohibited from interfering in Earth's history. Besides, Q doesn't see mankind as something worth saving.

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.

Binti has returned to her home planet, believing that the violence of the Meduse has been left behind. Unfortunately, although her people are peaceful on the whole, the same cannot be said for the Khoush, who fan the flames of their ancient rivalry with the Meduse.

With the human-Shiravan treaty on the line, Kitty Hawke must violently end a mutiny aboard one of her ships. Afterwards, she leaves Shiravi, bound for Earth after being away for two years. Marsha Kane replaces Kitty as the head of the human fleet in Shiravan space, but she has her own plans on how to end the war with the Garmon, formerly called the Korvil. Meanwhile, the humans and Shiravan take the fight to the Garmon, destroying their ships and decimating their worlds, and it seems as if the war is nearing its end.

Humanity has reached an uneasy truce with the Empire—but unless the allies bring the fight to the enemy, extinction is all but assured. In preparation for the inevitable next war, Commander Stephen Michaels is at the helm of the Archangel Squadron, and his orders are simple: go rogue. Disguised as mercenaries, Commander Michaels and the Archangels seek valuable intelligence on their imposing foe. Their mission takes them deep into uncharted territory, where they make inroads with the Empire, fiercely guarding their true identities and purpose.

Exhausted from a two-year rescue mission to a distant sector of space, and with resources strained by four thousand extra mouths to feed, the crew of the starship Phoenix yearns for the luxuries of home. But when the ship makes the final jump into atevi space, they learn the worst: supplies to their home station have been cut off; civil war has broken out on the atevi mainland; the powerful Western Association has been overthrown; and Tabini-aiji is missing and may be dead.

A debt of honor: One brave woman ventures alone into a parallel universe to save her old shipmates exiled there decades earlier by a mysterious device called the Transfer Key. She soon learns the alternate universe harbors not just an alien invasion force but a secret that underpins its very existence. A mission of peace: A long-awaited Klingon-Federation peace conference convenes, led by Ambassador Sarek of Vulcan and Councillor Gorkon of Qo'noS. But both sides have enemies who would prefer the two great powers remain at war.

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.

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.

Viceroy Miles Hunt had accomplished the impossible. He gambled the Republic, the RNS Freedom and the entire joint allied fleet in one glorious battle. Secretly, the Zodarks plotted revenge, a restart to hostilities once their spies had found Earth. With peace achieved, new exploration began. Opportunities at new settlements enticed. All believed the threat of annihilation was past them and with that comforting thought, Liam and his Belters headed for their new world. They would build and expand their society—giving the people of Earth an alternative to the Republic.

The Méridiens are fleeing to their far colonies - and they have reason to run. Over the course of decades, they have lost hundreds of ships, billions of people, and seven Confederation colonies to an alien enemy: an advancing swarm of silver ships transported in the bowels of a gigantic, spherical vessel. Alex Racine, who once enjoyed the solitary life of an explorer-tug captain, is now an admiral and responsible for the lives of a quarter million Librans.