Space Science Exploration

When you’re out in the black wilds of space you might encounter warring pirate factions, rogue planets, or even find yourself on the wrong side of the Royal Union, the ruling government of the Triumph galaxy. Unfortunately for Halstaan Cross, it's all three.

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.

Look outward beyond the stars with six stories from bestselling visionary authors. An AI awakens to its purpose. A researcher seeds a thousand new worlds for one more chance at love. A murder rocks the crew of an interstellar ship. With a sweeping sense of wonder, these stories explore the galaxy . . . and the horizons of humanity’s potential.

The universe is under threat, and an ancient alien intelligence threatens to bring humanity down, unless Major Sanda Greeve and her crew can stop it in the final book of this explosive Philip K. Dick Award-nominated space opera.

Months after Inara leaves Serenity, Mal and the crew finally learn the reason for her sudden departure: She is dying of a terminal illness. Expert Esau Weng is said to have developed a means to treat Inara’s condition, but he has been disgraced and incarcerated for life on a notorious Alliance prison planet. On Atata planet, inmates are abandoned with no guards and left to survive as best they can. What’s more, terraforming the planet did not take properly, so the world is a frozen wasteland. To save Inara, the Serenity crew must infiltrate the prison....

Held captive by Dark Horse Company, Captain Axel Finn is faced with a mission to humanity’s ancestral home after all contact with the planet is lost. Learning his mother might be hiding there, Axel agrees to help his adversaries, and deploy on Vengeance, the last Steward ship. But his decision might lead to his downfall if the Wrath have already arrived on Earth. On the treacherous Wooly planet of Dari, bounty hunter Rangnar Soki becomes the prey, finding himself the target in a deadly game of survival. His path to rejoin Axel’s crew hinges on passing a test of Dari’s most revered guardian.

Includes books one and two in the Sleeping Gods series: Endeavor and Erebus.

With interstellar victory behind him, his greatest enemies vanquished, and two galaxies now at peace, Charlie and his friends had settled into a happy life of contented normalcy on the beaches of Earth. Even his dragon companion had made new friends and found a fulfilling life. And with Leila's first child on the way, Charlie really thought the universe was smiling on him at long last.

Half-Navajo geologist Jamie Waterman has been selected for the ground team of the first manned expedition to our mysterious neighbor planet. Joining an international team of astronauts and scientists, he endures the rigors of training, the dangers of traveling an incredible distance in space, the challenges of an alien landscape, and the personal and political conflicts that arise when the team must face the most shocking discovery of all.

Captain Brian Royce brings Hadad to his home planet, which shows obvious signs of battle. Did any of his family survive? Where are all the children; did the Zodarks take them? Admiral Miles Hunt finds himself appointed to a new position beyond his current skill set. He now has to become more than just a ship captain and fleet commander: he must become the Viceroy of the Milky Way Galaxy.

Get ready to experience two more origin stories in the Backyard Starship universe.

N. K. Jemisin is one of the most powerful and acclaimed speculative fiction authors of our time. In the first collection of her evocative short fiction, Jemisin equally challenges and delights listeners with thought-provoking narratives of destruction, rebirth, and redemption.

When a brilliant scientist gets a letter from herself about faster-than-light travel, she doesn't know what to believe. The equations work, but her paper is discredited - and soon the criticism is more than scientific. Exiled by the establishment, she gets an offer to build her starship from an unlikely source. But in the heights of Venus and on a planet of another star, a secret is already being uncovered that will shake humanity to its foundations.

With the Surial gone, Colton Beck has a chance to rebuild the Rusa race. Colton embarks on a dangerous journey to find answers, bringing his closest allies along for the ride. Each objective is a step toward to repopulating Nulit, but the ultimate price might be higher than they’re willing to offer. Now that the truth about the Angor has been realized, the Unity Accord will never be the same. Colton is determined to ensure his peoples’ position over the fabled Ocean, even if it tears the Unity apart.

Billions of years ago, on one of the first-ever Earths, a boy named Skylar will walk away from his home for the last time. Beset by dreams where he flies through the early universe as a sentient starship, he will never be safe if his secret gets out. His only chance to stay alive is to fall in with the same knights who destroyed his peasant village and live under the shadow of the king who sent them to exterminate Skylar’s people.

Mary Robinette Kowal continues the grand sweep of alternate history begun in The Calculating Stars. The Fated Sky looks forward to 1961, when mankind is well established on the moon and looking forward to its next step: journeying to, and eventually colonizing, Mars. Of course the noted Lady Astronaut Elma York would like to go, but there’s a lot riding on whoever the International Aerospace Coalition decides to send on this historic - but potentially very dangerous - mission. Could Elma really leave behind her husband and the chance to start a family to spend several years traveling to Mars?

On a mission to a planet threatened by a toxic disaster, Obi-Wan and Anakin are separated. Anakin and three other apprentices - one of them his rival - must work together in order to survive. Anakin's instincts are clear...but are they right?

Astronaut Lee Rifkin's life is about to change. NASA has done the math. The space object named Cassandra 22007 is not behaving as expected. He will lead a team on a cutting-edge ship to get a closer look. But another group wants to get there first. Who is this shadow organization that seems to be one step ahead of them? Agent Jenna Haynes works to put together the pieces that will pull the veil off those who seem to have known about Cassandra's arrival since long before NASA spotted it. What is their goal?

According to Sumerian scholar Zecharia Sitchin, a superior race of beings once inhabited our world. In The 12th Planet—the product of 30 years of intensive research—Sitchin persuasively argues that humanity sprang from extraterrestrial forebears. In this remarkable account, you'll hear the story of how these ancient visitors traveled to Earth from the stars and planted the genetic seed that would ultimately blossom into a remarkable species—the human being.

Humanity is divided between those who have chosen a simulated existence and those seeking life among the stars in this far-future science-fiction adventure.