Space Science Fiction

Winner of the Hugo, Nebula, and Arthur C. Clarke Awards: This record-breaking novel follows a warship trapped in a human body on a quest for revenge. A must read for fans of Ursula K. Le Guin and James S. A. Corey. "There are few who write science fiction like Ann Leckie can. There are few who...

Disaster. There was no other word to describe how Operation Olympic had changed in a flash from a triumph to the worst failure the Merry Band of Pirates had ever experienced. A failure that meant the fight was over. Unless the Pirates could perform a miracle, without Skippy.

The xenos came to devour. Three worlds they invaded before the Solaran Fleet ground them to a halt. The aftermath spared no one in the Empire. Refugees flooded the core, trade routes crumbled, and economies collapsed. Homeworlds were lost, lives shattered.

For years, the ancient alien AI known as Skippy (the Magnificent, don’t forget that part) has been able to do one impossible thing after another. What is his secret? It’s simple: 100 percent Grade-A extreme awesomeness. And also because he had never been faced with an opponent of equal power. Until now. This time, he might need a little help from a band of filthy monkeys.

Captain Nathan Kade just wants a quick job to keep his busted-up spaceship limping through the Solar System. Instead he gets Vessani S’Kaari, a mysterious and beautiful catgirl who tried—and failed—to steal a ship belonging to a band of space pirates. She’s chaos in a tight catsuit, but she also has a lead on what may be the greatest treasure trove of lost technology the Solar System has ever seen.

United Nations Special Operations Command sent an elite expeditionary force of soldiers and pilots out on a simple recon mission, and somehow along the way they sparked an alien civil war. Now the not-at-all-merry band of pirates is in desperate trouble, again. Their stolen alien starship is falling apart, thousands of light years from home. The ancient alien AI they nicknamed Skippy is apparently dead, and even if they can by some miracle revive him, he might never be the same.

The remnants of the Expeditionary Force stranded on the alien-controlled planet "Paradise" get a chance to prove themselves, in a simple off-world training mission with a ship full of teenage alien cadets. When the mission goes horribly wrong and the survival of everyone on Paradise is at risk, the Merry Band of Pirates may have to come to the rescue. Unless they get killed first....

After saving the world many times, the Merry Band of Pirates have accepted the inevitable: Earth is doomed. All they can do is try to bring a few thousand people to safety, before vicious aliens arrive to destroy humanity's home world. No. There is one other thing they can do: hit the enemy so hard that the aliens will regret they ever heard of humans.

2057. Humanity has raised exploiting the solar system to an art form. Bella Lind and the crew of her nuclear-powered ship, the Rockhopper, push ice. They mine comets. And they're good at it. The Rockhopper is nearing the end of its current mission cycle, and everyone is desperate for some much-needed R & R, when startling news arrives from Saturn: Janus, one of Saturn's ice moons, has inexplicably left its natural orbit and is now heading out of the solar system at high speed.

The Merry Band of Pirates offered the bad guys a ceasefire. We won’t mess with them, if they don’t mess with us. Easy, right? No. The aliens chose to do things the hard way. So, the Pirates are racing around the galaxy to clean up the threat to Earth. The infant UN Navy has their own mission with the Alien Legion: Get humanity some allies in the fight. And the Ethics & Compliance Office might have to do something...ethical. Unless they can find a way around it.

The return of humanity's oldest enemy... An alien prophecy that predicts our species' downfall... And a captain who's the only thing standing in the way of his starship getting mothballed. Wait, what? Imagine Captain Keyes’ surprise when the fate of the galaxy turns out to depend on him, his decrepit ship, and his oddball crew.

The battle-scarred star carrier Flying Dutchman is finally on her way back to Earth, after an exceptionally successful series of missions that have once again saved the world. The ship needs a serious refit, and her exhausted crew just wants a break from constant clandestine warfare against a vicious and superior enemy. Wishes come true, right? Not for the Merry Band of Pirates.

It has been 40 years since the publication of this classic science-fiction novel that changed the way we look at the stars and ourselves. From the savannas of Africa at the dawn of mankind to the rings of Saturn as man adventures to the outer rim of our solar system, 2001: A Space Odyssey is a journey unlike any other.

Paul's mission in Andromeda comes to an end and he must reluctantly return to the Deebees to oversee their critical early development...but on the way back he goes nightcrawler hunting, rescuing the last pieces of the Progarren civilization that the previous Gauntlet War failed to eradicate, as this one is only beginning to escalate.

It is the Dark Age—3139—and the famed mercenary regiments of Wolf's Dragoons have returned to the employ of House Kurita after a century of bitter enmity. Somehow, mercenaries and Kuritans must find a way to work together in a combined invasion of the Dragon’s oldest enemy, House Davion. Thrust into the middle of this new conflict, Colonel Henry Kincaid is surprised by the commonalities—duty, honor, expediency—the Wolves and Combine forces share.

The best science fiction scrutinizes our culture and politics, examines the limits of the human condition, and zooms across galaxies at faster-than-light speeds, moving from the very near future to the far-flung worlds of tomorrow in the space of a single sentence. Neil Clarke has selected the short science fiction (and only science fiction) best representing the previous year's writing, showcasing the talent, variety, and awesome "sensawunda" that the genre has to offer.

The Merry Band of Pirates stopped the enemy from stealing a Sentinel, and destroyed its Elder starship, so why weren’t the Pirates planning a victory party? The enemy was not what they thought it was. It was much, much worse.

The galaxy was once terrorized by the Sturm, a group of “species purists” intent on destroying any human with genetic or cybernetic enhancements. Fashioning themselves as the one true “Human Republic,” the Sturm cut a bloody swath across the stars, killing billions before finally being defeated and driven into the far reaches of Dark Space. Centuries of peace bred complacency. Everyone believed the Sturm had died out in the Dark. They were wrong.

The Merry Band of Pirates are in desperate trouble after the end of their last mission, and the real danger to humanity is just getting started. Hostile aliens have discovered there is something odd going on with wormholes in the galaxy, and their investigations could lead to finding a shortcut to Earth....

Follow a core group of characters known as the Trailblazers, as they use alien technology and knowledge discovered in Antarctic ruins, to obtain limited immortality, and lead Humanity out into the galaxy, encountering, befriending, and fighting, hundreds of alien races, all the while desperately trying to prepare Earth for the unbeatable threat at the core of the Milky Way that is destined to return, and reclaim their lost colony - and their former human slaves.