Space Science

The galaxy is doomed. Monkeys may be clever and too stubborn to give up, but Skippy The Idiot Who Got Played knows the harsh truth: this is a fight he can’t win. The odds are not only stacked against him, he was designed not to win this fight. Maybe he can salvage some faint memory of the civilizations that inhabit the galaxy, but those beings are doomed. Doomed. Including the Merry Band of Pirates.

A man awakens, adrift in deep space, with little memory of who he is - only to discover that he is the commander of a space mission; the rest of the crew is gone; and he is apparently a writer of some small renown named Neil Gaiman.

A strange body that refuses to obey you; a weird game you can't quit until your contract expires; a world teeming with powerful and very real enemies. The game in which your reputation and faction relationship are the only things that matter. These are the conditions of the agreement Ruslan signs without reading. The only thing he remembers is that he's been contracted to command a space fleet in a brand-new game he knows nothing about. Objective: to survive for six months.

A planet in the endless emptiness of space, far from the warmth of any sun. And yet there are people who populate its vast caverns, living, working and loving. Since time immemorial, they have been on course for Andromeda, the neighboring galaxy of the Milky Way. This is the prophecy of the ancients, the one goal that unites them all, their cult. But then the unthinkable happens: the journey stops because the planet enters the orbit of a mysterious object that can't be seen in any telescope.

It's 2040. After decades of research, scientists of the European Union believe that they have at last conquered humankind's most pernicious foe: old age. For the first time, technology holds out the promise of not merely slowing the aging process but actually reversing it. The first subject for treatment is 78-year-old philanthropist Jeff Baker. After 18 months in a rejuvenation tank, Jeff emerges looking like a 20-year-old. And the change is more than skin deep. From his hair cells down to his DNA, Jeff is 20 - with a breadth of life experience.

“I have sensed a disturbance in the Force.” Ominous words under any circumstances, but all the more so when uttered by Emperor Palpatine. On Batuu, at the edges of the Unknown Regions, a threat to the Empire is taking root - its existence little more than a glimmer, its consequences as yet unknowable. But it is troubling enough to the Imperial leader to warrant investigation by his most powerful agents: ruthless enforcer Lord Darth Vader and brilliant strategist Grand Admiral Thrawn.

In Saturn's Children, Freya is an obsolete android concubine in a society where humans haven't existed for hundreds of years. A rigid caste system keeps the Aristos, a vindictive group of humanoids, well in control of the lower, slave-chipped classes. So when Freya offends one particularly nasty Aristo, she's forced to take a dangerous courier job off-planet.

When Peter finds himself on a strange planet, drafted into a war by alien abductors, his only goal is to be one of the few to survive the war and return home to Earth. Peter is one of thousands who get abducted every year, as payment to the aliens. The aliens have given humans portal travel, healing serums, and other advanced alien technology. The quality of life has improved, but everything has a price.

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....

In the New York Times best-seller Darth Bane: Path of Destruction, Drew Karpyshyn painted a gripping portrait of a young man’s journey from innocence to evil. That man was Darth Bane, a twisted genius whose iron will, fierce ambition, and strength in the dark side of the Force made him a natural leader among the Sith - until his radical embrace of an all-but-forgotten wisdom drove him to destroy his own order...and create it anew from the ashes.

Years after defeating aliens bent on burning down the galaxy, the Interstellar Union is breaking apart, its member species undermining each other at every opportunity. When an interdimensional distress signal arrives, only humanity is interested in helping. Captain Vin Husher is given command of the UHS Relentless, and sent in as part of a carrier strike group...right into a trap laid by humanity’s old enemy. Surrounded by a bioengineered super-species and unable to return home, Husher must draw on decades of experience just to keep his people alive.

Facing annihilation at the hands of the warlike Vogons? Time for a cup of tea! Join the cosmically displaced Arthur Dent and his uncommon comrades in arms in their desperate search for a place to eat, as they hurtle across space powered by pure improbability.

Humanity has colonized the planets - interstellar travel is still beyond our reach, but the solar system has become a dense network of colonies. But there are tensions - the mineral-rich outer planets resent their dependence on Earth and Mars and the political and military clout they wield over the Belt and beyond. Now, when Captain Jim Holden's ice miner stumbles across a derelict, abandoned ship, he uncovers a secret that threatens to throw the entire system into war.

Zack Lightman has never much cared for reality. He vastly prefers the countless science-fiction movies, books, and videogames he's spent his life consuming. And too often, he catches himself wishing that some fantastic, impossible, world-altering event could arrive to whisk him off on a grand spacefaring adventure.

Tangel is still reeling from her battle with the ascended AI, but she still needs to complete her negotiations with the League of Sentients and bring them into the Alliance. Once that agreement is in place, the Alliance will be in a position to hit the Hegemony on multiple fronts, beginning the process of defeating humanity's oldest empire. But unbeknownst to Tangel, a force of Widows is present on Lunic station, eager for the opportunity to derail that agreement though Tangel's death.

A deadly plague is ravaging the planet of Aerius, and millions of Imperial citizens are dying. Inquisitor Sternberg turns to the fearsome Space Wolves for aid in recovering the ancient Talisman of Lykos, which he believes can cure the corruption ravaging the world. Ragnar Blackmane and his squad of Blood Claws embark on a near-suicidal mission to retrieve the talisman before it is too late. But this is no ordinary plague, and the servants of Nurgle await the Space Wolves. Will they be able to overcome the forces of Chaos, or is Aerius doomed?

Multiverse travel is finally possible, but there’s just one catch: No one can visit a world where their counterpart is still alive. Enter Cara, whose parallel selves happen to be exceptionally good at dying—from disease, turf wars, or vendettas they couldn’t outrun. Cara’s life has been cut short on 372 worlds in total. On this dystopian Earth, however, Cara has survived. Identified as an outlier and therefore a perfect candidate for multiverse travel, Cara is plucked from the dirt of the wastelands.

How can we make intelligent decisions about our increasingly technology-driven lives if we don’t understand the difference between the myths of pseudoscience and the testable hypotheses of science? Pulitzer Prize-winning author and distinguished astronomer Carl Sagan argues that scientific thinking is critical not only to the pursuit of truth but to the very well-being of our democratic institutions.

Why we think it’s a great listen: It’s easy to say that when it comes to sci-fi you either love it or you hate it. But with Ender’s Game, it seems to be you either love it or you love it.... The war with the Buggers has been raging for a hundred years, and the quest for the perfect general has been underway for almost as long. Enter Andrew "Ender" Wiggin, the result of decades of genetic experimentation.

Humanity's war is eternal, spread across the galaxy and the ages. Humanity's best hope to end the endless slaughter is the Livesuit forces. Soldiers meld their bodies to the bleeding edge technology, becoming something more than human for the duration of a war that might never end.