Exploration Fiction

Christopher Columbus is one of the most famous explorers of all time, but he was neither the first nor last adventurer to ever stumble upon a great discovery. From the Silk Road of Asia to the icy shores of Antarctica, our knowledge of the world today is in large part due to several intrepid pioneers, risking life and limb for the sake of exploration. After all, setting off into the dark unknown requires an enormous amount of bravery. But every explorer quickly learns that courage and curiosity aren't enough to save you if you can't read a map or trespass on somebody else's land!

Au centre de notre galaxie s'ouvre le Vide, un univers artificiel créé il y a des milliards d'années par des êtres inconnus, voilé par un horizon événementiel insondable. Le prophète Inigo représente peut-être la clé de cette énigme, avec ses rêves d'une vie merveilleuse sur un monde caché au sein du Vide. Quand il disparaît sans laisser de traces, ceux qui croient en ses visions se mobilisent pour accomplir un pèlerinage jusqu'au Vide, malgré les risques.

In her new novella, Sunday Times best-selling author Becky Chambers imagines a future in which, instead of terraforming planets to sustain human life, explorers of the solar system instead transform themselves. Adriane is one such explorer. As an astronaut on an extrasolar research vessel, she and her fellow crewmates sleep between worlds and wake up each time with different features. Her experience is one of fluid body and stable mind and of a unique perspective on the passage of time. Back on Earth, society changes dramatically from decade to decade, as it always does.

When itinerant cave diver James Tighe receives an invitation to billionaire Nathan Joyce's private island, he thinks it must be a mistake. But Tighe's unique skill set makes him a prime candidate for Joyce's high-risk venture to mine a near-Earth asteroid - with the goal of kick-starting an entire off-world economy. The potential rewards and personal risks are staggering, but the competition is fierce, and the stakes couldn't be higher. Isolated and pushed beyond their breaking points, Tighe and his fellow 21st-century adventurers must rely on each other to survive....

Colton Beck has six months to live. He works for the Angor near Los Angeles, aware that any day could be his last. The Angor arrived twenty years ago, resolved to help mankind survive, but not everyone believes their motives are honorable. When the Angor offer humanity a colony world, Colton is determined to see another planet before his final breath. He's been diagnosed with Xeno, a rare disorder that surfaced with the Angor's arrival, but he won't let this stop him.

When Gyre Price lied her way into this expedition, she thought she’d be mapping mineral deposits and that her biggest problems would be cave collapses and gear malfunctions. She also thought that the fat paycheck - enough to get her off-planet and on the trail of her mother - meant she’d get a skilled surface team, monitoring her suit and environment, keeping her safe. Keeping her sane. Instead, she got Em. Em sees nothing wrong with controlling Gyre’s body with drugs or withholding critical information to “ensure the smooth operation” of her expedition.

A major new novel from one of science fiction's most powerful voices, Aurora tells the incredible story of our first voyage beyond the solar system. Brilliantly imagined and beautifully told, it is the work of a writer at the height of his powers.

After thousands of years searching, humans stand on the verge of first contact with an alien race. There are two human groups: the Qeng Ho, a culture of free traders, and the Emergents, a ruthless society based on the technological enslavement of minds. The group that opens trade with the aliens will reap unimaginable riches.

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.

Nora Kelly, a young archaeologist in Santa Fe, receives a letter written 16 years ago, yet mysteriously mailed only recently. In it her father, long believed dead, hints at a fantastic discovery that will make him famous and rich - the lost city of an ancient civilization that suddenly vanished a thousand years ago. Now Nora is leading an expedition into a harsh, remote corner of Utah's canyon country, but what she unearths will be the newest of horrors.

A hundred years in the future, a war wages between the Five Dragons - five families that control the moon's leading industrial companies. Each clan does everything in their power to claw their way to the top of the food chain - marriages of convenience, corporate espionage, kidnapping, and mass assassinations. Through ingenious political manipulation and sheer force of will, Lucas Corta rises from the ashes of corporate defeat and seizes control of the moon. The only person who can stop him is a brilliant lunar lawyer: his sister, Ariel.

Awash with loss and surrounded by enemies, Van and his crew are faced with the same challenge Mark Tudor dealt with decades earlier. Does Van accept the crown and become a Master?

Even in space, crime still exists. After taking a Peacemaker job to find missing fuel, Perry finds something far more sinister than simple theft - a voice, crying out in a forge of heat and flame, and the discovery reveals a series of acts so vicious that nothing short of revenge will suffice.

From the halls of power in Washington to the vastness of space, the Guild moves closer to outright war as shifting alliances force everyone—including Van—to pick a side, take up arms, and fight. But there are ghosts out there in the black, and some of them carry secrets that Mark Tudor and Petyr Groshenko refused to reveal. In the expanse of his memory, Perry finds an ancient ship, and an even older war—and neither of those things have truly gone away.

For a moment, things seemed to be under control for Breq, the soldier who used to be a warship. Then a search of Athoek Station's slums turns up someone who shouldn't exist, and a messenger from the mysterious Presger empire arrives, as does Breq's enemy, the divided and quite possibly insane Anaander Mianaai—ruler of an empire at war with itself. Breq refuses to flee with her ship and crew, because that would leave the people of Athoek in terrible danger. The odds aren't good, but that's never stopped her before.

Sucked through a wormhole, Charlie's spaceship crash landed on a distant world, yet somehow he survived. But survival was about to get a lot harder as he found himself not just stranded on a new planet, but in another galaxy entirely. One ruled not by the laws of technology, but by magic. A realm of space pirates, deadly assassins, alien gladiators, and even dragons. For the spaceman from Earth, it was enough to make his head spin.

Ottanger always believed his mutation to be chance or perhaps the actions of fate. Or even the result of pollution on a hellish overpopulated Earth, ruled by a totalitarian Committee and its ruthless Inspectorate. But, when Ottanger is captured, tortured and made the subject of a strange experiment by the Inspectorate, he discovers otherwise - his mutation allows him to walk between alternate worlds. When Ottanger is thrown from his timeline from the far future, he meets the Fenris – humanity’s future form.

The Deathwatch are the elite of the elite - small teams of Space Marines handpicked for special missions that require the utmost courage and cunning. Now recovered from the injuries sustained on his previous mission, Codicier Karras must lead Talon Squad in the hunt for a missing inquisitor. Their only clue is the name of an Imperial planet that has been taken over by the T’au. Is the missing inquisitor alive or dead? Worse still, has she gone rogue, jeopardising one of the Inquisition’s most secret projects?

Commander Joe Pikeman has his share of demons. But after a long deployment, he just wants to enjoy some home leave with his daughter. The galaxy has other plans. His last assignment takes him to Earth, humanity’s deserted homeworld. There, he finds Earth’s last settlement littered with the bodies of the people who lived there. As he hunts down those responsible, he runs head-first into some galaxy-shaking questions.

A good Gajur gave his life. Will that sacrifice help bring the galaxy back to balance? Or topple known space into a war to end all wars? Armagost wasn't the only light snuffed prematurely. The attack destroyed an irreplaceable piece of Valint's life, as well. Now, Mark must toe the delicate line between lawman and friend, partner and lover. With those in power divided, the work has only begun. The galaxy no longer needs a maker of peace, but a lobbyist and negotiator. In order to deconstruct the entombed and corrupt system, Mark and the gang must stack the deck in their favor.