Hard Contact

Humanity has united under one government and has started to take to the stars. However, FTL is dangerous, expensive, and still slow. So a probe is sent out to gather samples and bring them back for analysis. Dr. Avery Hutton is one of the scientists assisting in analysis back on Earth. But these samples contain something a bit nastier than anything humanity had encountered before. A pathogen that, if not contained, could kill everything on Earth.

Life on the planet Jupiter? Former Senator Mitchell Ryan had always been told the violent, storm-tossed world was devoid of life. He had dismissed rumors of a strange life form living in the energy rich atmosphere as mere fantasy. Confronted with several mysterious deaths, sabotage, and similar acts of terrorism - possibly perpetrated by wealthy politicians who profit from the current crisis of fear - Ryan faces a dilemma that will change his life and determine the fate of the solar system forever.

How far would you go to help a parasitic insect from the stars? Tweeskzaht nudges human civilization and technology forward from the shadows. Unaware of the war in the stars above it, Earth is in the cross-hairs of both sides. To save her adopted home, she must reveal herself to a small band of humans. Will Mike's self-sacrifice, Kindra's cunning, and David's intelligence be enough to save Earth from becoming a hunting ground?

Attention all you Salvage-5 and Colonel Tucker Petersen fans!! Hold on to your seat. The swashbuckling, cigar chomping, whiskey drinking, no-nonsense hero is back. Tucker goes on a personal quest to rescue Captain Cassandra Phillips. It’s been a long six months for the Colonel, but now the time has come for him to steal the SSV-5 and embark on their most dangerous mission yet: Return to asteroid 52 Europa.

Sometimes the few must stand against the many. From the dark, cold void came an unknown force. Their target: a remote planet, the home of a group of people distancing themselves from mankind and pursuing a path of piety and peace. If they have any chance at survival, a disparate group of pilots must come together to fight back any way they can. But the best these aces can do might not be good enough.

Jack Kildare and the survivors of the Spirit of Destiny are stranded on Europa, while an alien planet-killer sets its deadly sights on Earth. But Jack's not done fighting. Not yet. Abandoned by mission control, the astronauts embark on a life-or-death pursuit of the alien behemoth that now has Earth in its crosshairs. The 400-million-mile running battle will test Jack and his ship to their limits. Yet the greatest danger lurks closer to hand, on board the Spirit of Destiny itself. Which ship will win the race?

Colonel Tucker Peterson returns to the Kuiper Belt. Their mission: Repair the jump ring at asteroid 253 Mathilde and correct the asteroid's orbit. Along the way, they discover the CSMO is missing from its position. Now, they must find the dredge and its destination before they run out of fuel.

Orson Scott Card, Kevin J. Anderson, and Larry Niven have seen the future. Now you can, too. A constellation of the brightest lights in the science fiction and fantasy firmament have judged these authors to be the best, the brightest, the truest emerging stars in the field.

The first novel in a brand-new series from rising SF star Jamie Sawyer, The Eternity War: Pariah is an action-packed adventure set in the same universe as his acclaimed Lazarus War novels. The soldiers of the Simulant Operations Programme are mankind's elite warriors. Veterans of a thousand battles across a hundred worlds, they undertake suicidal missions to protect humanity from the insidious Krell Empire and the mysterious machine race known as the Shard.

Jo has no idea what she's getting into as she picks up a hitchhiker on a dark country road. Turns out he's an alien, and he and his friend need help to find a crashed spaceship to escape this planet before a terrible fate catches up with them. When one of the aliens goes into a breeding rut, Jo must decide how far she's willing to go to help her new friends.

A wave of death is spreading through the Milky Way galaxy, an expanding sphere of lethal gamma radiation that erupted from the galaxy's core 28,000 years ago. Every world it touched was wiped clean of all life. But it's possible to protect a planet from gamma radiation. Now, guided by the ancient intelligent machines called the Predecessors, men and women from Earth seek out those precious, rare worlds that harbor intelligent species, determined to save them.

Penumbra, a haphazard city of outcasts, rebels, and malcontents, has floated around a dead planet in a backwater system for longer than living memory can recall. Its towers abandoned starships melded to an ancient, mysterious core, Penumbra is the last remnant of chaotic individualism in a galaxy where conformity to the will of the all-powerful Galactic Council is paramount.

As I recall, it all started with a mystical dream. I awoke from that dream only to find that we had a mission the Five Moons could not handle. Can you even believe that? The Five Moons. So it was that my father brought me over the quantum portal to a secret - a whole new ship - the Green Jinn. Everything about the Green Jinn was an illusion, and nobody even knew that she existed. Admiral Dallas Blake made me captain of the Green Jinn. I am Chon ko Gonin.

Before the time of man, according to the ancient legends, the gods walked the earth. The Egyptians had a name for this time. They called it "Zep Tepi" - the first time. That time is where this story began. Five Moons: Zep Tepi picks up the story 10,000 years later.... It all started with an emergency call from a world at the farthest edges of explored space. “You are our only hope,” they tell Dallas Blake and the crew of the Five Moons. A deadly virus will kill them all if the Five Moons doesn’t get the vaccine to them right away.

In our darkest hour, Dallas Blake first stepped foot upon the decks of the Five Moons and changed everything. He didn’t know that evil men had conspired to destroy the ship and its crew when he bought a ship that was never meant for sale. Dallas found the crew they thought was lost and gone forever. He saved the Five Moons.

Five Moons: Convolute drops you right into the middle of the action as the Syndicate's last mobsters hunt down a Special Forces agent in the streets of Habston, the biggest little city on Panara-5. It quickly becomes a running gun battle as Dallas Blake and the crew of the Five Moons try to save him. Special Forces enlists the Five Moons to transport their agents to Daggan-7, but the alien mysteries of this ship are not about to give Dallas any breaks. In the worst of places, Dallas suddenly finds himself embroiled in yet another alien enigma with only a cryptic message.

Der Raumhafen auf dem Planeten Alvarado ist ein Sprungbrett zu vielen Randplaneten. Entsprechend gut laufen die Geschäfte. Seit Jahren schon streiten zwei Familien um die Kontrolle über diesen Umschlagplatz, und mittlerweile wird die Fehde mit harten Bandagen geführt. In diesen Kleinkrieg geraten John Donovan und seine Crew, als sie nichts weiter als ein paar Rinder verkaufen wollen.

Manche bezeichnen sie als Verbrecher, andere als Helden der Randplaneten. Sie selbst nennen sich Frontiersmen: Furchtlose Männer und Frauen, die Fracht und Flüchtlinge dorthin schmuggeln, wo der Weltraum noch frei und wild ist. John Donovan ist einer von ihnen und chronisch knapp bei Kasse, sodass er auch riskante Jobs übernimmt. Etwa einen Passagiertransport zur rauen Koloniewelt Heaven's Gate.

Shifting alliances throw the diplomatic situation into chaos. In this second of a planned five-novel series, you will find out what's happened to the survivors of the expeditionary force, who's manipulating the Alliance, and, finally, what the true motivations of the frightening crabs are. Can Admiral Stokes and his naval commanders prevail against a rapidly shifting tapestry of potential foes?

Three years ago, an object 100 miles across was spotted on a trajectory for Earth's sun. Now, its journey is almost over. As it approaches, two competing manned vehicles race through almost half a million kilometers of space to reach it first. But when they both arrive on the entity, they learn that it has been sent toward Earth for a reason. An intelligent race is desperately attempting to communicate with our primitive species. And the message is: Help us.