Hard Contact

Russian billionaire Nikolai Shostakovitch makes an offer to the former crew of the spaceship ILSE. He will finance a return voyage to the icy moon Enceladus. The offer is too good to refuse - the expedition would give them the unique opportunity to recover the body of their doctor, Dimitri Marchenko. Everyone on board knows that their benefactor acts out of purely personal motivations... but the true interests of the tycoon and the dangers that he conjures up are beyond anyone's imagination.

Lux keeps inventing things or adapting alien tech (ancient tech to the aliens) because the active alien civilizations they discover through portals and probes have gone through cycles of war, decline, and rebirth several times. Lux further develops the portals using discovered alien tech. Earth empties refugee camps the UN was running (1,200,000) and sends them with a military escort for their "safety." The military sends many ships for escort duty with orders to take over the colony and use the refugees as a labor force.

Onboard an ancient starship, Killeen and the Bishop tribe escape the mech-ruled world of Snowglade. Seeking refuge on a faraway planet, they discover vast wonders: an organic life-form as large as a world, a planet-coring cosmic string, a community of humans ruled by a brutal tyrant, and ultimately an alien race more awesome than any they have encountered. As they battle for survival against these myriad dangers, Killeen and his crew will gain an unforeseen ally - one that may determine humanity’s true destiny.

The Eternity War series is an explosive tale of elite marines, deep-space exploration and warring galactic empires. The soldiers of the Simulant Operations Programme are mankind's elite warriors. Veterans of 1000 battles across 100 worlds, they undertake suicidal missions to protect humanity from the insidious Krell Empire and the mysterious machine race known as the Shard. Lieutenant Keira Jenkins is an experienced simulant operative and leader of the Jackals, a team of raw recruits keen to taste battle.

At the start of the 22nd century, the starship Acheron is in orbit around WISE 5571, only, unbeknownst to the crew, the ship has been overrun by telepathic extraterrestrials. How do you fight an enemy that distorts everything you see? What do you do when you can't trust your own senses, let alone anyone around you?

The Lunar colony is a mining colony with only internal security capabilities. Nobody had even considered that there might soon arise a need to defend the colony from the Earth! But that day has come. Something has been uncovered on the moon. Something important. Something...alien.

This boxed set contains 3 complete science-fiction novels. This is science-fiction at its best - future engineering, intrigue, first contact. It’s a space opera like none you’ve experienced before. The audiobooks will keep you listening late into the night, and you won't be able to stop....

In a universe where the laws of physics and the speed of light are completely alien to our own, the travelers on the ship Peerless have completed a generations-long struggle to develop advanced technology in a desperate attempt to save their home world. But as tensions mount over the risks of turning the ship around and starting the long voyage home, a new complication arises: The prospect of constructing a messaging system that will give the Peerless news of its own future.

A civilization-destroying omega cloud has switched direction, heading straight for a previously unexplored planetary system--and its alien society. And suddenly, a handful of brave humans must try to save an entire world--without revealing their existence.

An intelligent robot and two young people explore Proxima Centauri b, the planet orbiting our nearest star, Proxima Centauri. Their ideas about the mission quickly prove grossly naïve as they venture about on this planet of extremes....

Paolo Bacigalupi's debut collection demonstrates the power and reach of the science-fiction short story. Social criticism, political parable, and environmental advocacy lie at the center of Paolo's work. Each of the stories herein is at once a warning and a celebration of the tragic comedy of the human experience.

Restored to his prestigious position within NUESSA, Jericho Fox takes command of the Marquis-class ship’s test program on a mission that promises to move humanity to a habitable exoplanet. But not everyone believes he’s fit for the job. As launch hour nears, can Jericho keep his crew from following the doomed fate of his last mission? Meanwhile, Dr. Evelyn Park leads her team of scientists in decoding the now legendary alien transmission that survived the Astraea Station catastrophe.

Young Carmen Dula and her family are about to embark on the adventure of a lifetime - they're going to Mars. Once on the Red Planet, however, Carmen realizes things are not so different from Earth. There are chores to do, lessons to learn, and oppressive authority figures to rebel against.

A mysterious object crests the Sun during a total solar eclipse. Cryptic radio-frequency noise jams TVs and radios worldwide. Sinister alien artifacts inexplicably appear in the capitals of the world's powers. Paralyzed with fear, society begins to crumble. Former NASA scientist Jasmine Evans is the first to spot the object and sound the alarm. Recalled to investigate the mystery, her team makes a critical discovery. But nothing is what it appears to be.

An errant encounter with a passing star has flung Earth away from its old Solar System into the dark and cold of deep space. With the entire atmosphere frozen as chemical snow dozens of feet deep, one last family struggles to survive. But what are they to think when they see figures moving in the city ruins? Are Earth's dead coming back to life?

This prequel to the Trade Pact Universe series begins in a time before the Clan had learned how to manipulate the M'hir to travel between worlds. Aliens have begun to explore the world of Cersi, upsetting the delicate balance between the Clan and the two other powerful races who coexist by set rules. And one young woman is on the verge of finding the forbidden secret of the M'hir - a discovery that could prove the salvation or ruin of her entire species.

When a stranger with a high-tech implant is found in the remote Finnish wilderness, neurosurgeon Bill and his computer scientist friend Steve see an opportunity. But they don't know what powers they're up against. They soon must ask themselves what moral boundaries they're willing to cross in order to succeed. Ten years later, the world has changed. Airships roam the skies, strange plants grow in the forests, and entire swaths of land are deserted.

Marc and Emma are on the graveyard shift onboard the Sycorax, an interstellar spacecraft bound for New Haven, a colony world fifty light years from Earth. For the crew of the Sycorax, interstellar flight is boring—that is, until they run into a tempest. Before long, they find themselves on a crippled spacecraft falling toward a black hole, but that's the least of their problems...

Few writers have successful blended hard science and speculation with fully realized characters as Gregory Benford has in his critically acclaimed novels. Now he draws us into a vortex of mystery and danger at the heart of the galaxy in his dazzling epic drama, Furious Gulf.

Years ago, one starship and its crew discovered an alien entity which changed everything. Its discovery finally bought an end to the interstellar war being fought between the masses of humanity and the few pockets of genetically engineered colonists. An uneasy peace was negotiated as the human race realised there was something else sharing our universe. Something that had plans for us. But the aliens have remained silent. The earthers have begun to test the edges of the peace treaty.