Hard Contact

Valentinian and Dave have escaped the Dominion’s Internal Security Bureau. Now they’re fleeing for their lives, heading for systems outside of Dominion control, looking for a place where they can rebuild their lives. Figure out what comes next. Who they want to be, or to become. Hard Bargain - the second novel in the series, Shadow of the Dominion - takes you even further into Wildspace, human variants, and maybe even a crooked card game or two.

Relationships get complicated when you don’t know who - or what - you really are. Esen must find a way to rescue a hapless group of chimeras, beings who are a new and unique blend of species she knows, when she can’t become one herself. When Evan Gooseberry tries to help, he is shattered to learn he himself isn’t entirely Human and begins to suspect his new friend Esen isn’t what she seems. Complicating matters, a mysterious contagion has killed the crew of the ship that brought the chimeras - and Evan - to Botharis.

Sent to Earth to explore, survey, collect samples and report back to its makers, an alien probe arrives in the middle of a warzone. Witnessing both the best and worst of humanity, the AI probe faces situations that go far beyond the parameters of its programming and is forced to improvise, making decisions that have repercussions for the future of our entire world.

For exobiologist Cassie Clearwater, the chance to explore the planet Obsidian is the opportunity of a lifetime. The austere black world has liquid water and a nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere that might support life. She discovers a mysterious species of plant that emits copious quantities of complex chemicals. Her colleagues on the mission care only about the diamonds they've discovered, but Cassie wonders how these plants, and nothing else, thrive in such a dark and barren environment.

Der Widerstand stemmt sich verzweifelt gegen den Einfluss des Forums und der Implantatträger. Während die Menschheit immer mehr Zeit in der künstlich geschaffenen Metawelt verbringt, stößt Steve Työpaikkaa auf eine entsetzliche Wahrheit, die an den Fundamenten der Zukunft rüttelt. Derweil begibt sich seine Tochter June auf eine gefährliche Reise, nachdem der Widerstand auf die Quelle eines neuen Signals stößt. Sie muss zerstört werden, wenn der Widerstand überleben will - doch der Erfolg könnte einen Preis erfordern, den June nicht zahlen kann.

Earth has attained world peace at last. Overseen by the World Council, based in Jerusalem, the planet has truly become a global community, and humanity has reached an age of enlightenment. This is the time when the visitors arrive. Wielding near-miraculous technology, they arrive claiming to have seeded Earth with humans, and have returned to claim "their own." Their claims and their appearance seem prophesied by the Bible, and religion and politics clash as arguments break out about whether these visitors have the right to take people.

In Garbriellium, the largest and most prolific of those colonies on Europa, Jupiter's ice-covered moon, Justin and Jessica Forsythe embark on related but separate quests to answer what life exists beneath the ice, how humans and AIs interrelate with one another, and set out to solve mysteries surrounding the spontaneous natural birth of the first human being in nearly 2,000 years.

Rick and his crew live on the edge of Earth Corps space, where the law is what you make it and the taxman doth fear to tread. While a war rages, he salvages its wreckage, profiteering from the misery of others. Despite his plan to sit it out from the sidelines and fill his pockets, Rick is drawn into a galactic conflict. When an alien armada is set to crash down upon Sol, he has to choose between cold hard cash or his conscience.

Get all four volumes of Salvage-5 in one convenient bundle! Retired Colonel Tucker Petersen is suddenly recalled to active duty and put in charge of the Salvage-5 mining/recovery mission. Tucker travels with his crew to discover what went wrong with the CSMO mining dredge at 15 Eunomia. What they find will change their lives forever.

Master criminal Christmas "Crazy-Eyes" Parker is trying to plan an impossible heist of a mysterious package she was contracted to steal, while also trying to track down and kill her government contact Horace Murchison, who double-crossed her and her men. Meanwhile, Detective Ben Weizmann attempts to track down Parker as part of a wider case against her boss, ruthless industrial magnate Atusa Navarro, whom Weizmann-correctly-suspects of being the lynchpin of a conspiracy between the government and organized crime.

Budrys's final novel opens with the report of a man found electrocuted on suburban train tracks in Shoreview, Illinois. Neville Sealman appeared to be just another commuter, but after his tragic death, no one comes forward to claim his body. And a routine autopsy reveals some disturbing physiological anomalies. Then a spaceship is unearthed in a New Jersey swamp. Its passengers, human in appearance, were forced to go their separate ways in an alien world after crash-landing. Now their cover could be blown.

Childhood therapy cured Stephen Fisher of disturbing visions and the delusion of having come from another world. But when his daughter obsesses over a star in the night sky, he fears that his genetic legacy may have burdened her with the same illness. His sanity is then shattered when he loses his child and the military abducts him claiming that she recorded a song broadcast from another world.

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.

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.

Dr. Eliza Raines has just made the discovery of a lifetime: Actual alien ruins on the surface of Mars. But during a massive dust storm, her expedition and mankind’s first colony on the Martian surface falls radio silent. It’s assumed to be a downed transmitter in the storm. The resupply vessel Murcielago, and its crew, are directed to assist with repairs. But neurotic ship’s engineer Leo Taggart can’t shake the idea something is terribly wrong. Gruff military policeman Kyle Locklear is confident in his team’s ability to handle whatever’s going on.

Mark Thomas is a sailor on a freighter ferrying people and lithium ore between the utopian colony world, Elysium, and Earth. The starship is sabotaged, the crew presumed lost. But there's one survivor. Alone, Mark finds safe harbor in the barely charted star system, Trappist-1. Marooned, he thought that his biggest challenge was how to call for help. When he discovers that something ancient and dangerous is also marooned in the archipelago of a star system, his plight goes from bad to worse.

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.

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.

We follow the great Worldship Praxis as it flies silently through the darkness between the stars on its mission. Jack Sadow is the Director, or captain of the ship. Effectively immortal, the nanobots keep him young and strong, ready to face the centuries of the voyage.