Hard Science Fiction Space Opera

They banned him from space. But someone has offered him a way back. Can he afford the price? Famed engineer and test pilot Jericho Fox has been grounded for reasons he'd rather put behind him. But a political leader from a rival party offers to send him back to space. Fox finds himself stuck between working for the enemy and doing what he loves again. Meanwhile, high above Earth on Astraea Station, decorated astrophysicist Dr. Evelyn Park is on the verge of a scientific breakthrough that could make history.

Captain William Sparhawk flies Earth's single starship on a voyage of exploration. His crew of veteran spacers begins the mission with high hopes and the best of intentions, but the universe has other plans. Instead of space merchants and potential allies, they discover Earth's impending doom. Sparhawk must decide whether to hunt down enemy scouts to keep Earth's new starship a secret or to head home to warn Star Guard of the danger. Either way, he's ignited an interstellar war.

Earth builds her first war fleet! The greatest warships ever constructed in known space rise up one by one, soon dominating our skies. They strike fear into the hearts of every citizen and rebel colonist alike. Captain William Sparhawk, the very man who convinced the secretive Council to build this terrifying fleet, now has doubts about the project. What is their exact mission? How could anyone have built these huge ships so quickly? And, most puzzling of all, what's happening out at the isolated laboratory complex on Phobos, Mars' lopsided moon?

Gunnery Sergeant Torin Kerr had been the very model of a Confederation Marine. No one who'd ever served with her could imagine any circumstance that would see her walking away from the Corps. But that was before Torin learned the truth about the war the Confederation was fighting...before she'd been declared dead and had spent time in a prison that shouldn't exist...before she'd learned about the "plastic" beings who were really behind the war between the Confederation and the Others. That was when Torin left the military for good.

Lee's parents and their business partner, Gordon, found a class A habitable planet. They thought their quest as explorers was over and they'd live a life of ease. But before they could return and register their claim, Lee's parents died doing a survey of the surface. That left Lee two-thirds owner of the claim and their partner Gordon obligated by his word with her parents to raise Lee. She had grown up aboard the ship with her uncle Gordon and he was the only family she'd ever known. Him adopting her was an obvious arrangement to them.

Center of Gravity is the second book in the explosive Star Carrier series by Ian Douglas - and a breathtaking new high in military SF, the strongest of the science fiction subgenres. Battlestar Galactica fans will adore this saga of ultimate war in deep space, as humankind risks its very future, battling a vast alien evil empire in order to achieve transcendence and become a major power in the universe.

The Theocracy has been dead for 20 years, and the Polity rules on Masada - but it is an order that the rebels of the Tidy Squad cannot accept, and the iconic Jeremiah Tombs is top of their hitlist. Tombs, meanwhile, has escaped his sanatorium. His insanity must be cured, because the near-mythical hooder, called "the Technician", that attacked him all those years ago, did something to his mind even the AIs fail to understand. Tombs might possess information about the suicide of an entire alien race.

Venera Fanning was last seen falling into nothingness at the end of Sun of Suns. Now, in Queen of Candesce, Venera finds herself plunging through the air among the artificial worlds of Virga, far from home and her husband, who may or may not be alive. Landing in the ancient nation of Spyre, Venera encounters new enemies and new friends (or at least convenient allies). She must quickly learn who she can trust, and who she can manipulate in order to survive.

The game never changes, only the players do. Others might call it rebellion, call it cowardice. The vanguard will not forgive, nor will they forget. Their trust lays with one another, in those that have shed blood with them and joined the net. Empires, government, leaders, alliances, planets, corporations - many have fallen in humanities past. Now a new Empire will stand on the shoulders of the vanguard, the troopers, the people of Tricticus, and the Victor Corporation. Their goal: survive, and defend those they care for by any means necessary.

In Neal Asher's Hilldiggers, during a war between two planets in the same solar system - each occupied by adapted humans - what is thought to be a cosmic superstring is discovered. After being cut, this object collapses into four cylindrical pieces, each about the size of a tube train. Each is densely packed with either alien technology or some kind of life. They are placed for safety in three ozark cylinders of a massively secure space station.

Alone and desperate, Eve sits in the control center of an alien structure. She has lost the other members of the team sent to explore exoplanet Proxima Centauri b. By mistake she has triggered a disastrous process that threatens to obliterate the planet. Just as Eve fears her best option may be a quick death, a nearby alien life form awakens from a very long sleep. It has only one task: to find and neutralize the destructive intruder from a faraway place.

Priscilla “Hutch” Hutchins discovers an interstellar message from a highly advanced race that could be her last chance for a mission before the program is shut down for good. Hutch has been the academy’s best pilot for decades. She’s had numerous first contact encounters and even became a minor celebrity. But world politics have shifted from exploration to a growing fear that the program will run into an extraterrestrial race more advanced than humanity and war.

By the middle of the 21st century, humanity has managed to overcome a series of catastrophic events and maintain some sense of stability. Space exploration has begun again. Science has led the way. But then one day, the sun goes out. Solar panels are useless, and the world begins to freeze. Earth begins to fall out of its orbit. The end is nigh. Someone has sent us a sign.

When a young physicist unveils an efficient star drive capable of reaching the core of the galaxy, veteran star pilot Priscilla "Hutch" Hutchins finds herself back in the deepest reaches of space, and on the verge of discovering the origins of the deadly Omega clouds that continue to haunt her.

Earth is rising in the House of Voltar.... And there’ll be hell to pay! That’s right. The invasion is on...and it’s coming soon to a galaxy near you. The action couldn’t be hotter, and the plot couldn’t be more diabolical. Earth is coming to Voltar - and the Voltarians won’t know what hit them. Murder, blackmail, drugs, psychoanalysis, PR firms, sex-crazed teenyboppers, riots in the streets, women in chains. These are the powerful secret weapons of war.

Senior co-administrator of the Norcoast Salmon Research Facility, Dr. Mackenzie Connor was a biologist who studied the spawning habits of salmon. Then, last season, just as she and Dr. Emily Mamani were starting their research, they were interrupted by the arrival of Brymm, the first Dhryn to set foot on Earth. And suddenly everything changed for Mac, Emily, Brymn, the human race, and all the member races of the Interspecies Union. Base was attacked, Em was kidnapped by the mysterious Ro, and Mac and brymn had to flee for their lives to the Dhryn home world.

The colony ship Ragtime docks in the Lagos system, having traveled light-years to bring one thousand sleeping souls to a new home among the stars. But when first mate Michelle Campion rouses, she discovers some of the sleepers will never wake. Answering Campion’s distress call, investigator Rasheed Fin is tasked with finding out who is responsible for these deaths.

Provenance: Booktrack Edition adds an immersive musical soundtrack to your audiobook listening experience! A power-driven young woman has just one chance to secure the status she craves and regain priceless lost artifacts prized by her people. She must free their thief from a prison planet from which no one has ever returned. Ingray and her charge will return to her home world to find their planet in political turmoil, at the heart of an escalating interstellar conflict. Together, they must make a new plan to salvage Ingray's future, her family, and her world.

The Year is 2040. The Marines have landed on Mars to guard the unearthed secrets of an ancient and dangerous alien race: Ourselves. Scientists have discovered something astonishing in the subterranean ruins of a sprawling Martian city: startling evidence of an alternative history that threatens to split humanity into opposing factions and plunge the Earth into chaos and war.

Still reeling from a former teammate's betrayal, Commonwealth operative Simon Kovalic and his band of misfit spies have no time to catch their breath before being sent on another impossible mission: to pull off the daring heist of a quasi-mythical alien artifact, right out from under the nose of the galaxy's most ruthless crime lord. But their cold war rivals, the Illyrican Empire, want the artifact for themselves. And Kovalic's newest recruit, Specialist Addy Sayers, is a volatile ex-con with a mean hair-trigger who might put the whole mission at risk.