Hard Science Fiction Space

Ursula has lived twice the normal human lifespan, courtesy of the latest technology. But now she’s struggling to find excitement and purpose, so signs up to the Polity’s military. She excels in weapons development, and progresses rapidly up the ranks. But after botching a powerful new ammunition test, she’s dismissed from service. Hunting for a simpler, more meaningful existence, the ex-soldier heads for the stars. And after founding a colony on the hostile planet of Threpsis, Ursula finally feels alive.

Rapid colonization of the moon is pushing both national space agencies and powerful corporations to negotiate a New Lunar Accord in an effort to prevent escalating conflicts over valuable resources and territory. But hope that this treaty will bring stability to the nascent lunar civilization is suddenly dashed when a high-energy solar storm causes a cascade of destruction to the vast satellite constellations that orbit Earth. Now it’s only a matter of weeks before the ever-increasing debris cloud makes travel back to the home planet impossible.

Neal Asher has firmly established himself as one of the leading British writers of science fiction. Most of his stories are set in a galactic future-scape called The Polity, and with The Gabble - and Other Stories, a collection of marvellously inventive and action-packed short stories, he takes us further into the manifold diversities of that amazing universe.

Alan Saul is now part human and part machine, and our solar system isn't big enough to hold him. He craves the stars but can't leave yet. His sister, Var, is trapped on Mars, on the wrong side of a rebellion, and Saul's human side won't let her die. He must leave Argus Station to stage a dangerous rescue - but mutiny is brewing onboard, as Saul's robots make his crew feel increasingly redundant.

For astronaut David Dixon, sneaking aboard a Russian space station and stealing a nuclear bomb was the easy part - now he has to survive re-entry on an untested inflatable heat shield and then deal with the aftermath of being the most wanted man on Earth. When a clandestine intelligence agency offers David the chance to return to space and probably not get killed - he finds himself in a world of intrigue when a secret mission takes an unexpected turn.

Two worlds preparing their defenses.... A ship struggling to get back in the fight.... An enemy continuing its relentless attack.... A former enemy that could hold the answer.... With the fate of billions in his hands, Captain Scott is offered a way to save them all and end the bloodshed, but if it backfires, he could lose everything. Sometimes, there is no good choice.

Tanis Richards has had enough with people manipulating her; unfortunately, the only way out is to go through. Her mission takes her to Earth to abduct a high-ranking Scattered Disk officer on the orders of the Jovian Oligarch. Meanwhile, Harm must do the unthinkable to escape his captor and come to Tanis' aid. Tanis doesn't know it yet, but if she doesn't succeed, her failure will spark the third Solar War....

It's been six months since the events on Europa. During that time, Tanis and the crew of the Kirby Jones have been working to uncover who was behind her betrayal and the oligarch's near assassination. When a routine intel handoff with the Jovians takes a turn for the worse, Tanis finds herself deeper in the spy game than she ever wanted to be. Now, on a short timetable to get to Earth, Tanis is forced to make a stop at Saturn. When she arrives, she finds things to going just like they always are. Crazy.

Fighting for freedom from galactic tyranny, General Cherry Lindstrom is responsible for the defense of the colony world, Concordia. This last outpost of human civilization lives under constant threat of attack from hostile aliens who claim the planet as their own. But decades have passed since the last assault, and the colonists have grown complacent. Thanks to the effects of time dilation, only Cherry and a handful of others remember the devastation wreaked on Concordia previously.

The interstellar Consortium of Planets forsakes the irredeemably violent Earth, condemning the planet to economic and ecological chaos. Given one last chance to halt Earth's annihilation, women freedom fighters discover a way to rid Earth of men's brutality - but it may have come too late. In the stunning conclusion to the Native Trilogy, female linguists must once again come forward and fight for the future of humanity.

The ability for easy travel throughout the solar system has created nations and organizations on Earth who want to control Mars and the rich resources of the solar system. Mars has started its own military and is building a fleet to survive the brutal attacks from Earth. Mars has set up embassies on Earth and is facing spies and saboteurs intent on disrupting a content populace that is growing rapidly. Lux has developed new weapons, and Prissy joins the colony military.

Lux finds traveling outside Earth's magnetic fields is possible with the gravity drive, but the military from the US and other nations begins to push hard for the tech. Could they use it to help mine the moon, asteroids, and the moons of other planets? Who controls the areas away from Earth when humans establish bases on different planets? Lux becomes known around Earth, and the fame may be too much. He finds he is a target for governments and corporations that want to control him and his knowledge.

For five centuries, human life has been restricted to Earth, while posthuman descendants called alloys freely explore the galaxy. But when the Earthlike planet of Meru is discovered, two unlikely companions venture forth to test the habitability of this unoccupied new world and the future of human-alloy relations. For Jayanthi, the adopted human child of alloy parents, it’s an opportunity to rectify the ancient reputation of her species as avaricious and destructive, and to give humanity a new place in the universe.

Stranded in a hellish alien desert, stripped of their strategic systems, quick reaction force and supporting arms, and carrying only a day's water ration, Marine Staff Sergeant Charlie Bass and his seven-man team faced a grim future 75 light-years from home.

Armed with new tech that could revolutionize space combat, Captain Husher must now try to convince the Interstellar Union to implement it in time to defend against the godlike Progenitors.

When a new alien ally shows up in the galaxy, it’s a mixed blessing. Their military might could prove a boon to the war effort, but what secrets lurk in their past, and how might they shape galactic society for centuries to come?

The revelations on Mars - a half-million year-old legacy of the vanished star-traveling Builders - have fed the flames of catastrophic war. A beleaguered United States and its Russian and Japanese allies struggle to hold their own against the indomitable forces of the enemy United Nations. The bloody conflict that has swept over the home planet now rages across the blackness of space - with the U.S. Marine Corps in the vanguard, leading the charge as always.

The extermination of Earth is at hand. With his increasingly irrational leadership Basil Wenceslas, chairman of the Hansa, has driven humanity into a corner. His punitive treatment of the Hansa colonies and the Roamers, as well as his refusal to aid an embattled Theroc, have made enemies for the people of Earth.

It is the distant future. The world known as Virga is a fullerene balloon three thousand kilometers in diameter, filled with air, water, and aimlessly floating chunks of rock. The humans who live in this vast environment must build their own fusion suns and "towns" that are in the shape of enormous wood and rope wheels that are spun for gravity. Young, fit, bitter, and friendless, Hayden Griffin is a very dangerous man. He's come to the city of Rush in the nation of Slipstream with one thing in mind: to take murderous revenge for the deaths of his parents six years ago.

There is an unseen power in the universe - a terrible force that was dominating the galaxy tens of thousands of years before the warlike Sh'daar were even aware of the existence of Sol and its planets. As humankind approaches the Singularity, when transcendence will be achieved through technology, contact will be made. In the wake of the near destruction of the solar system, the political powers on Earth seek a separate peace with an inscrutable alien life form that no one has ever seen.

On Mars, terraforming breakthroughs leave citizens dreaming of a transformed planet. However, when a contaminated ice asteroid puts water supplies in peril, the dream quickly shatters. Professor Zambrotta "Zammi" Kaspar is tasked to investigate a fatal crash on a remote ice asteroid, but he never expects to discover his missing sister there as an indentured worker for the Mining Guild. As the siblings reconnect and dig deeper into the mystery of the contaminated water, they both discover a personal legacy of secrets and loss over competing visions for the future of humanity.