Hard Science Fiction Space

Trapped on an alternate Earth, the combined crews of a crashed Russian spaceship, a British expeditionary force and a group of strays from the future must work together to survive, escape and discover what led them to this point. All are from parallel universes where small changes in history led to different realities, and the tensions between the groups are rising.

Master storyteller Ben Bova continues his multi-volume "Grand Tour" saga chronicling humanity's exploration of near space with Titan, a fast-paced thriller focused on the first manned mission to the Solar System's most intriguing world. Skillfully blending high drama, passionate characters, and daring speculation with the latest discoveries from the current Cassini/Huygens probe of Saturn's moon, Bova has crafted a heart-stopping tale of epic adventure on mankind's next frontier.

Teenage Breq escapes the grim streets of a resource-low, near-future world to take a job as a "corpse diver" in a massive online sci-fi game, Bane. Breq finds himself in a dangerous, life-threatening adventure within the game as he searches for the reason for the death of his best friend. With landscapes and settings that evoke the sci-fi classics, our hero must level up his character as fast as he can, so as to be able to take on and defeat a sinister, masked figure. Especially as the threat posed by the unknown character is not limited to events within the game.

It doesn’t matter that Ray Garcia-Strickland’s father was one of the first men on Mars. The now overdeveloped planet has lost its hip factor, its luxurious hotels - like the one Ray’s father manages - overrun with gravity-dependent tourists from Earth. Ray is over the Red Planet. Soon he gets his own chance at interplanetary adventure when an unknown object hits Earth and causes a massive tsunami. Ray heads back to Florida to help family and friends who’ve survived the devastation - and soon learns the so-called natural disaster could have unnatural consequences.

Jeff Dolan always wanted to be an astronaut. After helping a private space company build a ship that can travel to Saturn's largest moon in five months, he gets his chance. Shortly after launch, a devastating malfunction forces Jeff and the crew to make a choice: continue to Titan or go back home. As the truth about their mission unravels, one thing is clear: Someone on Earth knew about the system flaw and covered it up. Yet surviving the journey isn't the crew's only concern. Even if they make it to Titan, they will face another problem: Something is already there.

Drunk, angry, abusive, and pathetic, Dan Gurlick exists at the very lowest level of human civilization, sleeping in junkyard cars and scrounging through garbage cans for his dinner. But his last rotting meal contains something unexpected: a spore that originated from a galaxy many light-years away. First, Dan eats the spore, then, the spore eats Dan; and the homeless alcoholic becomes a host for the Medusa. An insatiable alien hive mind, the Medusa has already consumed the life forms of a billion planets. Now, it hungers for the dominant species of Earth.

The first interstellar ship, John Glenn, fled a solar system populated by rogue AIs and machine/human hybrids, threatened by too much nanotechnology, and rife with political dangers. The John Glenn’s crew intended to terraform the nearly pristine planet Ymir in hopes of creating a utopian society that will limit intelligent technology, but by some miscalculation they have landed in the wrong system.

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.

The Tantalus 13 survey expedition went off the rails as soon as Mary Ketch and the crew of the Diamelen learned that the thing beneath their feet wasn’t a planet. An impossibly vast and ancient artificial structure lies below, hidden from the universe under a façade of cratered stone. SCARAB arrived on Tantalus 13 two years ago. An artificially intelligent, self-constructing factory, it was supposed to aid the crew in their mission, to meet their every need.

Within the L, a tri-star system located inside the Aquilian Nebula, Jax makes a living trading and smuggling whatever goods pay the best. So far, he’s avoided being caught with anything too damning in his ship’s holds, but when he takes a job for Korinth, an infamous arms dealer, all that changes. The haul is worth 10 times his ship, and when the contents gets him embroiled in a tug of war between the major political factions of the L, Jax has to keep the criminals he works for from discovering that he’s playing both sides.

It is 30 years from now, and we have colonized the moon. American Fred Fredericks is making his first trip, his purpose to install a communications system for China's Lunar Science Foundation. But hours after his arrival, he witnesses a murder and is forced into hiding. It is also the first visit for celebrity travel reporter Ta Shu. He has contacts and influence, but he, too, will find the moon can be a perilous place for any traveler.

The truth of discovery is on mankind's horizon, a Red Horizon. For nearly four long years, the world's superpowers have mobilized their people and resources in preparation for the next discovery, Mars. The race against one another pales in comparison to the inherent dangers of travelling through the vastness of the cosmos, going where mankind has never gone before.

The year is AD 2790. With space elevators and giant orbital fleets hovering over Earth, open war looks inevitable, and people are anxious to get away. The lines are drawn, with the Confederacy in the East and the First World Alliance in the West. In hopes of finding a refuge from the looming war, the Alliance is sending Captain Alexander de Leon to explore an Earth-type planet, code-named Wonderland, but at the last minute before launch, a Confederate fleet leaves orbit on a trajectory that threatens both the mission and Alliance sovereignty.

Julie E. Czerneda's acclaimed Web Shifters series continues with the story of Esen - the last survivor of a unique alien race. Able to take on the form of any creature she observes, Esen has long since broken the cardinal rule of her species: noninterference.

The Galactic Star Alliance has been alive and well for millions of Earth years. Hundreds of thousands of worlds and trillions of beings move across the many home worlds of the Alliance. This revelation invites many questions: How is faster-than-light speed travel possible, and could cohesive, interstellar civilizations exist without it? Is it conceivable to govern a coalition not of different countries but of different species?

Sable Keech is a walking dead man. Was he resurrected because he was infected by the Spatterjay virus, or it took place late in a tank of seawater? Taylor Bloc wants to know the truth. He also wants more – adulation, power, control – and will go to any lengths to achieve them. An ancient hive mind has sent an agent to this uncertain world. Does it merely want to obtain the poison 'sprine' that is crucial to immortality? Erlin, still faced with the ennui of immortality, is interrupted by an angry whelkus titanicus, and begins a strange journey.

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.

On the far side of known human space, the Marines are under siege, battling the relentless servant races of the Sh'daar aggressor. With a task force stripped to the bone and the Terran Confederation of States racked by dissent, rogue Admiral Alexander Koenig must make the momentous decision that will seal his fate and the fate of humankind.

L'attesissimo sequel di "Noi siamo infinito (Noi siamo Bob)", vincitore del miglior titolo di fantascienza di Audible nel 2016. Gli ascoltatori lo definiscono "esilarante", "esattamente ciò che ci si aspetta da un'opera di fantascienza" e ciò che sarebbe successo se "Andy Weir ed Ernest Cline avessero avuto un figlio". Bob Johansson non credeva nella vita dopo la morte, e riaprire gli occhi in seguito a un incidente mortale è stato per lui un grosso trauma. Come se ciò non bastasse, è tornato in vita come computer senziente e intelligenza dominante in una sonda di Von Neumann.

When the Colony on Hayden's world went black, a team was sent to investigate. It was supposed to be a training mission: skip in, find out the Casimir Transmitter had gone dead, report back and wait for resupply from the Fleet. By the time the only surviving member of the team made landfall, it was spectacularly clear that this wasn't a training mission.