Hard Science Fiction Space

For John Bandicut, Earth is but a memory. Stranded at the edge of the galaxy in a structure populated with beings from a thousand worlds, Bandicut finds unexpected friends...only to be caught up in a cascade of forces that threaten the Shipworld itself. Confronting an entity known as the "boojum", Bandicut discovers greater peril than ever in his journey into the unknown.

Eigentlich hat Bob Johansson nie an ein Leben nach dem Tod geglaubt. Als er nach einem tödlichen Autounfall als Künstliche Intelligenz eines Raumschiffes wieder erwacht, ist er natürlich geschockt. Doch damit nicht genug - er ist der intelligente Computer von Neuman Probe, das heißt er wurde tausendfach repliziert. Bob und seine Kopien werden ausgeschickt, um in den Tiefen des Weltalls nach neuen, bewohnbaren Planeten zu suchen.

The first US / UN invasion of the renegade lunar colony of Aristillus has failed - but the powers-that-be in Washington and elsewhere can't give up. Their political careers - and an escape from the economic decline of Earth under a command-and-control economy - depend on conquering the lunar expats. A second - and final - invasion is planned. The lunar settlers prepare to repel the onslaught, but what can a small population of 1 million do against the combined might of billions on Earth - especially now that the PKs have the secret of the antigravity drive?

When Simara Ying crash-lands on the desert planet Bali, she finds herself trapped in a cave-dwelling culture with no social network for support. Her rescuer, Zen Valda, is yanked into a new universe of complications he can scarcely grasp and into an infinite network of data he never knew existed. When brash V-net anchorman Roni Hendrik starts investigating how Simara became the subject of an interplanetary manhunt, he finds a dangerous emergence in the network that threatens all human life.

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.

Devastated early in the war, the United Systems Alliance has retaken several key systems lost to the Galactic Union. But getting even isn’t good enough for General Hella. Determined to end the costly war and destroy the Union, Hella launches a daring offensive against the planet Kuut, a key military base deep in Union space. At the tip of the spear, Lieutenant Mark Rizer and the Marines of Orcus Company find themselves in the mud and blood of a planetary ground invasion.

Lunar prospecting is the next big thing, and companies are raking in the bucks. Nick has a plan to get a piece of the action—but he’ll first have to overcome the agonizing difficulties of surviving up here. To do that, he must work with Joe Massad, who nearly killed Nick two years ago. Joe seems to have put aside his ambitions to conquer the moon and Earth, but has he really changed?

Copilots Msizi and Tariro are testing a newly constructed wormhole jump that presumably leads to unsettled habitable worlds. Then an explosion sends them off course, far from where they started and with little chance of ever making it back. Now they’re stranded on their new home for the diaspora. It’s called Malcolm X-b. But they’re beginning to wonder how many light-years from civilization they really are.

They have been traveling towards the Andromeda galaxy for thousands and thousands of years. Suddenly, they receive an offer that sounds far too good to refuse. But are they even ready for the big step that actually promises them the fulfillment of all their wishes? Aren't those who want to make it possible perhaps also pursuing their own plans, which will plunge the entire planet into great danger? The Arrival is the conclusion of the Andromeda trilogy.

Two years have passed since comet Anduru skimmed the clouds of Saturn on its way to Earth. Kath and Nolan are looking for answers, trying to find ways to protect Earth from the possibility of an invasive alien species overrunning the planet.

A planet in the endless emptiness of space, far from the warmth of any sun. And yet there are people who populate its vast caverns, living, working and loving. Since time immemorial, they have been on course for Andromeda, the neighboring galaxy of the Milky Way. This is the prophecy of the ancients, the one goal that unites them all, their cult. But then the unthinkable happens: the journey stops because the planet enters the orbit of a mysterious object that can't be seen in any telescope.

Konran Andacellos has all but given up on his dream to be a starfighter. After botching an airshow maneuver and being reduced to a captaincy on a rock hauler, the ambitious 22-year-old never expected an ambush to sweep in and blow his convoy to dust. With the lives of his crew on the line, Konran leaps into a pitiful one-man defense craft and obliterates the enemy against impossible odds.

Half a million years in the future, on a dead, war-ravaged world at the centre of the galaxy, there is a mile-high statue of Michael Poole. Poole, born on Earth in the fourth millennium, was one of mankind's most influential heroes. He was not a warrior, not an emperor. He was an engineer, a builder of wormhole transit systems. But Poole's work would ultimately lead to a vast and destructive conflict, a million-year war between humanity and the enigmatic, powerful aliens known as the Xeelee. The Xeelee won.

Mahina's terraformers built a high-tech urban paradise. Then Earth flooded the colony with desperate refugees, cop Sass Collier among them. The settlers who arrived with Sass died decades ago. Outside the citadel, their descendants die weak and young. Sass fought a rebellion against the city once. She won concessions to give the settlers a chance at health. She paid with 20 years in prison. Now she’s out, a reformed character. She assembles an oddball crew doing odd jobs. She intends to mind her own business. But her fellow settlers are still failing.

Halfway to Better is a collection of short solarpunk stories, each exploring a near-future where were struggling to survive the climate crisis and build a better world. These hopeful climate-fiction stories take you from the bottom of the sea to the towers of a bot-filled city, from sparkling labs to flooded lighthouses, all imagining futures halfway to a better world. The Halfway to Better collection contains six short stories plus a bonus prose-poem, Rewilding Indiana, and its accompanying sky shanty.

SHORT STORY: Living in a flooded lighthouse is probably illegal, but no one has come to kick her out, so she keeps furtively tending the oyster beds and feeding the crows. But when a storm brings an unexpected, and unwelcome, visitor, her time in this final refuge might be at an end. Planting the Shell-Bones is one of six short solarpunk stories in the Halfway to Better collection. If you enjoyed the optimistic climate solutions in Kim Stanley Robinson's Ministry for the Future or the cozy cooperative future in Becky Chambers' Monk and Robot series, you will enjoy Halfway to Better.

SHORT STORY: At the bottom of the sea, a trawler crawls across an abyssal plain, carefully cleaning microplastics off the ancient mineral-rich nodules, when the crew finds something that shouldn't be possible. Slimy Things Did Crawl is one of six short solarpunk stories in the Halfway to Better collection.

So far, Officer Candidate School is living up to its cutthroat reputation. Still, the merciless mental, physical, and psychological torture may be worth it for Lance Warder to have a chance to fight in space. The space that awaits isn't for the faint of heart. He'll have to shed his mental chains to prove his mettle. Because no one cares who your father is when you're faced with unknown threats in a dark, infinite void.

During a classified mission to the ISS, astronaut Jack Kildare picks up an eerie signal. An alien spaceship is orbiting distant, icy Europa. It looks derelict...but is it? As fear sweeps across Earth, NASA spearheads a frenzied effort to build a ship capable of traveling to Jupiter to confront the alien menace. Technology intertwines with espionage and sabotage in a race against the clock. Fighting for his rightful place in the mission, Jack finds himself submerged in a world of secrets, international power games, and cold-blooded murder.

Gita Chithra, the captain of the intergalactic ship The Tempest, is used to leading her crew on simple retrieval and assistance missions. But when she receives a frantic distress call from Ri, the AI she trained from inception—making her like a daughter to Gita—she knows she’s in for something much more dangerous. Ri is trapped in the depths of Loki’s Ring, an artificial alien-made solar system, and says everyone in the vicinity has been infected and killed by a mysterious contagion. Gita and her team investigate, only to discover horrors at every turn.