Human Space

Random Facts You Should Know: WTF Edition is jam-packed with fun and strange facts that you will be itching to unpack in any conversation to impress those around you. Whether you enjoy listening through these by yourself, with a partner, or with a group, you are bound to lose track of time while having a laugh and learning something new.

When Adam and Riyad journey to the planet Visidor to help free their alien friends Kaylor and Jym from vindictive local law enforcement, they thought all it would take would be wowing the locals with their celebrity. After all, they'd just saved the galaxy from the evil Sol-Kor menace. Now begins a wild adventure involving the most powerful galactic corporations to ever exist—stronger than any so-called empire—along with hordes of angry drug-runners and more, all in a desperate race to discover a secret that will alter the balance of power throughout the Milky Way galaxy—forever.

The Conclave is a confederation of 400 alien races - many of whom would like to see the Colonial Union - and the humans inside of it - blasted to extinction. To avoid a conflict that neither side can afford, Conclave leader General Tarsem Gau appoints Hafte Sorvalh to resolve an emerging diplomatic crisis with the humans, before the only acceptable solution is war. "The Back Channel" is a tale from John Scalzi's The Human Division, a series of self-contained but interrelated short stories set in the Old Man's War universe.

CDF Lieutenant Harry Wilson has one simple task: Watch an ambassador’s dog while the diplomat is conducting sensitive negotiations with an alien race. But you know dogs - always getting into something. And when this dog gets into something that could launch an alien civil war, Wilson has to find a way to solve the conflict, fast, or be the one in the Colonial Union’s doghouse. "The Dog King" is a tale from John Scalzi's The Human Division, a series of self-contained but interrelated short stories set in the Old Man's War universe.

As an eclectic band of heroes set out to rescue Adam's kidnapped daughter, Lila, everyone is asking what do they do when they find her? She was abducted by the three-billion-year-old Aris, beings who possess technology and genius far beyond anything in the Milky Way today. How does one fight against such technology, against such genius? In the meantime, the galaxy is being overrun by the invaders from Andromeda whose brutal gladiator-like contests are just getting underway...and with the Humans their prime targets.

We've all asked ourselves the question. It's impossible to look up at the stars and NOT think about it: Are we alone in the universe? Books, movies, and television shows proliferate that attempt to answer this question and explore it. In Out There, Space.com senior writer Dr. Michael Wall treats that question as merely the beginning, touching off a wild ride of exploration into the final frontier. He considers, for instance, the myriad of questions that would arise once we do discover life beyond Earth (an eventuality which, top NASA officials told Wall, is only drawing closer).

Captain Sophia Coloma of the Clarke has a simple task: Ferry around representatives from Earth in an aging spaceship that the Colonial Union hopes to sell to them. But nothing is as simple as it seems, and Coloma discovers the ship she’s showing off holds suprises of its own...and it’s not the only one with secrets. "Tales from the Clarke" is a tale from John Scalzi's The Human Division, a series of self-contained but interrelated short stories set in the Old Man's War universe.

The gang is back, and this time pitted against the most-dangerous enemy the galaxy has ever faced. Among the challenges our heroic trio encounters are a 5,000-year-old mutant genius and a one-trillion-strong race of ravenous trans-dimensional invaders. Once again Adam, Riyad, and Sherri find themselves neck-deep in an epic struggle to save the Milky Way from an evil that doesn't play favorites. And uniting against the invaders are the Humans, the Juireans, and even the Klin...to show just how serious the threat has become.

Ex-Navy SEAL Adam Cain and his band of intergalactic Raiders are fighting a behind-the-lines insurgency against the Juirean Expansion. In the meantime, the Human Fleet is now ready to take on the forces of the Expansion in massive head-to-head battles among the stars. But not all is as it seems, as the puppet-masters - the Klin - soon learn the Humans - and Adam Cain in particular - are aware of their behind-the-scenes manipulations of the Human-Juirean War.

Mars, a mysterious dust-ridden place, is most like Earth in its climate and seasons. Of all the possible destinations in space to travel, Mars is the most likely for humans to reach. According to esteemed scientist Louis Friedman, it may be the only destination outside the moon to ever see human footprints. Far from diminishing our future in space, Human Spaceflight lays out a provocative future for human space travel. The noted aerospace engineer and scientist says that human space exploration will continue well into the future, but space travel by humans will stop at Mars.

In a future where humanity has scattered itself across the stars and Earth itself is now a dimly remembered place of legend, two worlds of near-supernatural strangeness challenge two naive but courageous heroes.

Project Gemini is a neglected part of the US space program. Sandwiched between the excitement of Project Mercury and the sending of the first American astronauts to space and the euphoria of the Apollo Moon landings, Gemini was a step forward rather than a dramatic leap. However, this project achieved many important firsts, including the first spacewalk, the first rendezvous and docking between two spacecraft, the first flights of more than one week’s duration, and many more.

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.

As all the great forces in the galaxy gather for one final, epic battle to determine who will rule the Milky Way, massive star fleets from the Juireans and the Humans converge on ground zero - the Kracori homeworld of Elision. Against such overwhelming firepower, it's a given that Elision will be destroyed - unless the Kracori and their reluctant allies, the Klin, can mount a surprise end-around defense of the planet. At stake in this galactic free-for-all is nothing less than the survival of the all the species involved. Fail...and your race dies as well.

Adam Cain is back as the head of Cain's Crusaders, a small band of super-secret agents working for the head of the galactic Expansion, doing the dirty jobs no one else wants to do. Adam's latest mission is to rescue Arieel Bol, an important religious figure from the planet Formil, who just happens to have supernatural powers, or so it seems. And to top that, she's also is the most beautiful alien in the galaxy. Yet when a 30-million-credit bounty is placed on their heads, Adam and Arieel will have to use all of their combined "powers" to survive.

Adam Cain has pursued his nemesis Nigel McCarthy to the Milky Way's sister galaxy - The Large Magellanic Cloud - using the revolutionary technology of the concentrated-array gravity-drive. This is virgin territory for the Humans - an entire galaxy that knows nothing of the special abilities of the people from Earth.

Superhuman terror incidents are on the rise, riots are breaking out everywhere like a plague spreading across the face of the world, and the unknown enemy still stalks the world. However, Pierson and Hale are determined to bring down the monster that caused this turmoil, no matter what it takes. With violence exploding on all sides, when given a clear shot at the source of the chaos, they determine to take their chance. Hale will throw every bit of power he has at the very source that granted him his strength, backed by a world thrown into chaos looking for someone, anyone, to blame.

In this epic conclusion to the first series in the Human Chronicles Saga, Adam Cain and his band of Human warriors are presented to the Supreme Leader of the Galaxy. With only minutes to live, Adam convinces the Juirean leader that Humans are not the enemy, but that both their races have been part of a diabolical plot for galactic domination orchestrated by the Klin. And yet just when the truth dawns on the Juireans, the planet Juir is attacked by Kracori forces, which leads to a whole new set of problems for Adam and his band of Human Super-Men.

When corporations go to war, standard business practice goes out the window. Astro Corporation is led by indomitable Texan Pancho Lane, Humphries Space Systems by the rich and ruthless Martin Humphries, and their fight is over nothing less than resources of the Asteroid Belt itself. Fighting escalates and the lines between commerce and politics, boardroom and bedroom blur. And the keys to victory will include physics, nanotechnology, and cold hard cash.

Everything is going great in the Milky Way Galaxy. Adam's immortal mutant alien daughter Lila is running the Expansion, and the Orion-Cygnus Union is experiencing its first period of peace and tranquility since its founding. Yet things are not as idyllic as they seem. A new alien threat has entered the galaxy, bringing with it a level of pragmatic barbarism unmatched by anyone in the Milky Way. Add to this, an ancient home-grown power has returned, curious to see the results of its three-billion-year-long galactic experiment.