Science Universe

Here are four stories derived from the same universe as the Koban series. Listening to the series is not required to understand and enjoy these stand-alone tales. Australian Krall: A fully gene-enhanced Kobani woman finds herself trapped in total darkness and underground, pursued by hundreds of slavering, semi-sentient, maniacally aggressive, and hungry aliens. Walk with her on the dark side!

What’s inside a black hole? What are the sounds we hear from the depths of space? How did the moon form? When it comes to the realm beyond our planet, there are a whole lot of questions we’re still trying to answer.

If you've always suspected the universe was out to get you . . . you were right! Yes, the universe we live in is cosmically beautiful and mysterious and all that crap. But it's also a bit of an asshole. After all, remember that you are just a group of atoms structured in a specific way for barely long enough to try to understand this thing we call existence. The fact is, when you zoom out to look at the universe and how it functions, you'll see that it's usually not in our favor, and many of the laws of physics are actively working against our survival.

The Russian Mercenary known as Boris has always been a conundrum for governments the world over. His visage never changes, his capabilities never understood. The Russian government gets word he has been killed on a mercenary mission in America, allowing agents to come in and attack the villages Boris has been protecting. Using a fanatical military sub-group in the Russian military, the atrocities start.

When a suspect explodes mid-interrogation and his office is taken over by an intergalactic despot, undead detective Dan Deadman reckons he's finally hit rock bottom. Banished to a dangerous underground hostel network, Dan becomes embroiled in a mass-murder investigation that will take him from the bowels of Down Here to the depths of the ocean. As the clues run out and the case collapses around him, Dan discovers a sinister plot that could wipe out two whole civilizations, and plunge the planet of Parloo into an endless bloody war.

Astronomers have successfully observed a great deal of the universe’s history, from recording the afterglow of the big bang to imaging thousands of galaxies, and even to visualising an actual black hole. There’s a lot for astronomers to be smug about. But when it comes to understanding how the universe began and grew up, we are literally in the dark ages. In effect, we are missing the first one billion years from the timeline of the universe.

Two novellas set in Aliette de Bodard’s award-winning, critically acclaimed Xuya universe, a timeline where Asia became dominant, and where the space age has Confucian galactic empires of Vietnamese and Chinese inspiration. Contains The Citadel of Weeping Pearls and The Tea Master and the Detective.

Exiled from Liad after bombing a city to save it from The Department of the Interior’s infernal weapons and plans, Clan Korval has gone to ground on the back-water planet Surebleak, whose people are as untamed as its weather. The old Boss-controlled fiefdoms largely fell to Pat Rin yos’Phelium’s influence, but the world is restive, the influx of outworld lawyers, guns, and money a brewpot for armed dissatisfaction.

Bethany Anne Nacht was changed on Earth almost 200 years in the past. The Kurtherians engage in the cosmic great game, where whole worlds are torn asunder in their efforts to prove their own supremacy. For hundreds of millennia, the Kurtherians at the top have reigned unfettered as they destroyed countless civilizations time and time again. Now, a new group is entering the game. Bethany Anne and her people are playing against extreme odds, but when has that ever stopped the Queen Bitch? It’s time to fight for the future of the universe.

Before the early 20th century, scientists and theologians knew almost nothing about time’s enormity and the corresponding immensity of space. But after Einstein, cosmology offers theology a whole new way of looking at the ageless questions about matter, time, God, cosmic purpose, and the significance of our lives. The universe need no longer be thought of simply as an endless reshuffling of lifeless and mindless atoms in a pointless series of moments.

The author of the classic best seller shows how an exciting, new understanding of the nature of the universe has far-reaching implications for how we can better live our everyday lives, improve our communities, and meet the enormous challenges of our time.

Centuries in the past, mankind fought a seemingly unbeatable adversary from sector to sector across the Spiral Arm until the war ground to a standstill and the Enemy withdrew. Believing that they had won, the citizens of the galaxy rebuilt. The Inner Worlds, which had escaped the worst of the war's ravages, became even more insular, while the Rim worlds adopted a free and easy way with law and order. Now, hundreds of years after their withdrawal, the Enemy is back - and this time they'll be satisfied with nothing less than the extinction of the galaxy.

Prince Ernest Ire will do anything to please his controlling father. Even if that means using his god-given magic to sway the minds of everyone he has ever met. But everything changes when he is infected with the deadly poison of a Mer bite, and his magic is stolen.

A Mysterious Universe introduces the fundamental laws of quantum mechanics, theory of relativity, and cosmology to a novice in simple language. This concise book deals with deep issues related to the mysteries of modern physics.

Tested by the gods, Leda and her angelic mate Nero venture into the City of Ashes, a fallen fortress in the Western Wilderness where nightmarish monsters reign supreme and an ancient secret is buried. To survive the Gods' Trials, they will have to save the city - and they will have to do it without their magic. Their victory, however, comes at a heavy price. And the secret they uncover will upset the balance of power between Earth and heaven.

Theo, star pilot wannabe and troubled misfit has been accepted, against all her expectations, to Anlingdin. It’s the Hogwarts of star piloting academies, and Theo has been selected to train there with the best-of-the-best. Even better - she can finally leave behind the gawky, misfit days of teenage angst her previous life so complicated before. Great Liaden star pilots are born with a bang and not a whimper - and Theo has set a course to graduate from misfit to genuine maverick.

For a physicist, all the world is information. The universe and its workings are the ebb and flow of information. We are all transient patterns of information, passing on the recipe for our basic forms to future generations using a four-letter digital code called DNA. In this engaging and mind-stretching account, Vlatko Vedral considers some of the deepest questions about the universe and considers the implications of interpreting it in terms of information.

Two men and two universes collide, as the honorable, idealistic Starfleet Captain James T. Kirk is forced to compromise his ideals to save his wife. Kirk agrees to help the tyrannical Emperor Tiberius destroy Captain Jean-Luc Picard's U.S.S. Enterprise, and in the process receives a message from the Preservers - a technologically advanced civilization revealed to Kirk by mysterious aliens. Written and read by William Shatner!

This long-awaited culmination of the Agent of Change sequence of Sharon Lee and Steve Miller's internationally acclaimed Liaden Universe novels pits unexpected friends and unexpected enemies against each other in a war that spans planets and races - and threatens to bring interstellar violence to the very surface of fabled Liad.

The African nation of Wakanda stood alone as an unconquerable land filled with incredible technological advancements for 10 centuries. T'Challa, the latest in a lineage of warrior-kings, is the Black Panther, endowed with enhanced speed and strength, along with a suit made of the indestructible metal that secured his country's future: Vibranium. Now, outsiders have returned to plunder Wakanda's riches - including its store of the rare metal. Leading this brutal assault is Klaw, an assassin with the blood of T'Challa's father on his hands.