Space Adventures Science

Captain Ivan Vorpatril is happy with his relatively uneventful bachelor's life as a staff officer to a Barrayaran admiral. Cousin to imperial troubleshooter Miles Vorkosigan, Ivan is not far down the hereditary list for the emperorship. Thankfully, new heirs have directed that headache elsewhere, leaving Ivan to enjoy his life on Komarr, far from the Byzantine court politics of his home system. But when an old friend in Barrayaran intelligence asks Ivan to protect an attractive young woman who may be on the hit list of a criminal syndicate, his chivalrous nature takes over. It seems danger and adventure have once more found Captain Vorpatril.

Five years after the Death Star was destroyed and Darth Vader and the Emperor were defeated, the galaxy is struggling to heal the wounds of war, Princess Leia and Han Solo are married and expecting twins, and Luke Skywalker has become the first in a long-awaited line of new Jedi Knights. But thousands of light-years away, the last of the Emperor’s warlords - the brilliant and deadly Grand Admiral Thrawn - has taken command of the shattered Imperial fleet, readied it for war, and pointed it at the fragile heart of the New Republic....

There’s a sense of normalcy for the community in Monterey, California, but their peace doesn’t last long. When they’re pushed to leave, they encounter something they never expected to find. The Glass remain, but they’ve shifted positions. Peggy reveals she used to have dreams, but prescription medication kept them at bay. Now she’s off the pills and is determined to visit Spokane with Will.

Zack Lightman has never much cared for reality. He vastly prefers the countless science-fiction movies, books, and videogames he's spent his life consuming. And too often, he catches himself wishing that some fantastic, impossible, world-altering event could arrive to whisk him off on a grand spacefaring adventure.

For nearly a billion years, every known sentient species in the universe has been the result of genetic and cultural guidance - or "uplifting" - by a previously uplifted patron race. Then humans are discovered. Having already uplifted chimps and dolphins, humanity clearly qualifies as an intelligent species, but did they actually evolve their own intelligence, or did some mysterious patron race begin the process, then suddenly abandon Earth?

From a New York Times best-selling and Hugo award-winning author comes a modern masterwork of science fiction, introducing a captain, his crew, and a detective as they unravel a horrifying solar system wide conspiracy that begins with a single missing girl. Humanity has colonized the solar system - Mars, the Moon, the Asteroid Belt and beyond - but the stars are still out of our reach. Jim Holden is XO of an ice miner making runs from the rings of Saturn to the mining stations of the Belt.

Jacques McKeown is the most celebrated author of star-pilot fiction in the galaxy. He's rich, famous, and living in luxury, and his universe-wide fanbase eagerly awaits any news of his next book. There's just one small hitch. He's not Jacques McKeown. He's Dashford Pierce, star pilot and con artist, and if only the impatient calls from his publisher were the worst of his problems. There's also the last vestige of the Henderson crime gang, trouble brewing in the retired star-pilot community, and a small matter of somebody trying to kill him.

For eons, Earth has been under observation by the Firstborn, beings almost as old as the universe itself. The Firstborn are unknown to humankind - until they act. In an instant, Earth is carved up and reassembled like a huge jigsaw puzzle. Suddenly the planet and every living thing on it no longer exist in a single timeline.

Future imperfect: Three years after her famous husband's death, Cordelia Vorkosigan, widowed vicereine of Sergyar, stands ready to spin her life in a new direction. Oliver Jole, admiral, Sergyar Fleet, finds himself caught up in her web of plans in ways he'd never imagined, bringing him to an unexpected crossroads in his life. Meanwhile, Miles Vorkosigan, one of Emperor Gregor's key investigators, this time dispatches himself on a mission of inquiry into a mystery he never anticipated - his own mother.

Half-Navajo geologist Jamie Waterman has been selected for the ground team of the first manned expedition to our mysterious neighbor planet. Joining an international team of astronauts and scientists, he endures the rigors of training, the dangers of traveling an incredible distance in space, the challenges of an alien landscape, and the personal and political conflicts that arise when the team must face the most shocking discovery of all.

For generations, the solar system—Mars, the Moon, the Asteroid Belt—was humanity's great frontier. Until now. The alien artifact working through its program under the clouds of Venus has appeared in Uranus's orbit, where it has built a massive gate that leads to a starless dark. Jim Holden and the crew of the Rocinante are part of a vast flotilla of scientific and military ships going out to examine the artifact. But behind the scenes, a complex plot is unfolding, with the destruction of Holden at its core.

Owen Deathstalker, last of the infamous warrior Clan, always considered himself more of a writer than a fighter, preferring his history books to making any actual history with a sword. But books won't protect him from Her Imperial Majesty Lionstone XIV, who just outlawed and condemned Owen to death, without any explanation, reason, or warning. No wonder she's called the Iron Bitch. Now, on the run from Imperial starcruisers, shady mercenaries, and just about everyone else in the Empire, Owen's options are limited.

Prince Roger MacClintock, Tertiary Heir to the Throne of Man, was a spoiled rotten, arrogant, whiny, thoroughly useless young pain in the butt. But that was before an assassination attempt marooned the Royal Brat and his bodyguards on the planet Marduk, and before they had to march half way around the entire planet, through 120-degree heat and five-hour rainstorms in jungles full of damnbeasts, capetoads, killerpillars, and atul-grak, not to mention hostile peoples, to make their way back to port.

After seven years of bitter war, the end has come at last for the conflict known infamously as the Horus Heresy. Terra now lies within the Warmaster’s sights, the Throneworld and the seat of his father’s rule. Horus’ desire is nothing less than the death of the Emperor of Mankind and the utter subjugation of the Imperium. He has become the ascendant vessel of Chaos and amassed a terrible army with which to enact his will and vengeance. But the way to the Throne will be hard as the primarch Rogal Dorn, the Praetorian and protector of Terra, marshals the defences.

Lieutenant Heyd Calder is a Primaris Marine whose mastery of warfare is matched only by his diplomatic prowess. Under the orders of Roboute Guilliman, he is deployed to Almace, a minor seat of the Ecclesiarchy, to protect the world at whatever cost. Yet even as diabolical forces leer from the system's edge, Calder discovers that the capital's Cardinal-Governor, a sharp, inscrutable figure of spiritual and material authority, is hiding something. When it becomes clear that conquest is not the enemy’s sole aim, Calder resolves to uncover the secret of Almace.

The elite crew of the pirate ship UNS Flying Dutchman had a simple mission: determining whether the Thuranin are sending another starship to Earth. Along the way, they became sidetracked by securing a future for the UNEF troops on the planet Paradise. When asked whether Earth was now safe, their ancient alien AI responded "Not so much"...now they have to deal with the consequences.

The starship Earthling, filled with thousands of hibernating colonists en route to a new world at Tau Ceti, is stranded beyond the solar system when the ship's three organic mental cores - disembodied human brains that control the vessel's functions - go insane. The emergency skeleton crew sees only one chance for survival: build an artificial consciousness in the Earthling's primary computer that can guide them to their destination - and hope it doesn't destroy the human race.

While the crew of the UN Expeditionary Force's pirate starship Flying Dutchman are enjoying a luxury vacation cruise (not!), UNEF troops are still stranded on an alien-controlled planet. Major Emily Perkins and her team are busy picking up the pieces, and it's not easy, because there is trouble on Paradise...

January 1864: General Robert E. Lee faces defeat. The Army of Northern Virginia is ragged and ill-equipped. Gettysburg has broken the back of the Confederacy and decimated its manpower. Then, Andries Rhoodie, a strange man with an unplaceable accent, approaches Lee with an extraordinary offer. Rhoodie demonstrates an amazing rifle: its rate of fire is incredible, its lethal efficiency breathtaking - and Rhoodie guarantees unlimited quantities to the Confederates. The name of the weapon is the AK-47.

The fourth book in the NYT best-selling Expanse series, Cibola Burn sees the crew of the Rocinante on a new frontier, as the rush to colonize the new planets threatens to outrun law and order and give way to war and chaos. Enter a new frontier. "An empty apartment, a missing family, that's creepy. But this is like finding a military base with no one on it. Fighters and tanks idling on the runway with no drivers. This is bad juju. Something wrong happened here. What you should do is tell everyone to leave".