Space First Contact

Hudson Powell and Tory Bellona scour the galaxy for priceless alien artefacts found inside wrecked starships called Revocaters. Once the guardians of life in the universe, the Revocaters were destroyed by a super-powered AI, known as Goliath. Thwarted before it could finish its task, Goliath has now returned to fulfil its purpose, and wipe out all sentient life in the universe.

Until the Confederation created Allora, it had produced SADEs (self-aware digital entities) for hundreds of years with enormous consistency and harnessed their capabilities to power the society. But this particular young SADE was disturbed by her confinement. Trapped in metal-alloy housing on the bridge of a luxury passenger liner, Allora sought to possess the same freedom enjoyed by humans, who came and went from her starship with abandon.

On the planet Jijo, peace is upended when the starship Streaker arrives, bringing with it knowledge of a two-billion-year-old fleet and hordes of followers eager to exploit its power. Publishers Weekly hails Brin's "extraordinary capacity to handle a wide-ranging narrative and to create ... complex alien races."

John Varley's monumental trilogy - Titan, Wizard, and Demon - has achieved cult status, hailed as a modern triumph of the imagination by critics and fans. It begins with humankind's exploration of a massive satellite orbiting Saturn. It culminates in a shocking discovery: the satellite is a giant alien being. Her name is Gaea. Her awesome interior is mind-boggling - because it is a mind. A mind that calls out to explorers...and transforms all who enter.

It is 2076: Lancer, Earth’s first starship, is on a mission to find interstellar civilizations. Although astronaut Nigel Walmsley’s experiences with alien encounters make him the expert, no one believes Nigel’s theory that machines are the dominant intelligent beings left in the galaxy and that their purpose is to annihilate all organic life. Then the explorers discover once-living planets where only machines remain – and ruined worlds where fugitive survivors must evade omnipresent and lethally advanced A.I. warships.

Wormhole technology has revealed that our sun will die in 5,000,000 years. A race of superbeings, the fabulous Xeelee, owners of the universe, are thought to be responsible. The bizarre and wealthy cult, the Superet, funds two projects aimed at combatting the force that will murder the sun.

The galaxy is mired in a cold war between two superpowers, the Illyrican Empire and the Commonwealth. Thrust between this struggle are Simon Kovalic, the Commonwealth's preeminent spy, and Kyle Rankin, a lowly soldier happily scrubbing toilets on Sabaea, a remote and isolated planet. However, Kyle Rankin is a lie. His real name is Eli Brody, and he fled his home world of Caledonia years ago. Simon Kovalic knows Caledonia is a lit fuse hurtling towards detonation.

Years after clean energy ended the world’s reliance on fossil fuels, a lull of peace encompasses all of humanity. Some think we should travel to the distant corners of the galaxy; others oppose the idea, thinking that the harnessed singularity reactors are unnatural. When a terrorist group attacks the Lunar colony, members of the United Nations Peacekeeping Force are divided as a result of the incursion. Years later, Lieutenant Commander Kyle Torres comes face to face with old friends, as he’s thrown into an assignment that could change everything.

Nearly two centuries after a human colony is abandoned on an alien planet, the two races have reached a tenacious peace agreement. But when the human ship returns unexpectedly, both governments are thrown into chaos.

Hudson Powell had always been a drifter, but after his father died, he vowed to turn his life around. He quit freelancing as a starship pilot and joined the Relic Guardian Force as a 38-year-old rookie. That was a big mistake. The RGF police the alien wrecks that have been found on every portal world discovered in the last century. They make sure the relic hunters pay taxes on the priceless alien tech they scavenge from the hulks. The snag is that the RGF is corrupt. And Hudson’s training officer Logan Griff is the worst scumbag of the lot.

As a war journalist, Jonah Wall saw enough of humanity’s horrors to last a lifetime. He wrecked his marriage, alienated his two sons, and escaped by working on an oil rig in Alaska, as far from civilization as possible. But when he finds a spacecraft that was buried for millennia under the tundra, he is suddenly and reluctantly thrust into an unbelievable adventure. As the ship is being unveiled to the world, it mysteriously comes to life, taking Jonah, his estranged son, and a disparate group on a terrifying journey.

Orson Scott Card, Kevin J. Anderson, and Larry Niven have seen the future. Now you can, too. A constellation of the brightest lights in the science fiction and fantasy firmament have judged these authors to be the best, the brightest, the truest emerging stars in the field.

Where life as we know it is impossible, the real adventure begins. Venus is a hostile planet, covered by active volcanoes, but NASA launches an expedition to search for life there anyway. Their specially developed airship cruises in the clouds of Venus to serve as a research platform for its four astronauts. When they discover dangerous activities on the glowing-hot surface, there can only be one explanation: A highly sophisticated life form must be at work.

One hundred years ago, 4 crewmembers of the U.S.S. Enterprise™ crossed the dimensional barrier and found a mirror image of their own universe, populated by nightmare duplicates of their shipmates. Barely able to escape with their lives, they returned, thankful that the accident which had brought them there could not be duplicated...or so they thought. But now the scientists of that empire have found a doorway into our universe. Their plan is to destroy from within, to replace a Federation Starship with one of their own.

The silent hell of deep space holds certain death for the unwary. It is the task of the UN Navy to defend the starways, no matter the danger. An alien attack and an admiral's betrayal leave a wounded Commander Seafort stranded aboard a doomed ship.

They have absolute power; after all, they are the ones with the weapons. The only other armed agency, the Peacemaker Guild, is far smaller and unable to bend them to their will. But absolute power has the tendency to corrupt absolutely, and this is becoming increasingly apparent as the guild’s members pursue their hidden agendas.

Earth has united under the banner of the Republic. Humanity's brightest minds have deciphered the secrets of the alien technology and have begun to reverse engineer it. An elder race takes notice of humanity's strides and intervenes. Humanity is brought into the fold of a galactic alliance and learns they are not alone in their war against the insidious Zodark empire. Humans now fight alongside friendly alien races to end the bondages of slavery.

When a human team is sent to scout a few hundred light-years in front of the death wave, it encounters a civilization far in advance of our own, a civilization of machine intelligences.These sentient, intelligent machines have existed for eons and have survived earlier "death waves" - gamma-ray bursts from the core of the galaxy. They are totally self-sufficient, completely certain that the death wave cannot harm them, and utterly uninterested in helping to save other civilizations.

When Amihanna di Aetes first got to Sel’Ani, she never thought she’d have the full support of the Aunare, but she does. She never thought that she’d fall in love, get married, or become the High Queen, but she did. She never thought that she’d be planning something so stupid as her return to Earth, but that’s exactly what she’s doing. With the Alliance broken, SpaceTech has fully retreated to their home planet, but the chaos of war will descend again. Amihanna and Lorne know they don’t much time to plan their next move.

Thousands of crew are reported dead, including the ship’s captain. Reluctantly, the young XO, Galvin Quintos, will be taking command of the fleet's crippled dreadnaught, the USS Hamilton, while doing his best to bring fleet survivors back to Earth. To make matters worse, there’s a murderer running loose on board the ship, critically low fuel levels, and the Grish are back, in fast pursuit and ready to finish what they’d started. Only by sheer luck - and a good measure of cagey smarts - will Quintos be able to rise to the challenge.