Space Opera First Contact

It’s the 22nd century. The galaxy has opened up to humanity as a hyperactive beehive of stargates and new technologies, and we suddenly find ourselves in a vast playground of different races, environments, and cultures. There’s just one catch: We are pretty much at the bottom of the food chain, and there’s only one way for humanity to move up - by becoming mercenaries. In every mercenary’s life, though, there comes a time when things go wrong and even the best laid plans go awry.

Spock's mother, Amanda Grayson, is dying, and Spock returns to the planet Vulcan where he and Sarek enjoy a rare moment of rapprochement. But just as his wife's illness grows worse, duty calls Sarek away, once again sowing the seeds of conflict between father and son. Yet soon Sarek and Spock must put aside their differences and work together to foil a far-reaching plot to destroy the Federation, a plot that Sarek has seen in the making for nearly his entire career.

It is 2246, 10 years prior to the Battle at the Binary Stars, and an aggressive contagion is ravaging the food supplies of the remote Federation colony Tarsus IV and the 8,000 people who call it home. Distress signals have been sent, but any meaningful assistance is weeks away. Lieutenant Commander Gabriel Lorca and a small team assigned to a Starfleet monitoring outpost are caught up in the escalating crisis, and bear witness as the colony's governor, Adrian Kodos, employs an unimaginable solution in order to prevent mass starvation.

Les étoiles sont à la portée de l'homme… mais ce qui se trouve tapi dans le vide intersidéral pourrait bien mettre fin à l'humanité. Mars et la Lune ont été colonisés, la piraterie sévit dans les ceintures d'astéroïdes et une société prospère se développe dans les profondeurs de l'espace. L'humanité se prépare à s'embarquer pour son plus grand voyage : la colonisation d'Alpha Centauri. Puis, tout change.

The two-time Hugo Award-winner expands the universe of his Coyote saga. The danui, a reclusive arachnid species considered the galaxy's finest engineers, have avoided contact with the Coyote Federation. Until, that is, the danui initiate trade negotiations, offering only information: the coordinates for an unoccupied world suitable for human life - a massive sphere, composed of billions of hexagons.

When avid gamer Brandon awakes surrounded by endless snow and countless monsters, he knows his survival odds look slim at best. Not that he's planning to go down without a fight. Being a self-confessed nerd doesn't mean he's going to roll over and die. Brandon's determined to get himself home and protect whoever he finds upon the way. That includes a couple of stunning alien women who need his help as much as he needs theirs.

Captain James T. Kirk and the Enterprise crew race to save a missing Federation scientist, only to become trapped between the Klingons’s infamous Captain Kang and Starfleet’s mysterious Operation Vanguard.

Section 31, the covert organization that has operated without accountability in the shadows for more than two centuries, has been exposed. Throughout the Federation, the rogue group’s agents and leaders are being taken into custody as the sheer scope of its misdeeds comes to light. Meanwhile, deep in the distant, unexplored region of space known as the Odyssean Pass, Picard and the crew of the Starship Enterprise must put aside personal feelings and political concerns as they investigate a massive, mysterious spacecraft.

Rosalyn Devar is on the run from her famous family, the bioengineering job she's come to hate, and her messed-up life. She's run all the way to outer space, where she's taken a position as a "space janitor", cleaning up ill-fated research expeditions. But no matter how far she goes, Rosalyn can't escape herself. After too many mistakes on the job, she's given one last chance: take care of salvaging the Brigantine, a research vessel that has gone dark, with all crew aboard thought dead. But the Brigantine's crew are very much alive - if not entirely human.

Nothing wrecks Captain Eva Innocente’s vacation plans quite like an anonymous threat to vaporize billions of people. Hundreds of monoliths have suddenly materialized in space, broadcasting the same looped message: surrender or be exterminated. Is the universe being epically spammed?

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.

Binti has returned to her home planet, believing that the violence of the Meduse has been left behind. Unfortunately, although her people are peaceful on the whole, the same cannot be said for the Khoush, who fan the flames of their ancient rivalry with the Meduse.

Eighteen years ago the Starship Enterprise thwarted an alien invasion from another universe, and Captain Robert April took possession of the interdimensional transfer device that made it possible. Since then each captain of the Enterprise has guarded this secret with his life. Now Romulan agents have succeeded in stealing the device and are using it to banish Ambassador Sarek and Councillor Gorkon to an unknown realm in the midst of their groundbreaking Federation-Klingon peace negotiations.

A dying world, shattered by a broken machine. A desperate flight, their only hope for refuge. A robotic race, ally and destroyer alike. The Republic of Exilium has grown in strength and confidence at the far end of the galaxy from the rest of mankind, sending out scout ships to survey the worlds around them as they try to learn more about the mysterious Construction Matrix AIs. Finding one of the genocidal rogues of that mysterious “race” in the process of destroying an inhabited world, Captain Octavio Catalan takes his ship into a desperate battle.

The final volume of the Uplift trilogy by Hugo and Nebula Award winner David Brin, Heaven’s Reach brings readers back to the planet Jijo one last time. The starship Streaker is still on the run with its dangerous cargo of ancient artifacts when the prophesied Time of Changes rocks the galaxy. As each race battles for control and chaos reigns, the truth about the Five Galaxies and The Progenitors finally comes to light.

This hard sci-fi novel is the seventh book in the Stasis Stories series of optimistic tales of technological innovation in the near future. This one is about Kaem Seba’s daughter, Zaii, a young woman who, like her father, has extraordinary math talents. Eager to do her part in the war against the aliens from Epsilon Eridani, she becomes a Space Force ROTC cadet. However, as she studies potential warfighting strategies that might be used against the Eridanis, she realizes that the defenders of Sol system have a problem.

Bren Cameron, acting as the representative of the atevi's political leader, Tabini-aiji, as well as translator between humans and atevi, has undertaken a mission to the human enclave of Mospheira. Both his presence on the island and his absence from the continent have stirred old enemies to realize new opportunities. Old hatreds. Old grudges. Old ambitions. The situation has strengthened the determination of power-seekers on both sides of the strait. Bren knows most of them very well, but not all of them well enough.

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.

Wildcat colonies are illegal, unauthorized, and secret - so when an injured stranger shows up at the wildcat colony New Seattle, the colony leaders are understandably suspicious of who he is and what he represents. His story of how he’s come to their colony is shocking, surprising, and might have bigger consequences than anyone could have expected. Walk the Plank is a tale from John Scalzi's The Human Division, a series of self-contained but interrelated short stories.

Earth's armed forces have stopped the Lanky advance and chased their ships out of the solar system, but for CDC officer Andrew Grayson, the war feels anything but won. On Mars, the grinding duty of flushing out the twenty-meter-tall alien invaders from their burrows underground is wearing down troops and equipment at an alarming rate. And for the remaining extrasolar colonies, the threat of a Lanky attack is ever present.