Space Science

As Chhun and his fellow Legion Adjudicators work to uncover the buried secrets of the time called the Troubles, the rest of the galaxy isn't just standing still. Organizations both inside and outside of the Republic make moves to prepare for their futures. Planets build their own independent defense forces. Power brokers and criminal cartels arise with personal armadas. The Repub Navy seeks to prove itself just as capable even without the Legion. Piracy blooms.

Six million years ago, at the very dawn of the starfaring era, Abigail Gentian fractured herself into a thousand male and female clones: the shatterlings. Sent out into the galaxy, these shatterlings have stood aloof as they document the rise and fall of countless human empires. They meet every 200,000 years to exchange news and memories of their travels with their siblings.

When a mysterious alien probe materializes from Jump Space and remotely reprograms The Bay's star drive, Sam and his crew begin an involuntary voyage that takes them three thousand light years out of known space, across the galactic rift to the Sagittarius Spiral Arm, and into the heart of an ancient, previously unknown civilization - the first encountered by Humans and the other five races of the Cottohazz-Stellar Commonwealth - in over a century. The genetically altered immortals known as the Guardians soon turn murderously violent.

How many Carl Sagan fans know that while the renowned scientist was at Stanford University, he produced a controversial paper, funded by a NASA research grant, that concludes that ancient alien intervention may have sparked human civilization? Author Donald L. Zygutis lays out a compelling case that points to a cover-up by the Pentagon and NASA, who may have buried it soon after it was written. How significant is the Stanford paper?

With a vision of a world free from a war, a cat and his human minions set out to change humanity. An epic tale awaits. Follow Braden, Micah, and the Golden Warrior as their adventures take them through the wasteland to the mystical south of Planet Vii.

It seemed the unthinkable had happened. Someone had actually targeted the Ghalian, an order of assassins known and feared across the systems. It was madness. Only a fool would go after the likes of them. But, it seemed, the galaxy had no shortage of fools. Retaliation most bloody was in order, and one man stood ready to spring into action. Hozark was his name, and he was no ordinary man. He was a Master Ghalian, an assassin skilled in the ways of death. Practical, mechanical, magical, to him it made no difference.

The original teleplay that became the classic Star Trek episode, with an expanded introductory essay by Harlan Ellison, The City on the Edge of Forever has been surrounded by controversy since the airing of an "eviscerated" version - which subsequently has been voted the most beloved episode in the series' history. In its original form, The City on the Edge of Forever won the 1966-67 Writers Guild of America Award for Best Teleplay. As aired, it won the 1967 Hugo Award.

Light of the Stars is science at the grandest of scales, and it tells a radically new story about what we are: one world in a universe awash in planets. Building on his widely discussed scientific papers and New York Times op-eds, astrophysicist Adam Frank shows that not only is it likely that alien civilizations have existed many times before, but also that many of them have driven their own worlds into dangerous eras of change.

A century ago, the Sentience Wars tore the galaxy apart and nearly ended the entire concept of intelligent space-faring life. In the aftermath, a curious tradition was invented - something to cheer up everyone who was left and bring the shattered worlds together in the spirit of peace, unity, and understanding. Once every cycle, the civilizations gather for the Metagalactic Grand Prix - part gladiatorial contest, part beauty pageant, part concert extravaganza, and part continuation of the wars of the past.

The starship crew was stuck on a planet where the well-meaning schemes of ivory-tower social engineers had created a nightmare of battling gangs. So they pretended to be the "Royal Legions" from a distant star kingdom in hot pursuit of an unspeakably evil and nearly all-powerful villain who was hiding somewhere on the planet. Things went even better than they had hoped, and the planet was rapidly becoming civilized...and then the real Royal Flagship showed up.

Captain John Nathan Duggan and his crew are given a mission - find the missing ESS Crimson and bring it home. Little does Duggan realize, this is no ordinary mission. As he struggles against enemies both within and without, he desperately tries to unlock the mystery surrounding the Crimson's disappearance and the unknown weapons it carries. He soon discovers the missing warship might be the only hope for salvation that mankind has left. When everything is veiled in secrecy nothing is easy, as Duggan is about to find out.

This omnibus volume contains two Alliance-Union novels, Merchanter's Luck and Forty Thousand in Gehenna.

Hugo Award winner Harry Turtledove is the master of alternate history. In American Front he envisions World War I as it may have been if fought on American soil. The United States and Germany clash with the Confederacy, France, and Britain as the machines of modern warfare litter the landscape with carnage. Meanwhile, oppressed southern blacks head toward a fateful confrontation.

Here is the novel that will be forever considered a triumph of the imagination. Set on the desert planet Arrakis, Dune is the story of the boy Paul Atreides, who would become the mysterious man known as Maud'dib. He would avenge the traitorous plot against his noble family and would bring to fruition humankind's most ancient and unattainable dream.

Time moves forward, not backward---everyone knows you can't unscramble an egg. In the hands of one of today's hottest young physicists, that simple fact of breakfast becomes a doorway to understanding the Big Bang, the universe, and other universes, too. In From Eternity to Here, Sean Carroll argues that the arrow of time, pointing resolutely from the past to the future, owes its existence to conditions before the Big Bang itself---a period of modern cosmology of which Einstein never dreamed.

Avalon was the flagship of the Castle Federation in the last war, now 20 years past. The first of the deep space carriers, no other warship in the fleet holds as many honors or has recorded as many kills. No other warship in the fleet is as old. Accepting the inevitable, the Federation Space Navy has decided to refit her and send her on a tour of the frontier, showing the flag to their allies and enemies as a reminder of her glory - and then decommission her for good.

The hunt for the Higgs particle has involved the biggest, most expensive experiment ever. So exactly what is this particle? Why does it matter so much? What does it tell us about the universe? Was finding it really worth all the effort? The short answer is yes. The Higgs field is proposed as the way in which particles gain mass - a fundamental property of matter. It's the strongest indicator yet that the Standard Model of physics really does reflect the basic building blocks of our universe. Little wonder the hunt and discovery of this new particle produced such intense media interest.

All Liam Avione ever wanted was to be a Deathbringer. Almost twenty years old now, he’s approaching the last six months of the decade-long training program, hopeful for his future as a protector of the Universe. One, slight problem: he’s got a genetic defect that he’s been keeping a secret. But as the training intensifies, so do his symptoms. Which are really hard to hide when they cause him to puke, pass out, and have a seizure in front of the training cadre.

Albert Einstein described Relativity as a "popular explosion" of his famous theory. Written in 1916, it introduced the lay audience to the remarkable perspective which had overturned theoretical physics. Einstein's genius was to express this perspective in understandable terms.

Late in the 26th century, the human race has advanced enough to accidentally trigger the Inhibitors---alien-killing machines designed to detect intelligent life and destroy it. The only hope for humanity lies in the recovery of a secret cache of doomsday weapons---and a renegade named Clavain who is determined to find them. But other factions want the weapons for their own purposes---and the weapons themselves have another agenda altogether.