Space Science

Why we think it’s a great listen: It’s easy to say that when it comes to sci-fi you either love it or you hate it. But with Ender’s Game, it seems to be you either love it or you love it.... The war with the Buggers has been raging for a hundred years, and the quest for the perfect general has been underway for almost as long. Enter Andrew "Ender" Wiggin, the result of decades of genetic experimentation.

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 I leave the colony for a day at the lively and exciting Frizian Outpost, I never expect my life to change forever. Again. I'm a former human slave, freed by the Zyrnx Warriors and given sanctuary on the colony as I await transport back to Earth. But when I see a wild and injured Madixx male, caged and tormented by his captors, all it takes is a single glance for me to know I won't rest until I free him. Should I believe this huge, wild man is capable of love, or should I ignore my heart and take what may be my last chance to return to my world?

When the alien ship holding me malfunctions, I'm thrown into a shuttle and expelled from the ship. I awaken to find myself on what looks like a toxic waste dump - miles of inhospitable, eerie land where the ground smokes, the hills are black and barren, and it's unpleasantly cold. Soon I discover I'm not alone. There's an alien on the awful island. A familiar alien. He's the one who bought me from my captors. He's the one who paid extra because I'm a virgin. And he's the one who put me aboard the shuttle and saved my life when the ship went down.

Thousands of years ago, Earth’s terraforming program took to the stars. On the world they called Nod, scientists discovered alien life - but it was their mission to overwrite it with the memory of Earth. Then humanity’s great empire fell, and the program’s decisions were lost to time. Aeons later, humanity and its new spider allies detected fragmentary radio signals between the stars. They dispatched an exploration vessel, hoping to find cousins from old Earth. But those ancient terraformers woke something on Nod better left undisturbed. And it’s been waiting for them.

Born on an abandoned colony barely held together by sealant tape and hope, Aurora Sato is at the very bottom of the social pecking order. Hard work and brains got her into a coveted spot in the quadrant's top university. But her new supervisor is a woman who's not about to let an upstart like Aurora get anything close to a break. And her home colony is dying. Aurora's research project is their last hope, but only if she can complete it in time. One night out is all she'll allow herself. One night to forget her troubles. She never expects to meet a man who dazzles all her senses.

The basilisks, cruel alien serpents, attacked our world. They bombed us. Hunted us. Butchered us without pity. But now we will be the hunters. We will assemble a fleet. We will cross the vastness of space. And for the first time, we will strike the enemy on his own soil. It's a time for courage. A time for heroes. We will no longer hide in bunkers. We will no longer die like sheep. Freedom will be won with blood and fire. Freedom will be the legacy of Earth. We are the last humans. And we will win!

Others have written science fiction on the theme of immortality, but in The Boat of a Million Years, Poul Anderson made it his own. Early in human history, certain individuals were born who live on—unaging, undying—through the centuries and millennia. This story follows them over two thousand years, up to our time and beyond—to the promise of utopia, and to the challenge of the stars.

Whip-smart 13-year-old Julian Costello Proctor - better known as Jules - has an eidetic memory. For as long as he can remember, he has remembered everything. "My mind is always on," he explains. But when an unexpected death throws his life into turmoil, Jules begins to experience something strange. For the first time, there are holes in his memory. But that's not the strangest part. What's really weird isn't what he's forgotten; it's what he remembers. Memories of another life, not his own.

Randall Munroe's past won't stay dead. Born Tyler Callas, the pampered heir of a Corporate Council scion, he fled that life and adapted the new identity of Randall Munroe so he could join the Commonwealth Space Fleet Marine Corps' elite Force Recon unit in the war against the alien Tahni Imperium. But when he returned from the war, his old life found him. His mother, Corporate Council Executive Patrice Damiani, tracked him down and tried to return him to her web of control, even if she had to have his personality altered by drugs and psychological brainwashing to do it.

Given that the suns of Draco stretch almost 16 light-years from end to end, it stands to reason that the cost of transportation is the most important factor driving the 32nd century. And since Illyrion is the element most needed for space travel, Lorq von Ray is plenty willing to fly through the core of a recently imploded sun in order to obtain seven tons of it.

The Allied fleet has stopped the Nietzscheans at Pyra, but the battlefront grows wider day by day. While Sera distributes the Transcend's fleets to protect the alliance, Tanis must come to grips with what happened to her on Pyra's surface. In addition, Bob conveys a number of hard truths that will force her to re-think her role in humanity's future. But the allies' enemies are not sitting idle. General Greer, Justin, the Caretaker, and Airtha are all advancing plans to see their visions of the future come true.

The inside look at how the battle of the space billionaires began and why it matters, Escaping Gravity is former NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver’s firsthand account of how a handful of revolutionaries outmaneuvered the system of political patronage and bureaucracy that threatened the space agency. The success of Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin, Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic, and countless other commercial space efforts were preceded by decades of work by a group of people Garver calls “space pirates.”

Gnat is on his voyage with the Shiamiru, all the while trying to find backup for humanity among the great spacefaring races. After all, based on what he's already seen, he knows not to count on the good sense of his own kind. Even facing an external threat, the people of our Earth cannot see past their internal squabbles and come together to fight as one. Gnat does not expect gratitude from his leaders for taking such matters into his own hands, but when have laws and rules ever stopped our intrepid hero before?

Cosmos is one of the bestselling science books of all time. In clear-eyed prose, Sagan reveals a jewel-like blue world inhabited by a life form that is just beginning to discover its own identity and to venture into the vast ocean of space.

The laws of physics acting on the planet of Jai have been forever upended; its surface completely altered, and its inhabitants permanently changed, causing chaos. Fearing heresy, the artificially intelligent Gods that once ruled the galaxy became the planet’s jailers. Tiv Hunt, who once trusted these Gods completely, spends her days helping the last remaining survivors of Jai. Everyone is fighting for their freedom, and they call out for drastic action from their savior, Tiv’s girlfriend, Yasira. But Yasira has become deeply ill.

For over 40 years, Glen Cook has been among the most well-known, influential, and widely respected authors in science fiction and fantasy. Through classic series such as The Black Company, Garrett P.I., the Dread Empire, Starfishers, Darkwar, and more, his gritty, down-to-earth style left an indelible impression on his listeners around the world, forever shifting the genre landscape and carving out his place as a pioneering icon.

In the New York Times best-seller Darth Bane: Path of Destruction, Drew Karpyshyn painted a gripping portrait of a young man’s journey from innocence to evil. That man was Darth Bane, a twisted genius whose iron will, fierce ambition, and strength in the dark side of the Force made him a natural leader among the Sith - until his radical embrace of an all-but-forgotten wisdom drove him to destroy his own order...and create it anew from the ashes.

Blaze is a highly trained astral marine, fighting demons and saving lives, so he should know better than to bed his latest client. And yet, when she puts a hex on him, suddenly women find him irresistible. Even his ex-wife is eyeing him, which is a problem, because she's an evil witch. Literally. Together, Blaze and Mara form an uneasy alliance with a misfit crew of aliens and monsters to track down demons, snare ghosts, and destroy hellish creatures bent on murder - all while trying to close the gates of hell forever.

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.