Fantasy First Contact

Growing up, she was the girl down the street. Even then, I knew she was different. She was tough, rough, and had the strength to stop a speeding car with her bare hands. We were as thick as thieves, sharing every adventure. Then one day she revealed a secret. She wasn't from Earth. She was from a distant place called the Arcadia Multiverse. Her people lived under the rule of a god-like entity known as the System. That System had its gaze fixed on Earth. And it was only a matter of time before it came for us.

On Mars, a scientist experiments with a new engine that will one day become the drive that fuels humanity's journey into the stars. On an asteroid station, a group of prisoners are oblivious to the catastrophe that awaits them. On a future Earth beset by overpopulation, pollution, and poverty, a crime boss desperately seeks to find a way off planet. On an alien world, a human family struggles to establish a colony and make a new home. All these stories and more are featured in this unmissable collection of short fiction set in the hardscrabble world of The Expanse.

Earth was destroyed on June 12, 2180. Lieutenant Selene Genji watched it happen. And only she can prevent it. Thrown forty years into the past, into a time before the Universal War began, Genji can only guess what to do to change the events that led to the death of all humanity. She has no way of knowing the long-term impacts of her actions and can only depend on her instincts.

Silas is growing into the responsibilities weighing him down. Earth is struggling, but there is hope. The deals that Silas has made have brought resources and trainers to Earth. He's helped some leaders gain an understanding of what they will face. His team has continued to grow but now he finds himself facing the greatest challenge to any Forerunner, the Wild Hunt. He'll be hunted but also have to hunt other Forerunners while forging a shaky alliance with those he can't trust. Even more disturbing, it seems like there might be more than one system to choose from.

When the solar flare took out the world's power… nobody could explain why the street lights still glowed in Jakarta. Was it a signal from space? When the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) transmits strange images of the red planet: a scientifically unexplained light phenomenon on the summit of Elysium Mons has the experts both concerned and baffled. A team needed to check it out. The mission to Mars was set. Now, they had to build the team.

As a child Rose Franklin made an astonishing discovery: a giant metallic hand buried deep within the earth. As an adult she's dedicated her brilliant scientific career to solving the mystery that began that fateful day: Why was a titanic robot of unknown origin buried in pieces around the world? Years of investigation have produced intriguing answers - and even more perplexing questions. But the truth is closer now than ever before when a second robot, more massive than the first, materializes and lashes out with deadly force.

A girl named Rose is riding her new bike near her home in Deadwood, South Dakota, when she falls through the earth. She wakes up at the bottom of a square hole, its walls glowing with intricate carvings. But the firemen who come to save her peer down upon something even stranger: a little girl in the palm of a giant metal hand.

Ethan Bryant was supposed to fall asleep on a ship leaving Earth and wake up 50 years later with his family on the planet Minea. Instead, after the ship's caretaker - the lone human in charge of monitoring the ship's vital systems - suddenly died, the ship's computer locked Ethan out of his stasis chamber and gave him the job. That was five years ago. Five years of checking to make sure everything ran smoothly on a ship Ethan knows almost nothing about.

Earth failed. In a desperate bid to escape, the spaceship Enkidu and its captain, Heorest Holt, carried its precious human cargo to a potential new paradise. Generations later, this fragile colony has managed to survive, eking out a hardy existence. Yet life is tough, and much technological knowledge has been lost. Then strangers appear. They possess unparalleled knowledge and thrilling technology–and they've arrived from another world to help humanity’s colonies. But not all is as it seems, and the price of the strangers' help may be the colony itself.

For seasons, I have waited for her - my perfect mate. In a tribe full of happy couples, I am alone. But I am not content to remain this way. There are no eligible unmated females left, so I will do whatever it takes to bring females back to our tribe, even if it means doing something wrong. Even if it means I must purchase my mate on the intergalactic black market. I will do anything to possess her, to claim her as my own.

Earth is conquered. The Shongairi have arrived in force, and humanity’s cities lie in radioactive ruins. In mere minutes, over half the human race has died. Master Sergeant Stephen Buchevsky, who thought he was being rotated home from his latest tour in Afghanistan, finds himself instead prowling the back country of the Balkans, dodging alien patrols and trying to organize the scattered survivors without getting killed.

Colonial Union Ambassador Ode Abumwe and her team are used to life on the lower end of the diplomatic ladder. But when a high-profile diplomat goes missing, Abumwe and her team are last minute replacements on a mission critical to the Colonial Union’s future. As the team works to pull off their task, CDF Lieutenant Harry Wilson discovers there’s more to the story of the missing diplomats than anyone expected... a secret that could spell war for humanity.

The first book in C.J.Cherryh's eponymous series, Foreigner begins an epic tale of the survivors of a lost spacecraft who crash-land on a planet inhabited by a hostile, sentient alien race. From its beginnings as a human-alien story of first contact, the Foreigner series has become a true science fiction odyssey, following a civilization from the age of steam through early space flight to confrontations with other alien species in distant sectors of space. It is the masterwork of a truly remarkable author.

Writer Bobbi Anderson becomes obsessed with digging up something she's found buried in the woods near her home. With the help of her friend, Jim Gardener, she uncovers an alien spaceship. Though exposure to the Tommyknockers, who piloted the alien ship, has harmful effects on residents' health, the people of Haven develop a talent for creating innovative devices under their increasingly malignant influence.

Mickey7 is an Expendable: a disposable employee on a human expedition sent to colonise the ice world Niflheim. Whenever there's a mission that's too dangerous - even suicidal - the crew turns to Mickey. After one iteration dies, a new body is regenerated with most of his memories intact. Mickey signed on to escape from both bad debts and boredom on Midgard. After six deaths, Mickey7 understands the terms of his deal...and why it was the only colonial position unfilled when he took it.

The alien lord holding me prisoner is the most powerful being I've ever encountered. A winged immortal who can kill with a mere wave of his hand. He's arrogant and alien. Demanding and dangerous. Brutal, even beautiful, though I hate him too much to admit it. He hates me, too. But even though my captor despises me, he needs me. He requires a bride for political reasons, and he makes me an offer I have no choice but to accept. Marry him, play the part of his happy wife, and he'll give me the one thing I want most—my freedom.

Communist China, Japan, Nazi Germany, the United States: they began World War II as mortal enemies. But suddenly their only hope for survival - never mind victory - was to unite to stop a mighty foe: one whose frightening technology appeared invincible. Far worse beings than the Nazis were loose. From Warsaw to Moscow to China's enemy-occupied Forbidden City, the nations of the world had been forced into an uneasy alliance since humanity began its struggle against overwhelming odds.

When a lab experiment results in a group of scientists gaining extremely long life, they realize that if they stay on Earth, they'll soon become lab specimens. To escape this, they decide to travel to the stars. Unfortunately, the stars are already occupied.

It is the year 12,020 GE and Emperor Cleon I sits uneasily on the Imperial throne of Trantor. Here in the great multidomed capital of the Galactic Empire, 40 billion people have created a civilization of unimaginable technological and cultural complexity. Yet Cleon knows there are those who would see him fall - those whom he would destroy if only he could read the future.

My name's Noah Kilmartin. I'm from Ruddock, Ohio, and I'm absolutely, 100 percent unqualified to save the universe from the slavering demonic hordes of the super evil queen Lilith. Too bad nobody asked my opinion. All I've got to do is pass five lethal trials that'll prove I'm the universe's last chance at salvation. To do so, I'll have to lean hard on those three years of Okinawan jiu-jutsu classes I took in high school, learn to wield my new magic sword, and, oh yeah - select five women to flesh out my team.