Fantasy First Contact

Kris Bjornsen has come a long way since alien slave ships scooped her up in Denver with thousands of others. Dropped off on an apparently uninhabited world with the rest, she has fallen in love with Zainal, a renegade Catteni, and has made a comfortable life for herself and her new family. But she feels a soldier's duty to escape Botany and rejoin the struggle for freedom.

Abby Tanner is content to live on her mountain while she creates beautiful works of art and enjoys the peace and quiet. All that changes when a strange golden spaceship crash lands on it. Now Abby has to deal with a golden ship, a tortured alien, and an insane local sheriff.

July 25, 2234: The crew of the Adamura discovers the Anomaly. On the seemingly uninhabited planet Talos VII:a circular pit, 50 kilometers wide. Its curve not of nature, but design. Now, a small team must land and journey on foot across the surface to learn who built the hole and why. But they all carry the burdens of lives carved out on disparate colonies in the cruel cold of space. For some the mission is the dream of the lifetime, for others a risk not worth taking, and for one it is a desperate attempt to find meaning in an uncaring universe.

In 2018, Canadian archaeologist Ron Jackson makes a mind-boggling discovery in Antarctica - right before disappearing without a trace, leaving behind only his controversial theory that humans have lived on Earth far, far longer than we think they have. Decades later, in 2042, when Jackson's wife dies under mysterious circumstances, an unlikely pair of investigators, Agatha Devenworth and Pano Hofer, begin investigating whether her death might be connected to Jackson's disappearance.

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.

It begins with Peter, a devoted man of faith, as he is called to the mission of a lifetime, one that takes him galaxies away from his wife, Bea. Peter becomes immersed in the mysteries of an astonishing new environment, overseen by an enigmatic corporation known only as USIC.

Her name is Binti, and she is the first of the Himba people ever to be offered a place at Oomza University, the finest institution of higher learning in the galaxy. But to accept the offer will mean giving up her place in her family to travel between the stars among strangers who do not share her ways or respect her customs. Knowledge comes at a cost, one that Binti is willing to pay, but her journey will not be easy. The world she seeks to enter has long warred with the Meduse, an alien race that has become the stuff of nightmares.

The largest known meteorite has been discovered, entombed in the earth for millions of years on a frigid, desolate island off the southern tip of Chile. At four thousand tons, this treasure seems impossible to move. New York billionaire Palmer Lloyd is determined to have this incredible find for his new museum. Stocking a cargo ship with the finest scientists and engineers, he builds a flawless expedition. But from the first approach to the meteorite, people begin to die....

What truths lie in the black void between the stars? It’s late September 2019 when a young astronomer working at the Haleakala Space Observatory in Maui, Hawaii, accidentally spots a black dot in the night sky and is calculated to be closely trailing Earth by only seventy-five million miles…on the same ecliptic plane. NASA launches an unmanned probe to Earth’s nearest neighbor, given the name ILK-87b. The images coming back from the black planet both shock and amaze those inside the halls of NASA. Curiosity, fear, and dread overcome insiders as infrastructure is detected on the black ...

Though perhaps most famous as a novelist, Philip K. Dick wrote more than 100 short stories over the course of his career, each as mind-bending and genre-defining as his longer works. Philip K. Dick's Electric Dreams collects 10 of the best. In "Autofac," Dick shows us one of the earliest examples (and warnings) in science fiction of self-replicating machines. "Exhibit Piece" and "The Commuter" feature Dick exploring one of his favorite themes: the shifting nature of reality and whether it is even possible to perceive the world as it truly exists.

When the Equal Grasp and other unsavory aliens launch their plot to open humanity up to the stars—in the name of profit, of course—Van and his crew spring into action, fearing the fallout of a world gone mad. With each passing event in his career, Van continues to unravel locked memories, held by Perry, that explain a family history far more violent than he ever imagined.

The urge to explore and discover is a natural and universal one, and the edge of the unknown is expanded with each passing year as scientific advancements inch us closer and closer to the outer reaches of our solar system and the galaxies beyond them. Generations of writers have explored these new frontiers and the endless possibilities they present in great detail. The Final Frontier delivers stories from across this literary spectrum, a reminder that the universe is far large and brimming with possibilities than we could ever imagine, as hard as we may try.

We are entering another ice age. In less than a year, my brother and I will freeze to death, unless we starve first. Experts have created biodomes, built tunnels, and rationed food and fuel to make the end more tolerable, for a bit. When Lon of planet Kaipra contacts me, claiming he has the key to our survival, I have to listen. He’ll help humans survive the ice age, but at the ultimate cost—I must agree to leave my brother, my friends, and the entire planet I call home to travel across the galaxy with him. Can I trust him? What are his plans with me? And do I even have a choice? ...

The first invasion of Earth was beaten back by a coalition of corporate and international military forces and the Chinese army. China has been devastated by the Formic's initial efforts to eradicate Earth life forms and prepare the ground for their own settlement. The Scouring of China struck fear into the other nations of the planet; that fear blossomed into drastic action when scientists determined that the single ship that wreaked such damage was merely a scout ship. There is a mothership out beyond the solar system's Kuiper Belt, and it's heading into the system.

Nathan Myers and the crew of the Legacy have been taking down some of the galaxy's worst criminals. The corrupt leaders that are hiding in the shadows have taken notice. They are combining forces and sharing technology, even resorting to acts of terrorism in hopes of putting a stop to Nathan's conquests. If the face of growing opposition, Nathan and his allies discover an even deadlier threat. The Prule that have been hiding in the galaxy for more than 200 years have suddenly come out of hiding.

Naval Officer Jack Samson thought a posting to the frontier of human-inhabited space was the death blow to his career. He couldn't have been more wrong. A routine inspection of a small merchant vessel leads to devastating loss and the discovery of strange, fascinating objects. As astonishing discoveries unfold, a mysterious and hostile ship proves that Samson has a competitor in unlocking the secrets of an ancient alien civilization and that humanity might not be alone in the galaxy after all.

In 2004, Doctor Damien Howard's 131st birthday celebration took an unexpected turn. His personal SETI project detected an extraterrestrial signal directed at Earth. Unfortunately, Dr. Howard's long-hoped-for communication contained a message of dire warning rather than greeting. In 1945, humanity had become a species of galactic interest and was given 100 years to address the issue.

Morgan Mars is doing everything he can to protect humanity from alien invasion. But even his new organization, The First Line of Defence, isn’t enough to save what’s already lost. Sectors are collapsing like dominoes as the aftermath of the 20th Cycle invasion leaves everyone trapped in the falling Sectors. No one knows what to do. No one, that is, except Nicholas Thistlebush. He has a plan to save Sector 6. The only question is, what will it cost him?

On New Year's eve 2022, unknown flying objects appear over Europe and ignite an inferno of violence among themselves. Debris from one of the spacecraft falls on Athens, turning the city center into a smoking crater. The destroyed remnant of the former metropolis is declared a restricted zone by NATO forces and sealed off. Amid the few survivors struggling for food, medicine, and clean water, Nikos takes care of his girlfriend, Maria, only to soon find out that to avert a creeping death, there is only one way out of the hell of Athens—the wreckage of the alien ship.

Kate Harper can't believe that a month ago, she was living on Earth, going through the motions of a normal, human life. Now? A seriously sexy, insatiable, alpha alien knocked her up and she's learning how to rule over an entire species with her new mate. As Kate tries to carve out a place for herself on Luxiria--all while pregnant with an alien warrior's baby that loves to kick--there's unrest brewing on the planet and her strong alien mate's authority is challenged. And why can't she shake the feeling that he's hiding something from her?