Hard Contact

Jupiter's moon Io has an extremely hostile environment. There are hot lava streams, seas of boiling sulfur, and frequent volcanic eruptions straight from Dante’s Inferno, in addition to constant radiation bombardment and a surface temperature hovering at minus 180 degrees Celsius. Is it really home to a great danger that threatens all of humanity? That's what a surprise message from the life form discovered on Enceladus seems to indicate.

They banned him from space. But someone has offered him a way back. Can he afford the price? Famed engineer and test pilot Jericho Fox has been grounded for reasons he'd rather put behind him. But a political leader from a rival party offers to send him back to space. Fox finds himself stuck between working for the enemy and doing what he loves again. Meanwhile, high above Earth on Astraea Station, decorated astrophysicist Dr. Evelyn Park is on the verge of a scientific breakthrough that could make history.

When a stranger with a high-tech implant is found in the remote Finnish wilderness, neurosurgeon Bill and his computer scientist friend Steve see an opportunity. But they don't know what powers they're up against. They soon must ask themselves what moral boundaries they're willing to cross in order to succeed. Ten years later, the world has changed. Airships roam the skies, strange plants grow in the forests, and entire swaths of land are deserted.

Trapped on an alternate Earth, the combined crews of a crashed Russian spaceship, a British expeditionary force and a group of strays from the future must work together to survive, escape and discover what led them to this point. All are from parallel universes where small changes in history led to different realities, and the tensions between the groups are rising.

The UN warship Magellan is twelve light-years from Earth, exploring a cold eye, a tidally locked super-Earth called Bee. At least two advanced intelligent species evolved on the planet, but the crew's attempts at radio communication result in garbled replies. No one is waiting for them in orbit. The crew has to figure out why. Any misunderstandings could lead to war.

Paolo Bacigalupi's debut collection demonstrates the power and reach of the science-fiction short story. Social criticism, political parable, and environmental advocacy lie at the center of Paolo's work. Each of the stories herein is at once a warning and a celebration of the tragic comedy of the human experience.

Russian billionaire Nikolai Shostakovitch makes an offer to the former crew of the spaceship ILSE. He will finance a return voyage to the icy moon Enceladus. The offer is too good to refuse - the expedition would give them the unique opportunity to recover the body of their doctor, Dimitri Marchenko. Everyone on board knows that their benefactor acts out of purely personal motivations... but the true interests of the tycoon and the dangers that he conjures up are beyond anyone's imagination.

Jenny Baker thought that life was all mapped out for her. A junior in college, she studies physics and lives at home in the fictional college town of Long Lake, West Virginia. She and her boyfriend, Jake, have been together since they were freshmen in high school, and everyone assumes that they will get married when they graduate. On October 1, her life is shattered. Tragedy strikes and, depressed, Jenny drops out of school to take an internship at the university’s observatory, which is located in the Appalachian Mountains. There, she discovers a comet destined to end all life on Earth. ...

First in a brand-new Foreigner trilogy by Hugo Award-winning author C. J. Cherryh. Tracker is the 16th installment of C. J. Cherryh's acclaimed Foreigner series.

The endgame has begun. Who will win? Those who seek to rid the planet of the alien infestation have produced a counter agent that could turn the tide, while others who have accepted the new paradigm hope to live in peace. Two competing sides now begin their final dance, and Cassie is drawn right in the middle of this conflict. The ultimate fate of humanity hangs in the balance, and her actions will be the deciding factor.

Nearly a year has passed since Kyle and Alex Wimberly's daughter, Kayla, was born. She has already begun manifesting the gift of the mist. After two years of silence, the Dominion launch a devastating attack on planet Aarde, killing over one hundred thousand Katswiri, the native population. As Kai and Alex retaliate by destroying a Dominion core world, a metal sphere plows through Earth's atmosphere, making a fiery entry and sending a message: Kyle Wimberly. We know who you are. We know where you live. We are coming for you, but we will take your wife and your daughter first.

An intelligent robot and two young people explore Proxima Centauri b, the planet orbiting our nearest star, Proxima Centauri. Their ideas about the mission quickly prove grossly naïve as they venture about on this planet of extremes....

Something is devouring Earth. . . A suburban house in Oklahoma vanishes into a roaring abyss. A supertanker at sea suffers a fiery destruction. A blast in China drills a gigantic cavern into a mountainside. A severed arm plummets from the sky in Missouri. Could these catastrophes possibly be related? Intrepid geologist Dacey Livingstone is nearly killed by her first attempt to plumb the mystery—a perilous descent into a house-swallowing sinkhole. Still determined, she joins with eccentric physicist Gerald Meier in a quest that takes them from the ocean's depths to interstellar space. What...

Hunted by aliens, a down-and-out country boy must rely on an unlikely ally to save himself and becomes entangled in an intergalactic conflict that could alter the fate of the entire universe. Accidentally infected with tiny, autonomous alien tech, JB Tucker flees the off-worlders ruthlessly intent on retrieving their stolen technology and his utter destruction. Soon he finds himself thrust into the center of an intergalactic conflict that he can neither comprehend nor escape. To save the planet, he’ll have to save himself first. On the run, barely one step ahead of his alien pursuers, ...

The haiman Orlandine, charged with safeguarding lethal Jain tech swirling inside an accretion disc located in the distant reaches of space, has weaponized a black hole to eliminate the threat. But others are suspicious of her motives, and both the Polity AIs and the leaders of the alien prador kingdom dispatch fleets of warships in anticipation of conflict. As the black hole continues to eat its way through the planets in the accretion disc, making its way towards a dead sun, it becomes clear the disc has been hiding a larger secret.

Dream Breach: First Contact (The Dream Breach Series, Book 0) 🔹 What if your dreams weren’t just dreams? What if they were the key to unlocking the deepest mysteries of existence? Dr. Sandra Chen believes in facts, data, and logic. But when her sister Emily vanishes after working on a classified consciousness experiment, Sandra is forced to confront a terrifying possibility—what if reality isn’t what we think? At Greenstone Medical Center, coma patients exhibit impossible brainwave patterns—as if their minds are communicating across dimensions. As Sandra investigates, she ...

“This ain't your grandads time travel story! Original, creative & thought provoking with a healthy dose of sexuality without being gratuitous. A fast paced read that I thoroughly enjoyed. I look forward to more science fiction fantasy from Mr. Brink if this story is an indicator of what we can expect in the future ” – SciFi Fan A parallel universe is discovered after decades of research at the massive HEX particle accelerator. One scientist is sent through to the other side and is never seen again. Years later, another scientists is sent through, only to suffer the same unknown fate. ...

Reports of a strange, new habitable world have reached the 20 Planets of human civilization. When a team of scientists is assembled to investigate, exoethnologist Sara Callicot is recruited to keep an eye on an unstable crewmate. Thora was once a member of the interplanetary elite, but since her prophetic delusions helped mobilize a revolt on Orem, she's been banished to the farthest reaches of space to minimize the risk her very presence may pose.

Looking for an exhilarating science fiction adventure that will take you on a journey beyond the limits of Earth? Look no further than "First Step into Outer Space" by Alexander Hawthorne. In this thrilling novel, readers are transported to a future where humanity has finally taken the first steps towards establishing a permanent presence in the cosmos. With stunning detail and vivid prose, Hawthorne paints a picture of a world on the brink of a new era of exploration and discovery, where a brave group of pioneers must confront incredible challenges as they work to build the first space ...

Two years have passed since comet Anduru skimmed the clouds of Saturn on its way to Earth. Kath and Nolan are looking for answers, trying to find ways to protect Earth from the possibility of an invasive alien species overrunning the planet.