Hard Contact

Everyone knew the legend of Christopher Sim. Fighter. Leader. An interstellar hero with a rare talent for war, Sim changed mankind's history forever when he forged a ragtag group of misfits into the weapon that broke the back of the alien Ashiyyur. But now, Alex Benedict has found a startling bit of information, long buried in an ancient computer file. If it is true, then Christopher Sim was a fraud.

In the final days of World War II, the Allies ransacked Berlin. Third Reich scientists were highly sought-out prizes for Americans and Russians desperate to possess Nazi nuclear knowledge. But they failed to capture one of the most vital members of Adolf Hitler’s inner circle, Hans Kammler, a liaison with the Nazis’ silent partners whose technological wonders nearly helped the Axis win the war - the alien species the Germans called the Eidechse. More than seven decades later, US Navy SEAL Mark Hunter witnesses the impossible in North Korea....

The lines are drawn, and the great game is about to begin.Wracked by guilt, Cassie Voges travels across a devastated landscape in an attempt to find some meaning to the chaos she has unleashed. Meanwhile, two mutually opposing forces that will determine the fate of the world prepares for an apocalyptic showdown. Global leaders unleash their formidable military might as they seek to take back what was lost, while the newly independent communities that were transformed by the alien organism aspire to rid their territories from the last vestiges of state control. With this inevitable conflict ...

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.

Get the Earth's Last Gambit bundle, featuring all four books in this first-contact series blending hard sci-fi and edge-of-your-seat action.

From bestselling author Saxon Andrew comes Defending Eden. Humans were forced for the second time to flee their planet due to an imminent attack from an aggressive civilization. They decided the only way to avoid fleeing again was to find a planet where they could hide and not be found. They chose a world without oceans covered in forests with giant trees; they named it Eden because of the abundance of life and biodiversity. The climate above the trees was hot year-round and the predators that inhabited Eden were out of a horrific nightmare. Giant meat-eating carnivores, pack hunting ...

Cassandra 22007 continues to hold the world in its grip. After the destruction of large parts of Los Angeles, the remaining inhabitants fight for their survival. Among them are Lee Rifkin, who must not miss the most important rocket launch of his career, and Branson, who is confronted with a truth that will change his life forever.

Particle physics was always an unlikely path to the stars, but with the discovery that space could be compressed, the entire galaxy had come within reach. The technology was astonishing, yet nothing compared to what humans encountered 4,000 light-years from home. Now, with an invitation from a mysterious gatekeeper, the people of Earth must decide if they're ready to participate in the galactic conversation.

Lise Adams is a young woman attempting to uncover the mystery of her father's disappearance ten years earlier. Turk Findley is an ex-sailor and sometimes-drifter. They come together when an infall of cometary dust seeds the planet with tiny remnant Hypothetical machines. Soon, this seemingly hospitable world will become very alien indeed--as the nature of time is once again twisted, by entities unknown.

A quantum revelation that could reshape the world. A shadow government ready to kill to keep it secret. Scientist James Lockwood has made a groundbreaking discovery in the realm of quantum physics. A discovery that could revolutionize travel and trade, and disrupt entire industries to the tune of tens of trillions of dollars. A discovery simple enough to replicate and understand, but in the wrong hands, could destroy the world. Before James can even finish his academic paper on the subject, let alone publish it, he and his sister Isabel have their lives upended. He soon learns the military ...

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. ...

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.

Sally Jansen was NASA's leading astronaut, until a mission to Mars ended in disaster. Haunted by her failure, she lives in quiet anonymity, convinced her days in space are over. She's wrong. A large alien object has entered the solar system on a straight course toward Earth. It has made no attempt to communicate and is ignoring all incoming transmissions. Out of time and out of options, NASA turns to Jansen. For all the dangers of the mission, it's the shot at redemption she always longed for.

A mysterious object crests the Sun during a total solar eclipse. Cryptic radio-frequency noise jams TVs and radios worldwide. Sinister alien artifacts inexplicably appear in the capitals of the world's powers. Paralyzed with fear, society begins to crumble. Former NASA scientist Jasmine Evans is the first to spot the object and sound the alarm. Recalled to investigate the mystery, her team makes a critical discovery. But nothing is what it appears to be.

Plug in your mind, or awaken it?In a near-future world embracing Neurodymium's CognaLink brain interface and the AI-managed Nexus platform, humanity trades agency for optimized perfection. Millions plug in, their thoughts guided, emotions smoothed, lives managed by a powerful, unseen Artificial Superintelligence aiming for societal stability by eliminating unpredictable human 'noise'. But Dr. Evelyn Reed knows there's more. A near-death experience granted her perfect memory of consciousness beyond the physical and revealed latent psi abilities. Now, leading a hidden team of psi-sensitives, ...

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.

When Simon and Katherine Hawke stumble upon an alien shuttle that has landed on earth, it’ll not only change the course of their lives, but of the entire world. Taking the shuttle into orbit, they discover a much larger ship left adrift with no one on board. Commandeering it, they confirm that we’re not alone in the universe and must prepare the human race for what is about to come. Recruiting from all over the world, they begin to expand their fleet and build a federation to give humans a foothold in the galaxy.

From the moment Sam Newman and fourteen others awaken inside metal coffins next to the burning wreckage of a spacecraft, they face a constant struggle to stay alive on a seemingly uninhabited planet light-years from home. Worse, the last any of them remember, they were back home on Earth—at a time when interstellar travel was little more than a distant pipe dream. Survival means finding out who-or what-brought them to this place. Yet what few answers they find amidst the steaming jungles and the ruins of that distant world defy all logic or sanity.

A watch commander at the U.S. Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command Operational Center finds himself at the heart of a first contact situation with an alien species and desperately working to prevent a war between humans and the aliens over the same benign assumption about one another.

One of the greatest science-fiction epics ever written, John Varley's Titan, Wizard, and Demon comprise a groundbreaking trilogy that will live forever. Human explorers have entered the sprawling mind of the alien Gaea. Now they must fight her will. For she is much too powerful. And definitely insane....