Hard Science Fiction Space

Eric Snow's last memory is of a blinding light streaking across the New Mexico night sky. The next thing he knows, he's being rescued by alien soldiers—The Legionnaires—from the clutches of the sinister Syergs, an extraterrestrial terrorist group. Unexpectedly whisked away to Akashon Prime, the crowning jewel of the galaxy, Eric is offered a fresh start alongside other human abductees. However, he soon discovers that this alien haven is far from paradise. The human refugees are second-class citizens, vulnerable and disenfranchised. Teaming up with astrophysicist Devon Marley, Eric's ...

Where life as we know it is impossible, the real adventure begins. Venus is a hostile planet, covered by active volcanoes, but NASA launches an expedition to search for life there anyway. Their specially developed airship cruises in the clouds of Venus to serve as a research platform for its four astronauts. When they discover dangerous activities on the glowing-hot surface, there can only be one explanation: A highly sophisticated life form must be at work.

With the Federation losing ground in its war against the Dominion, the galaxy's greatest smugglers, including the beautiful and enigmatic Vash, rendezvous on Deep Space 9. Their objective: a fabled lost orb of the Prophets unlike any other, rumored to be the key to unlocking a second wormhole in Bajoran Space, a second Celestial Temple.

In the second volume of the Native Tongue trilogy, the time has come for Láadan - the secret language created to resist an oppressive patriarchy - to empower womankind worldwide. To expand the language's reach, female linguists translate the Bible into Láadan and a group of Roman Catholic nuns are tasked to spread the language. But when outraged priests detect their sabotage, they send a double agent to infiltrate and destroy the movement from the inside.

Brazilian investigator Rosalia Morais, and her husband, revered American spacer Nicolau Aames, are building a life together in Mars’s Maxwell City, the fastest-growing settlement on the planet. Good news: there are no natural predators. Bad news: there are humans. That means the crime rate is growing, too. To ensure public safety, Rosie’s appointed by the mayor as the Red Planet’s first chief of police.

Rigel is a thousand lightyears farther from the Core Worlds than Earth, so they suffer the first attacks. The mood at Central is jubilant. Our greatest rival is falling—now is the time to strike while they’re weak! Legion Varus is deployed to Jungle World, a vital planet deep in Rigellian territory. Our foes, fighting on two fronts, are driven back with ease. But one man questions the wisdom of this move. Should Earth expand with greed, aiding new monsters from the Galactic Rim? That lone voice of reason comes from James McGill.

Three astronauts are headed out beyond Mars on the first human trip to the asteroid belt. In orbit around Earth, a construction crew is building the first permanent space station, owned by van Huyten’s consortium. Meanwhile, the president of the United States is trying to force her into making a secret deal to put weapons in orbit so he can intervene in the ongoing wars.

Geoff and his friends live in Phocaea, a distant asteroid colony on the Solar System's frontier. They're your basic high-spirited young adults, enjoying such pastimes as hacking matter compilers to produce dancing skeletons that prance through the low-gee communal areas, using their rocket-bikes to salvage methane ice shrapnel that flies away when the colony brings in a big (and vital) rock of the stuff, and figuring out how to avoid the ubiquitous surveillance motes.

The first interstellar ship, John Glenn, fled a solar system populated by rogue AIs and machine/human hybrids, threatened by too much nanotechnology, and rife with political dangers. The John Glenn’s crew intended to terraform the nearly pristine planet Ymir in hopes of creating a utopian society that will limit intelligent technology, but by some miscalculation they have landed in the wrong system.

After being lost in space for 11 years, Gabe finally makes his triumphant return to reunite with Alex and Chase and retrieve a possibly alien artifact - which may lead them to solve the greatest archaeological mystery of their careers, in the eighth installment of the Alex Benedict series.

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....

Cajeiri is the young son of the powerful leader of the Western Association-and he has become a target for forces bent on destroying his father's rule. For Cajeiri is the first ateva to understand the humans living among them-an understanding that threatens his own race.

Chaos has erupted throughout the known galaxy, threatening countless colonies and orbital habitats - as the Associative struggles vainly to keep the peace. Extreme measures are called for in these times of dire crisis, and the Star Marines are awakened from their voluntary 850-year cybe-hibe sleep. But General Trevor Garroway and his warriors are about to discover that the old rules of engagement have drastically changed.

A wave of death is spreading through the Milky Way galaxy, an expanding sphere of lethal gamma radiation that erupted from the galaxy's core 28,000 years ago. Every world it touched was wiped clean of all life. But it's possible to protect a planet from gamma radiation. Now, guided by the ancient intelligent machines called the Predecessors, men and women from Earth seek out those precious, rare worlds that harbor intelligent species, determined to save them.

Master storyteller Ben Bova continues his multi-volume "Grand Tour" saga chronicling humanity's exploration of near space with Titan, a fast-paced thriller focused on the first manned mission to the Solar System's most intriguing world. Skillfully blending high drama, passionate characters, and daring speculation with the latest discoveries from the current Cassini/Huygens probe of Saturn's moon, Bova has crafted a heart-stopping tale of epic adventure on mankind's next frontier.

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.

Centuries after a war with the Mutes, the first aliens to be encountered by humankind, a startling new discovery in the far reaches of the Orion Nebula appears. On a planet with conditions favorable to life, explorer vessel The Columbia comes across a small town seemingly inhabited by an intelligent species not yet discovered. But when a highly publicized follow-up mission is sent to make contact mere months later, the entire town has vanished, leaving no trace—or such is presumed to be the case until Alex Benedict and his archaeological crew show up to investigate.

In the thousand-sun network of humanity's expansion, new colony worlds are struggling to find their way. Every new planet lives on a knife-edge between collapse and wonder, and the crew of the aging gunship, Rocinante, have their hands more than full keeping the fragile peace. In the vast space between Earth and Jupiter, the inner planets and the Belt have formed a tentative and uncertain alliance still haunted by a history of wars and prejudices.

In a future where humanity has scattered itself across the stars and Earth itself is now a dimly remembered place of legend, two worlds of near-supernatural strangeness challenge two naive but courageous heroes.

In a time before the Foundations, psychohistory’s creator Hari Seldon is made to stand before the Emperor of the crumbling Galactic Empire to present how his scientific theory of predicting the future might be applied to the real world. However, Hari refuses to deploy his theory for political gain, setting off instead with reporter Chetter Hummin in quest of a place to safely apply his theory: Earth, the original home of humanity. All records of Earth have been lost to time. Hari will therefore have to look back into the past, in order to seal the future of humanity for ever.