Space Science

Rory Thorne is a princess with 13 fairy blessings, the most important of which is to see through flattery and platitudes. As the eldest daughter, she always imagined she'd inherit her father's throne and govern the interplanetary Thorne Consortium. Then, her father is assassinated, her mother gives birth to a son, and Rory is betrothed to the prince of a distant world. When Rory arrives in her new home, she uncovers a treacherous plot to unseat her newly betrothed and usurp his throne.

On July 23, 1999, the Chandra X-Ray Observatory, the most powerful X-ray telescope ever built, was launched aboard the space shuttle Columbia. Since then, Chandra has given us a view of the universe that is largely hidden from telescopes sensitive only to visible light. In Chandra's Cosmos, Wallace H. Tucker uses a series of short, connected stories to describe the telescope's exploration of the hot, high-energy face of the universe.

Les Johnson takes you on a thrilling tour of the physics and technologies that may enable us to reach the stars. He discusses the latest exoplanet discoveries, promising interstellar missions on the not-so-distant horizon, and exciting new developments in space propulsion, power, robotics, communications, and more. But interstellar travel will not be easy, and it is not for the faint of heart. Johnson describes the harsh and forbidding expanse of space that awaits us, and he addresses the daunting challenges that we need to overcome in order to realize tomorrow's possibilities.

You can't mistake just anyone for a Phule. When the planet Zenobia is invaded, Captain Willard Phule is made their military advisor. The first priority for Phule's Company: staying out from underfoot of the peaceful, dinosaurlike Zenobians.... But, unbeknownst to the Zenobians, they're getting two Phules for the price of one. A robot double of Phule appears out of nowhere. And only the real Phule knows who the real Phule is....

A ship under siege. A world on the brink of civil war. A distraught people seeking a new beginning. A battle weary crew that can barely hold it together. Even a legend can use a little help from time to time. The crew of the Aurora, the Karuzari, and the Corinairans must find a way to work together, or else they may all perish.

With the galaxy thrown into chaos by mutual breaches of the Two Hundred Years' peace, what seemed like an isolated incident on the Thelicosa/Merida border has become an epidemic. In the midst of this chaos, the Thelicosan and Meridan fleets on their respective borders have come to a sort of tense peace after the events in Book II, but now it's clear: Somebody wants war. And it's not the Free Systems of the galaxy.

More than half a century since Roswell, UFOs have been making headlines again. On December 17, 2017, the New York Times ran a front-page story about a Pentagon program called the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program. The article hinted, and its sources clearly said in subsequent interviews, that some of the ships in question couldn't be linked to any country. The implication was that they might be linked to other solar systems. The UFO community - those who had been thinking about, seeing, and analyzing UFOs for years - was surprisingly skeptical of the revelation.

Since fleeing the supernova chain reaction at the galactic core, the cowardly Puppeteers of the Fleet of Worlds have - just barely - survived one crisis after another: the rebellion of their human slaves, the relentless questing of the species of Known Space, the spectacular rise of the starfishlike Gw'oth, the onslaught of the genocidal Pak. Now fresh disaster looms, as though past crises have returned and converged. Who can possibly save the Fleet this time?

From bestselling author Saxon Andrew comes a story about all the things that make us human. Angle Barrett decides to buy a broken spaceship as a monument to his deceased wife. He had no idea that purchase would lead to repercussions that would shake the foundations of all the civilizations in the galaxy. All he wanted was to live in peace until he joined his wife. Instead, he is targeted by the most powerful civilization in the galaxy, and they will do anything to prevent a secret from coming out, even if it means destroying Earth in the process. A Warship Named Sky-A Hero's Story is a ...

Aiyana and Kendra Cassidy never anticipated becoming the key to humanity's survival. As leaders of the Heavy Lift Corporation, their objective is clear: secure humanity’s future among the stars. Politics? Who needs it, when the galaxy is calling? The consequences of failure are stark: three-quarters of Earth’s population face starvation within decades, and the Solarian Union’s dominance could become unassailable. Success, however, means a rebirth for humanity—a chance to explore the stars, establish new colonies, and reclaim control over their destiny.

In her third audio outing, Hilda has been newly initiated into the Sparrow Scouts and now she's ready to earn some badges, and perhaps even make some human friends. Yet a dark, menacing creature is threatening Trolberg, and only our blue-haired heroine can get to the bottom of what it wants.

Major Rodger Y. Murphy should have died when his helicopter crashed off the coast of Mogadishu in November, 1993. Instead, he woke up in August, 2125, in a binary star system 152 light years from home. Without any memory of the otherworldly abductors who spirited them away in cold sleep, Murphy and 100 other “Lost Soldiers” have been retrieved and awakened by officers of the Consolidated Terran Republic. Promising to return to the 55 Tauri B system after completing a distant mission, they leave the twentieth century castaways with a daunting objective.

Fighter pilot Beau Ward was always willing to bend the rules to get the job done. His "independent" attitude got him bounced around the Federation Fleet for years—until he took it too far. A long-standing debt has been called in, and he's the one who must pay it back.

Owen Deathstalker - outlawed, with a price on his head and the blood of a mighty warrior lineage in his veins - had no choice but to embrace a dangerous destiny. With nothing to lose, only he had the courage to take up arms against Queen Lionstone XIV. Now as he gathers his unlikely allies - the legendary washed-up hero Jack Random, the beautiful pirate Hazel d'Arc, and the alien Hadenmen whose purposes no human can discern - the eyes of the downtrodden are upon him while the freedom of a galaxy hangs in the balance....

Twenty-plus sci-fi stories from the lighter side, many of them illustrated. More from the lighter, laughing side than the dark-dungeoned depths; but they’re all here somewhere, from a satisfied smile; or shed a tear. Maybe a “Yes! Get in there”. Or catch your breath at the trials that some have to face. From crackling two-pagers where someone hasn’t quite read the situation right, to sixty-plus sides chronicling what you really have to do if you want to survive on this planet. Tales of here and now, wondering what’s among us; or what awaits us amid the distant futures and far-...

Michael Wallace presents the first book in his Alliance Trilogy.

The last reward Kira Demirci expected for heroism in a time of war was to spend the rest of her life dodging assassins - but when her government betrays her as part of their surrender, she and her comrades flee the star system of Apollo to the edge of civilized space. The Syntactic Cluster is disorganized, disunified, and in desperate need of the nova fighters Kira smuggled out of Apollo with her. With an entire squadron supposed to follow in her wake, it falls to her to build a new home for her comrades.

The Blaze are getting their direction and technology from those who had driven the Progenitors from the galaxy. The Vestrall. Leviathan takes his select humans to the frontlines in Earth's war with the Blaze Collective to collect intelligence on where to find the Vestrall. The Blaze aren't forthcoming. They go farther, a thousand light-years behind enemy lines to a planet that used to be important. It's no longer the home of the Vestrall, but of a biomechanical race that is little more than drones.

The shady crew of the White Raven run freight and salvage at the fringes of our solar system. They discover the wreck of a centuries-old exploration vessel floating light years away from its intended destination and revive its sole occupant, who wakes with news of First Alien Contact. When the crew break it to her that humanity has alien allies already, she reveals that these are very different extra-terrestrials and the gifts they bestowed on her could kill all humanity, or take it out to the most distant stars.

When Thomas heard the cries for help, he didn’t hesitate to do the right thing. It was his chance for redemption. Until everything went wrong. The cave should have been deserted. The perfect place to hide. Instead, it’s crawling with soldiers and engineers working to unearth the impossible: Excalibur.