A mysterious signal coming from deep space attracts the attention of humanity's scientists and the soldiers who protect them—the kind of attention the originators of the signal will do anything to avoid. When the two converge, first contact doesn't go the way either side planned.

Our universe is but a snow globe—an experiment born of desperation and hope. The true universe is unfathomably vast, teeming with life and untold wonders. And, it is enslaved. Created by ancient aliens in a daring gambit to understand the nature of the enemy, humanity is now asked to be the savior of a universe not their own. If they are to succeed, they must rise above not only their fractious past but the sins of their genetic ancestors to boldly embrace a future they never dared imagine possible.

A formidable alien armada stands on the brink of vanquishing the cosmos, their gaze set firmly on every inhabited world. The last line of defense? An eclectic crew of improbable champions: a maverick starfighter pilot, a daredevil stuntwoman, a lethal super-assassin, and a cosmic prankster with alien tricks up his sleeves. Their mission is to shield not just humanity, but billions of other intelligent lifeforms spanning the multiverse.

Grant Masterson is a man with nothing left to lose.... A disgraced ex-cop, framed by a crooked politician, abandoned by his family, he’s forced into the life of a bounty hunter just to survive. Tracking down a traitor who stole military-grade weapons to sell on the black market, Masterson finds out things aren’t as simple as the wanted poster made them seem. Because Delia Beckett isn’t a traitor, simply a patsy, and the forces manipulating her may be the same ones responsible for Masterson’s fall from grace.

With no water, no air, and no native life, the planet Gora is unremarkable. The only thing it has going for it is a chance proximity to more popular worlds, making it a decent stopover for ships traveling between the wormholes that keep the Galactic Commons connected. If deep space is a highway, Gora is just your average truck stop. The Five-Hop is run by an enterprising alien and her sometimes helpful child, who work hard to provide a little piece of home to everyone passing through.

When Ben Murdock receives a text message offering a fully operational starship for sale, he’s certain it has to be a joke. Already trapped in the worst day of his life and desperate for a way out, he decides to play along. Except there is no joke. The starship is real. And Ben’s life is going to change in ways he never dreamed possible. All he has to do is sign the contract. Joined by his streetwise best friend and a bizarre tenant with an unseverable lease, he’ll soon discover that the universe is more volatile, treacherous, and awesome than he ever imagined.

Two civilizations clash. A rebellion grows. The fate of the galaxy hangs in the balance. Technical Chief "Pappy" Gunther is a grizzled, burning-out commando in the United Earth Armed Forces. He ponders a return to civilian life, yet feels a strong sense of belonging to his elite team. When colonists on a far-flung world request aid, a task force from several allied systems is assembled. Pappy and his crack unit are sent to investigate and to engage a mysterious alien force from beyond.

Nora Devi is a xeno-archaeologist with a complicated past. She has buried more secrets than she’s dug up. Widowed in the recently ended twelve year war between Capitoline and Palantine, she now makes a living as an independent tagger in border space. Captain Liam Kimani could be credited with ending the latest royal war. Instead, he’s blamed for it. Dirty commoners aren’t meant to lay their hands on royalty. He has no regrets.

Out of the blue, a young Space Fleet officer's dream becomes reality: He's made captain of a starship. Just in time for the return of humanity's most terrible enemy, after 50 years of peace. To survive against this enemy, Captain Tad Thatcher will have to do more than learn how to become an effective commander, or how to wrangle his wayward crew. He will need to reinvent space combat. From scratch.

Hudson Powell had always been a drifter, but after his father died, he vowed to turn his life around. He quit freelancing as a starship pilot and joined the Relic Guardian Force as a 38-year-old rookie. That was a big mistake. The RGF police the alien wrecks that have been found on every portal world discovered in the last century. They make sure the relic hunters pay taxes on the priceless alien tech they scavenge from the hulks. The snag is that the RGF is corrupt. And Hudson’s training officer Logan Griff is the worst scumbag of the lot.

The Sa’Nerra were close to defeat, then everything changed. Armed with a neural weapon, the brutal alien warriors turned Fleet crew against their own. Entire warships went rogue. Suspicion and fear ran riot. Surrender seemed like the only option. But Lucas Sterling knows that in the fight against the Sa’Nerra there is only victory or death.

This novella will take the listener to a dystopian future - a world of adults where birthmothers are a privileged class and every child is a celebrity. Death has been conquered, but overcrowding has led to a government-enforced zero population growth. When Janice learns she is pregnant without authorization, she must find a life donor or forfeit her own. For every child born, someone must die. The math is simple, but the politics are complicated. Janice soon finds herself diving into a deep conspiracy.

Born to oppression, Siena is an ordinary young woman, until an act of defiance leaves her scarred and marked as a rebel. She's sold to Ero, a fallen Krey with a desperate plan to redeem his once-powerful family. He intends to enhance slaves by altering their genetic code, increasing their value through an illegal experiment.

Dillon Mackey has always wanted to travel the stars.... When brilliant scientist and inventor Sherisza Rousilarru offers him an apprenticeship aboard her starship, he leaps at the chance to escape a boring future in the law.

Commander Dalton Reeves is a maverick officer with exceptional genetic strength and a dark family history—a history that will come back to haunt him. Punished for exceeding orders one time too many, he’s packed off to the "The Abyss"—the most dangerous space station in the galaxy. But a posting that should have led to five years in obscurity will propel Reeves into the center of an interstellar war against a long-forgotten alien adversary with a bitter grudge.

Before he was Oldtimer, he was Craig Emilson, a young doctor,sucked into military service at the outbreak of World War III. Enlisting to become a Special Forces suborbital paratrooper, Craig is selected to take part in the most important mission in American military history, a sortie into enemy territory to eliminate the world's first strong artificial intelligence.

Two hundred years after a nuclear apocalypse forced humanity to flee earth, humans still remember the most feared warriors of that planet - the Paratwa. These are genetically modified killers who occupy two bodies controlled by one vicious mind. The legendary Paratwa named Reemul, known as the Liege-Killer, was the strongest of them all. Now someone has revived Reemul from stasis and sent him to terrorize the peaceful orbital colonies of Earth. Is this an isolated incident, or has the one who unleashed this terrible power announced a gambit for control over the entire human race?

Rhoma Grace is a 16-year-old student from House Cancer with an unusual way of reading the stars. While her classmates use measurements to make accurate astrological predictions, she looks up at the night sky and makes up stories.

For Sam Ryan life began at age 14. She has no memory of her parents or her childhood. In a decade of service with the state police, Sam has exhausted the resources of the force searching for clues to her identity. But all mention of her family seems to have been deliberately wiped off the record. Everything changes the night Sam's missing partner resurfaces as a vampire...and forces her to kill him in self-defense. Now Sam is charged with murder.

Will Stark is a self-made multibillionaire, happily married, and a proud father. He arrives home to find his house destroyed and his family murdered and is himself rescued from certain death by a mysterious trio. His rescuers are part of a splinter faction of a centuries-old secret society that has developed incredible technological advances and unlocked the method to release humanity's innate potential. Will was mistakenly believed to be a key dissident and fugitive, on the run from the primary group, known as the Aliomenti.

A walled city surrounded by lush land, protected by high mountain summits, and fortified by a massive gate to secure the only pass into the valley, The Bastion remained humanity's last hope against the fearsome undead creatures known as the Inferi Scourge. On one fateful day, the valley gate failed and the Inferi Scourge overran and destroyed the human settlements outside the walls, trapping the remaining survivors inside the city. Now, decades later, the last remaining humans are struggling to survive....

Short novels are movie-length narratives that may well be the perfect length for science fiction stories. This audio collection presents the best-of-the-best short science fiction novels published in 2014 by current and emerging masters of this vibrant form of storytelling.

The music of Rush, one of the most successful bands in music history, is filled with fantastic stories, evocative images, thought-provoking futures and pasts. In this anthology, notable, best-selling, and award-winning writers each chose a Rush song as the spark for a new story, drawing inspiration from the visionary trio Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson, and Neil Peart.

For generations, girls known as Spinsters have been called by Arras' Manipulation Services to work the looms and control what people eat, where they live, how many children they have, and even when they die. Gifted with the unusual ability to weave time with matter, 16-year-old Adelice Lewys is exactly what the Guild is looking for, and in the world of Arras, being chosen as a Spinster is everything a girl could want. It means privilege, eternal beauty, and being something other than a secretary. But Adelice isn’t interested.

Convicted criminal James Griffin-Mars is no one's hero. In his time, Earth is a toxic, abandoned world, and humans have fled into the outer solar system to survive, eking out a fragile, doomed existence among the other planets and their moons. Those responsible for delaying humanity's demise believe time travel holds the key, and they have identified James, troubled though he is, as one of a select and expendable few ideally suited for the most dangerous job in history.

AD 3580. The Intersolar Commonwealth has spread through the galaxy to over a thousand star systems. It is a culture of rich diversity with a place for everyone. A powerful navy protects it from any hostile species that may lurk among the stars. For Commonwealth citizens, even death has been overcome.

In the near future, the nano-drug Nexus can link mind to mind. There are some who want to improve it. There are some who want to eradicate it. And there are others who just want to exploit it. When a young scientist is caught improving Nexus, he’s thrust over his head into a world of danger and international espionage, with far more at stake than anyone realizes.

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.

Joel Byram is an everyday 22nd century guy. He spends his days training artificial-intelligence engines to act more human, jamming out to 1980s new wave - an extremely obscure genre - and trying to salvage his deteriorating marriage. Joel is pretty much an everyday guy with everyday problems - until he's accidentally duplicated while teleporting. Now Joel must outsmart the shadowy organization that controls teleportation, outrun the religious sect out to destroy it, and find a way to get back to the woman he loves.

Four years ago, a bomb destroyed part of the dome protecting Armstrong, the largest city on the Moon. Now, as the city celebrates its survival with an event it calls Anniversary Day, a larger threat looms - one that begins with the murder of the mayor, and spreads across the moon itself.