Adrian Tchaikovksy's critically acclaimed stand-alone novel Children of Time is the epic story of humanity's battle for survival on a terraformed planet. Who will inherit this new Earth? The last remnants of the human race left a dying Earth, desperate to find a new home among the stars. Following in the footsteps of their ancestors, they discover the greatest treasure of the past age - a world terraformed and prepared for human life. But all is not right in this new Eden.

A catastrophic event renders the earth a ticking time bomb. In a feverish race against the inevitable, nations around the globe band together to devise an ambitious plan to ensure the survival of humanity far beyond our atmosphere, in outer space.

After the Final War, after the appearance of the Bug aliens and their enforced peace, Shining Smith is still alive, still doing business from the old scrapyard bequeathed to her by her father. But Shining is now something more than human. And the scrapyard is no longer just a scrapyard, but a place full of secrets. This life she has built, while empty, is predictable and safe. Until the only friend left from her previous life shows up, dead, in the back of a scrapped Tesla warplane. Clutched in her cold fingers is a note to Shining - warning her of a coming attack.

Kyle Riggs is snatched by an alien spacecraft sometime after midnight. The ship is testing everyone it catches and murdering the weak. The good news is that Kyle keeps passing tests and staying alive. The bad news is the aliens who sent this ship are the nicest ones out there.

One starship will either save Earth or destroy her. A century ago our star erupted, destroying Earth's wormhole network and closing off trade with her colonized planets. After being out of contact with the younger worlds for so many years, humanity is shocked when a huge ship appears at the edge of the solar system. Our outdated navy investigates, both curious and fearful. What they learn from the massive vessel shocks the planet.

One thousand years after Earth was destroyed in an unprovoked attack, humanity has emerged victorious from a series of terrible wars to assure its place in the galaxy. But during celebrations on humanity’s new homeworld, the legendary Captain Pantillo of the battle carrier Phoenix is court-martialed then killed, and his deputy, Lieutenant Commander Erik Debogande, the heir to humanity’s most powerful industrial family, is framed for his murder.

Predator ships stream into human space in unprecedented numbers. The Colonial Marines, controlled by Weyland-Yutani, respond to the incursion, thus entering the Rage War. This terrifying assault by the Yautja cannot go unchallenged, yet the cost of combat is high. Predators are master combatants, and each encounter yields a high body count. Then, when Lt. Johnny Mains and his marines - the VoidLarks - enter the fray, they discover an enemy deadlier than any could imagine.

There is a milestone in the evolution of every sentient race, a Tech Singularity Event, when the species achieves transcendence through its technological advances. Now the creatures known as humans are near this momentous turning point. But an armed threat is approaching from deepest space, determined to prevent humankind from crossing over that boundary - by total annihilation if necessary.

Enjoy 15 scintillating tales in this eclectic collection where characters seek honor, truth, retribution, and in one case, a place to sell 300-year-old Lavian brandy.

On humanity's first extra-solar mission, the exploration vessel Magellan, or, as she prefers, "Maggie", discovers an alien artifact. Deciding that finding advanced alien life is too important to ignore, Captain Allison Ridgeway chooses to return to Earth while ordering her crew to reverse engineer technology far beyond anything back home. Meanwhile, at mission control, the governments struggle to maintain the existence of aliens a secret while also combating bureaucracy, the military industrial complex, and everyone else who wants a piece of what could skyrocket humanity into a new technological age.

You'd think being a Prince in a vast intergalactic empire would be about as good as it gets, particularly when Princes are faster, smarter, and stronger than normal humans. Not to mention being mostly immortal. But it isn't as great as it sounds. Princes need to be hard to kill - as Khemri learns the minute he becomes one - for they are always in danger. Their greatest threat? Other Princes. Every Prince wants to become Emperor, and the surest way to do so is to kill, dishonor, or sideline any potential competitor.

Kalian Gaines has a secret; he just doesn't know it yet. He looks like us, he lives like us...but he is not one of us. Kalian knows nothing outside of his mundane life teaching history on 30th-century Earth, until a day like any other triggers a series of events that will tie his fate to that of humanity. A human handprint, embedded into a rock with alien script, is discovered on a moon that mankind has never set foot on. This discovery holds a secret, which will sweep Kalian into the heart of a conspiracy that has corrupted the galaxy for 200,000 years.

Sometimes the few must stand against the many. From the dark, cold void came an unknown force. Their target: a remote planet, the home of a group of people distancing themselves from mankind and pursuing a path of piety and peace. If they have any chance at survival, a disparate group of pilots must come together to fight back any way they can. But the best these aces can do might not be good enough.

Year 2197. Earth is suffering from the consequences of an environmental catastrophe. Cities the size of continents are drowning in a toxic industrial fog. Max Bourne is a typical teenager. Like billions of other people, he is forced to live in the protective shell of the individual life support module. His habitat is the virtual Layer. But one day, circumstances force the young man to leave the in-mode. He has no idea that fate will lead him through unimaginable hardships, bring him face to face with military AIs, and teach him to survive in the distant Outlands.

Beyond the Aquila Rift: It's shorthand for the trip no one ever hopes to make by accident. The one that will screw up the rest of your life, the one that creates the ghosts you see haunting the shadows of company bars across the whole Bubble. Men and women ripped out of time, cut adrift from families and lovers by an accident of an alien technology we use but rarely comprehend.

Neal Asher takes on first contact, Polity style. This original novel recounts the first contact between the aggressive Prador aliens, and the Polity Collective as it is forced to retool its society to a war footing. The overwhelming brute force of the Prador dreadnaughts causes several worlds and space stations to be overrun. Prador Moon follows the initial Polity defeats, to the first draws, and culminates in what might be the first Polity victory, told from the point of view of two unlikely heroes.

One man will transcend death to seek vengeance. One woman will transform herself to gain power. And no one will emerge unscathed... Thorvald Spear wakes in a hospital to find he's been brought back from the dead. What's more, he died in a human vs. alien war that ended a century ago.

Kalian Gaines has a secret; he just doesn't know it yet. He looks like us, he lives like us...but he is not one of us. Kalian knows nothing outside of his mundane life teaching history on 30th-century Earth, until a day like any other triggers a series of events that will tie his fate to that of humanity. A human handprint, embedded into a rock with alien script, is discovered on a moon that mankind has never set foot on. This discovery holds a secret, which will sweep Kalian into the heart of a conspiracy that has corrupted the galaxy for 200,000 years.

Beyond the Aquila Rift: It's shorthand for the trip no one ever hopes to make by accident. The one that will screw up the rest of your life, the one that creates the ghosts you see haunting the shadows of company bars across the whole Bubble. Men and women ripped out of time, cut adrift from families and lovers by an accident of an alien technology we use but rarely comprehend.

The Tantalus 13 survey expedition went off the rails as soon as Mary Ketch and the crew of the Diamelen learned that the thing beneath their feet wasn’t a planet. An impossibly vast and ancient artificial structure lies below, hidden from the universe under a façade of cratered stone. SCARAB arrived on Tantalus 13 two years ago. An artificially intelligent, self-constructing factory, it was supposed to aid the crew in their mission, to meet their every need.

Twenty years after the discovery of artificial wormholes launches Earth space exploration to unforeseeable heights, Starplex Director Keith Lansing investigates a mysterious vessel that soon threatens the station with intergalactic war.

Predator ships stream into human space in unprecedented numbers. The Colonial Marines, controlled by Weyland-Yutani, respond to the incursion, thus entering the Rage War. This terrifying assault by the Yautja cannot go unchallenged, yet the cost of combat is high. Predators are master combatants, and each encounter yields a high body count. Then, when Lt. Johnny Mains and his marines - the VoidLarks - enter the fray, they discover an enemy deadlier than any could imagine.

Captain Mitchell "Ares" Williams is a space marine and the hero of the Battle for Liberty whose shot heard 'round the universe saved the planet from a nearly unstoppable war machine. He's handsome, charismatic, and the perfect poster boy to help the military drive enlistment. Pulled from the war and thrown into the spotlight, he's as efficient at charming the media and bedding beautiful celebrities as he was at shooting down enemy starfighters.

The year is 2162. Thirty-eight years after first contact, Lord Commander Grayson St. Clair leads the Tellus Ad Astra on an unprecedented expedition to the Galactic Core, carrying more than a million scientists, diplomats, soldiers, and AIs. Despite his reservations about their alien hosts, St. Clair is deeply committed to his people - especially after they're sucked into a black hole and spat out four billion years in the future. Civilizations have risen and fallen. The Andromeda Galaxy is drifting into the Milky Way. And Earth is most certainly a distant memory.

Howard Falcon almost lost his life in an accident as the first human astronaut to explore the atmosphere of Jupiter - and a combination of human ingenuity and technical expertise brought him back. But he is no longer himself. Instead he has been changed into an augmented human: part man, part machine, and exceptionally capable.

Carson Mach, a former war hero turned freelancer, seeks the biggest payday of his life when he's tasked to hunt down a ghost ship that has echoed through the centuries. The legendary Atlantis ship has become a reality, appearing at the Commonwealth frontier and obliterating an orbital station.

Humans call them Monument-Makers. An unknown race, they left stunning alien statues scattered on distant planets throughout the galaxy, encoded with strange inscriptions that defy translation. Searching for clues about the Monument-Makers, teams of 23rd century linguists, historians, engineers and archaeologists have been excavating the enigmatic alien ruins on a number of planets, uncovering strange, massive false cities made of solid rock. But their time is running out.

In a moving story of sacrifice and triumph, human scientists establish a relationship with intelligent lifeforms - the cheela-living on Dragon's Egg, a neutron star where one Earth hour is equivalent to hundreds of their years. The cheela culturally evolve from savagery to the discovery of science, and for a brief time, men are their diligent teachers.

They tried to destroy our planets. Our way of life. They tried to send us into extinction. But we, the Coalition, fought them and won. That was a decade ago. They’re known as the Host: a cabal of aliens seeking to dominate our sector of space. And they’re back - with help from a powerful new enemy. We’re outnumbered and unprepared. But there is hope. An ancient race of long-dead but technologically advanced aliens called the Navigators have a ship called the Blackstar that could potentially turn the tide. That is if I, Kai Locke, a humble ship racer, can find it and learn how to harness its power in time.

Ten years ago the Sythians invaded the galaxy with one goal: to wipe out the human race. Now the survivors are hiding in the last human sector of the galaxy: Dark Space--once a place of exile for criminals, now the last refuge of mankind.