Once, Dan Randolph was one of the richest men on Earth. Now the planet is spiraling into environmental disaster, with floods and earthquakes destroying the lives of millions. Martin Humphries, fabulously wealthy heir of the Humphries Trust, also knows that space-based industry is the way of the future. But unlike Randolph, he does not care if Earth perishes in the process.

Here are tales of star-faring adventure, peril, and drama. Here are journeys into the mind-bending landscapes of virtual worlds and alternate realities. Here you'll also find stories of humanity's astounding future on Earth, on Mars, and in the solar system beyond - stories that always get the science right. And Bova's gathering of deeply realized, totally human characters are the heroic, brave, tricky, sometimes dastardly engineers, astronauts, corporate magnates, politicians, and scientists who will make these futures possible.

A hero without peer or scruples, Sam Gunn has a nose for trouble, money, and women, though not necessarily in that order. A man with the ego (and stature) of a Napoleon, the business acumen of a P. T. Barnum, and the raging hormones of a teenage boy, Sam is the finest astronaut NASA ever trained and dumped. But more than money, more than women, Sam Gunn loves justice—and he really does love money and women.

Winner of the Nebula Award for Best Novel, Red Mars is the first book in Kim Stanley Robinson's best-selling trilogy. Red Mars is praised by scientists for its detailed visions of future technology. It is also hailed by authors and critics for its vivid characters and dramatic conflicts.

For centuries, the red planet has enticed the people of Earth. Now an international group of scientists has colonized Mars. Leaving Earth forever, these 100 people have traveled nine months to reach their new home. This is the remarkable story of the world they create - and the hidden power struggles of those who want to control it.

How do you get to the Red Planet? Not via a benightedgovernment program trapped in red tape and bound by budget constrictions,that's for sure. No, what it will take is a helping of adventure, science,corporate power plays, a generous dollop of seduction - both in and out of theboardroom - and money, money, money!

Stoner knew. The fiery object hurtling toward the Earth was an alien spacecraft. But the world might never know. He was trapped in an iron cordon of secrecy, for the discovery had shattered the world power balance, setting off a brutal struggle for supremacy that raged from the sacred halls of the Vatican to the corridors of the Kremlin and the Pentagon. The forces of fear and treachery would use any weapon at their command, from mind war to sabotage, to keep the world in darkness.

When a nuclear missile launched by a rogue North Korean faction explodes in space, the resulting shock wave destroys most of the world’s satellites, throwing global communication into chaos. U.S. military satellites, designed to withstand such an assault, show that two more missiles are sitting on launch pads in North Korea, ready to be deployed. Faced with the threat of a thermonuclear attack, the United States has only one possible defense: Able One.

Darrow is a Red, a member of the lowest caste in the color-coded society of the future. Like his fellow Reds, he works all day, believing that he and his people are making the surface of Mars livable for future generations. Yet he spends his life willingly, knowing that his blood and sweat will one day result in a better world for his children. But Darrow and his kind have been betrayed. Soon he discovers that humanity reached the surface generations ago. Vast cities and sprawling parks spread across the planet.

Dr. Sam Anderson is one of the most celebrated scientists in history. Ten years ago, he invented a device that changed the world forever. Now his life is about to be ripped apart—and his own creation may be to blame. One fateful morning, Sam discovers that his girlfriend has been murdered and that his daughter is accused of the crime. Sam believes she's innocent, but he can't prove it. There's only one thing he can do to save his daughter: confess to the crime. And so he does. But in the future, murderers aren't sent to prison. They're sent to the past.

There's a reason We Are Legion was named Audible's Best Science Fiction Book of 2016: Its irresistibly irreverent wit! Bob Johansson has just sold his software company for a small fortune and is looking forward to a life of leisure. The first item on his to-do list: Spending his newfound windfall. On an urge to splurge, he signs up to have his head cryogenically preserved in case of death. Then he gets himself killed crossing the street. Waking up 117 years later, Bob discovers his mind has been uploaded into a sentient space probe with the ability to replicate itself.

We were fighting on the wrong side of a war we couldn't win. And that was the good news. The Ruhar hit us on Columbus Day. There we were, innocently drifting along the cosmos on our little blue marble, like the native Americans in 1492. Over the horizon come ships of a technologically advanced, aggressive culture, and BAM! There go the good old days, when humans only got killed by each other. So, Columbus Day. It fits. When the morning sky twinkled again, this time with Kristang starships jumping in to hammer the Ruhar, we thought we were saved.

Jazz Bashara is a criminal. Well, sort of. Life on Artemis, the first and only city on the moon, is tough if you're not a rich tourist or an eccentric billionaire. So smuggling in the occasional harmless bit of contraband barely counts, right? Not when you've got debts to pay and your job as a porter barely covers the rent. Everything changes when Jazz sees the chance to commit the perfect crime, with a reward too lucrative to turn down.

It's a simple story. Boy finds proof that reality is a computer program. Boy uses program to manipulate time and space. Boy gets in trouble. Boy flees back in time to Medieval England to live as a wizard while he tries to think of a way to fix things. Boy gets in more trouble. Oh, and boy meets girl at some point.

Prescient and scientifically accurate, Heart of the Comet is known as one of the great hard SF novels of the 1980s. First published in 1986, it tells the story of an ambitious manned mission to visit Halley's Comet, alter its orbit, and mine it for resources. But all too soon, native cells - that might once have brought life to Earth - begin colonizing the colonists. As factions battle over the comet's future - and that of Earth - only love, courage, and ingenuity can avert disaster and spark a new human destiny.

Our universe is ruled by physics, and faster-than-light travel is not possible - until the discovery of The Flow, an extradimensional field we can access at certain points in space-time that transports us to other worlds, around other stars. Humanity flows away from Earth, into space, and in time forgets our home world and creates a new empire, the Interdependency, whose ethos requires that no one human outpost can survive without the others. It's a hedge against interstellar war - and a system of control for the rulers of the empire.