Fantasy First Contact Science Fiction

Michael Poole finds himself in a very strange landscape.... This is the centre of the Galaxy. And in a history without war with the humans, the Xeelee have had time to built an immense structure here. The Xeelee Belt has a radius 10,000 times Earth's orbital distance. It is a light-year in circumference. If it was set in the solar system, it would be out in the Oort Cloud, among the comets - but circling the sun. If it was at rest, it would have a surface area equivalent to about 30 billion Earths. But it is not at rest: it rotates at near light speed.

An AI overseer and a human crew arrive on a distant planet to salvage an ancient UN starship. The overseer is unhappy. The crew, well, they're certainly no A-team. Not even a C-team on the best of days. And worse? Urmahon Beta, the planet, is at the ass-end of nowhere. Everybody expects this to be a long, ugly, and thankless job. Then it all goes disastrously wrong. What they thought was an uninhabited backwater turns out to be anything but empty.

Over two hundred years after the first colonists landed on Pax, a new set of explorers arrives from Earth on what they claim is a temporary scientific mission. But the Earthlings misunderstand the nature of the Pax settlement and its real leader. Even as Stevland attempts to protect his human tools, a more insidious enemy than the Earthlings makes itself known. Stevland is not the apex species on Pax.

The beautiful woman called The Rowan was the most powerful telepath on all the planets of the Alliance - until the birth of her daughter, Damia. Damia and her husband, Afra Lyon, were the most extraordinary team of telepaths the Alliance had ever seen - until the powers of their children began to emerge. Now the combined power of all these generations, especially the unique abilities of the younger Lyon clan, is needed to face once and for all the threat of the alien Hivers.

CDF Lieutenant Harry Wilson has been loaned out to a CDF platoon tasked with secretly removing an unauthorized colony of humans on an alien world. Colonial Ambassador Abumwe has been ordered to participate in final negotiations with an alien race the Union hopes to make allies. Wilson and Abumwe’s missions are fated to cross - and in doing so, place both missions at risk of failure.

We Only Need the Heads is a tale from John Scalzi's The Human Division.

Indian Hill is about an ordinary boy who grows up in relatively normal times but who finds himself thrust into an extraordinary position. Growing up in suburban Boston, Michael enjoys the trials and tribulations that all adolescents go through, from the seemingly tyrannical mother, to girl problems, to run-ins with the law. From there he escapes to college out in Colorado with his best friend, Paul, where they begin to forge new relationships with those around them.

Fergus Ferguson, repo-man, has one job: find the spacecraft Venetia's Sword and steal it back from Arum Gilger, ex-nobleman turned power-hungry trade boss. Finding Gilger in the farthest corner of human-inhabited space, a gas-giant harvesting colony called Cernee, was easy. The hard part will be getting past a field of space mines, hacking into the Sword's compromised AI, and fighting a crew of hostile enemies to take control of the ship. But when a cable car explosion launches Cernee into a civil war, Fergus finds himself caught in the crosshairs.

Commander David Bryce is scheduled to lead a routine re-supply run for the Orbital Development Group (ORB) to the fledgling colony on Mars. Without warning, he’s taken away by government agents and told the mission parameters have changed. They’ve discovered something. And it’s drifting closer to Earth. Atlas Donovan tirelessly hunts for an artifact, and tracks the piece to Lake Como, Italy. After the recent news from ORB, Atlas is more drawn to the trail than ever.

Alan Dean Foster is the acclaimed author of movie tie-ins for Star Wars, Alien and Transformers. He was awarded the IAMTW Grand Master Scribe Award in 2008. He is also a best-selling science fiction and fantasy author in his own right, including the popular Pip & Flinx novels and the Founding of the Commonwealth series.

Eighteen years ago the Starship Enterprise thwarted an alien invasion from another universe, and Captain Robert April took possession of the interdimensional transfer device that made it possible. Since then each captain of the Enterprise has guarded this secret with his life. Now Romulan agents have succeeded in stealing the device and are using it to banish Ambassador Sarek and Councillor Gorkon to an unknown realm in the midst of their groundbreaking Federation-Klingon peace negotiations.

Viceroy Miles Hunt had accomplished the impossible. He gambled the Republic, the RNS Freedom and the entire joint allied fleet in one glorious battle. Secretly, the Zodarks plotted revenge, a restart to hostilities once their spies had found Earth. With peace achieved, new exploration began. Opportunities at new settlements enticed. All believed the threat of annihilation was past them and with that comforting thought, Liam and his Belters headed for their new world. They would build and expand their society—giving the people of Earth an alternative to the Republic.

The good guys won the battle, but the war goes on. Wash Williams has been recruited to help Brian Reeves and the Delta Force team close gates to the worlds controlled by the Hive-Mind, while back on Thacia, Valon does the same thing from the other side. But new gates continue to open, and unless someone can figure out how to stop the effect, it will keep spreading and the war will never end.

When a massive meteor lights up the sky over the remote island of Kerguelen, the world holds its breath. In Birchwood, Colorado, Dan McCarthy gets to work. Following his incredible experiences of the previous year, Dan knows this was no natural occurrence. The Messengers are back - to finish what they started - and they didn't come all this way for nothing....

Frank Compton saved the universe once—and for that he must die. Having temporarily stalled the Modhri, a sinister alien group intelligence, in its evil schemes for universal domination, the former Western Alliance Intelligence operative just wants to relax in first class with his stunning, half-human partner, Bayta, aboard the worlds-linking intra-galactic transportation system, the Quadrail. But when their peace is disturbed by an annoying human passenger spinning wild tales of alien art objects, and the pest is discovered dead soon after, Compton and Bayta realize there can be no rest.

Investigating a series of violent raids by a mysterious predatory species, Captain James T. Kirk discovers that these events share a startling connection with the First Federation, a friendly but secretive civilization contacted early in the USS Enterprise's five-year mission. Traveling to the First Federation in search of answers, the Enterprise suddenly comes under attack from these strange marauders. Seeking refuge, the starship finds its way to the true home of the First Federation, an astonishing collection of worlds hidden from the galaxy beyond.

Binti has returned to her home planet, believing that the violence of the Meduse has been left behind. Unfortunately, although her people are peaceful on the whole, the same cannot be said for the Khoush, who fan the flames of their ancient rivalry with the Meduse.

United States Diplomat Danielle Lowen was there when one of her fellow diplomats committed an unthinkable act that had consequences for the entire planet. Now she’s trying to figure out how it happened before it can happen again. Putting the puzzle pieces together could solve the mystery - or it could threaten her own life. "The Gentle Art of Cracking Heads" is a tale from John Scalzi's The Human Division, a series of self-contained but interrelated short stories set in the Old Man's War universe.

At last, the Earth and the Colonial Union have begun formal discussions about their relationship in the future - a chance for the divisions in humanity to be repaired. The diplomats and crew of the Clarke are on hand to help with the process, including Ambassador Ode Abumwe and CDF Lieutenant Harry Wilson, both of whom were born on Earth. But not everyone wants the human division to be repaired.... And they will go to great lengths to make sure it isn’t....

To save her world, she must surrender her body to the monster sworn to protect it. Seryn Halvox is a rebel pilot fighting a losing war against the Aquavex colony. Her sabotage missions attract the attention of a predator lurking in the deep, a creature sworn to protect the living reef she must destroy. He is Klythar, a biomechanical enforcer engineered for lethal perfection. When he captures her, he demands more than a prisoner. In his glowing lair, his commands are absolute. “You are mine,” he growls, his touch a brutal claiming. But their raw passion awakens the sentient reef below, a...

The Tyr stand on the brink of extinction. The Clay family has one last desperate plan to save the Tyr. Sarah leads an infiltration team of Tyr deep behind the invader's lines, but can she trust the Hidden caste operatives with her? David carries the device that could sever the planet from the threat of Director Zike, while Tyr traitors are on his trail and will stop at nothing to obey their new masters and to exact revenge against General Fastal. As the Tyr fight for survival, secrets will be revealed with implications for the galaxy far beyond what happens on their world.