Fantasy First Contact

Alien visitors devastate a remote farm in Lovecraft’s first and best venture into science fiction.

In 2063, Earth's overheated climate and war-ravaged cities are near breaking point. A new habitable planet is discovered within reach, but the first two missions have failed to return. This is the story of the third mission to Eden. What really awaits the crew of four as they make the long journey to this supposedly uninhabited virgin planet, and what is the link to the secret 900-year-old sect known as Alicians back on Earth? While Blake leads the Eden mission, a young researcher named Micah discovers a terrible truth that threatens the very existence of humanity.

Two years ago, a human pilot was taken captive by the Alder—a ruthless and savage alien race. Now, it's my team's mission to rescue him. But when I'm saved by one of those "savages" and stranded with him in the jungle, everything I thought I knew starts to unravel. My team is my family, the only home I've ever known. Failing them isn't an option. But how can I resist Kitari, this mysterious and alluring alien who claims that I'm an "omega" and offers me something I've never had—a place to truly belong?

Nathan Myers and the crew of the Legacy find themselves at war with the predatory races and murderous corruption prevalent throughout the galaxy. The shadowy criminal figures who stand to lose the most from Nathan's victories has put a billion-credit bounty on his head. To make matters worse, the Scrun and Murlaks have assassination squads actively pursuing Nathan and his crew. In order to survive, Nathan must find allies willing to stand with him. Finding an ally without ulterior motives is easier said than done.

For two years in deep space, the freighter Demeter and a small crew have collected botanical life from other planets. It's a lesson in patience and hell. Mechanics Ensign Raina is ready to jump ship, if only because her abusive ex is also aboard, as well as her overbearing boss. It's only after a foreign biological creature sneaks aboard and wreaks havoc on the ship and crew that Raina must find her grit - and maybe create a gadget or two - to survive...that is, if the crew members don't lose their sanity and turn on each other in the process.

The Zandians have taken back their planet. Now they need brides. All human females have been assigned to mates. Yes, mates, multiple. I've been given to three handsome males - cousins. Huge, purple and horned, they act like they want to eat me for breakfast. After what I've been through with previous slave masters, I don't know how I'll survive this. But I have to. It's adapt or be sent off-planet, which would mean my death, considering I'm wanted for murder. My mates cannot find out I'm not able to reproduce.

First contact with a mysterious race of aliens reveals an unusual request; a family's pet dog comes to grips with the newly bestowed gift of human-like intelligence; a poet, in danger and alone on a distant world, makes unlikely allies; hundreds of years in the future, a famous hermit lives in the sea above the now-underwater Harvard University; former friends navigate unsteady peace between human refugees and the technologically superior race that saved them; in a future where human life can be infinitely extended through cybertronic rebirth, one woman declines immortality.

Nearly 100 years before the events of Orson Scott Card's bestselling novel Ender's Game, humans were just beginning to step off Earth and out into the Solar System. A thin web of ships in both asteroid belts; a few stations; a corporate settlement on Luna. No one had seen any sign of other space-faring races; everyone expected that First Contact, if it came, would happen in the future, in the empty reaches between the stars. Then a young navigator on a distant mining ship saw something moving too fast, heading directly for our sun.

During a routine survey mission on an uncolonized planet, Kira finds an alien relic. At first she's delighted, but elation turns to terror when the ancient dust around her begins to move. As war erupts among the stars, Kira is launched into a galaxy-spanning odyssey of discovery and transformation. First contact isn't at all what she imagined, and events push her to the very limits of what it means to be human. While Kira faces her own horrors, Earth and its colonies stand upon the brink of annihilation. Now, Kira might be humanity's greatest and final hope....

The TDF Marco Polo embarks on its maiden voyage outside Earth's solar system, leading to the discovery of an extinct civilization destroyed by orbital bombardment. Deep underground is a mysterious library of alien secrets.

The United Nations is thrown into chaos when an alien spacecraft is discovered buried beneath the ice in Antarctica. With no one nation able to lay claim to the craft, a multinational effort is undertaken to salvage the vessel, which is estimated to have crashed several hundred thousand years ago. Rather than leaving key decisions to hostile governments or their armies, a jury is established to represent the average global citizen, being selected from the five permanent members of the UN Security Council. Their job is to review findings and guide the process of discovery.

One hundred years before Ender's Game, the aliens arrived on Earth with fire and death. Earth Afire by Orson Scott Card and Aaron Johnston is the story of the First Formic War. Victor Delgado beat the alien ship to Earth, but just barely. Not soon enough to convince skeptical governments that there was a threat. They didn't believe that until space stations and ships and colonies went up in sudden flame. And when that happened, only Mazer Rackham and the Mobile Operations Police could move fast enough to meet the threat.

January is a dying planet - divided between a permanently frozen darkness on one side, and blazing endless sunshine on the other. Humanity clings to life, spread across two archaic cities built in the sliver of habitable dusk. Sophie, a student and reluctant revolutionary, is supposed to be dead, after being exiled into the night. Saved only by forming an unusual bond with the enigmatic beasts who roam the ice, Sophie vows to stay hidden from the world, hoping she can heal.

Brought to us by the Drabs, it was the last thing we expected. But the Drabs knew. They even fought a war over whether or not they should save us. In the end, it was decided that we were diseased insects who were unfit to breathe their air. So they left the human race to die a miserable death of agonizing pain in a matter of months. Left us with no doctors or medicine. Their plan was to rid the earth of us and to take our home as their own. What they never expected was the change that would come after the plague. We didn't all die off as they'd planned.

As part of the Greatest Generation, Major Anthony Spinelli, a World War II fighter pilot, flew into combat to save his family and keep them free. Two years later, he lost them in the blink of an eye, leaving Tony rudderless and without purpose. Then, on a dark, moonless night, in the skies above 1947 New Mexico, he has an encounter that will change humanity forever. However, when an accident threatens to unleash unimaginable destruction, Tony must race against time and unwinding plots to save us...and maybe himself along the way.

With The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume Six, award-winning editor Neil Clarke provides a year-in-review and 33 of the best stories published by both new and established authors in 2020.

After traversing the dangerous Dead Zone, Zac has finally managed to save his sister and bring her back to Port Atwood. But Zac knows he can't relax. Not if he wants to keep her safe. The foreign factions keep spreading their influence, and ancient foes have set their sights on Earth. With his newfound abilities, Zac has joined the Limited Hunt to gain the strength needed to protect his family and his world. However, the System is unwilling to let Zac train in peace, and the hunt is not what it seems...

Fleeing Earth after an alien invasion, the human race stands on the threshold of evolution. Their new home is Luna, a moon colony blessed with creature comforts, prolonged lifespans, digital memories, and instant sex changes. But the people of Luna are bored, restless, suicidal - and so is the computer that monitors their existence.

Geophysicist Jack Greer believes he may finally have found the resting place of the meteorite that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. A few miles off the Yucatán coast, Jack and a team of scientists tow an aging drilling platform over the impact crater with the aim of securing a sample. But buried deep beneath the earth lies a shocking discovery that threatens to shatter everything we think we know about our species.

Major Jake Thomas is on a roll. With the help of the Artificial Life: Intelligent Computing Environments, or ALICE, systems, he has successfully faced off with the hostile NeHaw three times. With continued support from his inner circle of female recruits, all handpicked by the ALICEs to further their own agenda, he continues to try to help Earth return to glory.