Fantasy First Contact

The year is 2164. Humanity has slipped the surly bonds of its golden sun, and prospers as it finds a way across the stars. A new era of exploration dawns, its citizens asking the question eagerly: “Is there anyone out there?” Now, the answer comes suddenly and violently, a surprise attack on a peaceful colony. Deadly conflict, long forgotten by the governments of Man, makes itself known once more. New enemies emerge from the void: children of war, heirs to its terror and splendor. But this foe too has questions to answer, faced as it is with a civilization previously unimagined.

Dr. Renee Caisson knows there are worse things than an attractive man in uniform drafting her into a secret government project—especially when Major Jackson makes it clear that he isn’t bothered by her questionable past. But when her labs come back with decidedly odd results, the Major is forced to come clean over who the government is actually studying. Renee is shocked to learn her subjects are demonic-looking beings who call themselves “Neighbors”—refugees from a dying world, who arrived during the nation-wide solar eclipse.

Mars and the Moon have been colonized, piracy runs rampant in the asteroid belts, and a thriving society grows in the depths of space. Humanity prepares to embark upon its greatest journey - the colonization of Alpha Centauri. Then, everything changes. A deep space reconnaissance probe discovers a new Earth-like planet 12 light-years from Earth’s sun. The probe also finds something unusual, something unnerving. A new mission is created, a space fleet is formed, and humanity embarks on unravelling the greatest mystery of all - the origins of life itself.

Deep within the Congo, a team of scientists prepares for the greatest event in the history of humanity, making first contact with an intelligent extraterrestrial species. Only the jungle is no place for doubts. Could first contact be our last?

Somewhere in Russia… Boris Petrov in his glory days had a career in the Russian secret service but now he is well past his prime and just a bored police officer. Annoyed by obnoxious colleagues and petty crimes he languishes in his filthy office. An emergency call changes everything. He is the only available officer and he reluctantly takes up the case. He locates the origin of the emergency call by EMMA in the middle of nowhere. He is greeted by an obscure professor in a secretive building full with high-tech equipment and the darkest secret he could never have imagined even in his ...

Amelia Charron is a neuroscientist researching brain disorders. She routinely uses astonishing mind-linking technology that allows her to enter the dream world of patients. Each night, Amelia acts as a guide through the bizarre wonderland of the mind-an assisted lucid dream. It's a technique that reroutes neural pathways to heal the brain, but it's not without psychological dangers for both the patient and the guide. Orlando Kwon will do anything to keep the frightening voices at bay. Alien voices, he's sure, but he has no idea what they are saying.

Hadrian Marlowe is lost. For half a century, he has searched the farther suns for the lost planet of Vorgossos, hoping to find a way to contact the elusive alien Cielcin. He has not succeeded, and for years has wandered among the barbarian Normans as captain of a band of mercenaries. Determined to make peace and bring an end to nearly 400 years of war, Hadrian must venture beyond the security of the Sollan Empire and among the Extrasolarians who dwell between the stars.

For almost a hundred years, Hadrian Marlowe has served the empire in its war against the Cielcin, a vicious alien race bent on humanity's destruction. Rumors of a new king among the Cielcin have reached the imperial throne. This one is not like the others. It does not raid borderworld territories, preferring precise, strategic attacks on the humans' empire.

A secret buried in the Antarctic. A puzzle unsolved for thousands of years. And a Brooklyn-born master gunnery sergeant who's royally pissed that he has to babysit the researchers sent to figure it all out. But when Patrick "Wic" Finnegan finally sees what the team has uncovered, he can't believe his eyes, nor is he prepared for the violence to come. Soon, the portal opens and unleashes a storm of unbridled fury upon humanity.

A troubled young woman is recruited by a race of ancient alien explorers to be their emissary to save the human race from extinction. The problem is that not everyone believes the world is doomed, and not everyone trusts the aliens' motives. Holly Burton will have to overcome opposition from world leaders, attacks by religious zealots, assassination attempts, intractable bureaucracies, and her own fears and doubts if she is to save the human race, not just from the coming apocalypse, but from itself.

Ships are sinking for no apparent reason, carrying hundreds to a dark underwater grave. Strange fireballs race through the sky above the deepest trenches of the oceans. Something is about to show itself, something terrible and alien, a force capable of causing global catastrophe.

You've heard of him. He's Adam Cain, the alien with an attitude. Now he's back...in a series of new adventures as a badass human, showing the galaxy who's the boss. Accompanied by his buddies Riyad Tarazi and Sherri Valentine, Adam is struggling to make ends meet on a distant tropical world running Capt. Cain's Bar & Grill. The problem: They picked the worst place in the galaxy to run a legitimate business...smack dab in the middle of lawless Dead Zone. Comprised of a hundred dead worlds, The Zone is a gold-rush-like region of salvagers, pirates, and scoundrels.

Hadrian Marlowe is trapped. For nearly a century, he has been a guest of the Emperor, forced into the role of advisor, a prisoner of his own legend. But the war is changing. Mankind is losing. The Cielcin are spilling into human space from the fringes, picking their targets with cunning precision. The Great Prince Syriani Dorayaica is uniting their clans, forging them into an army and threat the likes of which mankind has never seen.

A government special agent known only as the Signalman gets off a train on a stunningly hot morning in Winslow, Arizona. Later that day he meets a woman in a diner to exchange information about an event that happened a week earlier for which neither has an explanation but which haunts the Signalman. In a ranch house near the shore of the Salton Sea, a cult leader gathers up the weak and susceptible - the Children of the Next Level - and offers them something to believe in and a chance for transcendence. The future is coming, and they will help to usher it in.

Set in 2082, Peter Watts' Blindsight is fast-moving, hard SF that pulls readers into a futuristic world where a mind-bending alien encounter is about to unfold. After the Firefall, all eyes are locked heavenward as a team of specialists aboard the self-piloted spaceship Theseus hurtles outbound to intercept an unknown intelligence.

Late in the 26th century, the human race has advanced enough to accidentally trigger the Inhibitors---alien-killing machines designed to detect intelligent life and destroy it. The only hope for humanity lies in the recovery of a secret cache of doomsday weapons---and a renegade named Clavain who is determined to find them. But other factions want the weapons for their own purposes---and the weapons themselves have another agenda altogether.

Silas is inducted into the System, becoming the last in a long line of Earth's "forerunners." The rewards are great, but the danger is greater. We are not alone in the universe. The fate of five worlds hangs on how their forerunners perform. Will Silas have what it takes to win Earth a place in the multiverse? Or will Earth become another mining world stripped of all resources and left a barren husk floating in the cosmos?

The complete Baldwin's Legacy series.

The Solaran Defense Forces make the difficult decision to evacuate the colony of Robichar in order to avoid a direct confrontation. But when Captain Elya Nevers gets shot down during the evacuation, his squadron and the admiral in charge have to think fast to rescue their pilot before the Kryl overrun the system.

A groundbreaking work of science fiction, The Left Hand of Darkness tells the story of a lone human emissary to Winter, an alien world whose inhabitants can change their gender. His goal is to facilitate Winter's inclusion in a growing intergalactic civilization. But to do so he must bridge the gulf between his own views and those of the completely dissimilar culture that he encounters. Embracing the aspects of psychology, society, and human emotion on an alien world, The Left Hand of Darkness stands as a landmark achievement.