Fantasy First Contact

Thousands of years ago, Earth's terraforming program took to the stars. On the world they called Nod, scientists discovered alien life - but it was their mission to overwrite it with the memory of Earth. Then humanity's great empire fell, and the program's decisions were lost to time. Aeons later, humanity and its new spider allies detected fragmentary radio signals between the stars. They dispatched an exploration vessel, hoping to find cousins from old Earth. But those ancient terraformers woke something on Nod better left undisturbed. And it's been waiting for them.

In the wake of defeating Gornath of the Ontishog, above the streets of Manhattan, and saving Earth from a devastating plague, Wic and Phantom Team believe their work is done. But Major Insarka Kindesh has other plans for the heroes and invites them back to Karkin Four. Phantom Team cross through New York’s origin ring to find the Blood Guard orchestrating covert operations against an Androchidan Empire in the throes of war. But galactic battle is not this trip’s focus.

A dark and sweeping adventure, Dreamcatcher is set in the haunted city of Derry - the site of Stephen King's It and Insomnia. In it, four young boys stand together and do a brave, good thing, an act that changes them in ways that they hardly understand. A quarter-century later, as grown men who have gone their separate ways, these friends come together once a year to hunt in the woods of Maine.

Humans have reached the stars. There is no evidence any other species survived its own sentience long enough to do the same. Until now, when the Magellanix deep-space scout Accipiter discovers the Artifact, a million-year-old alien construct resting in a dormant volcano on a faraway world.

Before the end, there is often change, and change can be very painful. Declan and Stacia come face-to-face with the most powerful elemental of them all, one with the power to eliminate mankind before the Vorsook ever show up. It’s time to confront his destiny and decide what it means to be the most powerful witch of all time.

For small-time street hustler Cam Alvarez, the choice is simple. He has no family, no friends, no place in the world...nothing to lose. When his latest con results in the death of a cartel hitman, Cam opts to join the Marines and leave Earth to fight a vicious alien enemy.

Someone born to maintain, fix, and correct any and every issue that could go wrong in the Habitat that he lives in to make sure he and his fellow humans can remain on display and entertain their owners as any good human pet would. Or at least, that's what he was born to be. Now, after getting a second chance along with a superpower that lets him alter anything and everything in regard to his own body, he's trying to fix his life. To live his life for himself with the goal of actually enjoying it, all while being thrust ever deeper into a situation he didn't expect.

The Veklocks require the Pyreans to explore the extent of the Colony's usurpation of domes. The Colony is composed of two insectoid species, the grays and the reds. They're aggressive three- and five-meter long insectoids with venomous pincers that live for the expansion of their race. The Pyreans already lost one member of their team on their first exploration and are hesitant to meet the Colony again, unless they're better prepared.

I'm not saying I've thoroughly enjoyed the three years I've spent in captivity on a pleasure planet, shaking my money-maker for intergalactic patrons… but, I mean, it hasn't been all bad. The jelly donuts were a perk. Granted, I didn't really know what I was signing up for when I agreed to be purchased by the sexy pink shark-man, but things seem to be looking up.

After thousands of years searching, humans stand on the verge of first contact with an alien race. There are two human groups: the Qeng Ho, a culture of free traders, and the Emergents, a ruthless society based on the technological enslavement of minds. The group that opens trade with the aliens will reap unimaginable riches.

Earth failed. In a desperate bid to escape, the spaceship Enkidu and its captain, Heorest Holt, carried its precious human cargo to a potential new paradise. Generations later, this fragile colony has managed to survive, eking out a hardy existence. Yet life is tough, and much technological knowledge has been lost. Then strangers appear. They possess unparalleled knowledge and thrilling technology–and they've arrived from another world to help humanity’s colonies. But not all is as it seems, and the price of the strangers' help may be the colony itself.

On Mars, a scientist experiments with a new engine that will one day become the drive that fuels humanity's journey into the stars. On an asteroid station, a group of prisoners are oblivious to the catastrophe that awaits them. On a future Earth beset by overpopulation, pollution, and poverty, a crime boss desperately seeks to find a way off planet. On an alien world, a human family struggles to establish a colony and make a new home. All these stories and more are featured in this unmissable collection of short fiction set in the hardscrabble world of The Expanse.

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.

Jon Ryan is irreverent, cocky, funny, and walks with a swagger. The cocky fighter pilot turned astronaut is also Earth's only chance for survival. The planet Jupiter, thrown off orbit, will destroy Earth in less than a century. Jon volunteers for the most ambitious, desperate mission ever conceived: His consciousness must be transferred into an experimental android host, where he'll live an immortal - and lonely - life. Jon's only companion on his 50-year voyage is his ship's irritable AI.

Before Hr'ent Golramm became a legendary Enforcer for the Peacemaker Guild, he was a mere candidate. Granted, he was a particularly unusual candidate - only six Oogar had ever successfully graduated from the Peacemaker Academy on Ocono, and Hr'ent would be the seventh. Every candidate must pass a commissioning mission in order to graduate, though, and Hr'ent's is unsolvable. The Pushtal of Vorrhurna were once one of the Mercenary Guild's 37 races.

Following their successful mission to destroy the slaver ring in New York City, Wic and the members of Phantom Team pass through the Antarctic’s origin ring and find themselves deep in the heart of the Androchidan Empire. But as the scope of the alien specie’s operation becomes apparent, Phantom Team realizes they can’t standby as humanity is culled into submission. Efforts must be made to slow the enemy’s progress, if not stop it altogether.

Ben Hutchins buried his anger to survive. Stranded on a ravaged Earth after a devastating alien annihilation, the haunted young man has nothing except his late father’s cutting-edge exo-suit and a veteran soldier for company. But when he uncovers the truth about his armored prototype, he unwittingly paints a target on his back for those who seek humanity’s destruction.

En route to far-off stars, Toby’s consciousness has a crucial mission: inhabit his clone long enough to repair a spaceship, then zip back to Earth. He’s done it a million times, more or less. OK, twelve times. It should only take a few hours. Until he wakes up in jail. And he’s not alone. His fellow prisoners: a cadre of alien soldiers. His prison: an ethereal boundary that will imprison their spirits until their bodies die. His jailers can’t even see him. But their pet cat (er, iguana cat?) can—and it’s got a serious case of the zoomies.

In a ravaged world, a former Army Ranger and his loyal golden retriever lead a desperate mission against an alien overlord, testing the bond between humanity… and their best friends.

As the first humans allowed in Suevan space, there’s a lot riding on my all-woman team. Earth desperately needs their tech, and I’m determined to prove we can negotiate the price. Without their planetary defense systems, Earth is a sitting duck, ripe for invasion. Except the Suevan culture is nothing like ours. When I take part in what I think is a welcoming ceremony, I leave with more than I bargained for: a husband. A mate. Apparently, we’re there to marry them as payment—something the top brass on Earth doesn’t bother denying. Fantastic.