First Contact Fiction

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 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.

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.

Set against the backdrop of China’s Cultural Revolution, a secret military project sends signals into space to establish contact with aliens. An alien civilization on the brink of destruction captures the signal and plans to invade Earth. Meanwhile, on Earth, different camps start forming, planning to either welcome the superior beings and help them take over a world seen as corrupt, or to fight against the invasion.

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.

In a jungle of monsters, the real danger is falling for one... Cora A monster is chasing me through my home. On prehistoric planet Xren, where alien dinosaurs roam free, perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised. My home in a treetop was supposed to be safe. Nobody should know I’m here, a hundred feet off the ground. But this thing even knows my name. I think this is a caveman chasing me. He’s huge and terrifying, with spikes on his face and a big horn growing from his head. He has something even bigger under his loincloth. Yeah, I know their game on this woman-less planet: abduct Earth girls ...

A mysterious radio signal is picked up from a neighboring star system. A group of experts is brought to the floor of the Grand Canyon to investigate its origin and its meaning as the planet suffers one natural disaster after another. Cut off from the rest of the world, they must question everything, including each other, if they hope to solve the mystery.

"Having the Barbarian's Baby": Megan's ready to give birth, but she's not ready to let her mate leave her side. When Cashol must go hunting to feed the tribe, they're separated for the first time since resonance. Not a problem, except the baby's ready to be born and there's a storm brewing...

Sexy alien hunks? Yes, please! Caden has always been known for his spontaneity and brazen nature. So when a contest to travel to the planet of Zata was announced on Earth, he signed up in a heartbeat. Not that he’d expected to win! Thrown in the middle of a mating celebration, Caden is in his element. Zata is everything he had dreamed of – even better. It seems the sexy Zatans he’s seen on TV are even sexier in person. Especially the one calling himself Xade… Nearly given up hope... Xade, the second prince of Zata, has been searching for his mate for years with no luck. But when the...

The chance of a lifetime… Noah, a shy IT guy from a small town on Earth gets the chance of a lifetime when he is selected to travel to the planet of Zata among the very first humans ever. He hopes to experience more of the famous Zatan technology, but what he does not expect is to be thrown into the middle of a mating celebration and to meet a Zatan man who claims to be the prince of his planet! …And who says that Noah belongs to him… A lifetime of waiting… Arex, the third prince of Zata, has all but given up hope on finding his true mate. But when their new acquaintances from ...

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

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.

From a remote corner of the galaxy, a message is being sent. The continuous beats of a pulsar have become odd, irregular, and artificial. It can only be a code. Frantically, a research team struggles to decipher the alien communication. And what the scientists discover is destined to shake the foundations of empires around this world - from Wall Street to the Vatican.

Ten years after the aliens left Earth, humanity has succeeded in building a ship, Friendship, in which to follow them home to Kindred. Aboard are a crew of scientists, diplomats, and a squad of Rangers to protect them. But when the Friendship arrives, they find nothing they expected: no interplanetary culture, no industrial base, and no cure for the spore disease. A timeslip in the apparently instantaneous travel between worlds has occurred, and far more than 10 years have passed.

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.

Keeping up-to-date with the most buzzworthy and cutting-edge science fiction requires sifting through countless magazines, e-zines, websites, blogs, original anthologies, single-author collections, and more - a task accomplishable by only the most determined and voracious readers. For everyone else, Night Shade Books is proud to introduce the latest volume of The Best Science Fiction of the Year, collecting the finest that the genre has to offer, from the biggest names in the field to the most exciting new writers.

When CIA Special Operations officer Major Jim Carter is sent to the town of Serene, Texas, he's still grieving for Agent Cathy Abbey, who was not only a fellow agent—but the woman he loved. And the woman he chose to shoot rather than let Al-Shabaab insurgents abduct her. A decision that haunts him. When Carter arrives in Serene, it's to discover that all one hundred and twenty-one citizens of the town have been murdered by insectoid creatures assumed to be extraterrestrials. None of the authorities know how the aliens arrived on Earth or what their intentions are.

A colony survives among the icy rings of a planet, hiding from alien robots determined to destroy them … at a remote site on the edge of the Arctic Circle, a group of scientists, engineers, and physicians gather to gamble humanity’s future on one last-ditch experiment … a man who can’t feel pain has been bioengineered to be a killing machine, but he refuses to give in to his fate … a man is contacted by three future versions of himself, each trying to save their world from destruction.

I'm a wanted woman. In more ways than one. I was arrested, then imprisoned in cryosleep, and finally rescued by a crew of horned, golden skinned aliens. Now my government has branded me a traitor. Whoever is after me is willing to kill - to destroy anything and anyone in their way. They're powerful and without mercy. It's enough to make me lose all hope. Until Grantian. He's a dangerous man and he promises to protect me. Former mercenary with the Hael Hounds - more blood on his hands than he cares to recount. He's experienced suffering...loss. I can tell that he sees something in me.

Specialist astronaut Evelyn Slater encounters a small, badly damaged, ancient alien artifact on the first ever space junk elimination mission. Where was it from? Who sent it? International governments impose a security clampdown. Evelyn leads a team of handpicked scientists who make amazing discoveries within the alien device. Secrecy becomes impossible to maintain. When the news is finally released, she becomes embroiled in international politics, worldwide xenophobic hatred, and violence.