First Contact Fiction

There must be someone else out there. In the cold, in the dark, in the vastness of space there can't be just one lonely species peering out into the void; but if there's others, where are they? Now an alien probe has been found and its point of origin calculated, so a state of the art ship has been sent to take the first step, to make first contact.

Comet Anduru skimmed the clouds of Saturn. Rather than being drawn into the gas giant, it skipped back out into space. With the comet heading for Jupiter, speculation is mounting it’s an alien spacecraft making its way to Earth. Lieutenant Colonel Nolan Landis and Dr. Kath McKenzie are caught between an angry public and an anxious President as they grapple with the scientific, social, and political implications of first contact.

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 ...

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 ...

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.

People love easily. Look at most of your relatives or coworkers. How lovable are they? Really? Yet most have mates and children. The vast majority are still invited to family gatherings and their relatives will speak to them. Many have pets to which they are devoted. Some even call them their fur-babies. Is your dog or cat or parakeet property or family? Not in law but in your heart? Can a pet really love you back? Or is it a different affection? Are you not kind to those who feed and shelter you? But what if your dog could talk back? Would your cat speak to you kindly?

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.

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.

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.

Michael Wallace presents the first book in his Alliance Trilogy.

After ending the Luna-Terra war by destroying the rogue colony Lunar 1, Captain Jason has retired to the US Virgin Islands intent on self-destruction. If the booze doesn't kill him first, the Colombian drug cartel surely will. But before he has a chance to properly pickle his liver, and before a jealous drug lord has a chance to take him out, the Admiral of Space Fleet recruits Jason for one last mission.

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.

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.

Pyre's humans suffer multiple cultural shocks. They discovered the Messinants dome, an ancient construction that houses a quantum-coupled gate. More shocking, they find that sentient alien races utilize a network of these domes to journey between their far distant worlds in pursuit of alliance matters. If humans wish to join this elite collection of sentients, they must contribute significantly in trade, tech, or something of equal value.

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 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.

In the world of Warbreaker, each person is born endowed with the power of one Breath―which can be sold and collected by others, then used to Awaken objects and even corpses to do their bidding. A few individuals who die in glory return as gods, with the power of thousands of Breath, but no memory of their mortal lives―and are enthroned in the Court of Gods in Hallandren’s capital. To Vivenna and Siri, princesses of Idris, the abuse of Breath and the claim of the Returned to be gods are repugnant blasphemy.

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.

For many billions of years, humans - having conquered the curse of aging - spread throughout the entire Milky Way. They are able to live all their dreams, but to their great disappointment, no other intelligent species has ever been encountered. Now, humanity itself is on the brink of extinction because the universe is dying a protracted yet inevitable death.

Peacemakers. The Galactic Union’s most capable enforcers and resolute negotiators, their name alone elicits fear and awe among the Union’s citizenry. It is a time of upheaval throughout the Galactic Union. As the effects of the Omega War ripple outward, a Peacemaker falls silent at the outpost mining colony of Parmick. Sensing danger, the Peacemaker Guild dispatches two new graduates of the Academy to investigate and report. They are a new breed of Peacemaker, perfect for the clandestine infiltration mission.