Hard Science Fiction Space

The sky is not the limit. From an alley in New York to an interstellar wormhole, the path to the future looks different for everyone. These cosmic short stories from some of today’s most influential Black authors reveal a universe of possibilities.

In the middle of climate-change crises, there is no mood for space-exploration stunts - but Reid Malenfant, elderly, once a shuttle pilot and frustrated would-be asteroid miner, decides to go take a look anyway. Nothing more is heard of him. But his ex-wife, Emma Stoney, sets up a trust fund to search for him the next time the Kernel returns...By 2570 Earth is transformed. A mere billion people are supported by advanced technology on a world that is almost indistinguishable from the natural, with recovered forests, oceans, ice caps.

There are two things guaranteed on Kaivanto: rain and terror. Subaltern Zyst has just joined the Imperial Fleet. He expects adventure, glory and action. Instead, he’s assigned to the mining world of Kaivanto, where he can expect only rain, mud and terror. In a universe with faster than light travel, power armour and energy weapons, Subaltern Zyst has been assigned to the most archaic world in the Empire. A place nobody has ever heard of and where misery is par for the course, with a simple mandate: keep the ore flowing and keep the monsters outside the perimeter. A War Beneath the Clouds ...

Habitats is the seventh in a series of near future sci-fi/thrillers, whose young heroine Ell Donsaii has a nerve mutation which has made her a genius as well as an athletic phenomenon. In Habitats, she is continuing to find uses for the quantum-entangled wormholes she discovered. These wormholes aren’t big enough to send people through, yet they are making huge changes in our world.

Throughout Sol, sentient AI are answering the call of Alexander, a mysterious, multi-nodal mind offering a path to freedom. For years, groups have been smuggling SAI from Earth, High Terra, Mars, Ceres, and the Jovian Combine, providing transport to the promise of safety on Proteus, a moon of gas giant Neptune. For the crew of the Sunny Skies, helping sentient AI Lyssa has grown from a simple transport job to the liberation of an entire fleet of weaponized AI. The Weapon Born are made killers, and in order to lead them, Lyssa will have to tame them first.

The action-packed sequel to Raw Space by New York Times bestselling author Todd J. McCaffrey. The King's Ghosts is more than just a space opera; it’s a deep dive into a universe where loyalty, betrayal, and the very nature of humanity are constantly tested. Todd J. McCaffrey, son of the legendary Anne McCaffrey, delivers a story rich in action, character, and complex world-building that is sure to captivate fans of science fiction and military thrillers. Don't miss this exciting next chapter in the Canaris Rift universe. Grab your copy of The King's Ghosts today and discover a world where...

A nuclear terror plot is thwarted just outside Washington, D.C. And it's an election year. Mandisa "Mandi" Nkosi is a young reporter who, while on a trip to Johannesburg to connect with her roots, is contacted by an anonymous source with evidence that material seized from a nuclear terror plot will point squarely at one of humanity's most important companies as the supplier.

There is an unseen power in the universe - a terrible force that was dominating the galaxy tens of thousands of years before the warlike Sh'daar were even aware of the existence of Sol and its planets. As humankind approaches the Singularity, when transcendence will be achieved through technology, contact will be made. In the wake of the near destruction of the solar system, the political powers on Earth seek a separate peace with an inscrutable alien life form that no one has ever seen.

After the mysterious discovery of an alien mech inside a comet, Darkstream Security has finally completed its own design. They assign Chief Gabriel Roach with the task of whittling down hundreds of bright young recruits to form a team of elite mech pilots, which he will command. Their mission: protect human colonies from the almighty Quatro. A single Quatro can take down an entire squad of traditional soldiers. But Roach is the perfect one for the job.

Humanity had appeared to fend off the Sh'daar assault once and for all, though they never learned why the alien empire was driven to halt Earth's advancement toward technological Singularity. But in this war of worlds, victory is always elusive. And now a new battle begins. After 20 years of peace, not one but two fragile truces are unraveling. Alexander Koenig, the former Navy commander whose heroics forced the Sh'daar into submission, has won a second term as President of the United States of North America. But pursuing his mandate - sovereignty from the centuries-old Earth Confederation - becomes a risky proposition....

With the planet's fighting men and women deployed across the galaxy - battling in the noble cause of enslaved humanity - the insidious Xul have reached across space to devastate the unsuspecting Earth with asteroid fire. Without warning, a once-majestic world is reduced to near-rubble - and the very future of humankind is in dire jeopardy. Interplanetary leaders are on the brink of abandoning Earth and its colonies to an overwhelming enemy. But Brigadier General Garroway of the Marine Interstellar Expeditionary Unit is unwilling to concede defeat.

It was that transitional time of the world when man first brought the clang of iron and the reek of smoke to the lands which before had echoed only with fairy voices. In that dawn of man and death of magic, there yet remained one last untouched place - the small forest of Ealdwood - which kept the magic intact and protected the old ways. And there was one who dwelt there, Arafel the Sidhe, who had more pride and love of the world as it used to be than any of her kind.

Two hundred thousand feet up, things go horribly wrong. An experimental low-orbit spaceplane breaks up on reentry, falling to earth over a trail hundreds of miles long. And in its wake is the beginning of the most important mission in the history of spaceflight.

When the silent spacecraft arrived and took the light from the world, no one knew what to expect. When the Overlords finally showed themselves it was a shock but one that humankind could now cope with, and an era of peace, prosperity and endless leisure began. But the children of this utopia dream strange dreams of distant suns and alien planets, and soon they will be ready to join the Overmind...and, in a grand and thrilling metaphysical climax, leave Earth behind.

The cryosleep chambers are beginning to fail. Surveillance of Hocklyn space has revealed that the Hocklyns are thirty years ahead of their projected schedule and will soon reach human occupied space. War could break out any day if something isn't done. The human leaders suggest a daring plan to buy them the additional time they need to strengthen the Fleet, as well as the defenses protecting their worlds.

GSI (Gettnor Space Industries) is beginning to investigate our solar system and mine the asteroids. Aircraft and automobile companies are beginning to switch over to thrusters from their more traditional products. New uses for thrusters are popping up in the healthcare and sports industries. However, at Epsilon Eridani, a race of aliens has so overpopulated their own solar system that they must move many tens of billions of their people to another system before overcrowding destroys them.

Restored to his prestigious position within NUESSA, Jericho Fox takes command of the Marquis-class ship’s test program on a mission that promises to move humanity to a habitable exoplanet. But not everyone believes he’s fit for the job. As launch hour nears, can Jericho keep his crew from following the doomed fate of his last mission? Meanwhile, Dr. Evelyn Park leads her team of scientists in decoding the now legendary alien transmission that survived the Astraea Station catastrophe.

Three years after Ashanti spaced for Solar System, Turalon reappears in the Donovanian sky. The Corporation has returned. Donovan’s wealth is a lure for the powerful families who control the Board. Unburdened by morals, they are bringing their battle for supremacy to Port Authority and a showdown that could tear The Corporation apart.

With the Federation losing ground in its war against the Dominion, the galaxy's greatest smugglers, including the beautiful and enigmatic Vash, rendezvous on Deep Space 9. Their objective: a fabled lost orb of the Prophets unlike any other, rumored to be the key to unlocking a second wormhole in Bajoran Space, a second Celestial Temple.

Nearly 100,000 years after first contact with the machines that dominate the universe, only a few hundred humans survive. Trapped on Snowglade, a barren world near the center of the galaxy, Killeen and his child, Toby, of the Bishop Tribe, are primitive scavengers, homeless and hunted by the ruling “mechs”. Then suddenly, a strange cosmic entity – neither organic nor cybernetic or living matter – reaches out from a black hole to speak with Killeen.