Hard Science Fiction Space

The UFS Phoenix returns to Homeworld, after more than three years of searching the galaxy for a way to save humanity from the looming AI threat. Many Fleet captains are unhappy with their own command, following the massive casualties of Nia's first strike. Some say that Captain Erik Debogande is the war leader humanity truly needs. Others warn of civil war. But on Homeworld lurks an even older threat, a secret kept by Fleet Command since Homeworld's first conquest by humans. A secret that could tear Fleet, and Erik's powerful family, apart.

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.

Astronaut David Dixon's first mission to space goes horribly awry when a gunfight breaks out on a Russian space station. He finds himself making an emergency landing from orbit and becomes the most wanted man on Earth. Desperate to unravel the plot he's found himself in, he takes his pursuers on a wild chase from space to the backstreets of Rio and beyond. Dixon's survival relies on his skills as a pilot and willingness to do whatever it takes.

Major Richards needs to get out of the Sol System. Demoted by the military and hung out to dry, the media labels her the Butcher of Toro. Despite her soiled record, Tanis still one of the best military counterinsurgency officers in the Terran Space Force. They need her to find the terrorists responsible for trying to destroy the GSS Intrepid, a massive interstellar colony ship in the final phases of construction at the Mars Outer Shipyards.

From a New York Times best-selling and Hugo award-winning author comes a modern masterwork of science fiction, introducing a captain, his crew, and a detective as they unravel a horrifying solar system wide conspiracy that begins with a single missing girl. Humanity has colonized the solar system - Mars, the Moon, the Asteroid Belt and beyond - but the stars are still out of our reach. Jim Holden is XO of an ice miner making runs from the rings of Saturn to the mining stations of the Belt.

Chiku Akinya, great granddaughter of the legendary space explorer Eunice and heir to the family empire, is just one among millions on a long one way journey towards a planet they hope to call their new home. For Chiku, the journey is a personal one, undertaken to ensure that the Akinya family achieves its destiny among the stars. The passengers travel in huge self-contained artificial worlds - holoships - putting their faith in a physics they barely understand.

A gripping collection of stories about machines called Berserkers that are programmed to destroy all organic life.

"A classic sci-fi read that wears its influences on its sleeve, that is sure to please die hard fans of the genre." - Reedsy Discovery Must Read, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Humanity's last hope comes down to a twisted, claustrophobic game of cat and mouse hundreds of light years away from home. After the fallout of an ill-advised space war leaves Earth teetering on the edge of doom, Commander Davis leads the first manned mission to recolonize our species on far away planet Nova. The mission is rushed and thrown together last minute, just like its crew. When it all suddenly goes horribly wrong hundreds...

It started the night Geena and Henry broke up. What was that strange light in the sky? A new star? A comet? Neither. It was the death of Venus. As if to commemorate the end of NASA’s golden couple, our neighbor planet exploded into a brilliant cloud of dust and debris, showering the Earth with radiation and bizarre particles as big as bacteria - a 10-dimensional superstring nanovirus that literally eats rock, transforming it into liquid, and then into molecule-size black holes that devour the very fabric of space-time.

Dan Davis, an electronics engineer, had finally made the invention of a lifetime: a household robot that could do almost anything. Wild success was within reach, but then Dan's life was ruined. In a plot to steal his business, his greedy partner and greedier fiancée tricked him into taking the "long sleep": suspended animation for 30 years.

Duty, love and war are a lethal mix. Val Standish is a farm girl on Nadolo Prime, and everyone knows there's only one way off that backwater planet: joining the Imperial Fleet. When an empire-spanning civil war breaks out, the peaceful life she knows is shattered. With war engulfing the Empire, Standish will do whatever it takes to survive, never knowing that her adventures will take her to the very heart of power, while exposing her to more danger than she’d ever imagine. Standish is a full-length standalone space opera novel in the Earth Saga series. Start here for thrilling space ...

Science Fiction Stories 1 is a gripping science fiction anthology that takes readers on a journey through the unknown, exploring dystopian futures, post-apocalyptic worlds, and thrilling adventures in space. Explore the Unknown Embark on a mission in "Rising" where a lone survivor scours a devastated world, driven by a dream of rebuilding civilization. Witness the eerie events in "In The Grip" as a military officer navigates the cultural complexities of an alien world. Experience the haunting "The Spires Of Sapporo" where remnants of an ancient civilization hold secrets that could alter ...

Fleet of Worlds takes a closer look at Human-Puppeteer (Citizen) relations and the events leading up to Niven's first Ringworld novel. Kirsten Quinn-Kovacks is among the best and brightest of her people. She gratefully serves the gentle race that rescued her ancestors from a dying starship, gave them a world, and nurtures them still. If only the Citizens knew where Kirsten's people came from.

The Argus Space Station looks down on a nightmarish Earth. And from this safe distance, the Committee enforces its despotic rule. There are too many people and too few resources, and they need 12 billion to die before Earth can be stabilised. So corruption is rife, people starve, and the poor are policed by mechanised overseers and identity-reader guns. Citizens already fear the brutal Inspectorate with its pain inducers. But to reach its goals, the Committee will unleash satellite laser weaponry, taking carnage to a new level. This is the world Alan Saul wakes to.

Heartfelt reunions with friends... Desperate plans to gain advantage... Opportunities that cannot be ignored... Discovery of family once thought lost... The time has come for Captain Scott to fight for that which was taken...the very freedom of the world he was sworn to protect.

For decades, the spacefaring species of known space have battled over the largest artifact - and grandest prize - in the galaxy: the all-but-limitless resources and technology of the Ringworld. Now, without warning, the Ringworld has vanished, leaving behind three rival war fleets. If the fallen civilization of the Ringworld can no longer be despoiled of its secrets, the puppeteers will be forced to surrender theirs - everyone knows that they are cowards. But the crises converging upon the trillion puppeteers of the Fleet of Worlds go far beyond even the onrushing armadas.

Technology accelerates human evolution ... Yet extinction draws near ... After manifold technology accelerates evolution, humanity has colonised the stars. Lifespans stretch to hundreds of years. Worlds bloom with strange new life. Bryn, an Invigilator with a dark past, is tasked with keeping watch over the utopia. Summoned to stop a galaxy-devouring threat, he must discern friend from foe on the most distant human colony in existence: Wilderness Five. "Intelligent, fascinating and imaginative science fiction!” – Therese Schwartz, Amazon 5-star review, 2025 From Cambridge planetary ...

When aliens attack and obliterate his solar system, fifteen-year-old Cody Ford narrowly escapes on a battered shuttle, carrying a precious cargo: the last remnants of humanity. Forced to think fast, Cody teams up with a brilliant young engineer named Ellaz to scavenge the wreckage of a lunar shipyard and construct a new starship – a ship capable of outrunning annihilation and carrying a warning to the rest of the galaxy. But building a ship is only half the battle. Cody and Ellaz must master cutting-edge technology, confront impossible choices, and face a chilling truth: sometimes, saving...

Generations ago, nine ships headed into the unknown to explore a distant star called LQ Pyx. Eons later, the convoy has returned to LQ Pyx to begin work on the Web, the alien megastructure that covers the star. Is it a Dyson Sphere, designed to power a civilization as everyone believes - or something far more sinister? Meanwhile, Planet United's littlest convoy, long thought to be lost, reemerges in a different sector of deep space. What they discover holds the answers to unlocking the Web's greater purpose.

Late in the 21st century, Earth receives what looks like an urgent plea for help from planet Proxima Centauri b in the closest star system to the Sun. Astrophysicists suspect a massive solar flare is about to destroy this heretofore-unknown civilization. Earth's space programs are unequipped to help, but an unscrupulous Russian billionaire launches a secret and highly-specialized spaceship to Proxima b, over four light-years away.