Space Exploration Fiction

This is a striking addition to the body of Culture lore, and adds definition and scale to the previous works by using the Earth of 1977 as contrast. The stories in the collection range from science fiction to horror, dark-coated fantasy to morality tale. All bear the indefinable stamp of Iain Banks's staggering talent.

Season after season, the clans of the Brilliant Valley rely upon nature's dependable bounty. From their river's ceaseless flow, to the berry patch's delectable fruit, none among the valley's inhabitants could ever conceive of drought, or deprivation of any kind—until the night a colossal entity fell from the stars… The Shepherd of the Brilliant Valley - a new sci-fi short story from the bestselling author of The Dig and Exigency.

She’s just become part of the biggest scoop of her career – a million miles from Earth! As a local reporter, Dani’s always at the forefront of any investigation. When women start disappearing in her town, she searches for answers. She just didn’t expect to go missing too! She finds herself on a strange planet – as a prize in an intergalactic gladiator tournament. A huge, red-skinned gladiator catches her eye, and Dani immediately knows that she wants to be chosen by him. But Alothrax is just as much of a prisoner as she is. Is there any hope for freedom? Or is she doomed to a life...

When Gyre Price lied her way into this expedition, she thought she’d be mapping mineral deposits and that her biggest problems would be cave collapses and gear malfunctions. She also thought that the fat paycheck - enough to get her off-planet and on the trail of her mother - meant she’d get a skilled surface team, monitoring her suit and environment, keeping her safe. Keeping her sane. Instead, she got Em. Em sees nothing wrong with controlling Gyre’s body with drugs or withholding critical information to “ensure the smooth operation” of her expedition.

Van's next mission has begun, and at the heart of it is the power to save lives. Meanwhile, a hungry galaxy looks to a brilliant young scientist for answers, making her the most wanted person in known space. After years of research, Adayluh Creel perfects a resource to feed sixteen races—or more—all with one golden plant capable of growing on the most hostile worlds. For her efforts, she wants nothing, but savage forces will seek to possess what she would give away for free, thus controlling the food source for billions of people.

The Ark—humanity’s valiant effort to reach beyond our solar system to establish the first interstellar colony at a distant star. For 300 thousand colonists, the colony brings the promise of a fresh start and for some, a second chance. Connor never meant to escape wrongful imprisonment, nor being put into stasis aboard the Ark. He might be the wrong man for the colony, but he’s the right man to see that it survives what’s coming.

In 2030, a grieving archeologist arrives in the Arctic Circle to continue the work of his recently deceased daughter at the Batagaika Crater, where researchers are studying long-buried secrets now revealed in melting permafrost, including the perfectly preserved remains of a girl who appears to have died of an ancient virus. Once unleashed, the Arctic plague will reshape life on Earth for generations to come, quickly traversing the globe, forcing humanity to devise a myriad of moving and inventive ways to embrace possibility in the face of tragedy.

When your luck just plain sucks in not one galaxy, but two, most people would throw in the towel. But not Charlie. In fact, it almost seemed like he was a glutton for that sort of misery.

The human race is running out of time on overcrowded Earth, and only one man has the courage to do what is necessary to save it. Colony ship Ark is the greatest project the human race will ever attempt, a self-contained world 100 years in the building, launched on a 10,000-year voyage to carry the seeds of civilization to the stars. It is humanity's final gamble for escape from a desperate world, but the price of hope is measured in lives.

The Great Devourer is descending on the world of Tarsis Ultra, but to defeat the xenos horrors, Captain Uriel Ventris may have to embark upon a dangerous and unorthodox mission.

Top Gun heads to outer space in this throwback to the classic science fiction of Asimov, Clarke, and Heinlein. Strapped in to artificial wings spanning 25 feet across, your arms push a tenth of your body weight with each pump as you propel yourself at frightening speeds through the air. Inside a pressurized dome on the Moon, subject to one-sixth Earth's gravity, there are swarms of chiseled, fearless, superbly trained flyers all around you, jostling for air space like peregrine falcons racing for the prize.

While the crew of the UN Expeditionary Force's pirate starship Flying Dutchman are enjoying a luxury vacation cruise (not!), UNEF troops are still stranded on an alien-controlled planet. Major Emily Perkins and her team are busy picking up the pieces, and it's not easy, because there is trouble on Paradise...

Not every visitor to or from Earth has good intentions, and the Peacemakers are faced with an uncomfortable reality. The Earth is about to meet aliens. Some of the aliens are bringing goods to trade. And among those items are weapons. When a secret cabal of humans who want to exploit the Earth is revealed, Van has to decide how and where to fight this threat. Along the way, he reveals a secret history that began in the Great War—and ends with mass chaos on his home planet.

After eighty years of fragile peace, the Architects are back, wreaking havoc as they consume entire planets. In the past, Originator artifacts—vestiges of a long-vanished civilization—could save a world from annihilation. This time, the Architects have discovered a way to circumvent these protective relics. Suddenly, no planet is safe. Facing impending extinction, the Human Colonies are in turmoil. While some believe a unified front is the only way to stop the Architects, others insist humanity should fight alone.

Joe is the real thing, a guardian angel sent from Heaven to protect Staff Sergeant Abigail Russel. The problem is, she doesn’t believe him. All she cares about is getting revenge against the people that killed her family. To make that happen, she needs an assignment to Rose World. That’s where she’ll get a chance to even the score. The question is how to survive until then. She’s stuck in the middle of a siege where grunts like her are considered expendable. The best option is to get face-to-face with the enemy, but only a miracle can keep her alive against those kinds of odds.

Eustis Grimes, an idealistic cyber-nerd, has to go on the run when his best friends are murdered by the evil Admiral Strafe for their faith. Eustis is thrust into a Solar System where just the mention of outlawed ideas can get you killed in a dozen creative ways. Since he has no ship, no money, and no connections, he is forced to sneak aboard a rattle-beaten freighter of smugglers as they set out into the wild black yonder. He embarks armed with stubbornness and an unstoppable drive to share the gospel with the Solar System before Admiral Strafe finds him.

Jens needed to get off the planet in a hurry so he took the first job on an interstellar freighter he found—part of a convoy to a far-flung mining colony three Steps and almost three thousand lightyears away. Only the desperate went so far—colonists willing to trade a life on Earth for a new start on a rock somewhere across the galaxy, or spacers one step ahead of the law. But as each Step takes him farther from home, Jens learns that the job isn’t exactly what he was told, the cargo not as legitimate, and his situation even more precarious. Jens finds himself being groomed for a role...

Null Stellarium is more than a shipyard. It's a proving ground steeped with science and engineering designed to push warships faster than ever before, and armed to confront the growing menace of a universe where everything is influenced by a hidden evil. As Van and his crew grow into their new roles, Perry unlocks a memory that reaches into the very beginning of the Tudor family's service nearly a century earlier. But sometimes, the truth is hidden for a reason, and Van must decide—How much does he really want to know? And how far can he take his ship, knowing there's a price on his head?

In the heart of the South Pacific lies Point Nemo, the most desolate and remote place on Earth. At its core is a dead zone, devoid of life, where government agencies crash their obsolete satellites and space stations, confident they won't harm a soul. When the International Space Station suffers a catastrophic failure and plummets through the atmosphere, it's here that Mission Specialist Julie Rohr, an astrobiologist studying living space dust called xylem, finds herself marooned. Julie's only hope for rescue lies in the hands of her estranged father, Dr. Finn Maddern, a renowned mycologist.

Alien worlds have a tendency of being unforgiving. People who take too long to learn that die, those who can adapt survive. Same as anywhere else in the galaxy. But there's also a bit of luck that comes into play for those that stay alive. Matthew's luck is looking up as he searches for the lost seeder ship that may or may not exist. All he has to go off of are old stories. Alas, his luck may just run out. Join Matthew as he fights to save Allegra! Seeder is the sixteenth book in the short story military sci-fi series The Battle for Allegra. Dive into this tale as new alien species are ...