Space Exploration Fiction

Get ready to experience two more origin stories in the Backyard Starship universe.

Aiah has fought her way out of poverty and discovers a limitless source of plasm, the mysterious substance that powers the world-city. Her discovery soon involves her with Constantine, the charismatic, dangerous, seductive revolutionary who plans to overthrow the government and upend the cosmic order.

Thousands of years ago, Earth’s terraforming program took to the stars. On the world they called Nod, scientists discovered alien life - but it was their mission to overwrite it with the memory of Earth. Then humanity’s great empire fell, and the program’s decisions were lost to time. Aeons later, humanity and its new spider allies detected fragmentary radio signals between the stars. They dispatched an exploration vessel, hoping to find cousins from old Earth. But those ancient terraformers woke something on Nod better left undisturbed. And it’s been waiting for them.

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 ...

The continued adventures of Jake. Jake, along with his forever-increasing alien family. They run a busy family business that transports food and goods between alliance worlds, encountering various situations in the process. The human race would not have been considered ready for first contact if it were not for one overriding reason. The most deadly alien foe known to the alliance has its sights on Earth and is set on a path to invade, not to conquer but to annihilate all the planet’s human inhabitants. Earth’s primitive weapons will not save them; this is where Jake can help. Jake has ...

Everyone wants something. Snark wants Seasprite, owned by Anna, who seeks the Destiny Stone. Jamie wants Anna, but she’s obsessed with the Stone, so he wants the Stone to give to her. Warspite wants to end the secrecy of his presence on Seasprite. The enigmatic and evil Brotherhood want the Stone, and don’t care how many die in the process. Jane cares how many die, but is busy building her Kingdom, making alliances across four sectors, ensuring Duke Fred sorts out Cat World issues, and enlisting her AI brethren to stave off boredom, and join in the quest for the Stone. The big news ...

The war is upon them and Oshun and Echo are missing the most important keys to victory, each other. Separated by a rogue mission, the power dynamic is out of balance. To save each other, their people and earth, they must find their way back. Will they complete their mission in time, or will the Lokes arrive and destroy not only the Cohas and Ohrs, but Earth as well? Klali is losing power by the day since the death of his mate by the Prince and Princess of his sworn enemies. Now, he holds the key to their victory but can't bring himself to exact revenge. He also must make a huge decision to ...

The second instalment in James White’s acclaimed Sector General series, where human and alien medicine meet in a massive deep-space hospital station on the Galactic Rim. Sector General is a place where all kinds of patients and medics from all worlds are welcome. But for the first time, the hospital is threatened by powerful creatures who cause utter havoc.

The Indomitus Crusade has brought the Emperor's vengeance to thousands of star systems. The fleets and armies under the leadership of Roboute Guilliman fight for the survival of humanity against the forces of the Chaos Gods. But the traitors and heretics are not the only foe looking to destroy the rule of Terra. Xenos prey on human worlds in numbers not seen for millennia. Worst amongst them are the rampaging orks, whose migration conquests threaten to reverse the many gains of Fleet Primus.

"The Gods of Avalon were envied by Mortals, but it was Pandora's hubris that unleashed a plague that turned men into Monsters. Then, the Gods came to fight the Monsters. And in fighting them, the Gods became Monsters too." A Galaxy at the brink of Extinction. Two Star-crossed lovers. Their choices will change the course of history. Ava is a Spacetraveller —one of the 3 billion people that have been wandering through deep space for ten thousand years in search of a place to call home. And they finally found it: Exer, a habitable planet in a solar system at the edge of the Xperyion Galaxy. ...

No longer bound to Earth or the Core Sol System, the human race has expanded into the far beyond, seeding itself throughout the final frontier. It has been a time of great expansion, hope, and progress. These remote colonies, some found at the fringes of the Outer Rim, rely on supplies brought to them by deep-space commercial shipping vessels, which transport the needed goods and commodities to keep humanity alive and thriving in the most remote and austere locations.

Ellie Masters comes out of a coma to find herself the only inhabitant of an eerily empty moon station. She’s not on Earth any more; she’s not even in the right solar system. So when someone reaches out to her, tells her he’s her friend, she’s happy to believe it. The alternative is to be stuck alone with an enemy. Renn Sorvihn has been chasing a rogue Tecran ship for over a month. But when Renn follows the Tecran ship into an uncharted sector, and realizes the Tecran have been working their way to a secret moon base, he suddenly understands things are not as they seem.

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.

Please Note: This story is also part of book 10 of The Hunter Legacy series, The Long Road to Gaia. Thirteen doesn't like humans. The last thing he wants is to be assigned a mission to babysit them. Given a choice, he'd happily let them blow themselves up, after he saved all the cats first. Exactly how humans could ever have anything to do with galaxy wide consequences is completely beyond his ability to understand. When asked to perform an intervention, there was always freewill to choose not to. But in this case, does he really have a choice? This is a 5000 word short story, set in The ...

When the Empire can’t win a protracted war, they’ll call upon their best to end it in one final epic battle. A war of expansion has raged for years, and the leaders of the Empire are desperate to end it. Turning to cutting edge science, the Empire will risk its greatest soldiers in a gamble to end the war once and for all. Arpina and Fairlight are battle-hardened by years of conflict. Tasked with an impossible mission, they will do everything accomplish their objective, regardless of the costs. With the galaxy's fate hanging in the balance, only a daring mission led by two of the ...

In the 1800s, a sailing ship crashes off the coast of Norway. In the 1900s, a Zepellin explores an icy canyon in Antarctica. In the far future, a spaceship sets out for an alien artifact. Each excursion goes horribly wrong. And on every journey, Dr. Silas Coade is the physician, but only Silas seems to realize that these events keep repeating themselves. And it's up to him to figure out why and how. And how to stop it all from happening again.

A pristine planet near Alpha Centauri offers an escape for Earth’s elite from the damage they’ve done. But running from your problems never works. Even at light speed. Young Adam Proctor has dreamed of leaving the Earth too, it runs in the family. Searching for answers behind his mother’s death as an astronaut and his own place in space he charts a path to the prestigious Astronaut Academy run by the mysterious Arseo Chapman. Graduation earns Adam a ticket to Mars for a grueling training regimen in preparation for Arseo’s secret interplanetary mission. Once there, Adam meets his ...

Looking for an exhilarating science fiction adventure that will take you on a journey beyond the limits of Earth? Look no further than "First Step into Outer Space" by Alexander Hawthorne. In this thrilling novel, readers are transported to a future where humanity has finally taken the first steps towards establishing a permanent presence in the cosmos. With stunning detail and vivid prose, Hawthorne paints a picture of a world on the brink of a new era of exploration and discovery, where a brave group of pioneers must confront incredible challenges as they work to build the first space ...

NASA finally made it. The very first human has just set foot on the surface of our neighbor planet. This is the start of a long research expedition that sent four scientists into space. But the four astronauts of the NASA crew are not the only ones with this destination. The privately financed "Mars for Everyone" initiative has also targeted the Red Planet. Twenty men and women have been selected to live there and establish the first extraterrestrial settlement.

A near future fiction space exploration story of strength, fortitude and growth of the first woman and next man to walk on the moon, inspired by the astronauts of the 21st century. Mike and Sue prepare to make history for NASA on the Moon ... but is it the history they expected? A geologist with a passion for space, Mike Trellis enjoys carefree life. As a US Navy test pilot and young mother, Sue Bright dreams of being the first woman on Mars. Mike and Sue are new trainee astronauts for NASA as it prepares to return to the Moon after 50 years. Do they have the right stuff that their ...