Space Exploration Fiction

It's the dawn of a new era - and we're ready to colonize Mars. But the company that's been contracted to construct a new Mars base has made promises they can't fulfill and is desperate enough to cut corners. The first thing to go is the automation...the next thing they'll have to deal with is the eight astronauts they'll send to Mars, when there aren't supposed to be any at all. Frank - father, architect, murderer - is recruited for the mission to Mars with the promise of a better life, along with seven of his most notorious fellow inmates.

On a mission to a planet threatened by a toxic disaster, Obi-Wan and Anakin are separated. Anakin and three other apprentices - one of them his rival - must work together in order to survive. Anakin's instincts are clear...but are they right?

Science Fiction Stories 12: A Collection of Gripping Tales from the UnknownScience Fiction Stories 12 by Various Authors is a thrilling compilation of futuristic adventures, extraterrestrial encounters, and cosmic mysteries. Immerse yourself in a universe where anything is possible, and the limits of human imagination are stretched beyond the stars. Discover what happens when: A survey team stumbles upon an alien species with faster-than-light travel. Heroes are forged in the crucible of interstellar conflict. The remnants of ancient civilizations hold secrets that could alter the course of...

The Tyr stand on the brink of extinction. The Clay family has one last desperate plan to save the Tyr. Sarah leads an infiltration team of Tyr deep behind the invader's lines, but can she trust the Hidden caste operatives with her? David carries the device that could sever the planet from the threat of Director Zike, while Tyr traitors are on his trail and will stop at nothing to obey their new masters and to exact revenge against General Fastal. As the Tyr fight for survival, secrets will be revealed with implications for the galaxy far beyond what happens on their world.

It is the year 2044 on Earth. At the Farside observatory complex on the Moon, a startling astronomical discovery has been made. A survey for pulsars has found an x-ray source in a region of space where none has been detected before. Upon further investigation, they find that this x-ray source is just outside of the Solar System and is approaching at over 300 miles per second. The astronomers are paralyzed by what they have found knowing what its disastrous ramifications might be. A neutron star is approaching the Solar System. It appeared out of a small dense dust cloud that was shielding ...

The planet Vok is holding its first free elections after years of oppressive military rule. Captain James T. Kirk and the crew of the Starship Enterprise have been dispatched by Starfleet to serve as impartial observers, but remaining neutral proves a challenge, as Kirk confronts a tangled web of scandal, conspiracy, and assassination plots - with the stability of an entire sector at stake. To make matters worse, Dr. Leonard McCoy has vanished while on a mission of mercy to Braco, a nearby planet only a system away.

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.

When Carson Napier's giant rocket crash-lands on the planet Venus, he knows that there will be no return to Earth for him. His only option: find a way to survive until other Earth rockets can reach him—if they can! Beneath the eternal clouds, contrary to everything science predicted, Carson finds a race of strange people inhabiting trees that make the giant redwoods of California look like mere saplings.

Lisa’s a few inches shy of seven feet tall, even when she wears flat heels. She’s got the physique of a fetishistic muscle goddess, impressive in every sense of the word. Her eyes glow when she’s staring down her enemies, and her right arm is a prosthetic multi-tool. She’s got the firepower of a capital ship on her sturdy little vessel, her armor has seen veterans and laborers through the worst of conditions for over a century, and both the ship and the armor were a gift from her foster father after he’d finished teaching her everything he knew about being better at violence than ...

A Fire Upon the Deep is the big, breakout book that fulfills the promise of Vinge's career to date: a gripping tale of galactic war told on a cosmic scale. Thousands of years hence, many races inhabit a universe where a mind's potential is determined by its location in space, from superintelligent entities in the Transcend, to the limited minds of the Unthinking Depths, where only simple creatures and technology can function.

Hannah is a fusion scientist working alone at a remote cottage off the coast of Scotland when she sees a figure making his way from the sea. It is a young man from a human settlement on Mars, traveling backwards through time to try to make a crucial intervention in the fate of our dying planet, and he needs Hannah's help. Hannah and the stranger are on the path towards a breakthrough—and then things go terribly wrong.

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.

The year is 2312. Scientific and technological advances have opened gateways to an extraordinary future. Earth is no longer humanity's only home; new habitats have been created throughout the solar system on moons, planets, and in between. But in this year, 2312, a sequence of events will force humanity to confront its past, its present, and its future. The first event takes place on Mercury, on the city of Terminator, itself a miracle of engineering on an unprecedented scale. It is an unexpected death, but one that might have been foreseen....

One man. One Gate. A choice that will echo across the stars. Elias Cade never asked to be a savior. Haunted by a past he barely survived and pulled through a Gate not meant to open, he finds himself on Andara—a world of radiant suns, warring Houses, and ancient technology alive with memory. But Andara doesn’t want a hero. It wants a key. Drawn into a conflict older than time, Elias must navigate a fragile alliance with Kaelenn, a warrior bound by honor; Princess Alura, a ruler bound by prophecy; and the Wordless, a living weapon created for silence—and reborn for purpose. Together, ...

When itinerant cave diver James Tighe receives an invitation to billionaire Nathan Joyce's private island, he thinks it must be a mistake. But Tighe's unique skill set makes him a prime candidate for Joyce's high-risk venture to mine a near-Earth asteroid - with the goal of kick-starting an entire off-world economy. The potential rewards and personal risks are staggering, but the competition is fierce, and the stakes couldn't be higher. Isolated and pushed beyond their breaking points, Tighe and his fellow 21st-century adventurers must rely on each other to survive....

Ideas como libertad o igualdad murieron junto con la Tierra. Ahora, en Marte, el equilibrio se sustenta en un férreo sistema de castas representadas por colores. Para acceder a la élite de los gobernantes, los dorados deben ganarse su puesto en una contienda implacable. Pero Darrow no es un dorado. Es un rojo, forjado en las entrañas del infierno.

Admiral Jack Romanoff and his people have begun the liberation of Vesuvius from the xenophobic Novarites, but even something that straightforward is difficult. The enemy outnumbers them, and removing the threat won’t be easy. Worse, they are killing humans in job lots, so time is of the essence.

Though she knows her brother holds her mother's favor, Ingrid is determined to at least be considered as heir to the family name. She hatches an audacious plan—free a thief from a prison planet from which no one has ever returned, and use them to help steal back a priceless artifact. But Ingray and her charge return to her home to find their planet in political turmoil, at the heart of an escalating interstellar conflict. Together, they must make a new plan to salvage Ingray's future and her world, before they are lost to her for good.

A science fiction novel about why the United States quit going to the moon.

Two years after the USS Voyager’s return from the Delta Quadrant, Seven of Nine finds herself rejected for a position in Starfleet and instead finds a new home with the interstellar rogue law enforcement corps known as the Fenris Rangers. The Rangers seem like an ideal fit for Seven—but to embrace this new destiny, she must leave behind all she’s ever known, and risk losing the most important thing in her life: her friendship with Admiral Kathryn Janeway.