Space Exploration Fiction

The year is 2650. Seventy-five years ago, an alien fleet attacked Earth. Without warning. Without mercy. We were not prepared. Hundreds of millions perished. Dozens of cities burned. We nearly lost everything. Then the aliens abruptly left. We rebuilt. We armed ourselves. We swore: never again. But the aliens never came back. Until now. With overwhelming force the aliens have returned, striking deep into our territory, sending Earth into a panic.

Humanity has reached an uneasy truce with the Empire—but unless the allies bring the fight to the enemy, extinction is all but assured. In preparation for the inevitable next war, Commander Stephen Michaels is at the helm of the Archangel Squadron, and his orders are simple: go rogue. Disguised as mercenaries, Commander Michaels and the Archangels seek valuable intelligence on their imposing foe. Their mission takes them deep into uncharted territory, where they make inroads with the Empire, fiercely guarding their true identities and purpose.

Mary Robinette Kowal continues the grand sweep of alternate history begun in The Calculating Stars. The Fated Sky looks forward to 1961, when mankind is well established on the moon and looking forward to its next step: journeying to, and eventually colonizing, Mars. Of course the noted Lady Astronaut Elma York would like to go, but there’s a lot riding on whoever the International Aerospace Coalition decides to send on this historic - but potentially very dangerous - mission. Could Elma really leave behind her husband and the chance to start a family to spend several years traveling to Mars?

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...

Marcus has spent his entire life toiling in the shadowy depths of the Lunar mining colony, along with his companions. Their mission? To extract crucial resources and energy essential for sustaining the distant colonies on the lunar surface. Despite the demanding and solitary nature of their work, Marcus clings to the promise of a brighter future, hoping for a more prestigious position and even a chance to experience life on the fabled surface colonies in his twilight years. Living under the stringent rule of an unseen authority, the miners adhere to strict schedules and endure unyielding ...

Spending six months a year in space mining asteroids is tough, but for Personnel Supervisor Ray McHenry, there are compensations. His role as a Catholic deacon means the majority of the strong Catholics in the Company have flocked to Blair Asteroid Mining Station--the only station in the Company where weekly Eucharist provides solace and strength. When Blair’s shipment of Host is lost in an accident, Ray is ready for tough times--but not nearly as tough as when the Host start mysteriously multiplying.

Disturbing the established order will mean kicking over a fair number of rocks, although Mark, Valint, and the others might be surprised by what scurries forth underneath—and what uniform it's wearing when it steps into the light. Mark Tudor will make the title Peacemaker mean something once again, but to do that, he'll have to face the worst the galaxy has to offer. Death waits in the quiet moments. And sometimes, it is a soldier's loved ones that pay the greatest price.

During her pursuit of the human traitors known as Nemesis, Mage-Captain Roslyn Chambers ventured deep into alien stars. She destroyed her enemy at the final moment but saw firsthand the might of the alien empire Nemesis called the Reejit. The lost world Chimera has hidden between human and alien space for generations. Roslyn must protect the planet from this waking threat, but both the human and alien colonists see her as a harbinger of nightmares.

[Original Novella Version, now replaced by the novel length Extended Version] Detective Richard Burnside is a long way from Earth system. For two years he's been tracking a serial killer, and finally he falls only hours short of preventing the next kill. Avon PD are as much use as any other PD when it comes to this killer, but this time, has the killer finally slipped up? Thinking you know the next target doesn’t help much unless someone will believe you. General Price introduces Burnside to Captain Jane, and with Janet's help, they set a trap for the killer on Hunter's Redoubt. But is ...

Half-Navajo geologist Jamie Waterman has been selected for the ground team of the first manned expedition to our mysterious neighbor planet. Joining an international team of astronauts and scientists, he endures the rigors of training, the dangers of traveling an incredible distance in space, the challenges of an alien landscape, and the personal and political conflicts that arise when the team must face the most shocking discovery of all.

Awash with loss and surrounded by enemies, Van and his crew are faced with the same challenge Mark Tudor dealt with decades earlier. Does Van accept the crown and become a Master?

Aboard the Aegis, young Emmett Trengor's dreams of becoming a xeno-archaeologist seem within reach. His world of replicated artifacts and ancient alien civilization histories is upended when he stumbles upon a relic that hints at a deeper connection to a long-lost culture. With fair hair and inquisitive green eyes, Emmett may look unassuming, but his discovery aboard Xypheron IV could change the fate of the galaxy. As the Aegis prepares for a rare double eclipse, Emmett—with his friends Jyron's quick reflexes, Lina's linguistic mastery, and Sylaxia's logical mind—uncovers symbols that ...

The long-awaited follow-up to Voyager: Architects of Infinity from the New York Times best-selling author and cocreator of Star Trek: Picard! As the crew of the Full Circle fleet works to determine the fate of their lost ship, the Galen, a struggle for survival begins at the far edge of the galaxy. New revelations about Species 001, the race that built the biodomes that first drew the fleet to investigate planet DK-1116, force Admiral Kathryn Janeway to risk everything to learn the truth.

Too many years of hunting psychotic vampires night after night have left Rachel with a need for change. So when the opportunity to travel across the galaxy aboard a Lasaran warship to a utopian planet arises, the powerful Immortal Guardian jumps at the chance. Rachel eagerly looks forward to making a fresh start . . . until an enemy attacks and she ends up alone in an escape pod so far from alliance-occupied space that no one can hear her communications. No one except a renegade cyborg who shouldn't exist.

Regan is back and has had enough of the war. Pushing himself and his forces, he works to put an end to the war that is raging on multiple fronts. At the same time, he sends his forces in the Beneath rumored to be home of the most powerful races on Murgin to find the missing Queen Louella. He quickly finds the Terra wave from Starfall had caused more of a mess than he originally thought, with the Beneath's political situation almost more of a mess than the surface.

John Riley is a physicist who achieves his lifelong dream of unraveling the mysteries of anti-gravity, but along the way, also unwittingly discovers the secret of interstellar communication. When he and a small group of coworkers attempt to respond to an unexpected message, believing it to have originated from somewhere on Earth, they find more than they anticipate. The message is from deep space.

After three hundred years of travelling across the expanse, it finally reached Earth. The first signal was brief, and once deciphered consisted of three words: “Message to follow”. The second took longer to decode, and was a detailed tutorial of an alien language. In the third message, the Nyrians introduced themselves. In response, humanity sent two ships: The Concurrent mission travelled three hundred lightyears to see who was still there. The Response team folded both space and time to find out who originally sent it. Both were unprepared for what they found.

Months after Inara leaves Serenity, Mal and the crew finally learn the reason for her sudden departure: She is dying of a terminal illness. Expert Esau Weng is said to have developed a means to treat Inara’s condition, but he has been disgraced and incarcerated for life on a notorious Alliance prison planet. On Atata planet, inmates are abandoned with no guards and left to survive as best they can. What’s more, terraforming the planet did not take properly, so the world is a frozen wasteland. To save Inara, the Serenity crew must infiltrate the prison....

Aliens ripped a hole above Earth, arriving with a massive space station. I sorta figured we'd be enslaved to fight in their wars or exterminated for our resources. Nope. The hip-high Iglax were merchants with ugly squished faces and thick blue fur. While they weren't much to look at, they sure did have some wonderous technology.

Bridging the Void Book One of The Skybridge Cycle Sixteen-year-old farmhand Kaelen Dovren expected the Confederation’s routine Talent Evaluation to add a footnote to an otherwise ordinary life on remote Ardis Colony. Instead, the scanner flares white-hot: Kaelen is a once-in-a-generation Prime, gifted with telepathy and mass-casting powerful enough to bend starships. Whisked from dusty fields to the glittering orbital citadel of Vectis Hub, he’s plunged into a realm of psychic academies, political sharks and cargo routes that leap light-years in the blink of a thought. Every successful ...