Space Exploration Fiction

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. ...

Jon Hunter is back. Whether he likes it or not! Be careful what you ask for. A higher being might be listening. It's been 2 days since Jon Hunter reset the timeline, by locking the Darkness away forever. 2 days of grateful rest. For him. For the rest of the team, it feels like a year has passed, and they're stuck in a limbo they cannot escape. Jane wants Jon to get back to work, and a higher power seems to want the same thing. But Jon isn't ready yet, and Jane thinks he only needs a wakeup call. But when has anything Jon Hunter related ever been as simple as a wakeup call? Weird is normal ...

Simon is the best delivery boy that Mr Edwards’s restaurant has ever had. He’s on time every time, and he’s gotten nothing but good reviews. But he needs more money. His mother’s medical treatment won’t pay for itself, and his father is already working three jobs to try to make ends meet. But it might just be his lucky day: Mr. Edwards has another job for him. It’s more delivery work, but not the usual kind. You might even say that it’s out of this world. Oh well. Beggars can’t be choosers, and the pay is fantastic.

When Gunnar McConnell inherits a treasure map after his uncle's death, he goes on the hunt of his life and can't believe what he finds. There isn't just gold on those mountains, but the secret of a lifetime—a starship that can take him to worlds unknown, and a universe full of life.

Legend tells of a foolhardy expedition, led by the radical Magos Telok, that ventured out into the unknown space beyond the Halo Worlds in search of the 'Breath of the Gods' - an arcane device with the power to unmake and reshape the very stars themselves. Thousands of years later, the ambitious Lexell Kotov musters his Adeptus Mechanicus Explorator fleet and sets out to follow in mad old Telok's footsteps.

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 ...

After thousands of years searching, humans stand on the verge of first contact with an alien race. There are two human groups: the Qeng Ho, a culture of free traders, and the Emergents, a ruthless society based on the technological enslavement of minds. The group that opens trade with the aliens will reap unimaginable riches.

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....

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 ...

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 ...

“There’s a lot of things they didn’t tell me when I signed on with this outfit.” At least that’s what Sam Washington discovered after he got hired as Spaceport Manager on Space Station Zion. For one thing, everyone hated his predecessor, so now they hate Sam. Still, once he took the job, Sam considered it his duty to get the place back in shape. But angry admirals and profit-crazed tycoons keep crawling into his job description. Too bad no one is on his side – even when the fate of the entire station is on the line! Can Sam fix this mess, or is it time to start updating his resume?

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.

🌌 In the dark, we whispered. In the silence, we were judged. The universe is a graveyard — ancient, watchful, and merciless. When humanity made its presence known to the stars, it broke the sacred law of survival: stay silent, or perish. Silent Requiem marks the beginning of the saga: Dr. Nia Raine and Commander Ellis Vorn lead the Artemis Ascendant into the mythic Orion Expanse, awakening an ancient intelligence within the Dark Forest. A fragile peace is forged... but at a terrible cost. In War Without Stars, centuries later, new explorers stumble upon the forest once again — and ...

They tried to kill or capture Yozef Kolsko. The possibility that Caedellium could have peaceful years going forward is refuted. The key is bringing down Narthon. But how? Caedellium is too small, despite innovations by Yozef Kolsko (Joseph Colsco) and Mark Kaldwel (Caldwell), humans cast away on the planet Anyar. Allies are needed. Campaigns to be planned. Risks to be taken. For Yozef Kolsko, it means assuming roles he never imagined or believed himself capable. Anyar will never be the same.

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.