I wasn’t supposed to survive. The station has been hit. Everyone around me is dead. I have 11 hours of life support left and no way of contacting Earth. I’m alone. I’m stranded. I’m desperate. But I’m alive. The more of the station I explore, the surer I get that this was no accident. Someone did this, and I don't think they're finished yet.

All eyes fall on the closing stages of a colony-defining isolation test within Terradox’s least hospitable zone—the man-made hellscape of Little Venus, where six astronauts-in-training have survived 51 weeks surrounded by an almost impossibly hostile atmosphere. But while the astronauts of tomorrow count down their final few days until freedom, the gravest threat of all might already be on the wrong side of their Isolation Kompound’s impenetrable walls....

Charlie Travers figures his life can’t get much worse. He lives over a pizza restaurant, he’s lost his girlfriend, and has no prospects for a career. Then, he’s abducted by an alien robot and taken across the galaxy. When he wakes up, he finds himself stranded thousands of light-years away, and about to be killed by space pirates.

The pulse hits without warning. In one harrowingly destructive instant, a mysterious seismic pulse in the Scottish Highlands rips away all semblance of global security. When peace is shattered, fear takes over. The stakes rise without mercy. As the pulse's chaos spreads across the world, it becomes painfully clear that Piper McCarthy - a child born like no other - might hold humanity's only hope of averting total disaster.

Not Alone: First Encounter is a prequel to the globally acclaimed Not Alone series, set several years before two worlds collide under the weight of the grandest conspiracy of all time. For the first time ever, First Encounter lifts the curtain on a deadly series of events surrounding the initial meeting between the ruthless Richard Walker - untouchable head of the controversial Interspace Defense Agency - and a young truth-seeker from Birchwood, Colorado....

Elliot has just finished his third year of college as a finance major. After some tragic family news, he isn’t sure what the future holds. Working part time at the video rental store, Elliot is dumped and offered a promotion, all on the eve of the island’s biggest celebratory day: The Fourth of July. With the help of his best friend, Bones, the new waitress from the local diner, and a mysterious soldier, Elliot must uncover the secrets that surround Bell Island before it’s too late.

When Ben Murdock receives a text message offering a fully operational starship for sale, he’s certain it has to be a joke. Already trapped in the worst day of his life and desperate for a way out, he decides to play along. Except there is no joke. The starship is real. And Ben’s life is going to change in ways he never dreamed possible. All he has to do is sign the contract. Joined by his streetwise best friend and a bizarre tenant with an unseverable lease, he’ll soon discover that the universe is more volatile, treacherous, and awesome than he ever imagined.

Few know the warship’s actual name. But everyone has heard the rumors. The PUV James Keeling can do something no other vessel in existence can do—slip into another dimension, travel undetected, then re-emerge onto our plane and surprise enemy targets. But the thing that makes the Crypt unique also makes it a nightmare for those onboard; interdimensional travel causes hallucinations, violent behavior, and psychotic breakdowns. Keeling could be the Union’s greatest weapon, a game-changing asset that can defeat the bloodthirsty zealots of the Purist Nation, the Union’s mortal enemy.

A mysterious object crests the Sun during a total solar eclipse. Cryptic radio-frequency noise jams TVs and radios worldwide. Sinister alien artifacts inexplicably appear in the capitals of the world's powers. Paralyzed with fear, society begins to crumble. Former NASA scientist Jasmine Evans is the first to spot the object and sound the alarm. Recalled to investigate the mystery, her team makes a critical discovery. But nothing is what it appears to be.

The best science fiction scrutinizes our culture and politics, examines the limits of the human condition, and zooms across galaxies at faster-than-light speeds, moving from the very near future to the far-flung worlds of tomorrow in the space of a single sentence. Neil Clarke has selected the short science fiction (and only science fiction) best representing the previous year's writing, showcasing the talent, variety, and awesome "sensawunda" that the genre has to offer.

First came the development of the Personality Matrix Construct—PMC, transferring human consciousness into a machine. It changed the galaxy and the way wars were fought. Then something went wrong with PMCs and the Federation Wars toppled the galactic order. PMCs became a menace to be hunted and exterminated.

Nick Morrison always wanted to be an astronaut. When a start-up company recruits him to build a lunar launch system at the moon’s south pole, Nick gladly leaves behind his troubled life on Earth—but Nick doesn’t know that the company is in financial and legal trouble. Deprived of support from Earth, the team on the moon must figure out how to survive on their own. Worse yet, there’s another base at the lunar south pole, run by a ruthless contractor who has big plans for the moon...and for Earth.

Dr. Tyson Klein is a quantum physicist who has dedicated his entire life to his research. At CERN, he analyses data generated by the Large Hadron Collider, the world's biggest and most powerful particle accelerator. Now, Ty believes he's found a pattern in its output. It looks like an organised data stream, being broadcast over what he calls a quantum radio. Could it be a signal from another universe? A message sent from the future? Or something else entirely?

Cole Riker is a Slip Runner. A contractor tasked with finding alien salvage in exchange for credits. For an ex-smuggler like Cole, there’s a catch: Don’t break the terms of parole. That means doing things by the book. Find salvage, turn it in, get paid. But everything changes when a retrieval mission lands him in a previously unknown sector. There, he finds the material he’s been sent to recover, along with something more. A brand-new form of ancient alien life.

The aliens tested humans on an individual basis for miner rentals. Do well on your pilot test, get a spaceship, sign up with a corp, and you can mine the belt. For a puddle-jumper pilot like me, yeah, I was so interested I became obsessed. When I finally tested, I performed above and beyond, being offered a contract for some better than a miner - Earth's First Starfighter.

Not Alone: First Encounter is a prequel to the globally acclaimed Not Alone series, set several years before two worlds collide under the weight of the grandest conspiracy of all time. For the first time ever, First Encounter lifts the curtain on a deadly series of events surrounding the initial meeting between the ruthless Richard Walker - untouchable head of the controversial Interspace Defense Agency - and a young truth-seeker from Birchwood, Colorado....

The West has been devastated by epidemics, bio-terrorism, war, and famine. Asia has shut its borders to keep the threats at bay, and some with power and influence have already abandoned Earth. Now an escape route a century in the making - the Nomad mission - finally offers hope to a small town and a secret research centre hidden in a rural American backwater. Shrouded in lies and concealed even from the research centre's staff, Nomad is about to fulfil its long-dead founder's vision of preserving the best of humanity to forge a new future. But who decides who's worthy?

Living and slaving in Fill City One, you get used to the smell. We call it the Everpresent Stink. But every once in a while, on a spring day with a breeze, it clears away enough to remind us that there is something more out there. Most Fillers' wildest dreams would be just to get past the walls and live in the mainland. But my dream? It’s a little bigger. I’m going to Mars.

In the southwestern desert, a mysterious cult prays for the return of the Visitors. Only one creature can derail that grand and glorious event: An evil entity, known as the Duad, can keep the Visitors from arriving and prevent the transfiguration to come. Daley, who lives nearby, has a far more serious problem: an alien consciousness that has taken up residence in her head.

Higgens has the best job in the galaxy. Except for the fact that he’s technically a janitor on a galactic mining vessel. When he discovers an unknown alien species, his world gets turned upside down. He will have to find unlikely allies if he is going to save his new friend and help her build a new home. The Mimic and the Space Engineer boxed set contains the first three books in the Space Shifter Chronicles. If you like fast-paced space adventures with engaging, and quirky, characters, you will love Higgens, Mimic, and their adventures in space.

Any kind of death annuls everything except his present knowledge and returns him to the past. This is a good way to test all sorts of things. That is, it would be, if not for one little thing.... This loop has real lords and it's unlikely that they'll be happy to hear about an uninvited guest. And that isn't his only problem - all of his memories of the last year have simply disappeared, but the world around him has changed in the meantime.

The Cure is a genre-bending thriller reminiscent of Michael Crichton or Douglas Preston, about the biological underpinnings of psychopathy. As a child, her family was taken from her by a serial killer. Erin Palmer is left orphaned and forever scarred. She dedicates her life to the study of psychopaths, conducting one-on-one interviews and tests with inmates. When Erin finally finishes years of exhaustive research, she finds herself in possession of the key to ending psychopathic behavior - in the species - forever. That' s when they try to kill her.

Set on the coast of South Carolina, an unknown infection has caused people to die and come back to life as reanimated corpses, attacking any living person. This is the story of the survival of one man who was the benefactor of a shelter that helped him to live through the onslaught of the infected dead.

Mike Lynch is going through hard times. But things get much worse when he witnesses a murder in a lay-by. Snatching the victim’s car in order to get away, Mike soon makes a shocking discovery - the victim’s young daughter and her nanny are hiding in the rear footwell. This is when the real trouble begins. Mike wants to go to the police, but the nanny, Melissa, wants to delay until the daughter, Charlie, is somewhere safe. Who exactly was the man he saw murdered? And who is the man he saw pulling the trigger?

Cities all around the world reported strange alien vessels descending. Some saw them as the heralds of a new age; others fired everything they had at them. All were taken as the beams lashed down and drew them into the sky. Dean was left behind, seemingly the last man on Earth. A trail of clues left by his dead wife guides Dean on a perilous journey across America and beyond to learn the truth behind the mysterious ships and save humanity from its doom.