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.

Jon Ryan had lived long enough to know better. But with age does not automatically come wisdom. He has saved mankind many times. He even resurrected Earth and all its inhabitants from never-having-existed. But he's still haunted, and haunted people do crazy things.

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.

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....

Continuing the legacy of decades gone by, these fast-paced standalone stories offer wondrous settings, philosophical sci-fi questions, and twists that pack a punch.

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....

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.

My name is Kazimir Wolfe. People call me "Kaz", except they don’t. I never use my real name; it’s too dangerous, for me and for anyone I meet. I’m on the run from the law, who think I killed my aunt, and from whoever did kill her, because they want to finish the job. So, I move around a lot, working construction or whatever job I can find. It’s a lonely life. I don’t let anyone get close...people who get close to me end up dead. Why? I’m a wizard. The world’s only wizard, as far as I know.

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.

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.

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?

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.

Drake, a retired police detective, receives a call in the dead of night from an alien-obsessed podcaster. He hastily departs for Montana the following morning. The phenomenon continues all over the globe. What are they? What do they mean? Britt is on assignment for a digital magazine when she encounters one of the Glass in a tragic boating accident, leaving her no choice but to follow the lead. Panic ensues as mysterious creatures are sighted.

When an experiment to study quantum uncertainty goes spectacularly wrong, physics student Bill Rustad and his friends find that they have accidentally created an inter-dimensional portal. They connect to Outland - an alternate Earth with identical geology, but where humans never evolved. The group races to establish control of the portal before the government, the military, or evildoers can take it away. Then everything changes when the Yellowstone supervolcano erupts in an explosion large enough to destroy civilization and kill half the planet.

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

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.

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....

Deep within the Congo, a team of scientists prepares for the greatest event in the history of humanity, making first contact with an intelligent extraterrestrial species. Only the jungle is no place for doubts. Could first contact be our last?

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.

The world holds its breath as the colossal asteroid 2011 AG5 hurtles towards the Earth. As humanity is faced with extinction, archaeologist Sarah Morgan is in a race against time to uncover a secret that has been buried for millennia: that an advanced ancestor once populated the Earth. As Sarah travels across the continents in search of the truth, she discovers there are those that will kill to protect this most ancient of secrets....

When an experiment to study quantum uncertainty goes spectacularly wrong, physics student Bill Rustad and his friends find that they have accidentally created an inter-dimensional portal. They connect to Outland - an alternate Earth with identical geology, but where humans never evolved. The group races to establish control of the portal before the government, the military, or evildoers can take it away. Then everything changes when the Yellowstone supervolcano erupts in an explosion large enough to destroy civilization and kill half the planet.

For some it’s an opportunity. For others it’s a moment to question their faith: In God, in science, in everything. Still others try to keep the world running in the face of absurdity and uncertainty. And then there are the billions looking to the sky and wondering how a thing that was always just there is now... something absolutely impossible.

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

A secret buried in the Antarctic. A puzzle unsolved for thousands of years. And a Brooklyn-born master gunnery sergeant who's royally pissed that he has to babysit the researchers sent to figure it all out. But when Patrick "Wic" Finnegan finally sees what the team has uncovered, he can't believe his eyes, nor is he prepared for the violence to come. Soon, the portal opens and unleashes a storm of unbridled fury upon humanity.

We were fighting on the wrong side of a war we couldn't win. And that was the good news. The Ruhar hit us on Columbus Day. There we were, innocently drifting along the cosmos on our little blue marble, like the native Americans in 1492. Over the horizon come ships of a technologically advanced, aggressive culture, and BAM! There go the good old days, when humans only got killed by each other. So, Columbus Day. It fits. When the morning sky twinkled again, this time with Kristang starships jumping in to hammer the Ruhar, we thought we were saved.