One of the most powerful questions humans ask about the cosmos is: Are we alone? While the science behind this inquiry is fascinating, it doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It is a reflection of our values, our fears, and most importantly, our enduring sense of hope. In The Possibility of Life, acclaimed science journalist Jaime Green traces the history of our understanding, from the days of Galileo and Copernicus to our contemporary quest for exoplanets. Along the way, she interweaves insights from science fiction writers who construct worlds that in turn inspire scientists.

Jonas is a transient: a human spy living as an eternal. His mission is simple: always learn, never get caught. In the year 2578, an immortal regime controls the planet. Endless war has pushed humanity to the brink of extinction. Desperate to survive, the remaining factions deploy teenage spies, hoping to defeat the enemy from within. After years in the lion's den, Jonas has grown to admire the eternal civilization. He is learning to love what he blindly hated, blurring the mission and himself.

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.

Arlo Lewis was resigned to his station in life as a supply hauler for one of the Primary Corporations ruling Earth, until an acquisition forces him to re-evaluate his situation. When he’s hand selected to lead SeaTech’s Race team, he struggles to return to the competitive field he abandoned as a teenager. With an eager team, and the promise of a better future, Arlo takes on the challenge, only to find more at stake than the rights to Proxima. Under the threat of a revolution brewing at the finish line, things don’t go as expected.

Since long before the spaceships' fleeting presence, Blaine has been content to go along with the whims of his supermom wife and half-feral, television-addicted children. But when the kids blithely ponder skinning people to see if they're aliens, and his wife drags them all on a surprise road trip to Disney World, even steady Blaine begins to crack. Half a continent away, Heather floats in a Malibu pool and watches the massive ships hover overhead. Maybe her life is finally going to start.

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.

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.

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.

As a psychic warrior in the elite Order of Amazons, Peri is tasked with protecting the last vestiges of her people on the sanctuary planet of Atlantis, no matter the cost. For over a thousand years, she has enjoyed relative immortality, cycling into a freshly cloned body when the old breaks down. But corruption has taken root at the core of the settlement, and cracks are forming in the peaceful façade. Peri is no longer convinced that the mission she has devoted lifetimes to is still worth her loyalty....

When a NASA satellite discovers an astonishingly rare object buried deep in the Arctic ice, the floundering space agency proclaims a much-needed victory, a victory with profound implications for NASA policy and the impending presidential election. To verify the authenticity of the find, the White House calls upon the skills of intelligence analyst Rachel Sexton. Accompanied by a team of experts, including the charismatic scholar Michael Tolland, Rachel travels to the Arctic and uncovers the unthinkable.

A peaceful organization of civilized planets is faced with a threat to their very existence. Desperate to save themselves, they turn for help to the most brutal, backward, violent species in the known galaxy: humans.

There he was in his sailboat in the middle of the Atlantic, all alone and loving it. Well, there was a US Navy carrier group on his southern horizon, but he was a Navy guy himself, so he didn't mind. Then came the UFOs, hurtling in from the Outer Black to overfly the carriers at Mach 17. Their impossible aerobatics were bad enough—but then they started shooting at each other, and at the Navy, with nukes. Little ones at first, but winding up with a 500 megatonner at 90 miles that fried every piece of electronics within line-of-sight.

Chuck never thought too deeply about whether aliens existed - not until Jopp, an intergalactic transport pilot, drunkenly crashed on Earth and tried to steal his truck. Now Chuck finds himself unwittingly roped into helping Jopp work off a debt to the universe's most powerful corporation, the Prime Partners Intergalactic Consortium. Through a series of mishaps and misfortune, the duo find themselves in possession of a mysterious black case. In order to survive, they must fend off murderous marauders, an interplanetary police force, and a peculiar crime boss.

Space travel just isn't what it used to be. With the invention of quantum teleportation, space heroes aren't needed anymore. When one particularly unlucky ex-adventurer masquerades as famous pilot and hate figure Jacques McKeown, he's sucked into an ever-deepening corporate and political intrigue. Between space pirates, adorable deadly creatures, and a missing fortune in royalties, saving the universe was never this difficult!

The ex-planet Pluto has a few choice words about being thrown out of the solar system. A listing of alternate histories tells you all the various ways Hitler has died. A lawyer sues an interplanetary union for dangerous working conditions. And four artificial intelligences explain, in increasingly worrying detail, how they plan not to destroy humanity. Welcome to Miniatures: The Very Short Fiction of John Scalzi.