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 newly renamed Vance Turbo has sabotaged his own career at Space Fleet Academy due to a desire to atone for a training accident. Unfortunately, his actions result in him getting press-ganged into an expendable crew of misfits recruited by a legendary starship captain. Their mission? To recover a collection of lost sun-destroying missiles that could restart a galactic war. Unfortunately, Vance is smart enough to know something is wrong with this picture. After all, no sane person would recruit this crew to save the universe.

It was a day like any other when suddenly the world changed. The universe reached a threshold humanity didn’t even know existed, and it was time to finally be integrated into the vast multiverse. A place where power is the only thing anyone can truly rely on.

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.

Some starship captains explore strange new worlds, seeking out new life and new civilizations. Some lead missions of discovery through wormholes to the other side of the galaxy. Then there's Captain Iridius B. Franklin, someone who spent too long seeking out strange new bars and new alien cocktails.

Jack Bishop needs a pair of tickets aboard one of the Arks - colossal lifeboats destined to shepherd humanity to the stars. Desperate to save his wife, he signs up for a dangerous wormhole experiment...but something goes catastrophically wrong, and Jack finds himself cast into the Stellar Abyss.

An overconfident pilot with a stolen spaceship must fix an alien device before time runs out. The Newtonians came to Earth 2000 years ago looking for a place to call home. Earth was perfect, except its sun had a fatal flaw that needed to be corrected. Once it was fixed, they were free to abandon their ship and leave it to orbit the planet below. Earthlings commonly refer to it as the moon.

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.

Michael Freeman is a disabled veteran who had just been fired from his mind-numbing cubicle job, which allowed his opportunistic girlfriend to dump him. Now, he only wants to spend some time at his grandfather's mountain cabin so he can unwind, away from the drudgery of daily life and with a cold beer in his hands. Standing in his way is an ancient spaceship with an emotional AI, nanites that have invaded his body, an international crime syndicate, a suicidal FBI agent on a vigilante mission, terrorists . . . and that's just the beginning.

Knocking at death’s door. Bargaining for a second chance. Seems like a heck of a way to find out about an alien invasion.... Vietnam vet Albert Jenkins is battling a bulging waistline and a passion for drink. So when a towering pile of scrap rocket parts falls and crushes the stubborn curmudgeon, he thinks it’s finally the end. But just as he’s about to take one final breath, a snarky alien parasite offers him a deal: His life in return for sharing his body.

Ruby Palmer finds herself on an entire planet surrounded by the things she hates the most: robots. Besides taking everything she says way too literally, the robots have problems of their own. A myriad of technical glitches are, on the cosmological scale, quickly destroying them. Ruby has the programming knowledge and skills that matter to them, but can she overcome her fears and find it within herself to help? Her survival, along with the survival of all of humanity and robot kind, depends on it.

Dirriken Friedel used his aristocratic connections to rescue his troops. He didn't plan on starting a war or killing them himself. Now he spends his days in jail, waiting for an assassin sent by his dead officers families to end his misery. When he's broken out by off-duty marines he has a chance to start over, if he's worthy. During his ramshackle escape he collects a broken-down trading ship, a bitter former army officer, a genetically altered religious fanatic, a runaway ingenue, a sham engineer, and a murderous femme fatale.

Leo MacGavin is not the brightest specimen of humanity, but when he inadvertently rescues a flirty alien heiress, he’s promoted from second-rate lounge entertainer to captain of the galaxy’s most sophisticated cruise ship. Before he can flee in terror, a human-hating executive gives Leo an ultimatum: complete the vessel’s maiden voyage or mankind’s last colony will be turned into a sewage dump. To make matters worse, a militant cyborg is undermining his authority, a giant spider is terrifying the passengers, and a sentient plant keeps stealing all the beer.

Nathan's life was defined by labs and lectures until an Archmage yanked him into Davrar and made him a tantalizing offer: master magic in exchange for Earth's scientific secrets. Yet, Nathan can't shake off the feeling that darker truths lurk beneath such promises. The world of Davrar is a dangerous place teeming with dungeons and monsters–ruled by levels, Talents, and a near-infinite progression of power. Nathan will need to rely on himself to survive, forging alliances and taking every advantage he can get against those that seek to control him.

What would you do to change your life? How far would you go? How hard would you fight? Rather than work his bones into dust toiling away on a barren world, Ryck Lysander chooses to enlist in the Federation Marine Corps. But as he quickly finds out, this path isn't just a job...it's a calling...and not everyone is suited to wear the uniform.

A strange, glowing object lands in the forest. Tim is the only one who sees it. Venturing out to investigate, he discovers animals infected with a mysterious black growth. When he returns to his cabin, he realizes the horrifying truth: whatever disease the object brought to Earth, Tim has caught it too.

The artifact we found on Vesta changed everything. Sure, we were able to patent the new technologies we managed to reverse engineer, and make a hefty sum. But we could never have anticipated where these discoveries would eventually lead. The board of directors still wants to see what we come back with, but those of us on the ship know that there's something far more significant than Hegemony credits out here. And we have to do it right by humanity.

Escaping the war was easy until they killed his friend. Now war is all they'll know. When Frank Sherman was one month into college, the Twin Towers fell. He joined the Army the next day. That was fifteen years ago. He never left the war. After a brutal and bloody mess in Eastern Europe, they give him leave to visit his only genuine friend in Northern California. Sherman arrives in the small backwater town to find an empty house and a sinking sense of despair. What began as an escape from the violence and blood quickly spirals back to the war. As he uncovers each new link in the mystery, ...

During a test flight for the world’s first warp engine, Major Noah Gantz is set to go down in the history books. Despite years of training, the mission goes sideways, and instead of a quick trip to the moon and back, Noah's ship is transported across the universe to stars unknown.

Deep in the Amazon, Dr. Nick Randall has made a discovery that could rewrite the history of mankind… but he may not survive to find out. Special Forces Operator turned archeologist, Dr. Nick Randall disappears into the jungles of the Amazon on an expedition to find the lost city of Vilcabamba. A controversial figure in the archeology community, the trip was Randall’s final hope of finding the mythical city and proving his theories are true. When his daughter Samantha learns of her father’s disappearance, she is forced to make a difficult decision. An accomplished archeologist herself,...

Two years after his parents' sudden disappearance, Ben Greenwood stumbles upon a cryptic letter that could shed some light on their whereabouts. But before he can track them down, he'll need to find the mysterious organization that sent the letter: The Royal Institute of Magic. To succeed, Ben will have to navigate a land filled with fantastic creatures and spellshooters, where magic can be bought and sold, to unravel an ancient family secret that could hold the key to defeating an evil the institute has been fighting for the last 500 years.

Working as an investigator for the supernatural elite means living by three simple rules: don’t ruffle feathers, keep the clients (vampires, shifters, witches, etc.) happy, and never give them a reason to want you dead. Simple. Unfortunately, Tessa Graves just can’t seem to follow the rules. And that’s why 300 bloodthirsty wolf shifters are hot on her trail.

Mitch's mediocre life has just taken a turn for the worse, so his buddy tries to cheer him up by showing him a secret starship. Unfortunately, everything goes south when hostile aliens arrive. In an effort to save his buddy and the starship from the aliens, Mitch does the obvious thing: he accidentally warps hundreds of light-years away. Marooned in a distant star cluster, Mitch is forced to deal with a snarky teenage AI, a rogue auto-pilot, and a beautiful alien soldier who's ready to steal his ship at any moment—so she can fight an oppressive military faction, of course.

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

When aliens invade Las Vegas, one man is thrust into a battle beyond imagination, fighting the terrifying shock troops of a sprawling galactic empire. To protect a terrified child, he seizes the strange weapon of a fallen hero—an ancient, sentient sword—and is catapulted far into the future with no way back. Now trapped in an alien world, he must master the sword's mysterious power and navigate a deadly game of political intrigue. But time is running out for humanity.