"Wake up, Matt, wake up", an insistent voice repeats in my head. From that moment, Matt McGregor's life will never be the same. Upon awaking from cold sleep, Matt, co-captain of the space freighter, HC7 McGregor-15, discovers the ship has been abandoned and life support is failing. Once he gets the systems started, he finds out his brother and co-captain, Mike, has been captured by space pirates. Matt immediately sets out to rescue Mike, aided by the disembodied voices.

The next chapter in the extraordinary history of the star Wars galaxy begins here...After a violent civil war and the devastation wrought by the now-fallen Darth Caedus, the Galactic Alliance is in crisis - and in need. From all corners, politicians, power brokers, and military leaders converge on Coruscant for a crucial summit to restore order, negotiate differences, and determine the future of their unified worlds. But even more critical, and far more uncertain, is the future of the Jedi.

There is a starship in trouble, lost in the void, with no one awake to hear the alarms. A thousand specially selected people left a troubled and unsustainable Earth for another world. Their dream was a new start on a virgin planet 30 years away. Their ship was state-of-the-art and entirely automatic, it's passengers safely sleeping through the journey - but something has gone wrong, something unexpected.

Firstborns rule society. Secondborns are the property of the government. Thirdborns are not tolerated. Long live the Fates Republic. On Transition Day, the second child in every family is taken by the government and forced into servitude. Roselle St. Sismode's eighteenth birthday arrives with harsh realizations: she's to become a soldier for the Fate of Swords military arm of the Republic during the bloodiest rebellion in history, and her elite firstborn mother is happy to see her go.

In 2157, a mysterious gas known as Variant spreads across the globe, killing or mutating most organic life. The surviving humans take refuge in an underground city, determined to return home. But after generations of failures and botched attempts, hope is beginning to dwindle. That is, until a young scientist makes a unique discovery, and everything changes. Suddenly, there's reason to hope again, and it rests within a group of genetically engineered children that are both human and Variant.

Traveling unexpectedly aboard the luxury liner Nebula Dream on its maiden voyage across the galaxy, Sectors Special Forces Captain Nick Jameson is ready for ten relaxing days, and hoping to forget his last disastrous mission behind enemy lines. He figures he'll gamble at the casino, take in the shows, maybe even have a shipboard fling with Mara Lyrae, the beautiful but reserved businesswoman he meets.

Byron Shaw can track and find anyone on Earth. Except the people who tried to kill him. By 2081, privacy no longer exists. The Lattice enables anyone to re-live any moment of your life. People can experience past and present events - or see into the mind of anyone, living or dead. Most people love it. Some want to destroy it. Colonel Byron Shaw has just saved the Lattice from the most dangerous attack in its history. Now he must find those responsible.

In the mid-23rd century, Darwin, Australia, stands as the last human city on Earth. The world has succumbed to an alien plague, with most of the population transformed into mindless, savage creatures. The planet’s refugees flock to Darwin, where a space elevator—created by the architects of this apocalypse, the Builders—emits a plague-suppressing aura.

Colton Beck has six months to live. He works for the Angor near Los Angeles, aware that any day could be his last. The Angor arrived twenty years ago, resolved to help mankind survive, but not everyone believes their motives are honorable. When the Angor offer humanity a colony world, Colton is determined to see another planet before his final breath. He's been diagnosed with Xeno, a rare disorder that surfaced with the Angor's arrival, but he won't let this stop him.

Barcus is a working stiff looking for a good paycheck. When the Ventura and its crew enter orbit for a scheduled planet survey, the ship activates an automated defense system protecting the planet. Although the Ventura is destroyed in the attack, Barcus alone survives the harrowing fall to the remote planet surface. He struggles to remain alive and sane, and to discover why everyone he knew and loved on the Ventura was deliberately murdered.

Jack Steele is an ex-big-city cop that left the department after losing a friend in the line of duty. Recovering from a tough divorce, he reinvents himself with a love of flying and restructures his life as a pilot for hire. Accompanied by his ever-present German Shepherd, Fritz, Jack will fly almost anything anywhere, shuttling new and used planes for clients all over the world. He had never been a Boy Scout, but he is a man who likes to stay prepared and in control of whatever life throws at him. But nothing could have prepared Jack and his copilot for how life suddenly goes drastically and violently sideways...

Inmate 5313 reached the end of his sentence after 10 grueling years. That is, until the wrong question led to a beating with an exclusive stay in the fridge. Before the badges manage to lock him into cryostorage for a nightmare-fueled nap, several explosions send the prison barge plummeting into a frozen planet in unclaimed space. This is the first day of Seb’s freedom, an ill-starred future that includes banding together with cutthroat mercenaries, bartering with sordid information brokers, and fighting against the galaxy's ruthless corporations.

Commander David Bryce is scheduled to lead a routine re-supply run for the Orbital Development Group (ORB) to the fledgling colony on Mars. Without warning, he’s taken away by government agents and told the mission parameters have changed. They’ve discovered something. And it’s drifting closer to Earth. Atlas Donovan tirelessly hunts for an artifact, and tracks the piece to Lake Como, Italy. After the recent news from ORB, Atlas is more drawn to the trail than ever.

Sigrid and Suko are two girls from the impoverished and crime-infested streets of 24th century Earth. Sold into slavery to save their families from financial ruin, the girls are forced to live out their lives in service to the Kimura Corporation, a prestigious mercenary clan with a lineage stretching back long before the formation of the Federated Corporations.

It wasn't easy for Molly being the only girl in Flight Academy, but getting expelled was even worse. Abandoned by her family when she was young and now tossed from the only home she's ever known, her future looks bleak.

But then Molly hears that her father's old starship has turned up halfway across the galaxy. Setting off to retrieve the old craft, she hopes it will hold clues to his disappearance. Accompanying her as a chaperone is Cole, her old flight partner from the Academy.

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.

Perhaps it wasn't from our time, perhaps it wasn't even from our universe, but the arrival of the 300-kilometer long stone was the answer to humanity's desperate plea to end the threat of nuclear war. Inside the deep recesses of the stone lies Thistledown: the remnants of a human society, versed in English, Russian and Chinese. The artifacts of this familiar people foretell a great Death caused by the ravages of war, but the government and scientists are unable to decide how to use this knowledge.

They tried to destroy our planets. Our way of life. They tried to send us into extinction. But we, the Coalition, fought them and won. That was a decade ago. They’re known as the Host: a cabal of aliens seeking to dominate our sector of space. And they’re back - with help from a powerful new enemy. We’re outnumbered and unprepared. But there is hope. An ancient race of long-dead but technologically advanced aliens called the Navigators have a ship called the Blackstar that could potentially turn the tide. That is if I, Kai Locke, a humble ship racer, can find it and learn how to harness its power in time.

Evan Gabriel wasn't always a feared and respected North American Federation Navy Commander. Before dangerous missions to the ice-bound planet of Poliahu, the deadly jungle world of Eden, and politically corrupt Mars, he was a simple recruit, fighting to make his mark in the elite Naval Special Forces…and was part of a top-secret military experiment that would change his life forever. Zero Point tells the tale of a young man faced with difficult choices and dangerous trials.

In the year 2280, an alien fleet attacked the Earth. Their weapons were unstoppable, their defenses unbreakable. Our technology was inferior, our militaries overwhelmed. Only one starship escaped before civilization fell. Earth was lost. It was never forgotten. Fifty-two years have passed. A message from home has been received. The time to fight for what is ours has come.

Geoff and his friends live in Phocaea, a distant asteroid colony on the Solar System's frontier. They're your basic high-spirited young adults, enjoying such pastimes as hacking matter compilers to produce dancing skeletons that prance through the low-gee communal areas, using their rocket-bikes to salvage methane ice shrapnel that flies away when the colony brings in a big (and vital) rock of the stuff, and figuring out how to avoid the ubiquitous surveillance motes.

Traveling unexpectedly aboard the luxury liner Nebula Dream on its maiden voyage across the galaxy, Sectors Special Forces Captain Nick Jameson is ready for ten relaxing days, and hoping to forget his last disastrous mission behind enemy lines. He figures he'll gamble at the casino, take in the shows, maybe even have a shipboard fling with Mara Lyrae, the beautiful but reserved businesswoman he meets.

Archaeologists Pippa Quinn and Charlie Jackson find advanced technology in undisturbed 16th-century graves. A portent, the discovery precedes thousands of giant sinkholes opening up across the globe as extreme weather threatens the population. Charlie suspects the two are related.

Convicted criminal James Griffin-Mars is no one's hero. In his time, Earth is a toxic, abandoned world, and humans have fled into the outer solar system to survive, eking out a fragile, doomed existence among the other planets and their moons. Those responsible for delaying humanity's demise believe time travel holds the key, and they have identified James, troubled though he is, as one of a select and expendable few ideally suited for the most dangerous job in history.

The year is AD 2790. With space elevators and giant orbital fleets hovering over Earth, open war looks inevitable, and people are anxious to get away. The lines are drawn, with the Confederacy in the East and the First World Alliance in the West. In hopes of finding a refuge from the looming war, the Alliance is sending Captain Alexander de Leon to explore an Earth-type planet, code-named Wonderland, but at the last minute before launch, a Confederate fleet leaves orbit on a trajectory that threatens both the mission and Alliance sovereignty.

Humankind has escaped a dying Earth and set out to find a new home among the stars aboard an immense generation ship affectionately named the Ark. Bryan Benson is the Ark's greatest living sports hero, enjoying retirement working as a detective in Avalon, his home module. The hours are good, the work is easy, and the perks can't be beat. But when a crew member goes missing, Bryan is thrust into the center of an ever-expanding web of deception, secrets, and violence.

Carson Mach, a former war hero turned freelancer, seeks the biggest payday of his life when he's tasked to hunt down a ghost ship that has echoed through the centuries. The legendary Atlantis ship has become a reality, appearing at the Commonwealth frontier and obliterating an orbital station.

Solara Brooks needs a fresh start, someplace where nobody cares about the engine grease beneath her fingernails or the felony tattoos across her knuckles. The outer realm may be lawless, but it's not like the law has ever been on her side. Still, off-world travel doesn't come cheap; Solara is left with no choice but to indenture herself in exchange for passage to the outer realm.

A devastated Earth's last hope is found in Pearls: small, mysterious orbs that fall from space and are capable of supplying enough energy to power entire cities. Battling to control the Pearls are the Skyship dwellers -political dissidents who live in massive ships in the Earth's stratosphere - and the corrupt Surface government.

In this New York Times Notable Book of the Year, a strange new life form threatens all of humanity, and only a fool would stand in its way. Katmer Al Shei has done well with the starship Pasadena, cutting corners where necessary to keep her crew paid and her journeys profitable. But there are two things she will never skimp on: her crew - and her fool. For a long space journey, a certified Fool’s Guild clown is essential, to amuse, excite, and otherwise distract the crew from the drudgeries of interstellar flight.