Showing titles in First Contact

Fifteen outstanding authors. Fourteen extraordinary stories. One best-selling universe. It’s the 22nd century. The galaxy has opened up to humanity as a hyperactive beehive of stargates and new technologies, and we suddenly find ourselves in a vast playground of different races, environments, and cultures. Enter the Four Horsemen universe, where only a willingness to fight and die for money separates humans from the majority of the other races. Enter a galaxy not only of mercenaries, but also of aliens, hired assassins, and accountants. Accountants?

Nearly two centuries after a human colony is abandoned on an alien planet, the two races have reached a tenacious peace agreement. But when the human ship returns unexpectedly, both governments are thrown into chaos.

Liam loves his life as a linguist and trader on the Rownt homeworld, but he has ignored his heart and sexual needs for years. After escaping the horrors of war, he wants a boring life. He won't risk letting anyone come too close because he won't risk letting anyone see his deeply submissive nature. For him, submission comes with pain. Life burned that lesson into his soul from a young age. This fear keeps him from noticing that the Rownt trader Ondry cares for him. Ondry may not understand humans, but he recognizes a wounded soul.

First of My Kind is the story of Nathan Myers, a Missouri farm boy who, through a chain of events that happens halfway across the galaxy, finds his way from the seat of his Grandfather's tractor to the command of a starship from a lost super race. Nathan will tell you in his own words about the life and death struggles he encounters on his journey. He will tell you about the humor, peril, and pain of his galactic education.

Camryn McNab knows love is a lie. Okay, maybe not for everybody - her fellow soldiers on Squad Nine are in love in the middle of a vicious alien attack. But it's not for her. She comes from two people incapable of love. For now, her life is about survival, fighting to protect others, and kicking some alien raptor butt. What she doesn't need is a certain wild, bearded, tattoo-covered soldier always underfoot, messing with her things, and driving her crazy. But no matter how hard she tries to outrun Hemi Rahia, she can't seem to shake him, and a terrified part of doesn't even want to....

In the far reaches of the solar system, the outer planets - billions of miles from Earth, unknown for millennia - are being settled. Neptune, the ice giant, is swathed in clouds of hydrogen, helium, and methane and circled by rings of rock and dust. Three years ago, Ilona Magyr’s father, Miklos, disappeared while exploring the seas of Neptune. Everyone believes he is dead - crushed, frozen, or boiled alive in Neptune’s turbulent seas.

Russian billionaire Nikolai Shostakovitch makes an offer to the former crew of the spaceship ILSE. He will finance a return voyage to the icy moon Enceladus. The offer is too good to refuse - the expedition would give them the unique opportunity to recover the body of their doctor, Dimitri Marchenko. Everyone on board knows that their benefactor acts out of purely personal motivations... but the true interests of the tycoon and the dangers that he conjures up are beyond anyone's imagination.

As a child growing up in Maine, Shandon Ray realized that he had a connection to the substances that made up the world around him unlike anyone else seemed to have. For fear of becoming a total outcast, he kept this secret to himself and did very little to expand upon his strange ability. As an adult, he’ll need to expose himself for what he really is and learn to harness these abilities quickly in order to help save the planet from an all-out invasion by aliens.

Her name is Binti, and she is the first of the Himba people ever to be offered a place at Oomza University, the finest institution of higher learning in the galaxy. But to accept the offer will mean giving up her place in her family to travel between the stars among strangers who do not share her ways or respect her customs. Knowledge comes at a cost, one that Binti is willing to pay, but her journey will not be easy. The world she seeks to enter has long warred with the Meduse, an alien race that has become the stuff of nightmares.

Lynesse is the lowly Fourth Daughter of the queen, and always getting in the way. But a demon is terrorizing the land, and now she's an adult (albeit barely) with responsibilities (she tells herself). Although she still gets in the way, she understands that the only way to save her people is to invoke the pact between her family and the Elder sorcerer who has inhabited the local tower for as long as her people have lived here (though none in living memory has approached it).

In a world ravaged by the devastating arrival of the squid, status and age no longer matter. Everyone fought, and the war was still lost. Burke, a veteran of the squid invasion, is facing a new enemy: age. All he wants is to get through the remainder of his days without any trouble, but the world is unforgiving and peace is a distant memory.

The fleet is back on Earth, taking some downtime. For once, Bob is able to enjoy himself without Jonesing for the black. Of course, the shepherd comes along with something for him to do. Saddle up, we're headed for the black!

The War of the Worlds gets turbocharged in this nonstop action-packed thriller about a group of survivors thrust into extraordinary circumstances. When aliens arrive on Earth, the tiny town of Little Creek isn't any more prepared than the rest of the planet. Without warning or provocation, the otherworldly creatures begin to lay waste to everything.

Forestry student Jerry Conklin is fly-fishing when something huge lands on his car, crushing it into the earth. It looks like a big black box-about fifty feet high and two hundred feet long-and the object stirs up quite a commotion among the townspeople of Lone Pine, Minnesota. One of them even shoots at it-and quickly pays for it with his life.

Cam Alvarez is a Drop-Trooper. A warrior-knight wrapped in the futuristic armor of a high-tech battlesuit, and he’s one of the best. When he’s promoted to sergeant and asked to become a leader, he faces a whole new challenge. The Marines are striking deep into enemy territory, and the casualties are mounting. Cam is torn, knowing his job is to follow orders and carry out the battle plan, even if he doesn’t agree with it. But his squad has become his family, and now he’s being asked to lead his family into battle, knowing it will mean their deaths.

Beks Bridgett’s mission in life is to try everything at least once. Some call her fearless. Others, reckless. While her bucket list includes things like skydiving and kissing random strangers, getting kidnapped by aliens and sold to an intergalactic fight club definitely isn’t. That is, until a fierce, intimidating, and hot alien warrior springs her from her caged prison.

Indian Hill is about an ordinary boy who grows up in relatively normal times but who finds himself thrust into an extraordinary position. Growing up in suburban Boston, Michael enjoys the trials and tribulations that all adolescents go through, from the seemingly tyrannical mother, to girl problems, to run-ins with the law. From there he escapes to college out in Colorado with his best friend, Paul, where they begin to forge new relationships with those around them.

On Earth, political tensions boil over between the United Americas, Union of Progressive Peoples, and Three World Empire. Conflict spreads to the outer fringes, and the UK colony of New Albion breaks with the Three World empire. This could lead to a Colony War. Trapped in the middle are journalist Cher Hunt, scientist Chad McLaren, and the synthetic Davis. Cher, seeking to discover who caused the death of her sister, Shy Hunt, uncovers a far bigger story. McLaren’s mission, fought alongside his wife, is to stop the militarization of the deadliest weapon of all—the Xenomorph.

Kanti had spent many sleepless nights torturing himself with thoughts of the day when he would give up on returning to Tish. Old and grey, back-stooped from decades of labor, he would try to get up out of bed, and change his mind. Why bother? He couldn’t have been more wrong. He was still young, his pelt still tanned, and his back didn’t hurt when he rose. Everything had conspired to keep the two lovers apart: rivals, foes, distance. Now, he needs his friends’ help more than ever if he wants his old life back.

Only mutual communication can forge an alliance with the planet's sentient species and prove that mammals are more than tools. Forced to land on a planet they aren't prepared for, human colonists rely on their limited resources to survive. The planet provides a lush but inexplicable landscape—trees offer edible, addictive fruit one day and poison the next, while the ruins of an alien race are found entwined in the roots of a strange plant. Conflicts between generations arise as they struggle to understand one another and grapple with an unknowable alien intellect.