Showing titles in Hard Science Fiction

When a young physicist unveils an efficient star drive capable of reaching the core of the galaxy, veteran star pilot Priscilla "Hutch" Hutchins finds herself back in the deepest reaches of space, and on the verge of discovering the origins of the deadly Omega clouds that continue to haunt her.

Joe Haldeman is the esteemed Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author of The Forever War. Things are going nowhere for lowly MIT research assistant Matt Fuller - especially not after his girlfriend drops him for another man. But then while working late one night, he inadvertently stumbles upon what may be the greatest scientific breakthrough ever. His luck, however, runs out when he finds himself wanted for murder - in the future.

Merritt Alder is done with Earth. The planet is polluted and overpopulated, and its people are hungry. Earth's first colony, Galena, is a pioneer world 10,000 light years away. It has clean air, unpolluted water, and continents of arable land. Anyone can start a new life…if they can get there. For Merritt, the journey is only the beginning. Obstacles arise every step of the way, forcing compromise and sacrifice. And not everyone on his ship is pure of heart. The bonds he forges on the journey will be the key to surviving on another world—a world anyone has yet to fully explore.

The ship survived, but over time, the original crew died out. Their children were left to continue the fight for their home against their sworn enemy, the vicious alien Malibor. They’ve lived their whole lives in space. Their idea of heaven is open air, blue skies, and the quiet of peace. But they'll never have that if they don't take it by force.

Navigators, mutated by spice into beings far superior to normal humans, make space travel possible across the burgeoning Imperium. Their prescient awareness allows them to foresee safe paths through the universe as starship engines 'fold' space. Only industrial magnate Josef Venport knows the secret of creating Navigators, and he intends to build a commercial empire to span the galaxy.

When Kell and his team return to Earth many years after their departure, they find that their world has changed almost beyond recognition. Not only has a second wave of greenhouse flooding caused sea levels to rise, but society has been changed by the consequences of the climate shift. Few people want to face Jordan Kell's news. He must convince Earth's new rulers that the human race is in danger of extinction unless it acts to forestall the death wave coming from the galaxy's heart.

Maya Andreyeva is a camera, a reporter with virtual-reality-broadcasting equipment implanted in her brain. What sh esees, millions see; what she feels, millions share. And what Maya is seeing is the cover-up of a massacre. As she probes into the covert political power plays of a radically strange near-future Russia, she comes upon secrets that have been hidden from the world… and memories that AI-controlled thought police have forced her to hide from herself. Because in a world where no thought or desire is safe, the price of survival is betrayal—of your lover, your ideals, and yourself.

Using fast and furious hit-and-run tactics, Marcus GioAvanti and mercenaries have earned a tough reputation throughout the Inner Sphere. But the Inner Sphere isn't where their newest job is taking them, because their latest employer resides in that remote and mysterious region of space known as the Periphery. Marcus and his Angels will have to face the real force behind the hostilities, the religious cult known as Word of Blake. This fanatical group has a scheme deadly enough to trap even Avanti's Angels!

In Proton Field #1, she and Vinn discovered they could fuse hydrogen. Now she’s exploring the warping of space and its effects on hydrogen containing molecules nearby. The story examines how this warping makes it possible to achieve reactionless thrust that can lift people...and move spacecraft.

A novella set in the hard-scrabble world of James S. A. Corey's NYT best-selling Expanse series, The Vital Abyss is the secret history of the cataclysmic events that occurred on Eros station, and the revelation of what came after...Somewhere in the vast expanse of space, a group of prisoners lives in permanent captivity. The only company they have is each other and the Belters who guard them. The only stories they know are the triumphs and crimes that brought them there. The only future they see is an empty life in an enormous room.

Every beginning is also an end. Rem, the Foxkin Oracle of the Wildwood, knows this better than most, seeing as he is on his second life. Most people don't get another chance at the whole life thing after a stupidly oversized adventurer's hammer uses their head to paint a tree, but a goddess on the Pantheon of the Divine sees great potential in Rem. Granted salvation by his Patron, Rem becomes a Dungeon Core, a magical entity tasked with creating the trials essential to helping adventurers become the true warriors they were meant to be.

Upon the ancient drysine moon/city of Defiance, the UFS Phoenix is being rebuilt, but her crew cannot do so in peace. Parren factions jostle for control of not only Defiance, but of the drysine data-core that Phoenix won at such an awful price. But the parren do not lay sole claim to that ancient knowledge, and within the bowels of the machine-city, something long-dead is awakening. While aliens battle, Captain Debogande struggles to decide his next step. Human emissaries beckon him home, while a terrible new threat drives him toward the far edge of Spiral space.

The Terran Union is engaged in a vast interstellar war against the Krag Ruthless aliens intent on exterminating humankind. In 2315, the wily Max Robichaux is given command of the USS Cumberland, a destroyer with state-of-the-art capabilities but a combat record so bad, she’s known as the “Cumberland Gap.” Capt. Robichaux’s first mission: to take his warship to the Free Corridor, where the Krag have secretly been buying strategic materials, and to seize or destroy any ships carrying enemy cargo.

Three complete novels. Thirty-three hours of survival action. If you're a fan of Robert A. Heinlein, Jean Auel, and S. M. Stirling, you're going to love Jack L. Knapp. Thousands of copies have been downloaded. This is survivalism at its best...in an Earth that never knew humans!

Recorder has no family, no friends, and no name. Donated to the Consortium before birth, her sole purpose is to maintain and verify the records. A neural implant and drone ensure compliance, punishing for displays of bias. Suddenly cut off from controlling technology, Recorder tastes what it means to be human. But if the Consortium discovers her feelings, everyone she knows will be in danger.

When he accepted the job on a backwater planet, Hunter thought it would be easy. He and his partner just had to track down a missing researcher. But when they find her, she’s fled a quarter of the way around the massive ring of 27 gates and Hunter realizes all is not as he was told. That simple realization, and Hunter’s drive for retribution, kick off a series of adventures leading to the most important discovery since the fall of the Gate Age - and put him in direct confrontation with the corp he’s been running from for the past 10 revolutions.

As Chinese and US spacecraft compete to be the first to land on Mars, a former astronaut, his cousin, and four teens from Florida decide to take matters into their own hands. If they can quickly build their own space-worthy ship using scrap metal, appliances, and power tools, they have a chance to come from behind - thanks to an inventive new power source that can propel them to the Red Planet within three days. No guts, no glory.

Corporate assassin Tamarland Benteen's last hope is the survey ship, Vixen. With a load of scientists aboard under the supervision of Dr. Dortmund Weisbacher, Vixen is tasked with the first comprehensive survey of the newly discovered planet called Donovan. Given that, back in Solar System, Boardmember Radcek would have Benteen's brain dissected, he's particularly motivated to make his escape. The transition that should have taken Vixen years is instantaneous. Worse, a space ship is already orbiting Donovan and human settlements have been established on the planet.

Veteran Lieutenant Ralph Hague and his platoon have completed far more dangerous assignments fulfilling the Berserker’s contract with Biodyne Industries. When an army of radical cultists, the Immortals, arrive in search of Biodyne’s research on a life-extending drug, Hague and his troops are redirected into the heart of a war-torn planet to rescue Biodyne personnel and their data from a secret research facility called Outpost 16. There he witnesses horrors that shock him to his very core. Surrounded by hostile forces, he must choose between his duty and his conscience.

The tribal Braxan - created to become the ultimate warriors. The Azeans - raised to master the power of the mind. Two civilizations fighting an endless war over a long-forgotten cause. Now, after a century and a half, the legacy of their greatest military leaders threatens to tear apart both empires.