Showing titles in Hard Science Fiction

What was Amelia Earhart carrying on her final flight? The adventure begins two thousand feet beneath the surface of the Earth. Philip Mercer, a preeminent geologist with a taste for international intrigue and danger, rides an elevator two thousand feet into the earth at the Leister Deep Mine in...

When Allie Keane makes a revolutionary discovery in quantum computing, she kicks the ultimate hornets' nest. She doesn't know it, but a hidden battle for tech supremacy is raging around the world, and whoever controls her discovery will dominate the globe. Soon, Allie is being hunted by ruthless forces desperate to learn her secret, and only Zachary Reed, a gifted operative within a shadowy government agency, stands in their way. But as extraordinary as Allie's breakthrough is, it holds the key to unleashing something far bigger.

Grand Master of the Science Fiction Writers of America and winner of countless awards—including the Hugo, Nebula, Edgar Allan Poe, and Bram Stoker—Harlan Ellison proved once more that he was both unpredictable and irrepressible in this second collection of innovative science fiction. Again, Dangerous Visions—the middle installment in a planned three anthology series—includes award-winning stories from incomparable writers such as Ursula K. Le Guin, Gene Wolfe, Ray Bradbury, Kurt Vonnegut, Piers Anthony, Dean Koontz, and James Tiptree, among many others.

When Lee Anderson and her parents discovered a new world teeming with life, it was the dream of every explorer: they were rich beyond their imaginations. But tragedy struck when a herd of creatures overran their camp and killed her parents. The only other adult in her life had been their partner Gordon, who adopted her as parent. Which didn't turn out to be easy, because he wasn't human. He was a large intelligent alien, and to Lee, he was Uncle Gordon, but neither his race - the Derf - nor humans were gracious about accepting their family relationship.

Gateway to the Galaxy, Part II contains Face Toward Enemy (book 4), Rise Up (book 5), and Do or Die (book 6 of the series). Just when you thought it was safe to explore the universe, a new enemy emerges from the darkness. You know the deal with these things: someone's always ready to put on the gauntlet and do the finger snap. All Frank wants to do is rebuild the Arilion Order and eat tacos. No such luck. A new enemy is going to give Frank and the rest of Marine Space Corps-1 a run for their money. A ghost from Frank's past has returned.

With the Confederation unable to project military power into the sector, neighboring allies press the Earth Alliance for protection and transportation services. Michael proposes a bold new initiative to secure the sector and promote its prosperity. Eugene and Kelly discover the secret to destroying the Enemy once and for all. And a new young species takes its first steps into interstellar space. Meanwhile, Confederation hardliners do everything in their power to stop Michael and the Earth Alliance from succeeding.

Tiona, Vaz's daughter, is starting grad school in physics, has a "bad boy" musician boyfriend, and does her own strange variety of charity work at a homeless shelter. Her professor has her start work on a project to try to achieve high-temperature superconduction by doping the graphene membranes her lab partner has figured out how to precipitate.

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.

The Intrepid is drifting slowly between the stars. After near calamity at LHS 1565, the ship is headed for Kapteyn's Star to make repairs. There, the crew will need to spend decades building a temporary industrial base. Across the void, the Noctus prepare to leave Sirius for the same destination. Their plan is to colonize the system and forge new lives for themselves...if they aren't destroyed by their government first.

Dr. Katherine Shepard and her team have made a groundbreaking discovery: a piece of ancient Endarian technology, hidden for eons, capable of turning the tide against the sinister Drax. As they embark on a perilous quest to harness its power, they must navigate through a web of deceit, ancient mysteries, and relentless enemies. Meanwhile, FBI Special Agent Dwight Douglas is facing his toughest challenge: a shocking conspiracy that threatens to plunge the world into chaos.

From the rich imagination of science-fiction great Alan Dean Foster comes the story of Midworld, a Humanx Commonwealth planet that's equally fragile and hostile. Covered by a lush rainforest, Midworld is home to a primitive society that lives in harmony with the natural world. But the arrival of an exploitative human company, whose workers know nothing of Midworld's delicate ecosystem, sparks a conflict. Should Midworld's villagers aid the humans or stand against them?

When scientist Lisa Duncan and Special Forces officer Mike Turcotte uncovered the stunning truth about Area 51--a "training area" on Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada--they opened up a Pandora's box kept hidden from the American public for 50 years.

Sera must return to Khardine, where new challenges await, and preprations for the march on Airtha begin. Meanwhile Tanis turns toward the Praesepe Cluster. There, a handfull of interstellar nations hold out against the encroaching Nietzschean Empire. Sera's Hand agents are certain that the Nietzscheans are backed by Orion, and Nadine is sent in ahead to connect with agents in Septhia before the I2 arrives.

With The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume Six, award-winning editor Neil Clarke provides a year-in-review and 33 of the best stories published by both new and established authors in 2020.

Lee has a lot going for her: tons of money, true friends who will stand by her, an unexpected bonus of extended life from advanced medical treatments, and a start at unraveling some of the secrets in the stars. But there is so much to do to take advantage of these opportunities that she's overwhelmed. Keeping all they've gained may not be easy. Their new allies have received a follow-on delegation from their home world who seem determined to undo everything they accomplished. Eventually everybody is going to find out Lee isn't just a sweet little girl if you keep getting in her way.

Commander Joe Pikeman has his share of demons. But after a long deployment, he just wants to enjoy some home leave with his daughter. The galaxy has other plans. His last assignment takes him to Earth, humanity’s deserted homeworld. There, he finds Earth’s last settlement littered with the bodies of the people who lived there. As he hunts down those responsible, he runs head-first into some galaxy-shaking questions.

Luck has always run in both directions for Naval Commandant Nicholas Seafort. While he has managed to save the Hope Nation colony from alien attack, he and his friends have paid a heavy price. Most recently his exploits have earned him a dignified position as an instructor at the United Nations Naval Academy. But as Seafort suspects, trouble isn't far behind. A return to Earth means a return to his roots, some of which he wishes would remain buried.

David Ryan is the designer of ELOPe, an email language optimization program, that if successful, will make his career. But when the project is suddenly in danger of being canceled, David embeds a hidden directive in the software accidentally creating a runaway artificial intelligence. David and his team are initially thrilled when the project is allocated extra servers and programmers.

A hundred years in the future, a war wages between the Five Dragons - five families that control the moon's leading industrial companies. Each clan does everything in their power to claw their way to the top of the food chain - marriages of convenience, corporate espionage, kidnapping, and mass assassinations. Through ingenious political manipulation and sheer force of will, Lucas Corta rises from the ashes of corporate defeat and seizes control of the moon. The only person who can stop him is a brilliant lunar lawyer: his sister, Ariel.

Homicide detective Siro Ferreira-Nunes must solve his most challenging case. More and more people end up dead in the “city of dreams,” an allegedly perfect society. The victims haven’t just been murdered; they’ve been also horribly mutilated and stripped of their neural implants and augmentations. This is not the work of a serial killer but the signature of crime syndicates who sell the costly augmentations on the black market. A specialist in organized crime, detective Ferreira-Nunes is the right man for job.