Hard Science Fiction Space

The military SF sequel to his extraordinary Old Man's War, John Scalzi's The Ghost Brigades is the second in The Old Man's War series. Who can you trust, if you can't trust yourself? Three hostile alien races have united against humanity, determined to halt our expansion into space. The...

Watch out - the Earth just fell into a dark sun's orbit! Or maybe you'd rather visit a theme park called Hell? These are just two of the strange and unnerving tales you'll find in this collection of great science fiction and fantasy stories.

First contact with a mysterious race of aliens reveals an unusual request; a family's pet dog comes to grips with the newly bestowed gift of human-like intelligence; a poet, in danger and alone on a distant world, makes unlikely allies; hundreds of years in the future, a famous hermit lives in the sea above the now-underwater Harvard University; former friends navigate unsteady peace between human refugees and the technologically superior race that saved them; in a future where human life can be infinitely extended through cybertronic rebirth, one woman declines immortality. 

A colony survives among the icy rings of a planet, hiding from alien robots determined to destroy them … at a remote site on the edge of the Arctic Circle, a group of scientists, engineers, and physicians gather to gamble humanity’s future on one last-ditch experiment … a man who can’t feel pain has been bioengineered to be a killing machine, but he refuses to give in to his fate … a man is contacted by three future versions of himself, each trying to save their world from destruction. 

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. 

Is our sun behaving differently from other stars? When an amateur astronomer discovers something strange on telescopic solar pictures, an explanation must be found. Is it merely artifact? Or has he found something totally unexpected? An expert international crew is hastily assembled, a spaceship is speedily repurposed, and the foursome is sent on the ride of their lives. What challenges will they face on this spur-of-the-moment mission to our central star?  

With The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume 3, award-winning editor Neil Clarke provides a year-in-review and 27 of the best stories published by both new and established authors in 2017. 

Keeping up-to-date with the most buzzworthy and cutting-edge science fiction requires sifting through countless magazines, e-zines, websites, blogs, original anthologies, single-author collections, and more - a task accomplishable by only the most determined and voracious readers. For everyone else, Night Shade Books is proud to introduce the latest volume of The Best Science Fiction of the Year, collecting the finest that the genre has to offer, from the biggest names in the field to the most exciting new writers.

This collection of interviews and chats is culled from some of the more recent episodes of the world’s longest-running radio program on speculative fiction, Hour of the Wolf, produced and hosted by Jim Freund since 1974. Many of these recordings were made at conventions, the Nebula Awards...

The best of the year's science fiction and fantasy stories as selected by the multiple award-winning editor Jonathan Strahan. Distant worlds, time travel, epic adventure, unseen wonders, and much more! The best, most original and brightest science fiction and fantasy stories from around the globe from the past 12 months are brought together in one collection by multiple award winning editor Jonathan Strahan.

Four sci-fi short stories where you'll find good computers, people who regret their past, and an explanation for something you're familiar with.

Incredible Science Fiction: Amazing Tales from the 50's and Beyond, Volume Two collates a collection of some of the very best science-fiction stories published in the '50s together. All these stories (with the exception of The Anatomy of Fear) are now in the public domain and were original published in various science-fiction magazines that were very popular in the 1950s. This is a lovingly curated collection of some of the very best stories published during this time. This collection includes a further story from the Hugo Award-nominated Rog Phillips.

Jonathan Strahan, the award-winning and much lauded editor of many of genre's best known anthologies, is back with his 11th volume in this fascinating series, featuring the best science fiction and fantasy. With established names and new talent, this diverse and ground-breaking collection will take the listener to the outer reaches of space and the inner realms of humanity with stories of fantastical worlds and worlds that may still come to pass.

Space biologists Jonathan Bartell and Gaby Larsen arrive at Johnson Base at the Moon’s south pole for a project with Professor Isaacs that is so secret, he cannot share the details with them. However, the professor does not show up to meet them. Vijay Singh borrowed money from a local council man who uses the debt to make continued threats to Vijay. In his despair to pay it back, Vijay gets involved with one of the most lucrative crime schemes in the solar system. However, the capsule he retrieves from a crater near Johnson Base contains more than smuggled rare elements.

When humanity’s first deep-space colonists touched down on their new planet, they had no idea it was the birthplace of a hostile alien species. After enduring numerous attacks, the survivors realize the aliens are about to get their revenge by invading Earth. The colonists build a starship to journey to the homeworld and warn the inhabitants of the impending war.

Terry and Connor never expected to be chased through a hidden gateway. On the other side lies Verios, a world of vast star ships, strange empires, and a war already burning.

The crew of the Sirocco has made it back to Concordia—only to find the Scythians got there before them. Their planet has been invaded, the human population has been enslaved, and the fight for freedom seems hopeless. But that doesn’t stop the Concordians from trying.

Fighting for freedom from galactic tyranny, General Cherry Lindstrom is responsible for the defense of the colony world, Concordia. This last outpost of human civilization lives under constant threat of attack from hostile aliens who claim the planet as their own. But decades have passed since the last assault, and the colonists have grown complacent. Thanks to the effects of time dilation, only Cherry and a handful of others remember the devastation wreaked on Concordia previously.

The second book in the Galactic Empire series, the spectacular precursor to the classic Foundation series, by one of history's most influential writers of science fiction, Isaac Asimov Trantor had extended its rule over half the Galaxy, but the other half defied its authority, defending their...

When Sol expanded into a red giant centuries too soon, Earth burned and civilization collapsed. The remnants of humanity fled outward, hollowing asteroids into massive generational starships—self-contained cities drifting between the stars. Destiny is one of them. Carrying twenty-five thousand souls toward Alpha Centauri, the city-ship has traveled peacefully through interstellar space for fifteen years… until the power begins to fail.