Showing results by publisher "Audible Studios" in Hard Science Fiction

The UFS Phoenix returns to Homeworld, after more than three years of searching the galaxy for a way to save humanity from the looming AI threat. Many Fleet captains are unhappy with their own command, following the massive casualties of Nia's first strike. Some say that Captain Erik Debogande is the war leader humanity truly needs. Others warn of civil war. But on Homeworld lurks an even older threat, a secret kept by Fleet Command since Homeworld's first conquest by humans. A secret that could tear Fleet, and Erik's powerful family, apart.

Ryland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission - and if he fails, humanity and the Earth itself will perish. Except that right now, he doesn't know that. He can't even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it. All he knows is that he's been asleep for a very, very long time. And he's just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company.

Six days ago, astronaut Mark Watney became one of the first people to walk on Mars. Now, he's sure he'll be the first person to die there. After a dust storm nearly kills him and forces his crew to evacuate while thinking him dead, Mark finds himself stranded and completely alone with no way to even signal Earth that he’s alive - and even if he could get word out, his supplies would be gone long before a rescue could arrive. But Mark isn't ready to give up yet.

Jazz Bashara is a criminal. Well, sort of. Life on Artemis, the first and only city on the moon, is tough if you're not a rich tourist or an eccentric billionaire. So smuggling in the occasional harmless bit of contraband barely counts, right? Not when you've got debts to pay and your job as a porter barely covers the rent. Everything changes when Jazz sees the chance to commit the perfect crime, with a reward too lucrative to turn down.

In the 20th century Earth sent probes, transmissions, and welcoming messages to the stars. Unfortunately, someone noticed. The Galactics arrived with their battle fleet in 2052. Rather than being exterminated under a barrage of hell-burners, Earth joined their vast Empire. Swearing allegiance to our distant alien overlords wasn't the only requirement for survival. We also had to have something of value to trade, something that neighboring planets would pay their hard-earned credits to buy. As most of the local worlds were too civilized to have a proper army, the only valuable service Earth could provide came in the form of soldiers....

Ever since he joined Omega Force, Captain Jason Burke has lived with the underlying fear that one day Earth would be discovered. His desire to keep Earth's existence and location a secret has driven him to extremes, and kept him far away from his homeworld for a long time. But now Jason's greatest fear is realized, and a fleet of alien ships has attacked his planet. Omega Force rushes to Earth's defense, but the ships are like none they've ever encountered, and employ weapons they have no defense for.

Neal Stephenson, "the hottest science fiction writer in America", takes science fiction to dazzling new levels. The Diamond Age is a stunning tale; set in 21st-century Shanghai, it is the story of what happens what a state-of-the-art interactive device falls into the hands of a street urchin named Nell. Her life, and the entire future of humanity, is about to be decoded and reprogrammed.

The legendary battle-carrier UFS Phoenix is on the run in Outer Neutral Space. Lieutenant Commander Erik Debogande and Major Trace Thakur are determined to use neutral territory to broker a peace between humanity's warring factions, away from Fleet's strong arm. But as machinations in Fleet Command send a legendary warrior from Trace's past on a sworn path to kill her, there arises in the territory of an insectoid foe an ancient enemy from the nightmares of Spiral history, bent on Phoenix's destruction….

In the fourth book of the series, James McGill is up for promotion. Not everyone is happy about that, and McGill must prove he's worth his stripes. Deployed to a strange alien planet outside the boundaries of the Galactic Empire, he's caught up in warfare and political intrigue. Earth expands, the Cephalopod Kingdom launches ships to stop us, and a grand conspiracy emerges among the upper ranks of the Hegemony military.

Matthew, they thought, was just going through a phase of talking to himself. And, like many parents, they waited for him to get over it, but it started to get worse. Mathew's conversations with himself grew more and more intense—it was like listening to one end of a telephone conversation while someone argued, cajoled and reasoned with another person you couldn't hear. Then Matthew started doing things he couldn't do before, like counting in binary-code mathematics. So he told them about Chocky—the person who lived in his head.

A dirty deal was struck. Humanity was allowed to keep 300 rebellious worlds. In return, we declared war on a powerful enemy from beyond the frontier. A frantic build-up of forces has begun, but the task is hopeless. Seeking allies, Earth's legions are sent to Blood World. A planet on the fringe of known space, where the people only respect masters of combat. Earth's Legions must impress them, but other alien powers have been invited to join the contest. The prize consists of billions of loyal troops - Earth must win.

The Galactics arrived with their Battle Fleet in 2052. Rather than being exterminated under a barrage of hell-burners, Earth joined a vast Empire that spanned the Milky Way. Today, Battle Fleet 921 is returning to Earth. It hasn't been seen by human eyes since our blissful day of Annexation. But what should be a joyful occasion, a chance to grovel at the feet of superior lifeforms, is rapidly becoming a nightmare.

Captain Jason Burke has begun to suspect that the random attacks on his ship and crew over the last couple of years may not be so random after all. Evidence is mounting that there is something on the Phoenix...something that powerful factions will stop at nothing to get their hands on. While Omega Force races to find out what is hidden on their ship that is causing so much trouble they also must figure out why such powerful enemies bent on obtaining it.

Captain Jason Burke is a man apart, and not just because he's the only of his kind for thousands of light-years in any direction. The changes to his body and to his genetic code have made him faster, stronger, more able to survive in his dangerous occupation...but they've also ensured that he'll never truly fit in with others of his species. He always assumed he would live and die with his crew and never lay eyes on another human again. He was wrong.

Years after a meteorite strike obliterated Washington, DC—triggering an extinction-level global-warming event—Earth’s survivors have started an international effort to establish homes on space stations and the Moon. The next step–Mars. Elma York, the Lady Astronaut, lands on the Red Planet, optimistic about preparing for the first true wave of inhabitants. The mission objective is more than just building the infrastructure of a habitat–they are trying to preserve the many cultures and nuances of life on Earth without importing the hate. But from the moment she arrives, something is off.

The gigantic comet had slammed into Earth, forging earthquakes a thousand times too powerful to measure on the Richter scale, tidal waves thousands of feet high. Cities were turned into oceans; oceans turned into steam. It was the beginning of a new Ice Age and the end of civilization. But for the terrified men and women chance had saved, it was also the dawn of a new struggle for survival--a struggle more dangerous and challenging than any they had ever known....

Kyle Riggs is snatched by an alien spacecraft sometime after midnight. The ship is testing everyone it catches and murdering the weak. The good news is that Kyle keeps passing tests and staying alive. The bad news is the aliens who sent this ship are the nicest ones out there.

The People's Republic of Haven made a tiny mistake when it announced the execution of Honor Harrington. It seemed safe enough. After all, she was already dead. Unfortunately, they were wrong. Now Honor has escaped from the prison planet called Hell and returned to the Manticoran Alliance with a few friends. Almost half a million of them, to be precise including some who know what really happened when the Committee of Public Safety seized power in the PRH.

Neal Stephenson is a blazing new force on the sci-fi scene. With the groundbreaking cyberpunk novel Snow Crash, he has "vaulted onto the literary stage." It weaves virtual reality, Sumerian myth, and just about everything in between with a cool, hip cybersensibility - in short, it is the gigathriller of the information age.

Trurl and Klaupacius are constructor robots who try to out-invent each other. Over the course of their adventures in The Cyberiad, they travel to the far corners of the cosmos to take on freelance problem-solving jobs, with dire consequences for their unsuspecting employers.