Showing titles in Hard Science Fiction

In the second book of the Star Force series, Kyle Riggs has another bad year. The Nano ships have a new mission--one that sentences their pilots to death. Meanwhile, the governments of Earth want to steal Star Force's Nano technology for their own. Worst of all, Earth has made a promise to the Macros, and the machines are coming to collect.

Behold the orphan. Born into a world that is not a world. A digital being grown from a mind seed, a genderless cybernetic citizen in a vast network of probes, satellites, and servers knitting the Solar System into one scape, from the outer planets to the fiery surface of the Sun. Since the Introdus in the 21st century, humanity has reconfigured itself drastically. Most chose immortality, joining the polises to become conscious software.

Tanis is looking forward to a long journey in stasis before arriving at the newly terraformed world of New Eden. New Life. New Start. Getting a berth on the Intrepid is her ticket out of the Sol System. But nothing proves easy for Major Tanis Richards. Nothing is at it seems. What should be a simple trip is fraught with danger and filled with adventure. An array of forces seek to stop the Intrepid - no matter the cost, or lives lost. From competing corporations, to stellar eco-terrorists, no one wants the Intrepid to arrive at New Eden.

Rebels build a secret base on Green World. Their plan is to attack Earth and retake all the planets the humans have conquered. Hegemony starships gather to strike the Rebels first, but where is their base? As the fleets search, Earth warships trespass into Skay space, igniting a fresh border conflict between rival Galactics. When James McGill stumbles onto the rebel camp, they’re forced to step up their plans. The world goes up in flames. Friends are permed and cities are destroyed as everything spins out of control.

Belisarius is a quantum man, an engineered Homo quantus who fled the powerful insight of dangerously addictive quantum senses. He found a precarious balance as a con man, but when a client offers him untold wealth to move a squadron of warships across an enemy wormhole, he must embrace his birthright to even try. In fact, the job is so big that he'll need a crew built from all the new sub-branches of humanity. If he succeeds, he might trigger an interstellar war, but success might also point the way to the next step of Homo quantus evolution.

It is twenty years after the catastrophic war between the US and China that brought down the old American political order. A new party has emerged in the US, one that’s held power for over a decade. Efforts to tighten its grip have resulted in mounting violent resistance. The American president has control of the media, but he is beginning to lose control of the streets. Many fear he’ll stop at nothing to remain in the White House. Suddenly, he collapses in the middle of an address to the nation. After an initial flurry of misinformation, the administration reluctantly announces his death.

When a small alien spacecraft lands in the Amazon jungle, the world's most powerful nations race to retrieve it and harvest its superior technology. The dense rain forest renders traditional military vehicles useless, so the United States sends in a single operative - a powerfully enhanced human sporting revolutionary technology. But the interstellar visitor has arrived with a secret and gory purpose of its own. Seeker will have listeners running for cover.

Despite political foes, professional jealousies, and the scandal which drove her into exile, Capt. Honor Harrington has been offered a chance to reclaim her career as an officer of the Royal Manticoran Navy. But there's a catch. She must assume command of a "squadron" of jury-rigged armed merchantmen with crew drawn from the dregs of her service and somehow stop the pirates who have taken advantage of the Havenite War to plunder the Star Kingdom's commerce.

Deep in the steaming jungles of Paraguay, Aimee Weir is in trouble. The petrobiologist has found what she was looking for - a unique microorganism in a natural gas deposit - but it proves to be more destructive than anyone could have imagined. A contagion is striking down all in its wake. The camp is quarantined, but workers start to vanish in the night. Is it fear of contamination - or has something far more lethal come to the surface? Something that has been trapped beneath the miles of stone, waiting... for us.

Alpha Station, orbiting the world of the atevi, has taken aboard 5,000 human refugees from a destroyed station in a distant sector of space. With supplies and housing stretched to the breaking point, it is clear that the refugees must be relocated down to the planet, and soon. But not to the atevi mainland, rather to the territory reserved for humans: the island of Mospheira. Tabini-aiji, the powerful political head of the atevi, tasks his brilliant human diplomat, Bren Cameron, to negotiate with the Mospheiran government.

A Fire Upon the Deep is the big, breakout book that fulfills the promise of Vinge's career to date: a gripping tale of galactic war told on a cosmic scale. Thousands of years hence, many races inhabit a universe where a mind's potential is determined by its location in space, from superintelligent entities in the Transcend, to the limited minds of the Unthinking Depths, where only simple creatures and technology can function.

It’s been 20 years since the quixotic and worldsweary Louis Wu discovered the Ringworld. Now he and SpeakertoAnimals are going back, captives of the Hindmost, a deposed puppeteer leader. With Louis’ help, the Hindmost intends to regain his status by bringing back such extraordinary treasures from the Ringworld that his fellow puppeteers will have to be impressed. But when they arrive, Louis discovers that the Ringworld is no longer stable - and will destroy itself within months. To survive, he must locate the control center of the legendary engineers who built the planet.

Andrew Harlan’s job is to range through past and present centuries monitoring and even altering Time’s myriad cause-and-effect relationships. As a Technician with the Allwhen Council, he initiates Reality Changes that may affect the lives of as many as fifty billion people – and a million or more of them may be so drastically affected as to be considered new individuals. Above all, therefore, a Technician must be dispassionate. An emotional make-up is a distinct handicap. Then Harlan meets Noÿs and falls victim to a phenomenon older than Time itself – love.

On the primitive world Cull, a knight errant called Anderson hunts a dragon, not knowing that elsewhere is a resurrected brass killing machine, Mr Crane, assisting in a similar hunt. Learning that this old enemy still lives, agent Cormac pursues while scientist Mika begins discovering the horrifying truth about an ancient alien technology. Each day is a survival struggle for the people of Cull. Ferocious insectile monsters roam their planet as they try to escape to their forefathers' starship, still orbiting far above them.

A string of smashing victories by the forces of the sinister aliens known as the Yuuzhan Vong has left New Republic resources and morale stretched to the breaking point. Leia Organa Solo, estranged from her husband, Han, oversees the evacuation of refugees on planets in the path of the merciless...

To win an impossible war, Captain Kel Cheris must awaken an ancient weapon and a despised traitor general.

Captain Kel Cheris of the Hexarchate is disgraced for using unconventional methods in a battle against heretics. Kel Command gives her the opportunity to redeem herself by retaking the Fortress of Scattered Needles, a star fortress that has recently been captured by heretics. Cheris' career isn't the only thing at stake. If the fortress falls, the Hexarchate itself might be next.

Rigel is a thousand lightyears farther from the Core Worlds than Earth, so they suffer the first attacks. The mood at Central is jubilant. Our greatest rival is falling—now is the time to strike while they’re weak! Legion Varus is deployed to Jungle World, a vital planet deep in Rigellian territory. Our foes, fighting on two fronts, are driven back with ease. But one man questions the wisdom of this move. Should Earth expand with greed, aiding new monsters from the Galactic Rim? That lone voice of reason comes from James McGill.

In the year 2255, of all the sentient beings in her universe, it was a woman named Salma, twenty years old, who was the first fully to see the object called Planet Nine. See with her own eyes, albeit moderated by her ship's instruments. If not to recognise what it was, not yet. Not that the object turned out to be a planet, or the 'ninth' of anything. Briefly thought to be a black hole, it suddenly changes, expands and sends a message. There is something waiting on its service. Something not quite human.

Max Tyco is just beginning to understand what it means to be a Rowki Guardian. There are plenty of bruises and bumps along the way. But if he's going to face the threats at his door he'll have to learn some new skills. Sardonium is the metal of the Rowki Guardians. Imbued into their weapon of choice, it grants its wielder a power that can tip the odds in their favor. But all great power comes with a cost. The first portal has been discovered. The other two are being searched for. Treasure seekers, merchants and bounty hunters swarm to Ivandor.

Orbus continues the adventure of Captain Orbus in Neal Asher's high-octane, science fiction Spatterjay series. A cold war is turning white hot. Old Captain Orbus commandeered a ship to flee Spatterjay, desperate to escape the violent planet. Orbus’s alien enemy, the Prador Vrell, is also...