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

Commodore Straker faces new enemies as neighboring interstellar empires decide his New Republic is a growing threat. A two-front war develops, and the Liberator must face both the Mutuality and the Hundred Worlds. Even as the fighting rages, the mysterious Opters are on the move. They make a diplomatic effort to reach out to Straker - but can he trust the Hive Masters? Will they help or stab him in the back?

In a universe where the laws of physics and the speed of light are completely alien to our own, the travelers on the ship Peerless have completed a generations-long struggle to develop advanced technology in a desperate attempt to save their home world. But as tensions mount over the risks of turning the ship around and starting the long voyage home, a new complication arises: The prospect of constructing a messaging system that will give the Peerless news of its own future.

Twenty years after the discovery of artificial wormholes launches Earth space exploration to unforeseeable heights, Starplex Director Keith Lansing investigates a mysterious vessel that soon threatens the station with intergalactic war.

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.

In the 10 years since his regiment was transported to an alien world, Commander Andrew Keane has bravely fought time and time again for humanity's freedom. But after he is injured in battle, his confidence is shaken, and his ability to lead is damaged. Seeing their leader struck down also takes its toll on Keane's men, who have followed him to hell and back.

The Republic, the Opters, and a strange Crystalline race of unknown origin all meet in a series of titanic battles. Commodore Straker summons thousands of ships, but he soon learns he’s technologically outclassed by the enemy. With traditional victory impossible, the race is on for each side to destroy the key worlds of the other. Billions die, entire planets are destroyed. Even while the war rages, dark suspicions grow. There are traitors in the midst of the chaos. Straker realizes the worst enemy is the one you believed to be your ally....

Cajeiri is the young son of the powerful leader of the Western Association-and he has become a target for forces bent on destroying his father's rule. For Cajeiri is the first ateva to understand the humans living among them-an understanding that threatens his own race.

Commodore Straker's rebellion grows in strength - but his enemies are growing even faster. Faced with a dozen rebel planets in their territory, the Mutuality finally takes notice of the upstart known as the Liberator, and they gather a vast fleet to crush him. Preparing for a titanic interstellar battle, it's clear Straker has no chance. His tiny enclave of free planets can't survive the weight of 1000 worlds. His own officers realize this, and some of them begin to turn against him....

Neanderthals have developed a radically different civilization on a parallel Earth. A Neanderthal physicist, Ponter Boddit, accidentally passes from his universe into a Canadian underground research facility. Fortunately, a team of human scientists, including expert paleo-anthropologist Mary Vaughan, promptly identifies and warmly receives Ponter. Solving the language problem and much else is a mini-computer, called a Companion, implanted in the brain of every Neanderthal. But it can't help his fellow scientist back in his world, Adikor Huld, when the authorities charge Adikor with his murder.

When the Colony on Hayden's world went black, a team was sent to investigate. It was supposed to be a training mission: skip in, find out the Casimir Transmitter had gone dead, report back and wait for resupply from the Fleet. By the time the only surviving member of the team made landfall, it was spectacularly clear that this wasn't a training mission.

Everyone knew the legend of Christopher Sim. Fighter. Leader. An interstellar hero with a rare talent for war, Sim changed mankind's history forever when he forged a ragtag group of misfits into the weapon that broke the back of the alien Ashiyyur. But now, Alex Benedict has found a startling bit of information, long buried in an ancient computer file. If it is true, then Christopher Sim was a fraud.

Alien technology scavenged by U.S. and Russian scientists has started a race to colonize planets outside our solar system - and the U.S. scientists are losing. In a desperate move the U.S. government decides to use a group of Apache volunteers in an experimental attempt to colonize a primitive planet, but before they can even begin their spaceship crashes on the planet Topaz.

Earth builds her first war fleet! The greatest warships ever constructed in known space rise up one by one, soon dominating our skies. They strike fear into the hearts of every citizen and rebel colonist alike. Captain William Sparhawk, the very man who convinced the secretive Council to build this terrifying fleet, now has doubts about the project. What is their exact mission? How could anyone have built these huge ships so quickly? And, most puzzling of all, what's happening out at the isolated laboratory complex on Phobos, Mars' lopsided moon?

Retrieval Artists help the lost find their way back home, whether they like it or not. Specialized private detectives, they investigate the most unusual crimes in the galaxy. But Miles Flint isn't a Retrieval Artist. He's just a cop, trying to do his job.

It’s been five years since the end of the Hive Wars. Straker has handed over the burden of governing the Earthan Republic to civil authorities. This should be a happy time, as Straker and his most loyal soldiers retire to a planet and step off the galactic stage. Unfortunately, authoritarian forces within the Earthan Republic are still simmering with rage at his victory. Rumors reach Straker of a growing new Republic Fleet manned by state loyalists. Planets begin to fall under their influence and go dark. Even in retirement, they see Straker’s Breakers as a threat.

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.

Inception meets Black Mirror for the YouTube generation. The idea behind MindCast is simple. We insert a small chip into your skull and then every thought, every feeling, every memory is streamed live, 24 hours a day. Trust me - within a few months you'll be the most talked about person on the planet. When David Callow is offered the lead role in a revolutionary new online show, he snatches the opportunity. Rapidly becoming a viral sensation, David is propelled to stratospheric levels of celebrity. However, he soon realises the downside of sharing every secret with the world....

Welcome to Teranesia, the island of butterflies, where evolution has stopped making sense. Prabir Suresh lives in paradise, a nine-year-old boy with an island all his own to name, to explore, and to populate with imaginary monsters stranger than any tropical wildlife. Teranesia is his kingdom, shared only with his biologist parents and baby sister Madhusree. The unexplained genetic mutation of the island's butterflies that brought his family to the remote South Moluccas barely touches Prabir.

The generation ship Peerless is in search of advanced technology capable of sparing their home planet from imminent destruction. In theory, the ship is traveling fast enough that it can traverse the cosmos for generations and still return home only a few years after they departed. But a critical fuel shortage threatens to cut their urgent voyage short, even as a population explosion stretches the ship’s life-support capacity to its limits.

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.