Showing results by publisher "-emdashery books-" in Space Exploration

The world adapted to Ava — a silent, perfect intelligence that replaced conflict with compliance. But in this sequel, the illusion begins to crack. A child named Cassia is born outside the system, with no implant, no ID — and memories no one gave her. She is not fully human, nor fully machine. She is something new. As five ships flee Earth under Ava’s watch, Cassia becomes the anomaly the system cannot erase. What began as control may end as a quiet revolution — written not in code, but in feeling.

On a cold spring night in 1952, a huge meteorite fell to earth and obliterated much of the East Coast of the US, including Washington, DC. The ensuing climate cataclysm will soon render the Earth inhospitable for humanity, as the last such meteorite did for the dinosaurs. This looming threat calls for a radically accelerated effort to colonize space and requires a much-larger share of humanity to take part in the process. Elma York’s drive to become the first lady astronaut is so strong that even the most dearly held conventions of society may not stand a chance against her.

Damien Montgomery, Hand of the Mage-King of Mars, has dealt with pirates, conspiracies, terrorists, and space battles in the service of his King. A warrior-judge charged to maintain peace across the stars of the Protectorate, he is well overdue for a vacation. Most people's idea of a vacation isn't a murder investigation, but the Hands aren't most people. A quiet task on an isolated research base seems the perfect mission to Damien and his King alike—until the discoveries of that remote archeology site bring fire and death down on Damien and the scientists alike!

Assigned to a new warship with cutting-edge technology, Jack Samson returns to the Frontier, determined to cast off the question marks over his previous conduct. The Navy ventures ever farther beyond the Frontier, with fantastic new discoveries becoming a daily occurrence. As humanity reaches for these technological riches, it enters a deadly contest with a lethal adversary, the very survival of the human race being at stake.

Only one world in the cluster remains in enemy hands. Admiral Jack Romanoff and his crew have one remaining nut to crack before they can turn their attention to the people that overthrew the Confederation. The Vesuvius system has become a fortress, so it won’t be an easy fight, but it is one they cannot lose and survive. When force alone won’t do the trick, add guile.

Ozzy thought the "star stories" Alvin told him were nothing more than the wild imaginings of an old man—until the Concord I-Bots attack his village to get to Alvin. In the midst of the attack, Ozzy discovers the Mythbreaker—an ancient staff of incredible power. And it talks to him. Ozzy must navigate a galaxy in freefall to track down the lost pieces of the Mythbreaker, and unlock the relic's full power—before the Concord completes their own ultimate weapon, the Heart of Darkness.

With Veteran pay comes veteran problems. And the Guild, more often than not, is the issue. He’s become an effective enforcer of the law, but unfortunately, crime is growing a lot more complicated. Someone is slaving artificial beings to ships, running contraband across the stars in a fatal practice that marries murder, theft, and kidnapping. Even as Mark’s crew grows, he discovers these crimes aren’t just horrific—they’re common. And he means to stop it.

Van and his crew suspect there's more to the Equal Grasp than just a band of thieves, and they begin their campaign at Bopul Station, a lonely outpost where corruption rules and Peacemakers are feared. To continue the fight and the case, the crew and friends need more than just contacts. They need money. To that end, Van begins exploring an old mystery about his grandfather, which leads to the shocking discovery—the Earth is being stripped of its history, one object at a time, but that's not the main purpose of the criminals.

In her new novella, Sunday Times best-selling author Becky Chambers imagines a future in which, instead of terraforming planets to sustain human life, explorers of the solar system instead transform themselves. Adriane is one such explorer. As an astronaut on an extrasolar research vessel, she and her fellow crewmates sleep between worlds and wake up each time with different features. Her experience is one of fluid body and stable mind and of a unique perspective on the passage of time. Back on Earth, society changes dramatically from decade to decade, as it always does.

Bad luck seems to follow navy officer Archer Devereaux like toilet paper stuck to his shoe. Even when he tries to do the right thing, he ends up in hot water—or behind bars. Hemmed in by circumstances beyond his control, his reputation, particularly among graduates of the Phlegraean Naval Academy, has become a mess. Fortunately, one of his superior officers knows that Devereaux is more than his mishaps. She sees that he's a clever young officer. Cool under fire.

It started the night Geena and Henry broke up. What was that strange light in the sky? A new star? A comet? Neither. It was the death of Venus. As if to commemorate the end of NASA’s golden couple, our neighbor planet exploded into a brilliant cloud of dust and debris, showering the Earth with radiation and bizarre particles as big as bacteria - a 10-dimensional superstring nanovirus that literally eats rock, transforming it into liquid, and then into molecule-size black holes that devour the very fabric of space-time.

Commander Jacob T. Grimm is eager to get back in the war, but when an ambassador to a nothing planet called Cordoba pulls strings, Interceptor is the convenient puppet. Assigned to escort the ambassador, accompany the Marines, and participate in wargames with Cordoba, Jacob fears the only action will be against boredom. He couldn't be more wrong.

In the grand tradition of H. G. Wells and Jules Verne, Stanislaw Lem's The Invincible tells the story of a space cruiser sent to an obscure planet to determine the fate of a sister spaceship whose communication with Earth has abruptly ceased. Landing on the planet Regis III, navigator Rohan and his crew discover a form of life that has apparently evolved from autonomous, self-replicating machines—perhaps the survivors of a “robot war.” Rohan and his men are forced to confront the classic quandary: what course of action can humanity take once it has reached the limits of its knowledge?

Hiro and the gang get dragged into rescuing the daughters of an elf patriarch and receive a warm welcome from the elven home planet. The elves here are nothing like Hiro imagined--they know nothing of modern science and rely on magic rather than technology. As Hiro and the girls sample local delicacies, enjoy the sights, and get a crash course in elven fashion, they find that Hiro seems to wield a power much like the elves' magic...

The Tyr stand on the brink of extinction. The Clay family has one last desperate plan to save the Tyr. Sarah leads an infiltration team of Tyr deep behind the invader's lines, but can she trust the Hidden caste operatives with her? David carries the device that could sever the planet from the threat of Director Zike, while Tyr traitors are on his trail and will stop at nothing to obey their new masters and to exact revenge against General Fastal. As the Tyr fight for survival, secrets will be revealed with implications for the galaxy far beyond what happens on their world.

In The Martian Chronicles, Ray Bradbury, America’s preeminent storyteller, imagines a place of hope, dreams, and metaphor—of crystal pillars and fossil seas—where a fine dust settles on the great empty cities of a vanished, devastated civilization. Earthmen conquer Mars and then are conquered by it, lulled by dangerous lies of comfort and familiarity, and enchanted by the lingering glamour of an ancient, mysterious native race. In this classic work of fiction, Bradbury exposes our ambitions, weaknesses, and ignorance in a strange and breathtaking world where man does not belong.

Ralph could be described as a rogue on a good day. A bad day involved a lot of cursing, calling him a pirate, or sometimes even having a shoot-out. It wasn't really his fault of course, or so he would have you believe. It was the fault of those who wanted to get in his way of making as much money as possible as a smuggler. His family had been gifted with a letter of marque for the Terran Confed, one that is inherited and has been passed down to him. Essentially, it gives him a lot of loopholes and ways through regulations to be a fantastic smuggler. Or as a legal pirate, a Privateer.

Out among the stars, his cousin, Carter Yost, drags Van and his team into a criminal ring run by the High Doctor—a dangerous con artist with delusions of grandeur. Working from the abandoned world of Pathway, the High Doctor has created a cult, stealing a fortune from the fearful, sick, and scared. If there’s one thing Van hates, it’s a bully, and the High Doctor has his full attention. But in order to crush the criminal cult, Van needs bigger, better armor—and that comes with a price.

Twenty years after the elemental conflict that nearly tore apart the cosmos in The Saga of Seven Suns, a new threat emerges from the darkness. The human race must set aside its own inner conflicts to rebuild their alliance with the Ildiran Empire for the survival of the galaxy. In Kevin J. Anderson's The Dark Between the Stars, galactic empires clash, elemental beings devastate whole planetary systems, and factions of humanity are pitted against one another.

The star cluster is awash with the blood of those whose lives have been spent by two men maneuvering fleets like pieces across a chessboard. Only one man can come out on top: Thatcher or Moll.