Showing results by author "Brandon Q. Morris" in All Categories

An intelligent robot and two young people explore Proxima Centauri b, the planet orbiting our nearest star, Proxima Centauri. Their ideas about the mission quickly prove grossly naive as they venture about on this planet of extremes.

Where are the senders of the call for help that lured them here? They find no one and no traces on the daylight side, so they place their hopes upon an expedition into the eternal ice on Proxima b's dark side. They not only face everlasting night, the team encounters grave dangers. A fateful decision will change the planet forever.

Alone and desperate, Eve sits in the control center of an alien structure. She has lost the other members of the team sent to explore exoplanet Proxima Centauri b. By mistake she has triggered a disastrous process that threatens to obliterate the planet. Just as Eve fears her best option may be a quick death, a nearby alien life form awakens from a very long sleep. It has only one task: to find and neutralize the destructive intruder from a faraway place.

NASA finally made it. The very first human has just set foot on the surface of our neighbor planet. This is the start of a long research expedition that sent four scientists into space. But the four astronauts of the NASA crew are not the only ones with this destination. The privately financed "Mars for Everyone" initiative has also targeted the Red Planet. Twenty men and women have been selected to live there and establish the first extraterrestrial settlement.  

A mysterious object threatens to destroy our solar system. The survival of humankind is at risk, but nobody takes the warning of young astrophysicist Maribel Pedreira seriously. At the same time, an exiled crew of outcasts mines for rare minerals on a lone asteroid. When other scientists finally acknowledge Pedreira's alarming discovery, it becomes clear that these outcasts are the only ones who may be able to save our world, knowing that the Hole hurtles inexorably toward the sun.

The new heart of the Milky Way is a quasar, enclosed by a huge shell. It will provide energy to humankind for a long time. But then one maintenance probe after another disappears. Is someone trying to manipulate the quasar to destroy our galaxy in a giant explosion? Or is it just a few outlaws who are trying to steal some of the quasar's energy for themselves? Kepler and Zhenyi, with the help of some unexpected friends, discover that the stakes are much, much higher. They encounter new and at the same time ancient foes that they never dreamt of in their worst nightmares.

In 2005, the robotic probe "Huygens" lands on Saturn's moon Titan. 40 years later, a radio telescope receives signals from the far away moon that can only come from the long forgotten lander. At the same time, an expedition returns from neighbouring moon Enceladus. The crew lands on Titan and finds a dangerous secret that risks their return to Earth. Meanwhile, on Enceladus a deathly race has started that nobody thought was possible. And its outcome can only be decided by the astronauts that are stuck on Titan.

For many billions of years, humans - having conquered the curse of aging - spread throughout the entire Milky Way. They are able to live all their dreams, but to their great disappointment, no other intelligent species has ever been encountered. Now, humanity itself is on the brink of extinction because the universe is dying a protracted yet inevitable death. 

There is a huge, bold black streak in the sky. Branches appear out of nowhere over North America, Southern Europe, and Central Africa. People who live beneath The Rift can see it. But scientists worldwide are distressed - their equipment cannot pick up any type of signal from it. The rift appears to consist of nothing. Literally. Nothing. Nada. Niente. Most people are curious but not overly concerned. The phenomenon seems to pose no danger. It is just there. Then something jolts the most hardened naysayers, and surpasses the worst nightmares of the world's greatest scientists.

In the year 2031, a robot probe detects traces of biological activity on Enceladus, one of Saturn's moons. This sensational discovery shows that there is indeed evidence of extraterrestrial life. Fifteen years later, a hurriedly built spacecraft sets out on the long journey to the ringed planet and its moon. The international crew is not just facing a difficult twenty-seven months: if the spacecraft manages to make it to Enceladus without incident it must use a drillship to penetrate the kilometer-thick sheet of ice that entombs the moon.

Late in the 21st century, Earth receives what looks like an urgent plea for help from planet Proxima Centauri b in the closest star system to the Sun. Astrophysicists suspect a massive solar flare is about to destroy this heretofore-unknown civilization. Earth's space programs are unequipped to help, but an unscrupulous Russian billionaire launches a secret and highly-specialized spaceship to Proxima b, over four light-years away.

Nick Abrahams still holds the official world record for the number of space launches, but he’s bored stiff with his job hosting space tours. Only when his wife leaves him, however, does he try to change his life. He accepts a tempting offer from a Russian billionaire. In exchange for making a simple repair on Neptune’s moon Triton, he will return to Earth a multi-millionaire, enabling him to achieve his ‘impossible dream’ of buying his own California vineyard.

Russian billionaire Nikolai Shostakovitch makes an offer to the former crew of the spaceship ILSE. He will finance a return voyage to the icy moon Enceladus. The offer is too good to refuse - the expedition would give them the unique opportunity to recover the body of their doctor, Dimitri Marchenko. Everyone on board knows that their benefactor acts out of purely personal motivations... but the true interests of the tycoon and the dangers that he conjures up are beyond anyone's imagination.

Jupiter's moon Io has an extremely hostile environment. There are hot lava streams, seas of boiling sulfur, and frequent volcanic eruptions straight from Dante’s Inferno, in addition to constant radiation bombardment and a surface temperature hovering at minus 180 degrees Celsius. Is it really home to a great danger that threatens all of humanity? That's what a surprise message from the life form discovered on Enceladus seems to indicate.

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?  

In the 1980s, physicists at a lab in the Soviet Union find traces of strange data in the cosmic background radiation. Because powerful forces in the military believe these findings can be turned into a weapon for use in the cold war, the information gleaned by the physicists is kept under strictest secrecy. The scientists are limited to primitive 1980s technology, but what they find has roots in much, much older times. They finally try an experiment that they hope will win the world over for communism.

Liegt das Geheimnis des Mars an seinem Südpol vergraben? Während eine einsame Astronautin dort Hinweisen auf die früheren Marsbewohner nachgeht, übernimmt Rick Summers, der durch seine Intrigen zum Administrator der Mars-City aufgestiegen ist, mit Waffengewalt die Macht über alle Menschen auf dem Roten Planeten. Doch ihn erwartet eine böse Überraschung, der auch er nichts entgegenzusetzen hat.

Eine Totgeglaubte kämpft sich durch die lebensfeindliche Wüste des Mars. Mit ihrer Hilfe hofft die NASA-Basis auf dem Roten Planeten, ihr allergrößtes Problem zu lösen. Doch die Hoffnung zerbricht, weil eine unerwartete Bedrohung auftaucht, die alles zu zerstören droht, was sich der Rest der Menschheit bisher auf dem Planeten aufgebaut hat. Sie brauchen ein Wunder - oder einen Geist aus der Vergangenheit, dessen wahre Absichten niemand kennt.

Ein mysteriöses Objekt droht, unser Sonnensystem zu zerstören. Obwohl das Überleben der Menschheit auf dem Spiel steht, nimmt niemand die Entdeckung der jungen Astrophysikerin Maribel Pedreira ernst. Währenddessen schürft an der Grenze unseres Sonnensystems eine eingeschworene Crew von Außenseitern auf einem Asteroiden nach seltenen Erzen - bis sich herausstellt, dass sie die Letzten und die Einzigen sind, die unsere Welt vielleicht noch retten können. Denn The Hole rast unerbittlich auf die Sonne zu.

Endlich hat es die NASA geschafft: Der erste Mensch hat soeben seinen Fuß auf die Oberfläche unseres Nachbarplaneten gesetzt. Doch die vier Astronauten der Mars-Expedition scheinen von unverschuldetem Unheil verfolgt: das Raumschiff einer privaten Organisation, das kurz nach ihnen eintrifft, havariert im Orbit. Nur sie können jetzt noch helfen und versuchen, zwanzig Leben zu retten. Dabei ahnen sie nichts von der unvorstellbaren Katastrophe, die sich hinter ihrem Rücken anbahnt - und die ihre Existenz grundlegend in Frage stellt.

Der russische Multimilliardär Nikolai Schostakowitsch bietet der Crew der ILSE an, eine weitere Reise zum Saturn-Mond Enceladus zu finanzieren. Das Angebot ist zu gut, um es abzulehnen - schließlich bietet die neue Expedition die einmalige Chance, den ehemaligen Bordarzt Marchenko zu retten. Allen ist klar, dass ihr Gönner auch andere Motive verfolgt. Doch die wahren Interessen des Industriellen und die Gefahren, die er dadurch heraufbeschwört, übersteigen jegliche Vorstellungskraft. "Enceladus - die Rückkehr" ist der vierte Teil der Eismond-Serie, die mit "Enceladus" als erstem Teil begonnen hat.