Adventure Exploration Science Fiction

Zero, Nyx, and the other Pathfinder colonists have adjusted to life on Kaguya. But Earth has built much faster starships-the Dreamcatcher arrives 10 years early, and the Stargazer arrives so early it actually got there before the Pathfinder did! Now the Stargazer is a lost shipwreck, and the race is on to find it, and who should show up looking for it but Nyx's dangerous family: Big Mama, Jim, and Kratt. Nyx and Zero will face kidnappers, pirates, shipwrecks, warlords, dragons, and maybe a new ally or two on their way to save the day once again.

An international prize of one billion has been offered to the first man to complete an interplanetary trip, and Dale Curtance, a millionaire adventurer, emerges as the British entrant. With a hand-picked crew, he blasted off from Salisbury Plain in the spaceship Gloria Mundi, destination—the planet Mars. Once free of Earth's atmosphere, they discover a stowaway—a woman. Her extraordinary story helps them prepare for the dangers they encounter on the Red Planet, and the fantastic world that exists there.

The Confederated Systems Alliance has spread to dozens of systems, creating the first true interstellar alliance dedicated to bringing peace and prosperity to all inhabited worlds. Unfortunately, some see this new alliance as a threat to their own seats of power, and would do anything to stop it. After a well deserved rest, Captain Nathan Scott is once again called into action. This time, it is not the fate of the galaxy that is on his shoulders, but the life of one of his dearest friends. But not all is as it appears.

When Kell and his team return to Earth many years after their departure, they find that their world has changed almost beyond recognition. Not only has a second wave of greenhouse flooding caused sea levels to rise, but society has been changed by the consequences of the climate shift. Few people want to face Jordan Kell's news. He must convince Earth's new rulers that the human race is in danger of extinction unless it acts to forestall the death wave coming from the galaxy's heart.

Jacques McKeown is the most celebrated author of star-pilot fiction in the galaxy. He's rich, famous, and living in luxury, and his universe-wide fanbase eagerly awaits any news of his next book. There's just one small hitch. He's not Jacques McKeown. He's Dashford Pierce, star pilot and con artist, and if only the impatient calls from his publisher were the worst of his problems. There's also the last vestige of the Henderson crime gang, trouble brewing in the retired star-pilot community, and a small matter of somebody trying to kill him.

Captain Jessie Cinders faces a hazardous choice. The murderer of the governor's nephew stands before him. But, the frightened teenager, Aurelia Garmenti, doesn't resemble the commandant's description of the vicious, hardened killer his security forces seek.

Two hundred thousand feet up, things go horribly wrong. An experimental low-orbit spaceplane breaks up on reentry, falling to earth over a trail hundreds of miles long. And in its wake is the beginning of the most important mission in the history of spaceflight.

Keeping up-to-date with the most buzzworthy and cutting-edge science fiction requires sifting through countless magazines, e-zines, websites, blogs, original anthologies, single-author collections, and more - a task accomplishable by only the most determined and voracious readers. For everyone else, Night Shade Books is proud to introduce the latest volume of The Best Science Fiction of the Year, collecting the finest that the genre has to offer, from the biggest names in the field to the most exciting new writers.

In the heart of the South Pacific lies Point Nemo, the most desolate and remote place on Earth. At its core is a dead zone, devoid of life, where government agencies crash their obsolete satellites and space stations, confident they won't harm a soul. When the International Space Station suffers a catastrophic failure and plummets through the atmosphere, it's here that Mission Specialist Julie Rohr, an astrobiologist studying living space dust called xylem, finds herself marooned. Julie's only hope for rescue lies in the hands of her estranged father, Dr. Finn Maddern, a renowned mycologist.

A cease-fire that has lasted seven years... Worlds half-destroyed that have been rebuilt anew... Friends and crewmates scattered light-years apart... New leaders that would be kings... The Jung threat has been renewed, in ways not imagined. It will take a new savior to inspire the masses, and once again lead those willing to fight against oppression. But who will the new savior be?

For over 40 years, Glen Cook has been among the most well-known, influential, and widely respected authors in science fiction and fantasy. Through classic series such as The Black Company, Garrett P.I., the Dread Empire, Starfishers, Darkwar, and more, his gritty, down-to-earth style left an indelible impression on his listeners around the world, forever shifting the genre landscape and carving out his place as a pioneering icon.

Thirteen hundred gates have opened to solar systems around the galaxy. But as humanity builds its interstellar empire in the alien ruins, the mysteries and threats grow deeper. In the dead systems where gates lead to stranger things than alien planets, Elvi Okoye begins a desperate search to discover the nature of a genocide that happened before the first human beings existed and to find weapons to fight a war against forces at the edge of the imaginable. But the price of that knowledge may be higher than she can pay.

After a long and bloody battle, legendary Hell Diver Xavier Rodriguez reigns as the dutiful but reluctant new king of the islands. Advised by a council of former sky citizens as well as Cazadores, he works to assimilate the two societies peacefully. But not all Cazadores have accepted the new order. While X tries to ease tensions at home, a rookie team of divers, led by Michael Everhart, returns to the skies in Discovery, formerly the ITC Deliverance. Their mission: To locate other human survivors throughout the world and rescue them.

While the crew of the UN Expeditionary Force's pirate starship Flying Dutchman are enjoying a luxury vacation cruise (not!), UNEF troops are still stranded on an alien-controlled planet. Major Emily Perkins and her team are busy picking up the pieces, and it's not easy, because there is trouble on Paradise...

The war for the fate of mankind blazes on. Though the outer defences have fallen, the walls of the Palace itself remain inviolate as Rogal Dorn, the Praetorian of Terra himself, uses every known stratagem and ploy to keep Horus' vast armies at bay. In Perturabo, the Traitor siegebreaker, Dorn faces an adversary worthy of his skill. A terrible, grinding attrition ensues. The crucial battle for the Lion's Gate spaceport is at the heart of this conflict. With it in their possession, the Traitors can land their most devastating weapons on Terran soil. Dorn knows it must not fall.

Aliens ripped a hole above Earth, arriving with a massive space station. I sorta figured we'd be enslaved to fight in their wars or exterminated for our resources. Nope. The hip-high Iglax were merchants with ugly squished faces and thick blue fur. While they weren't much to look at, they sure did have some wonderous technology.

In celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing, the endlessly-mysterious moon is explored in this reprint short science fiction anthology from award-winning editor and anthologist Neil Clarke (Clarkesworld, The Best Science Fiction of the Year).

A company of Army Rangers is sent on an interstellar colony ship to secure a foothold on a dangerous, alien planet through violence of action. Leaving behind a warring Earth flung headfirst into a conflict of mutual assured destruction, the Rangers and the accompanying crew of first colonists are guided on a 40-year journey by an unprecedented artificial intelligence. But when they emerge from the frigid embrace of cryosleep, they awake to a nightmare, finding themselves greeted by the same ruthless enemy that brought about the ruin of Earth.

As the Project enters its final phase, air force majors Carson and Ourecky are dispatched on an urgent mission to intercept and investigate a massive orbiting object suspected of harboring nuclear weapons. Emotionally exhausted, with his marriage teetering on the brink, Ourecky reluctantly accepts the assignment; in return for his sacrifice, he is promised an opportunity to go to MIT to pursue the PhD he has long desired.

Spensa's life as a Defiant Defense Force pilot has been far from ordinary. She proved herself one of the best starfighters in the human enclave of Detritus and she saved her people from extermination at the hands of the Krell—the enigmatic alien species that has been holding them captive for decades. What's more, she travelled light-years from home as a spy to infiltrate the Superiority, where she learned of the galaxy beyond her small, desolate planet home. Now, the Superiority—the governing galactic alliance bent on dominating all human life—has started a galaxy-wide war.