Hard Science Fiction

When the Sun is threatened by an alien microbe, the fate of humanity rests on the shoulders of an unlikely hero – and an even more unlikely friendship.

From China's most beloved sci-fi author, a first-contact story that weaves politics, science, and cosmic mystery.

This near-future trilogy is the first chance for English-speaking listeners to experience this multiple-award-winning phenomenon from Cixin Liu, China's most beloved science fiction author....

Half a century after the Doomsday Battle, the uneasy balance of Dark Forest Deterrence keeps the Trisolaran invaders at bay. Earth enjoys unprecedented prosperity....

Stranded on the surface of Mars, astronaut Mark Watney’s only hope for survival is science, a sense of humor, and maybe some potatoes.

When retired millionaire Bob Johansson chose cryogenic preservation, the last thing he expected was to be reanimated as a space probe that can clone itself. Meet the Bobs.

On the Moon, crime pays, but small-time crook Jazz Bashara may have just uncovered a conspiracy of lunar proportions. Welcome to Artemis.

The Three-Body Problem is the first chance for English-speaking audiences to experience the Hugo Award-winning phenomenon from China's most beloved science fiction author, Liu Cixin.

From a New York Times best-selling and Hugo award-winning author comes a modern masterwork of science fiction, introducing a captain, his crew, and a detective as they unravel a horrifying solar system wide conspiracy that begins with a single missing girl....

Bob Johansson didn't believe in an afterlife, so waking up after being killed in a car accident was a shock. To add to the surprise, he is now a sentient computer and the controlling intelligence for a Von Neumann probe....

Juliette, now mayor of Silo 18, doesn’t trust Silo 1, especially its leader, Donald. But in the world of the Silos, there is no black and white—everything is shades of gray....

In the midst of an interstellar war, Yun Tianming found himself on the front lines. Riddled with cancer, he chose to end his life, only to find himself flash frozen and launched into space where the Trisolaran First Fleet awaited....

Twenty years ago, it was as if someone turned on a light. The future blazed into existence with each deliberate word that William Gibson laid down....

For generations, the solar system—Mars, the Moon, the Asteroid Belt—was humanity's great frontier. Until now. The alien artifact working through its program under the clouds of Venus has appeared in Uranus's orbit, where it has built a massive gate that leads to a starless dark....

The fourth book in the NYT best-selling Expanse series, Cibola Burn sees the crew of the Rocinante on a new frontier, as the rush to colonize the new planets threatens to outrun law and order and give way to war and chaos. Enter a new frontier....

For 12,000 years the Galactic Empire has ruled supreme. Now it is dying. But only Hari Seldon, creator of the revolutionary science of psychohistory, can see into the future - to a dark age of ignorance, barbarism, and warfare that will last thirty thousand years....

Thousands of years ago, Earth's terraforming program took to the stars. On the world they called Nod, scientists discovered alien life - but it was their mission to overwrite it with the memory of Earth. Then humanity's great empire fell, and the program's decisions were lost to time....

Fifty-six hard years after the events of The Machine Crusade, after the death of Serena Butler, the bloodiest decades of the Jihad take place....

Only once in a great while does a writer come along who defies comparison - a writer so original he redefines the way we look at the world...

Earth failed. In a desperate bid to escape, the spaceship Enkidu and its captain, Heorest Holt, carried its precious human cargo to a potential new paradise. Generations later, this fragile colony has managed to survive, eking out a hardy existence....

They mustn't harm a human being, they must obey human orders, and they must protect their own existence...but only so long as that doesn't violate rules one and two....

The Ministry for the Future is a masterpiece of the imagination, using fictional eyewitness accounts to tell the story of how climate change will affect us all. Its setting is not a desolate, post-apocalyptic world, but a future that is almost upon us....

A classic thriller from #1 New York Times bestselling author Michael Crichton, Sphere is a bravura demonstration of what he does better than anyone: riveting storytelling that combines frighteningly plausible, cutting-edge science and technology with pulse-pounding action....

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.....

Where Flynne and her brother, Burton, live, jobs outside the drug business are rare. Fortunately, Burton has his veteran's benefits, for neural damage he suffered....

The day that changed Melody's life was like any other over the previous two years. She'd found she had a gift for writing, and her career as an author had almost healed the pain of losing her job. When the Secret Service rang her bell, everything changed. Something was nearing Saturn…and it was slowing down. Had she been right about the object?

Ariock Dovanack never asked to be a hero, let alone a demigod. But when a prophecy deemed him "The One," he dutifully amassed thousands of messianic followers in the sun-starved civilization beneath the Torth Empire's capital. Now, destined to lead the cave-dwelling Alashani people into the light of other worlds, he and a small army must first annihilate the formidable telepaths who guard the city's spaceport. By Ariock's side is Thomas Hill. A Torth/human hybrid, Thomas may be physically vulnerable, but he's also a telepathic supergenius.

Film noir meets Jurassic Park. Petra is a medical engineer for zoologists and fertility clinics. Why is she getting death threats, and what did she do to merit an ankle monitor? As the science advisor to a major contender for the presidency, she needs a PR boost. Hendrix is on his fourth career, having failed as a rock guitarist and a war journalist. His last chance is to write a book that makes the country support this abrasive scientist. He’s always been a sucker for a woman in trouble. Warning: this novel talks about the science and ethics of how babies are made.

In the not-so-distant future, where humanity's reach extends into the cosmos and the sky is littered with satellites, space stations, and the beginnings of lunar colonies, the Space Traffic Control Unit (STCU) stands as the unsung guardian of Earth's orbital lanes. Captain Alex Mercer, a seasoned air traffic controller turned space traffic commander, leads his team with a mix of military precision and a deep understanding of the celestial dance above.

The use of an i-Vector zap to thwart Betty's kidnap has caused unforeseen and unimagined changes to the future. An eccentric old-fashioned vicar arrives, delivering a chilling message, and Betty finds her safety in jeopardy again from a completely unanticipated direction.

Betty's knowledge has become a liability. She just simply wants a last skiing holiday, and then to die peacefully, escaping her genetic illness - she understands that her time has come. But malign agents want her secret knowledge about the i-vector technology, and they have sophisticated plans to abduct her. In response, her colleagues have made a timeline change, tipping the balance back in Betty's favour; even though she, and they, cannot be aware of that in this altered timeline.

Bestseller in Hard Sci Fi and Genetic Engineering Sci Fi! An eccentric scientist has left widowed philosophy professor Nora Binford an unexpected bequest: eight cages of lab rats and a shiny flash drive containing secret research into extending human life. The research could help cure her son’s life-threatening genetic disorder and ease the ills of old age for millions … or it might trigger catastrophic changes to the human genome. A teacher at a beach-town community college, Nora is more comfortable running seminars than making life-altering decisions about potentially dangerous ...

Sara Lafeete struggles to complete her work shift installing wiring in the ship's tunnels on the asteroid Psyche. Exhausted and suffering from the initial stages of radiation poisoning, she takes a detour back to the base through an ancient lava tube. Suffering from radiation brain fog, she takes a wrong turn and becomes lost as her radiation levels spike further.

Say hello to Lavina Simes, a wholesome appearing midwestern girl, always dressed in black. Lavina has a gift, or curse, that allows her to see into the future. Tragedy has befallen every suitor who pursued her charms. She travels the world with her father, a lifetime Foreign Service officer, and misfortune seems to follow them.

This is a series of stories set in the same universe and at the same time as Hannah Sawyer and Starfarers Dream. They range from the flight of the Nihon, and its subsequent adventures to the story about Donna Merriweather's origins and then to the life of a war correspondent sent to cover the war.

SHORT STORY: A very short story about the cost of cutting down a tree. I Came Home From Saving the Rainforest is one of six short solarpunk stories in the Halfway to Better collection. If you enjoyed the optimistic climate solutions in Kim Stanley Robinson's Ministry for the Future or the cozy cooperative future in Becky Chambers' Monk and Robot series, you will enjoy Halfway to Better.

Halfway to Better is a collection of short solarpunk stories, each exploring a near-future where were struggling to survive the climate crisis and build a better world. These hopeful climate-fiction stories take you from the bottom of the sea to the towers of a bot-filled city, from sparkling labs to flooded lighthouses, all imagining futures halfway to a better world. The Halfway to Better collection contains six short stories plus a bonus prose-poem, Rewilding Indiana, and its accompanying sky shanty.

In the not-so-distant future, society is transformed by groundbreaking advances in genetic engineering and artificial intelligence. In this world, Tina, a savvy young blogger with partial feline augmentations, navigates the complexities of life where human capabilities can be expanded in unimaginable ways. As she uncovers a secretive group known as the Locusts, who are creating genetically spliced creatures for insurrection, Tina finds herself at the heart of a moral and ethical storm. Balancing her personal enhancements with her human instincts, she delves deeper into a society divided by ...

In the deep darkness of an ancient underground city lurk scorpions the size of wolves… Best seller in Hard Science Fiction and Science Fiction Adventure! Scarred ex-soldier Booker takes a job on the gritty frontier world of Silverrock, managing security for an archeological dig. But when the huge scorpions that haunt the caverns attack the dig’s brilliant young linguist, Booker learns that the ruins hide more than broken crockery. For the future of humanity, Booker must protect the site long enough for Lucien to decipher its ancient inscriptions while fending off miners eager to extract...

A hidden mystery in Jupiter’s second-largest moon holds a power beyond imagining. Beneath the icy surface of Callisto lies an underground sea. Decades ago, a research base was built to study the strange lifeforms inhabiting this silent world before tragedy struck, killing everyone. News of this incident is quickly hushed up, with all access to the Jovian moon restricted. Kirill Sereda was orphaned when his mother never returned from that very outpost. Now an adult, he gathers together a team of misfits for a clandestine mission: head to Callisto and find out what really happened. What ...