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.

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.

Darrow would have lived in peace, but his enemies brought him war. The Gold overlords demanded his obedience, hanged his wife, and enslaved his people....

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....

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

Civil war looms in the Bobiverse in this brand-new, epic-length adventure by Audible number one best seller Dennis E. Taylor. More than a hundred years ago, Bender set out for the stars and was never heard from again....

In the year 2045, reality is an ugly place. The only time Wade Watts really feels alive is when he’s jacked into the OASIS, a vast virtual world where most of humanity spends their days....

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....

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....

The planet of Kiln is where the tyrannical Mandate keeps its prison colony, and for inmates the journey there is always a one-way trip. One such prisoner is Professor Arton Daghdev, xeno-ecologist and political dissident. Soon after arrival he discovers that Kiln has a secret....

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

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....

Murderbot meets Redshirts in a delightfully humorous tale of robotic murder from the Hugo-nominated author of Elder Race and Children of Time....

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....

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....

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....

The fifth book in the NYT best-selling Expanse series, Nemesis Games drives the crew of the Rocinante apart, and as they struggle to survive, the inner planets fall victim to an enemy's catastrophic plan. A thousand worlds have opened....

With the Cielcin united under one banner, the Sollan Empire stands alone after the betrayal of the Commonwealth. The Prophet-King of the Cielcin has sent its armies to burn the worlds of men, and worse, there are rumors … whispers that Hadrian Marlowe is dead, killed in the fighting....

The war raged across the galaxy. Billions had died, billions more were doomed....

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....

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....

The machine races demand a turn at the job, but the organics refuse to allow it. For more than a century, the Galactics have battled for supreme power. War and instability reign in place of peace, with every species spread over a hundred billion stars suffering as the Empire decays.

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....

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....

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...

The planet of Kiln is where the tyrannical Mandate keeps its prison colony, and for inmates, the journey there is always a one-way trip. One such prisoner is Professor Arton Daghdev, xeno-ecologist and political dissident. Soon after arrival, he discovers that Kiln has a secret. Humanity is not the first intelligent life to set foot there. In the midst of a ravenous, chaotic ecosystem are the ruins of a civilization, but who were the vanished builders and where did they go?

After neurosurgeon Caro Soames-Watkins’ career has gone down in flames, she receives a strange job offer from Nobel Prize-winning scientist Sam Watkins, a great uncle she barely knows, and desperation overcomes any suspicions. Watkins’ mysterious medical facility conducts research into the nature of consciousness, reality, and life after death. Two obstacles stand in his way: an intel leak and his failing body may not last long enough for the tech to be ready. As danger mounts, Caro finds more than she bargained for: murder, love, and a deep disturbing look into the nature of reality.

Since the dawn of mankind, immortality has been the ultimate reward. But by the year 2148, it requires no act of faith to believe in an afterlife. Forever Center promises to bring people back to a life beyond death. Now everyone spends their lives in poverty, giving all their money to Forever Center to ensure their happiness and comfort in the next eternal life.

What would intelligent life—forms on another planet look like? Would they walk upright? Would they wear clothes? Or would they be hulking creatures on six legs that wallow in their own excrement? Upon first contact with the Utod—intelligent, pacifist beings who feel no pain—mankind instantly views these aliens as animals because of their unhygienic customs. This leads to the slaughter, capture, and dissection of the Utod. But when one explorer recognizes the intelligence behind their habits, he must reevaluate what it actually means to be "intelligent."

The war ended with Nick's team sacrificed to the enemy as part of the truce. His team tortured and killed in front of him, Nick alone escaped, returned home, and hid deep in the northern Maine forests. Until someone said, "I love you." But Nick's never been loved, doesn't know if he can even feel love, and for the first time since Augmentation is terrified the monster he is might destroy the woman who wants to teach him about love.

In 2035, an AI-driven disinformation campaign turned us on ourselves. We became the enemy's first strike weapons, and as we set fire to our own country, the People's Liberation Army seized half of the Pacific. From the first combat jump on Mars to the climate change-ravaged jungles of Southeast Asia, Ex Supra blends the bleeding edge of technology and the bloody reality of combat. In Ex Supra, the super soldiers are only as strong as their own wills, reality is malleable, and hope only arrives with hellfire.

This collection of nine stories from the Grand Master of Science Fiction charts the course of humanity from the near future onward through millennia. In Galaxies Like Grains of Sand, Brian W. Aldiss tells the tale of mankind's future over the course of forty million years. Each of these nine connected short stories highlights a different millennia in which man has adapted to new environments and hardships.

Seren awakens to a mysterious reality, devoid of her past, trapped in a maze where survival is her only escape. But the labyrinth is not her sole adversary; it's the other players that pose the greatest threat. She soon aligns herself with a motley crew of strangers, united by the shared determination to escape their prison. Together, they plunge headlong into a gauntlet of escalating challenges that pit them against the unforgiving environment, the intricate maze, and the ruthless competition of their fellow players.

When an M.I.T. graduate student and his scientist girlfriend stumble upon evidence of an undiscovered energy field, they become targets of competing secret societies who've been suppressing the discovery for centuries. The couple's scheme to hide the evidence using artificial intelligence has unforeseen consequences, threatening their love and their lives.

The thing the machines consume is us. Ready to lease out your mind? Or pay for your next meal with involuntary ads? The Closet Full of Time collection contains five short stories that speak to that sinking feeling that we're serving the machines instead of the other way around. That our inventions are taking things we can’t afford to lose.