Fantasy First Contact

Dr. Renee Caisson knows there are worse things than an attractive man in uniform drafting her into a secret government project—especially when Major Jackson makes it clear that he isn’t bothered by her questionable past. But when her labs come back with decidedly odd results, the Major is forced to come clean over who the government is actually studying. Renee is shocked to learn her subjects are demonic-looking beings who call themselves “Neighbors”—refugees from a dying world, who arrived during the nation-wide solar eclipse.

A secret buried in the Antarctic. A puzzle unsolved for thousands of years. And a Brooklyn-born master gunnery sergeant who's royally pissed that he has to babysit the researchers sent to figure it all out. But when Patrick "Wic" Finnegan finally sees what the team has uncovered, he can't believe his eyes, nor is he prepared for the violence to come. Soon, the portal opens and unleashes a storm of unbridled fury upon humanity.

Where did mankind really come from? Why are we here? We can't understand the past until we embrace the future. These critical mysteries take center stage as Earth emerges into a galactic society that is far more perilous than anyone could have imagined. Our history is far more complicated than we could have known. Can a few brilliant minds find a way out for Earth?

Collected in one volume is all three books in C. J. Cherryh's epic The Faded Sun trilogy: Kesrith, Shon'jir, and Kutath.

After a fateful expedition to Antarctica, Alexander Hawkes finds himself catapulted across the stars into a galaxy in chaos. The Emperor is assassinated. The Eternum Empire, already fading, has collapsed. But he has a starship now. And friends. Alongside a crew of unlikely allies—Ban Tarro, an honorable Barundi soldier; Diliseth, a genetically-engineered Nacendo handmaiden; and Four, a sentient AI—Alexander witnesses the brutal aftermath of imperial collapse on the planet Twilight. Driven by an innate sense of justice, Alexander proposes a radical solution.

The Solaran Defense Forces make the difficult decision to evacuate the colony of Robichar in order to avoid a direct confrontation. But when Captain Elya Nevers gets shot down during the evacuation, his squadron and the admiral in charge have to think fast to rescue their pilot before the Kryl overrun the system.

What happens when a Galactic Federation of peaceful planets offers humanity a chance to join them and with it a gigantic leap into a bright future filled with all the marvels a billion-year advance of technology and intelligence can offer? All we have to do is renounce violence, embrace peace, and evolve into a higher consciousness. But if we don't, we may soon find ourselves quarantined, or worse, eradicated like a virus to prevent our violent ways from spreading across the galaxy. The clock is ticking. Now it's on the shoulders of a few unlikely heroes to save the day before it's too late.

The year is 2164. Humanity has slipped the surly bonds of its golden sun, and prospers as it finds a way across the stars. A new era of exploration dawns, its citizens asking the question eagerly: “Is there anyone out there?” Now, the answer comes suddenly and violently, a surprise attack on a peaceful colony. Deadly conflict, long forgotten by the governments of Man, makes itself known once more. New enemies emerge from the void: children of war, heirs to its terror and splendor. But this foe too has questions to answer, faced as it is with a civilization previously unimagined.

Silas is inducted into the System, becoming the last in a long line of Earth's "forerunners." The rewards are great, but the danger is greater. We are not alone in the universe. The fate of five worlds hangs on how their forerunners perform. Will Silas have what it takes to win Earth a place in the multiverse? Or will Earth become another mining world stripped of all resources and left a barren husk floating in the cosmos?

Anomaly examines the prospect of an alien intelligence discovering life on Earth. The technological gulf between humanity and the alien species is measured in terms of millions of years. The only way to communicate is using science, but not everyone is so patient. Humanity's first contact with an alien intelligence is far more radical than anyone has ever dared imagine. With a technological gap of millions of years, mankind is barely able to recognize the arrival of an alien space craft outside the gates of the United Nations in New York.

At a time when Humans were just starting to venture forth into the Galactic Union as mercenaries, Martin Quincy survived long enough to do something no one else had - he retired. There was only one problem: He got bored. After battling aliens for many years - killing aliens and getting paid - retirement didn’t suit him, and he decided to strap on the combat armor and go back to the stars. Along with his old friend Kal, Martin joined Cartwright’s Cavaliers, humanity’s best merc company. Life was exciting! But he got bored. Again.

Colton Beck has six months to live. He works for the Angor near Los Angeles, aware that any day could be his last. The Angor arrived 20 years ago, resolved to help mankind survive, but not everyone believes their motives are honorable. When the Angor offer humanity a colony world, Colton is determined to see another planet before his final breath. He’s been diagnosed with Xeno, a rare disorder that surfaced with the Angor’s arrival, but he won’t let this stop him.

What truths lie in the black void between the stars? It’s late September 2019 when a young astronomer working at the Haleakala Space Observatory in Maui, Hawaii, accidentally spots a black dot in the night sky and is calculated to be closely trailing Earth by only seventy-five million miles…on the same ecliptic plane. NASA launches an unmanned probe to Earth’s nearest neighbor, given the name ILK-87b. The images coming back from the black planet both shock and amaze those inside the halls of NASA. Curiosity, fear, and dread overcome insiders as infrastructure is detected on the black ...

First published by H. G. Wells in 1898, The War of the Worlds is the granddaddy of all alien invasion stories. The novel begins ominously, as the lone voice of a narrator intones, "No one would have believed in the last years of the 19th century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's."

Firstname Lastname is a no one with nowhere to go, with a name that is the result of an unfortunate clerical error and destined to be one of the only humans on an alien space station. That is, until she sneaks aboard a ship and joins up with a crew of repo men (they are definitely not pirates). Now she's traveling the galaxy "recovering" ships. What could go wrong?

Life has been found beneath the icy shell of the moon of a gas giant orbiting a red dwarf at a distance of 11 light-years from Earth. When the crew of the original exploration mission crashes on the alien moon, a rescue ship is launched. Arriving decades later, the crew of the Kelvin finds a colony of survivors living in the labyrinth of caves beneath the surface of the moon. When people start dying, they realize they need to unravel the secrets of this alien world and the mystery of the minotaur.

Daniel Clay fought across the galaxy as a corporate soldier. He left the violence behind for a life of science, raising a family far from the bloodshed of the Corporation. With his wife, Sarah, and son, Michael, he studied the alien Tyr for years, hidden among their complex societies. Their mission should have ended with the arrival of a replacement team. Instead, the Clays’ corporate overlords choose a death sentence: an invasion fleet to conquer the Tyr.

Rejected scientist Alexander Hawke is down to his last chance. Brilliant but sheltered, every banker in New York has refused to finance his ideas. Enter the Russian—charming, dangerous, and offering an Antarctic expedition that promises answers to all of his questions. Now, Alexander stands at the edge of a bottomless chasm. With a helpful shove from his foreign benefactor, he plunges into adventure. Landing in darkness, Alexander finds a portal to destiny—weirder than New York, colder than Russia, and filled with the ruins of an empire that once spanned the galaxy.

More than 20 years have passed since Ren and the rest of the faithful braved the starry abyss and established a colony at the base of an enigmatic alien structure where Suh-Mi has since resided alone. Ren has worked hard as the colony's 3-D printer engineer, creating the tools necessary for human survival in an alien environment - and harboring a devastating secret.

The Majority always gets what it wants. Thomas Hill just wishes it didn't want him. There's no way to escape a galactic mob of mind readers, no way for him to blend in with his foster family and other average Americans. Because Thomas invented a way to save his own life. His custom medicine halts the progress of his degenerative neuromuscular disease. Newscasters proclaim him the next Einstein, but mere humans have no idea his bioengineered processing capacity rivals that of a supercomputer. They just think he's smart. However, there are other bioengineered supergeniuses in the Majority.