A space voyager living her dream of exploring new worlds lands on a distant planet ripe for colonization before her discovery of a mysterious relic transforms her life and threatens the entire human race. During a routine survey mission on an uncolonized planet, Kira Navárez finds an alien relic. At first delighted, her elation turns to terror when the ancient dust around her begins to move. As war erupts among the stars, Kira is launched into a...

"As first contact transforms Earth, a team of gifted visionaries race to create a new future in this wondrous science fiction novel. The world is changing, and humanity must change with it. Rising seas and soaring temperatures have radically transformed the face of Earth. Meanwhile, Earth is being observed from afar by other civilizations... and now they are ready to make contact. Vying to prepare humanity for first contact are a group of dreamers...

Astronomer Dr. Ellie Arroway receives an encrypted message, apparently from a solar system many light-years away.

"The Kaiju Preservation Society is John Scalzi's first standalone adventure since the conclusion of his New York Times bestselling Interdependency trilogy. When COVID-19 sweeps through New York City, Jamie Gray is stuck as a dead-end driver for food delivery apps. That is, until Jamie makes a delivery to an old acquaintance, Tom, who works at what he calls "an animal rights organization." Tom's team needs a last-minute grunt to handle things on their...

After facing off with the Mogadorian ruler and almost being annihilated, the Garde go into hiding. They must learn to master their Legacies and learn to work together as a team. When they receive a sign from Number Five -- a crop circle in the shape of a Loric symbol -- they know they are close to being reunited. But could it be a trap? Time is running out, and the only thing they know for certain is that they have to get to Five before it's too late....

Thirty-eight years after first contact, Lord Commander Grayson St. Clair leads the Tellus Ad Astra on an unprecedented expedition to the Galactic Core, carrying more than a million scientists, diplomats, soldiers, and AIs. Despite his reservations about their alien hosts, St. Clair is deeply committed to his people, especially after they're sucked into a black hole and spat out four billion years in the future.

Ben Bova continues his hard SF Star Quest series which began with Death Wave and Apes and Angels. In Survival, a human team sent to scout a few hundred light years in front of the death wave encounters a civilization far in advance of our own, a civilization of machine intelligences. The sentient, intelligent machines have existed for eons, and have survived earlier "death waves," gamma ray bursts from the core of the galaxy. They are totally self-sufficient,...

Ten thousand city-state habitats orbit the planet Yellowstone, forming a near perfect democratic human paradise. But even utopia has a dark side. As members of the habitats start suddenly and randomly dying, a charismatic figure begins to sow insurrection, convincing a small but growing number of inhabitants to break away from the Glitter Band.

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. Aeons later, humanity and its new spider allies detected fragmentary radio signals between the stars. They dispatched an exploration vessel, hoping to find cousins from...

Who said friends have to match to matter? When the Star Boy's space-pod crashes in the grounds of Fairfield Academy, he knows he must seek shelter. Taking refuge in the school's boiler room to await rescue he discovers that the room's small window is the perfect place to watch humans go by. The Star Boy knows about humans from his Earth lessons but no one from his planet has ever studied them up close. Now he has the perfect opportunity. There are...