Hidden Empire


Kevin J. Anderson - 2002
    Two archaeologists glean forbidden knowledge from the ruins of a dead world. Robot servants of ruling insectoid Klikiss guard the Klikiss Torch, which has the power to create suns. The reasons for the fall of the Klikiss empire may return.

Feersum Endjinn


Iain M. Banks - 1994
    His only clues point to a conspiracy that reaches far beyond his own murder, and survival lies in discovering other fugitives who know the truth about the ultimate weapon of chaos and salvation. Reprint.

Fallen Dragon


Peter F. Hamilton - 2001
    But as the Skins invade bucolic Thallspring, Z-B's strategy is about to go awry, all because of: Sgt. Lawrence Newton, a dreamer whose twenty years as a Skin have destroyed his hopes and desires; Denise Ebourn, a school teacher and resistance leader whose guerrilla tactics rival those of Che Guevara and George Washington and Simon Roderick, the director who serves Z-B with a dedication that not even he himself can understand. Grimly determined to steal, or protect, a mysterious treasure, the three players engage in a private war that will explode into unimaginable quests for personal grace...or galactic domination

Heart of the Comet


David Brin - 1986
    An odyssey of discovery, from a shattered society through the solar system with a handful of men and women who ride a cold, hurtling ball of ice to the shaky promise of a distant, unknowable future.

The Toynbee Convector


Ray Bradbury - 1988
    A stunning collection of the kind of fiction that has only one source--the unparalleled Ray Bradbury.

Destination: Void


Frank Herbert - 1966
    An emergency skeleton crew sees only one chance for survival: to create an artificial consciousness in the Earthling's primary computer, which could guide them to their destination . . . or could destroy the human race. Frank Herbert's classic novel that begins the epic Pandora Sequence (written with Bill Ransom), which also includes The Jesus Incident, The Lazarus Effect, and The Ascension Factor.

Warhorse


Timothy Zahn - 1990
    Can they—and should they—be tamed?Throughout the universe, space horses are among the most coveted of species. They are starfaring creatures with telekinetic abilities, tamed and controlled by the Tampy aliens—who aren’t willing to share their understanding of the creatures. Despite diplomatic government intervention, human poachers are determined to capture and control the giant beings. With a tenuous peace treaty in place between the Tampy and humans, the first jointly helmed space horse will undertake its first mission. But will the two races be able to work together—or will their peace break down into all-out war?

Echoes of an Alien Sky


James P. Hogan - 2007
    With the first colonists already establishing themselves, Kyal Reen arrives to join the Venusian scientific & archaelogical teams that are working to reconstruct the story of the race that once flourished there.

Time Traders II: The Defiant Agents / Key Out of Time


Andre Norton - 2001
    So when both men are stranded on far-off planets with no hope of rescue from Earth, they must rely on their wits and their training to survive. But survival is only the beginning. To better handle the rigors of the alien world of Topaz, Fox and his crewmates have been implanted with the memories of their Apache ancestors -- but the Opposition has sent its own team with the reawakened memories of their Mongol ancestors! Meanwhile, Murdock is trapped in the ancient past of the water world of Hawaika, facing terrifying wizards in a kingdom he knows will soon be utterly annihilated by an alien empire that is bent on the conquest of the entire galaxy. The fates of two worlds, and possibly the galaxy itself, will be determined by the actions of these castaways in time -- and whatever happens, the lives of Time Agents everywhere will be changed forever....

Star Hunt


David Gerrold - 1972
    In the prequel to Voyage of the Star Wolf, first officer Jonathan Korie drives his captain and the crew of their obsolete starship on a fanatical, possibly disastrous search for an enemy that may be a phantom.Originally published as Yesterday's Children

The Engines of God


Jack McDevitt - 1994
    Now, as faster-than-light drive opens the stars to exploration, humans are finding other relics of the race they call the Monument-Makers - each different, and each heartbreakingly beautiful. But except for a set of footprints on Jupiter's moon Iapetus, there is no trace of the enigmatic race that has left them behind. Then a team of scientists working on a dead world discover an ominous new image of the Monument-Makers. Somehow it all fits with other lost civilizations, and possibly with Earth's own future. And distant past. But Earth itself is on the brink of ecological disaster - there is no time to search for answers. Even to a question that may hold the key to survival for the entire human race...

The Complete Hammer's Slammers Volume 1


David Drake - 2005
    Volume 1 also features an introduction by Gene Wolfe and an original Slammers story, “A Death in Peacetime.”Contents:* Introduction by Gene Wolfe* Foreword: Becoming a Professional Writer by Way of Southeast Asia* Under the Hammer* Supertanks* The Butcher’s Bill* The Church of the Lord’s Universe* But Loyal to His Own* Powerguns* Caught in the Crossfire* Backdrop to Chaos* Cultural Conflict* The Bonding Authority* Hangman* Table of Organization and Equipment, Hammer’s Regiment* Standing Down* Code-Name Feirefitz* The Interrogation Team* The Tank Lords* Liberty Port* Night March* The Immovable Object* The Irresistible Force* A Death in Peacetime* Afterword: Accidentally and by the Back Door

Highway of Eternity


Clifford D. Simak - 1986
    Corcoran and Boone's powerful extrasensory abilities lead them to an advanced transportation system through time and back to the bucolic 18th-century English countryside. There, they discover a family from the distant future that is hiding from the Immortals - an alien race that, many centuries on, is seducing human subjects with the promise of immortality. But the cost of life eternal is the corporeal self, and there is no place in the aliens' future for anyone unwilling to exist as mind alone.Now that the Evans family's sanctuary has been breached, escape is the only answer - for Tom Boone and Jay Corcoran as well - and the only way out is forward...far forward. But racing through space and time can be a hazardous occupation, especially with monstrous beasts, killer robots, and Immortal body destroyers waiting at every juncture.

Q-Squared


Peter David - 1995
    In the years since, Q has returned again and again to harass Picard and his crew. Sometimes dangerous, sometimes merely obnoxious, Q has always been mysterious and seemingly all-powerful. But this time, when Q appears, he comes to Picard for help. Apparently another member of the Q continuum has tapped into an awesome power source that makes this being more powerful than the combined might of the entire Q continuum. This renegade Q is named Trelane -- also known as the Squire of Gothos, who Captain Kirk and his crew first encountered over one hundred years ago. Q explains that, armed with this incredible power, Trelane has become unspeakably dangerous. Now Picard must get involved in an awesome struggle between super beings. And this time the stakes are not just Picard's ship, or the galaxy, or even the universe -- this time the stakes are all of creation...

Overkill


Robert Buettner - 2011
    Then Jazen learns that the stakes are not merely his own life, but the fate of an entire alien race. “Buettner goes well beyond . . . military science fiction . . . he understands . . . living as a soldier—the boredom punctuated by terror, the constant anxiety and self-doubt, the random chaos that battle always is, and the emotional glue that holds together people who may have nothing in common except absolute responsibility for one another's lives.” —Joe Haldeman, Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author“[O]nce in a while . . . a contemporary author penetrates to the heart of Heinlein's vision . . . to replicate the master's effects. . . . [O]ne such book [is] Robert Buettner's Orphanage.” —The Washington Post“Entertaining. Buettner shows the Heinlein touch.” —Denver Post