Book picks similar to
Cygnus Rising: Humanity Returns to Space by Craig Martelle
sci-fi
science-fiction
storybundle
space-opera
The Catalyst
Chris Reher - 2012
Her escape leaves her with no option but to rely on Seth, a former lover, for help.Unfortunately, she realizes that they are now on opposite sides of an escalating war between the Commonwealth Union of Planets and an increasingly dangerous rebel organization.In trying to find who is threatening her life, they discover a plot to destroy a distant planet - a world inhabited by creatures that are the key to Nova's survival - and a conspiracy that threatens the stability of the Union Commonwealth.Can Nova go beyond her strict military training to cooperate with people whom she is sworn to destroy?
America One
T.I. Wade - 2012
Now Ryan Richmond has $3 billion to play with, he is in his forties; and still wants to go to space. His only enemy; the US Government who doesn’t have its own space program-and wants his new spaceship; AMERICA ONE.He sold his first company at 19 and employed the remnants of the Russian Space Program; a couple of the best Russian space brains in the world.Ryan founded, and sold two more companies in his twenties, and then hired most of the European Space Authority.In his thirties he invested over $100 million into Internet Start-ups and Google, netting Billions. Then he waited until NASA’s Shuttle Program came to a sad end and employed the best brains in the U.S. Space Program.Now he is in his forties, still wants to go to space- the only problem is that The U.S. government doesn't have a current spaceship of their own- and wants his!
Fluency
Jennifer Foehner Wells - 2014
They kept the Target under intense surveillance for decades, letting the public believe they were exploring the solar system, while they worked feverishly to refine the technology needed to reach it. The ship itself remained silent, drifting. Dr. Jane Holloway is content documenting nearly-extinct languages and had never contemplated becoming an astronaut. But when NASA recruits her to join a team of military scientists for an expedition to the Target, it’s an adventure she can’t refuse. The ship isn’t vacant, as they presumed. A disembodied voice rumbles inside Jane’s head, "You are home." Jane fights the growing doubts of her colleagues as she attempts to decipher what the alien wants from her. As the derelict ship devolves into chaos and the crew gets cut off from their escape route, Jane must decide if she can trust the alien’s help to survive.
Gridlinked
Neal Asher - 2001
Unfortunately Cormac is nearly burnt out, "gridlinked" to the AI net so long that his humanity has begun to drain away. He has to take the cold-turkey cure and shake his addiction to having his brain on the net.Now he must do without just as he's sent to investigate the unique runcible disaster that's wiped out the entire human colony on planet Samarkand in a thirty-megaton explosion. With the runcible out, Cormac must get there by ship, but he has incurred the wrath of a vicious psychopath called Arian Pelter, who now follows him across the galaxy with a terrifying psychotic killer android in tow. And deep beneath Samarkand's surface there are buried mysteries, fiercely guarded.This is fast-moving, edge-of-the-seat entertainment, and a great introduction to the work of one of the most exciting new SF talents in years.
Rika Outcast
M.D. Cooper - 2017
The local gangs would love to have her join their ranks, and the takings would pay her bills, but the only thing Rika hates more than what she's become, is killing for others.But morals don't buy repairs and she's at the point of utter desperation when her loan holder cashes in her debt and sells her to the highest bidder.When Rika wakes, she's in a warehouse on a planet she's never heard of, and a trio of mercenaries are reassembling her body. Their mission is to kill the world's president, and her mods and abilities are just what they need to get the job done.Whether she likes it or not, Rika is in the business of killing once more as she joins the ranks of the Marauders.An Aeon 14 seriesThe events of the Rika's Marauders series occur during the New Canaan timespan in The Orion War series. This series may be read at any time after reading Destiny Lost, New Canaan, or Orion Rising.
Phule's Company
Robert Lynn Asprin - 1990
than most people do all day. Threatened by an alien enemy, Earth's military sends Phule and his soldiers to a distant planet. But now, the aliens have chosen a new target of war . . . Phule's Company.
Edge of the Future
Andria Stone - 2017
You’ve discovered the existence of a new enemy combatant, Captain. Since you saw him—he saw you.”• One hundred-fifty years after the last war, humanity has united in exploring space with colonies on Mars and the moon Luna. But the Europa Mission has just failed and 152 people died in space. Nobody knows why.• When military bioscientist Capt. Warren’s hidden research installation gets attacked, he joins forces with armored assault Sgt. Von Radach. They become entangled in a deadly fight to stop the theft of classified military secrets by a lethal female villain, whose devious plans to use enemy cyborgs posing as humans and altering unsuspecting military personnel’s neural implants to accept her commands have every chance of succeeding. Unless…Capt. Warren and Sgt. Von Radach get a chance to end her first.• Edge of the Future is an action-packed Science Fiction military thriller, with everything sci-fi fans love – starships, space colonies, cyborgs, secret military and medical technology and even a bad-ass villain.
Assassins of the Steam Age
Joseph Robert Lewis - 2013
But the case becomes terrifyingly personal when Taziri finds that her enemies have turned her own inventions into weapons and her family's survival may hang in the balance. Meanwhile, exiled Incan princess Qhora and her swashbuckling lover Lorenzo face a gauntlet of assassins, cruel aristocrats, and wealthy industrialists conspiring against the very Queen that Taziri is trying to save, and her country's only hope for peace may be her crippled airship plummeting out of the burning sky. Welcome to a world where strange machines sail the seas and the skies, enormous prehistoric beasts roam the earth, and the restless dead whisper to the living.
War INC: Ace Evans Series book 1
Toby Neighbors - 2020
Getting into a mechanized battle suit isn’t easy, and controlling the powerful war machine shouldn’t be possible without Ahzco’s secret Implanted Neural Control (INC) chip, but Alex is about to do something no one on a hundred worlds has ever done. And his life is never going to be the same. In the future, mega corporations control entire star systems and are even more powerful than the government. Competition isn’t just big business — it’s war! Join Alex Evans as he gets fast-tracked into Ahzco’s Corporate Defense Force and the world of mechanized warfare. There are secrets that people will kill to keep, and dangers that can’t be avoided. The company opens the entire galaxy to a young man from a colony planet, but Alex must determine if he can trust that Ahzco has his best interests in mind. Or if he’s just another pawn in their corporate games. War INC is a fantastic coming of age story set in a classic sci-fi universe in the vein of Starship Troopers, the Frontline books, and Star Wars. Author Toby Neighbors is a master storyteller with over fifty published novels, who writes at a spellbinding pace. War INC is the first book in a new space opera series suitable for all ages.
Omega Rising
Joshua Dalzelle - 2013
But when he investigates the crash, what he finds will yank him out of his self-imposed exile and thrust him into a world he could have never imagined.He suddenly finds himself trapped on a damaged alien spacecraft and plunged into a universe of interstellar crime lords and government conspiracies, along the way meeting strange new friends… and enemies. As he struggles to find his way back home he is inexorably drawn deeper into a world where one misstep could mean his death. Or worse. He desperately wants to get back to Earth, but it may be the end for him. … or is it just the beginning?
Qualify
Vera Nazarian - 2014
You die, or you Qualify.
The year is 2047. An extinction-level asteroid is hurtling toward Earth, and the descendents of ancient Atlantis have returned from the stars in their silver ships to offer humanity help.But there’s a catch.They can only take a tiny percent of the Earth’s population back to the colony planet Atlantis. And in order to be chosen, you must be a teen, you must be bright, talented, and athletic, and you must Qualify.Sixteen-year-old Gwenevere Lark is determined not only to Qualify but to rescue her entire family.Because there’s a loophole.If you are good enough to Qualify, you are eligible to compete in the brutal games of the Atlantis Grail, which grants all winners the laurels, high tech luxuries, and full privileges of Atlantis Citizenship. And if you are in the Top Ten, then all your wildest wishes are granted… Such as curing your mother’s cancer.There is only one problem.Gwen Lark is known as a klutz and a nerd. While she’s a hotshot in classics, history, science, and languages, the closest she’s come to sports is a backyard pool and a skateboard.This time she is in over her head, and in for a fight of her life, against impossible odds and world-class competition—including Logan Sangre, the most amazing guy in her class, the one she’s been crushing on, and who doesn’t seem to know she exists.Because every other teen on Earth has the same idea.
You Qualify or you die.
* * *EXCERPT!Now you can read
Chapter One
in its entirety (click here)!* * *
Recovering Apollo 8
Kristine Kathryn Rusch - 2011
The tragedy so affected eight-year-old Richard Johansenn that he dedicates his life-and the fortune he amasses along the way-to recovering the capsule. But Richard's quest proves more complicated than a simple recovery mission, causing him to question the meaning of life, the meaning of death and the heroisms in between. "This is a thoughtful, introspective piece that speaks to themes of hope, doubt, perseverance, and obsession." -Tangent Online "There is very little of this sort of science fiction published nowadays-the real thing, the exploration of Earth's solar system, without the slightest concession to the fantastic. Rusch celebrates the spirit of exploration, the adventure into the great unknown. ... this tribute to humanity's first ventures into space is Recommended." -The Internet Review of Science Fiction
Duty, Honor, Planet
Rick Partlow - 2011
We thought we were alone... We’re going to wish we were. Jason McKay and Shannon Stark, two young Republic Space Fleet Intelligence officers, are given the leadership of a new special ops unit. The mission? Guard the spoiled daughter of an important senator on a tour of the colonies. Neither of them thought the mission would be anything more than babysitting…until the aliens invaded the colony. Implacable, relentless, merciless, the armored creatures slaughter everyone who gets in their way. The team is forced to go on the run with the people they’re supposed to protect. But survival will be the least of their challenges. Because it’s not as simple as an alien invasion, and the truth may be even stranger than they can imagine. Jason and Shannon are forced to weigh the lives of the people they lead–and the ones they love–against their duty, honor, and planet.
The Risen Empire
Scott Westerfeld - 2003
Enemy Rix are machine-augmented humans who worship AI compound minds. Separated by light years, bound by an unlikely love, Zai and pacifist senator Nara Oxham face the Rix and hold the fate of the empire.
Chimerascope
Douglas Smith - 2010
These are some of the stories you will encounter in Chimerascope, the first full collection of short fiction from multi-award-winning Canadian author, Douglas Smith. Sixteen engaging stories of fantasy and science fiction that take you from love in fourteenth-century Japan to humanity's last stand, from virtual reality to the end of reality, from alien drug addictions to a dinner where a man loses everything.