Ringworld


Larry Niven - 1970
    Pierson's puppeteers, the aliens who discovered it, are understandably wary of encountering the builders of such an immense structure and have assembled a team of two humans, a mad puppeteer and a kzin, a huge cat-like alien, to explore it. But a crash landing on the vast edifice forces the crew on a desperate and dangerous trek across the Ringworld.

In the Quick


Kate Hope Day - 2021
    Younger by two years than her classmates at Peter Reed, the school on campus named for her uncle, she flourishes in her classes but struggles to make friends and find true intellectual peers. Six years later, she has gained a coveted post as an engineer on a space station—and a hard-won sense of belonging—but is haunted by the mystery of Inquiry, a revolutionary spacecraft powered by her beloved late uncle’s fuel cells. The spacecraft went missing when June was twelve years old, and while the rest of the world seems to have forgotten the crew, June alone has evidence that makes her believe they are still alive.She seeks out James, her uncle’s former protégé, also brilliant, also difficult, who has been trying to discover why Inquiry’s fuel cells failed. James and June forge an intense intellectual bond that becomes an electric attraction. But the relationship that develops between them as they work to solve the fuel cell’s fatal flaw threatens to destroy everything they’ve worked so hard to create—and any chance of bringing the Inquiry crew home alive.A propulsive narrative of one woman’s persistence and journey to self-discovery, In the Quick is an exploration of the strengths and limits of human ability in the face of hardship, and the costs of human ingenuity.

The Simpleton


Mark Wayne McGinnis - 2016
    Unbeknownst to simpleton Cuddy Perkins, his dependable, uneventful, life was about to be turned completely upside down.It's a moonless summer night when a severely damaged intergalactic spacecraft enters Earth's upper orbit. The alien pilot is desperate. Needs to hold up long enough to make repairs-before his relentless pursuers find him. Cuddy Perkins lives a simple life with his mother, his dog Rufus, and a scattering of farm animals that still inhabit their old, dilapidated, Woodbury Tennessee ranch. He was used to the insults; retard ... simpleton ... village idiot. Momma says to just ignore them ... people can be heartless. But Cuddy already knew he had been different, ever since the accident back when he was seven. He didn't know how long ago that was, exactly, but he did know he was pretty big now-taller than his older brother, Kyle ... who was in prison, and the Woodbury Sherriff-the man who put him there.

Galleon


C.J. Williams - 2018
    His only hope for survival is to partner with an alien Artificial Intelligence named Alyssa. She is the brain of the most improbable star ship Gus has ever seen, part ancient sailing ship, part incredible star-faring vessel. But there is a catch. Alyssa’s first priority is to finish an epic yacht race that started twenty-eight thousand years ago. THE WORLD IS CAPTURED BY THE ALIEN DRAMA Every day Gus sends a video love letter to his wife via the lifeboat’s one-way subspace signal where it is automatically posted on YouTube. Few people care until another lifeboat crashes with two young women aboard, both of them celebrities. Their fame turns Gus into a worldwide phenomenon; everyone watches the three castaways fight to carve a life from the tiny island life even though they have little hope of rescue. When disaster threatens, Gus and the girls have no choice but to resurrect the crippled galleon. Their impossible task is to sail Alyssa across an alien sea and then fly her across unimaginable galactic reaches. WHEN ALYSSA FINALLY AGREES TO HELP, SPACE PIRATES STRIKE On live television, the public watches helplessly when a ship of vicious murderers attack the three survivors. The world grieves when the now-famous exiles go silent. At least until Earth's Space Navy reports they are under attack by a ship that is beyond imagination.

Proxima


Stephen Baxter - 2013
    The age of star formation is long past. Yet there is life here, feeding off the energies of the stellar remnants, and there is mind, a tremendous galaxy-spanning intelligence each of whose thoughts lasts a hundred thousand years. And this mind cradles memories of a long-gone age when a more compact universe was full of light... The 27th century: Proxima Centauri, an undistinguished red dwarf star, is the nearest star to our sun. How would it be to live on such a world?

Renegade Star


J.N. ChaneyJ.N. Chaney - 2017
    Something to tell your children when you put them to sleep, the lost homeworld of humanity. Everyone knows it isn't real, though. It can't be.But when Captain Jace Hughes encounters a nun with a mysterious piece of cargo and a bold secret, he soon discovers that everything he thought he knew about Earth is wrong. So very, very wrong.Climb aboard The Renegade Star and assemble a crew, follow the clues, uncover the truth, and most importantly, try to stay alive.

Arkwright


Allen M. Steele - 2016
    At the end of his life he becomes reclusive and cantankerous, refusing to appear before or interact with his legion of fans. Little did anyone know, Nathan was putting into motion his true, timeless legacy.Convinced that humanity cannot survive on Earth, his Arkwright Foundation dedicates itself to creating a colony on an Earth-like planet several light years distant. Fueled by Nathan's legacy, generations of Arkwrights are drawn together, and pulled apart, by the enormity of the task and weight of their name.

A Memory Called Empire


Arkady Martine - 2019
    But no one will admit that his death wasn't an accident—or that Mahit might be next to die, during a time of political instability in the highest echelons of the imperial court.Now, Mahit must discover who is behind the murder, rescue herself, and save her Station from Teixcalaan's unceasing expansion—all while navigating an alien culture that is all too seductive, engaging in intrigues of her own, and hiding a deadly technological secret—one that might spell the end of her Station and her way of life—or rescue it from annihilation.

Armada


Ernest Cline - 2015
    Dreaming that the real world could be a little more like the countless science-fiction books, movies, and videogames he’s spent his life consuming. Dreaming that one day, some fantastic, world-altering event will shatter the monotony of his humdrum existence and whisk him off on some grand space-faring adventure. But hey, there’s nothing wrong with a little escapism, right? After all, Zack tells himself, he knows the difference between fantasy and reality. He knows that here in the real world, aimless teenage gamers with anger issues don’t get chosen to save the universe. And then he sees the flying saucer. Even stranger, the alien ship he’s staring at is straight out of the videogame he plays every night, a hugely popular online flight simulator called Armada—in which gamers just happen to be protecting the earth from alien invaders. No, Zack hasn’t lost his mind. As impossible as it seems, what he’s seeing is all too real. And his skills—as well as those of millions of gamers across the world—are going to be needed to save the earth from what’s about to befall it. It’s Zack’s chance, at last, to play the hero. But even through the terror and exhilaration, he can’t help thinking back to all those science-fiction stories he grew up with, and wondering: Doesn’t something about this scenario seem a little…familiar? At once gleefully embracing and brilliantly subverting science-fiction conventions as only Ernest Cline could, Armada is a rollicking, surprising thriller, a classic coming of age adventure, and an alien invasion tale like nothing you’ve ever read before—one whose every page is infused with the pop-culture savvy that has helped make Ready Player One a phenomenon.

Scout Force


Rodney L. Smith - 2011
    His redemption comes as he is recruited into the elite and secretive Scout Force. Follow Kelly’s adventures as an officer in the Galactic Republic Fleet’s Scout Force, protecting humanity’s frontiers from human treachery and an onslaught by the expansive, hostile K’rang Empire.

Freelance On The Galactic Tunnel Network


E.M. Foner - 2020
    Over half of Earth's population has emigrated to live and work on alien worlds and orbitals, and humanity now aspires to that signature vessel of advanced species, a jump-capable colony ship equipped to support millions of pioneers on the search for a new world. With trillions of creds at stake, are humans doomed to repeat the mistakes that led to Earth's first galactic bail-out? Or might a more experienced investigative journalist look for fraud closer to home?Join the intrepid reporters of the Galactic Free Press, a senior EarthCent Intelligence agent, and an independent trader, as they try to make a living and do their best for humanity with a little help from alien friends. Freelance On The Galactic Tunnel Network is a standalone novel that is the twentieth book in the EarthCent Ambassador / EarthCent Universe sequence, and can be read without starting back to the beginning.

A Titan's Vengeance


Ralph Kern - 2020
    A vast barren tract of space lying between the besieged stars of the Kingdom of New Avalon and their distant allies. And it is the latest battlefield in the war burning across the void.Admiral Valin Sarven of the Hegemony fleet is as cunning as he is ruthless. A master tactician commanding the most powerful vessel in space, the battleship Behemoth. He is dispatched into the Reach with a single goal; to sever the long, tenuous supply lines linking the Kingdom to the Liberty Federation.Captain Hal Cutter and his ship, Achilles, join the flagship of the Kingdom’s fleet, the legendary KSS Cronus, in hunting the monstrous vessel lurking in the dark.But nothing has prepared the proud Kingdom Navy for what they’ll face as battleships clash in savage combat. And when Cronus is lost in the first brutal engagement, Cutter must play a deadly game of cat and mouse among the dim stars of The Reach.For these warriors, no quarter will be asked or given.It isn’t just admirals, captains and officers fighting this war, though. It is often those below decks who pay the highest price. And two spacers, one on either side, learn that even amid the fires of war and hatred, an act of mercy may save a wounded soul.Turrets will roar and hulls will buckle in this epic tale of battleships clashing in the night.

In the Company of Others


Julie E. Czerneda - 2001
    The one thing they didn't find was intelligent life. And so the terraforming of worlds began, with eager immigrant families temporarily housed in space stations till their new home planets were ready.But the technicians made one all-important mistake by introducing the alien Quill to worlds where they did not belong. The Quill were supposed to be destroyed when the crews finished their work, but some survived, multiplied, and mutated till they were no longer harmless. They were deadly.Suddenly mankind was in retreat, leaving colonists stranded in space. In the ensuing chaos many stations failed. For the survivors, the only hope lay in finding a way to wipe out the Quill. Earth scientist, Dr. Gail Smith thought one special human, Aaron Pardell, might hold the answer. Found as a baby and raised by a stationer in the "Outsider" settlement that clung to Thromburg Station, Aaron may have survived Quill contact. Still, finding Aaron and winning his help might be the least of Dr Smith's problems...

Drifters' Alliance, Book 1


Elle Casey - 2015
     One hand of cards and it's all over but the crying... Cass Kennedy finally gets what she's been dreaming of for the past ten years: a drifter ship to call her own. All the sim time and battle training is going to pay off in spades as she sets her course for the future. She'll be living on her own terms, not those of her father's. But drifting through deep space with a crew of nutty strangers on the DS Anarchy carries a lot more surprises than she bargained for. Nobody told her that her ship is falling apart, that dead chickens are something you really want to hang on to, and that the OSG has big plans for the universe that don't necessarily jibe with her plans for herself. Jump onboard with Cass and her crew as she charts a course toward an alliance that will either make her or break her as Captain of the DS Anarchy. SERIES: This is Book 1 in a series of 3 or more GENRE: Science Fiction, Space Opera AUDIENCE: For older teens and adults CONTENT WARNING: Colorful language, sexy stuff, and general badassery

Children of Time


Adrian Tchaikovsky - 2015
    Humanity's last survivors escaped earth's ruins to find a new home. But when they find it, can their desperation overcome its dangers?WHO WILL INHERIT THIS NEW EARTH?The last remnants of the human race left a dying Earth, desperate to find a new home among the stars. Following in the footsteps of their ancestors, they discover the greatest treasure of the past age—a world terraformed and prepared for human life.But all is not right in this new Eden. In the long years since the planet was abandoned, the work of its architects has borne disastrous fruit. The planet is not waiting for them, pristine and unoccupied. New masters have turned it from a refuge into mankind's worst nightmare.Now two civilizations are on a collision course, both testing the boundaries of what they will do to survive. As the fate of humanity hangs in the balance, who are the true heirs of this new Earth?