Reach for the Stars

Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey

On the Asteroid Belt colony of Ceres Detective Joe Miller is assigned a case that his superiors (and those higher up the pecking order) would prefer be handled quietly, and with as much delicacy as possible. Detective Miller is to find the missing daughter of a corporate magnate and send her home, whether she wants to go or not.

Meanwhile, the ice hauler Canterbury responds to a distress call from a stranded freighter and is destroyed by ships of unknown design and origin.

Behind Detective Miller’s increasingly complex case and the survivors of the Canterbury‘s desperate search for answers (both of which seem to lead to more questions than answers) lurks the growing political tensions between the United Nations of Earth, the Martian Congressional Republic, and the far-flung outposts of humanity represented by the Outer Planets Alliance. Tensions will flare into conflicts, conflicts will escalate into war, and the Solar System as we know it will be changed forever.

 

In Space No One Can Hear You Cross-Examine

A Just Determination by John G. Hemry

Newly commissioned ensign Paul Sinclair is required to perform a multitude of duties aboard the space ship USS Michaelson. Aside from his primary duties as Assistant Combat Information Center Officer he is also assigned the duties of Ship’s Legal Officer, Postal Officer, Assistant Security Manager, and work on his Open Space Warfare Officer qualifications when he’s got the time. All of these responsibilities require a great deal of his time and effort but it is his duty and the Michaelson‘s legal officer that will take most of his attention. Particularly when the ship’s overzealous captain destroys a civilian ship that he mistakenly believes to be a hostile vessel.

Summoned to the court-martial as a prosecution witness, Sinclair quickly becomes convinced that the charges against Captain Peter Wakeman are unjust and must turn his energies into assisting the defense.

Mark Watney of Mars

The Martian by Andy Weir

A few days ago Mark Watney was the fifteenth person to walk on Mars. Today he may be the first person to die there. There’s no hope of rescue. Why would there be, the rest of the crew and everyone back on Earth thinks he’s dead. Did we mention that when the rest of Watney’s crew left Mars they took the radio with them? So there’s no way he can tell anyone he’s still alive. But not to worry, he’s probably going to run out of food and water before he runs out of air. That’s assuming the climate, faulty equipment, or his own mistakes don’t get him first. Well, there’s nothing like a challenge.

The Force Is Strong With This One

Heir to the Jedi by Kevin Hearne

He used to be nobody. A farm boy from the back-desert of a planet farthest from the bright center of the galaxy. But that was before he found the droid, rescued the princess, blew up the Death Star, and discovered that he is the heir to a lost order of heroes. His name is Luke Skywalker and he is the Heir to the Jedi.

It’s the End of the World as We Know It

The Dead Lands by Benjamin Percy

As far as anyone knows, there is nothing beyond the walls of Sanctuary. It has been one hundred and fifty years since the flu virus mutated and the world fell apart and as far as the inhabitants of what was once downtown St. Louis, Missouri know, they are the only ones left.

At least that’s what they thought. From the wasteland beyond came a single rider bearing tales of a land where rain still falls, crops still grow, and mankind still thrives.

Against the wishes of the Sanctuary’s mayor, Ranger Mina Clark and museum curator Lewis Meriwhether depart the town in secret to lead a small band of explorers to follow the mysterious rider West.

New Stories From Our Sister Planet

Old Venus edited by George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois

Once upon a time we looked up in the sky and saw a planet. Shrouded in a layer of impenetrable clouds we could only guess what wonders were on its surface. Clouds usually indicate rain so was this a planet of torrential downpours feeding massive jungles and immense seas? What strange life lurked beneath the clouds of Venus? Were there crumbling and decadent civilizations there as there might have been on old Mars? Or was this a planet of wilderness with jungles, swamps, and seas teaming with wondrous and monstrous varieties of life?

Well it’s not. Science has since revealed that the surface of Venus is hotter than Mercury (the planet closest to the Sun) and covered with clouds of sulfuric acid and an atmosphere that is 96% carbon dioxide. Nothing has ever lived on the surface of Venus, and perhaps never will.

But what if it were different. What if Venus could support life? What if all those old stories were true? What sort of a world would Venus be? What kind of species would live there? What would life there be like? What kind of adventures would be waiting there for those Earthmen brave, or foolish, enough to travel there?

Have You Ever Wondered?

What If? Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions by Randall Monroe

Have you ever wondered:

• If every person on Earth on Earth aimed a laser pointer at the Moon at the same time, would it change color?
• How much Force power can Yoda output?
• How high can a human throw something?
• Which US state is actually flown over the most?
• What would happen if you drained all the water on Earth and dropped it on top of the Curiosity rover on Mars?

Physicist and creator of the webcomic xkcd supplies you with scientific answers to all the questions you never knew you wanted to ask.

Full Steam Ahead

Into the Storm by Anderson Taylor

All seems lost! Following the disastrous defeat the USS Walker, a antique “four-stacker” destroyer left over from World War I and pressed into service once again, seeks refuge in a squall hoping the confusion from the storm will hide it from the pursuing Japanese armada. It does, but in a way that seems impossible.

On the other side of the squall is a world, that is familiar and yet so strange. The ocean teems with voracious piranha-like fish and gigantic sea monsters, there are dinosaurs in what should be Bali, and instead of people the crew of the Walker encounters ships full of talking “monkey-cats”.

What is the strange new world? Where is this strange new world? Who are these strange creatures and why are they so frightened of something called the Grik?

Get Trapped in a Good Book

The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde

England 1985, a time and a place where they take literature very seriously indeed. An England where fanatical bands of Baconites roam the countryside, where forging the works of Byron is a capital crime, and where it is possible to get lost in a good book, literally.

When fiendish master-criminal Acheron Hades (the Third Most Wanted criminal in the world) kidnaps Jane Eyre straight from the pages of the original Bronte manuscript it is up to literary detective Thursday Next to travel into Jane Eyre and stop what could be the most heinous literary crime of all time.

It’s a race against time for Thursday to stop Hade’s devilish plot before Jane is killed and one of the most treasured literary works of all time is changed forever!

Fly the Unfriendly Skies

Romulus Buckle & the City of the Founders by Richard Ellis Preston, Jr.

“Romulus Buckle was an airman, a zeppelin pilot, to be exact, or, to be less exact, in the local slang, a gasbag gremlin, a dirigible driver, a balloon goose, an air dog, or whatever moniker any lazybrat might cook up in his gin-stewed cerebellu. […] He was shot bolt-through with aviator dash, that legendary, heart-stirring dash: he laughed heartily and often, and his eyes, deep and glacier-water blue, made women swoon (all except for the beautiful Martian named Max, of course, who found him far too droll).”

Dashing or not, droll or not, Romulus Buckle is going to need every good quality he has for the mission he’s about to undertake. Balthazar Crankshaft, the doughty leader of Buckle’s own Crankshaft Clan, has been kidnapped and is being held in the impregnable and mysterious City of the Founders.

But to do that, Buckle and the crew of the Pneumatic Zeppelin must cross a frozen wasteland populated by hostile scavangers, vicious alien beasties, and enemy clans and covered by the deadly Noxious Mustard.

It’s a deadly steampunked race against time to a deadly fortress city that no one knows how to enter or leave (or leave alive anyway).