Bob Johansson has just sold his software company and is looking forward to a life of leisure. There are places to go, books to read, and movies to watch. So it's a little unfair when he gets himself killed crossing the street. Bob wakes up a century later to find that corpsicles have been declared to be without rights, and he is now the property of the state. He has been uploaded into computer hardware and is slated to be the controlling AI in an interstellar probe looking for habitable planets.

The battle-scarred star carrier Flying Dutchman is finally on her way back to Earth, after an exceptionally successful series of missions that have once again saved the world. The ship needs a serious refit, and her exhausted crew just wants a break from constant clandestine warfare against a vicious and superior enemy. Wishes come true, right? Not for the Merry Band of Pirates.

Our universe is ruled by physics, and faster-than-light travel is not possible - until the discovery of The Flow, an extradimensional field we can access at certain points in space-time that transports us to other worlds, around other stars. Humanity flows away from Earth, into space, and in time forgets our home world and creates a new empire, the Interdependency, whose ethos requires that no one human outpost can survive without the others. It's a hedge against interstellar war - and a system of control for the rulers of the empire.

The Ruhar hit us on Columbus Day. There we were, innocently drifting along the cosmos on our little blue marble, like the Native Americans in 1492. Over the horizon came ships of a technologically advanced, aggressive culture, and BAM! There went the good old days, when humans got killed only by each other. So, Columbus Day. It fits. When the morning sky twinkled again, this time with Kristang starships jumping in to hammer the Ruhar, we thought we were saved.

AD 2204. An alien shipwreck is discovered on a planet at the very limits of human expansion - so Security Director Feriton Kayne selects a team to investigate. The ship’s sinister cargo not only raises bewildering questions but could also foreshadow humanity’s extinction. It will be up to the team to bring back answers, and the consequences of this voyage will change everything. Back on Earth, we can now make deserts bloom and extend lifespans indefinitely, so humanity seems invulnerable. We therefore welcomed the Olyix to Earth when they contacted us. But were the Olyix a blessing or a curse?

It's a simple story. Boy finds proof that reality is a computer program. Boy uses program to manipulate time and space. Boy gets in trouble. Boy flees back in time to Medieval England to live as a wizard while he tries to think of a way to fix things. Boy gets in more trouble. Oh, and boy meets girl at some point.

John Perry did two things on his 75th birthday. First, he visited his wife's grave. Then he joined the army. The good news is that humanity finally made it into interstellar space. The bad news is that planets fit to live on are scarce - and alien races willing to fight us for them are common. So, we fight, to defend Earth and to stake our own claim to planetary real estate. Far from Earth, the war has been going on for decades: brutal, bloody, unyielding.

From the Audie-nominated narrator of The Martian. In eleven years' time, a million members of an alien race will arrive at Earth. Years before they enter orbit, their approach will be announced by the flare of a thousand flames in the sky, their ships' huge engines burning hard to slow them from the vast speeds needed to cross interstellar space. These foreboding lights will shine in our night sky like new stars, getting ever brighter until they outshine even the sun, casting ominous shadows and banishing the night until they suddenly blink out.

A lazy and wussy ex-gamer, Phil becomes one of the few humans who receive a mysterious alien piece of wetware that allows them to see the world through an augmented-reality interface very similar to those used in an MMORPG game. Guided by its stats and messages, Phil begins to level up, gradually transforming himself and his life. He even opens his own business in order to help his friends and complete strangers who acquire a newfound respect for him, assisting him in his travails.  

The necromantic armies are on the warpath and nowhere is safe. Even the presumed sanctuary of the floating dungeon controlled by Cal is threatened! The leadership of nearly all the sentient monarchies has been wiped out, and only the races most suited to repelling the advancing darkness have an intact chain of command. Cal learns quickly that the most pressing threat is not the far-off war, but is instead those entrusted with the general population's protection. As it turns out, the idea of having a flying dungeon for your people is very tempting indeed....

As a crumbling Galactic Republic falls to the relentless assault of a merciless foe, so begins the rise of an enigmatic emperor intent on saving a corrupt galaxy-spanning civilization from itself…and from something much darker that lies beyond the reaches of the known. Just as the reins of power fall into his iron-fisted grasp, an assassination attempt by a hidden cabal within his own inner circle jeopardizes every plan he has set in motion for his Dark Legion, his Imperial Navy, and his ultimate conquest of the stars. But the assassins have no idea who they're actually dealing with.

From early work like "Rescue Party" and "The Lion of Comarre", through classic stories including "The Star", "Earthlight", "The Nine Billion Names of God", and "The Sentinel" (kernel of the later novel and movie 2001: A Space Odyssey), all the way to later work like "A Meeting with Medusa" and "The Hammer of God", this comprehensive short story collection encapsulates one of the great science fiction careers of all time.

Hilketa is a frenetic and violent pastime where players attack each other with swords and hammers. The main goal of the game: obtain your opponent's head and carry it through the goalposts. With flesh and bone bodies, a sport like this would be impossible. But all the players are "threeps", robot-like bodies controlled by people with Haden's Syndrome, so anything goes. No one gets hurt, but the brutality is real, and the crowds love it. Until a star athlete drops dead on the playing field.

Corin Cadence finally has a firm reason to believe his brother, Tristan, is still alive. Unfortunately, finding more information isn’t going to be easy. Tristan appears to be entangled with a clandestine organization that calls themselves Whispers. And Corin’s last brush with the Whispers didn’t exactly end well. As much as he wants to follow that lead, Corin has more pressing problems to deal with. 

Adrian Tchaikovksy's critically acclaimed stand-alone novel Children of Time is the epic story of humanity's battle for survival on a terraformed planet. 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.