NCW Libraries

Rosemary Harper doesn't expect much when she joins the crew of the aging Wayfarer. While the patched-up ship has seen better days, it offers a bed, a chance to explore the galaxy, and some distance from her past. The crew is diverse: Sissix, the exotic reptilian pilot; chatty engineers Kizzy and Jenks who keep the ship running, and Ashby, the captain. They are offered a job tunneling wormholes through space to a distant planet. It's a lucrative job,...

"Everyone's favorite lethal SecUnit is back in the next installment in Martha Wells's New York Times bestselling Murderbot Diaries series. Am I making it worse? I think I'm making it worse. Following the events in Network Effect, the Barish-Estranza corporation has sent rescue ships to a newly-colonized planet in peril, as well as additional SecUnits. But if there's an ethical corporation out there, Murderbot has yet to find it, and if Barish-Estranza...

Lovelace was once merely a ships artificial intelligence. When she wakes up in a new body, following a total system shut-down and reboot, she has no memory of what came before. As Lovelace learns to negotiate the universe and discover who she is, she makes friends with Pepper, an excitable engineer, who is determined to help her learn and grow.Together, Pepper and Lovey will discover that no matter how vast space is, two people can fill it together.The...

A young apprentice, an alien academic, a caretaker for the dead, an archivist, and others wrestle with profound questions after their evacuation ship, carrying the last humans on Earth, finally reaches its destination.

"Dying isn't any fun--but at least it's a living. Mickey7 is an Expendable: a disposable employee on a human expedition sent to colonize the ice world Niflheim. Whenever there's a mission that's too dangerous--even suicidal--the crew turns to Mickey. After one iteration dies, a new body is regenerated with most of his memories intact. After six deaths, Mickey7 understands the terms of his deal--and why it was the only colonial position unfilled when...

After Earth is demolished to make way for a new hyperspatial expressway, Arthur Dent begins to hitchhike through space. Seconds before Earth is demolished to make way for a galactic freeway, Arthur Dent is plucked off the planet by his friend Ford Prefect, a researcher for the revised edition of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy who, for the last fifteen years, has been posing as an out-of-work actor. Together, this dynamic pair began a journey...

"The collapse of The Flow, the interstellar pathway between the planets of the Interdependency, has accelerated. Entire star systems--and billions of people--are becoming cut off from the rest of human civilization. This collapse was foretold through scientific prediction . . . and yet, even as the evidence is obvious and insurmountable, many still try to rationalize, delay and profit from, these final days of one of the greatest empires humanity...

"The Sentinels narrowly escaped the collapsing edge of the Divide. They have mustered a few other surviving Sentinels, but with no engines, they have no way to leave the edge of the universe before they starve. Adequin Rake has gathered a team to find the materials they'll need to get everyone out. To do that they're going to need new allies and evade a ruthless enemy. Some of them will not survive"--

For the first time, all of the short fiction set in James S.A. Corey's ... Expanse series is available in this collection, including a brand new novella. Includes Drive; The butcher of Anderson Station; The churn; Gods of risk; The vital abyss; Strange dogs; Auberon; and The sins of our fathers.

"Maya Hoshimoto was once the best art thief in the galaxy. For ten years, she returned stolen artifacts to alien civilizations--until a disastrous job forced her into hiding. Born off-world and infected by an alien virus from a young age, she receives the occasional vision of the future. Now she just wants to enjoy a quiet life on Earth as a graduate student of anthropology. Until an old friend comes to her with a job she can't refuse: find a powerful...