Alternate chapters follow teenagers Todd and Viola, who become separated as the Mayor's oppressive new regime takes power in New Prentisstown, a space colony where residents can hear each other's thoughts.

" 'As a heartless killing machine, I was a complete failure.' In a corporate-dominated spacefaring future, planetary missions must be approved and supplied by the Company. Exploratory teams are accompanied by Company-supplied security androids, for their own safety. But in a society where contracts are awarded to the lowest bidder, safety isn’t a primary concern. On a distant planet, a team of scientists are conducting surface tests, shadowed...

"Edwin St. Andrew is eighteen years old when he crosses the Atlantic by steamship, exiled from polite society following an ill-conceived diatribe at a dinner party. He enters the forest, spellbound by the beauty of the Canadian wilderness, and suddenly hears the notes of a violin echoing in an airship terminal—an experience that shocks him to his core. Two centuries later a famous writer named Olive Llewellyn is on a book tour. She’s traveling...

The Inhibitors were designed to eliminate any life-form reaching a certain level of intelligence-and they've targeted humanity. War veteran Clavain and a ragtag group of refugees have fled into hiding. Their leadership is faltering, and their situation is growing more desperate. But their little colony has just received an unexpected visitor: an avenging angel with the power to lead mankind to safety-or draw down its darkest enemy. And as she leads...

"It is twenty-five years since China established the first colony on the moon, and the lives of three people are about to collide. American Fred Fredericks is making his first trip there, his purpose to install a communications system for China's Lunar Science Foundation. But hours after his arrival he witnesses a murder and is forced into hiding. It is also the first visit to the moon for celebrity travel reporter Ta Shu. He has contacts and influence,...

Serving a usurper who has destroyed her family and rules their space-dwelling sphere home, Patience journeys to the heart of her world in order to reclaim her crown, a quest that may spell salvation or destruction for the cosmos.

"Nearly a generation has passed since the first pioneers landed on Mars, and its transformation to an Earthlike planet is under way. But not everyone wants to see the process through. The methods are opposed by those determined to preserve their home planet's hostile, barren beauty. Led by the first generation of children born on Mars, these rebels are soon joined by a handful of the original settlers. Against this cosmic backdrop, passions, partnerships,...

Now that Bean and three of his children have fled to the stars they become cut off from Earth's scientists and are forgotten. But they are about to discover a derelict Formic colony ship on which they find the life support that is failing on their own ship, room to grow, and a mysterious, deadly disease that killed the ship's colony and may now kill them.

An inspiring exploration of the establishment of humans on Mars—tying into the National Geographic television documentary series Mars

The next frontier in space exploration is Mars, the Red Planet—and human habitation of Mars isn't much farther off. In October 2015, NASA declared Mars "an achievable goal"; that same season, Ridley Scott and Matt Damon's The Martian drew crowds into theaters, grossing over $200 million.

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"Colonists from Earth wanted the perfect home, but they'll have to survive on the one they found. They don't realize another life form watches and waits. Only mutual communication can forge an alliance with the planet's sentient species and prove that humans are more than tools."--