“How do you say 'We come in peace' when the very words are an act of war?”
― Peter Watts, Blindsight

If you're anything like us, you have spent some time imagining what contact with alien civilizations might look like. While it's likely that any encounter will look different than what any of us might imagine, we sure do love reading tales of first contact as they are dreamed up by our favorite sci-fi authors. 

Last year we conducted a poll on this topic, and the books that made the top 10 list at that time are must reads for any sci-fi fan. If you've been working your way through unread books on that list and are ready for more, this post is for you! Here are ten more of our favorite tales of first contact. 

Dawn (The Xenogenesis Trilogy Book 1) by Octavia E. Butler

An alien race calls on one woman to revive mankind after Earth’s apocalypse in this science fiction classic from the award-winning author of Parable of the Sower.

Lilith Iyapo has just lost her husband and son when atomic fire consumes Earth—the last stage of the planet’s final war. Hundreds of years later Lilith awakes, deep in the hold of a massive alien spacecraft piloted by the Oankali—who arrived just in time to save humanity from extinction. They have kept Lilith and other survivors asleep for centuries, as they learned whatever they could about Earth. Now it is time for Lilith to lead them back to her home world, but life among the Oankali on the newly resettled planet will be nothing like it was before. The Oankali survive by genetically merging with primitive civilizations—whether their new hosts like it or not. For the first time since the nuclear holocaust, Earth will be inhabited. Grass will grow, animals will run, and people will learn to survive the planet’s untamed wilderness. But their children will not be human. Not exactly.

Featuring strong and compelling characters and exploring complex themes of gender and species, Octavia E. Butler presents a powerful, postapocalyptic interplanetary epic, as well as a ray of hope for humanity. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Octavia E. Butler including rare images from the author’s estate. 

Read Dawn here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

Pushing Ice by Alastair Reynolds

2057. Humanity has raised exploiting the solar system to an art form. Bella Lind and the crew of her nuclear-powered ship, the Rockhopper, push ice. They mine comets. And they're good at it.

The Rockhopper is nearing the end of its current mission cycle, and everyone is desperate for some much-needed R & R, when startling news arrives from Saturn: Janus, one of Saturn's ice moons, has inexplicably left its natural orbit and is now heading out of the solar system at high speed. As layers of camouflage fall away, it becomes clear that Janus was never a moon in the first place. It's some kind of machine -- and it is now headed toward a fuzzily glimpsed artifact 260 light-years away.

The Rockhopper is the only ship anywhere near Janus, and Bella Lind is ordered to shadow it for the few vital days before it falls forever out of reach. In accepting this mission, she sets her ship and her crew on a collision course with destiny -- for Janus has more surprises in store, and not all of them are welcome.

Read Pushing Ice here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

Blindsight by Peter Watts

Two months since the stars fell...

Two months of silence, while a world held its breath.

Now some half-derelict space probe, sparking fitfully past Neptune's orbit, hears a whisper from the edge of the solar system: a faint signal sweeping the cosmos like a lighthouse beam. Whatever's out there isn't talking to us. It's talking to some distant star, perhaps. Or perhaps to something closer, something en route.

So who do you send to force introductions with unknown and unknowable alien intellect that doesn't wish to be met?

You send a linguist with multiple personalities, her brain surgically partitioned into separate, sentient processing cores. You send a biologist so radically interfaced with machinery that he sees x-rays and tastes ultrasound. You send a pacifist warrior in the faint hope she won't be needed. You send a monster to command them all, an extinct hominid predator once called vampire, recalled from the grave with the voodoo of recombinant genetics and the blood of sociopaths. And you send a synthesist—an informational topologist with half his mind gone—as an interface between here and there.

Pray they can be trusted with the fate of a world. They may be more alien than the thing they've been sent to find.

Get your copy of Blindsight here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell

Agent to the Stars by John Scalzi

From New York Times bestseller and Hugo Award-winner, John Scalzi, a gleeful mash-up of science fiction and Hollywood satire.

The space-faring Yherajk have come to Earth to meet us and to begin humanity's first interstellar friendship. There's just one problem: They're hideously ugly and they smell like rotting fish.

So getting humanity's trust is a challenge. The Yherajk need someone who can help them close the deal.

Enter Thomas Stein, who knows something about closing deals. He's one of Hollywood's hottest young agents. But although Stein may have just concluded the biggest deal of his career, it's quite another thing to negotiate for an entire alien race. To earn his percentage this time, he's going to need all the smarts, skills, and wits he can muster.

Grab Agent to the Stars here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu

The Three-Body Problem is the first chance for English-speaking readers to experience the Hugo Award-winning phenomenon from China's most beloved science fiction author, Liu Cixin.

Set against the backdrop of China's Cultural Revolution, a secret military project sends signals into space to establish contact with aliens. An alien civilization on the brink of destruction captures the signal and plans to invade Earth. Meanwhile, on Earth, different camps start forming, planning to either welcome the superior beings and help them take over a world seen as corrupt, or to fight against the invasion. The result is a science fiction masterpiece of enormous scope and vision.

Get your copy of The Three-Body Problem here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

Axiom's End by Lindsay Ellis

Dive into Axiom's End here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

To Sleep in a Sea of Stars by Christopher Paolini

Kira Navárez dreamed of life on new worlds.

Now she's awakened a nightmare.

During a routine survey mission on an uncolonized planet, Kira finds an alien relic. At first she's delighted, but elation turns to terror when the ancient dust around her begins to move.

As war erupts among the stars, Kira is launched into a galaxy-spanning odyssey of discovery and transformation. First contact isn't at all what she imagined, and events push her to the very limits of what it means to be human.

While Kira faces her own horrors, Earth and its colonies stand upon the brink of annihilation. Now, Kira might be humanity's greatest and final hope . . .

Get your copy of To Sleep in a Sea of Stars here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

Wherever Seeds May Fall by Peter Cawdron

FIRST CONTACT is a series of stand-alone novels that explore humanity's first interaction with extraterrestrial life.

The Prince of Darkness is coming. Comet Anduru skimmed the clouds of Saturn. Rather than being drawn into the gas giant, it skipped back out into space. With the comet heading for Jupiter, speculation is mounting it’s an alien spacecraft making its way to Earth. Lieutenant Colonel Nolan Landis and Dr. Kath McKenzie are caught between an angry public and an anxious President as they grapple with the scientific, social, and political implications of First Contact.

FIRST CONTACT is similar to BLACK MIRROR or THE TWILIGHT ZONE in that the series is based on a common theme rather than common characters. This allows these books to be read in any order. Technically, they're all first as they all deal with how we might initially respond to contact with aliens, exploring the social, political, religious, and scientific aspects of First Contact.

Start reading Wherever Seeds May Fall here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

Ryland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission—and if he fails, humanity and the earth itself will perish.

Except that right now, he doesn’t know that. He can’t even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it.

All he knows is that he’s been asleep for a very, very long time. And he’s just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company.

His crewmates dead, his memories fuzzily returning, Ryland realizes that an impossible task now confronts him. Hurtling through space on this tiny ship, it’s up to him to puzzle out an impossible scientific mystery—and conquer an extinction-level threat to our species.

And with the clock ticking down and the nearest human being light-years away, he’s got to do it all alone.

Or does he?

An irresistible interstellar adventure as only Andy Weir could deliver, Project Hail Mary is a tale of discovery, speculation, and survival to rival The Martian—while taking us to places it never dreamed of going.

Grab Project Hail Mary here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

Arrival (The Kyron Invasion Book 1) by Jasper T. Scott

THEY HAVE ARRIVED.
2150 AD:Chris Randall just lost his job as a bodyguard. That night, after picking up his wife, Bree, from her shift at a local casino, he breaks the bad news.

Moments later, thunder cracks the sky, but there’s no lightning. Flaming debris rain across the valley, and a dark mass goes sailing out of the clouds, headed straight for LA.

It’s not one of the Union’s starships, because they can’t defy gravity like that. But then what is it?

The answer chills both Chris and Bree to their cores: it’s an invasion.

They have to pick up their kids and get away from the city. But the Randalls soon discover that nowhere is far enough away to keep them safe.

Grab Arrival here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

First Life (The River Saga Book One) by Nathan Hystad

A dangerous expedition. Extraterrestrial alliances. Unpredictable enemies.

Colton Beck has six months to live. He works for the Angor near Los Angeles, aware that any day could be his last.

The Angor arrived twenty years ago, resolved to help mankind survive, but not everyone believes their motives are honorable.

When the Angor offer humanity a colony world, Colton is determined to see another planet before his final breath. He’s been diagnosed with Xeno, a rare disorder that surfaced with the Angor’s arrival, but he won’t let this stop him.

With the help of his old friend Indie Hart, now the single most powerful human on Earth, he joins the Expedition to Dicore.

They access the River, an alien technology that allows nearly instantaneous travel between worlds, and their universe is quickly expanded.

What they find on Dicore is far from idyllic, and Colton struggles to navigate their new existence while coping with his impending death.

First Life is a gripping science fiction adventure tale from the Best-Selling author of The Event, Lost Contact, and Final Days.

Grab First Life here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

Starship Freedom by Daniel Arenson 

The Starship Freedom super box set! Four complete novels of military science fiction and space opera. From the USA Today bestselling author of Earthrise. For fans of Battlestar Galactica and Starship Troopers.

The starship Freedom was once a mighty warship. Today she's a tourist attraction. The space wars ended long ago. The Freedom is now a flying museum. The tourists love it. The Changing of the Guard, the starfighter aerobatics, the starboard cannon salute . . . it's the best show in the galaxy.

James King commands the starship Freedom. He hates his job. He was a real soldier once. Back when the Freedom was a real warship. He never imagined himself running a tourist trap. Right after Christmas, he plans to retire.

Then, on Christmas day, the aliens attack. Horrifying aliens. Creatures of claws, fangs, and endless malice. Within hours, they devastate Earth's military. Millions die.

So much for retirement.

The aliens spare the starship Freedom. After all, she's only a tourist attraction. But not to Commander King. He will get his beloved starship battle-ready. He will enter the fight. The Freedom will fly to war again!

Grab Starship Freedom here on Amazon. 

Have you already read any of these? Which will you pick up next? Which tales of first contact are among your personal favorites? Let us know here in the comments, or over in the Discover Sci-Fi Facebook group! 

*All book-related copy in this post was pulled from Amazon, Goodreads & Wikipedia, unless otherwise credited.