“It was rumored she held grudges till they died of old age, then had them stuffed and mounted.”
― David Weber, Field of Dishonor

Alien: The Official Movie Novelization by Alan Dean Foster

"I say we take off and nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure." —Ellen Ripley, Aliens

Alan Dean Foster is the acclaimed author of movie tie-ins for Star Wars, Alien, Transformers. He was awarded the IAMTW Grand Master Scribe Award in 2008. A best-selling science-fiction and fantasy author in his own right; the popular Pip and Flinx novels and the Founding of the Commonwealth series.

Read Alien here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook

Shards of Honor by Lois McMaster Bujold

Tests are a gift. And great tests are a great gift. To fail the test is a misfortune. But to refuse the test is to refuse the gift, and something worse, more irrevocable, than misfortune. —Cordelia Naismith, Shards of Honor

When Cordelia Naismith and her survey crew are attacked by a renegade group from Barrayar, she is taken prisoner by Aral Vorkosigan, commander of the Barrayan ship that has been taken over by an ambitious and ruthless crew member. Aral and Cordelia survive countless mishaps while their mutual admiration and even stronger feelings emerge. A science fiction romance by a Hugo and Nebula Award winning master. Bujold's SHARDS OF HONOR is the first book in her SF universe to feature the Vorkosigan clan, followed by the Hugo award-winning BARRAYAR. The Nebula award-winning FALLING FREE precedes it by internal chronology in the same future history.

Read Shards of Honor here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook

Valor's Choice by Tanya Huff

"She'd been thinking that she needed to forget the carnage, forget those they lost limping back to the station on a ship that had won it's battle but nearly lost its own little slice of the war, forget the messages she sent to family and friends, and forget that new faces, always new faces, would soon be arriving to replace those they'd lost. 

She'd been able to forget. For a while.  —Tanya Huff, Valor's Choice

Staff Sergeant Torin Kerr was a battle-hardened professional. So when she and her platoon were yanked from a well-deserved leave for what was supposed to be "easy" duty as the honor guard for a diplomatic mission to the non-Confederation world of the Silsviss, she was ready for anything. Sure, there’d been rumors of the Others—the sworn enemies of the Confederation—being spotted in this sector of space. But there were always rumors. The key thing was to recruit the Silsviss into the Confederation before the Others attacked or claimed these lizardlike warriors for their side. And everything seemed to be going perfectly. Maybe too perfectly....

Get your copy of Valor's Choice here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson

“Y.T. is maxing at a Mom's Truck Stop on 405, waiting for her ride. Not that she would ever be caught dead at a Mom's Truck Stop. If, like, a semi ran her over with all eighteen of its wheels in front of a Mom's Truck Stop, she would drag herself down the shoulder of the highway using her eyelid muscles until she reached a Snooze 'n' Cruise full of horny derelicts rather than go into a Mom's Truck Stop.” —Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash

Read Snow Crash here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins 

“That the Careers have been better fed growing up is actually to their disadvantage, because they don’t know how to be hungry. Not like Rue and I do.” —Katniss Everdeen, The Hunger Games

In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. The Capitol is harsh and cruel and keeps the districts in line by forcing them all to send one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in the annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV.

Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who lives alone with her mother and younger sister, regards it as a death sentence when she steps forward to take her sister's place in the Games. But Katniss has been close to dead before—and survival, for her, is second nature. Without really meaning to, she becomes a contender. But if she is to win, she will have to start making choices that weight survival against humanity and life against love.

Grab The Hunger Games here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood

“From the garden shed she'd brought a shovel and a crowbar, both of which could be lethal if used decisively. In her pocket was a bottle of AnooYoo Total Shine Hairspray, an effective weapon if aimed at the eyes. She'd learned a lot of things from Zeb in his Urban Bloodshed Limitation classes: in Zeb's view, the first bloodshed to be limited should be your own.” —Margaret Atwood, Year of the Flood

The long-feared waterless flood has occurred, altering Earth as we know it and obliterating most human life. Among the survivors are Ren, a young trapeze dancer locked inside the high-end sex club Scales and Tails, and Toby, who is barricaded inside a luxurious spa. Amid shadowy, corrupt ruling powers and new, gene-spliced life forms, Ren and Toby will have to decide on their next move, but they can't stay locked away.

Get your copy of The Year of the Flood here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

Starshine: Aurora Rising Book One (Amaranthe 1) by G.S. Jennsen

“Her pulse raced, pounding in her ears above the howling wind. A wave of dizziness crashed over her with the rapid flood of adrenaline. She gasped in a breath. “Don’t let go.”
― G.S. Jennsen, Starshine

SPACE IS VAST AND UNTAMED, AND IT HOLDS MANY SECRETS.

Now two individuals from opposite ends of settled space are on a collision course with the darkest of those secrets, even as the world threatens to explode around them.

The year is 2322. Humanity has expanded into the stars, inhabiting over 100 worlds across a third of the galaxy. Though thriving as never before, they have discovered neither alien life nor the key to utopia. Earth struggles to retain authority over far-flung planets and free-wheeling corporations while an uneasy armistice with a breakaway federation hangs by a thread as the former rebels rise in wealth and power.

Alexis Solovy is Earth Alliance royalty, her father a fallen war hero and her mother an influential military leader. But she seeks only the freedom of space and has made a fortune by reading the patterns in the chaos to discover the hidden wonders of the stars.

Nothing about her latest objective suggests the secret it conceals will turn her life— not to mention the entire galaxy—upside down. But a chance encounter with a mysterious spy leads to a discovery which will thrust Alex into the middle of a galactic power struggle and a sinister conspiracy, whether she likes it or not.

Dive into Starshine here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

"The Board is smoking smash.’ He stabbed his finger towards the scrib again. ‘She’s got no long-haul experience. She’s never lived off Mars, as far as I can tell. She’s fresh out of university—’

Ashby started ticking things off on his fingers. Two could play at this game. ‘She’s certified to handle GC formwork. She’s worked an internship at a ground transport company, which required the same basic skills I need her to have. She’s fluent in Hanto, gestures and all, which could really open some doors for us. She comes with a letter of recommendation from her interspecies relations professor. And most importantly, from the little I’ve spoken to her, she seems like someone I can work with.’

‘She’s never done this before. We’re out in the middle of the open, on our way to a blind punch, and you’re bringing a kid aboard.’

‘She’s not a kid, she’s just young. And everybody has a first job, Corbin. Even you must’ve started somewhere.’ —Becky Chambers, The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet

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 her a bed, a chance to explore the far-off corners of the galaxy, and most importantly, some distance from her past. An introspective young woman who learned early to keep to herself, she’s never met anyone remotely like the ship’s diverse crew, including Sissix, the exotic reptilian pilot, chatty engineers Kizzy and Jenks who keep the ship running, and Ashby, their noble captain.

Life aboard the Wayfarer is chaotic and crazy—exactly what Rosemary wants. It’s also about to get extremely dangerous when the crew is offered the job of a lifetime. Tunneling wormholes through space to a distant planet is definitely lucrative and will keep them comfortable for years. But risking her life wasn’t part of the plan. In the far reaches of deep space, the tiny Wayfarer crew will confront a host of unexpected mishaps and thrilling adventures that force them to depend on each other. To survive, Rosemary’s got to learn how to rely on this assortment of oddballs—an experience that teaches her about love and trust, and that having a family isn’t necessarily the worst thing in the universe.

Get your copy of The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

Planetfall by Emma Newman

“If this were a game, like the countless stupid things I’ve played over the years, I’d be heading down there to pick off the guards one by one and free them. Then we’d take back the colony and put an end to this terror. But I don’t have the skills or the weapons that my character would have. There aren’t handy weapon caches stored in secret places that I can raid to arm myself and my fellows. None of the games I’ve ever played have built in total failure from the start. I wouldn’t have the first idea of how to tackle one of the guards and take their weapon. There’s no engine to interpret my clumsy actions and translate them into flawless silent assassinations. There is no heroism in me without the supporting game narrative.” —Emma Newman, Planetfall

Renata Ghali believed in Lee Suh-Mi’s vision of a world far beyond Earth, calling to humanity. A planet promising to reveal the truth about our place in the cosmos, untainted by overpopulation, pollution, and war. Ren believed in that vision enough to give up everything to follow Suh-Mi into the unknown.

More than twenty-two years have passed since Ren and the rest of the faithful braved the starry abyss and established a colony at the base of an enigmatic alien structure where Suh-Mi has since resided, alone. All that time, Ren has worked hard as the colony's 3-D printer engineer, creating the tools necessary for human survival in an alien environment, and harboring a devastating secret.

Ren continues to perpetuate the lie forming the foundation of the colony for the good of her fellow colonists, despite the personal cost. Then a stranger appears, far too young to have been part of the first planetfall, a man who bears a remarkable resemblance to Suh-Mi.

The truth Ren has concealed since planetfall can no longer be hidden. And its revelation might tear the colony apart...

Start reading Planetfall here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

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The Dreaming Tree by Matthew Mather

“Officer Delta Devlin tried to control her rapid breathing. She checked and rechecked the straps on her ballistic vest.” —Matthew Mather, The Dreaming Tree

After a near-fatal car crash, Royce wakes up to find he’s one of the first patients to undergo a radical new procedure: a full-body transplant. Convalescing and suffering from waking nightmares, he answers the door at his Long Island home and meets Delta Devlin, a New York detective. She sees things nobody else can, visions created by a mutation to her eyes.

Royce becomes Devlin’s prime suspect in a string of grisly murders. Desperate for answers, he tracks down the grieving widow of the man whose body he now inhabits. Out of time, and perhaps his mind, he tumbles through a hallucinogenic underworld of black-market body parts and billionaires where nothing can stand in the way of living forever—not even death itself.

Grab The Dreaming Tree here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

Are any of these titles existing favorites of yours? Any of them new to you and now topping your TBR? Which books do you think would have been a great addition to the list? 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.