"The Starflight Handbook is an compendium of the many and varied methods for traversing the vast interstellar gulf."--Publisher.

Fast-paced adventure, found family, intrigue, and enemies-to-lovers romance combine in an action-packed young adult novel for fans of Firefly. Solara Brooks needs a fresh start, someplace where nobody cares about the engine grease beneath her fingernails or the felony tattoos across her knuckles. Still, off-world travel doesn't come cheap, and Solara is left with no choice but to indenture herself in exchange for passage to the outer realm. She just wishes it could have been to anyone besides Doran Spaulding, the rich, pretty-boy quarterback who made her life miserable in school. The tables suddenly turn when Doran is framed for conspiracy on Earth, and Solara cons him into playing the role of her servant on board the Banshee. Given the price on both Doran and Solara's heads, it may just be the safest place in the universe. It's been a long time since Solara has believed in anyone, and Doran is the last person she expected to trust. But when the Banshee's dangerous enemies catch up with them, Solara and Doran must come together to protect the ship that has become their home—and the eccentric crew that feels like family.

When Princess Cassia Rose fled her home world of Eturia to escape an arranged marriage, she had no idea her sudden departure would spark a war. Now after two years hiding as a ship hand, she is finally returning to her beloved home but not in the way she imagined. Shackled by bounty hunters, she is violently dragged back to account for her crimes. Her only solace is that the Banshee crew managed to evade capture, including Kane Arric, her best friend...with occasional benefits. Meanwhile, Kane and the rest of the crew of the Banshee plan a desperate rescue mission. But when they arrive on Eturia, Cassia isn't exactly in need of heroics -- she's claimed her birthright as Eturia's queen, but has inherited a war-torn planet simmering with rebellion. Cassia must make alliances, and Kane, the bastard son of a merchant, isn't a choice that will earn her any friends. Kane knows he will never find someone to replace Cassia -- and is certain she returns his feelings -- but how can he throw away his own promising future waiting on a queen? When the outer realm is threatened by the dangerous Zhang mafia, Cassia, Kane and the rest of the Banshee crew uncover a horrifying conspiracy that endangers the entire universe. In the face of unspeakable evil, Cassia must confront her own family's complicated legacy on Eturia and decide once and for all who her real family is.

Seventeen incredible authors. Seventeen amazing stories. One fantastic sci-fi universe, where the only limit is one's imagination. Welcome to Starflight. Based on the exploration-based Starflight video game series created by Greg Johnson and the Binary Systems team, the stories in Tales From the Starport Lounge flesh out and shine a light into the darkest corners of the known universe. Join the last vestiges of Humanity and their alien allies (the reptilian Thrynn, the insectoid Velox, and the plant-based Elowan) as they attempt to carve out their own territory in a sector of space filled with wondrous opportunity and deadly threats. Brave explorers seek out new worlds to colonize while merchants cruise from starport to starport, their holds laden with exotic goods. Not all in this futuristic setting have noble intent. For every prospector and trader attempting to make a difference, a dozen pirates, smugglers, and mobsters engage in all manner of criminal enterprise. Gangs fill the underbellies of every major city and raid the trade routes between the stars, pushing the outnumbered and outgunned Interstel Police to their limit and forcing civilians to take matters into their own hands. It's a rough and tumble universe, where one wrong move could spell doom for an expedition, or grant enough wealth to buy a planet. Board your ship and set course for stars unknown! The universe awaits. Stories include: "Those Who Came Before" by Michael Gants, "Choices" by Christopher Woods, "Black Box Blues" by Philip K. Booker, "Rock of Truth" by Bart Kemper, "Obligations" by Marisa Wolf, "Hindsight" by R.J. Ladon, "Peacestone" by Brisco Woods, "Everyone Gets What They Have Coming" by D.J. Butler, "A New Beginning" by J.F. Posthumus, "Fire at Will" by Declan Finn, "Hiro of Arth" by David A. Tatum, "Rover Rescue" by Michael J. Allen, "Territory" by Nick Steverson, "Turn of Luck" by William Joseph Roberts, "Always on Duty" by Benjamin Tyler Smith, "To Cache a Killer" by Michael J. Ciaravella, "Through the Time Lens" by Robert Silverberg Plus an introduction by Starflight creator, Greg Johnson

I wrote this book because I wanted to learn more about interstel lar flight. Not the Star Trek notion of tearing around the Galaxy in a huge spaceship-that was obviously beyond existing tech nology-but a more realistic mission. In 1989 I had videotaped Voyager 2's encounter with Neptune and watched the drama of robotic exploration over and over again. I started to wonder whether we could do something similar with Alpha Centauri, the nearest star to the Sun. Everyone seemed to agree that manned flight to the stars was out of the question, if not permanently then for the indefinitely foreseeable future. But surely we could do something with robotics. And if we could figure out a theoretical way to do it, how far were we from the actual technology that would make it happen? In other words, what was the state of our interstellar technology today, those concepts and systems that might translate into a Voyager to the stars? Finding answers meant talking to people inside and outside of NASA. I was surprised to learn that there is a large literature of interstellar flight. Nobody knows for sure how to propel a space craft fast enough to make the interstellar crossing within a time scale that would fit the conventional idea of a mission, but there are candidate systems that are under active investigation. Some of this effort begins with small systems that we'll use near the Earth and later hope to extend to deep space missions.

A movie star’s suicide draws a young woman into the deadly shadows of a Hollywood scandal in this novel from “a master of suspense” (Mary Higgins Clark). More than fifty years ago, Victoria Frazer and Roger Brandt were the most popular stars of the silver screen—until a notorious and tragic love affair on set in the Appalachians destroyed their lives. It was there, at the foot of Rumbling Bald Mountain in Lake Lure, North Carolina, where Victoria drowned herself, and where Roger would remain—drifting into obscurity as a tortured recluse. Now, a half-century later, screenwriter Lauren Castle has arrived at a Lake Lure resort in the wake of a more recent tragedy: the suspicious death of her husband, a documentary filmmaker who was investigating the legendary Hollywood scandal. Lauren’s husband held the most closely guarded secret of all: She is Victoria’s granddaughter. Only one other person knew her secret, the couple’s close friend, Gordon Heath, whom Lauren is inexplicably drawn to. Now she must solve a mystery that links two generations, has claimed more than one victim, and has yet to reach its deadly and final fade-out. New York Times–bestselling and Edgar Award–winning author Phyllis A. Whitney “is, and always will be, the Grand Master of her craft” (Barbara Michaels). This ebook features an illustrated biography of Phyllis A. Whitney including rare images from the author’s estate.

The technology of the next few decades could possibly allow us to explore with robotic probes the closest stars outside our Solar System, and maybe even observe some of the recently discovered planets circling these stars. This book looks at the reasons for exploring our stellar neighbors and at the technologies we are developing to build space probes that can traverse the enormous distances between the stars. In order to reach the nearest stars, we must first develop a propulsion technology that would take our robotic probes there in a reasonable time. Such propulsion technology has radically different requirements from conventional chemical rockets, because of the enormous distances that must be crossed. Surprisingly, many propulsion schemes for interstellar travel have been suggested and await only practical engineering solutions and the political will to make them a reality. This is a result of the tremendous advances in astrophysics that have been made in recent decades and the perseverance and imagination of tenacious theoretical physicists. This book explores these different propulsion schemes – all based on current physics – and the challenges they present to physicists, engineers, and space exploration entrepreneurs. This book will be helpful to anyone who really wants to understand the principles behind and likely future course of interstellar travel and who wants to recognizes the distinctions between pure fantasy (such as Star Trek’s ‘warp drive’) and methods that are grounded in real physics and offer practical technological solutions for exploring the stars in the decades to come.

This authoritative guide on space survival uses hard science to answer both philosophical and practical questions regarding humanity's space exploration.

This book describes the many astronomical and human-scale issues that make interstellar travel a formidable challenge, even with the right technology for making the actual trip. Since the 1920's, science fiction authors have invented dozens of ways to make interstellar travel a reality. Sadly, after nearly 100 years of effort, scientists and engineers have yet to invent a single inexpensive technology to get us to the stars. What is more disturbing about this challenge is that the actual technology to make the trip is mostly irrelevant. Some of the issues are already known and being addressed such as: What will be our destination? How many travelers should go? What will happen to human health along the way? But the Big Picture of interstellar travel goes well beyond the design of the engines that power our starships. Once we arrive at our destination, what will we do? Will our immune systems be so compromised from the travel that we can never actually visit the surface of a biologically-active planet? What will we breath? Will we be forced to live 'under a dome' and never venture outside without a spacesuit? What kind of a reward will that be for a decades or centuries-long voyage? What will communication with Earth be like with time delays of 100 years? These and many other questions will be covered as astronomer Sten Odenwald explores the other issues and challenges of interstellar travel that arise from living in an unfortunately very limited physical world. He will also explore optimistic scenarios involving artificial intelligence and hibernation that could completely change the game in making interstellar travel a reality.

A brilliant hard-tech debut novel by the well-known author of Her Name, Titanic and Unearthing Atlantis. On Earth, the designers of an advanced space mission fear they've put awesome power in the hands of a maniac, and in the depths of space, a hostile species awakens to the discovery of a new enemy--Earthlings. Illustrated.