At some point next year, when planets and stars momentarily align, we’ll hopefully be getting what’s sure to be the most anticipated sci-fi RPG in recent memory — Wizards of the Coast and Archetype Entertainment's "Exodus", which is coming to PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.

This far future "Mass Effect"-like saga follows the daring time-traveler Jun Aslan as he and his companions hop about the cosmos searching for ancient artifacts to ward off the destruction of their worlds. This threat comes from an evolved group of transhumans called Celestials, with the whole affair taking place within the Centauri Cluster, 16,000 light-years from an abandoned planet Earth.

As part of Archetype’s ambitious cross-media marketing plan, the dev team enlisted the help of celebrated British sci-fi author Peter Hamilton ("The Salvation Sequence") to fortify the game’s worldbuilding and also pen two companion prequel novels.

The first of these books, "Exodus: The Archimedes Engine," was released on Sept. 17, 2024. Now, the second half of this duology, "Exodus: The Helium Sea," was just published on June 16, 2026, and continues the tale of Finn and his human allies to see if they can outwit the Celestials and finally earn their fellow humans a place of independence and power in the Crown Dominion.

"Because I helped build the 'Exodus' world, they sent me what I always call the skeleton, and I helped put a lot of flesh on it, like the assorted cultures, some of the technologies, and the starships," Hamilton tells Space.

"It was partially my universe to write in, so I knew the limits and constraints, which made it easier because I was part of the structure."

"The Helium Sea" concludes the background saga started in "The Archimedes Engine" and is one story told over the course of two books.

"All the characters that were alive and survived at the end of 'The Archimedes Engine' just carry on into 'The Helium Sea,'” he adds. "You get to find out what’s been hinted at before and what the real motivations are for the rebels and who they are. It was all misdirection; some people we think are on the bad side are not, and you get to see a whole lot of new places and settings as well, and it really expands the universe."

"The last one was set over 40 years because we have a lot of time dilation elements when you travel at relativistic speed," explains Hamilton. "This book is set over ten years, and you have various characters going on different missions, and I had to bring them all together at the same time and same place. That was a lot of plotting."

Hamilton admits that his collaboration with the whole Archetype team on the colossal "Exodus" project has been an enriching affair.

"The joy of it was, which I’ve never had before writing a book, is that I'd send them a description of a world or something, and I’d get my little spaceship back, and it would be this magnificent picture, and of course, being top-flight artists, they've added to my original concept. It was a real growth process, developing this world. We all got on really well, and we just gelled. They were very professional. You could see they had a job to do and they were doing it."

When pushed to choose a favorite destination amid both "Exodus" prequel books, Hamilton immediately picks a world called Kingsnest.

"It's a glass shell, a glass bauble, the size of Jupiter basically, which has been pumped full of atmosphere," he notes.

"The ships they have in it are made out of wood, sort of 18th-century sailing technology, because there are clouds in there and little globular lakes. So much life in there. It would take you more than a lifetime to sail across it and encounter who knows what in the deeps of it. I just love the idea of it. That you can literally have sailing ships in space."

Now enjoy this exclusive chapter excerpt from Peter F. Hamilton's "Exodus: The Helium Sea" (Random House Worlds)

The Jiyoratan family had furnished their tower with stylish opulence. No sign remained visible that the structure was aerolite; every wall was tiled. The aesthetic was clean, with geometric primary colors starting to warp together within soaring arches that highlighted the central atrium, where a lush hanging garden claimed the walls. Internal balconies were illuminated by faint blue lights in constellation displays, half-hidden among the foliage to create an illusion of the external edifice of some tropical villa. Spiral water features ran the full height, bringing a humidity to the scene that Neusch had practically forgotten.

His clothes activated, changing to a light layer of armor around his body and limbs, while the hood slipped over his head and curtained his face in a transparent shield. He’d never envisaged the bio-andy being involved in anything as crude as an actual fight, so he had no idea how much use the protective clothing was going to be against the Guillrameo team. Probably not much. Until now he’d only had a vague plan: get to the sisters and get them out. Quietly. The kind of mission his father would’ve executed superbly, where no one would even know he’d been there until hours after the event.

Well, that’s just taken a deep dive into a sea of shit.

The other Guillrameo operatives were efficiently eliminating the aireels he’d sent after them. Within thirty seconds they’d all been taken out. He didn’t know where the woman was—presumably making her way through the Dibyth tower to the first target. The others would be breaking through the walls any minute now.

The bio-andy picked up voices somewhere inside the atrium. He started running for one of the curving granite stairs that wound up between the atrium balconies. The sisters had their quarters two floors above, along with the rest of the family’s youngsters.

Three people came around the central trio of big fountains, stopped in surprise.

One of them who’d worked with Juliatra-Monoth gave him a startled look. “Halvin-Aneil?”

“Sound the alarm,” he shouted at her. “People have entered your home. They’re going to kill most of you and interrogate the surviving seniors.”

“Huh—”

One of her companions, a man, made a grab for the bio-andy. It pushed back hard, sending him spinning.

“Sorry! They’ll be armed. Get out of here.” Then he was around the fountains and heading for the base of the spiral staircase; people were walking down it. His lnc warned him an intruder alert had been issued within the tower. That’ll annoy the Guillrameo team.

“The Dibyth has been isolated from Husnak’s network,” the CI informed him. “No security forces know what’s going on.”

So, no help’s coming, then. Neusch barged past the couple on the stairs and released a flock of insect drones from his leg pouch. They zoomed up the inside of the atrium, heading for the balcony above, hunting the girls. Andys started to emerge from every doorway. Even without weapons, the slim silver figures would pose a problem.

But that suddenly didn’t matter. The tower network vanished. The andys lost all rigidity, fluttering to the ground like becalmed flags.

“Asteria’s arse.” Neusch drew the bio-andy’s guns—an enhanced-projectile mag carbine and a gamma laser. The bio-andy reached the top of the stairs, and Neusch cursed the way the verdant plants had been allowed to flourish, narrowing the balcony. Tactical display reported a scan locking onto the bio-andy. Neusch relinquished fire control to the bio-andy’s tactical routines. It raised both guns and assumed a crouched pose as it started to sprint along the narrow route.

A projectile hit the side of the balcony half a meter behind it. The bio-andy was flung off its feet, the light armor turning rigid. It landed, crashing into a big night-flowering jasmine bush, rolling with gymnastic precision, firing a burst of gamma rays at the origin of the attack on the floor of the atrium, then sprinted onward.

Neusch split his consciousness. One was with the bio-andy, observing and providing oversight guidance. The parallel Neusch was searching the home’s blueprints, combining with the CI to find an escape route for the sisters.

First realization, as another barrage of projectiles slammed into the balcony behind the bio-andy: this was going to require maximum firepower, because the Guillrameos would unleash nothing less. An X-ray laser slashed across the bio-andy. Its light armor managed to diffuse and deflect most of the energy so that it broiled the balcony’s surrounding vegetation. Leaves and twigs fried, bursting into swirls of ash and embers around him. Neusch was acutely aware of nerve-equivalent impulses reporting the beam penetrating the light armor, searing the bio-andy’s hip and thigh. Muscle damage parameters were incorporated into the body’s physiology routines; it changed its posture slightly to accommodate the now asymmetric strength of its leg muscles.

Three mouse-sized drop-drones flipped out of a leg pouch; they had a similar leg structure to the cutter-drone, but they were combat versions. The trio lunged over the balcony rail in full lemming mode. One released a chaff cascade—hell’s own monsoon manifesting as specks of light, sound, and EM pulses falling through the hanging garden. The other two went dark as they fell, unnoticed among the sensory overload. They hit the floor and did nothing.

A few seconds later, as the chaff attack faded, two of the Guillrameo operatives crept into the atrium, their protective cloaks lensing the light around them: event horizons made from fabric. Their movements created subtle motions in the air that the drop-drones identified.

The bio-andy had just reached the archway leading to the children’s bedrooms when the drop-drones detonated their proton-boosted explosive cores, eradicating the two intruders. A massive blastwave punched the bio-andy through the air, sending it crashing hard into a wall. This time, it took longer to get to its feet and totter forward. One hand slid along the wall for additional balance as it reached the door to the sisters’ bedroom. Which had been locked by the emergency intruder alert.

For fuck’s sake, I’m trying to save you!

Another cutter-drone let go of the bio-andy’s belt where it’d been clinging and hurried over to the door. Its proton incisor deployed, and it climbed up the edge of the door, slicing through the rim as it went.

Neusch sent six more drop-drones flipping away. They sped back down the corridor, taking up positions at three-meter intervals. Neusch saw a couple of the house’s fire-andys roll along the balcony, their extinguisher nozzles deployed over the railings, pumping clouds of viscous yellow retardant foam into the atrium. The part of his consciousness focusing on tactics directed two of the drop-drones into the blobs of foam that fizzed away on the balcony floor. He then dispatched a dozen more insect drones—not confident they’d be any use, but he needed some visuals on the remaining Guillrameo team even if they only lasted a second.

The cutter-drone finished its work. With a swift prayer to the Goddess that a kick would be enough, he raised the bio-andy’s good leg and booted the door. It flew open to a scene of fear and chaos. Five children in their nightclothes were clinging together in defiance, struggling not to scream and cry. He identified Kimiya and Marize, hugging their spawn brothers as they glared fearfully at him.

“It’s okay,” Neusch assured them, raising the bio-andy’s arms. Probably not the best gesture given it was still holding a gun in each hand. “I’m here to stop the attack.” Again, not helpful. His last three cutter-drones raced past the frightened spawn siblings to the wall.

The tactical display told him two weapon-drones were rising up the center of the atrium—hand-sized silver discs, moving fast. They took out his watching insect drones. The tactical display fell back on the drop-drones for information. The first of the weapon-drones came up level with the second floor. It darted forward.

Neusch detonated the two drop-drones on the balcony.

They must have triggered whatever explosives were in the weapon-drone, and the resulting explosion sent him reeling. The children screamed as they were slammed to the ground. The air in the bedroom instantly became a blizzard of trash.

Two drop-drones in the corridor outside survived. They righted themselves and scanned around. The tiles and artwork on the walls were smashed and smoldering, chunks still peeling away from the thankfully stubborn aerolite.

The bio-andy scrambled to its feet, its medical display showing several damaged areas, but it remained capable of locomotion. Neusch knew he only had seconds before the Guillrameo team hit him with something else. Kimiya was closest, sprawled across the floor weeping, debris swirling around her. He snatched her up and held her tight against his chest. She screamed in dread.

“I’m sorry, but it will be okay. You’ll see. I promise.”

She struggled. It was pointless, of course. Even if it’d been a real adult Imperial Celestial gripping her, she wouldn’t have been able to break free—and the bio-andy was considerably stronger.

The three cutter-drones finished slicing the bedroom’s window out of the wall. It fell soundlessly into the night beyond.

“No!” Kimiya wailed as the bio-andy moved toward the gaping hole. “No, no!” Her voice became a wordless shriek. Her spawn siblings cried out as she was carried past them.

“Follow me,” the bio-andy shouted at them. “It’s the only way you’ll live.”

He reached the window and jumped.

From Random House Worlds, "Exodus: The Helium Sea" is available in hardcover and paperback, as well as on Kindle and audiobook form.

Have you watched the recent declassified 'UFO' videos from the Pentagon? What did you think? With many ufologists and enthusiasts worldwide craving concrete evidence from the US government about the existence of extraterrestrial life, many think the Pentagon's first release raised more questions than answers. The world is desperate for the truth on UFOs and what better way to start your own journey than by learning more on the subject from doctors, former government officials, investigative journalists and even, claimed alien 'abductees.'

Where to start on this vast phenomenon? It depends what you are looking for. If you want to explore the subject through the minds of experts directly involved in military investigations, try Dr J. Allen Hynek's foundational text "The UFO Experience" or Luis Elizondo's "Imminent," an exposé from the former director of the Pentagon's Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP).

Famous psychiatrist Carl Jung breaks down the psychological and cultural forces behind UFOs in his book, "Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Skies." UFO spirituality is explored in Professor D.W. Pasulka's "American Cosmic," where she explores how UFO lore is playing a major role in the formation of new religions amongst believers, billionaires and top-tier academics.

Fancy jumping off into the deep end? Enter the world of high strangeness with "Passport to Magonia," Jacquees Vallees' seminal text exploring modern alien lore in context with medieval fairy mythology and folklore. Hear tales directly from abductees with Dr John. E Mack's "Abduction" and Whitley Strieber's "Communion."

With Spielberg's "Disclosure Day" set for release on June 12 and another impending drop from the Pentagon, now is the time to start paying attention. The whole world is watching — are you?

New York Times bestselling author Andy Weir's "The Martian" was a publishing phenomenon when it first dropped 15 years ago. From humble beginnings as a free serialized novel on Weir’s website, it became a 99-cent Amazon Kindle offering before catching the attention of the editors at Penguin Random House.

With their help, the sci-fi survival novel centering on NASA astronaut Mark Watney, who becomes stranded on the Red Planet, became the perfect sci-fi book for its time. After officially launching worldwide in 2014, it was quickly adapted into a 2015 Oscar-winning feature film directed by Ridley Scott and starring Matt Damon and Jessica Chastain.

To commemorate "The Martian's" astonishing success and the book's true 15th anniversary this year, after selling over 3 million copies to date, a new hardcover special edition of this classic was released on May 26, 2026, and they were kind enough to send us a copy to check out.

Physical media in all forms is making a robust comeback these days, and this 384-page gem is presented with colorful cosmic swirls on sprayed edges, dazzling new reflective cover art on a deluxe jacket, full-color illustrated endpapers revealing a breathtaking orange-tinted Mars landscape, and a custom-stamped bare case depicting a giant potato floating in a sea of stars.

The Martian tells the story of astronaut Mark Watney, who becomes stranded on Mars after a dust storm incapacitates him. His crew evacuates, thinking he's dead, leaving him stranded and alone on the red planet. What follows is a gripping story of survival, scientific ingenuity, and heart as he finds a way to grow food, survive, and contact home despite the impossible odds

Whether revisiting "The Martian" for the first time or simply looking to upgrade your old copy, this shimmering Ballantine Books beauty is the definitive edition of Andy Weir’s compelling sci-fi novel.

Feeling the clammy grip of death on your shoulder? Hopefully you don't, but with so much debris floating overhead, a satellite apocalypse could come at any time. Then there are asteroid impacts, alien invasions and so on. That's why we've rounded up 15 sci-books you just have to read before you die.

From Isaac Asimov to Andy Weir, we've delved into science fiction, past and present, to select the books that deserve to be on your bucket list. These novels will transport you to a range of worlds, from a dystopian future(ish) Earth through to distant desert planets. The themes and topics they broach will leave you stunned, questioning humanity's place in the galaxy or, even if we have a future at all.

So, read on for the 15 sci-fi books that absolutely have to be on your bucket list.

With Hollywood screenwriter Damien Ober's name displayed on its enticing onyx-shaded jacket, readers are in for a strange and compelling tale with his first foray into space fantasy titled "Voidverse" (Saga Press). I mean, what else could you expect from one of the writers of Netflix’s cult supernatural mystery series, "The OA"?

"Voidverse's" sci-fi western narrative is told across multiple protagonists amid an uncanny universe where people live on falling rock worlds, stacked vertically in an infinite emptiness. Inside this vast, mysterious void, denizens of the realm may explore these locales by either Rising or Sinking. Within the void, a girl named Sinker teams up with a mother seeking a cure for her sick son, and together they learn of an evil entity systematically destroying the stone lands.

"'Voidverse' first came to me in a dream, way back in 2004," Ober tells Space. "Soon after, I wrote what would become the first chapter of the novel and started to flesh out the rest in notebooks and other little side writing projects. By the time I was working on 'The OA,' what would become 'Voidverse' was pretty far along, though still far away too. I had to move to LA for the job and brought my typewriter. I’d get up early and bang on 'Voidverse' before work and stay up late too. I’m sure my neighbors loved me.

"'The OA' was the perfect environment for me and for the novel right then. It was definitely a show that not only encouraged out-of-the-box thinking — on structure, character, tone, everything — but required it. What always impressed me most about the show was the amazing diversity of its fanbase. People of all kinds loved that show, from football jocks to kitty nanas."

Ober is a formidable talent who’s been prolific over the last decade with scripts developed for Paramount+, AMC, Netflix, and Warner Bros. Described as "Dune" meets "Wool," "Voidverse" is a high-energy quest where eternal forces are about to clash in a monumental showdown.

His research for the project included reading up on the effects of long-term weightlessness and sensory deprivation, as well as dipping into old Japanese legends and international fairytales.

"For the atmosphere and world of 'Voidverse' to work, I needed the characters and the prose to meld with the setting. Holding my hand out the window of the car on the freeway, sinking to the bottom of a pool, staring into darkness. How does it feel? What words can I use to describe it? How do I pull the reader into that in a primal way? How can the novel build a language of its own? Books like 'Flatland' and 'V.A.L.I.S.' had a huge effect on me. Each forces a new kind of physical understanding on your brain to deliver something so unique and viewpoint-shifting."

The worldbuilding of "Voidverse" invariably reflects feelings and impressions of many of the movies and games Ober has absorbed and loved over the years, all filtered down and distilled through some mysterious brain process. "There's a big adventure at the heart, something akin to 'Beastmaster' or 'Krull,'" he explains.

"There's a cool world and character mystery vibe that could remind you of 'The Legend of Zelda.' The western/samurai themes and the way the characters are built through action, the limited POV, and sparse language… Kurosawa and Leone, the old 'Incredible Hulk' TV show, but also existential road trip movies like 'Two Lane Blacktop' and the soul-crushing 'Come and See.'

"Of course, scary space thrillers like 'Saturn 3' and 'Event Horizon.' 'Metroid.' 'Lone Wolf and Cub.' 'Stalker.' Though I didn't really think of this when writing, a reviewer described 'Voidverse' as ''The Little Prince' on steroids with an adult rating.' I like that description a lot."

Also — and this is one hell of an aside — but "Voidverse" has to be one of the best-smelling novels I have ever encountered. I'm serious. Maybe it's the black-edged pages, but it exudes an intoxicating aroma of old leather with a hint of sweet seasoned charcoal.

Now enjoy an exclusive excerpt from Damien Ober's "Voidverse" below:

As with all Decidings, most of the rock had gathered to watch. There were five new boys of age, lined up on the edge platform. Always the boys looked on display, things people had tidied and set up. The rise instructor beamed, his pocked, beefy face and beard all gone gray. He nodded encouragingly to the boys, and the friction rippled them as they stepped to the edge.

Their faces looked like apples, shined up with fear. I could see each boy’s breath, the heaving of their lungs, ribs expanding wide and contracting in. A cry burst from the platform. One of the boys had turned back to the crowd, face skin twisted around wild eyes, red cheeks about to rip apart from the rictus. He broke and ran into his mother’s arms, and they became a tangle of gripping the other tighter. They sobbed and scuttled away, and the only sound again was the roaring friction past the edge.

The other boys were pulling down their pack straps, clipping them tight. They moved fast, their hands trembling. None wanted to be the next to lose his nerve. With no further hesitation, they began leaping out into the void, one after the other, all four spreading their arms and legs in Kolatchi position as they’d been taught. They hovered a breath in stasis—as if the sink itself was now deciding—and then the friction took them and they began to rise, slowly, then picking up speed. Their faces lost distinction, their bodies smaller and smaller and then only specks in the overvoid.

It was hard to see at first, but a fifth speck had appeared, this one getting larger. “A sinker!” someone shouted.

The crowd mumbled and shifted as the sinker came slicing downward at impossible speed, arms and legs pinned tight, chin tucked under a matte black helmet. A clear circle spread in the crowd, and the sinker swooped and landed smoothly. His helmet was not matte black, after all, but scratched up and dulled by dings and scuffings. Only the snapped-down visor was polished, reflecting us back as he scanned the crowd. He was thin, lean and sleek, in a suit of tight-fit leather with lots of straps and buttoned-up pockets. The hilt of a sword protruded from his back, snug beside a pack as tight as an angry fist. Then the visor flipped up, and I could see this sinker was a woman, had been since she first appeared way above.

Everyone was silent and still as she moved through the crowd, studying faces. Finally, she settled and fixed on me, and in the wide black centers of her eyes was the empty darkness of the void. From the tight overlappings of her suit, she took a folded sheet of paper and held it up for all to see. “I call upon the code of this rock,” the Sinker said. “I have a letter.”

Copyright © 2026. Reprinted by permission of Saga Press at Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.

In today’s dizzying world of near-infinite everyday choices — whether it's toothpaste brands, sports drinks, dog kibble, or streaming services — the value of our choices seems diluted to insignificance due to the sheer volume of picks at hand.

But there was a time when middle-grade kids learned the rules of personal choice and were empowered to venture down unexpected pathways in the classic series of "Choose Your Own Adventure" books prominent during the ‘80s and ‘90s.

One such multiple-storyline title published in 1980 was author R.A. Montgomery’s "Space and Beyond," which chronicled the journey of... well, you, but a version of you that was born on a spaceship traveling between galaxies and raised by parents from two different planets.

This summer, Oni Press will release a new graphic novel adaptation of "Choose Your Own Adventure: Space and Beyond" on Aug. 4, 2026, and we have an exclusive 11-page preview for you!

Written by Jeremy Lambert ("The Night Mother," "Dungeons & Dragons") with artwork provided by Dani Bolinho, ("Choose Your Own Adventure: Forecast From Stonehenge"), "Space and Beyond" brings back the magic of discovery as the creative team has crafted a new iteration of an old favorite with over 44 different possible endings fans can select from to become the hero of their own odyssey.

"You will journey through planets and galaxies and into the unknown universe," states the synopsis.

"Put on your spacesuit and hurtle through space and time to choose the best adventure for you! First, you'll choose the planet of your birth. Does Kenda or Croyd suit you? When you encounter a group of aliens, will you believe them to be friend or foe? Will you face the dangers of a black hole? What will you do when you journey back in time and see dinosaurs up close? Will you bring peace to troubled planets? It's all up to you, so be careful! The choices you make could bring you home or launch you even farther into the infinite depths of the vast universe."

In this extended sneak peek in the gallery above, the vivid interior illustrations provide an enhanced narrative experience where you and a three-eyed alien companion bop around the galaxy in a space pod. You'll avoid a mysterious nebula, seek help from the mother ship, take evasive action against the intense gravitational pull of a black hole, and try not to skip too close to a glaring sun where you might be transformed into energy particles.

Choices have consequences, in art and in life!

With a main cover by Dani Bolinho and colors from Valentina Pinto, "Choose Your Own Adventure: Space and Beyond" arrives courtesy of Oni Press on Aug. 4, 2026.

The enviable creative achievements of video game designer, ace illustrator, and Hollywood concept artist Ben Mauro could fill an entire library, with a sterling resume that includes credits on projects such as "Halo: Infinite," "Call of Duty," "The Predator," and Neill Blomkamp's "Elysium."

Oh, and did we mention he also spent five years down in New Zealand with director Peter Jackson working on costume design, weaponry, creatures, and props for "The Hobbit Trilogy?"

But aside from these accolades, Huxley is aiming to make his new sci-fi graphic novel series, "Huxley" (Thames & Hudson, 2025), into the next transmedia sensation in the vein of "Star Wars," "Dune," "Warhammer 40K," or "Foundation." Mauro remains dedicated to making it happen with this past December's "Huxley: The Oracle," the second entry in his interplanetary saga adorned with lavish illustrations delivering cinematic storytelling and the visual flair seen in AAA video games.

"A lot of this began when I was working in production on films and games," Mauro tells Space.

"It's sort of like an arms race of you've got to be more realistic, got to be faster, so you learn every new technique on the job. It felt like I was getting further away from the reason I made art which was drawing and painting from scratch."

The book serves as a narrative prequel to Mauro's post-apocalyptic science fiction universe occurring on the planet FURY-7, where "ancient machines, rogue AI empires, and human survivors converge in a mythic struggle." The ambitious project encompasses superb illustration, narrative fiction, and the inevitable expansion into animation, games, toys, and collectibles.

"Huxley: The Oracle" showcases over 100 illustrations from distinguished collaborators like Syama Pedersen (director of "Warhammer 40K: Astartes"), Steve Chinhsuan Wang ("Gears of War 5"), Nikolas Gekko ("Halo Infinite," "Destiny 2"), and striking artwork from Mauro himself.

"'Huxley' started as, 'Okay I’ll do whatever I've got to do at the job, but I’ll come home and make what I feel is art or things that made me really happy.'" explains Mauro. "The original drawing of Huxley planted the seed of what is this character, what world does he live in, what’s his story? And it slowly grew from that over a ten-year period before the first book was finished."

'The Oracle' marks a major milestone in the continued expansion of the 'Huxley' universe, states the official synopsis. “Set decades before the original Huxley timeline, 'The Oracle' follows Max, an elite Ronin soldier navigating a world ruled by the Oracle Empire during the height of its power. As the AI Wars escalate across the desert planet, Max uncovers a conspiracy that threatens to fracture the very foundations of his world."

"I felt more comfortable after working on 'Elysium' because that was the first time we did something from start to finish," he adds. "We got really good at telling stories over a lot of years doing it for directors. A graphic novel is almost like directing on paper, so I’d block out one-to-five pages. A lot of it would just be thumbnails and I would make sure my eye is flowing from the panels."

Having been immersed in the video game industry for the past two decades, one tends to gather some pretty talented colleagues, and Mauro has enlisted some of the finest in their field to help promote "Huxley" with the release of brilliant cinematic teasers, story previews, and trailers online.

"Since I came from more of a film background, I was looking at European graphic novels like 'Metabarons' and Mœbius and 'Heavy Metal' kind of stuff. I was taking that in and adding a little more cinematic storytelling. Artistically it was very much Japanese and French influences. Also 'Akira,' 'Ghost in the Shell,' and Miyazaki movies like 'Nausicaä' and 'Princess Mononoke.' Then filtered through a kid growing up on Ridley Scott and James Cameron action movies. 'Terminators' and 'Mad Maxs' and 'The Matrix' and 'Alien.' It's a big melting pot of all that. I'm sure 'Star Wars' is in there and 'Dune' is there too."

Whether it scores a live-action adaptation or a deluxe animated iteration, Mauro has already done much of the heavy lifting for producers and studios, and with a third book on the way, "Huxley" is ready to roll!

"We're definitely getting into adaptations and exploring different things in games and animation to find what might be the most interesting first big product people can enjoy," he notes. "I’m pushing on all those fronts. It's really just finding the right partners and the right people. It's exciting to see things come to life and see it grow and expand. It just makes me happy every day."

"Huxley" and "Huxley: The Oracle" are available now in both standard softcover and deluxe hardcover editions.

Love Project Hail Mary? We can't blame you. Andy Weir's sci-fi novel, which begins with an astronaut waking up aboard an apparently abandoned spaceship, is absolutely riveting. In fact, we spoke with Andy Weir to talk about the astrobiology behind the latest book-adapted motion picture.

Now the movie, starring Ryan Gosling, is on course to clean up at the box office, echoing the success of The Martian, another movie based on Weir's work. On top of that, another book, Artemis, has already been optioned as a film.

All of that might have you wondering, which other Weir works are worth investigating? And where can you go to find them?

We've rounded up all the author's books below, including a trio of Audible audiobooks. The last two are not strictly sci-fi, but if you're hooked on Weir, they're well worth investigating. And for a peek inside the author's mind, read our interview about Andy Weir's thoughts on alien life.

Published in January by Random House Worlds, "Detour" is the new mystery sci-fi novel from veteran TV writer Jeff Rake ("Manifest") and bestselling author Rob Hart ("The Warehouse")

Laced with mind-warping essences of "The Twilight Zone" and "Lost," this eerie outer space adventure is a perfect read for fans of books like Andy Weir's "Project Hail Mary", as a spaceship crew returns from Saturn's blue-green moon of Titan to discover that the Earththe left behind has become a very different place.

We connected with Rake and Hart to dip into the origins of their twisted thriller and how this fortuitous creative partnership formed to produce one of the year's most compelling reads. Check out the interview below, then stay tuned for the short exclusive excerpt from "Detour" at the end.

"I've been writing TV for about 25 years and was brainstorming high-concept ideas that could be a potential sci-fi show,” Rake tells Space.

"I was coming off 'Manifest,' a show I created that started on NBC and ended up on Netflix. That show wrapped up three years ago, and I was asking myself what's next. I landed some broad strokes for 'Detour' and went in to talk to my agent.

"We pitched it out, and one of the agents said it felt sort of novelistic and asked what I thought about developing it as a book, then down the line, maybe adapting it for television. That was incredibly intimidating to me. I didn't know how to write a book, so they ended up finding me a partner and sent me a bunch of books to read. I stopped reading after I got to Rob Hart's 'The Warehouse.'"

Being familiar with Rake's "Manifest" series, Hart absorbed the initial "Detour" pitch and immediately knew he had to be the one to work on it.

"The thing that Jeff is so good at, and the thing I love so much, is when you take a really big-swing, crazy sci-fi idea and then humanize it with really strong characters," says Hart.

"But obviously the big question was were we going to be able to work together. I have plenty of talented friends who I'd never work with in a million years because I want to continue those friendships. I was emboldened by the fact that Jeff is a TV guy and TV is a very collaborative medium. We hopped on a Zoom and just hit it off, and we were on the same wavelength. I started riffing and hitting him with ideas for things we could do with the story, and he said, 'This sounds awesome, let's do it.' From there, it was pretty much off to the races."

Rake was particularly interested in coming up with another idea similar to "Manifest," one that combined science fiction and grounded family drama, something centered around parents and children and all the things you might consider when talking about emotions and families.

"This is near future, like 2030," Hart adds. "I will say that if Neil deGrasse Tyson read this book, he would not be thrilled. I definitely took liberties in terms of the technology, but it's a new kind of ion engine that's roughly based on technologies we're looking at now that would cut down the trip drastically. It was to drop a satellite in orbit around Titan to collect data about potential colonization."

As to why they chose Titan as the crew's destination?

"I've always been a geek about the fact that Mars kind of sucks in terms of colonizing for a bevy of reasons," declares Rake. "Whereas Titan is more reasonable for establishing a colony. It was fun to play in that space of like, 'Everybody always does Mars, let's do something different.'"

Taking on the first book in a space odyssey series no doubt required a generous commitment of research time, looking into human spaceflight, astrophysics, and orbital mechanics to lend an air of authenticity to the project. Fortunately for Rake, he got paired with a true research nerd.

"I'm a big fan of space travel stuff and recently rewatched 'Interstellar,'" admits Hart. "They literally made new discoveries about black holes based on the research and special effects that movie did."

"I didn't necessarily do what Andy Weir does, where all the science in his book checks out; that's insane. But I've got enough of a general understanding of the importance of artificial gravity in maintaining bone density for an astronaut while they’re in space [...] I always live by this adage that things don't need to be 100% correct, but they do have to be believable within the confines of the story."

Reaching Titan is no mean feat, and getting the story off the ground required a plausible method of traveling to Saturn's moon and back. "The thing that I was most excited about is I got to design a ship for deeper travel in our solar system," explains Hart.

"I envisioned it as having turning wheels to create artificial gravity, and we hired an artist to do a rendering of the ship to put into the book, and that made me so unbelievably happy. I knew right off the bat I wanted there to be a diagram of the spaceship in the book."

"Detour" is available via bookstores and online retailers now. You can read an exclusive excerpt below!

"THE CASE FOR TITAN" BY PADMA SINGH

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

For decades, humanity has looked to Mars as our next stop in the solar system. Over the last several years, technology in ion propulsion drives has increased exponentially, shortening a potential trip from years to months. As such, politicians and the general public alike have been asking: when will we finally step foot on the Red Planet, made famous in these circles by scientists like Carl Sagan and writers like Ray Bradbury and Andy Weir?

But as the scientific community is widely aware, Mars is an inhospitable, barren desert. While we know the planet has ice, and therefore water, the effort of accessing that resource remains monumental. Not to mention the planet’s thin atmosphere, which would not protect humanity from cosmic radiation.

To survive, humans would need to wear shielded, pressurized suits. And to thrive, we would have to spend billions just on mining equipment, to dig up resources and construct underground habitats. We’re looking in the wrong place. We should instead be focusing about 400 million miles past Mars, to Saturn’s moon, Titan.

Titan is roughly half the size of Earth, and it’s so far out that a year on Titan would be roughly 29 years on Earth. But it has a nitrogen-rich atmosphere, 50 percent thicker than Earth’s. The surface may seem inhospitable: covered in ice as hard as granite and sand dunes made of plastics, with lakes of ethane and methane. The atmosphere is hazy, limiting visibility, and the amount of sunlight that reaches the surface is much smaller, creating a perpetual orange twilight.

But humans wouldn’t need pressurized suits; they’d only need temperature-controlled suits to combat the freezing temperatures. The atmosphere would provide ample protection from cosmic rays, meaning habitats could be built on the surface. Those plastic dunes could be used to construct surface-level habitats, and the ethane and methane lakes could power them. Because of the weaker gravity, a rocket launching from the surface of Titan would take far less fuel than it does on Earth—and fuel is already in ample supply there.

In order to settle a new world, we need accessible resources, and we need to protect the first humans to take that step. We can do both of those things on Titan. I believe, over time, smaller settlements can be linked together, and in the space of a few decades, we could have a thriving colony living and flourishing on Titan’s surface. Thanks to Horizons’ newly-developed ion thrust engines and Starblazer, the ship John Ward has been constructing in low-Earth orbit, we could be there in a year—as compared to seven under previously available technology.

In the following paper, I will make the case that Titan, not Mars, should be humanity’s focus as we look beyond Earth…

Reprinted from "Detour" by Jeff Rake and Rob Hart.

New York Times bestselling author Daniel Kraus, whose popular "Whalefall" novel was adapted into an upcoming feature film by Ron Howard's Imagine Entertainment, sets his creative compass for an interstellar odyssey to a mysterious planet in his first entry into science fiction books with "The Sixth Nik". We chatted to Kraus about the upcoming novel, and he even gave us an exclusive excerpt to share before its June 26, 2026, arrival.

Kraus co-wrote the "Trollhunters" book with director Guillermo del Toro, which was transformed into the hit Netflix animated series, as well as the novelization of del Toro's Academy Award-winning sci-fi horror romance film, "The Shape of Water." "The Sixth Nik" promises to be an extraordinary journey into the darker depths of the genre when it appears later this summer.

"The Sixth Nik" is set aboard The Sickness, a ship "woven from biomatter and capable of reacting to every need of its human crew". It follows the story of Sisilla, a brain-enhanced, nine-year-old cultist who has boarded The Sickness to investigate a plague-riddled planet that has gone rogue.

Per Kraus, "The Sixth Nik" blossomed in his brain via a bizarre manner, as a robotic take on the 1962 thriller "What Ever Happened To Baby Jane?"

"The finished novel bears no resemblance to that idea -- except maybe a single chapter near the book's middle -- and that's ultimately what made the project so exciting for me," he tells Space.com.

"It grew almost fungally around that notion in both directions, larger and larger, until it was a monster I could barely control. I usually work with outlines, but "The Sixth's outline was hilariously short, especially given the complexity of the story."

Kraus admits to writing in a variety of genres, and his influences almost never come from those arenas. For "The Sixth Nik," inspirations included artworks such as Ariel Dorfman's "Death and the Maiden," John Ford's "The Searchers," and the previously mentioned "What Ever Happened To Baby Jane?"

"Not to put too fine a point on it, but what spurred the story's growth more than anything else was the lead-up to the 2022 decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and the increasing attacks on the lives of trans people," he adds.

"There's no other sensible way to look at these movements except to say the American government is trying to control the physical bodies of flesh-and-blood people. It's an extremely short path between these efforts and herding humans into concentration camps. Believe me, I don't begin a novel with a quote from Josef Mengele lightly."

Check out this exclusive excerpt from Daniel Kraus' "The Sixth Nik":

They called it The Sickness.

It was docked at Anchor 102. To the starboard side, at Anchor 101,

was the black titanium semicircle of a four-deck UN+ army gunship,

studded with pulse cannons and plated in armadillo-like armor. To the

port side, at Anchor 103, was a yellow D-class yacht, symmetrical down

to the six grav rafts nestled along either side.

Between these exemplars of balletic grace, The Sickness looked like

a chunk of an Oort Behemoth that had fallen off, caught onto the side

of Tepper Base, and rotted. If The Dermis resembled human skin, The

Spine a backbone, and The Pelvis intestines, The Sickness, too, was unmistakable,

a veined, globular mass of metastatic tissue.

It looked like a tumor.

I stared through the Anchor 102 window and practiced breathing

techniques while beset by waves of fear and disgust. In total mass, The

Sickness scarcely exceeded one of Earth’s wide-body airliners, if that airliner

was chewed into a bolus, dipped in blood, and left to fester in an

equatorial heat. Its very presence seemed to affect the adjacent gunship

and yacht. The shining hulls of each ship grayed as if fighting a losing

battle against a virulent contagion.

I could but guess at how the exterior features of a typical spacecraft

had been translated to this bioprinted abomination. A cauliflower of

purple boils might house the cockpit. The flabby sack of veined flesh

swaying testicularly from the bottom of the ship could be the cargo

hold. Where I expected an air lock was a set of lippy fibromas, plump

and glossy, with retractable ramps like cancerous tongues. At the top of

the ship wobbled a giant bubble of translucent pink flesh, lidded and

extruded like an eyeball sarcoma, probably to facilitate sunlight toward

a hydroponic garden. A pox of grapelike bulges off the ship’s side looked

swollen with pus, but for all I knew held living quarters. Barely in view

was a hemorrhoidal sphincter that, with every relaxation, revealed an

eggy lump like a prostate tumor—the ship’s aerotonal room, I suspected.

The trigov assembly behind me cheered. But distaste was evident in

their pained grins, and their eyes betrayed fresh apprehension of me.

Plasmagraphs did not make mistakes. The Sickness was everything its

crew needed it to be. The question became, What kind of crew could

have inspired a ship like this? What kind of Niffakoq?

I was to have no escort inside The Sickness, no official tour. The point

of a plasmagraphic ship, after all, was that it required no introduction—

in a very real sense, I had helped design it. I took a deep, even breath.

My full-body jumper, the simplest, most monkish wear I could find on

Tepper, whispered along my body, reassuring me I had trained nine

years for this Chore—a Chore I had been briefed upon for hours the

day before, and which frankly enthralled me.

I entered the boarding bridge alone. Applause vibrated the girders.

But it died out while I could still hear it and was rapidly replaced by the

footfalls of people, even those I had nikked as modded for self-control,

who could not wait to get the plasmagraphed ship out of their sight.

Feeling unruly? An official prequel novel to 2024's "Star Wars Outlaws" is coming next month entitled "Star Wars Outlaws: Low Red Moon." Massive Entertainment and Ubisoft's third-person, open-world sci-fi adventure game, "Star Wars Outlaws," launched back on Aug. 30, 2024, for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.

Gamers were introduced to the rogue scoundrel named Kay Vess and her BX-Commando droid partner as they prepared for one of the "biggest heists the Outer Rim has ever seen." The video game was set sometime between the events of "Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back" and "Star Wars: Return of the Jedi."

Now, an engaging backstory for "Star Wars Outlaws" named "Star Wars Outlaws: Low Red Moon" by author Mike Chen ("Star Wars: Brotherhood") is being published by Random House Worlds Feb. 3, 2026, to fill out the darker corners of the "Star Wars" Universe. The 384-page hardcover focuses on the game's main antagonist, crime lord Jaylen Vrax, and his intimidating assassin droid ND-5.

Here's the official synopsis:

"Jaylen Barsha, heir to his family’s immense power and wealth, had his life charted out for him neatly and meticulously by his parents, even though he suspected his neglected half-brother Sliro would be a better fit for the bright corporate future his parents envisioned. Then the Empire stripped it all away on trumped-up charges of conspiracy against his family. Before he can reach Sliro for help redeeming the Barsha name, a battle droid arrives at the family compound with a mission to kill every last member of the Barsha clan. Jaylen manages to fend off the attack as the sole survivor, but realizes the droid, who he reprograms, is his only chance to stay alive. But he can no longer be Jaylen Barsha—he’ll have to live now as Jaylen Vrax.

"Former Separatist battle droid ND-5 knows he should be scrap metal, all things considered. He was a proficient contributor to the Separatist cause, but what is a soldier without a war?

"With the threat against the Barsha clan still shrouded in mystery, the pair has no choice but to leverage the chaos and disappear. They find sanctuary in the anonymity of the underworld, building their reputation among scoundrels, bounty hunters, and crime syndicates. But when their latest score gives the first real clue in years to who sent ND-5 after Jaylen’s family, their biggest opportunity presents a new kind of risk. Do they give up this chance at the wealth and power Jaylen was denied to pursue answers? Or will ambition and the weight of the past shatter their unlikely partnership?"

"Star Wars Outlaws: Low Red Moon" arrives on Feb. 3, 2026.

Bestselling and award-winning author Martha Wells is taking everyone's favorite robot back into the fire in her upcoming book "Platform Decay," which comes out on May 5, 2026.

The book begins with a familiar spark, a rescue, but Wells wanted to push the setting into something stronger and tougher to move through, eventually coming up with another unique sci-fi setting that Murderbot and its friends can navigate while encountering friends, foes and more eye contact. But beneath the action, Wells is still writing to the heart of what makes Murderbot resonate: the desire to help, the limits of what to risk and the lingering weight of what the character has experienced. "Murderbot has been described as a comfort read," Wells told Space.com, because you get to watch someone "be able to take action in situations where you would really like to."

To get a better idea of what Murderbot fans can expect, Space.com sat down with Wells to dive into the next installment of the series, which Wells summed up with a line that's equal parts ominous and hilarious: "It's like the family road trip from hell on Ringworld."

You can preorder a copy of 'Platform Decay' here.

Q: When did the idea of 'Platform Decay' first appear to you?

MW: "I had been wanting to do a story of Murderbot rescuing someone from a corporate station. And I know we've done that before. And I was playing with the idea a lot. And then I also thought about doing something on a torus, a planetary torus because I always try to make the setting a little bit different. That led into the idea of: what if this torus is extremely difficult to navigate, given how large this thing is? It's got to be more difficult to navigate than a planet.

And [that] also [got] into my own frustrations with not having a lot of mass transit in the U.S. and in especially where I live, and just how difficult it can be to navigate that kind of situation. I'd also wanted to have Murderbot interact more with Mensah's family. So this was a good way to do that."

Q: How are the stakes different this time, and what makes it feel fresh?

MW: "Well, one of the things that [Platform Decay] gets into is the conflict of who do you save? Because Murderbot's mission is to rescue these specific people, but to do that, it has to decide how much to risk to rescue other people in the same situation.

I feel that's becoming a much more personal dilemma for all of us just thinking about [the events happening in] Minnesota and how much can you risk, as you have to protect your own family and yourself. But you see people you want to help. Murderbot is always a great character to be able to do things that we can't do to make that happen."

Q: You've written children characters briefly before in previous 'Murderbot' books. How do you keep them from being plot devices?

MW: "I think all characters can fall into that same trap. So you have to think about things from that person's perspective. That's basically it. I don't think specifically about them being children so much as just people in this situation, and especially people that are not completely helpless, but, there's just not very much they can do to help."

Q: Your books have such a sharp, funny voice. Does that come naturally?

MW: "It comes naturally for me and as my sense of humor is sort of bitter and sarcastic. The worse things are going, the more bitter and sarcastic my humor sometimes gets. So when I first started writing Murderbot in 2016, I needed to express my anger and I needed to express how horrible everything seemed to be going and, and continues to get. The bitter humor has been a part of that. And I think that's how a lot of people deal with these things.

And I think especially with our popular culture, there's almost an emphasis on that. I've been watching 'The Pitt' lately, and it's almost like a comfort show, because you get to see people come in with horrible injuries and they're just like 'oh, we can fix this.' You see people trying to help as much as they can, even when they don't manage to, when they fail, it still feels encouraging and, and heartening in a lot of ways. That's what I wanted to do with Murderbot."

Q: Has the Apple TV show changed anything about how you write Murderbot's voice on the page?

MW: "It has a little bit. I hear some of the character's voices now in the actor's voice. I think it does help me visualize things, and in some ways the books are different, but there's so much continuity there. They did come up with so many things for the show that I thought were just fabulous, like the embroidery on the … costumes for the Preservation group. The costume designers thought that Arada would get bored on the wormhole trip and so she would embroider ...That's the kind of thing where you have a lot of people thinking about something. The synergy is so incredible."

Q: Without any spoilers, describe 'Platform Decay' in three-ish words

MW: "It's like the family road trip from hell …The longer version of that is the family road trip from hell on Ringworld"

Q: Is there something you wished interviewers asked more about?

MW: "One of the things that used to annoy me the most when the books first started to come out is people who were kind of ignoring the slavery aspect, because it is basically a science fiction slave narrative."

Q: Did you ever think the series would get this big?

MW: "Oh no. When I did the first novella, it originally was just going to be a standalone, and then when it was bought by Tor.com, they asked for a second novella. I had absolutely no idea the novellas were going to take off like this."

Science fiction has always been more than just tales of aliens and spaceship. It's a genre that dares to ask "what if?" and explores the boundaries of technology, society, and human nature.

Over the decades, a select group of authors and stories have risen above the rest, earning prestigious accolades like the Hugo, Nebula, Locus, and Arthur C. Clarke Awards.

This quiz is your chance to dive into the literary side of sci-fi greatness. You'll encounter questions about iconic novels that reshaped the landscape, short stories that packed a universe into a few pages, and the brilliant minds behind them, from golden age pioneers to contemporary visionaries.

Whether it's Ursula K. Le Guin's philosophical depth, Octavia Butler's bold social commentary, or Ted Chiang's elegant precision, these works have left a lasting mark on speculative fiction.

See how well you score below!

Matthew Medney, former Heavy Metal magazine CEO and current founder of the invigorating new sci-fi fantasy publishing house Gungnir Books, is embarking on a futuristic fable next year with "Existence Equation," a provocative speculative fiction novel that poses topical questions regarding artificial intelligence, cybernetics, immortality, and our quest to conquer the stars.

Medney ("Beyond Kuiper") and co-author Don Macnab-Stark have crafted an intelligent examination of the human condition in the 23rd century as it surges into an existential era of decision, and we’ve got an exclusive excerpt and book trailer premiere that reveal the project's universal appeal.

There's even a trailer for it. I know, since when does a book get a trailer? Check it out above.

It’s the saga of a teenager in the year 2293 named Liam Kerr who must make the life-altering decision to traverse the heavens as an emotionless android hybrid like his space racing idol, Larkin Downey, or live out his natural biological years on Earth until they expire at the age of 60.

Now strap in for our exclusive chapter excerpt from Gungnir Books' "Existence Equation," which lands in bookstores and online retailers on May 5, 2026.

Existence Equation - Exclusive excerpt

“It's a good night for speed racing.”

Larkin Downey looked up at the sky. Streaks of iridescent color blazed a trail from horizon to horizon. The green, purple, and orange hues then softly began to fade into the darkening night sky.

Larkin grunted and said nothing. The colors shimmered on his slick metal limbs.

“C'mon. Clear skies, almost no wind, and just enough rain earlier to damp down the dust. What's not to like about that?”

Ricard stared at Larkin’s smooth android face, looking for a reaction, anything to reveal his thoughts, but Larkin’s expression never varied; there was nothing to betray what he might be thinking, let alone feeling. He simply stared out into the desert, visualizing and recalling the course, running the race in his mind for the fiftieth time.

Ricard, a loose-limbed bipedal with nimble fingers and a slim body, tapped the speed racer with a wrench. “Whatever. She’s ready to go when you are.”

The sound of revving engines was slowly building up around them; the smell of unburned fuel hung heavy in the air. Ricard shook his head in irritation. “So, you gonna check her out, or you gonna stand there looking cool and inscrutable all frecking day?”

Larkin finally moved, turning his head and scanning Ricard with his cold blue eyes. “Don’t you ever stop talking?”

Ricard gave a nervous laugh. “You know me, man, I always get nervous before a race.” He grinned. “I remember when you used to look forward to these things, but these days, even if you had a pulse I bet it would be as slow and steady as a deep space hibernation pod.”

Again, Larkin gave a non-committal grunt.

“Really? Don’t you feel the buzz?”

Larkin placed a hand on the fuselage of his speed racer, a slick silver and blue bullet that Ricard had built from scratch. “It’s running a bit rough.”

Ricard grinned. “Nah, that’s not rough you’re feeling, my man, that’s raw, latent power just waiting to be unleashed.”

Larkin looked at Ricard for the first time. “You did it? You fixed the feedback relay?”

Ricard couldn’t keep the smile off his face. He leaned into the cockpit and pointed at a small black switch. “Just toggle that and you’ll instantly get a burn— 20 percent extra power—for around ten seconds.”

“How many shots do I get out of it?”

“Three. But if you run it too long, you’ll burn the whole damn rig out and come grinding to a halt.”

Larkin nodded. “Got it. Ten seconds. Twenty percent. Three times.” The rumble and growl of the other racers’ engines was growing louder by the minute.

Larkin looked around the pits, at the melee of machines, racers, and mechanics, then back at Ricard. “Everyone’s heading towards the start line.”

“Yeah, time to roll,” agreed Ricard. “Oh, and one other thing. I rigged the relay so that when you activate it, there’ll be a quick blast of smoke from your tailpipes. It’s enough to make anyone in your wake have to slow down for a second, but you can claim ignorance and blame it on your dodgy mechanic.”

Larkin’s eyes gleamed a little brighter for a moment, the closest he came to showing any emotion. “Underhanded and ingenious. I like it.”

Ricard gave a mock bow, his long arms sweeping across the ground. “Words that should be inscribed on my epitaph.”

“Indeed.”

With an agile leap, Larkin jumped into the cockpit. He scanned the instruments.

Ricard leaned his head into the cockpit. “All good?”

Larkin nodded. “All good. See you at the finish.”

“Be careful,” Ricard reminded him. “You’ve got a target on your back after some of the stunts you've pulled lately.”

Larkin gave him his deadpan look. “When aren't I careful?”

Ricard stepped back. “Always?”

As Ricard straightened up, Larkin gently eased the throttle forward, and the racer glided towards the starting line. Ricard watched him all the way out of the hangar, wiping his hands on a greasy rag. “Good luck…” he said softly.

The grid was already starting to fill up with machines of all shapes, sizes, colors, and designs. Some were as sleek as a stiletto, while others had all the brutal subtlety of a thirty-pound sledgehammer. They all had one thing in common: they were designed to go fearsomely fast.

The course was a mix of open desert, narrow box canyons, high plateaus and even a few tunnels. This meant that no one design could dominate every race. Each machine had its strengths and weaknesses, meaning that the skill and adaptivity of the driver determined who crossed the finish line first.

Larkin found his place on the grid, then throttled back. He usually started nearer the front, but he’d had a so-so qualifying run, so he was in the third row. Not only had his ailerons been jamming, which slowed him down through the canyons, but he had found himself strangely distracted. His mind was filled with the sort of soul-searching thoughts that normally only visited him late at night when he was alone and his brain was freewheeling. At such times, he recalled his life on Earth, his life before he became an android. Even now, he found them returning to him—the shades of self-doubt and questions about his very existence. Why was he putting his life on the line yet again when the universe still held so many wonders, so much mystery?

“If you had a skin face, I’d say you looked like shit, Downey.”

Larkin turned to his left and stared into the blank insect eyes of his great rival, Sedulous. “You’re a fine one to talk.”

Sedulous made a loud cawing noise that Larkin had learned was his version of laughter. “Is it fear you are feeling?” croaked Sedulous. “Or are you just anticipating the embarrassment you will feel when I beat you. Again.”

In a rivalry going back several years, neither Larkin nor Sedulous had ever had the upper hand for long—until recently. Sedulous had won their last three encounters, the longest winning streak either of them had ever enjoyed, and the pain of defeat had registered even in Larkin’s emotional void.

"Winning isn’t everything." Larkin's voice was barely audible above the roar of engines.

Sedulous stared at him for a long moment, unreadable, then suddenly gave another loud, cawing laugh. “You’re right. It isn’t everything. It’s the only thing.” He turned to scan his instruments and made a minor adjustment. “I’ll wait for you at the finish line. Please don’t make me wait too long, I don't want to miss the medal ceremony.”

Larkin tried to come up with a witty riposte but came up empty. He glanced up at the starting gantry. The large digital clock was ticking down the final thirty seconds of its countdown. All around him, the other racers—forty in total—were running through their final checks, securing their goggles in place, and praying to whatever deity they thought might help them win or at least keep them alive.

Larkin slid his goggles down over his eyes. Although he was an android and impervious to the effects of wind on his eyes, speed racers spent most of the time gliding just a few feet off the ground, and as a consequence, would be awash with clouds of abrasive sand and grit from Kurin’s desert landscape.

As he glanced upwards, he was greeted by the strange experience of seeing his own image on the giant vid-screens, as the commentators introduced the racers to the baying crowds that filled the grandstand at the start/finish line.

Was Ricard actually right? Was he looking even more inscrutable than ever? Androids displayed few emotions at the best of times, but lately Larkin had been experiencing a growing feeling of ennui, needing increasing levels of stimulants—whether external chemical shots or internally generated hormones— to feel anything at all. The countdown clock was almost finished.

"Three, two, one…”

What happens when humanity finally builds a civilization on another planet, and immediately repeats its old mistakes? That question drives 'The Second World', the sharp, satirical debut from writer Jake Korell. Set against the rise of a breakaway Martian nation, the story follows Flip Buchanan, son of the colony’s most powerful leader, as he navigates two chaotic decades of scientific breakthroughs, political theater, and cultural growing pains on the Red Planet.

Korell grounds his humor in real near-future science. His Mars isn't a distant fantasy but a logical extension of the conversations happening right now in space exploration, from private-sector expansion to the ethics of off-world settlement. By keeping the technology plausible and the human behavior all too familiar, Korell creates a world that feels both futuristic and uncomfortably recognizable.

The result is a story that treats space exploration seriously while embracing the absurdity of human nature. Blending the scientific accessibility of Andy Weir with the satirical edge of Vonnegut, Korell imagines a Mars shaped as much by physics as by politics, ego, and ambition.

In our Q&A below, he discusses the science, the satire, and the real policy debates that inspired 'The Second World,' which is available in Feburary 2026.

Space: 'The Second World' uses Mars as both a literal and symbolic frontier. What drew you to Mars specifically, and how did you balance real space-science plausibility with satire and speculative fiction?

Korell: I've always loved anything related to outer space. It activates the farthest reaches of our imagination—the vastness, the weird physics, the unknown. The future has that same built-in sense of wonder, the same limitless possibilities. But in storytelling, if you push too far ahead or veer too far away from what we've actually observed in the universe, things can become abstract and less relatable. A near-future Mars felt like the perfect middle ground, especially since people are already making plans to colonize. It's a whole other planet, but still our next-door neighbor—relatively speaking. Building a world on the Red Planet gave me immense creative freedom while keeping everything tethered to our own experience...

My goal was to keep the world scientifically plausible, then bend it just enough to make it funny. Something that might sound absurd to us now, but would feel completely normal to the characters living in that reality.

Space.com: Your story imagines a newly sovereign Martian nation grappling with political identity, culture, and legacy. How did real conversations in space policy, colonization ethics, and planetary nationalism influence your worldbuilding?

Korell: Worldbuilding has always been my favorite part of the writing process, and I love taking real issues from our world and weaving them into a place that’s entirely invented. When you start looking at space policy and colonization ethics, you realize how unsettled everything still is. No one "owns" Mars or the Moon. Even on Earth, we have borders and land because we say so, and the authority only comes from the ability to enforce it. Things are more nuanced now, but that’s still the foundation everything rests on. And in early America, colonizers took land from Native peoples simply because they could.

My Mars colony quickly emerged as the perfect allegory for the thirteen colonies, and the void between planets just became a much, much bigger Atlantic Ocean. The pattern was familiar. In colonization, first come the explorers, then the investors, then the politicians. A SpaceX-like corporation will almost certainly reach Mars first—acting as both explorer and investor, in this case. And the eventual Martian independence movement will be more like a corporate revolution. A union strike in spacesuits. But it’s all the same pattern, just with different branding...

Space.com: The book spans decades of technological and societal evolution on Mars. What future tech, space-travel concepts, or colonization challenges did you feel were essential to ground the story in believable near-future science?

Korell: Twenty years is a long span to cover, and technology can change dramatically in that window. That's part of why I grounded the story more in the characters than the gadgets. Human behavior is the one constant. If the people feel real, the future around them can stretch a little without breaking.

I also didn't want to bury the story under pages of scientific exposition. It’s harder to land a joke between equations and formulas. The future tech used in the story is based on ideas already theorized in scientific and sci-fi circles: holograms, space elevators, VR, alien contact, cloning, even faster-than-light travel through a spacetime distortion bubble. I certainly bent some rules and twisted others, but the foundation is always something plausible within speculative science.

Throughout the book, I poke fun at certain technologies, but I'm really satirizing the sci-fi storytelling tropes more than the science itself. The first Mars colony certainly won't be a giant glass-dome biosphere, but it’s such a classic visual that it carries a kind of cultural shorthand. Using these sorts of things allows the reader to orient themselves quickly so the satire and story can take center stage.

Space.com: Many sci-fi works treat Mars as humanity's escape hatch — a fresh start. In 'The Second World', we bring our flaws with us. What do you think is the most realistic obstacle preventing humanity from building a better world in space?

Human nature—specifically greed—is the biggest obstacle. We can take humans off Earth, but we're still bringing our instincts, anxieties, and ambitions with us. You can't code that out of a species.

But my view isn't totally pessimistic. If you look at history, we've improved ourselves quite a bit, little by little. Focusing specifically on the United States, putting politics aside, most of us can agree that the Founding Fathers creating a democracy was a major step up from living under a monarchy. And we've been refining and adjusting ever since. Mistakes were made, and continue to be made. It’s not perfect. And most likely, no futuristic space society will be either. But we're improving.

Progress requires a marketplace of ideas. And for that to exist, people can't all be cut from the same cloth. Diversity of thought brings innovation… along with bad actors, dumb ideas, and the occasional catastrophic oopsie. You get the full spectrum. You have to take the good with the bad.

The "bad" in that equation is almost always greed. If the incentives in space aren't aligned with building a better world, if profit outweighs purpose, we won't suddenly become enlightened just because we’re on a new planet. Whether it's Earth, Mars, or some asteroid we're mining, the challenge is the same: if the money doesn't point us toward a utopia in space, it's not going to happen.

Space.com: Your influences range from grounded sci-fi voices like Andy Weir to more absurdist storytellers. How do you approach blending scientific realism, speculative imagination, and humor while still respecting the seriousness of space exploration?

...I fully believe that a space settlement is inevitable. Humans have always been explorers, searching for better places, better materials, better systems—in other words, progress. Throughout history, people have fought progress, but they always lose. The people who invested in horse-drawn carriages weren't thrilled about automobiles, but cars weren't going to disappear just to protect the carriage-industrial complex. There was a much more lucrative automobile-industrial complex to consider. In the same way, settling Mars isn't hypothetical. It's in motion. People are actively working toward it right now. And once we settle Mars, we'll look to the moons of Jupiter or Saturn. After that, we'll start eyeing planets outside our solar system. It’s just a matter of time horizon.

You can follow Jake Korell's work on TikTok or Instagram.

NASA's 10 crewed Project Gemini flights, which launched in 1965 and 1966, were instrumental in delivering the knowledge and testing that would lead to landing astronauts on the moon in July 1969 during the Apollo 11 mission.

Often overlooked as the middle child of the American space program in that turbulent decade, Project Gemini provided astronauts, scientists and engineers vital information for the development of more ambitious human spaceflight efforts.

"Gemini: Stepping Stone to the Moon, the Untold Story" (St. Martin's Press, 2025) is an absorbing new release arriving on Nov. 11 written by noted space historian, journalist and New York Times bestselling author Jeffrey Kluger ("Apollo 8," "Holdout").

It offers up the riveting tale of the valiant souls both high aloft and on the ground whose unyielding efforts made possible the groundbreaking data that allowed for six crewed lunar excursions. Kluger also co-authored the 1994 book "Lost Moon: The Perilous Voyage of Apollo 13" with famed NASA astronaut Jim Lovell, which was adapted into director Ron Howard’s film "Apollo 13."

Here within Kluger's engrossing prose, the New York City-based author paints a vivid portrait of Gemini's endeavors, from its harrowing inception to its triumphant end, with exacting detail.

"I had long thought that a book on Gemini was sort of owed to the world," Kluger told Space.com. "That sounds a little grandiose to say that I'm giving the world a gift; I don't pretend I'm doing that. But there's nobody who addressed and wrote about and explored the Mercury program better and more compellingly than Tom Wolfe. I don't know if there’s ever going to be another book about the Mercury program, because how do you touch 'The Right Stuff?'

"Similarly, I and Andy Chaikin and a number of others, including a lot of astronauts, have written extensively about the Apollo program. But the Gemini program was very much the middle sibling of the space program. It wasn’t the first time we went into space. It wasn't when we went to the moon. People sort of forgot about Gemini. It was the middle seat on an airliner."

Kluger reminds us that Gemini was a program in which we learned to walk in space, rendezvous and dock in space, learned to fly long-duration missions in space, and learned to coordinate with other crewed spacecraft, on the Gemini 6 and Gemini 7 missions.

"There was drama, there was accomplishment, there was death, there was near death, there was peril. Gemini 8's spinout almost took the lives of Dave Scott and Neil Armstrong," Kluger said. "The Gemini 9 spacewalk could have taken the life of Gene Cernan. Charles Bassett and Elliot See did die when their plane crashed into the McDonnell Aviation headquarters in early 1966. And that story hadn’t been told. I felt like it was time to give the Gemini program its due. It was an opportunity not to be missed. It was unprotected turf, and I decided to claim it."

The Gemini launches were filled with monumental firsts, and Kluger's careful research into the topic exposed harsh truths about just how crucial and dangerous these NASA orbital missions were.

"Those monumental firsts are historically well recorded. Alexei Leonov became the first human being to walk in space, shortly before Gemini 4 flew. But when Gemini 4 did fly, Ed White became the first American to walk in space," Kluger said.

"The Soviets launched a couple of missions with two spacecraft at a time and overstated their accomplishment in calling it 'rendezvous.' In fact, these ships simply happened to be up in orbit at the same time and were separated by many kilometers. The mission included none of the delicate navigational dance required to perform rendezvous because they didn’t have the thruster capability, they didn’t have the computer capability and they didn’t have the piloting capability. Gemini 6 and Gemini 7 proved that one spacecraft could track another one in orbit and move within inches.

"Then, by Gemini 8, they actually did touch and dock with an Agena target vehicle. That was a huge milestone in getting to the moon, because we have the lunar orbit rendezvous technique in which the command module and service module had to dock and separate and re-dock in lunar orbit."

Long-duration missions were also completed for the first time during Gemini. Gemini 5 was an eight-day mission. Six days in, that flight broke the record for duration in space that the Soviets had held.

"Then Gemini 7 blew the doors off of Gemini 5 when Jim Lovell and Frank Borman stayed up for 14 days," Kluger shares. "Those were some big milestones, both in the American space program and space exploration in general. Gemini 11 also broke an altitude record using the Agena engine to climb to 856 miles [1,378 kilometers], an Earth orbit record that stood until 2024 when the Polaris Dawn mission with Jared Isaacman at the helm went up and broke that record."

Kluger hopes that readers of his comprehensive new Gemini book take away the sense of just how intrepid these astronauts were, and what an epic achievement their missions turned out to be. So many unknowns became knowns, done in very short order by these true American heroes.

"There were 10 flights that flew over the course of 20 months, which meant that every eight weeks we were rolling out a new Titan rocket, rolling out a new Gemini spacecraft, loading up a new crew, launching them into low-Earth, bringing them home safely, then doing it over again," he explained.

"Just how much excellence and accomplishment and coordination it took on the ground to get these astronauts and spacecraft ready was something really important to be gained from it. Buzz Aldrin was famously known as Dr. Rendezvous. He got his Ph.D. in Orbital Mechanics and Rendezvous from MIT after graduating from West Point, so there was no underestimating Buzz's intellectual wattage. He's a brilliant man, and he accomplished brilliant things."

"Gemini: Stepping Stone to the Moon, the Untold Story" lands in bookstores and online retailers on Nov. 11, 2025.

Let's not mince words: Darth Vader is one of the best fictional characters ever created (after Batman!) so it's with great anticipation that New York Times best-selling novelist Adam Christopher ("Star Wars: Shadow of the Sith") heads back to the galaxy far, far away to deliver a macabre new Sith Lord tale in "Star Wars: Master of Evil."

Arriving on Nov. 11, 2025, courtesy of Random House Worlds, this 384-page hardback takes place after the events of "Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith," where a freshly forged Darth Vader seeks out the arcane secrets of life and death under the enveloping gaze of Emperor Palpatine.

We've got an exclusive chapter excerpt below to share with our readers.

The official synopsis reads: "In the wake of Emperor Palpatine's rise to power, the true nature of his most sinister enforcer remains a mystery. Darth Vader is a dominant yet illusive figure: the shadow cast by a malignant Imperial regime, unknowable to even its top officials. But as his humanity gives way to myth, Vader remains haunted by the promises of the dark side, seeking the ultimate power that his master has hinted at but withheld — the power to conquer death itself.

"On the volcanic world of Mustafar, Vader undertakes a dark ritual, bleeding a kyber crystal to forge his lightsaber. This act unleashes a power far greater than he anticipated, giving him a glimpse into the limitless potential of the Force.

"Vader is determined to follow this vision, even if it means defying his master's orders. Yet he finds the Emperor suspiciously supportive of his mission, even sending Vader to the Diso system to investigate rumors of a Force-wielding shaman able to raise the dead. At his side are a cadre of the Emperor’s scarlet-robed Royal Guard, led by Colonel Halland Goth — a decorated soldier with a very personal interest in Vader’s mission.”

Exclusive excerpt from "Star Wars: Master of Evil":

Colonel Halland Goth, an honored member of the Emperor’s personal guard, has been contacted by the Imperial Security Bureau to observe and report on the Emperor’s strange new enforcer, Darth Vader. Now on assignment, Goth meets Vader for the first time and finds the experience … unsettling.

Colonel Goth took a deep breath and focused his attention on the Emperor, sitting on his throne before the huge window of the office. The room was silent, save for the heavy, mechanized breathing of the huge man in black armor standing to one side of the throne dais.

Lord Vader himself. The man Goth was supposed to watch. But here, in his actual, physical presence, Goth could do nothing but stand to attention and swallow as he fought to control the almost visceral reaction he had to the imposing figure.

Goth might not have known who Vader was, but he had seen him before, just ... not this close. It had been at the celebration marking the eradication of the Jedi Order, where the lightsabers of the traitors had been burned. From afar, he’d glimpsed this nightmare in black standing by the Emperor’s side, watching the proceedings from a high balcony overlooking the steps of the Jedi Temple. Now, up close, Goth was impressed not just by the technology of the man’s suit but also by the design itself, the skull-like mask and flared neck protector clearly designed to instill fear in those who dared to face him, the exaggerated volume of the mechanical respirator another feature that would impress, if not terrify.

As his nerves began to settle, Goth allowed himself a tight smile, trying very hard to keep the expression as neutral as possible. But he was pleased to be part of this, whatever it was. Fear was how the new Empire kept control. Not terror, as such. Nor indeed austerity or hardship or punitive measures — although each had its place, he knew that — but fear. People responded to fear, and they responded well. He had seen that himself when accompanying the Emperor as a Royal Guard. The full ceremonial uniform he and his men normally wore, with its elongated cowl-like mask and enveloping red cloak, was designed not just for pomp and circumstance but also to elicit a certain kind of reaction from those who saw it.

Oh yes, appearances were everything in the new order.

There was the sound of footsteps entering the office. Still standing to attention, eyes front, Goth waited patiently, wondering who the newcomer was, not aware that anyone else had been invited to the briefing. An Imperial adviser perhaps, one of the slightly odd old men who seemed to have the Emperor’s ear from time to time.

Goth realized who it would be just as the newcomer came into his field of vision, and he found his mood deflating a little.

ISB supervisor Desler walked in and bowed low to the Emperor before turning and, quite casually, glancing over the Royal Guard. Goth’s gaze met the supervisor’s piercing blue eyes, and once again he was caught by the fire he saw within them.

Then the supervisor smiled, and Goth realized that the fire he had seen was starlight glinting off ice.

Desler moved to stand beside the Emperor’s throne and stayed there, hands clasped behind her back. The way she had just walked in, the way she had made herself part of the proceedings without saying a word ... Goth wasn’t sure he would ever get used to the ISB, the way they seemed to think they were not part of the regular hierarchy, apparently free to wander around the buildings and facilities of the Federal District, going about their own business without much regard for the rest of the military apparatus. Of course, the Emperor had invited her — Goth’s new mission had come from the throne, after all — but still. It was unsettling. The ISB was clearly a powerful entity.

Then it occurred to him: the ISB ... or COMPNOR?

It was Lord Vader who broke the silence in the Emperor’s office.

"I need no bodyguard."

His voice was deep and resonant — enhanced, of course, by the vocalizer built into the impressive mask. When he spoke, the sound of the mechanical respirator continued uninterrupted. Interesting, thought Goth, as his eyes fell on the square control panel on the front of the man’s chest. Red and green lights shone brightly, as they did on his belt, among a series of switches and buttons.

Life support?

"That is not your decision to make, Lord Vader," said the Emperor calmly.

There was confirmation, from the Emperor’s own lips. Lord Vader — one of Palpatine’s advisers? Part of his inner circle, certainly. But ... that suit. Goth looked at it again. Not just armor, not just a ceremonial demonstration of the Empire’s might. There was more to it. He listened carefully for a moment to Vader’s steady respiration, his eyes falling again to the lights on the chest panel —

And then Vader turned, his long cloak swirling as, without another word, he left the office and the Emperor’s presence. Goth allowed himself to break out of line for just a moment — he was the ranking officer in the room, after all — and watched him go, then turned back to the Emperor.

The Emperor waved a hand. "You are now under Lord Vader’s command," he said. "Accompany him to Diso. You have your orders. Go."

Goth snapped to attention, then gave the Emperor a deep bow. As he stood, he saw Desler move closer to the Emperor, the thumb and forefinger of her right hand playing with a signet ring on her left.

Goth straightened and presented the supervisor with his full attention. Desler smirked and gave him a small nod, which Goth returned. Then Goth turned on his heel and marched out, his Royal Guard sweeping in silently behind.

In the lobby outside the office, Goth ordered the guards to return to barracks and prepare for departure. As they filed away, Goth turned to look back into the Emperor’s office. He caught a glimpse of the ISB supervisor talking closely with the Emperor just before the doors to the office slid closed.

Clearing his throat, he headed back to his quarters to prepare for the mission, absentmindedly rubbing his chest with one hand. Stepping into an empty turbolift, he started coughing and didn’t stop until he stepped out one hundred levels below.

Reprinted from "Star Wars: Master of Evil" by Adam Christopher. © 2025 by Lucasfilm Ltd. Published by Random House Worlds, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC.

Prepare for a remarkable journey into magnificent magnification with "Nanocosmos: Journeys in Electron Space" (Abrams Books, 2025), a mesmerizing new science coffee table book from author, artist, documentarian and visual effects filmmaker Michael Benson. Here, size truly matters!

Inside this hypnotic 320-page hardcover, Benson takes readers into a strange miniaturized world exposed by the technological magic of scanning electron microscopes (SEM).

And here we have a pair of exclusive lunar impact glass images to share with you, taken from moon samples returned by the astronauts of NASA's Apollo 16 mission. Marvel at these diminutive gems brought home from outer space and wrap your mind around the micro-mini scale.

Per the book's official description, "The tiny worlds here, invisible to our unassisted eyes, are if anything more intricate, complex and extraordinary than anything so far seen in deep space. These include radiolarians, dinoflagellates and diatoms, as well as many varieties of insects, microscopic flowers and even lunar samples from the Apollo program. The composite mosaic micrographs in 'Nanocosmos' fuse art and science in revelatory ways, exposing an astonishing sublimity hidden to the naked eye."

Lunar impact glass is formed under the high heat and pressure caused by meteoroids hitting the moon’s regolith-covered surface. These impactors melt the disturbed lunar soil, creating molten material that instantly cools in flight to be manifested as glass shards, spherules and beads.

Benson produced "Nanocosmos" using hundreds of curated SEM scans that he captured over the course of six years at the Canadian Museum of Nature in Quebec. These sublime images display an uncanny beauty, symmetry, and design that defies all traditional descriptions.

In addition to art exhibits, films, and scientific endeavors into the mysteries of the universe, Benson was also responsible for supervising those swirling cosmology scenes in director Terrance Malick's "The Tree of Life" (2011) and "Voyage of Time" (2016). Additionally, he penned 2018's Hollywood history book titled "Space Odyssey" (2018), which chronicles the making of Stanley Kubrick's enigmatic sci-fi masterpiece from 1968, "2001: A Space Odyssey."

Update for 4 p.m. EDT on Nov. 12:

Congratulations to our winners Rebecca Brennan, Nicole Gentile Powers, Jeffrey Scott Rinker, JStokes57, and MCawkins! We'll be contacting you shortly to ask you to confirm your details and shipping address for the prize to be sent. For everyone else, commiserations, but you can still pick up your own movie edition copy of Project Hail Mary when it launches on Dec. 2, 2025.

New York Times bestselling author Andy Weir seems to have a certain knack for writing page-turning, humanistic science fiction stories that are perfectly suited for being turned into Hollywood blockbusters.

His 2011 novel, "The Martian," was wonderfully transformed into the Oscar-nominated blockbuster directed by Ridley Scott and starring Matt Damon. Weir's second book, 2017's lunar heist tale called "Artemis," is currently still in development with Disney-owned 20th Century Studios. But his latest novel, 2021's "Project Hail Mary," could be an even bigger Hollywood hit when the movie adaptation is released by Amazon MGM Studios on March 20, 2026, starring Ryan Gosling ("Drive," "La La Land," "First Man").

To get fans primed for that cinematic odyssey, the folks at Ballantine Books have offered us five advanced copies of "Project Hail Mary's" movie tie-in edition coming Dec. 2, 2025, for a giveaway exclusively for Space.com.

"Project Hail Mary" will be directed by the dynamic filmmaking duo of Phil Lord & Christopher Miller ("The Lego Movie," "The Spider-Verse Franchise") from a Drew Goddard ("Cloverfield," "Cabin in the Woods") screenplay. It centers around Dr. Ryland Grace (Gosling), a middle-grade science teacher who becomes a reluctant astronaut and the sole survivor of a deep space mission to save Earth from a dimming sun.

Along the 11.9-light-year voyage to the Tau Ceti star system, he encounters a faceless rock-skinned alien he names Rocky, whose own homeworld is also in peril. Together, they must join forces to avoid a mutual calamity and unravel the cosmic mystery.

To enter the freebie sweepstakes for this special copy of "Project Hail Mary," all you need to do is head over to our Facebook, Twitter, or BlueSky posts announcing the giveaway and leave a comment letting us know what you’re looking forward to most when the "Project Hail Mary" movie hits multiplexes in 2026.

All comments must be left by Nov. 12 at 2 p.m. ET to be counted for official entry, and each household can only enter once. Five winners will be chosen at random for one prize each from the entire pool of entrants across all three platforms. Winners will be announced Nov. 12 at 4 p.m. ET on Space.com's Facebook, Twitter, and BlueSky page.

Please note that this sweepstakes is only available to US residents. The full terms and conditions of this giveaway can be found at the bottom of this article.

In addition to Gosling, who's back in simulated space once more, Project Hail Mary’s cast also includes the talents of Oscar nominee Sandra Hüller ("Anatomy of a Fall"), Milana Vayntrub ("This Is Us," "Werewolves Within"), Bastian Antonio Fuentes ("Jurassic World Dominion"), Isla McRae ("The Christmas Quest"), and James Wright ("How to Train A Princess”).

Good luck to all participants in our out-of-this-world literary sci-fi giveaway!

Full terms and conditions:

The sweepstakes opens at 5 pm ET on November 5, 2025, and closes at 2 pm ET on November 12, 2025. Late or incomplete entries will be disqualified. Open to all residents of the US (excluding residents of Rhode Island, Guam, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, U.S. military installations in foreign countries, or any other U.S. territory where prohibited or restricted by law) aged 18 years and over, except employees of Future Plc and its group of companies (“Future”) and Ballantine Books (“Sponsor”).

Entries limited to one per household, regardless of the form of entry. Use of automated devices or methods of submission are not valid forms of entry. There will be five winners in total entitled to one copy each of the "Project Hail Mary" novel. The winner will be randomly drawn from all valid entries received and shall be notified by Future by a social media post within 28 days of the closing date, and will be required to supply details of a US delivery address.

If a winner has not responded after 28 days, an alternative winner will be drawn. Ballantine Books will deliver the prize. Future and Sponsor reserve the right to substitute any product with an alternative product of equivalent value. The prize is non-transferable and non-refundable. There is no cash alternative. No purchase required. Void where prohibited. Any person winning $600 or more worth of prizes from a Sponsor in a calendar year will receive an IRS form 1099 after the end of the calendar year in which the prizes were awarded and copy of such form will be filed with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The value of the prize may be taxable as income and each prize winner is solely responsible for any taxes, including, but not limited to all applicable federal, state, and local taxes that become due with respect to the value of the prize.

By taking part in this sweepstakes, you agree to be bound by these terms and conditions, the competition rules at: www.futureplc.com/competition-rules/ and collection of personal data in accordance with Future’s privacy policy at: https://www.futureplc.com/privacy-policy/.

Science fiction has a bit of something for everyone, from cutting-edge futuristic technology to doomed romances and strange aliens. The genre also crosses over very nicely into horror, because once humans start poking the unknown, it's only a matter of time before the unknown pokes back.

This Halloween, step into stories where science meets terror, where contagions kill, landscapes devour explorers, and technology crushes the human soul. All of these books fit nicely into the sci-fi horror mold, and while some of them never make it into the depths of space, they're all well worth your time.

Our list of sci-fi horror novels spans from 20th-century classics to modern masterpieces, all testing how far humanity goes before reason falters and horror takes over. Whether you're looking for a quick read or a deep dive, this roundup has a little something for everyone. Let's dig into our spooky roundup of the best sci-fi horror books.

Bonus Entry!

Neil deGrasse Tyson is back.

In 2024 we chatted with the gracious celebrity astrophysicist, lecturer, podcaster, and bestselling author regarding "Merlin's Tour of the Universe," a revised and updated edition of Tyson's very first book that was published in 1989 as a collection of Q&A pieces initially appearing as an amusing column in The McDonald Observatory's StarDate Magazine.

The fictional timeless sorcerer named "Merlin of Omniscia" from the Andromeda galaxy is back to answer a new round of questions in a new companion volume titled "Just Visiting This Planet: Further Scientific Adventures of Merlin From Omniscia" arrives Oct. 21, 2025.

"The takeaway here is that this was the dawn of my scientific and educational career," Tyson explains to Space.com. "So it was the proving ground for how I would ultimately be bringing science to the public. The methods, tools, and tactics and the personality that I imbued in Merlin were elements that persist within me to this today. In that sense, it was significant in my life, even if to the reader it's just a collection of cute questions and answers."

This new mind-expanding 350-page hardback has also been given a refreshed 21st century makeover since it was offered in 1998, and contains a treasure of witty responses to questions posed by the general public on topics such as planets, stars, comets, black holes, moons, galaxies and even superheroes.

"But if you read them, you'll see they're doing things that a typical answer wouldn't do," he adds. "Today, if you just type a question into ChatGPT it comes back and it's kind of vacuous, it's got no soul, no personality. It's got nothing to pull you back in. And Merlin, with the quirky personality, is intended to be a vehicle to empower people to enjoy the learning, rather than just take it as though you have to take medicine."

With widespread layoffs and diminished funding currently sweeping the scientific community in nearly every field, "Just Visiting This Planet" and its focus on curiosity and discovery is even more relevant to remind fellow Earthlings of the absolute necessity of science to help advance our species.

"If you give up on science and the moving frontier represented in so many of the places where budgets have been cut, that comes with consequences," Tyson notes. "People vote into office who they want, and I'm not going to get in the way of that. If the democracy you want is one that is cutting science programs, that will ultimately bite you in the ass.

"Because it's the science that's foundational to the innovations that many of us have taken for granted, that comes out of American industries. American industry relies on the foundational science that's behind it, underneath it, and is supporting it. And you don't see that because it's done in labs in universities and it's done by people who don't necessarily have YouTube channels.

"This is hardworking researchers exploring the limits of our understanding of their field, and it's government funded. If the government doesn't fund it, nobody is going to fund it, because there is no return on the annual report. The research is too far removed from even the R&D that would be conducted by a corporation. Once it's published and people see it and they figure it out they say, 'Oh my gosh, that’s a new understanding of how nature works.'

"Then you have clever engineers coming afterwards saying that they can turn that into a product or make that commercial. That happens way down the line. What it also means is that you're not in a position to pass judgment on a research project just because the title feels a little remote to you."

"The fact that we have government officials poring over research paper titles and lording their decision on whether it's frivolous or not because they can't imagine how it's relevant, that will have consequences, as we recede on the frontier of science research and we watch other countries who have re-doubled the role of science in their lives. China especially. We will sink lower before we rise up again and realize the folly of those decisions. Anything that gets people excited about science, that only pays dividends in the future."

For this revised and updated version of "Just Visiting This Planet," Tyson carefully curated the questions for a more modern readership used to extracting explanations via the internet.

"So this is 200 more questions drawn from over a thousand. Some questions I removed since you can just Google them now like, 'How hot is the sun?', that sort of thing. Then I added other questions that had a little more personality to them. Someone asks, 'What happens if aliens came and blew up the moon?' That's kind of fun. So we can do that in ways that are more fun than ChatGPT will, I assure you. There are many more 'If, Then' questions in this book. Plus, my brother, who's an artist, illustrated it. I'm delighted to declare that fact about it."

And since this is Halloween season, we'd be remiss if we didn’t ask Tyson about growing up in New York City trick-or-treating in a huge apartment building where he and his friends would score multiple grocery bags of sugared loot. What were his favorite fun-sized candy bars? Milky Way and Mars of course!

"Just Visiting This Planet: Further Scientific Adventures of Merlin From Omniscia" drops into bookstores from Blackstone Publishing on Oct. 21, 2025.

For as long as humans have looked up at the night sky, we've wondered who, or what, might be looking back.

From ancient myths about gods descending from the heavens to 20th-century UFO sightings and today's hunt for exoplanets, the question of whether we are alone in the universe has never stopped captivating us. From microbial fossils on Mars to interstellar comets to mysterious signals in deep space, there is a timeless curiosity around extraterrestrials.

Journalist Becky Ferreira dives into this rich history in her new book "First Contact: The Story of Our Obsession with Aliens" (Workman Publishing, 2025). In a conversation with Space.com, Ferreira discusses the myths that shape our understanding of aliens (her newsletter dives into this further) and why real contact might look nothing like what Hollywood has taught us to expect.

Space.com: There are a lot of books about aliens out there. What made you want to add your perspectives to this tradition? 

Becky Ferreira: My editor for this book approached me with the idea, and when I saw it, I thought, "Oh aren't there so many alien books already?" But I should have known as a reporter that it's an inexhaustible subject.

For me, it also felt like the right time. There’s so much happening in the scientific search for alien life, but also more openness toward the UFO community and a posture of transparency from the government. I wanted the book to touch all those sides — the science, the pop culture, the history — and to do it in a short, visual, and kind of snarky way that invites people in.

Space.com: What is an alien trope you are tired of?

Ferreira: I love this question! Definitely the Messianic alien. And I’m sorry to the Superman fans! I like the new "Superman" movie, but I’m tired of stories where a superpowered being comes down to save humanity from itself. It’s not just aliens — it’s part of this larger myth we have that someone else will fix everything for us.

That idea goes way back — it’s basically a modern version of waiting for the gods, or the rapture. But I think it’s dangerous because it teaches us to wait for salvation instead of taking action ourselves.

I’d love to see more Robin Hood-type stories, where regular people, not superheroes, actually organize and make change for themselves. We need narratives that empower us, not ones that make us dependent on alien saviors.

Space.com: On the flip side, what kind of alien tropes would you like to see more of?

Ferreira: I love the truly strange aliens — stories like "Solaris" or "Arrival," where you have to completely rethink how you perceive the universe. Those stories feel more realistic to me, because if we do encounter intelligent life, it probably won’t think like us at all.

I’m fascinated by the idea of aliens who have a worldview that’s totally different, maybe even impossible for us to fully understand. Like the heptapods in "Arrival," who experience time all at once — that’s such a wild concept.

And honestly, I’d love to see more stories about microbes. What if we found a fossilized microbe on Mars that’s four billion years old? It’s tiny, it’s dead, it’s not a civilization — but it would completely change how we see life in the universe. Pop culture hasn’t really processed how monumental that kind of discovery would be.

Space.com: What is something you wanted to include in the book but couldn't due to narrative constraints or word limits? 

Ferreira: I finished the manuscript in January 2025, and of course all these fascinating discoveries happened right after — new exoplanet biosignatures, possible biosignatures on Mars.

There’s also a section on the rights of aliens that I wish I could have expanded. Like, what are the legal rights of a microbe on Mars? That sounds silly, but it’s actually a really important question. We’re doing all these astrobiological projects, and at some point we’ll have to decide how to treat what we find. You could write a whole book just about that.

Space.com: One of the hottest topics right now is Comet 3I/ATLAS, the newfound interstellar comet. You wrote about 'Oumuamua in your book — what do you make of this new one?

Ferreira: I think it’s the coolest thing ever! I couldn’t include it because of timing, but I’ve been obsessed. I love that we’re in an age where we can detect these interstellar objects at all. And with the Vera Rubin Observatory active I think by the end of the decade, we’ll have a whole census of them.

What’s exciting about 3I/ATLAS is that it’s like a time capsule — a piece of another star system passing through ours. Some scientists have even suggested it could be older than the solar system, which is wild. These are literal visitors from other worlds, and they help us see beyond our neighborhood. It’s like the universe is delivering us souvenirs from deep time.

Space.com:  If you could tell the public one thing about aliens — to clear up misconceptions or reframe the conversation — what would it be?

Ferreira: That our conception of aliens is human. I know that sounds obvious, but it’s so important. Aliens mean different things to different people, but the fascination itself is universal. Every culture has some story about beings from the sky — it’s part of who we are.

For people skeptical of UFOs, I get that — I used to be, too. But when I was researching this book, I realized a lot of those accounts are very persuasive. That doesn’t mean they’re extraterrestrial, but something happened. And I think it’s great that we’re finally talking about it without stigma.

For people skeptical of NASA or the government, I’d say: those institutions have extremely high standards for what counts as evidence. I don’t think they’re being secretive — they’re just careful. We’re all profoundly obsessed with aliens, but we need to give each other a little grace for what that means.

Because if we do ever find life out there, it’s going to change everything — spiritually, culturally, scientifically. And we’ll need everyone, skeptics and believers alike, to help us understand what that means for our place in the cosmos.

In a project of Herculean proportions, British author and historian Andy Saunders has returned to the NASA archives to follow up his epic "Apollo Remastered" photographic book from 2022 to create and curate another absorbing volume of digitally remastered and restored space images.

Published Sept. 2, 2025, by Black Dog & Leventhal, "Gemini and Mercury Remastered" is a lavish 320-page, large-format companion hardback containing hundreds of crystal-clear photos with explanatory captions of astronauts and their spacecraft as they paved a perilous path to the stars.

"The processing on this book was a bit quicker since they 'only' took 5,000 photographs on these projects, as opposed to 35,000 on Apollo," Saunders tells Space.com. "But the research took as long as the processing because the historic record is so patchy when you go that far back. It was an enormous task. I hope people take the time to read it."

For this outing, Saunders took a step back in time to chronicle humankind's primitive efforts to leave Earth by focusing on the manned Project Mercury and Gemini programs that launched from 1961 to 1966. These baby steps became crucial to the success of the later Apollo missions, which resulted in NASA landing two men on the surface of the moon on July 20, 1969.

"I wanted to tell the full story because the human drama that unfolded was incredible, and I wanted to get that launch-to-splashdown sequence down so we could cover the whole missions. Look at the images, turn the page, read the caption, and follow along. It's often seen as a photo book, as is 'Apollo Remastered,' but the objective is also to tell these stories, not only the technical achievements."

It takes a certain type of personality and fortitude to sift through the NASA archives to select this remarkable collection of restored images that represents our nascent endeavors into orbit, and Saunders admits that the three-year task did require a huge amount of obsessive energy.

"Processing was probably about a year to a year-and-a-half," he notes. "There's so many criteria. It could just be a visually stunning photograph. It might be historically significant moments. It might be poignant shots of the astronauts. Or it's one that’s required to tell the story. There’s even a page where there's no photograph and it's on Gemini 10. When Michael Collins lost his camera. That's the only spacewalk ever not captured on film. But I wanted to tell the story of his spacewalk because it's just unbelievable what happened. So there's a blank page. No photograph."

In addition to presenting some of the most stunning images of the Earth ever taken, "Gemini and Mercury Remastered" highlights a constellation of groundbreaking accomplishments like the first American in space (Alan Shepard), the first American to orbit Earth (John Glenn), the first food eaten in space (apple sauce in a pouch), the first U.S. spacewalk (Ed White), the first photo of a human in space, and the highest Earth orbit ever achieved until it was eventually surpassed in 2024.

"It wasn’t a chore," Saunders admits. "I do love to do it. And with the imagery it's like when an archaeologist pushes the dust off of something and finds something that's been hidden for so long. And these are such important moments in history. It is quite an addictive process as well."

Some of the more incredible HD transfers are of famed astronaut Jim Lovell peering out of his Gemini 7 capsule window, taken from frames captured in NASA's original 16mm film reel.

"That's so fascinating to see someone through the window," Saunders adds. "And he actually said he was kind of quite nervous when he looked out the window because they got to within inches of each other at 17,500 miles an hour. This was the first-ever rendezvous in space, and they didn't mess about. They just did it. Yes, they took some risks they wouldn’t take today. Gene Krantz said it was often just blind luck that got them home."

Saunders wants to emphasize that absolutely no artificial intelligence was involved in remastering and restoring these NASA images and that 'no pixels were harmed' in the making of this monumental book.

"This historically important imagery, if you apply AI, all the provenance is gone. You can call it a piece of art if you’d like, but it’s not a photo.

"They took such extraordinary risks because the U.S. was trying to catch the Soviets to win the space race, so looking back through today's health and safety lens, it's simply amazing. Reading the transcripts and the things that happened: like when Neil Armstrong almost died when his Gemini 8 spacecraft tumbled out of control, or Gene Cernan almost dying on his spacewalk. They just went, 'well, let’s try again.' We do live in an age that's obsessed with speed and convenience, and taking AI shortcuts and social media. These missions are a reminder that true legacy comes from doing hard things that matter. And it can be messy. These missions were solving life-or-death problems in real time, but they did it. It's a reminder of what we can still achieve if we dream big, act with purpose, accept uncertainty, and trust our finest human qualities."

Andy Saunders' "Gemini and Mercury Remastered" is available now from both the Apollo Remastered website and Amazon.

Launching back to the historic Apollo-Soyuz mission in 1975, a new space thriller titled "Final Orbit" arrives next month from New York Times bestselling author, TV host, YouTube sensation, TED speaker, classic rocker, and social media personality, retired astronaut Chris Hadfield.

The energetic Canadian hyphenate and former NASA veteran of three shuttle missions aided in the construction of the Mir Space Station and even commanded the International Space Station.

His first venture into speculative fiction arrived back in 2021 with "The Apollo Murders," an engaging sci-fi adventure tale centered around Houston flight controller and ex-test pilot Kazimieras "Kaz" Zemeckis, who becomes embroiled in a dangerous conflict involving a secret Apollo 18 mission and the real-life Soviet spy space station called Almaz.

"Like when I learned to fly high performance airplanes, F-18s and such, at first every single thing is equally important and you don't know how to prioritize, you don't know what matters and what doesn't, and you don't know what to really focus on," Hadfield told Space.com regarding his evolved level of writing for 'Final Orbit.' "Like anything, when you get better at it, you gain all those skills.

"My first draft for 'The Apollo Murders' was 195,000 words. The final book was 135,000, so we cut out nearly a whole book because I didn’t know what I didn't need to write. My editors see the maturation of efficiency as a writer in this new novel and the particular style with which I like to write."

Following 2023's "The Defector," "Final Orbit" is actually the third book in Hadfield's "The Apollo Murders" series which is anchored again by Kaz and is slated to arrive on Oct. 7, 2025 from Mulholland Books.

The engrossing alternative history novel unfolds during the historic Apollo-Soyuz linkup between American astronauts and Soviet cosmonauts. It deftly chronicles how China's clandestine launch of its first astronaut in east Asia leads to an international espionage incident and an accident that puts the entire joint mission in jeopardy.

Hadfield is quite excited about how "Final Orbit" turned out, and recalls the layers of plot complexity he settled on, which took a massive amount of research to make sure that he got everything right.

"I learned a whole bunch in writing it," he notes. "It was a lot of work but I'm really happy with the interplay of how my plots crossed over and how it sets me up for character development for a follow-up book as well. I read a review the other day that said 'fans of Asimov, Andy Weir, and James Michener are going to love this book.' Holy crap, gimme a break! That's unbelievable company so I'm really very pleased."

The backdrop and framework of "Final Orbit" employs the monumental Apollo-Soyuz mission from 1975 to tell Hadfield's harrowing tale of Cold War spies and high stakes peril in Earth orbit.

"I wanted it to be chronological with the previous two books in the series, 'The Apollo Murders' and 'The Defector.' 'Defector' ended late in 1973 and I started looking forwards. I thought here’s a good opportunity to close out the Apollo Program with Apollo-Soyuz and also the fact that Nixon was out and Ford was in, that presented some interesting room. And that Skylab had run its course but was now essentially abandoned.

"As soon as I laid out those threads, I thought I needed a whole extra player. I started digging into the Chinese space program and realized their first launches were at the same time. I had never heard of Xuesen, the main Chinese character in the book, the professor who had set up Caltech and the Jet Propulsion Lab. That was such a richness of reality on which to pull and write my fiction in amongst it."

Delving into the research, Hadfield discovered some fascinating facets of the Qian Xuesen story and how the disgraced American-Chinese scientist was a member of Operation Paperclip in the aftermath of Germany’s World War II surrender before being deported back to China for espionage crimes to became the father of Chinese aerospace.

“He was trusted, along with Von Karman, to go over and evaluate the German Nazi rocket scientists to decide which ones from Peenemünde to bring back," says Hadfield. "Then because of McCarthyism and the huge political pendulum swinging to have him blacklisted and basically house arrested and then deported, was just a horrific mistake that the United States made. The fact that he went back and was absolutely fundamental in setting up the Chinese nuclear portage and the Chinese space program was just incredible. He stood there in Tiananmen Square next to Mao as they were kicking off their human spaceflight program.”

"Final Orbit's" central character of Kaz Zemeckis has provided the perfect foundation for Hadfield to spin his captivating outer space yarns.

"To me, Kaz is the personification of so many of my fighter pilot, test pilot, astronaut friends. But at the same time he got punted to the sidelines by an uncontrollable medical thing, but now the life that he's leading is, if anything, more interesting and it gives me a lot of latitude for where I can take the plot next. It's also occurred to me that I could write a pretty interesting prequel on his character as well."

Chris Hadfield's "Final Orbit" hits bookstores and online outlets on Oct. 7.

Klingons aren't exactly the most friendly bunch of battle-tested aliens inhabiting the "Star Trek" Universe, but seeing them in more casual domestic situations relaxing under mundane circumstances should bring a smile to all of our geeky faces.

As initially presented in the first season of Gene Roddenberry's "Star Trek: The Original Series" in 1966, these warmongering humanoids were supposed to be a not-so-subtle sci-fi reflection of the Soviet-era, Cold War Russian adversaries residing on their home planet of Kronos and acting hostile to the Federation.

Now a whimsical new hardcover book from author Joey Spiotto titled, “Klingon Next Door: Off Duty the Warrior's Way” aims to show the lighter side of these aggressive beings, showing what they get up to when they’re not piloting their Birds of Prey, firing on innocent Starfleet vessels, and creating a turbulent political crisis or two.

It's definitely a must-grab book for any self-respecting "Star Trek" fan, sci-fi collector, or cartoon enthusiast. The amusing humorous attitude honors all things Klingon in a wild "what-if?" dimension.

Ever wonder exactly what Klingon soldiers are like in their downtime while not on duty? Which catchy tune would they pick at a karaoke bar? How does an appointment with the barber shop play out?

No normal task is ignored in this quirky surprise, whether they're doing a spot of cooking, playing competitive sports or just grocery shopping. Fans of "Star Trek: Lower Decks" will discover how an honorable warrior might take on the epic challenges of day-to-day home life in this funny collection of colorful vignettes.

Spiotto isn't a stranger to this corner of the literary galaxy and its esoteric jokes as he also composed 2015's "Alien Next Door: In Space, No One Can Hear You Clean," and 2018's "Jonesy: Nine Lives On The Nostromo." Here in his little 80-page grin-inducing edition published by Titan Books featuring those intimidating Klingons during their downtime, Spiotto lets his imagination run rampant in envisioning just what existence is like after the antagonism and combat plans are put away.

"Klingon Next Door: Off Duty the Warrior's Way" launches on Sept. 2, 2025.

As a massive space nerd AND an avid collector of fancy notebooks, let me tell you … I'm in danger because Moleskine has just unveiled a NASA-inspired collection, and it looks simply stunning.

The collection is headlined by the NASA-Inspired Large Ruled Notebook, which has a cover that's textured to look like the lunar surface. It also features a metallic bookmark, collectible NASA stickers, and a bunch of cool moon-themed surprises inside.

There is also a glow-in-the-dark volant notebook that contains some black-and-white illustrations, a pair of cahier journals, and a limited edition pin set that includes an astronaut and a rocket. Finally, there is a gift box that includes a silver version of this large notebook, along with some pencils and the pins.

We had a quick chat with Ward Simmons, President of Moleskine for The Americas, to find out how this collaboration came about and what it meant to work with NASA on this project. You can also check out the full collection in the image gallery below.

"I was born in the late '60s, so I grew up with NASA as a constant presence. Back then, space was the new frontier, and NASA represented the future," explains Simmons as he reminisces about launching model rocket kits in his youth. "As a kid, I visited Cape Canaveral with my family, and one of my friends — Lance Bass — even trained with the Russian cosmonauts. How cool is that? Space and NASA surrounded our childhood.

"So, when I joined Moleskine in 2023, and the Artemis Mission was scheduled for launch [...], I immediately saw an opportunity. NASA is science; Moleskine provides tools for creativity. Together, we both aim to unleash human genius. That's how this idea was born."

Moleskine approached NASA, which provided the Moleskine graphic design team with assets to help them bring the notebooks to life. Once the team had worked their magic, NASA then signed off on the finished products. "The NASA team was tremendously supportive, making this collaboration truly seamless," praises Simmons.

A video accompanying the launch features Andrew Aldrin, CEO of the Aldrin Family Foundation (and son of legendary astronaut Buzz Aldrin), who underscores the importance of pen and paper while sharing the Foundation’s mission to inspire the next generation of explorers. Andrew's uplifting final line is simply that "Space is for everyone."

"Although I'd never met Buzz's son, Andy Aldrin, I knew that if I could find him, he'd understand our vision, and together we could support the Foundation's mission to inspire the next generation of explorers, innovators, and entrepreneurs," explains Simmons.

"This collection is meant to spark that spirit — encouraging young adults to sketch, draw and capture their own visions of NASA and space within our pages," says Simmons.

"Our partnership with the Aldrin Family Foundation reflects Moleskine's commitment to nurturing the next generation of human genius — not only among future scientists, but also writers, thinkers, and artists. Think of this collection as a space to explore the infinite universe of your imagination, discovering inspiration every time you put pen to paper. It starts there."

To help spark those imaginations, the notebooks are packed with extra details, including a bunch of NASA-themed patches, stickers and pins. There are inspirational phrases dotted throughout, and unique printed pages, including a moon observation journal in the main notebook. There is also a rundown of every planet in our solar system in the smaller Volant journal (which also features a glow-in-the-dark cover).

I haven't had a chance to get my hands on this collection yet, but as I mentioned from the off, I'm a huge notebook nerd, so you better believe I've got a set coming, and I'll be doing a deep dive when it touches down.

The Moleskine NASA-inspired Collection is on sale now on the Moleskine website, along with other online retailers, including Amazon.

There are moments in comic books’ illustrious past that act as seismic shifts for the industry, and Marvel Comics' "Fantastic Four #48" and its "The Coming of Galactus" story arc in 1965 was one of these rare occasions.

Global audiences will shortly see its dramatic influences revealed in the ambitious narrative that screenwriters wove into next month's Marvel Studios' "Fantastic Four" flick. Galactus, aka the Devourer of Worlds, arrived on the scene in 1965 in a 3-issue event that ran from "Fantastic Four #48" to "Fantastic Four #50" and is referred to as "The Galactus Trilogy."

Now as "The Fantastic Four: First Steps" is inching ever closer to its July 25 release date, like our humongous harbinger of doom, a new novelization of that monumental 60-year-old storyline which introduced the mighty cosmic foe and his Silver Surfer herald to Marvel's First Family is being published on July 8, 2025.

"Fantastic Four: The Coming of Galactus" is a 336-page expanded prose telling of the planet-eating Galactus and the Sentinel of the Spaceways' splashy debut in the Marvel Universe, written by New York Times bestselling author James Lovegrove.

Lovegrove is a fan favorite writer based in the UK, known fondly for his colorful in-universe genre work, including such titles as "Firefly: The Ghost Machine," "Firefly: Life Signs," and the upcoming "Conan: Cult of the Obsidian Moon."

His expanded storyline takes from that seminal core tale from Lee and Kirby, where a hungry Galactus is coming and The Fantastic Four (Mister Fantastic, Invisible Woman, Human Torch, and the Thing) must defend Earth against the immense godlike destructor and his sleek, shimmery servant. Will our planet suffer the same fate as countless other worlds or somehow be spared?

Carrying a cover date of March 1966 but landing in newsstands on Dec. 9, 1965, that special vintage issue of "Fantastic Four," billed as The World’s Greatest Comic Magazine!, was written by the dynamic duo of writer Stan Lee and artist Jack "King" Kirby during their absolute heyday of creativity.

Crisp Mint and Near-Mint collector copies of those three issues, especially "#48," can command prices in excess of $100,000 on the secondary market. This new literary adaptation of that classic piece of comics history is the ideal primer for those interested in the source of Marvel's big baddie, who'll soon be featured in the latest Marvel movie, "The Fantastic Four: First Steps."

Titan Books' "Fantastic Four: The Coming of Galactus" lands on July 8, 2025.

Can we journey through time?

From H.G. Wells' "The Time Machine to The Time Traveler's Wife" by Audrey Niffenegger and "Outlander" by Diana Gabaldon, time travel has captured our imagination for centuries. The concept is ever-present in all forms of sci-fi entertainment, from time-travel movies like Back to the Future and Looper, to time-looping games like The Outer Wilds, and of course, sci-fi novels.

It speaks to our deepest regrets and desires — the chance to reconnect with someone now gone, to undo mistakes, or to relive our most precious memories. It captures our resistance against time's relentless march forward.

Audiences love time travel

As Executive Producer of "Ready Jet Go", a STEM series on PBS KIDS produced in collaboration with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, I experienced firsthand how time travel concepts resonate with audiences of all ages. Working with outstanding experts in astronomy and physics, we explored the topic of time travel in an episode titled "Jet's Time Machine", where our hero — aptly named Jet Propulsion — builds a device to go back three minutes in time.

This episode sparked my research into time travel storytelling, where I discovered that most stories use one of three approaches:

• The Scientist's Private Machine: A brilliant inventor builds a time travel device in secret—think H.G. Wells' Victorian gentleman crafting his Time Machine, Doc Brown's plutonium-powered DeLorean, or Jet's personal time machine in our "Ready Jet Go" episode. These contraptions stay strictly off-limits to the general public, used only by the inventor or their trusted circle.
• Mystical Transport: Sometimes, characters get sent through time by magical forces. Diana Gabaldon's "Outlander" throws Claire Randall back to 18th-century Scotland after touching a magical stone circle. Sleep, ancient artifacts, or unexplained events serve as involuntary time-travel activation switches — no science required.
• Time Portals: A glitch in the universe creates doorways linking specific moments across history. Stephen King's "11/22/63" features a pantry in Al's Diner that drops anyone who walks through it at precisely 11:58 AM on September 9, 1958.

The science: Is time travel possible?

Up until recently, physicists believed that time travel to the past was impossible because it required unusual matter or extreme warping of spacetime. However, physicist John D. Norton has developed a new model based on Einstein's theory of general relativity that shows time travel is mathematically possible.

His model does not rely on strange matter or intense space-time distortion, but uses a simple space-time shape that allows paths to loop back in time. This work suggests that time travel could occur under more ordinary physical conditions than previously thought.

No paradoxes!

The classic understanding of time travel centers on a fundamental problem: paradoxes. If travelers could alter even minor details of the past, the cascading consequences would either rewrite the present or eliminate the traveler's own existence — the infamous grandfather paradox. This seemingly insurmountable obstacle led physicist Stephen Hawking to propose his Chronology Protection Conjecture, which essentially argues that the laws of physics themselves forbid backward time travel by preventing the formation of closed timelike curves.

However, groundbreaking research by Dr. Fabio Costa and Germain Tobar at the University of Queensland challenges this assumption. They've developed a mathematical model showing that closed timelike curves do not automatically create paradoxes. Their revolutionary model suggests that while time travelers can move and act freely in the past, the universe itself maintains consistency—events would self-adjust to prevent any logical contradictions from occurring.

From theory to technology

This revolutionary finding has profound implications. If Norton is right — that time travel won't require exotic materials — and Costa and Tobar are correct — that time travel doesn't alter the future — it opens the door for time travel technology to evolve beyond fictional ideas of secret inventions or unpredictable glitches in the universe. Instead, it could follow the trajectory of other breakthrough technologies—gradually becoming accessible, eventually commercial.

We've seen this trajectory before with space tourism. Companies like SpaceX, Virgin Galactic, and Blue Origin have transformed orbital travel from pure science fiction into bookable experiences. Time travel could follow a similar path.

It's not far-fetched. Consider how many "impossible" technologies now shape our daily lives. Artificial intelligence, virtual reality, self-driving cars — these were all fictional concepts that have since crossed the threshold from imagination to innovation. Each has reshaped how we live, work, and understand human potential.

If history is any guide, time travel may be next to make the leap from imagination to reality. But what would this reality look like? If Costa and Tobar's paradox-free model proves correct, it fundamentally changes our time travel narratives.

This concept inspired my new novel "The Memory Collectors", which explores what time travel tourism might look like. It features a time travel company called Aeon Expeditions, which allows travelers an hour in their pasts and uses the tagline: With Aeon, you don't change time, time changes you.

A new narrative

If you cannot change the future by traveling to the past, it transforms who would want to go back in time and why. Instead of hoping to change the future, people might travel back to seek answers, relive significant moments, or uncover information that could solve present-day mysteries.

This paradigm shift offers fascinating possibilities and stories. Imagine going to our pasts so we could observe events firsthand. We could catch crucial conversations we'd half-heard, spot warning signs we'd missed, and uncover answers to mysteries that have haunted us for years.

In this way, time travel transforms from a tool for changing history into explorations of memory, truth, and our need to make sense of our own lives.

Perhaps that will be the lasting appeal of time travel — not the ability to change what happened, but the chance to reconnect, relive, and rediscover, and ultimately return to the present changed by what we've learned. The Aeon Expeditions website explores the ways this approach to time travel could benefit everyone.

As physics advances, time travel edges closer to theoretical possibility. The question may not be whether we can journey through time, but when we'll begin taking reservations.

Close down the airlocks and batten all hull hatches for a veritable meteor storm of new "Star Wars" books coming to us over the next year. These magnificent titles were recently announced at the official Lucasfilm Publishing panel "Stories From a Galaxy Far, Far Away" during this past month's Star Wars Celebration Japan 2025.

Physical media is making a major comeback these days, whether it's remastered premium vinyl soundtracks of your favorite films or special edition 4K UHD Blu-ray releases of indie gems and Hollywood classics. Star Wars fanatics are going to love this "what’s to come" collection of tie-in novels, concept art editions, blueprint volumes, and reference manuals.

While you're waiting for these to release, you can spend your time playing the best Star Wars Games as well as build the best Lego Star Wars sets and Lego Star Wars helmets.

10 must-have upcoming "Star Wars" books

Noted author, poet, and NASA historian Bruce McCandless III ("Wonders All Around") grew up in close proximity to the thundering roar of Apollo-era rockets and the Space Shuttle Program as the son of Gemini, Apollo, and Space Shuttle astronaut Bruce McCandless II, who became the first person to conduct an untethered flight in space during a famous Feb. 7, 1984 spacewalk among his many NASA highlights.

Now McCandless III has teamed up with acclaimed space journalist and podcaster Emily Carney to offer an informal and informative new volume centered on the history of human spaceflight titled "Star Bound," which arrives Jan. 1, 2025 from the University of Nebraska Press.

This comprehensive book's full name, "Star Bound: A Beginner's Guide to the American Space Program, from Goddard's Rockets to Goldilocks Planets and Everything in Between," is a bit of a mouthful, but it arrives as a 296-page encapsulation of our nation's fascination with rockets as they evolved to provide lift for baby steps into outer space, moons missions, dreaming of Mars, and beyond.

We caught up with McCandless from his home in Nacogdoches, Texas to learn more about "Star Bound's" genesis and hear tales of growing up the son of an astronaut.

"Well, I think the impetus for me was reading a book by Colin Burgess called 'Soviets in Space,' which was a sort of overview of the Soviet Space Program," he tells Space.com. "I thought it was really well done. It was smart without being too technical and covered a lot of ground. I wondered if maybe that could be done with the American Space Program. I was surprised to find that there are some really big books, a couple of which are noteworthy but are now out-of-date. But there aren’t so many medium-sized general introductions to the American Space Program.

"There are also a lot of books about particular subjects, and you can go as deep as you want to into all manner of topics including hardware and personalities. We wanted to create something for educated folks who are nevertheless a little bit intimidated by the terminology associated with the program and some of the gatekeeping terminology and people who are so into the 'inside baseball' stuff that it becomes difficult to talk about in a general sense."

McCandless divided up the labor with Carney to create a smooth synthesis of ideas.

"She’s a big proselytizer for the space program and very interested in getting more women involved, and not only in the programs about also as interested spectators and reporters. So we tried to be balanced in that respect. She's got certain affinities and she's a big '70s Skylab fan and familiar with some of the early shuttle stuff.

"She was the co-host of a podcast called 'Space and Things' for three years and did 150 episodes with Dave Giles. They interviewed a lot of folks and the transcripts of those interviews we ended up using quite a bit of for our book. She talked to astronauts and engineers and mission control people, so that provided a lot of raw material."

Growing up in the shadow of Houston's Manned Spacecraft Center provided ample opportunities to become steeped in NASA operations with his father's occupation.

“He was selected for the program when I was five years old,” McCandless recalls. “He was at Stanford doing a PhD at the time and once he was selected we moved from Palo Alto to a suburb of Houston, Texas. So I grew up around the entire Apollo program, then Skylab and the Shuttle. I wasn’t terribly interested in that sort of thing back then, but I absorbed a lot of space history and knowledge by osmosis listening to my dad talk and him discussing projects he was involved in.

"He never got a flight until I was off at graduate school in England, so I didn’t see his first launch. We grew up with this legacy that he’d never quite gotten the shot he deserved and that was one of the reasons I wrote my book, 'Wonders All Around,' back in 2021. He finally got everything he wanted and did really well for himself but we had this perception that he should have gotten one of those Apollo flights and that sort of thing.

"This new book is an informal, pop culture-referencing, sometimes a little bit snarky approach to space history and we’re hoping to rope in some younger folks too."

"Star Bound" will be launched on Jan. 1, 2025. and it is available to pre-order from Amazon now.

Here's the official detailed synopsis:

"'Star Bound' is a book for anyone who wants to learn about the American space program but isn't sure where to start. First and foremost, it's a history — short, sweet, and straightforward. From rocketry pioneer Robert Goddard's primitive flight tests in 1926 through the creation of NASA, from our first steps on the moon to construction of the International Space Station and planning a trip to Mars, readers will meet the people and projects that have put the United States at the forefront of space exploration. Along the way, they'll learn:

• How the United States beat the Soviets to the moon

• Why astronauts float in space (Hint: It’s not for lack of gravity!)

• How fast rockets have to go to stay in orbit around Earth

• How we can "look back in time" through a space telescope

"With technology evolving and humanity's understanding of the universe expanding, we are entering an exciting period of space exploration. Authored by two veteran space writers with unique insights into the topic, 'Star Bound' offers up the story of Americans in space with a focus on the cultural and societal contexts of the country’s most important missions rather than engineering and technical minutiae.

"Vibrant, positive, and humorous, 'Star Bound' is packed with facts and stories for novice space fans. And sprinkled in with the history are lists of the greatest space songs, books, movies, and more — all designed to make space exploration accessible to even the casual reader."

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has been an astonishing piece of technology for the advancement of humankind's understanding of the universe, and the source of awe-inspiring images of black holes, galaxies, and nebulae it's returned to scientists and astronomers since it was deployed into a solar orbit back in 2022.

"Infinite Cosmos: Visions From the James Webb Space Telescope" is a 224-page hardback published Oct. 8, 2024 from National Geographic that breaks down the history of this remarkable $10 billion observatory platform from conception to deployment, and reveals the inspired minds responsible for its engineering, construction, lift-off, and inspiring operational record.

Written by astrophysicist and popular online science host Ethan Siegel ("Starts With a Bang") and including a comprehensive introduction by noted science author Brian Greene ("The Elegant Universe," "Until the End of Time"), "Infinite Cosmos" reveals the myriad ways the JWST has altered everyone's perceptions of the night sky with volumes of illuminating imagery straight from our mysterious heavens.

Here's the official synopsis:

"From the years of design and manufacturing through launch and deployment to the extraordinary images and the new science they inform, 'Infinite Cosmos' showcases the revelations coming from the James Webb Space Telescope — the sharpest planetary vistas and the deepest views of the cosmos humankind has ever seen.

"Stars forming in clouds of cosmic dust. Jupiter and its moons sharper than we've ever seen them. Galaxies billions of years old. The first images from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have electrified the world — and astonished veteran scientists with the wealth of information they reveal. In 'Infinite Cosmos,' National Geographic tells the 20-year saga of the telescope's development and the feats of science needed to send it into orbit around the sun, a million miles from Earth. 

"Page after page showcase more than 100 spectacular photographs picturing the cosmos as never seen before, from stardust coalescing in the Eagle Nebula's 'Pillars of Creation' to glittering galaxies, newly discovered exoplanets, deep-space fields of stars, and the planets of our solar system in vivid detail. The definitive printed record of these historic astronomical accomplishments, this is a book that inspires awe and admiration, perfect for space and aerospace enthusiasts, libraries, and anyone who looks up in wonder at the starry skies."

Siegel is well known in the scientific community and with this new JWST book he wanted to provide a more optimistic, alternative narrative to recent documentaries that negatively focused on the project's backstory, setbacks, and struggles.

"Aside from the beautiful images, JWST is really showcasing what humanity can do if we make a sustained investment even for something that we only get one shot at," Siegel tells Space.com. "It was this sustained effort over decades by thousands of people, and in particular I want to emphasize the role of scientists, engineers, and technicians as well as the role of private companies in partnership with NASA, the ESA, and the Canadian Space Agency. This had a lot of different moving parts that had to come together, work together, be checked, and tested over and over again, to ensure that when we get that one shot at launch, and that one shot at deployment, and that one shot at orbital insertion, that this is going to be a success.

"Now in 2024, I'm going to tell you that in just two years into its science mission, we've learned things about the universe that we never expected, and that to me is the big story. Yeah, we built this observatory, we had our goals in mind, but the biggest news are the surprises we found. We built this all-purpose observatory with a larger diameter mirror and a more precise surface, a new set of wavelength capabilities, a brand new technology that enabled us to have a folding segmented mirror and a passively-cooled sunshield, new instruments that were superior designs to any designs before, and the cleanest clean room ever. You put it all together and you have an observatory that can go out and find these things we know how to look for. But you also have an observatory that has discovery potential."

One thing Siegel wished to emphasize in this project is when the JWST was designed, it was calculated that the telescope would only offer up to a decade of longevity.  

"That was based on saying, 'We're going to launch this telescope, we've got to burn it so it gets inserted into orbit, then we hope we have enough fuel left onboard to operate for five-to-ten years," he adds. "When crunch time came, the launch was so perfect that we now expect to get between 22 and 23 years of operation out of it.

"I [...] watched this launch live and got up at like 4 a.m. on Christmas morning in 2021. I cried at one critical moment, when the spacecraft released the telescope and seconds later the solar panels started coming out. It wasn’t a mistake. It was an automated feature that said when you’re on a specific trajectory, deploy the solar panels. That first spacecraft burn that it was expecting to need to do where it would expend fuel to put it on the right course, it was unnecessary because the launch was so good. We didn’t even need to touch the 'steering wheel' at all once the rocket released it. That saved so much fuel that we can spend almost all of it on science operations. The biggest thing I hope to communicate with this book is to help people develop an awareness of what we're learning with the investments we've made.”

"Infinite Cosmos: Visions From the James Webb Space Telescope" is available now.

Did you know that cinema's most iconic extraterrestrial hunter has also been taking trophies for decades in the pages of the best Predator comics?

For quite a while now, Dark Horse Comics, who had the rights to Alien and Predator in the realm of comic books, has putting out several series and one-shots that were well worth our time. With Disney's takeover of Fox's empire, the opportunity to move both franchises to Marvel (also owned by the House of Mouse) came, and things changed for the first time in forever. So far, Marvel Comics' take on both franchises has been interesting to say the least, and you definitely shouldn't overlook the comics they have put out so far.

There's also been some big sci-fi wins on the big screen recently with Alien: Romulus as a much-praised return to form for the Alien franchise, a win that arrives after 2022's Prey did the same for the Predator movie series.

On top of ranking our ten favorite Predator comic books, we had to list the best Alien comic books of all time as well. And then, of course, you'll need to check out the Predator movies ranked and Alien movies ranked too.

10. Batman vs. Predator

• Release year: 1991
• Authors and artists: Dave Gibbons, Andy and Adam Kubert, Sherilyn Van Valkenburgh

Having a Predator face off against a renowned superhero isn't a novel idea. On top of the Yautja species' many crossovers with the Xenomorphs, Dark Horse Comics already ran collaborations with other universes/publishers. According to most Predator fans and comic book readers, chief among these is the original, three-issue Batman vs. Predator series written by Dave Gibbons.

DC and Dark Horse's 1991 collaboration was a great success and spawned two sequels years later. You could say the story almost wrote itself, as having the Predator show up in Gotham City felt remarkably natural. The galaxy's greatest hunter against the world's greatest detective and vigilante? This one was an easy win for everyone involved.

9. Predator: Captive

• Year of release: 1998
• Authors and artists: Gordon Rennie, Dean Ormston

Not every notable Predator comic book is a series. In fact, Predator: Captive continues to be a fascinating one-shot you shouldn't skip. Written by Gordon Rennie, with art by Dean Ormston, it swaps the usual dynamics and has the Predator be at a disadvantage. Long story short: This Yautja has been captured by a billionaire to be studied, but how will that end for the humans?

Predator: Captive is a neat little tale of sci-fi horror and has a premise that could easily be turned into a tense movie. Moreover, it's got a unique art style and plenty to say within a small number of pages. It's the kind of experiment based on a famous IP we wish we could get more often.

8. Predator: 1718

• Year of release: 1996
• Authors and artists: Henry Gilroy, Igor Kordey

Predator: 1718 should instantly ring a bell if you're a big fan of the movies. At the end of the second one, Mike Harrigan receives a flintlock pistol from an elder Predator as a token of honor, with the year 1718 engraved on its side. Prey canonically tied into this little wink that first suggested the Predators had been hunting on Earth for a very long time, but Henry Gilroy and Igor Kordey's original comic book short story still rocks.

Without getting into major spoilers, the story takes place in Guinea in 1718 and follows pirate captain Raphael Adolini as well as the Predator that eventually nabs the pistol. Of course, a 'Predator vs. pirates' story was a cool concept on its own, but, on top of that, it feels poignant and meaningful in the end. There's a lot packed into this one, and it was a great reminder of how powerful one-shot comic books can be.

7. Predator: Nemesis

• Year of release: 1997
• Authors and artists: Gordon Rennie, Colin MacNeil

Predator: Nemesis is another short-ish story (two issues only) that throws the creature into a famous historical period to see what would happen. This time around 19th-century Colonial India and Victorian England are in for a gruesome shock; at the end of one trail of blood, Captain Soames finds a killer that's not from our world.

On top of the obvious callbacks to Jack the Ripper stories, there's a surprising element of mythology and legend thrown in for good measure. The end result is a compelling two-issue tale of horror and intrigue in a setting that no one would've initially thought of for a Predator story. It just works, and the narrative doesn't exactly play out how you'd expect it to.

6. Predator: Primal

• Year of release: 1997
• Authors and artists: Kevin J. Anderson, Scott Kolins, John Lowe, Jimmy Johns, David Nestelle, Dave Stewart

Another two-issue comic book series that you ought to read is Predator: Primal. It's one of the most basic stories published by Dark Horse, yet one that instantly became iconic and perfectly exemplified how flexible the franchise is. Unfortunately, it's not about a Predator hunting a group of primitive human beings, but it's a great time regardless.

Written by Kevin J. Anderson, it pits a Predator against an angry mama grizzly bear – one of Earth's apex predators – during hunting season in Alaska. The mix also includes a lone forest ranger and a fire that spirals out of control. It's tight, explosive, and raw in a way few Predator comic books are.

5. Aliens vs. Predator: Deadliest of the Species

• Year of release: 1993
• Authors and artists: Chris Claremont, Jackson Guice, Eduardo Barreto, John Beatty, Gregory Wright

We're of the opinion that the Predator IP benefitted from crossovers much more than Alien, perhaps because of how remarkably simple and easy-to-digest the core premise behind the Predator franchise is. That's why several Alien vs. Predator crossovers are very easily among the best Predator comic books of all time, and Deadliest of the Species continues to be a must-read.

The 12-issue series, written by none other than Chris Claremont, takes place after the events of Aliens: Outbreak and its sequels, that is, after Earth was overrun by aliens and later liberated. Much has changed for mankind, and the story follows a genetically engineered 'trophy wife' named Caryn Delacroix as she unveils her past as well as surprising connections to both Yautjas and Xenomorphs.

Deadliest of the Species has everything you'd want out of an AvP comic book, plus it's got a surprising storyline with several crazy twists and even a female Predator known as 'Big Mama' (really).

4. Predator: Fire and Stone

• Release year: 2014
• Authors and artists: Joshua Williamson, Chris Mooneyham, John Lucas, Dan Brown

From 2014 to 2015, Dark Horse worked on an extremely ambitious crossover event which included four separate series: Predator, Alien, Prometheus, and AvP, all using the 'Fire and Stone' subtitle. By and large, it was yet another major Alien vs. Predator event with everything long-time fans had come to expect. However, adding Prometheus' Engineers in relation to the Xenomorphs (plus all the new on-screen lore that came with them) spiced things up quite a bit.

While all four series are well worth reading, it was Predator: Fire and Stone that ignited the biggest celebration, especially as it reached its conclusion. With the addition of the enigmatic Engineers to the movies' canon, the interconnected AvP comic book universe became even more unpredictable and dangerous, and this comic book series made good use of the potential of pitting a Predator against an Engineer.

3. Aliens vs. Predator

• Year of release: 1990
• Authors and artists: Randy Stradley, Phil Norwood, Chris Warner, Karl Story, Robert Campanella

The original Aliens vs. Predator five-issue comic book series opened up a whole new (bloody) universe of crossover possibilities, as both sci-fi horror icons mixed together remarkably well. Even today, the original story arc remains a must-read for any fan of the two creatures, as it perfectly encapsulates all the excitement and surprisingly logical worldbuilding born out of putting the two IPs together.

The main character, Machiko Noguchi, soon became a fan-favorite heroine and eventually an icon after starring in Aliens vs. Predator: War and Three World War too. The story was almost adapted into a movie years before Paul W. S. Anderson's take on the concept. It remains to be seen if Disney and 20th Century Studios will consider a return to the crossover on the big screen, and we can only hope they look at comic books such as this one (as well as some of the killer video games) for inspiration.

2. Predator: Bad Blood

• Year of release: 1993
• Authors and artists: Evan Dorkin, Derek Thompson, Chris Warner, Keith Aiken, Chris Chalenor

Born out of a short story, Predator: Bad Blood dealt with a simple premise that would have a huge impact on the franchise: There are 'bad' Predators and 'good' Predators. Sure, even the 'good ones' hunt dangerous humans for sport, but what if some members of the species simply went rogue and on mindless killing rampages?

That's a bit of an issue for everyone involved, and Bad Blood introduced a psychotic Predator on a mass slaughter rampage in New Jersey before being hunted down by another Predator. The CIA is involved, there's plenty of carnage to witness, and the clash between the two extraterrestrials doesn't disappoint. The concept of 'bad bloods' quickly became a big part of the Predator canon, and 2018's The Predator toyed with that idea (in its own way) as the backbone for its entire plot.

1. Predator: Concrete Jungle

• Year of release: 1989
• Authors and artists: Mark Verheiden, Chris Warner, Ron Randall, Sam de la Rosa, Randy Emberlin, Chris Chalenor

Predator: Concrete Jungle was originally titled just 'Predator' and marked Dark Horse's first-ever foray into the franchise. After all these years, it remains the best Predator comic book series that's been published so far, in our humble opinion. At four issues long, it's well-paced, looks great, and honors the original movie while firmly expanding the canon as an alternative to everything that came after on the big screen.

Much like the original Aliens comic books in relation to James Cameron's masterpiece, Predator: Concrete Jungle was meant to serve as a sequel to the 1987 original movie. It stars Detective John Schaefer, brother of the protagonist of the original sci-fi action/horror flick, though the initial plan was to have Alan "Dutch" Schaefer return as a cop. It was followed by two direct sequels, Predator: Cold War and Dark River. Of course, it also inspired Predator 2's basic plot and shares its name with the overlooked 2005 video game developed by Eurocom.

Alien: Romulus is the shot in the arm the Alien movie franchise desperately needed, and FX's Alien: Earth, its first-ever TV show, could keep the momentum going next year. If you're dying to learn more about the Xenomorphs and experience wildly different tales of horror, we've put together our list of the best Alien comic books of all time.

For decades, it was Dark Horse Comics who had the rights to both Alien and Predator in the realm of comic books, putting out several series and one-shots that were well worth our time. With Disney's takeover of Fox's empire and all its properties, the opportunity to move both franchises to Marvel (also owned by the House of Mouse) came, and things changed for the first time in forever. So far, Marvel Comics' take on both franchises has been interesting to say the least, and you definitely shouldn't overlook the comics they have put out so far.

If you're looking for a refresher before (or after) checking out Romulus, or simply want to watch the entire sci-fi horror series for the first time, our up-to-date Alien streaming guide has you covered. Of course, we haven't forgotten about gamers, and we also have some thoughts on what the best Alien games of all time are. 

10. Aliens: Sacrifice 

• Release year: 1993
• Authors and artists: Peter Milligan, Paul Johnson, Ellie De Ville

Originally published as part of the Aliens magazine, Aliens: Sacrifice is often overlooked, but it’s a killer comic that fans shouldn't skip. The story follows a survivor of a deadly spaceship crash on an unknown desolate planet. There, a village has been terrorized by a Xenomorph, so she's instantly locked into a battle for survival while also facing her own demons.

Paul Johnson's art is a highlight — the exact kind of stuff you don't see much of in big comic books — and that alone gave (and still gives) Aliens: Sacrifice a ton of value, but beyond that Peter Milligan's sharp and emotional writing carry the story. This slim, four-part story is the sort of standalone tale that would've made a fine Alien movie.

9. Aliens: Dead Orbit

• Release year: 2017
• Authors and artists: James Stokoe

Aliens: Dead Orbit belongs to the latter era of Dark Horse Comics' work on the famous franchise. Released as a four-issue limited series in 2017, it's a bit of a riff on the first movie, with the crew of the Sphacteria fuel depot facing off against the deadly species with limited resources.

Completely written and drawn by James Stokoe, Dead Orbit feels like a very personal comic book that just happens to take place in the Alien universe. Sure, some plot beats are a bit too familiar, and the setting isn't exactly refreshing, but the in media res take on the narrative of each issue spices things up, and the striking art gives off the hopeless vibes the story is going for. 

8. Aliens: Outbreak 

• Release year: 1988
• Authors and artists: Mark Verheiden, Mark A. Nelson, Ron Randall, Willie Schubert

After the adaptation of the first Alien movie, which wasn't handled by Dark Horse, Aliens: Outbreak (originally released as Aliens) was the first-ever comic book series based on the property. Even after all these years, it remains an especially compelling follow-up to Aliens, regardless of whether you're a fan of Alien 3 or not.

The original version of the comic book is a direct sequel to Aliens, but, much like its two follow-ups, it was later heavily re-edited to fit with the events of Alien 3 after its release in 1992. The series was a tremendous hit for Dark Horse, still an infant company in 1988, and continued the stories of Hicks and Newt several years after the events of James Cameron's sequel, completely ignoring their deaths (as well as Ripley's) and instead bringing the Xenomorph menace to Earth, as the underwhelming threequel was yet to release.

7. Aliens: Music of the Spears 

• Release year: 1994
• Authors and artists: Chet Williamson, Tim Hamilton, Timothy Bradstreet, Matt Webb, Clem Robins

Music of the Spears could be considered one of the wildest and more off-beat Alien comic books ever released. It follows an under-appreciated composer named Damon Eddington, who wants to hatch a Xenomorph egg to raise the creature in captivity and capture its terrifying sounds to create a musical masterpiece.

Things only get weirder when ninjas get involved (we won't spoil how) and the Xenomorph’s is given the name Mozart. The world-building here is outstanding, going beyond the musical element and Eddington's close environment, painting a dystopian New York City in the year 2124 that's also been influenced by the discovery of the Xenomorph. This isn't your average Alien story, and it found enough success to be turned into a full novel by Yvonne Navarro two years later.

6. Alien: Bloodlines, Revival & Icarus 

• Release year: 2021-2022
• Authors and artists: Phillip Kennedy Johnson, Salvador Larroca, Julius Ohta, GURU-eFX, Yen Nitro, Clayton Cowles

Originally titled Alien Vol. 1, Alien: Bloodlines marked the fresh start of Marvel's first three-story arc for the Alien franchise, which was completed with Revival and Icarus. It does kick off like a typical Alien storyline, but things quickly get stranger than anyone expected going in.

Salvador Larroca's art wasn’t to everyone’s tastes, yet Phillip Kennedy Johnson's writing more than makes up for it. More importantly, this trilogy convinced fans from the get-go that new, exciting stuff could be done with the property under Marvel's umbrella, and the mystery of the biomechanical ‘Goddess' is a nice twist on the more psychological and strangely erotic side of the Alien movies.

5. Aliens: Salvation

• Release year: 1993
• Authors and artists: Dave Gibbons, Mike Mignola, Kevin Nowlan, Matt Hollingsworth, Clem Robins

Dave Gibbons and Mike Mignola working together on Alien? Did that happen? Yes, and it gave us a killer one-shot comic book. The premise is simple: a crewman and his captain abandon their ship, the Nova Maru, crash-landing on a planet where they soon realize they haven't escaped the ship's terrifying cargo.

The kicker here is that Selkirk, the main character, is an intensely God-fearing man, a trait which informs many of his actions throughout the horror adventure. While the story does tie into the larger Alien mythos, it’s the religious undertones, unique approach to its characters, and Mignola's striking art that elevate this one into the higher league of Alien comic books.

4. Aliens vs. Predator

• Release year: 1990
• Authors and artists: Randy Stradley, Phil Norwood, Chris Warner, Mark Propst, Brian Stelfreeze, Karl Story, Stine Walsh, Robert Campanella, Monika Livingston, Pat Brosseau

A five-issue comic book series – preceded by a single short story – Aliens vs. Predator opened up a whole new universe of crossover possibilities, as both sci-fi horror icons mixed together remarkably well. While many more notable AvP comic books arrived in the years that followed, the original story arc remains a must-read for any fan of the two sci-fi icons.

The main character, Machiko Noguchi, soon became a fan-favorite, later starring in Aliens vs. Predator: War and Three World War too. The story is easy to follow, but feels grand and was almost adapted into a movie years before Paul W.S. Anderson's take on the concept.

3. Aliens: Genocide

• Release year: 1991
• Authors and artists: Mike Richardson, John Arcudi, Damon Willis, Karl Story, Arthur Suydam, Jim Massara

While Genocide could be seen as a worthy standalone story, it's actually a follow-up to Female War, the finale of the trilogy that began with Outbreak. With Earth recovering from the Xenomorph infestation, billionaire Daniel Grant leads an expedition to the alien homeworld, which sounds like the worst idea in the history of bad ideas.

Betrayal happens (we won't spoil in which direction or how), Grant’s dark secrets are revealed, and the Xenomorph homeworld is ravaged by civil war going when the humans arrive; the ‘classic' Xenos versus a red variant of the species. Aliens: Genocide has all the good stuff found in the best Alien comics, and continues the ‘alternate timeline' story that began with Outbreak, culminating in a big finale also full of personal stakes.

2. Aliens: Labyrinth

• Release year: 1993
• Authors and artists: Jim Woodring, Kilian Plunkett, Matt Hollingsworth, Ellie De Ville

Aliens: Labyrinth takes place aboard a deep space research station, which is kind of the perfect setting for sci-fi horror stories. Jim Woodring's four-issue series had a far more specific angle, however, since it follows Dr. Paul Church’s studies of the Xenomorph's behavioral responses and how they relate to humans when they're captured. Yes, there's a bit of Alien: Resurrection before Alien: Resurrection in this one, but the story is more character-driven and personal.

There are some connections to past Alien comics in Labyrinth, but this one's largely a standalone tale that gets ‘up close and personal' with the Xenomorphs while digging deep into each character and their clashing motivations. Instead of a bombastic, fan-pleasing rollercoaster ride, Woodring chose to focus on compelling drama that goes beyond the deadly alien species, and that made this series an all-timer.

1. Aliens: Nightmare Asylum

• Release year: 1989
• Authors and artists: Mark Verheiden, Den Beauvais, Roger Casselman, Bob Pinaha, J. David Jackson

Nightmare Asylum is the follow-up to Outbreak and precedes Female War. It lands the top spot on our list because it's a fantastic second act of the post-Aliens storyline which gave Newt and Hicks a future (before Alien 3 came out and killed them off).

It's got Colonial Marines, an Earth overrun by Xenomorphs, and a crazed military figure that still wants to use trained aliens in battle. In a post-Aliens era, what more could you ask for? Nightmare Asylum has the scope and relentless pacing that Female War retained, yet it's laser-focused on the idea of the Xenomorph used as a weapon by humanity's worst, which is an idea that's been suggested time and again in the movies.

Providing an academic lens through which to view the huge interest and hysteria surrounding unidentified flying objects since pilot Kenneth A. Arnold witnessed what he called "flying disks or saucers" while cruising past Mt. Rainier on June 24,1947, a new book titled "After the Flying Saucers Came: A Global History of the UFO Phenomenon" has just been released from Oxford University Press.

Author Greg Eghigian is a professor of history and bioethics at Penn State University who spent nearly a decade delving into the subject of UFOs for this project, which was based on exhaustive archival research, interviews, and newspaper reports swirling around these mysterious aerial sightings. 

Eghigian's illuminating 400-page book chronicles how the phenomenon began right here in America then blossomed into a global obsession over the next few decades up to today's digital age government studies of "unidentified aerial phenomena" (UAP).

Eghigian credits this newest wave of mania as erupting from a New York Times article in December 2017 regarding a secret government program to study UFOS.

"When that dropped, then subsequent films, photos and more stories, that's when it all exploded," he tells Space.com. "As a mainstream media phenomenon, UFOs were kind of dead for a good long period of time and that’s really the thing that ushered it in. The veteran ufologists refer to people as 'seventeeners,' those people who believe that all UFO stuff started in 2017 and have no idea about the past. 

"For me, I began this project around 2013. I grew up on UFOs and loved this stuff as a kid but lost interest in it when I went off to college. I had some time in the summer and I started digging around a digital archive and found all this stuff. No professor of history had written on the subject since 1975, I thought this seemed like it might be worth a revisit. I knew it was going to be a deep dive, and know there were a lot of rabbit holes but I wasn’t completely ready for just how many there were out there." 

Giving the book a solid foundation in history was an important aspect to this comprehensive UFO exploration for Eghigian as he discovered myriad false accounts, unreliable witnesses and semi-established truths.

"What we do in history is ask ourselves how did we get to where we are? And that happens through choices that are made, but also choices that aren't made. There are lots of different forks in the road at various places in time and institutions and people do things for a variety of reasons. So you excavate that whole complicated history of the choices made and not made that inform how things got framed the way they are now. And the extent to which that's reflective of something that represents the reality on the ground versus the image we have of it. 

"What was really missing from the way people talk about UFOs was somebody who approached it from the outside looking in who had no skin in the ontology game. I'm not here to referee or debunk. I'm going to take people seriously here, but I'm not going to just take their word for things."

Eghigian was most unsettled by many of the more outlandish and imaginative explanations out there that all attempt to explain the true nature of these mysterious phenomena.

"I think some of the bigger rabbit holes that I recall are actually the alternative, speculative theories about where the UFOs are coming from," he notes. "The big ones of course are really the two variations: If these things are real they’re secret technology of the United States or, back then, the Soviet Union. Or they're from another planet. But there's lots of other theories that start to come out of the woodwork pretty quickly. These go from that they are ultra-terrestrials from some other kind of space-time continuum or dimension, they are maybe dead people and that they're a variation on ghosts, to arguments about these are beings that live inside the Earth or live underwater. 

"And then there are people who start to see this in Christian theological ways as demons of Satan. I realized if I started to go too far down that road that the book was never going to get completed, so I largely put my focus solely on the extraterrestrial argument.  

"UFOs don't make history. People make UFOs make history. They are a phenomenon beyond just something that is seen. It's a social phenomenon. It's all the different people and institutions who get involved that try to make this thing important, to try to argue that this matters, and that includes debunkers and irrational people who try to use UFOs as opportunities to make spurious arguments that undermine science." 

According to Eghigian, the fact that military intelligence has declared that there's something real there, and not just the result of computer glitches feels like confirmation for a lot of UFO faithful.

"The UFO world is awash in rumor. This stuff has legs within different segments of academia," he adds. "There are serious people like me who are saying, 'Be ready if you really want us to look into this stuff. Because we academics are slow and we are very, very skeptical. It's the way we operate. So just be careful what you wish for. If we do get into this stuff it's likely not going to play out in the way that a lot of people imagine it playing out.

"It's cooling down a bit but there's still a lot of people excited and enthused about it so I don't think it's going away anytime soon."

The growing field of astrobiology studies the origins and future of life in the universe. 

NASA is hoping to entice space fans of all ages to learn more about the field with ambitious and successful outreach programs, and the latest edition in their "Astrobiology" series of graphic novels is fully fueled with 28 pages of informative storytelling for comics fans and future scientists of all abilities to ingest and enjoy.

The ninth and most recent issue of this graphic history publication was just released by NASA last week. It's an educational volume that explores various career paths found in the fascinating field of astrobiology, which includes the study of the origin, evolution, and distribution of all lifeforms in the universe.

Related: What is astrobiology?

Here's the official description of the contents inside:

"The Story of our Search for Life in the universe answers one of the biggest questions of all… 'How do I become an astrobiologist?' Are you curious about the origin of life on Earth and the potential for life beyond our planet? Do you want to answer questions about habitability and life's existence in the universe? This issue talks about the journey to becoming an astrobiologist. Turn the pages to learn everything from what to study in school to opportunities for starting a career as a scientist. If you aspire to become an astrobiologist, this issue is your guide!"

"Astrobiology #9" features the lyrical artwork of Dr. Aaron L. Gronstal of NASA's Astrobiology Program Office, with a story by Dr. Mary Voytek and Dr. Linda Billing. 

As noted in the opening pages, 2010 marked the 50th anniversary of Exobiology and Astrobiology research and discovery at NASA. In commemoration, the Astrobiology Program created this Astrobiology Graphic History project to honor the personalities and formative events that determined the origins of these vital scientific disciplines. 

Previous issues have covered the following intriguing topics: Issue 1: The Origin of Science, Issue 2: Mission to Mars, Issue 3: Missions to the Inner Solar System, Issue 4: Missions to the Outer Solar System, Issue 5: Astrobiology and Earth, Issue 6: Living Beyond the Solar System, Issue 7: Prebiotic Chemistry and the Origin of Life, and Issue 8: Biosignatures.

"Astrobiology #9" is available as a PDF download to your laptop, desktop, tablet or mobile device at NASA's online site HERE, along with the complete series for free.

Weaving together an incredibly detailed and compelling narrative of NASA's tragic space shuttle Challenger disaster, a new non-fiction account of the historic event arrives today from Adam Higginbotham, the New York Times bestselling author of "Midnight in Chernobyl." 

"Challenger: A True Story of Heroism & Disaster on the Edge of Space" (Avid Reader Press, Simon & Schuster) is a gripping 576-page chronicle of the shuttle program from its inception before, and in the wake of, the Apollo moon missions, which made a final lunar landing in December of 1972.

Told with a remarkable storytelling flair, Higginbotham's exhaustive volume is a brilliant effort of investigative journalism that stands as a riveting examination of the complex costs of innovation, imagination, political positioning, clashing personalities, mismanagement and a series of fateful internal NASA decisions that partly led to the spacecraft's sudden destruction upon liftoff.

Related: Space shuttle Challenger and the disaster that changed NASA forever

Here's the official synopsis:

"On January 28, 1986, just seventy-three seconds into flight, the space shuttle Challenger broke apart over the Atlantic Ocean, killing all seven people on board. Millions of Americans witnessed the tragic deaths of a crew including New Hampshire schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe. Like the assassination of JFK, the Challenger disaster is a defining moment in 20th century history — one that forever changed the way America thought of itself and its optimistic view of the future. Yet the full story of what happened, and why, has never been told. Until now.

"Based on extensive archival research and meticulous, original reporting, 'Challenger: A True Story of Heroism & Disaster on the Edge of Space' follows a handful of central protagonists—including each of the seven members of the doomed crew—through the years leading up to the accident, a detailed account of the tragedy itself, and into the investigation that followed. It’s a compelling tale of optimism and promise undermined by political cynicism and cost-cutting in the interests of burnishing national prestige; of hubris and heroism; and of an investigation driven by leakers and whistleblowers determined to bring the truth to light. Throughout, there are the ominous warning signs of a tragedy to come, recognized but then ignored, and later hidden from the public.

"Higginbotham reveals the history of the shuttle program, the lives of men and women whose stories have been overshadowed by the disaster as well as the designers, engineers and test pilots who struggled against the odds to get the first shuttle into space. A masterful blend of riveting human drama and fascinating and absorbing science, Challenger brings to life a turning point in history—and the result is an even more complex and astonishing story than we remember."

No matter where you were on that sad winter day, the monumental loss of the first space shuttle and its valiant crew of seven astronauts is an indelible memory forever forged into our national collective consciousness. With its emotional scope and exacting resonance, writer Adam Higginbotham has truly crafted the ultimate tribute to the Challenger and its place in space exploration history.

"Challenger: A True Story of Heroism & Disaster on the Edge of Space" lands on May 14, 2024.

The Imperial Inquisitors of the "Star Wars" universe are an imposing group.

Tasked with hunting down and eliminating members of the Jedi Order after the declaration of Order 66, these fierce and unrelenting band of assassins have been dispatched across the cosmos to exterminate the remaining members of those noble space knights who were once the guardians of galactic peace and justice.

Marvel Comics is delving further into those dastardly Dark Side hunters with a new miniseries this summer titled "Star Wars: Inquisitors," and we’ve got a first peek at three sinister covers and details of the plot line that will explore more of these stone cold killers operating after the Great Jedi Purge. 

Related: 'Star Wars': Summary of the franchise and its effect on space technology 

Penned by the award winning writer/producer Rodney Barnes ("Killadelphia," "Star Wars: Ahsoka"), with interior art from illustrator Ramon Rosanas ("Star Wars," "The Astonishing Ant-Man"),"Inquisitors" lands July 3 and follows the Empire's merciless minions as they set their sights on a mysterious  Jedi target to destroy.

Here's the official synopsis:

THE JEDI MUST DIE!

"Weapons of the Emperor, sent out into the galaxy to track down and kill any Jedi who survived Order 66, the ruthless Inquisitors are among the most skilled and deadly threats to those who served the light side of the Force. Buried in the annals of Jedi lore is the story of Tensu Run, the Jedi who faced the Inquisitors and Darth Vader! What became of him, and why did the Empire so greatly fear his existence?"

The Force-flinging Inquisitors first arrived on the scene in the animated series "Star Wars Rebels," prior to being showcased in live action for Disney+'s "Obi-Wan Kenobi." These cunning disciples of Darth Vader, who report directly to the Grand Inquisitor, also made their evil presence known in the video game "Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order."

"It's such an honor to be writing the very first Inquisitors solo story!" Barnes told StarWars.com. "I love this time period of 'Star Wars' lore because it's the one I grew up on — when Darth Vader and the Empire were imposing their will on the entire galaxy. Plus, I got to create an all-new legendary Jedi with Tensu Run! Truly the best of times!"

Marvel's "Star Wars: Inquisitors #1" debuts on July 3 with a main cover by artist Nick Bradshaw and special variants by Alex Maleev and the great Walt Simonson.

Vulcan, United Launch Alliance's (ULA) new heavy-lift rocket, was not the result of having to flee an exploding planet, being exposed to gamma rays or even surviving the bite of a radioactive spider, but it does have an origin story compelling enough to warrant it having its own comic book.

Or so struck Cory Wood, ULA's senior graphic designer, who led the creation of "Ignition! The Origin Story of the Vulcan Centaur Rocket," the first (and perhaps only) issue of the aerospace company's new celebratory graphic novel.

Related: ULA's 1st Vulcan rocket launch looks spectacular in these photos

"I'm sort of a big nerd. And so in thinking about it, how do you tell the story of something that has taken this much time, this much effort and all of these people's intelligence and background to make it successful?" said Wood in an interview with collectSPACE. "It just felt like that superhero moment that needed its origin story told. And a comic book, that's how you tell a superhero's origin story, right?"

ULA's CEO Tory Bruno, who is depicted in "Ignition!", revealed the comic book's existence on social media on Friday (April 5), three days before its physical debut at Space Foundation's Space Symposium in Colorado Springs. Attendees were able to pick up a copy while ULA finalizes its plans for making the Vulcan Centaur comic book available to the general public. (A digital version can be found on ULA's website.)

Readers who are unfamiliar with the rocket's history will discover that the Vulcan got its start in 2014, soon after Bruno "with his trusty steed Indigo" was brought in to lead ULA.

"Indigo, we need to get home to meet with the engineers. Our country needs us," declares Bruno in one of the opening panels of the comic book.

Indigo features throughout "Ignition" — as the "rocket horse" did in real life, appearing to his fans' delight on Bruno's social media feed. The comic book also serves as a fitting memorial. "We wish him well as he explores pastures and his engineering expertise on horsepower, from this world and the next. He is missed by us all," reads a tribute on the last page.

Related: Vulcan rocket launches private moon lander, human remains in 1st flight

"We wanted everybody to have a moment in this book where reading it you realize, 'Ah, I remember this,' or 'Ah, I'm a part of this,'" said Wood. "So whether you are an employee and you got a big chuckle out of Tory with the t-shirt cannon or you follow us on social media and you remember Indigo as a part of the story, we wanted to have these little tidbits that different people would identify with."

"So it was easy to take all of Tory's huge, grandiose, fabulous personality and use that social cowboy aspect so that our social followers would get a big kick out of it," said Wood. "It only seemed natural then for Indigo to become a character, too, as we began to step down that road."

Central to "Ignition" is the story of Vulcan, from how it was designed, named, built, assembled, tested and ultimately, launched. That tale includes the ULA rockets that preceded it — the Atlas and Delta — and why the capabilities built into the Vulcan's design are needed by the company's national security, government and commercial clients.

Along the way, the message becomes even clearer. This is Vulcan's origin story, but the rocket is not the only superhero.

"It is really about all of the engineers and all of the effort and time that all of these different heroes throughout our company have pulled together to create such a wonderful vehicle that's coming forth and maybe defining our future. So when we talk about the story or heroes in the story, it's Vulcan, but it's also all of the people standing behind Vulcan to help create her," Wood said.

"Ignition" is Wood's first comic book and she strove to make it a love letter to the art form. She began with pencil sketches, progressed to ink and paint drawings and then scanned those pages to finish the book on the computer. She was also sure to include details all comic book fans would appreciate, including a page of ads (here hawking different aspects of ULA's business rather than 3D glasses and cheap magic tricks) and an all-important detail on the cover.

"We really don't want the comic book to be sold at stores but at the same time, as a kid picking up a comic, you look for the first print, first edition," said Wood. "So the barcode '00111' is the comic you want out of a series. The '001' is a reference that this is the first print of the series. Then the next '1' means it is the first cover art and the last '1' is the first printing of that exact comic."

Which begs the question: will there be an issue '00211'?

"I don't know," said Wood. "Volume One entails our history as a company and as a team, so I think Volume Two has yet to be written. It is still in front of us. But I'm excited to find out and walk with the rest of this team as we figure out where this goes. And maybe, someday, we'll get to tell that story, too."

Follow collectSPACE.com on Facebook and on Twitter at @collectSPACE. Copyright 2024 collectSPACE.com. All rights reserved.

"Star Wars: The Phantom Menace" celebrates its 25th anniversary on May 19, so prequel fans will soon be steeped to the eyebrows in memories of midichlorians, trade federations, pod racers, Shmi, Darth Maul, rolling droidekas and the silly shuffling gate of a goofy, lop-eared Gungan named Jar Jar Binks.

To help celebrate the momentous "Star Wars" occasion, Random House Worlds is releasing "Star Wars: The Living Force" from New York Times bestselling author John Jackson Miller on April 9. 

The new novel is a sprawling 432-page prelude to the big party. It serves as a nostalgic primer for the anniversary screenings and watch parties sure to spring up, and we've got an exclusive chapter excerpt to share to start kicking things off.

Related: George Lucas' 'Star Wars: The Phantom Menace' 20th anniversary message to fans

Here's the official synopsis:

"In the year before 'The Phantom Menace,' Yoda, Mace Windu, and the entire Jedi Council confront a galaxy on the brink of change.

"The Jedi have always traveled the stars, defending peace and justice across the galaxy. But the galaxy is changing, and the Jedi Order along with it. More and more, the Order finds itself focused on the future of the Republic, secluded on Coruscant, where the twelve members of the Jedi Council weigh crises on a galactic scale.

"As yet another Jedi Outpost left over from the Republic’s golden age is set to be decommissioned on the planet Kwenn, Qui-Gon Jinn challenges the Council about the Order’s increasing isolation. Mace Windu suggests a bold response: All twelve Jedi Masters will embark on a goodwill mission to help the planet and to remind the people of the galaxy that the Jedi remain as stalwart and present as they have been across the ages.

"But the arrival of the Jedi leadership is not seen by all as a cause for celebration. In the increasing absence of the Jedi, warring pirate factions have infested the sector. To maintain their dominance, the pirates unite, intent on assassinating the Council members. And they're willing to destroy countless innocent lives to secure their power.

"Cut off from Coruscant, the Jedi Masters must reckon with an unwelcome truth: While no one thinks more about the future than the Jedi Council, nobody needs their help more than those living in the present."

Miller is a prolific novelist plying his trade in numerous creative arenas, most notably as the author of "Star Wars: Kenobi," "Star Wars: A New Dawn," "Star Wars: Lost Tribe of the Sith," "Star Wars: Knight Errant," and Marvel's "Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic." His distinguished work in the comic book industry includes headlining gigs within the worlds of "Star Trek," "Battlestar Galactica," "Halo," "Iron Man," "Mass Effect," and "Planet of the Apes."

Related: Best sci-fi books: modern masterpieces & all-time classics

Here's our exclusive excerpt for John Jackson Miller's "Star Wars: The Living Force." 

After collecting intel on increasingly severe pirate activity in a desperate part of the galaxy, Jedi Master Depa Billaba goes undercover to investigate, operating under a secret identity, the thief known as "Hotwire." As she works to infiltrate the pirate gangs, she meets a young thief named Kylah.

Where is that girl?

Depa Billaba didn't know the answer, but it was far from the only question on her mind. The impromptu Jedi Council meeting had given her a lot more to think about. It was the first time she’d ever attended one while seated in the cargo area of a speeder truck. At least now she was in the front seat, though she was still in the dark, both literally and figuratively.

The Slice extended inward from Hutt space, stretching along the trade routes toward the Core like a dagger pointed at the heart of the galaxy. No sensible Hutt would act directly in the region, but all the local privateers seemed to be auditioning for jobs with them, banking on a future without the Republic and the Jedi to interfere. The Hutts were inevitable, the thinking went. It was just a matter of time before the gangs in the region became their subsidiaries.

But tantalizing intel had been developed by a student Depa had once tutored, the late, lamented Xaran Raal. One pirate band in the region alone had no ties to the Hutts at all, overt or otherwise: the Riftwalkers. The newest and, from all reports, the most intrepid of the gangs, led by someone called Zilastra. Most in the local underworld knew her name, if little beyond that — other than that she played for keeps, while also reportedly playing a blisteringly good game of sabacc. 

Depa had committed to remedy that lack of information. There was no question of a single Jedi, even a member of the Jedi Council, bringing a multiplanet operation like the Riftwalkers to justice. But the leader of such a group could not remain a cipher. Maz Kanata, who had ruled from her castle for centuries, had shown that a pirate state was not always the worst neighbor to have. Whether a "Queen Zilastra" would be another Maz was in the vital security interests of the Republic to know. 

And Depa's best connection to find out was twelve years old. And running late. 

Where is she? Depa checked the vehicle’s monitors for the umpteenth time before deciding to stand outside the vehicle. This must be what it’s like to be a parent waiting to pick up a child. 

Then again, the trash-filled backstreet outside the spaceport after midnight was no educational institution, and Kylah was no student — unless larceny was the subject. And the blaster shots Depa now heard signaled that school was still in session. 

"Hotwire!" Kylah yelled. 

Depa saw the girl dashing toward her through the darkness, a big bundle in her hands. Behind her, the alley was lit with red searchlights emanating from the bodies of at least half a dozen droids. They were private patrol units — light on intelligence, heavy on aggression. They shouted in unison, their voices amplified: "Halt, thief!" 

Depa had her blaster out in an instant. The droids disregarded her warning shots, charging ahead while a frantic Kylah raced for the speeder truck. 

Knowing that using her lightsaber would blow her cover, Depa reached out through the Force and brought a wave of abandoned shipping containers into the droids’ paths behind Kylah. The girl didn’t see the feat, but did benefit from it, reaching the hovertruck just as Depa opened its passenger door. 

Kylah shouted, "Go, go, go!" 

"Get down!" Depa yelled. Blaster shots peppered the side of the closed door, which Kylah shrank behind. The Jedi herself was already on the move, making for the driver’s side. Within seconds, the speeder was in motion. 

"Look out!" Kylah yelled as two of the droids blocked their path. 

"Hang on," Depa shouted. Gripping the control yoke, she plowed the vehicle right through the attackers. Red lights pinwheeled as the droids went flying noisily end-over-end. Blaster shots continued to strike the vehicle’s frame — but from behind, as she gunned it forward. 

Doubled over the large cloth sack she was carrying, Kylah cheered. "Whee! That was fun!" 

"Not the word I’d use." Depa accelerated until she could no longer see the droids behind her. "We're clear," she announced. 

The girl looked up — and smiled. "Home. No running lights." 

"Got it." Depa took a breath. Squinting in the darkness, she regarded the bundle in Kylah’s lap. "Get what you were looking for?"

"You don’t need to know." 

Depa straightened. "Whatever you say." 

As the vehicle drove farther from the spaceport, Kylah relaxed — and said a lot more. "I was perfect." 

"You were?" 

"Going in is never a problem. I wait until dark and hop over a fence. Then I shimmy up this post with a rotating security cam—" 

"You climb a post with a cam on it?" 

"Isn’t it great?" Kylah practically bounced in the seat, pleased with her cleverness. “Just below the cam I can hop onto this roof nearby—where there’s a vent that’s about this size.” With her hands, she traced a shape that wasn’t much larger than the sack she was holding. "I slide down, and I'm inside." 

"And you came out with that." 

"Yeah, but I can only grab one in a trip, and there's only ten minutes each day when I can get in the stockroom, during the shift change." 

"Looks like they noticed this time." 

"Only on the way out. As long as I can keep getting in, we’re in business." 

Unsure what the business was, Depa eyed the sack. "Must be worth a lot."

Kylah laughed. "That, you really don’t need to know." 

"You're the boss." 

In the days since Depa’s arrival on Keldooine, the Jedi had insinuated herself into the life of the largest megalopolis. Finding a way into its burgeoning underworld hadn’t been easy. Competition among various pirate bands had driven all of them into defensive stances, making them paranoid about newcomers. Posing as a speeder thief for hire had gotten her no ins at all. The only thing close to a break had come from her chance rescue of a child on the street being chased by bandits. Realizing Kylah was a courier for the Riftwalkers, Depa had made herself indispensable as driver and bodyguard, to the point where Kylah offered to share her hovel with the woman she called Hotwire. 

Depa parked behind it and exited, checking the alley for threats. Before she was done, Kylah bounded out. She worked a lock and let them both inside a darkened flat, abandoned by one of the many residents who had left Keldooine in a hurry. 

As she had after her other nightly forays, the girl carried her sack toward a storage room. “Back in a minute.” 

"Right." Depa locked the door behind them — and quickly slipped next to the opening Kylah had entered. 

She listened—and heard Kylah speak. "Wowee bowee zip zap shoo!" 

Depa tilted her head. It was a child’s phrase, nonsense. But then she heard a mechanical voice from the storage room. "Lock phrase initialized." A light click followed. 

There was no time to think about it. Depa quickly stepped away from the aperture and made a show of double-checking the front door. 

She looked back to see Kylah throwing the empty bag on the floor. "I’m a sweat monster. I’m going to change." 

"You have had a long day." 

After she saw Kylah disappear into her personal space, Depa crept into the storage room. The girl’s apparent prize sat upon a table: a carrying case with an emblem on its side. A chalice inside a star. 

Depa began to understand. It was from one of the passenger lines—Regal Voyager. The case had weight, she found on lifting it, but did not make noise when she shook it. It was also locked tight. She wondered about the contents. Money, gems, weapons? Or something worse?

Examining the mechanism, she understood what Kylah had just done. "Hope I get this right," she whispered, before speaking to the case itself. "Wowee bowee zip zap shoo." 

The lock clicked and the case sprang open. Depa flinched, on her guard—but there was no threat. Indeed, there was nothing inside at all. Struck curious, she lifted the container again. The heft, she realized, came from the interior plating that worked as a countermeasure against scanners.

It took no trained Jedi senses to know Kylah was almost ready to return; the girl made so much noise at home it was hard to believe she was a successful burglar—much less Depa’s best hope to connect with her quarry, the Riftwalkers. Depa quickly shut the case and exited the room. 

Kylah appeared in brighter, lighter clothes than her work garb. "Let’s go eat. They're still serving at Jammah's Place." 

"A restaurant? Kind of expensive, isn't it?" 

"You're buying. I just paid you, remember?" 

Her memory jarred, Depa nodded. "I left the money in the truck." 

"Some pro you are." Kylah laughed as she unlocked the door. "Stick with me. You’ll learn!" 

Depa watched the girl head back into the alley. That had been their dynamic: someone the age of a young Padawan, treating her as the student. But the kid's loose talk had already told Depa a lot, and she sensed that it would pay to continue playing her part. 

Closing up the flat, the Jedi noticed that a message had come in on her muted comlink while they were driving. It was from Mace— a lengthy hologram, the timecode advised. Depa decided to wait to watch it until she was alone again. Odds were it was just more about the closure of the outpost at Kwenn. That was one debate her mind was made up about. She was already seeing what life was like in a place without Jedi. Homes became hovels—and children became gangsters. 

But out here, I can do something about it. 

"You coming?" Kylah called out, already in the passenger seat and holding up Depa’s credit pouch. "Another minute and I'll start emptying this. If I don't eat it first!" 

"On my way." Depa pocketed the comlink and made for the truck.

Reprinted from "Star Wars: The Living Force" by John Jackson Miller. © 2024 by Lucasfilm Ltd. Published by Random House Worlds, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC.

Notorious Mandalorian bounty hunter Jango Fett's stock in the "Star Wars" universe has soared ever since his introduction in "Star Wars: Attack of the Clones" as the DNA donor to the cloned Grand Army of the Republic and proud papa of his unaltered replica, Boba Fett. 

Portrayed by Temuera Morrison ("Once Were Warriors," "The Book of Boba Fett") Jango's coolest moment came on the watery world of Kamino in that 2002 film's "Rumble in the Rain" duel with Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) and subsequent spaceship dogfight through an asteroid field. He was later slain by Jedi Mace Windu (Samuel L. Jackson) at the Battle of Geonosis.

Further elaborating on Jango Fett's backstory, Marvel Comics is delivering a rousing new four-part "Star Wars: Jango Fett" miniseries starting on Wednesday (March 20) that enlivens the skilled warrior's past to fill in the timeline prior to his job serving as the genetic template for a secret clone army.

Check out all five debut issue covers in the gallery below.

Related: "Star Wars" movies in order: Chronological and release

Here's the official synopsis:

"Jango Fett embarks on a brand-new mission as seen in 'Star Wars: Revelations!' Ethan Sacks ('Star Wars: Bounty Hunters') and Luke Ross ('Star Wars: War of the Bounty Hunters,' 'Star Wars: Dark Droids') team up to continue the legacy of one of the greatest bounty hunters: JANGO FETT! A bounty to find! A mystery to solve! A treaty at risk! All this with AURRA SING in the mix!"

Fans of the "Star Wars" prequels who grew up with those earlier films when they were first released from 1999-2005 should be thrilled with this adventurous trip back to that nostalgic era. "Star Wars: The Phantom Menace" celebrates its 25th anniversary in May, and the legacy characters of Jango Fett and Aurra Sing fit perfectly into this period of "Star Wars" legends and lore.

With a main cover by artist Leinil Francis Yu, special variants by illustrators David Marquez and Derrick Chew, and a Women's History Month cover by artist Aka, Marvel Comics' "Star Wars: Jango Fett #1" fires up its jetpack on March 20, 2024.

To say that Dr. Robert Zubrin, the esteemed Colorado-based aerospace engineer, author, lecturer and founding president of the Mars Society, has the Red Planet on his mind is a colossal understatement.   

This pioneering educational voice and influential space authority has written many books on the timely topic of Mars and Mars settlement over the years as interest in humankind's role in its ultimate development has risen exponentially. 

Now Zubrin adds to his impressive catalog of visionary volumes about our mysterious planetary neighbor with the recent release of "The New World on Mars" (Diversion Books, 2024), a fascinating and infinitely readable peek into Mars' inestimably rosy future.

Related: Mars Society proposes institute to develop tech needed for Red Planet settlement

Here's the official description:

"When Robert Zubrin published his classic book 'The Case for Mars' a quarter century ago, setting foot on the Red Planet seemed a fantasy. Today, manned exploration is certain, and as Zubrin affirms in 'The New World on Mars,' so too is colonization. From the astronautical engineer venerated by NASA and today's space entrepreneurs, here is what we will achieve on Mars and how.

"SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Virgin Galactic are building fleets of space vehicles to make interplanetary travel as affordable as Old-World passage to America. We will settle on Mars, and with our knowledge of the planet, analyzed in depth by Dr. Zubrin, we will utilize the resources and tackle the challenges that await us. What we will we build? Populous Martian city-states producing air, water, food, power, and more. Zubrin's Martian economy will pay for necessary imports and generate income from varied enterprises, such as real estate sales—homes that are airtight and protect against cosmic space radiation, with fish-farm aquariums positioned overhead, letting in sunlight and blocking cosmic rays while providing fascinating views. 

"Zubrin even predicts the Red Planet customs, social relations, and government—of the people, by the people, for the people, with inalienable individual rights—that will overcome traditional forms of oppression to draw Earth immigrants. After all, Mars needs talent." 

Always fully armed with provocative opinions, Dr. Zubrin spoke to us on this intriguing new guidebook to learn what keeps him invigorated concerning Mars colonization, and how that planet can be successfully transformed for human habitation and prosperity in the coming centuries.

Space.com: How does this project differ from your previous works on Mars?

Dr. Robert Zubrin: This book takes a longer view than "The Case for Mars," which is really mostly about how we can get humans to Mars and have an effective exploration program there. 

"The New World On Mars" is much more focused on the future. This book says it's evident that people will be able to go to Mars in the near future. The question is what will we be able to create on Mars? What kinds of human societies are likely to emerge on Mars and what do they mean for the human future as a whole?

Space.com: One of the most interesting chapters deals with the psychological aspects of leaving Earth and establishing an identifiable Martian culture with its own customs, rites and rituals and the importance of that process. Can you elaborate on that subject more?

Zubrin: The Mars Society over the past couple years held two contests asking people to design a 1,000-person Mars colony and a one-million-person Mars city-state. And by design we meant not just the technology or the economy, but the social system, political system, what kind of sports are likely to be played, as well as the aesthetics. 

Between the two contests, there were something like 300 entries. The ideas proposed spanned a huge range of political systems from socialist, to democratic and libertarian. Rather than attempt to choose my favorite system for a Martian utopia, I took the point of view that there will be many Martian cities founded by different people with very different ideas on what the ideal state should be, and it's going to be sorted out by natural selection.  

Some of the answers I came up with I like a lot, like human liberty. But this is in contradiction to many visions of science fiction colonies that are totally controlled because no one would immigrate to one. The ones that will outgrow the others will clearly be the ones that are most attractive to immigrants. Freedom is a great attractor. North Korea does not have an illegal immigrant problem. Martian colonies will have to be highly inventive and invention only thrives under freedom. I believe a Mars colony will also require a great deal of social solidarity, so it will not be multi-cultural and will need to have a strong sense of community and common identity.

In my life I haven't had much use for organized sports, let alone organized religion. Yet these are things that help form common identity, and I think they'll be prominent in the successful Mars cities. They will also have to be aesthetically beautiful to attract immigrants, female immigrants in particular, because if you're going to have a population that grows on Mars, you're going to have to attract women to Mars.

The founders of America called it a noble experiment. Mars will be a place where there will be dozens of noble experiments, and that's where you'll get the answers.

Space.com: What keeps you energized and inspired to do your best work with the Mars Society, exploring new book projects, or planning the next lecture, science talk or convention appearance?

Zubrin: I always feel that I need a purpose. That I should be doing something that's going to do some good. What is going on in the world today where I can do some good? In addition to fighting for Mars, I've been writing a lot of articles calling for aid to the Ukraine. 

And I think space is part of the fight for freedom too. By opening space we will prove that it's not true that there are limited resources, and therefore it's not true that there's a necessity for war, which means it's not true that there's a necessity for tyranny. Through my technical work and through my writing, I do whatever I can do.

"The New World on Mars" is available for purchase on Amazon.

The iron-fisted rule and cruel tyranny of "Star Wars'" evil Galactic Empire has been a source of intense interest ever since that epic opening shot of the Rebel Blockade Runner being reeled in by a Star Destroyer's tractor beam, then boarded by the black-robed Lord Darth Vader in 1977's "Star Wars: A New Hope."

Now, a comprehensive new book from DK Publishing titled "The Rise and Fall of the Galactic Empire" dissects the formation of this harsh bureaucratic regime in a galaxy far, far away and follows its indomitable march of control spreading fear and merciless governance to all known systems. 

Arriving on July 9, 2024, this historical interpretation will serve as the definitive account of the Empire's maneuvers, and the mistakes that ultimately led to its demise. Check out this early peek at the cover for "The Rise and Fall of the Galactic Empire."

Related: 'Star Wars' movies in order: Chronological and release

Here's the official description: 

"So this is how liberty dies — with thunderous applause."

— Senator Padmé Amidala

"When Palpatine declared the birth of his new Empire, he expected it would stand for millennia. Instead, it lasted only 24 years. This is the story of how a tyrannical regime rose from the ashes of democracy, ruled the galaxy with an iron fist, and then collapsed into dust.

"It is a story of war and heroes, of the power of propaganda and the dangers of complacency. But most of all, it is a story of normal people trying to live their lives in the face of a brutal dictatorship. From the ruthlessness of Darth Vader's campaigns to the horrors of the Tarkin Initiative, this book offers fresh new insights into the dark entity at the core of 'Star Wars.'"

Recent "Star Wars" TV series like Disney+'s "Andor" have steered stories toward the complex inner workings and psychological weapons employed by the Empire, which has created more curiosity as to how this multi-headed monster acquired so much so quickly, only to lose it all. 

"So much of how we think about 'Star Wars' is based around what we see of the rebels. But that leaves a big empty space for the Empire," Kempshall told StarWars.com. "What was their experience of ruling the galaxy and fighting the war? What would people think about the Empire once it was gone?

"I’ve always found the Empire utterly fascinating both as a fan and then as a historian. Working on 'Star Wars: Battles that Changed the Galaxy' helped me think really long and hard about what in-universe historians might say about the Empire, but it only gave me a taste. I — much like Anakin — wanted more!

"That's what this book has been for me and Beaumont Kin. The chance to fully and deeply explore the realities of the Empire and to show all of you what it looks like up close. This is my first solo 'Star Wars,' book but it’s one I’ve wanted to write for most of my life."

Beaming in from the Delta Quadrant and straight onto your bookshelf is prolific "Star Trek" author David Mack's latest sci-fi jewel, "Picard: Firewall," a 336-page hardcover coming Feb. 27, 2024  

In this compelling story set before the unfolding events of the premiere season of Paramount+'s "Star Trek: Picard," "Firewall" focuses on the former Borg character of Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan) as she links up with a notorious band of space vigilantes and we have an exclusive chapter excerpt to share below.

Mack is a multi-award-winning science fiction master who's authored 38 novels in the arenas of science fiction, fantasy, and adventure, including the "Star Trek Destiny" and "Cold Equations" trilogies. His impressive resume of writing credits includes episodes of "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" and consultant work on the debut season of the hit animated series, "Star Trek: Prodigy."

Related: Star Trek streaming guide: Where to watch the Star Trek movies and TV shows online

Here's the official publisher synopsis from Pocket Books:

"A thrilling prequel adventure based on the acclaimed TV series 'Star Trek: Picard!'

"Two years after the USS Voyager's return from the Delta Quadrant, Seven of Nine finds herself rejected for a position in Starfleet and instead finds a new home with the interstellar rogue law enforcement corps known as the Fenris Rangers. The Rangers seem like an ideal fit for Seven—but to embrace this new destiny, she must leave behind all she's ever known, and risk losing the most important thing in her life: her friendship with Admiral Kathryn Janeway."

What Mack found most compelling about writing "Firewall" was the need to make a deep dive into the psychology of Seven of Nine during a critical phase of her life. 

"Because she and Kathryn Janeway are the only two major canon "Star Trek" characters in the novel, and most of the book is told through Seven's perspective, I needed to immerse myself in Seven's point of view as a queer woman on a journey of self-discovery as well as that of a heroine on an adventure," Mack tells Space.com. 

"It gave me a chance to connect with much of what makes Seven such a great character: her intelligence, her integrity, and also her hidden vulnerability. She is a richly layered person, able to contain seemingly contradictory multitudes, and that made it a joy to explore her psyche during her transition from ex-Borg to a fully empathetic human being."

Here's our exclusive excerpt from "Picard: Firewall" courtesy of Pocket Books:

She switched back to the team's channel. "Everyone! Use the storm as cover!"

The team responded in overlapping transmissions — "Are you crazy?" "Oh, hell no." "You’ve gotta be kidding!" — until a fresh barrage of disruptor pulses from the fighter quelled dissent and spurred them all into powered dives toward the thunderhead.

"Don't cluster! Split up and regroup on—"

Another fusillade of disruptor blasts cut across the strike team’s descent vector—and one tore through Ellory's thruster pack, which exploded in a burst of sparks and shrapnel.

Seven struggled to see past the inky plume of smoke pouring from Ellory's fragged suit. "Ell! Talk to me, Ell! Ell, can you hear me?"

Harper cut in: "Her suit’s offline! No power, no comms! Anyone got eyes on her?"

"Affirmative," Speirs said. "No movement, falling like a rock."

"About to lose her in the clouds," Ballard said.

Seven keyed her suit's thrusters to maximum. "Everyone, get clear. I’m going in." Hands outstretched and pointed ahead of her, she chased after the unresponsive Ellory and speared her way into the thundercloud just a second behind her.

Everything went pitch-black, and then the world flared blinding white—lightning slashed in great forks all around Seven, and entire banks of black cloud pulsed with inner light, all of it followed by crushing roars of thunder that hit her with walls of sonic force.

Her eyes pulsed with green and purple afterimages, and her head spun from the shock of thunderclaps, but she forced herself not to blink, not to pass out, not to pull inward or do anything to slow her dive. Hands first, head lowered, she arrowed through another wall of roiling black and gray vapors—to see Ellory just a hundred meters ahead of her, tumbling wildly, out of control, with no sign of consciousness.

Beneath them, the belly of the cloud flared white with electrical fury.

Seven accelerated directly into Ellory and wrapped her arms around her, and then her legs.

"Computer! Shields!" Her suit's command system activated the low-power shield normally used for extra protection during the most perilous moments of atmospheric entry.

Please be enough—

She and Ellory plunged through the bottom of the cloud as it resounded with thunder and flashed—just for a few milliseconds—with sheet lightning hotter than the surface of a star.

Writer/producer Jon Favreau is currently ramping up the development phase for Disney+'s "The Mandalorian" Season 4, and he's in the nascent stages of directing the recently announced "The Mandalorian & Grogu" feature for Lucasfilm.  

While there's a temporary lull in the action for the eventful world of Mandalorians, now is the ideal time to reflect on the legacy of this enigmatic helmeted tribe of the galaxy far, far away with an all-new reference guidebook. This is the way!

London-based Titan Books has gathered the finest material from the archives of "Star Wars Insider" magazine to create "Star Wars: The Mandalorian Collection," an engrossing look at "The Mandalorian" TV series, its spinoff "The Book of Boba Fett," and the dynamic role these honorable bounty hunters have played across the "Star Wars" universe since first being introduced in 1978's "The Star Wars Holiday Special."

Related: 'Star Wars': Summary of the franchise and its effect on space technology

Here's the official description:

"Prepare for an exciting look at the Mandalorians throughout 'Star Wars,' from Jango and Boba Fett to Din Djarin and Bo-Katan Kryze. This deluxe edition provides a behind-the-scenes exploration of popular Mandalorian characters from film, television, and more with revealing interview material from the creators of 'The Mandalorian,' Dave Filoni and Jon Favreau, as well as actors Pedro Pascal (Din Djarin), Temuera Morrison (Jango/Boba Fett), Katee Sackhoff (Bo-Katan Kryze), Emily Swallow (The Armorer), Daniel Logan (young Boba Fett from the prequel trilogy), and Jeremy Bulloch (Boba Fett from the original trilogy). Also included are indispensable episode guides for 'The Book of Boba Fett' and all seasons of 'The Mandalorian.'"

This handsome 144-page hardcover collectible is themed specifically around all aspects of Mandalorian appearances in the "Star Wars" empire, touching upon the actors that portrayed these indelible characters, their codes and oaths, culture and customs, and the craftsmanship of their armor and weapons. And yes, there's even a special chapter on that adorable Force-fortified alien we first knew as Baby Yoda, then later as Grogu when its real name was announced to viewers.

"The Mandalorian Collection" is a comprehensive roundup of everything Mandalorian, richly illustrated with concept art, sketches, storyboards, still photography and more. It's also a testament to the creative genius of Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni in creating the first live-action "Star Wars" TV series and delivering the old-fashioned charms of George Lucas's original space fantasy that has entertained countless millions around the globe for nearly 50 years. 

"Star Wars: The Mandalorian Collection" arrives in comic shops, bookstores, and online outlets on Feb. 20, 2024.

Whether or not those radical "business in the front, party in the back" haircuts of the ‘90s, which spawned nicknames like the Camaro Cut or Alabama Waterfall, will ever come back in style is highly debatable. 

But despite the urge to forget all about those outdated barbershop blunders, Image Comics is confidently doubling down on retro pop culture and embarrassing fashion fads with a newly remastered collection of writer/artist Daniel Warren Johnson's old "Space-Mullet" webcomic that's scheduled to hit bookstore and comic shops on July 9 and July 10, respectively.

Related: Best sci-fi books: modern masterpieces & all-time classics

The award-winning Warren has been on a hot streak lately in the competitive comics industry with his rebooted flagship "Transformers" series for Image selling an astonishing 150,000 copies on its first printing for the premiere issue. He also scored a coveted Eisner Award for Best Teen Publication last year for the well-received wrestling adventure series, "Do a Powerbomb."  

Now Image is resurrecting the prolific creator's cult webcomic, "Space-Mullet," in a deluxe reprinted collection that features remastered lettering and includes a never-before-printed chapter of Warren's gritty project, which began over a decade ago.

Here's the official synopsis of this intergalactic odyssey:

"Ex-Space Marine Jonah and his co-pilot Alphius rove the Galaxy, just trying to get by. Drawn into one crazy adventure after another, they forge a crew of misfits into a family that must face the darkest parts of the universe together. 'Space-Mullet' is a richly detailed, accessible sci-fi world with heartfelt characters and an unforgettable story."

This new trade paperback gives fans of material like "Cowboy Bebop" and "Firefly" a nostalgic glimpse back to the nascent days of Warren's career in comics and offers up a rowdy tale of unlikely cosmic heroes simply trying to survive in the universe without causing too much mischief or damage.

"When I started 'Space-Mullet,' I had just quit my steady teaching job, had no money, and DEFINITELY no work in the comics industry," said Johnson. "This book was me throwing everything I had at trying to prove to the comics world I could make something special. The pages are humble, but are a huge foundation for what made me the artist I am now. See proto-DWJ come to life in these pages!!!"

Image Comics' "Space-Mullet" TPB arrives at local comic book shops on July 10 and at all major and indie bookstores a day earlier.

The Jedi Knight Mace Windu doesn’t get nearly enough credit for his valiant deeds in the "Star Wars" universe, even after decapitating Jango Fett in "Attack of the Clones" and then almost vanquishing Chancellor Palpatine (aka Darth Sidious) before Anakin intervened and Windu was chucked out the window in "Revenge of the Sith."

Now the skilled, purple-lightsabered warrior played by Samuel L. Jackson shines in "Star Wars: Mace Windu: The Glass Abyss," his very own solo novel coming next summer. The book sees Windu taking up arms to complete Qui-Gon Jinn’s last mission in the Outer Rim following the tragic events of "Star Wars: The Phantom Menace."

Written by esteemed author and screenwriter Steven Barnes, the man who penned the "Star Wars Legends" classic "The Cestus Deception" and dozens of other sci-fi novels, including the "Dream Park" series with Larry Niven, "The Glass Abyss" hits book stores on Aug. 6, 2024, published by Random House Worlds. Its plot unfolds after Darth Maul kills Qui-Gon and Mace Windu is given a posthumous request from his deceased friend that begins a new quest to fulfill.

Related: 'Star Wars' movies in order

Here's the official synopsis:

"The Jedi are reeling from Qui-Gon Jinn’s sudden death at the hands of a Sith. Jedi Master Mace Windu’s feelings about Qui-Gon have always been complicated, and have not been made any simpler in death. While they often disagreed, Mace valued Qui-Gon's unique perspective, and their shared dedication to the Force made them allies. Without Qui-Gon and his unorthodox views, Mace feels out of balance. 

"While considering his fallen friend’s legacy, Mace is surprised to receive a final message from Qui-Gon, marked to be delivered to Mace on the event of Qui-Gon’s death. The message contains a last request: a plea to help the Outer Rim planet of Metagos. 

"Many years ago, a violent solar flare transformed the surface of the desert planet into a landscape of irradiated glass — as beautiful as it is dangerous. Now most of the surviving inhabitants live underground, where rival clans fight to control the planet’s limited resources. 

"As a young Jedi, Qui-Gon protected the Sa'ad farming clan from the planet’s less scrupulous factions. The Sa’ad practice the art of dream-weaving, retaining their waking minds upon sleep in order to communicate and coexist with the wild creatures around them. Qui-Gon vowed to return if they ever required his aid, but now it falls to Mace to fulfill that promise. The Sa'ad’s leader, KinShan Nightbird, has begged for the Jedi’s help in freeing Megatos from the crime lords who threaten to eradicate her people’s way of life."

Barnes was thrilled to be summoned by Random House to write "The Glass Abyss" and lend his talents to a project exploring more of Mace Windu's "Star Wars" past.

"I was busy with television work…but how could I pass THIS up?" Barnes told StarWars.com. "A chance to wield the purple lightsaber? Hah! So, with the support of a great team, I crafted a story of mystery, adventure, betrayal, and romance on a new planet, Metagos, a seething criminal cesspool that was once a thriving and beautiful world, a place where a single supreme warrior, willing to risk all, can make the ultimate difference.

"Intent on fulfilling Qui-Gon's final wishes, Mace travels to Metagos and infiltrates the enemies of the Sa'ad. But as the Jedi Master investigates the intricate web of adversaries and allies, Mace finds himself pushed to the boundaries of the Jedi code, challenging his beliefs and his relationship to the Force itself."

"At all times, I remembered there is only one goal in writing such a book: to be true to the mythos, and thrill the fans," Barnes adds. "To give them the fun, suspense, and heart-stopping action they've come to expect from one of our greatest mythologies, and create more of an inner world for one of the most powerful Jedi in the galaxy. I can't wait to share 'The Glass Abyss' with the fans. I can't wait to read it myself."

"Star Wars: Mace Windu: The Glass Abyss" releases on Aug. 6, 2024.

As a general rule few dare to defy, inserting cats and dogs into just about anything science fiction-related provides instant uplift to its popularity as most everyone on Earth (and anyone potentially existing on nearby planets) loves their furry friends.

To further reinforce that universal truth, a new comic book project from Boom! Studios titled "Man's Best" embarks on a thrilling sci-fi adventure revolving around a trio of cybernetically-enhanced domestic pets marooned on an alien world following their colony spaceship's crash landing.

Written by the Eisner and Harvey Award-winning Thai-American creator Pornsak Pichetshote ("The Good Asian") and paired with playful interior artwork by Jesse Lonergan ("Miss Truesdale and the Fall of Hyperborea"), this tail-waving miniseries arrives beginning on Mar. 20, 2024 with multiple variant covers available by Lonergan, Trish Forstner and Franny. 

Related: Cats in space! New 'Captain Ginger' comic unveils homage to classic 'Star Wars' poster (exclusive)

Here's the official synopsis: 

"'Homeward Bound' on an alien world, 'Man's Best' follows three emotional support pets living on the Starship Horizon — a spacecraft searching for a new home to house a humanity compromised by bad decisions and corporate greed. 

"But after the ship crashes and the crew is captured, these loyal pets are their owner's only hope. Outfitted in outrageous tech, these three best friends must traverse a hostile world to rescue their owners — leaving them the only hope for a humanity that might not be worth saving, in a harrowing adventure that threatens to tear apart their most valuable treasure: their friendship."

Check out our exclusive 4-page peek at the premiere issue in the gallery below.

"It's really weird to say a book about a cat in a mech suit, a golden retriever with a bionic leg, and a French bulldog with a rocket strapped to his back might be my most personal book ever, but … that's kinda what happened?," says Pichetshote. "I've never written anything where I can see recent realizations in my life directly incorporated onto the page as much as this book and have no idea how readers will respond. What I'm a lot more confident in is how much of an honor it is to work with Jesse Lonergan. It's amazing how as a 'professional writer' I still have no words to explain how innovative his art keeps getting with each issue."

Boom! Studios series editor Eric Harburn was "blown away" by what this imaginative team accomplished and stated that Pornsak and Jesse are a dream creative team and a dream to collaborate with. He fortified his position by explaining that "Man's Best" is like nothing readers have ever seen from either of these creators.

"I feel like I've gotten plenty of opportunities to do weird sci-fi stuff, but I haven't gotten the chance to draw as many cute things as I would like," added Lonergan. "So getting the opportunity to work on a book with pets battling across alien landscapes is really a dream come true, and then to have someone like Pornsak bringing a story with real depth and heart makes it that much better. This project has been intense, with the story consistently escalating. I find myself constantly challenged to raise the bar. The lazy part of me keeps telling the rest of me that there should be a section where I ease off and do some 'easy' pages, but it hasn’t happened yet."

"Man's Best #1" bounds into comic shops and onto digital on Mar. 20, 2024.

In an age of diminishing trust in science, scientists need to change how they work with the public and within the broader scientific community.

The vast majority of fundamental scientific research — the kind of science that pushes ever deeper into unknown regions and expands humanity's knowledge — is funded by government organizations. In the United States, that typically takes the form of federal agencies like NASA, the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and the Department of Energy. Scientists compete for grant funding to support the hiring of students and junior researchers, purchase expensive equipment, and write research papers.

Unfortunately, funding for the sciences has been dropping consistently for the past few decades. While there are occasional spikes of increased funding, there is now less money going to basic research, especially when measured as a fraction of all federal spending, than in over half a century.

Fueling this declining interest in science funding is a declining interest and trust in science itself. While scientists have historically enjoyed a high level of trust among the public, that trust has been consistently dropping, from a high of 75% just before the pandemic to a present-day low of 57%, according to a Pew Research poll conducted between Sept. 25 and Oct. 1.

Related: What is the difference between science and pseudoscience? 

What's more, science is becoming ever more politicized, with left-leaning policymakers more likely than right-leaning politicians to support science funding. Those leaders' votes mostly align with their constituents' views: Respondents who identified as Republican were much less likely to view scientists positively.

With that decline in trust comes a decline in funding, and unfortunately for scientists, that drop in funding creates dysfunctions that lead to even more reduced trust.

The spreading disease 

A reduction in public funding for science leads to three sets of dysfunctional relationships: It affects how scientists interact with each other, with students and with the public.

The competition for grants has grown ever fiercer in the past decade, with scientists spending more of their time fighting it out for fewer research dollars. The typical grant award rate is now below 20%, meaning that researchers have to reapply year after year to get even a small amount of funding, with awards usually not even enough to cover the time spent applying for the grants in the first place.

To judge scientists in this competition for grants, awards and professional opportunities, scientists encourage each other to publish — a lot. Over 3 million journal articles were published last year. The more a scientist publishes, and the more that work is cited, the more likely that scientist will be to win awards and advance in their careers. 

This intense pressure to publish — often summarized as "publish or perish" — has led to a stunning rise in shoddy work. Some of that is downright intentional fraud — a deliberate distortion of the data to get a publishable result. But more often, it's simple laziness, driven by an eagerness to get a paper out sooner rather than later. It's also the responsibility of journal publishers to adhere to a rigorous and thorough peer-review process, which isn't always the case.

Along with that increased competition for funding comes increased competition for jobs. Students are signing up for science majors at record numbers, with some departments seeing double or triple the number of students compared with two decades prior. Universities love this glut of students, because they often bring federal loans to pay for their increasingly expensive education. Yet there is no commensurate growth in long-term positions. Students go on to get doctorates, start short-term positions and then find themselves in their early 30s without a permanent position in science. In some fields, there are 10 new doctorates awarded for every new open position — an untenable situation.

Lastly, scientists are discouraged from communicating their work to the public. Hiring, tenure and promotion committees view public outreach neutrally at best, and with derision and scorn at worst. Despite the critical need for the public to hear about the latest scientific research, scientists themselves are often the last ones to do it. And why should they? If it doesn't help them in their career, it's a waste of time for them.

The rise in fraudulent work, the lack of long-term career options for budding young scientists, and the discouragement of science communication all contribute to a lack of interest in continuing science funding, which starts the downward cycle anew. Thankfully, there's a way out.

The way out 

The lack of funding is causing these dysfunctions within science. But scientists can't just expect to ask for more funding and automatically get it; the public is already becoming ever more disillusioned. So instead, scientists must work within the current funding restrictions and present a new face to themselves, to their students, and to the public. That is the road to rebuilding trust, and with that increased trust comes more secure funding.

First, scientists need to let go of the pressure to publish. There are already too many papers coming out for any researcher to keep up with their own field. Scientists are pretending that they can measure success through publication and citation counts, but this is simply distorting the way science is done. Scientists need to publish less and be given more time to develop long-term research plans. 

Along with that, funding agencies need to offer more high-risk/high-reward programs, favor junior researchers over established ones, and introduce randomness into the selection process so that more researchers get a chance to try out new, innovative ideas.

Second, if we're going to maintain the present science-student population levels, we need to drastically cut the number of short-term postgraduate positions. If there aren't enough permanent positions in science, then students should be trained for positions outside academia and be allowed to exit academic research when they are still young, not after some of their most productive years have already been spent.

Lastly, scientists must communicate with the public, often and directly. Science communication training should be a part of every graduate program and a built-in expectation of every faculty position.

Once scientists tackle fraud by reducing the pressure to publish, lessen disillusionment by being honest about career paths, and make science more personable by working face-to-face with the public, they can start rebuilding trust and regaining funding and, from there, ensure the continued survival of science for generations to come.

Former NASA astronaut Mike Massimino shares important life lessons from his journey to joining the space program and achieving what, at times, felt like an impossible dream.

Inspired by Neil Armstrong's first steps on the moon, Massimino dreamt of being an astronaut since he was six years old. Despite several setbacks, including poor eyesight and a fear of heights, he served as an astronaut from 1996 until 2014 and launched on two space shuttle missions to service the Hubble Space Telescope — the second of which was the final flight to upgrade the telescope in 2009. 

"Moonshot: A NASA Astronaut's Guide to Achieving the Impossible" (Hachette Go, 2023), on sale starting Tuesday (Dec. 5), catalogs important lessons Massimino learned from his experiences in academia, training for (and being rejected by) NASA, and as a media personality — including a short stint on the the sitcom "The Big Bang Theory."

Related: How NASA's Apollo Missions Inspired This Astronaut to Aim for Space

Space.com sat down with Massimino to discuss the book, his advice for overcoming failure and his most memorable moment as an astronaut. Among his secrets to success are perseverance and teamwork, which he urges can be applied to pursuing any passion in life, whether that be on Earth or up in space.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Space.com: This is your second book. What inspired you to tell this story and share the lessons you learned during your time at NASA? 

Mike Massimino: My agent recommended I read Admiral McRaven's "Make Your Bed: Little Things That Can Change Your Life … And Maybe the World," which is about the lessons he learned as a Navy seal. Through the public speaking that I've done, I've found that the life lessons I've learned as an astronaut resonate most with audiences. 

I mean, I am sure they think all the space stuff is cool — what it's like to launch, look [down] at the planet and do spacewalks — but the things that really seem to resonate with people are the lessons on persistence, teamwork, trust, knowing when to pivot or speak up, and how to deal with mistakes. So when I read McRaven's book, I thought there were things that I could share that would be helpful to people, and not only those who are interested in the space program — that was my inspiration to write the book. 

Space.com: Feeling defeated is natural. How did you shift your perspective when faced with obstacles along your journey to become an astronaut; what kept you motivated?

Massimino: It was a deep desire to be a part of the space program. I dreamt about being an astronaut as a little boy after seeing Neil Armstrong walk on the moon. Once I had that dream — if I had the opportunity to be a NASA astronaut, I knew that would be my first choice. But if I couldn't do that, I knew I wanted to contribute in some other way, either as an engineer, working in operations or academia. 

I was discouraged because I kept falling short and getting rejected, and the more I learned about [being an astronaut], the more I wanted it. I had to be honest with myself: I knew it was exactly what I wanted to do, but that it might not be possible. [The astronaut program] is really competitive and hard. Only a few people are picked out of thousands who are well-qualified. But I told myself, "I can't control that." What I could control was my willingness to try; doing my best and not giving up when I was told no. 

Space.com: You were rejected by NASA three times before reaching your goal. Was it difficult to share with the world the challenges you faced? 

Massimino: I think that if people are willing to listen to my story and they can get something out of it, then it makes it all worthwhile. When I was medically disqualified for my eyesight and I was trying to get that overturned, I remember thinking there was very little chance that I was going to be able to fix my eyesight — and even if I did, there was no guarantee that they would interview me again or ever pick me — but boy, wouldn't that be a great story! 

When you're in pursuit of a dream, it adds more to the story and the gratitude that you have once you get there if you had to overcome obstacles. It just makes you appreciate the experience that much more. And, persevering to get to [my] goal was very helpful once I got to NASA because the challenges didn't stop. 

Space.com: You knew you wanted to be an astronaut after seeing Neil Armstrong walk on the moon. What about that historic moment fueled your passion?

Massimino: Those astronauts were all my heroes. I wanted to grow up to be like them. The morning that we watched that launch I remember thinking, "This is the most important thing going on right now in the world. This is the most important thing that'll ever happen for the next 500 years." As a six-year-old, I thought that. We learn about stuff that happened 500 years ago, and this is what people 500 years from now are going to learn about. That feeling never left me. Even as I got older and the belief that I could become an astronaut went away, the interest and the belief in the importance of the space program never faded. 

Space.com: Having been an astronaut, how would you describe the feeling of "achieving the impossible"?

Massimino: Overjoyed. Still in disbelief that it all happened. I remember describing to a friend of mine that it felt like my soul was alive. It went from a little boy's dream to something as I got older that I wanted to do as a career and dedicate my life to. It felt right, and I think that is because I had that passion. I had that interest, and that goes a long way. 

When we were sworn in, Bob Cabana, who was the chief of the astronaut office, said something like, "We're all very happy that you're here today, but you need to remember that for every one of you there are thousands of people who are well-qualified that would do anything to switch with you today. You owe it to them to make the most of this opportunity. The only difference between you and them is that you are more fortunate than they are." And I felt very fortunate; very lucky to be given that opportunity. 

Space.com: Humility, patience, determination, collaboration — all of these were key values woven throughout the lessons of your book. How do they help a person, or a team, succeed?

Massimino: All of these things are helpful both for individual success and for a team's success. At NASA, you were judged on how the team did. If you were good at something, your job was to help others who might need help. If you weren't — if you were struggling or you had an injury — you needed to admit that and get help. I think one of the most important things to be successful is to have a culture where people can improve, and humility allows you to improve and take help when you need it. There's no shame in needing help. 

Patience is important because things don't always happen right away. Pursuing my astronaut dream was over 10 years in the making until I got picked and then it was another six years until I flew in space. I think you have to understand things — particularly things that are significant — don't necessarily happen right away. Then, determination and perseverance is really important because the road is going to be tough. You're going to get hit with obstacles. 

A common trait that successful people have is not that they never failed, but that they never let failure stop them. By definition, if you're trying to do something difficult, it's not going to be easy — even if you're really good at whatever it is you do. There are going to be all kinds of obstacles that show up and you have to figure out a way around them. 

Collaboration, I think, is so important because it takes some of the pressure off of the individual. You have a team around you and together you guys are stronger than you are individually. When there's a mistake, you stick together. You make mistakes as a team and you succeed as a team. I think that's the only way you can truly have a successful organization. 

Space.com: How do the lessons of your book apply to people seeking a career in space, or who want to go to space? 

Massimino: I think the lessons I learned apply to anybody wanting to do anything. Working in the space program, for example, I think teamwork is especially important … trusting in your teammates, trusting yourself, trusting your training. Knowing when to speak up because sometimes it is the new person who has a fresh perspective or idea, and people should be able to speak up without being told to be quiet. I talk about that [in the book] when there was a time that I did not raise a concern and I learned that it's better to speak up and be wrong than to stay silent and have something bad happen. 

And, if you're on the management side, you want to listen. Hopefully ["Moonshot"] is a guidebook to help people who want to join the space program but also anyone — whatever it is that you want to be — I think that all of the lessons still apply. 

Space.com: What about the Artemis program? How might the lessons of your book help NASA reach their goals to return to the moon and eventually land humans on Mars?

Massimino: As far as NASA, I think that teamwork and knowing when to pivot is really important. NASA did a really good job of starting the commercial crew program, understanding that it would be good to help private companies develop the capability to launch and that that would help the economy, but also help NASA and its pursuits. They're embarking on Artemis and then hopefully going to Mars, and that's not going to be easy. So, persistence and teamwork is going to be important, but also knowing that if one path isn't working, try another and pivot when necessary. 

Space.com: One in a million is not zero — there is always a chance. What would you say to someone who is struggling to get their (moon)shot? 

Massimino: I would say, keep trying. In my case, I felt that if I never became an astronaut, I could still have a happy life, but I wanted to at least keep trying. In the pursuit of a dream, it might not happen right away — it might not happen at all — but as long as you're working toward that goal, I think you're setting yourself up for happiness, even if that goal is never attained because at least you can say that you gave it your best shot and kept trying so you don't have regret. 

Space.com: If becoming an astronaut hadn't worked out, what do you think you would have done with your career?

Massimino: I felt like teaching suited me and it gave me a chance to do research and help young people and still contribute to the space program. So, I think that's what I would have done. But who knows? That's the other thing about having a goal … it can lead to other things. 

Space.com: You shared many of your experiences throughout the book. If you had to choose only one, what was the most impactful, or memorable, part of your astronaut career journey and why? 

Massimino: I think the most important, impactful and special to me was being part of the final mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope. I felt that what we were doing was really special and I was very fortunate to be a part of it. When I think about my time — when I dream at night or when I think about my best memories — it's not necessarily being in space. 

When I first left NASA, I dreamt of being in space again, one more time. Now I dream about working with the engineers and the instructors and the rest of my crew; figuring out things at the Goddard Space Flight Center in the clean room or working with the mission control team. That really was, for me, the highlight: Planning and executing my second mission in space.

"Moonshot: A NASA Astronaut's Guide to Achieving the Impossible" goes on sale starting Tuesday (Dec. 5)

Riding the engulfing wave of mystery, miracles and misinformation regarding UFO sightings in the world, a voluminous new 500-page examination of the phenomena hits bookstores today (Nov. 14) — and we've got an exclusive author interview to share. 

"UFO: The Inside Story of the U.S. Government's Search for Alien Life Here — and Out There" comes from Garrett M. Graff, the New York Times bestselling author of "Raven Rock," "The Only Plane in the Sky," and a distinguished Pulitzer Prize finalist for "Watergate: A New History." "UFO" spans the period from the Atomic Age to the Cold War and into the Digital Age while trying to distinguish fact from fantasy amid the historical hysteria to offer more grounded explanations of UFO encounters.

The book is a comprehensive exploration of the U.S government's 75-year subterfuge regarding the existence or non-existence of unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) since the flying saucer fervor began in summer of 1947 with the infamous Roswell Incident.

Related: NASA UFO report finds no evidence of 'extraterrestrial origin' for UAP sightings

Here's an excerpt from the official description:

"Drawing from original archival research, declassified documents, and interviews with senior intelligence and military officials, Graff brings every moment of this extraordinary quest to life, transporting readers from secret military meetings and congressional hearings, where the validity of the search is debated, to the cluttered offices of UFOlogists and hoaxers determined to see the truth revealed, remote observatories where astronomers monitor the stars, and even the halls of the White House, where staffers and presidents alike eagerly await answers. Filled with twists and turns, and populated by an unforgettable cast of characters, 'UFO' is a thrilling story of science, national security, the secrets of space, and the enduring mysteries of the universe."

Space.com: What set you off on this UFO quest down an uncanny rabbit hole?

Garrett Graff: This really began for me in December of 2020, when John Brennan gave an interview for "Radar" in D.C. He said that, "Yeah, there's some weird stuff up there flying around and we don’t know what it is." That stuck out for me because John Brennan is someone who'd spent a decade at the top of the U.S intelligence community. He'd been CIA director, White House homeland security advisor and a career intelligence officer. There can't be too many things in his life that are mysteries. The fact that he was puzzled by all of this made me interested in diving into this subject more. This was in the midst of the reporting by The New York Times and Politico around the Pentagon's UFO work. It seemed like there was a moment worth looking into about the truth behind the government's hunt for alien life.

Space.com: With logical explanations behind most UFO sightings offered by qualified experts, why do people still rush to fantastical reasons for seeing strange lights and unknown aircraft?

Graff: The vast majority, whether that's 90%, 99% or 99.9%, of these things are explainable with more or better data. A huge percentage of UFO sightings over hundreds if not thousands of years are simply the planet Venus or a meteor shower or a satellite coming up over the horizon. But, at the same time, there's some chunk that are truly unexplainable, either because we don't have the science yet to understand them, or because there's some secret or mystery shrouding the sighting. The government itself is stumped by a chunk of this, and, to me, interest in this topic lies in that tiny fraction that's not an easily explainable case of mistaken identity.

Related: NASA UFO report finds no evidence of 'extraterrestrial origin' for UAP sightings

Space.com: What are any revelations you discovered researching this book?

Graff: Part of what was so fascination writing this book was realizing how much of the story of UFOs and flying saucerdom is the story of early anxieties of the Cold War and the Nuclear Age. It's so intertwined with political and security anxieties, decade by decade, generation by generation, and the way that shapes the government's reaction. Many of those flying saucer and alien invasion movies of the 1950s are basically invasion allegories of the Cold War. What's fun to me about this topic is understanding just how much of the story of UFOs is the story of people on Earth.

A big part of the challenge about writing a book about UFOs is the question everyone has when reading a book on UFOs: Is this something or nothing? It's challenging as a writer to try to tackle a story where at the core of it you don't know if some of these witnesses are telling the truth. Is everyone lying? Is everyone mistaken? 

I think the answer is a little bit of everything.

Space.com: How did writing this detailed retrospective change you as an author and a person?

Graff: I came into the subject with an open mind, and I finished the research and conversations I had around it being open to a much wider range of possibilities than I thought going into it. The science in so much of this is new and evolving and changing that I think we have a lot more to learn to figure out how much is a secret and how much of it is a mystery. We have to be humble about the limits of our current human knowledge and the weirdness of the universe beyond.

I dedicated the book to my son. He's two. I hope that the book inspires curiosity and wonder. The parts I was most excited about writing and researching are the ones that most stretch our understanding of our place in the universe, the size and scope and scale of the universe. I'm hoping readers will come away inspired by the miracle and fragility of life and the possibility, or probability, that life exists elsewhere. 

"UFO: The Inside Story of the US Government's Search for Alien Life Here — and Out There" will be released on Nov. 14.