“The longtime chronicler of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula . . . gives eloquent expression to death and the grieving process.” —Booklist Hailed by The New York Times Book Review as “a master . . . who makes the ordinary extraordinary, the unnamable unforgettable,” beloved author Jim Harrison returns with a masterpiece—a tender, profound, and magnificent novel about life, death, and finding redemption in unlikely places. Donald is a middle-aged Chippewa-Finnish man slowly dying of Lou Gehrig’s Disease. His condition deteriorating, he realizes no one will be able to pass on to his children their family history once he is gone. He begins dictating to his wife, Cynthia, stories he has never shared with anyone as around him, his family struggles to lay him to rest with the same dignity with which he has lived. Over the course of the year following Donald’s death, his daughter begins studying Chippewa ideas of death for clues about her father’s religion, while Cynthia, bereft of the family she created to escape the malevolent influence of her own father, finds that redeeming the past is not a lost cause. Returning to Earth is a deeply moving book about origins and endings, making sense of loss, and living with honor for the dead. It is among the finest novels of Harrison’s long, storied career, and confirms his standing as one of the most important American writers. “A deeply felt meditation on life and death, nature and God, this is one of Harrison’s finest works.” —Library Journal

Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin’s courageous, candid memoir of his return to Earth after the historic moon landing and his personal struggle with fame and depression. “We landed with all the grace of a freight elevator,” Buzz Aldrin relates in the opening passages of Return to Earth, remembering Command Module Columbia’s abrupt descent into the gravity of the blue planet. With that splash, Aldrin takes readers on a journey through the human side of the space program, as one of the first two men to land on the moon learns to cope with the pressures of his new public persona. In honest and compelling prose, Aldrin reveals a side of instant fame for which West Point and NASA could never have prepared him. One day a fighter pilot and engineer, the next a cultural hero burdened with the adoration of thousands, Aldrin gives a poignant account of the affair that threatened his marriage, as well as his descent into alcoholism and depression that resulted from trying to be too many things to too many people. He didn’t realize that when he landed on his home planet his odyssey had just begun. As Aldrin puts it, “I traveled to the moon, but the most significant voyage of my life began when I returned from where no man had been before.” Return to Earth is a powerful and moving memoir that exposes the stresses suffered by those in the Apollo program and the price Buzz Aldrin paid when he became an American icon.

They thought Earth was dead. Captain Sass Collier can't die. A century ago, the Colony Corps carried her to the stars in the exodus called the Diaspora. Because Earth was doomed. Still she longs to see home again. She hopes the terraforming tricks and miracle cures of the colonies can heal the one best planet for humanity. She expects isolated pockets of survivors, desperate for her to save them. She arrives with her motley crew from the boonies to face not one, but three surviving worlds - Earth, Luna, and Mars. And Sass's homecoming starts off with a bang. They're caught by the League that has kept Earth under heel for centuries. She and her ship are separated as hostages against each other. Can Sass save her crew from their most powerful foe yet - the mother world? Join Thrive for hard SF with rivets and fresh page-turning space opera adventure! Suggested for fans of Firefly, Lindsay Buroker's Star Kingdom, or Dennis Taylor's Bobiverse. Grab it now!

Over 3 years ago, the old Earth began to die. Technology started to break down. Electricity failed. Machines stopped working. Planes, trains and cars became useless hunks of metal. And then the dragons came. On the Night of Burning, the world's great cities were reduced to slag and rubble by dragon fire. Civilization, as we knew it. ceased to be. But before the end came, there were the Changlings. A few humans, children and adults alike, began to mutate into...something else. Ears became pointed, fingers fused or elongated. Their old languages were lost to them and they began to babble in unknown tongues. Perhaps one in a hundred thousand Changed. Simon O'Toole was one of them. Back then, he was a large middle-aged man. Now he's a skinny, awkward teenager, Simon has lost everything; his family, his friends, the world that he knew. But he has gained something as well. Through hints in dreams, he has learned magical runes that can summon elementals. He can cast fireballs and lightning. In short, Simon has become a wizard. Slowly, carefully, he is learning to use this new power. It will take years to master his magic. Years that Simon may not have. The dragons are still on the hunt. They search for survivors of the human race, and when they have been exterminated, the dragons will turn on the last remnants of humanity: the Changlings themselves.

NEW CHARACTERS! NEW ENEMIES! A NEW ERA STARTS HERE! For the FIRST TIME, it’s the most-demanded Firefly story ever, as the series jumps forward in time after the battle with the Reavers that left Wash & Book dead. Serenity soars again, with Kaylee captaining a crew including River, Jayne and the bandit Leonard Chang-Benitez. But they’ll soon find themselves drawn into a shocking conflict that means Zoe - along with her toddler Emma - and old friends must rejoin the crew...except for Mal Reynolds. The superstar creative team of Greg Pak (Star Wars), Pius Bak and Ethan Young send Serenity off on the last mission they ever expected, one that will bring them to the EARTH THAT WAS for the first time in Firefly history!

An astronaut returns to Earth after a 10-year mission and finds a society that he barely recognizes in science fiction novel by the Solaris author, whose works “make our weary universe seem pale and undistinguished by comparison” (The Washington Post). Stanisław Lem’s Return from the Stars recounts the experiences of Hal Bregg, an astronaut who returns from an exploratory mission that lasted ten years—although because of time dilation, 127 years have passed on Earth. Bregg finds a society that he hardly recognizes, in which danger has been eradicated. Children are “betrizated” to remove all aggression and violence—a process that also removes all impulse to take risks and explore. The people of Earth view Bregg and his crew as “resuscitated Neanderthals,” and pressure them to undergo betrization. Bregg has serious difficulty in navigating the new social mores. While Lem’s depiction of a risk-free society is bleak, he does not portray Bregg and his fellow astronauts as heroes. Indeed, faced with no opposition to his aggression, Bregg behaves abominably. He is faced with a choice: leave Earth again and hope to return to a different society in several hundred years, or stay on Earth and learn to be content. With Return from the Stars, Lem shows the shifting boundaries between utopia and dystopia.

A dire warning. An impending alien invasion. Only one chance for survival. In the near future, an alien probe arrives on Earth with a pivotal mission-determine if humanity has what it takes to survive the impending invasion by a merciless armada. The probe discovers Marc Ibarra, a young inventor, who holds the key to a daring gambit that could save a fraction of Earth's population. Humanity's only chance lies with Ibarra's ability to keep a terrible secret and engineer the planet down the narrow path to survival. Earth will need a fleet. One with a hidden purpose. One strong enough to fight a battle against annihilation. The Ember War is the first installment in an epic military sci-fi series. If you like A Hymn Before Battle by John Ringo and The Last Starship by Vaughn Heppner, then you'll love this explosive adventure with constant thrills and high stakes from cover to cover.