Arcadia Public Library

"Six days ago, astronaut Mark Watney became one of the first people to walk on Mars. Now, he's sure he'll be the first person to die there. After a dust storm nearly kills him and forces his crew to evacuate while thinking him dead, Mark finds himself stranded and completely alone with no way to even signal Earth that he's alive--and even if he could get word out, his supplies would be gone long before a rescue could arrive. Chances are, though, he...

"When Jakub Procha is sent into space to examine a cosmic dust cloud covering Venus, it may be a solo suicide mission. Dreaming of becoming a national hero and desperate to atone for his father's sins as a Communist informer, he leaves his beloved wife behind and launches into the galaxy. But things aboard spaceship JanHus1 quickly turn weird, and, to make matters worse, he soon learns that his wife has disappeared without a trace back on Earth. As...

"A singular new novel from Betty Trask Prize-winner Samantha Harvey, Orbital is an eloquent meditation on space and life on our planet through the eyes of six astronauts circling the earth in twenty-four hours. A slender novel of epic power, Orbital deftly snapshots a day in the lives of six women and men hurtling through space--not toward the moon or the vast unknown, but around our planet. Selected for one of the last space station missions of its...

"In the second book of the Blue Gemini trilogy, Air Force Majors Scott Ourecky and Drew Carson continue to fly highly classified missions to intercept and destroy suspect Soviet satellites. But after experiencing numerous close calls in orbit, the astronauts soon discover that not all perils reside in the sky. With his marriage already at risk because he cannot explain his frequent absences and strange activities to his wife, Ourecky learns that his...

The sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission to save both humanity and the earth, Ryland Grace is hurtled into the depths of space when he must conquer an extinction-level threat to our species.

On a cold spring night in 1952, a huge meteorite fell to earth and obliterated much of the east coast of the United States, including Washington D.C. The ensuing climate cataclysm will soon render the earth inhospitable for humanity, as the last such meteorite did for the dinosaurs. This looming threat calls for a radically accelerated effort to colonize space, and requires a much larger share of humanity to take part in the process. Elma York's experience...

In 1973, Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama won the Hugo, Nebula and Campbell awards. This new novel is the second in a trilogy about the mystifying world-ships and their flybys of our solar system. The 12 specialists chosen to explore a second Raman craft passing through human space 70 years after the first are more involved with adultery, religion and media contracts than they are with scientific advancement.

When a freak accident befalls the International Space Station and injure veteran American astronaut Belk "Walli" Beckworth and the two Russian cosmonauts aboard, NASA and Roscomos order all astronauts to abandon ship. Walli refuses to return to Earth as her fellow astronauts blast off toward home. As the ISS orbits the Earth, Walli watches the blaze of fires in the Amazon rainforest: villages are destroyed, the forest is devastated. As the Brazilian...

"The fates of a cast of seemingly unconnected people converge during the celebration of an ancient holiday in a thought-provoking debut that brings to mind such novels as Station Eleven and The Age of Miracles. In Domenica Ruta's profoundly original debut novel, the end of the world comes every year. Or at least it's supposed to. On May 3, humanity comes together to anticipate the planet's demise--and to celebrate as if the day were truly their last....