Robert L. Forward Books in Order

A laser-driven spacecraft carries scientists to a double planet orbiting Barnard’s Star. Prepared for a lifetime of exploration, the crew encounters extraordinary alien intelligence and dangers that test both their scientific understanding and their ability to survive first contact.

A devastating quake strikes a neutron star inhabited by tiny beings who live vastly faster than humans. Watching from orbit, their human friends have just one day to help preserve a civilisation whose remaining time is rapidly running out.

Physicist Robert Forward examines technological ideas that seem fantastic while considering how scientific development might make them possible. Moving between speculation and emerging capabilities, he explores the boundary separating imaginative inventions from potential future breakthroughs.

Forward and Joel Davis examine antimatter as a practical subject of physics and a possible source of spacecraft propulsion. They explain production, containment and potential uses while addressing the engineering difficulties and costs that stand between the idea and application.

Opposing armies on Mars find a common enemy when an Earth dictator orders them home under threat of destruction. Choosing survival on the planet instead, they seek to transform it into a lasting refuge with help from ancient resident caretakers.

Billionaire industrialist Randy Hunter pursues contact with alien life and the technologies needed to travel between stars. Encounters with distant worlds unfold against speculative physics and inventions that transform his ambitions into an expanding interstellar adventure.

Human explorers venture beyond the planets after discovering intelligent life in the Oort Cloud. First contact introduces them to an unfamiliar race and environment, requiring them to understand a civilisation shaped by conditions far removed from their own.

An expedition exploring the remarkable worlds around Barnard’s Star becomes stranded on an alien landscape. Its scientists must adjust to a beautiful but subtly dangerous environment, turning a mission of discovery into an uncertain struggle to survive.

Human explorers return to a strange double planet and its water-dwelling inhabitants, the flouwen. Encountering another intelligent aquatic species draws both groups into a confrontation with beings whose hostility threatens the expedition and its alien allies.

Human explorers and their aquatic alien companions investigate an ice-covered moon orbiting the giant planet Gargantua. Discovering intelligent creatures above and below the frozen surface presents new challenges of communication and understanding in an environment unlike the worlds they know.

Forward pairs discussions of speculative physics with stories showing how its possibilities might transform future lives. Antigravity, time travel, unusual matter and interstellar propulsion provide the basis for an exploration of ideas that blur science and apparent magic.

Children born to explorers stranded on Eden grow up among friendly alien species, far from Earth. When rescue finally becomes possible, they must decide between the world they call home and the unfamiliar human and robot civilization of the Solar System.

Five explorers accept enormous payments to investigate turning Saturn’s atmospheric chemicals into spacecraft fuel. Their expedition takes an unexpected turn when they crash onto one of the immense flying creatures inhabiting the planet’s upper atmosphere.