The novel “The Man in the Maze” by Robert Silverberg was published for the first time in 1968.

Charles Boardman leads an expedition to the planet Lemnos, where Richard Muller, a diplomat who nine years earlier had established his home in the middle of an ancient, huge labyrinth, exiled himself. Boardman’s goal is to reach Muller, but the labyrinth is full of deadly traps.

To limit the risks, Charles Boardman uses a series of drones built directly on his spaceship. They enable finding many traps, yet some men die trying to reach the labyrinth’s center. Ultimately, young Ned Rawlins is the one who encounters Richard Muller, an event not by chance but planned by Boardman to exploit the boy’s innocent appearance to gain Muller’s trust.

The novel “Hunters of Dune” by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson was published for the first time in 2006. It’s the seventh book in the Dune saga and follows “Chapterhouse Dune”.

The crew of the enormous no-ship named Ithaca continues its efforts to outrun the mysterious Enemy who seems determined to capture it. Scytale, the Tleilaxu master held prisoner on the Ithaca, has one last trick up his sleeve to improve his situation.

Murbella continues the complex work of creating a united sisterhood that includes the Bene Gesserit and the Honored Matres who have agreed to follow her. There’s a lot of internal friction and external enemies that make the situation tense on Chapterhouse. Murbella seeks to understand the nature of the Enemy and at the same time strike at the Honored Matres who are still independent, starting with those on Tleilax.

The novel “Project Hail Mary” by Andy Weir was published for the first time in 2021. It won the Dragon Award at the 2021 Dragon Con and the Japanese Seiun Award.

Ryland Grace wakes up in a bed, with a series of life-support systems connected to his body. He doesn’t even remember his identity, and his first thought is that he was in a coma. Two bodies in beds in the same room indicate that this isn’t a hospital, and his perceptions of gravity suggest he’s aboard an accelerating spaceship.

Slowly, Ryland Grace starts recovering his memories, albeit fragmentarily. He remembers being a teacher, a profession he chose after a negative experience as a biology researcher. He also recalls being involved in a project aimed at finding a way to save humanity after the discovery that the Sun is emitting less energy, a phenomenon caused by strange microorganisms.

The novel “Fiasco” (“Fiasko”) by Stanislaw Lem was first published in 1986. It was translated into English by Michael Kandel.

Angus Parvis pilots a highly powerful robot on Titan in search of missing persons, including the famous pilot Pirx. Due to an accident, Parvis is forced to resort to vitrification, an emergency procedure that puts him into hibernation, knowing that no one has ever managed to awaken a vitrified person.

Many years later, an expedition is set up to travel to a star system from which signals were received indicating the presence of a civilization. During preparations, some vitrified bodies are brought aboard the spaceship, but only one manages to be brought back to life through a complex operation, and the man who is awakened suffers from amnesia. Nevertheless, he becomes part of the crew that sets out for the planet Quinta.