Crisis at Proxima -- Travis S. Taylor, Mass Market Paperbound

Time is running out for the inhabitants of Proxima Centauri. Unsettling discoveries there and at Luyten's star now threaten both Proxima and Earth, in a new hard science fiction thriller from Travis S. Taylor and Les Johnson.

First contact with the seemingly impossible human civilization at Proxima Centauri is not going well. The Earth ships sent to render aid have not been able to reverse the contagion ravaging their population and, worse, many Proximans are now wondering if the humans from Earth are there for other, not so charitable, reasons. Can the extinction-level disaster faced at Proxima be reversed by the combined ingenuity of scientists from both worlds working together?

Unsettling discoveries in the Proxima Centauri planetary system beg the questions: What if the evil gods depicted in Proxima's ancient mythologies were real and far more powerful than even the humans from Earth with their late 21st-century technologies? Worse, what if their ancient oppressors never truly left?

Praise for Travis S. Taylor:
". . . explodes with inventive action." --Publishers Weekly on Travis S. Taylor's The Quantum Connection

"[Warp Speed] reads like Doc Smith writing Robert Ludlum . . . You won't want to put it down." --John Ringo

Praise for Stellaris: People of the Stars, coedited by Les Johnson:
". . . a thought-provoking look at a selection of real-world challenges and speculative fiction solutions. . . . Readers will enjoy this collection that is as educational as it is entertaining." --Booklist

"This was an enjoyable collection of science fiction dealing with colonizing the stars. In the collection were several gems and the overall quality was high." --Tangent

Praise for Mission to Methone by Les Johnson:
"The spirit of Arthur C. Clarke and his contemporaries is alive and well in Johnson's old-fashioned first-contact novel, set in 2068. . . . includes plenty of realistic detail and puts fun new spins on familiar alien concepts. . . . There's a great deal here for fans of early hard SF." --Publishers Weekly

"With equal parts science fiction and international intrigue. . . . an exciting, fast-paced read that you will not want to put down." --Booklist

Praise for Rescue Mode by Ben Bova and Les Johnson:
". . . a suspenseful and compelling narrative of the first human spaceflight to Mars." --Booklist

Author: Travis S. Taylor, Les Johnson
Publisher: Baen
Published: 10/28/2025
Pages: 416
Binding Type: Mass Market Paperbound
Weight: 0.43lbs
ISBN: 9781668073001

About the Author
Dr. Travis S. Taylor heads up the cast of The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch and can be seen on The Machines that Built America on the History Channel. He has worked on various programs for the Department of Defense and NASA for the past twenty years. His expertise includes advanced propulsion concepts, very large space telescopes, space-based beamed-energy systems, future combat technologies, and next-generation space launch concepts. Taylor is also the author of pulse-pounding, cutting-edge science fiction novels, including the highly popular One Day on Mars, Tau Ceti Agenda, and the groundbreaking Warp Speed series. He is a regular on the History Channel's Life After People and The Universe series.

Les Johnson is a futurist, author, and NASA technologist. Publishers Weekly noted that "The spirit of Arthur C. Clarke and his contemporaries is alive and well . . ." when describing his novel, Mission to Methone. His most recent novels, The Spacetime War and Saving Proxima (with coauthor Travis S. Taylor), were published in 2021. In his day job at NASA, Les is the Chief Technologist at the Marshall Space Flight Center where he leads the center's development of next-generation space technologies--including solar sails, which he believes will eventually take us to the stars.