Kids book, 80s-90s, a group of kids on a spaceship, something to do with butterflies that accidentally get killed by the youngest girl. I think the cover was dark & either had butterflies or the spaceship on it or both.
Science Fiction / Fantasy
Originally read in ebook format on a nook or kindle around 2010 or 2011. The book was free. No history on services.
Man Travels the Universe using software
The book starts off on a ship with a team of people headed to Mars (it is possible the book started with them there). The team is given or find a box which they find has symbols and words inside it. The entire team studies the item. They find they can replicate items by putting it in the box. The main character discovers how to manipulate the symbols and words, which he relates to programming BASIC, to do different things. Together with a female teammate they decide to terraform Mars by opening a path to earths atmosphere. They then head back to earth using the device (instant transport).
They are a couple for a while on earth where they figure out how to duplicate money and do some other fun things. At some point they are discovered by someone. A “creator” who invites them to their place somewhere in time / space. The creator has traveled time and space and acquired all sorts of historical documents and brought interesting people to his home. He talks about an experiment with sports players and taking Babe Ruth out of his era and putting him in the current era and Babe Ruth still excels in the current era. He also talks about viewings of history through a pinhole in time which allows him to see but the people he is viewing in history to not know.
Up to this point the main character has been traveling with the female companion. The “creator” breaks them up by introducing the man to an actress that had died in the 1930’s to 1950’s but he pulled her out of one of the realities and brought her to his home. He ends up sleeping with the actress. The woman companion knows what happened. They then break up. The “creator” says it was for the best as it would never have lasted. Tells him he can go wherever, whenever he wants and if the actress wants to go, she can. While here the creator also transfers his brain to a younger body of his using the “syntax”. The ‘creator” gives the man a pda (older style tablet) device that has pre-loaded code written to accomplish specific tasks, like duplication, portals. The man and the actress travel back to his current time and create a movie with the actress as the lead role (even through in this reality she has been dead for years). Can’t remember much after this.
There was a sequel to the book where a different man finds a pda in a bar bathroom and figures out how to use it and goes on some epic quests. The original owner of the pda was placed in a coma and was hospitalized. in the second book was trying to have the universe re-written with his DNA encoded but a programmer said it was not possible.
The book I cannot remember is from late grade school or Junior high (7th grade). It was a spaceship, I think in the backyard with a strange builder or helper to the kids building or traveling on it.
Science fiction "They were not like us." Spaceship investigates a post-Nova star, passes a world whose civilization was destroyed with the Nova, then makes first contact with an alien ship. They aliens appear "horse like" on video. When asked about the dead world, why they did not warn the world, they reply: "Why should we care? They were not like us." The human ship captain decides not to warn the ship about the event horizon of the collapsed star, though some crew members object. He replies: "Why should we care? They were not like us."
This story is likely from a children’s anthology. Little boy lives in a spaceship (maybe space colony?). He has a pet (maybe turtle?). Pets are rare due to scarcity. A group of visitors come (maybe from another colony) and are amused by the pet. The boy is pressured to give the pet as a gift to the visitors.