Fantasy Opera

The fearsome bounty hunter Tyrus Rechs has laid a careful trap to kill an elusive and powerful criminal known as Mister Zauro for crimes orchestrated on the planet Detron. But unbeknownst to the bounty hunter, another trap has been laid just as carefully ... a trap for Tyrus Rechs himself. For Zauro is a Lizzaar, and Lizzaar crime lords are not without their defenses. Rechs is mere moments away from finishing his termination when the counter-trap is triggered. In an instant the tables are turned, the hunter becomes the hunted.

In Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson's Mentats of Dune, the thinking machines have been defeated but the struggle for humanity’s future continues. Gilbertus Albans has founded the Mentat School, a place where humans can learn the efficient techniques of thinking machines. But Gilbertus walks an uneasy line between his own convictions and compromises in order to survive the Butlerian fanatics, led by the madman Manford Torondo and his Swordmaster Anari Idaho.

From the dawn of history onward, commanding the most powerful ship around has been a dream of admirals, sultans, emperors, kings, generalissimos, and sea captains everywhere. For what the intimidation factor alone doesn't achieve, a massive barrage from super-weapons probably will.

Humanity's thousand-year-old interstellar empire has been rotting from the inside for over a century, thanks to venal, corrupt, and power-hungry sovereigns from a dynasty many consider illegitimate. The latest in that lineage, an increasingly psychotic empress, is pushing her realm toward collapse as admirals and generals rebel against her rule. That rebellion quickly drags the once mighty Imperial Fleet into a devastating fratricidal conflict between factions.

alaxy. Humanity was slowly making their way out from Earth to the planets and asteroids of the Solar System, exploring and mining and founding colonies. The mining ship El Cavador is far out from Earth, in the deeps of the Kuiper Belt, beyond Pluto. Other mining ships, and the families that live on them, are few and far between this far out. So when El Cavador's telescopes pick up a fast-moving object coming in-system, it's hard to know what to make of it. It's massive and moving at a significant fraction of the speed of light.

The planet Korwar was a glittering jewel of a world, inhabited by the galaxy's wealthiest, visited by the upper classes of other worlds in search of diversion. The jewel had a flaw: the Dipple, its name coming from a contraction of "displaced person", where the misfits, the hopeless, the penniless eke out a wretched existence on the dole. Two young men hoped to escape from the Dipple.

A little over four months has passed since Desmond McLaughlin was physically yanked from his home and thrown to the mercy of a conquering alien empire when they demanded he be handed over for training as he was an ‘Adept’, one of the few able to harness the power of magic in the universe. During that time, he has learned how to manipulate mana and made several friends amongst the aliens whose culture he was now immersed in. And one lover.

The Clone Wars have yet to erupt when Jedi Master Jorus C’baoth petitions the Senate for support of a singularly ambitious undertaking: the dream of Outbound Flight. Six Jedi Masters, twelve Jedi Knights, and fifty thousand men, women, and children will embark—aboard a gargantuan vessel, equipped for years of travel—on a mission to contact intelligent life and colonize undiscovered worlds beyond the known galaxy. Unknown to the famed Jedi Master, the launch of the mission is secretly being orchestrated by an unlikely ally: the evil Sith Lord Darth Sidious.

Men of Tanith...do you want to live forever? On the forge world of Urdesh, the massed forces of the Imperial Crusade engage in a final bloody battle with the Archenemy commander known as the Anarch and his elite warriors - the barbaric Sons of Sek. A victory for either side will decide more than just the fate of Urdesh...it will determine the outcome of the entire Sabbat Worlds Crusade.

Lourna Dee is not a villain. She’s not a hero. She’s a survivor. The former Tempest Runner, wanted by both her Nihil allies and the Republic, has evaded imprisonment and death from both groups more times than she can count. But even Lourna cannot outrun the mysterious blight that devours everything wherever it appears. And Marchion Ro, the Eye of the Nihil, has announced that only he knows the secret to stopping it.

Captain Eva Innocente and the crew of La Sirena Negra cruise the galaxy delivering small cargo for even smaller profits. When her sister Mari is kidnapped by The Fridge, a shadowy syndicate that holds people hostage in cryostasis, Eva must undergo a series of unpleasant, dangerous missions to pay the ransom.

The galaxy burns. The enemy, a race of alien scorpions, storms from star to star. Planets smolder in their wake. Across the galaxy, they hunt humans. Long ago, we humans had a planet of our own. Long ago, we could have resisted the scorpions. But today we are refugees. We are lost in darkness. We haven't seen Earth in 2,000 years. We, the last humans, must band together. We must resist. We must fight the scorpions. And we must find Earth! Only Earth can unite us. Only Earth can kindle our hope. Only on Earth can we defend our species.

Agreeing to accompany her father's people back to their homeworld, Kira Forrest prepares for the fight of her life. She's agreed to undertake the Trial of the Broken, a rite of passage every member of her father's House must pass. It offers a path to independence and freedom that is too tempting to deny. Not everyone welcomes this lost daughter of Roake. There are those who fear what her presence might bring to light. Betrayal stalks the halls of Kira's birthplace-its roots embedded deep in the events that claimed her parent's lives and set her on her current path.

The overthrow of the Republic is complete. The Separatist forces have been smashed, the Jedi Council nearly decimated, and the rest of the Order all but destroyed. Now absolute power rests in the iron fist of Darth Sidious - the cunning Sith Lord better known as the former Senator, now Emperor, Palpatine. But more remains to be done.

Jason Burke was a man hiding from himself in a small cabin high in the American Rocky Mountains when his simple, quiet life was shattered one night by what he first assumed was an aviation mishap. But when he investigates the crash, what he finds will yank him out of his self-imposed exile and thrust him into a world he could have never imagined.

The Jedi are reeling from Qui-Gon Jinn’s sudden death at the hands of a Sith. Jedi Master Mace Windu’s feelings about Qui-Gon have always been complicated, and have not been made any simpler in death. While they often disagreed, Mace valued Qui-Gon’s unique perspective, and their shared dedication to the Force made them allies. Without Qui-Gon and his unorthodox views, Mace feels out of balance. While considering his fallen friend’s legacy, Mace is surprised to receive a final message from Qui-Gon.

After two brutal, bloody struggles for their very existence against implacable alien foes, humanity is victorious, but not at peace. As distrust and accusations consume the political discourse between the two major factions, the Eastern Star Alliance military has already begun executing small raiding missions into United Terran Federation space. The Federation fleet, still reeling from the last war, is in no shape to try and protect its own borders.

The Interbeing League had been formed to make contact with new intelligent races in the galaxy and offer them membership. But when the League encountered the Hokas, furry creatures strongly resembling the teddy bears of Earth, the league's agent, Alexander Jones, could have been excused for wishing he had a simpler assignment than making sense out of the Hokas - such as singlehandedly stopping an interstellar war.

The Earth lies in ruins in the aftermath of an extraterrestrial invasion, the land devastated by a desperate war with no winners between mankind and a race of vicious, intelligent creatures. The seas are drying up while the atmosphere corrodes and slowly cooks any life remaining on the now desolate rock. Food is scarce, trust even more so, and the only people left alive all have done horrific things to stay that way.

Jack Bennet returns from the war to find the life he left behind has moved on without him. The only option he has to make ends meet lies in a military surplus junkyard starship. What’s a former Combat Search and Rescue soldier to do? Fix up the ship, hire the cheapest pilot—a notorious drunk—and take the first contract that comes up: collect a bounty on one of the most ruthless killers in the Pirate Worlds, a place crawling with thieves, cutthroats and con artists whose primary language is violence. Jack must abandon his nice guy persona, or exploit it, if he is to survive.