Fiction Space Adventure

Honor Harrington has been exiled to Basilisk station and given an antique ship to police the system. The vindictive superior who sent her there wants her to fail. But he made one mistake: he's made her mad....

Keeping up-to-date with the most buzzworthy and cutting-edge science fiction requires sifting through countless magazines, e-zines, websites, blogs, original anthologies, single-author collections, and more - a task accomplishable by only the most determined and voracious readers. For everyone else, Night Shade Books is proud to introduce the latest volume of The Best Science Fiction of the Year, collecting the finest that the genre has to offer, from the biggest names in the field to the most exciting new writers.

The Empire stands at the brink of total collapse. But they have saved their most heinous plan for last. First a plot is hatched that could destroy the New Republic in a bloodbath of genocide and civil war. Then comes the shocking news that Grand Admiral Thrawn--the most cunning and ruthless warlord in history--has apparently returned from the dead to lead the Empire to a long-prophesied victory.

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.

They won't settle for mere victory. They want to exterminate us. Every last one of us. A surprise attack has sent the Star Alliance fleeing for its life. A remnant of a remnant, their meager fleet—all that remains alive—flees to what seems like a safe harbor: a forgotten backwater planet called Earth. Join ace fighter pilot Chase as he teams up with the modern-day militaries of Earth and fights the last battle for the universe.

Grand Admiral Thrawn faces the ultimate test of his loyalty to the Empire in this epic Star Wars novel from best-selling author Timothy Zahn.

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.

An unexpected offer threatens the bond between Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi as the two Jedi navigate a dangerous new planet and an uncertain future.

Mark and his brother Tyler survived the slums with a gun in their hand and a blade in their sleeve. While it won't get them hired at a corporation, the Troopers are always looking for trained killers. The EMF offers education, medical care, food, and real pay. They have a chance at a new life, one where they don't have to worry about a rival gang killing them in the street. With a 35-year EMF contract, the Victor brothers might have a new life, but it comes at a hefty cost. Peace doesn't last, and the EMF doesn't care how many troopers die as long as they complete their mission.

Gunnery Sergeant Torin Kerr was a Confederation Marine's marine. She'd survived more deadly encounters---and kept more of her officers and enlistees alive---than anyone in the Corps, and she was determined to keep that record intact. But since her last mission, she'd been sidelined into endless briefings and debriefings with no end in sight. So, of course, she'd jumped at the chance to go to Crucible---the Marine Corps training planet---as a temporary aide to Major Svensson.

“I have sensed a disturbance in the Force.” Ominous words under any circumstances, but all the more so when uttered by Emperor Palpatine. On Batuu, at the edges of the Unknown Regions, a threat to the Empire is taking root - its existence little more than a glimmer, its consequences as yet unknowable. But it is troubling enough to the Imperial leader to warrant investigation by his most powerful agents: ruthless enforcer Lord Darth Vader and brilliant strategist Grand Admiral Thrawn.

After failing the most important exam of his life, Kyle is forced into a VR war. Now, he fights on the front lines as cannon fodder for what he always assumed was the government, losing a little part of his memories with every virtual death.

In 2108, Colony Ship Voyager departed Earth for the planet of Promissa with 18,000 of the world’s best and brightest on board. 250 years and 27 light years later, an arrival is imminent. But all is not well. The probes that they’ve sent ahead to gather the data needed to establish any kind of settlement aren’t responding, and the information they have received has presented more questions than answers. It’s a time when the entire crew should be coming together to solve the problem, but science officer Sheila Jackson can’t get people to listen.

The Sith Empire is in flux. The Emperor is missing, presumed dead, and an ambitious Sith lord’s attempt to seize the throne has ended fatally. Still, Darth Karrid, commander of the fearsome Imperial battle cruiser Ascendant Spear, continues her relentless efforts to achieve total Sith domination of the galaxy. But Karrid’s ruthless determination is more than matched in the steely resolve of Theron Shan, whose unfinished business with the Empire could change the course of the war for good. Though the son of a Jedi master, Theron does not wield the Force - but like his renowned mother, the spirit of rebellion is in his blood.

Amir belongs to more than exotic and wild beasts. Alexa, Brody, and the growing colony will cause long-hidden RUPAC elements to rise from the darkness, culminating in a struggle to control the new world.

Mischievous and resolved, courageous to the point of recklessness, Anakin Skywalker has come of age in a time of great upheaval. The 19-year-old apprentice to Obi-Wan Kenobi is an enigma to the Jedi Council, and a challenge to his Jedi Master. Time has not dulled Anakin's ambition, nor has his Jedi training tamed his independent streak.

Continuing the events leading up to Frank Herbert's immortal Dune saga, the exciting conclusion to this trilogy finds the cruel Tleilaxu overlords on Ix manufacturing a synthetic form of amal to supplant the spice from Dune. If amal is accepted, Emperor Shaddam IV will gain absolute power. But if the plot of the Imperial House Corrino succeeds, the result may be the end of civilization itself.

In the stunning finale of the epic Fate of the Jedi series, Jedi and Sith face off—with Coruscant as their battlefield. For the Sith, it’s the chance to restore their dominance over the galaxy that forgot them for so long. For Abeloth, it’s a giant step in her quest to conquer all life everywhere. For Luke Skywalker, it’s a call to arms to eradicate the Sith and their monstrous new master once and for all.

July 25, 2234: The crew of the Adamura discovers the Anomaly. On the seemingly uninhabited planet Talos VII:a circular pit, 50 kilometers wide. Its curve not of nature, but design. Now, a small team must land and journey on foot across the surface to learn who built the hole and why. But they all carry the burdens of lives carved out on disparate colonies in the cruel cold of space. For some the mission is the dream of the lifetime, for others a risk not worth taking, and for one it is a desperate attempt to find meaning in an uncaring universe.

As the combat escalates across the galaxy, the stage is set for an explosive endgame: Obi-Wan undertakes a perilous mission to destroy the dreaded Separatist military leader General Grievous. Palpatine, eager to secure even greater control, subtly influences public opinion to turn against the Jedi. And a conflicted Anakin, tormented by unspeakable visions, edges dangerously closer to the brink of a galaxy-shaping decision.