Hard Science Fiction Space Opera

The year is 2312. Scientific and technological advances have opened gateways to an extraordinary future. Earth is no longer humanity's only home; new habitats have been created throughout the solar system on moons, planets, and in between. But in this year, 2312, a sequence of events will force humanity to confront its past, its present, and its future. The first event takes place on Mercury, on the city of Terminator, itself a miracle of engineering on an unprecedented scale. It is an unexpected death, but one that might have been foreseen....

The Breakers find a new home among the stars: Utopia. An engineered planet that is vast beyond comprehension with plenty of room to grow. They set up trade routes and work as mercenaries for their supplies...but trouble lurks. Pirates strike their merchant lanes. Key personnel are captured and enslaved. Straker is called upon to do something, and thus a new conflict is set in motion.

James McGill is called upon for a sabotage mission, one that only a man of his unique talents can handle. Unfortunately, he performs too well, and our enemies from Rigel are enraged. They come for us, and war is declared. When this conflict between the great powers spreads, humanity finds itself swept up in the storm. Can McGill escape this disaster he’s created?

Ever since he joined Omega Force, Captain Jason Burke has lived with the underlying fear that one day Earth would be discovered. His desire to keep Earth's existence and location a secret has driven him to extremes, and kept him far away from his homeworld for a long time. But now Jason's greatest fear is realized, and a fleet of alien ships has attacked his planet. Omega Force rushes to Earth's defense, but the ships are like none they've ever encountered, and employ weapons they have no defense for.

Despite political foes, professional jealousies, and the scandal which drove her into exile, Capt. Honor Harrington has been offered a chance to reclaim her career as an officer of the Royal Manticoran Navy. But there's a catch. She must assume command of a "squadron" of jury-rigged armed merchantmen with crew drawn from the dregs of her service and somehow stop the pirates who have taken advantage of the Havenite War to plunder the Star Kingdom's commerce.

The Darshik war machine is flagging, but the war is far from over. Even as an exhausted Federation military tenses up for a counterattack after repelling the last Darshik invasion, reports are coming in of a new, more powerful class of ship that's striking deep into Terran space. Captain Jackson Wolfe has been given the fleet's newest, most advanced destroyer and tasked with eliminating this new threat before it can claim any more human lives. What he finds, however, is immeasurably more dangerous than just some new class of starship....

Earth is locked in a dangerous arms race with Rigel. McGill’s efforts at diplomacy are disastrous. Events spin out of control and interstellar warfare consumes the outer provinces of the Empire. Great fleets are gathered, and troops are hurried aboard transports. Legion Varus is launched toward a secret target world. McGill leads an early strike against Rigel’s defenses, but his efforts are foiled at every turn. Who could be behind these betrayals? Could his own government be plotting his demise?

Rigel is a thousand lightyears farther from the Core Worlds than Earth, so they suffer the first attacks. The mood at Central is jubilant. Our greatest rival is falling—now is the time to strike while they’re weak! Legion Varus is deployed to Jungle World, a vital planet deep in Rigellian territory. Our foes, fighting on two fronts, are driven back with ease. But one man questions the wisdom of this move. Should Earth expand with greed, aiding new monsters from the Galactic Rim? That lone voice of reason comes from James McGill.

Merciless attacks by an invincible alien force have left the New Republic reeling. Dozens of worlds have succumbed to occupation or annihilation, and even the Jedi Knights have tasted defeat. In these darkest of times, the noble Chewbacca is laid to rest, having died as heroically as he lived. A grief-stricken Han Solo is left to fit the pieces of his shattered soul back together before he loses everything: friends, family, and faith.

With the help of a command AI, the hole in the Daedalus has been fixed by Hazel and her friends. But in the process, they have antagonized the Yi, the aliens who are actually controlling the Daedalus. After a daring escape from the Yi, Hazel and her friends now must convince the people of the Daedalus villages and the village leaders that the Yi exist - and that they must fight back in order to survive. This proves tricky, as those in power don't want their authority challenged.

Covert agent Sigmund Ausfaller is Earth's secret weapon, humanity's best defense against all conspiracies, real and imaginary, and all foes both human and alien. Who better than a brilliant paranoid to expose the devious plots of others?

But Sigmund may finally have met his match in Nessus, representative of the secretive Puppeteers, the elder race who wield vastly superior technologies.

New York Times best-selling author Kim Stanley Robinson returns with a bold and brilliant vision of New York City in the next century. As the sea levels rose, every street became a canal. Every skyscraper an island. For the residents of one apartment building in Madison Square, however, New York in the year 2140 is far from a drowned city. There is the market trader, who finds opportunities where others find trouble. There is the detective, whose work will never disappear—along with the lawyers, of course.

Habitats is the seventh in a series of near future sci-fi/thrillers, whose young heroine Ell Donsaii has a nerve mutation which has made her a genius as well as an athletic phenomenon. In Habitats, she is continuing to find uses for the quantum-entangled wormholes she discovered. These wormholes aren’t big enough to send people through, yet they are making huge changes in our world.

Leia Organa Solo, estranged from her husband, Han, oversees the evacuation of refugees on planets in the path of the merciless Yuuzhan Vong. Luke Skywalker struggles to hold the fractious Jedi Knights together, even while one of them undertakes a bold but reckless undercover mission. And Han Solo stumbles into the dark heart of a raging battle.

Humanity's last encounter with aliens saw 16.2 billion people killed in a war with the Merkiaari that had spanned decades. Two hundred years later, the Alliance is cautiously exploring beyond its borders again, but the survey corp is considered a mere gesture by some. General Burgton of the 501st Infantry Regiment believes a lack of expansion is leading the Alliance into stagnation. So when one small ship discovers a new alien race, it should be an easy decision to make contact, but what if the aliens are like the Merkiaari?

Commodore Straker faces new enemies as neighboring interstellar empires decide his New Republic is a growing threat. A two-front war develops, and the Liberator must face both the Mutuality and the Hundred Worlds. Even as the fighting rages, the mysterious Opters are on the move. They make a diplomatic effort to reach out to Straker - but can he trust the Hive Masters? Will they help or stab him in the back?

Two centuries after humanity colonized the stars, new dangers emerge. The peaceful inhabitants of the Conclave are threatened by expanding alien powers. Invaders threaten the star cluster, attacking our fringe settlements. Captain Bill Gorman has mysteriously disappeared. His clone, set aside for a dark day like this, awakens and begins to put together the pieces. What’s gone wrong out on the frontier? Why are our colonies being attacked by aliens while the Conclave worlds dream of better days? And what happened to the original Captain Gorman?

Breq - the soldier who used to be a spaceship - is serving the emperor she swore to destroy. She's been given her own warship, her own crew, and ordered to the only place in the galaxy she would have agreed to go: to Athoek Station, to protect the family of the lieutenant she murdered in cold blood. Athoek was annexed by the Empire some 600 years ago, and by now everyone is fully 'civilised'. Or should be - but everything is not as tranquil as it appears.

In Battle Station, Kyle Riggs faces new challenges, new alien fleets, and learns the secrets behind the war he has been fighting for years. In the fifth book of the Star Force Series, the Eden system is in humanity's grasp, but can they keep it? Star Force is weak after a long war, and many yearn to go home. Knowing the machines will return with a new armada eventually, Riggs seeks a more permanent solution. Along the way, worlds are won and lost, millions perish, and great truths are revealed.

Fleet of Worlds takes a closer look at Human-Puppeteer (Citizen) relations and the events leading up to Niven's first Ringworld novel. Kirsten Quinn-Kovacks is among the best and brightest of her people. She gratefully serves the gentle race that rescued her ancestors from a dying starship, gave them a world, and nurtures them still. If only the Citizens knew where Kirsten's people came from.