Hard Space Opera

Jax and the crew of the Lightning Runner have narrowly escaped Sinclair and her DSA fleet, but their troubles are far from over. The flight from Iydra Station has depleted their antimatter reserves. Without resupply, they’ll have limited options should they run into trouble again - which they fully intend to do. With numerous parties hunting for their ship, Jax must choose their haven carefully.

Masoul wasn't just an uprising; it was the starting of a war. Harmony didn't start on Masoul; they were using it as a testing ground. Moretti has a lead on from where Harmony might have come. First, they need to defeat Harmony's forces in Osdal. Nerva's not going to throw his people at Harmony; this is not just a colonist uprising, this is a well-armed and well-backed military. They need more information. It comes down to the Triple-Twos to find out that information. Once again, the Victor brothers and their platoon will be right at the heart of Harmony.

Lee's parents and their business partner, Gordon, found a class A habitable planet. They thought their quest as explorers was over and they'd live a life of ease. But before they could return and register their claim, Lee's parents died doing a survey of the surface. That left Lee two-thirds owner of the claim and their partner Gordon obligated by his word with her parents to raise Lee. She had grown up aboard the ship with her uncle Gordon and he was the only family she'd ever known. Him adopting her was an obvious arrangement to them.

Years ago, one starship and its crew discovered an alien entity which changed everything. Its discovery finally bought an end to the interstellar war being fought between the masses of humanity and the few pockets of genetically engineered colonists. An uneasy peace was negotiated as the human race realised there was something else sharing our universe. Something that had plans for us. But the aliens have remained silent. The earthers have begun to test the edges of the peace treaty.

Rika is mech-meat, a cyborg killing machine, created by the Genevian military and cast aside when the war was lost. Now she slings cargo on Dekar Station, falling deeper in debt as she struggles to make enough money to keep her cybernetic body functioning. The local gangs would love to have her join their ranks, and the takings would pay her bills, but the only thing Rika hates more than what she's become, is killing for others. But morals don't buy repairs and she's at the point of utter desperation when her loan holder cashes in her debt and sells her to the highest bidder.

Many millennia ago, the human race was enslaved by the An - a fearsome alien people whose cruel empire once spanned the galaxies, until they were defeated and consigned to oblivion. But a research mission to the planet Ishtar has made a terrifying - and fatal - discovery: The Ahanu, ancestors of the former masters, live on, far from the reach of Earth - born weapons and technology ... and tens of thousands of captive human souls still bow to their iron will.

Few writers have successful blended hard science and speculation with fully realized characters as Gregory Benford has in his critically acclaimed novels. Now he draws us into a vortex of mystery and danger at the heart of the galaxy in his dazzling epic drama, Furious Gulf.

Millennia of conflict between humans and mechs have driven the human race to near-extinction. Now, as the fierce AI mechs begin their final assault on mankind, it soon becomes apparent that three men – three generations in a family of voyagers – are their targets. Toby Bishop, his father, Killeen Bishop, and his grandfather, Nigel Walmsley, each carry a piece of the lethal secret that can destroy their enemies. But hunted through space and time by relentless assassins, they have no idea that they possess the only weapon that can save humanity.

Esen's back! And the dear little blob is in trouble, again. Things began so well. She and her human friend Paul Ragem are ready to celebrate the first anniversary of their greatest accomplishment, the All Species' Library of Linguistics and Culture, by welcoming his family back. He hopes. Having mourned his supposed death years ago, understandably, feelings are bent. Instead, they’ve unexpected guests, starting with an old acquaintance.

Generations ago, nine ships headed into the unknown to explore a distant star called LQ Pyx. Eons later, the convoy has returned to LQ Pyx to begin work on the Web, the alien megastructure that covers the star. Is it a Dyson Sphere, designed to power a civilization as everyone believes - or something far more sinister? Meanwhile, Planet United's littlest convoy, long thought to be lost, reemerges in a different sector of deep space. What they discover holds the answers to unlocking the Web's greater purpose.

Mahina's terraformers built a high-tech urban paradise. Then Earth flooded the colony with desperate refugees, cop Sass Collier among them. The settlers who arrived with Sass died decades ago. Outside the citadel, their descendants die weak and young. Sass fought a rebellion against the city once. She won concessions to give the settlers a chance at health. She paid with 20 years in prison. Now she’s out, a reformed character. She assembles an oddball crew doing odd jobs. She intends to mind her own business. But her fellow settlers are still failing.

Barcus is a working stiff looking for a good paycheck. When the Ventura and its crew enter orbit for a scheduled planet survey, the ship activates an automated defense system protecting the planet. Although the Ventura is destroyed in the attack, Barcus alone survives the harrowing fall to the remote planet surface. He struggles to remain alive and sane and to discover why everyone he knew and loved on the Ventura was deliberately murdered.

When an enormous and potent alien ship appears in the colony system of Gliese 370, EarthFleet's Marines must investigate. What they find within will change the course of humanity's future yet again, as they face Desolator. The risks are high and so is the price in blood - and the payoff: new technology far ahead of their own, which may provide the key to fight the alien Meme Empire

With cislunar operations in full swing, space entrepreneur Parks Vambolent retrieves a comet. The water and other resources are desperately needed for the large-scale habitats on the Moon, and in various orbits around the Earth. But when the comet is found to contain more than what was expected, the dynamics of power begin to shift, setting off events with long-term repercussions for space enterprise and the future course of humanity. Vambolent confronts death and learns that there is more to the universe than flesh and blood.

It's the beginning of a new golden age of space exploration. Finally, humanity is taking the commercialization of space to the next level-mining asteroids. The new gold rush of the commercial space era has begun. Another commercial venture, an attempt to put a hotel on the Moon, is seeking the space tourism gold of the ultra wealthy. And it seems as if the dream of finally sending people to Mars is finally going to happen using a ship propelled by a powerful nuclear rocket. But space travel isn't cut and dry, and there is nothing routine about it.

When the miners on Mars form a trade union and call a planet wide strike, the president of the Council of Economic Unions orders the federal forces on Mars to take a firm hand.

The first eight novellas of Blaze Ward's Science Officer series collected together for the first time!

The final prophesy for the Commander says that he must face a trail to stand before the oncoming darkness. Neither Roy nor Katreena knew what that would be, just that it would one day happen. It would be the moment that would change everything, for it is the last of the prophet Queen’s predictions.

An errant encounter with a passing star has flung Earth away from its old Solar System into the dark and cold of deep space. With the entire atmosphere frozen as chemical snow dozens of feet deep, one last family struggles to survive. But what are they to think when they see figures moving in the city ruins? Are Earth's dead coming back to life?

The ruin of cislunar space spurs one habitat to flee, carrying the most valuable resources humanity has ever created. The struggles to control space resources and a juggernaut of new technical advances accelerate geometrically. Mind-blowing advances build upon each other, demanding speed and intelligence. With entire planets in conflict, the long-term potential of civilization’s advance becomes clear. Those who prevail may achieve functional immortality and undreamed of power over reality.