Hard Space Opera

The light ship Altares and her crew plummet through the maw of a powerful black hole and emerge in a strange new universe. Running low on fuel and in need of repairs, Captain Harry Masters pilots the spaceship into orbit around an Earth-like planet. But before the crew can make planetfall, they must first attempt a dangerous manoeuvre to reach the towering gas clouds at the limit of the star system in order to refuel.

Luhman 16 ist ein Doppel-System aus Braunen Zwergen – Sternen, die es nicht geschafft haben, den nuklearen Fusionsprozess in ihrem Inneren zu zünden. Auf den sie umkreisenden Planeten geht deshalb nie die Sonne auf, wie die Menschen es kennen. Die Crew des Raumschiffs "Majestätische Dracht", aus Außerirdischen und Menschen bestehend, muss sich tief in die Dunkelheit stürzen, um ausgerechnet hier um ihr Leben kämpfenden Schiffbrüchigen zu helfen. Doch dann geschieht etwas, mit dem niemand rechnen konnte.

The Meteor Shooters Association has protected deep space colonies from the destruction of meteor showers for over 80 years. For the members, it’s a competition to see who the best shooter is. Van Wilcox was behind schedule and struggled to charter a private spacecraft to take him on the final stretch. Thankfully, he found an unorthodox pilot willing to go against protocol, because they needed all shooters armed and on the firing line for this storm.

Penumbra, a haphazard city of outcasts, rebels, and malcontents, has floated around a dead planet in a backwater system for longer than living memory can recall. Its towers abandoned starships melded to an ancient, mysterious core, Penumbra is the last remnant of chaotic individualism in a galaxy where conformity to the will of the all-powerful Galactic Council is paramount.

Julie E. Czerneda's acclaimed Web Shifters series continues with the story of Esen - the last survivor of a unique alien race. Able to take on the form of any creature she observes, Esen has long since broken the cardinal rule of her species: noninterference.

For two centuries, the planet of the Dedelphi has been riven by war. Though delicate, swanlike creatures, the planet’s natives are fierce in battle, and their ceaseless conflict has reduced their world to a wasteland. To save themselves and their world, the Dedelphi have forged a fragile peace and called for outside intervention. The Earth corporation Bioverse constructs a plan to heal the shattered planet. It’s the most ambitious engineering project the universe has ever seen, and if it backfires, the result will almost certainly be genocide.

The most wanted salvage marine in the universe thought he was done fighting. For Samuel Hyst the nightmare was over, left behind upon dead worlds and within the derelict ships drifting through space, he and his family having fled to the edges of the frontier to begin a new life of peace. In the aftermath of a violent raid by slave traders, the long-suffering marine discovers that a relic of the ancient machine civilization has been left at the doorstep of his pristine forest homestead. He feels the menace radiating from it, and knows that the various powers and factions that rule necrospace will soon come for all of them.

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

Melati escaped New Jakarta Space Station when it fell into Allion's hands. Her family was left behind the enemy lines. She signed up for active duty with the International Space Force in the hope they would liberate the station. Instead, they chose to maintain a crippling siege that has lasted for 10 months.

The unthinkable has happened: An Akkadian assassin has helped broker peace between her star nation and the Alliance. Micah Case and Task Force Blue watch the peace talks with guarded optimism - but they know one thing the rest of the settled worlds don't: Clint Janus has vanished with the Alliance's most closely held secret. And Micah Case holds the key.

The third book in the Web Shifter's Library series returns to the adventures of Esen, a shape-shifting alien who must navigate the perils of a hostile universe.

Konran Andacellos has all but given up on his dream to be a starfighter. After botching an airshow maneuver and being reduced to a captaincy on a rock hauler, the ambitious 22-year-old never expected an ambush to sweep in and blow his convoy to dust. With the lives of his crew on the line, Konran leaps into a pitiful one-man defense craft and obliterates the enemy against impossible odds.

Xenophobia, the fear of that which is alien, different, or strange; it is xenophobia that drove the reptilian natives of Sua’kul into the arms of an alien force even more terrible than that which they feared. Driven by a radicalized ideology and malevolent intervention, the new order on Sua’kul has become a threat to the Empire. In response the half human and half Illani noble family of Valor has been dispatched to subdue the planet before it can become another front in an ever expanding war of alien aggression against the last vestige of human civilization.

The Expanse meets The Godfather in the third volume of The SynCorp Saga: Empire Earth, a series of space opera/noir thrillers about corporate greed, rebellion, and mankind’s survival among the stars. The final battle for SynCorp’s survival comes home to where it all began: Earth. SynCorp and the SSR prepare for a bloody engagement above Earth, mankind's birthplace and the seat of the largest corporate empire in history. Who will live? Who will die? What fate awaits humanity when the dust of battle clears?

War is bad for business. The crew of the freighter Fives Full want to enjoy the profits of their dangerous voyage; but when war breaks out, they're pressed into service for missions a warship can't do. Winning the war demands pilot Michigan Long act ruthlessly...and it may cost her conscience and her marriage.

The deep space survey ship Ventura entered orbit and was immediately destroyed. Commander James Worthington and his crew were flying escort when the savage attack hit. With his ship heavily damaged and half of his crew dead, Worthington finds refuge on the dark side of this planet's moon. Plagued with threats from all around, he finds his old friend, Barcus, and tries to bring the remaining survivors together as a team before time runs out.

Jon Grebbel arrives on the colony world of Janus, and finds himself without memory of his life on Earth. He meets Elinda, an earlier arrival, whose lover, Barbara, vanished and then was found lying in the woods, apparently brain-damaged. Elinda has also lost her memories of Earth. Investigating Barbara's fate and their own, the two find their love and their search for justice turning toward bitter self-discovery and revenge, even as they begin to uncover the darkness at the heart of their world.

With the planet's fighting men and women deployed across the galaxy - battling in the noble cause of enslaved humanity - the insidious Xul have reached across space to devastate the unsuspecting Earth with asteroid fire. Without warning, a once-majestic world is reduced to near-rubble - and the very future of humankind is in dire jeopardy. Interplanetary leaders are on the brink of abandoning Earth and its colonies to an overwhelming enemy. But Brigadier General Garroway of the Marine Interstellar Expeditionary Unit is unwilling to concede defeat.

All that is left of humanity is on a thousand-year journey to a new planet aboard one ship, The Noah, which is also carrying a dangerous serial killer.... As a city planner on the Noah, Hana Dempsey is a gifted psychic, economist, hacker, and bureaucrat and is considered "mission critical". She is non-replaceable, important, essential, but after serving her mandatory Breeding Duty, the impregnation and birthing that all women are obligated to undergo, her life loses purpose as she privately mourns the child she will never be permitted to know.

Captain James Worthington, Roland Barcus and the crew of the deep space survey ship Ventura have been betrayed and blown out of the orbit of the planet Baytirus in a heinous ambush. As they struggle to survive, the crew discovered they were sacrificed to protect a dark agenda. Now that they've fought their way free of their planet-bound trap, the survivors are ready to go home. Whether Earth wants them back or not.