Hard Space Opera

Trantor had extended its rule over half the Galaxy, but the other half defied its authority, defending their corrupt fiefdoms with violence and repression. On the planet Florina, the natives labored as slaves for their arrogant masters on nearby Sark. But now both worlds were hurtling toward a cataclysmic doom, and only one man knew the truth - a slave unaware of the secret knowledge locked inside his own brain. Rik had once been a prominent scientist until a psychic probe erased all memories of his past. Now he was a humble laborer in the kyrt mills of Florina.

After the daring rescue of a political dissident, Omega Force is contracted to investigate a rash of violent attacks on civilian shipping lanes within a group of star systems known as the Concordian Cluster. It seems a simple enough job with a huge payday at the end, and it's exactly what the ragtag group of mercenaries needs in order to keep their ship flying and to stay one step ahead of those hunting them.

From Joshua Dalzelle comes the follow-up to the number-one best seller Warship. Captain Jackson Wolfe survived the initial incursion of a vicious alien species into human space...barely. He had assumed the juggernaut that had devastated three Terran systems was the herald for a full invasion, but for the last few years it has been eerily quiet along the Frontier. Jackson now struggles to convince the Confederate leadership the threat is still imminent and needs to be taken seriously.

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.

Long before Earth began conquering her neighboring stars, Legion Varus was deployed on Tau Ceti. Valuable and highly illegal treasures were stolen during the campaign, but McGill never gave it a second thought. The Tau haven’t forgotten him, however. For decades, they’ve hunted and plotted, and at last they’ve found the pirate who robbed them. Tau agents invade Earth seeking revenge and profit. Caught up in violence and intrigue, McGill is given the task of finding out where the loot has gone and who was responsible for the theft in the first place.

Commander Joe Pikeman has his share of demons. But after a long deployment, he just wants to enjoy some home leave with his daughter. The galaxy has other plans. His last assignment takes him to Earth, humanity’s deserted homeworld. There, he finds Earth’s last settlement littered with the bodies of the people who lived there. As he hunts down those responsible, he runs head-first into some galaxy-shaking questions.

Commodore Straker's rebellion grows in strength - but his enemies are growing even faster. Faced with a dozen rebel planets in their territory, the Mutuality finally takes notice of the upstart known as the Liberator, and they gather a vast fleet to crush him. Preparing for a titanic interstellar battle, it's clear Straker has no chance. His tiny enclave of free planets can't survive the weight of 1000 worlds. His own officers realize this, and some of them begin to turn against him....

Three stars, three worlds, three civilizations...one massive war. In a triple star system, not all planets are equal. When the Demon Star swings closest in her orbit, the Insectoids always invade. They raid the inner worlds with grim regularity, riding hordes of stealth ships in ever-growing waves. Their mission is to destroy all opposition - alien, human or otherwise. Cody Riggs, lost among an endless chain of interstellar rings, flies his task force of starships into the middle of an eternal struggle for survival.

Although the exciting military career she hoped for never got off the ground, Ky Vatta ended up seeing plenty of combat when she took the helm of one of the commercial transport vessels in her family's fleet...and steered it into a full-blown war. Now the lessons she learned in that trial by fire are about to pay off - because this time, the war has come to her. Someone has launched a full-throttle offensive against Vatta Transport Ltd., Ky's father's interstellar shipping empire.

Two irresistible forces are rushing together to crush the planet Grayson between them, and only one woman, uncertain of her capabilities, weary unto death, and marked for murder -stands between her adopted planet and its devastation.

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.

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.

The quadrant is burning. Violent, deadly uprisings are breaking out, seemingly at random, all across the Confederation's sphere of influence. The response by the powerful Confederation Fleet has been swift and decisive, but for every planet they restore order to, another erupts into chaos. Omega Force is working along the frontier worlds when they're forced to come to the aid of a longtime ally and soon realize that the two events are not unrelated.

Though she knows her brother holds her mother's favor, Ingrid is determined to at least be considered as heir to the family name. She hatches an audacious plan—free a thief from a prison planet from which no one has ever returned, and use them to help steal back a priceless artifact. But Ingray and her charge return to her home to find their planet in political turmoil, at the heart of an escalating interstellar conflict. Together, they must make a new plan to salvage Ingray's future and her world, before they are lost to her for good.

The planet Lusitania is home to three sentient species: a large colony of humans; the Pequeninos; and the Hive Queen, who was brought there by Ender Wiggin. Once again, the enemy (the Starways Congress) has gathered a fleet and is threatening to destroy Lusitania. Ender's oldest friend, Jane, an evolved computer intelligence, is trying to save the three sentient species of Lusitania, but the Starways Congress is destroying the computer world she lives in.

Two expanding interstellar powers are about to meet in battle. After the collapse of the Cephalopod Kingdom, Humanity claimed the 300 rebellious worlds it left behind. But light years away on the far side of a disputed region, a rival power has begun to move. They're stealing our planets, one at a time. Earth Command decides to invade the center of the frontier to set up an advanced base. The mission to DARK WORLD is highly classified and deadly. Legion Varus spearheads the effort, and James McGill journeys to the stars again. How many ships do they have? How advanced is their tech?

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 Scavenger species are circling. It is, truly, provably, the End Days for the Gzilt civilization. An ancient people, organized on military principles and yet almost perversely peaceful, the Gzilt helped set up the Culture 10,000 years earlier and were very nearly one of its founding societies, deciding not to join only at the last moment. Now they've made the collective decision to follow the well-trodden path of millions of other civilizations; they are going to Sublime, elevating themselves to a new and almost infinitely more rich and complex existence.

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.

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....