Hard Space Opera

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.

Earth is rising in the House of Voltar.... And there’ll be hell to pay! That’s right. The invasion is on...and it’s coming soon to a galaxy near you. The action couldn’t be hotter, and the plot couldn’t be more diabolical. Earth is coming to Voltar - and the Voltarians won’t know what hit them. Murder, blackmail, drugs, psychoanalysis, PR firms, sex-crazed teenyboppers, riots in the streets, women in chains. These are the powerful secret weapons of war.

Still reeling from a former teammate's betrayal, Commonwealth operative Simon Kovalic and his band of misfit spies have no time to catch their breath before being sent on another impossible mission: to pull off the daring heist of a quasi-mythical alien artifact, right out from under the nose of the galaxy's most ruthless crime lord. But their cold war rivals, the Illyrican Empire, want the artifact for themselves. And Kovalic's newest recruit, Specialist Addy Sayers, is a volatile ex-con with a mean hair-trigger who might put the whole mission at risk.

When Unit Four - a biological soft robot built and stored high above the Jovian atmosphere - is activated for the first time, it’s in crisis mode. Aliens are attacking the Helium-3 mine it was created to oversee, and now its sole purpose is to defend Earth’s largest energy resource from the invaders in ship-to-ship combat. But something’s wrong. Unit Four doesn’t feel quite right. There are files in its databanks it can’t account for, unusual chemical combinations roaring through its pipes, and the primers it possesses on the aliens are suspiciously sparse.

Merritt Alder is done with Earth. The planet is polluted and overpopulated, and its people are hungry. Earth's first colony, Galena, is a pioneer world 10,000 light years away. It has clean air, unpolluted water, and continents of arable land. Anyone can start a new life…if they can get there. For Merritt, the journey is only the beginning. Obstacles arise every step of the way, forcing compromise and sacrifice. And not everyone on his ship is pure of heart. The bonds he forges on the journey will be the key to surviving on another world—a world anyone has yet to fully explore.

The Morthans were physically and mentally superior. Descended from humans, they were now, literally, “more-than" human … and considered the human race to be little better than animals. They would stop at nothing to conquer the remaining human-controlled worlds. Docked for repairs after a harrowing battle with a Morthan ship, Jonathan Korie and his crew discover they have a Morthan imp aboard—a Morthan weapon so quick they have no chance of catching it, so clever they have no hope of outsmarting it and so deadly they have no choice but to try.

A planet in the endless emptiness of space, far from the warmth of any sun. And yet there are people who populate its vast caverns, living, working and loving. Since time immemorial, they have been on course for Andromeda, the neighboring galaxy of the Milky Way. This is the prophecy of the ancients, the one goal that unites them all, their cult. But then the unthinkable happens: the journey stops because the planet enters the orbit of a mysterious object that can't be seen in any telescope.

Earth's Zero Asset citizens no longer face extermination. Thanks to Alan Saul, the Committee's despotic network is in ruins, and its robotic enforcers lie dormant. But the ruthless Serene Galahad sees an opportunity to grab power. On Mars, Var Delex fights for Antares Base's survival while the Argus Space Station hurtles towards the red planet. And Var knows whoever, or whatever, trashed Earth is still aboard. She must not only save the base but deal with the first signs of rebellion.

This boxed set contains 3 complete science-fiction novels. This is science-fiction at its best - future engineering, intrigue, first contact. It’s a space opera like none you’ve experienced before. The audiobooks will keep you listening late into the night, and you won't be able to stop....

Far into the reaches of space, Anson Guthrie and a band of colonists have forged a new existence on Amaterasu not as physical beings but as downloaded consciousness watched over by the benevolent Life Mother. Yet as idyllic as their lives may be, back home on Earth the situation is growing grim.

Devastated early in the war, the United Systems Alliance has retaken several key systems lost to the Galactic Union. But getting even isn’t good enough for General Hella. Determined to end the costly war and destroy the Union, Hella launches a daring offensive against the planet Kuut, a key military base deep in Union space. At the tip of the spear, Lieutenant Mark Rizer and the Marines of Orcus Company find themselves in the mud and blood of a planetary ground invasion.

Max Tyco is just beginning to understand what it means to be a Rowki Guardian. There are plenty of bruises and bumps along the way. But if he's going to face the threats at his door he'll have to learn some new skills. Sardonium is the metal of the Rowki Guardians. Imbued into their weapon of choice, it grants its wielder a power that can tip the odds in their favor. But all great power comes with a cost. The first portal has been discovered. The other two are being searched for. Treasure seekers, merchants and bounty hunters swarm to Ivandor.

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.

The Wilding is the long-awaited sequel to C.S. Friedman's epic, In Conquest Born. The Braxaná were created to become the ultimate warriors. The Azeans were raised to master the power of the mind. The two civilizations are fighting an endless war over a long-forgotten cause. Now, after a century and a half, the legacy of their greatest military leaders threatens to tear apart both empires.

After barely fending off the insectoid Scourge, Admiral Absen frantically prepares for another attack while dealing with politics and treachery from within, even as Spectre pursues his own hidden agenda. Can EarthFleet save humanity once more, and will a bold counterstrike by an elite force of AI-equipped ships buy time, or merely invite disaster?

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.

You can't militarize space. This one rule has led to decades of peaceful development of space programs worldwide. However, increasing resource scarcity and a changing climate on Earth's surface is causing some interested parties - namely India, the North American Union, and the Sinese Federation - to militarize. The discovery of a strange artifact by Dr. Alayna Wong precipitates a crisis. What appears to be a hitherto undiscovered comet is soon revealed to be an alien structure on a cometary trajectory toward the sun.

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.

Poised to reconquer humanity's home, Captain Absen and Conquest are confronted with a new enemy that upsets the balance of power and changes everything EarthFleet expected. Their struggle to free Earth becomes instead a desperate battle for sheer survival as they contemplate the unthinkable: total annihilation.

Armed with alien technology and a complete refit, Henrich Absen captains Conquest on a voyage to take back what humanity has lost. Along the way he must confront a new form of life as well as his own demons in this shocking episode of the Plague Wars/Stellar Conquest saga.