Hard Space Opera

A quarter of a millennium ago, before the nuclear apocalypse forced the inhabitants of earth to flee their home planet, few humans could have imagined the course their path would take. Now, the orbital colonies are the final sanctuary of humanity and life is more dangerous than ever before. The colonists fear the return of their dreaded enemies, the Paratwa – ferocious warriors who are genetically engineered to exist in two bodies which remain telepathically connected.

It began at the dawn of history, when a darkness rose from deep within an Egyptian tomb. For thousands of years - long before earth was plunged into an intergalactic battle for its survival - four deathless creatures sowed seeds of destruction and chaos. Surviving on the spilled blood of warriors and innocents from ancient Greece to the ashes of Nazi Germany, the creatures have played a role in conflicts great and small.

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.

Ein spannender Near-Future-Space-Thriller von Hard-SF-Autor Phillip P. Peterson. Ein Flug zum Mond – dank milliardenschwerer Investitionen der Firma FrontierTech ist das nun auch für Privatpersonen machbar. Die Lehrerin Luna Patel ist eine der ersten begeisterten Mond-Touristinnen. Das Ziel ihrer Landefähre ist eine kleine Station im Tal Taurus-Litrow. Doch als es zu einer Triebwerk-Fehlfunktion mit anschließender Bruchlandung kommt, verwandelt sich der Traum in einen Alptraum.

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.

For First Trooper Erik and his comrades the eternal war against the Helos is the only life they know. Across a hundred worlds and against a dozen alien species they have fought and been victorious. Now Erik's past threatens to destroy everything he believes in. Leading his squad into a war-torn Hell, the living legend faces his greatest battle. Victory or extinction is the only outcome because Erik and his squad are Hard Corps.

The Borwyn remain undeterred as they gather hardware and rally their allies. It’s best not to fight from within a vacuum, unless that vacuum is space, and the fight is between starships. The crew of Chrysalis are challenged afresh when their goal is changed in light of new revelations. Jaq, Crip, Max, and the rest continue their fight against the Malibor in this fast-paced continuation of the Starship series.

The year is 2302. Isaac Jackson is a former CEO of a successful company and has gotten to the point in his life where Earth has nothing left to offer him. He was fed up with the complacency of society that has prevented humanity from truly establishing its footprint outside of Earth. Isaac decides it is time to use the services provided by another private company, Tarax Corporation, to find a new exoplanet to move to in a different star system.

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.

Chief Roach's victory over the ferocious Quatro won't last long, it seems. Strange meteorites have fallen to the surface of Eresos, containing mechs - quadruped mechs, clearly designed for the enemy. If the quad mechs fall into the enemy's possession before Roach can get them to the space elevator, humanity will lose the advantage granted by their own MIMAS mechs, and they'll be right back to where they were: outmatched and overpowered by the murderous alien beasts.

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.

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.

As Captain Navarre, the science officer rescued his greatest enemy and destroyed her captors. Now, someone else wants to hire the ruthless pirate Navarre, and Javier must take Sykora with him to help. Their mission? To raid the most luxurious starship in space: Shangdu, The Pleasure Dome.

What was the light that mazed every mind's sky - and then was gone? Why has it brought a flying tepui mountaintop home from the stars, and sent investigators into the orbital habitats floating above Earth? How is it connected to a "living fossil" fungus of great entheogenic powers? Or to a dead madman? Or to the fate of a planet overpopulated, hypermediated, corporate dominated, and heat-gas insulated? Forces that are socially and politically polarized, both good and evil, selfless and selfish, must search for the answers to these questions.

The entire human population is attacked by a very suspicious virus. SIMPOC's programmer doesn't come in to work, that day, the next, or ever. The commander of the space station Oasis, Joan Herl, is forced to abandon the station because of dwindling resources. When they land on earth, they are attacked by another thinking computer who would do anything to protect itself and to continue thinking.

A nuanced story about artificial intelligence and digital immortality, Freenet plunges listeners into the far future, when humans have closed distances in time and space through wormhole tunnels between interplanetary colonies. Consciousness has been digitized and cybersouls uploaded to a near-omniscient data matrix in a world where information is currency and the truth belongs to whoever has the greatest bandwidth.

Spock's mother, Amanda Grayson, is dying, and Spock returns to the planet Vulcan where he and Sarek enjoy a rare moment of rapprochement. But just as his wife's illness grows worse, duty calls Sarek away, once again sowing the seeds of conflict between father and son. Yet soon Sarek and Spock must put aside their differences and work together to foil a far-reaching plot to destroy the Federation, a plot that Sarek has seen in the making for nearly his entire career.

The year is AD 2790. With space elevators and giant orbital fleets hovering over Earth, open war looks inevitable, and people are anxious to get away. The lines are drawn, with the Confederacy in the East and the First World Alliance in the West. In hopes of finding a refuge from the looming war, the Alliance is sending Captain Alexander de Leon to explore an Earth-type planet, code-named Wonderland, but at the last minute before launch, a Confederate fleet leaves orbit on a trajectory that threatens both the mission and Alliance sovereignty.

Der Raumhafen auf dem Planeten Alvarado ist ein Sprungbrett zu vielen Randplaneten. Entsprechend gut laufen die Geschäfte. Seit Jahren schon streiten zwei Familien um die Kontrolle über diesen Umschlagplatz, und mittlerweile wird die Fehde mit harten Bandagen geführt. In diesen Kleinkrieg geraten John Donovan und seine Crew, als sie nichts weiter als ein paar Rinder verkaufen wollen.

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.