Hard Space Opera

Chaison Fanning, the admiral of a fleet of warships, has been captured and imprisoned by his enemies, but is suddenly rescued and set free. He flees through the sky to his home city to confront the ruler who betrayed him. And perhaps even to regain his lovely, powerful, and subversive wife, Venera, who he has not seen since she fled with the key to the artificial sun at the center of Virga, Candesce.

Luck has always run in both directions for Naval Commandant Nicholas Seafort. While he has managed to save the Hope Nation colony from alien attack, he and his friends have paid a heavy price. Most recently his exploits have earned him a dignified position as an instructor at the United Nations Naval Academy. But as Seafort suspects, trouble isn't far behind. A return to Earth means a return to his roots, some of which he wishes would remain buried.

While recovering from the physical and emotional wounds he sustained in Challenger's Hope, Nick Seafort is named as the liaison between the wealthy planters of Hope Nation and the United Nations Navy. The lurking, acid-spewing, fish-shaped aliens are a real threat, and everyone is on edge. When the fleet returns to Earth, dissent grows among the people of Hope Nation, who feel abandoned by the military and left at the mercy of the alien horde.

The United States of North America is now engaged in a civil war with the Earth Confederation, which wants to yield to the demands of the alien Sh'daar, limit human technology, and become a part of the Sh'daar Galactic Collective. USNA President Koenig believes that surrendering to the Sh'daar will ultimately doom humankind. But when highly advanced, seemingly godlike aliens appear through an artificial wormhole in the Omega Centauri Cluster 16,000 light years from Earth, President Koenig is faced with a tremendous choice.

Chris Holt, working in his office at the Space Resources Corporation, discovers that one of the asteroids he is surveying for mining is actually not an asteroid at all but a derelict spaceship. The word gets out and soon the world's powers are competing to explore and claim for themselves the secrets that it holds. What they don't know is that across the galaxy, a war has been underway for millennia. A war between alien civilizations that have very different ideas about what should be done about emerging spacefaring civilizations like our own.

Old Captain Orbus commandeered a ship to flee Spatterjay, desperate to escape the violent planet. Orbus’ alien enemy, the Prador Vrell, is also moving on. The Spatterjay virus mutated him into something even more dangerous. And he’s hunting the Prador King himself - who sought to kill him, to bury the secret of their similar transformations. Orbus and Vrell clash in the Graveyard, a lawless zone where the Prador have seized a key space station. Official action by humanity or Prador would end peace, as a centuries-long cold war simmers.

The Theocracy has been dead for 20 years, and the Polity rules on Masada - but it is an order that the rebels of the Tidy Squad cannot accept, and the iconic Jeremiah Tombs is top of their hitlist. Tombs, meanwhile, has escaped his sanatorium. His insanity must be cured, because the near-mythical hooder, called "the Technician", that attacked him all those years ago, did something to his mind even the AIs fail to understand. Tombs might possess information about the suicide of an entire alien race.

Neal Asher has firmly established himself as one of the leading British writers of science fiction. Most of his stories are set in a galactic future-scape called The Polity, and with The Gabble - and Other Stories, a collection of marvellously inventive and action-packed short stories, he takes us further into the manifold diversities of that amazing universe.

Many unanswered questions remain about the terrible Eugenics Wars that raged on Earth during the 1990s, an apocalyptic conflict that brought civilization to the brink of a new dark age. Centuries later, as Capt. James T. Kirk and the crew of the Starship Enterprise are forced to defend a colony of genetically enhanced humans against Klingon aggression and sabotage, Kirk must probe deeper into the past - and into the glory days of one of the greatest adversaries he has ever faced.

Chronicler Tsai Yini monitors the tachyon communication system, which transmits data faster than the speed of light. When classified results from an astrobiologist's research are leaked to her, she cannot believe what she reads. The report reveals that intelligent life forms exist on a tropical planet in the Gliese system. Their civilization is still in its infancy but revolves around an artifact of unknown origin that seems to influence their body chemistry.

Their family reunion will be disrupted, however, when a catastrophe strikes the space station. The crew of the Edison suddenly find themselves fighting for their lives - and amongst the chaos, Taniya will discover that she's not the only member of the crew with a secret....

The year is 2085, and humanity has spread throughout the solar system, a stable lunar colony is agitating for independence, and lunar tourism is on the rise. Against this background, professional "Close Protection" specialist Scotty Griffin, fresh off a disastrous assignment, is offered the opportunity of a lifetime: to shepherd the teenaged heir to the Republic of Kikaya on a fabulous vacation. Ali Kikaya will participate in the first live-action role playing game conducted on the Moon itself.

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.

It was that transitional time of the world when man first brought the clang of iron and the reek of smoke to the lands which before had echoed only with fairy voices. In that dawn of man and death of magic, there yet remained one last untouched place - the small forest of Ealdwood - which kept the magic intact and protected the old ways. And there was one who dwelt there, Arafel the Sidhe, who had more pride and love of the world as it used to be than any of her kind.

Alex has decided they must be stopped and takes steps to do just that. Meanwhile, Earth runs up against the Imperium again and they don't like what happens next.

Major Richards needs to get out of the Sol System. Demoted by the military and hung out to dry, the media labels her the Butcher of Toro. Despite her soiled record, Tanis still one of the best military counterinsurgency officers in the Terran Space Force. They need her to find the terrorists responsible for trying to destroy the GSS Intrepid, a massive interstellar colony ship in the final phases of construction at the Mars Outer Shipyards.

Where does one put a messianic cult of practicing cannibals? That becomes the question when Ashanti appears in Donovan's skies. She was designed for no more than four years in space. It's taken 10. The crew has sealed the transportees onto a single deck - and over the years, the few survivors down there have become monsters. Lead by the messiah, Batuhan, they call themselves the Unreconciled. With the discovery of a wasting disease among the Unreconciled, it's up to Kalico, Dya Simonov, and Mark Talbot to try and deal with the epidemic.

En un instant, une force inconnue a morcelé la Terre en une mosaïque d'époques, de la préhistoire à l'an 2037. Un gigantesque puzzle qui résume l'évolution de l'espèce humaine. Depuis, des sphères argentées planent sur toute la planète, invulnérables et silencieuses. Ces objets mystérieux, issus d'une technologie prodigieuse, sont-ils à l'origine de ces bouleversements ? La réponse se trouve peut-être dans l'antique cité de Babylone, dont proviennent des signaux radios.

The Argus Space Station looks down on a nightmarish Earth. And from this safe distance, the Committee enforces its despotic rule. There are too many people and too few resources, and they need 12 billion to die before Earth can be stabilised. So corruption is rife, people starve, and the poor are policed by mechanised overseers and identity-reader guns. Citizens already fear the brutal Inspectorate with its pain inducers. But to reach its goals, the Committee will unleash satellite laser weaponry, taking carnage to a new level. This is the world Alan Saul wakes to.

They banned him from space. But someone has offered him a way back. Can he afford the price? Famed engineer and test pilot Jericho Fox has been grounded for reasons he'd rather put behind him. But a political leader from a rival party offers to send him back to space. Fox finds himself stuck between working for the enemy and doing what he loves again. Meanwhile, high above Earth on Astraea Station, decorated astrophysicist Dr. Evelyn Park is on the verge of a scientific breakthrough that could make history.