Military Opera

The Ragger and Sekar aliens have pushed humanity to the brink of annihilation. Two hopes for survival - genetic modifications to protect against the Sekar, and the death pulse generator - are years from completion. With no other choice, Fleet Admiral Stone is forced to make a deal with the devil in the form of a mutually beneficial exchange of technology with the back-stabbing Raggers. Naturally, the Raggers haven’t changed. However, the aliens are about to discover that when humanity is pushed into a corner, anything goes.

After a battle against the Raggers over planet Glesia, the spoils of war dangle in front of the bloodied allied fleet - in sight, but just out of reach. The wreck of a Sekar battleship and the intel contained within a subsurface alien facility could affect the outcome of a war which has so far claimed billions of lives. However, while the Raggers are defeated, they are not destroyed, and they are unwilling to give up the prize.

Gunnery Sergeant Torin Kerr was a Confederation Marine's marine. She'd survived more deadly encounters---and kept more of her officers and enlistees alive---than anyone in the Corps, and she was determined to keep that record intact. But since her last mission, she'd been sidelined into endless briefings and debriefings with no end in sight. So, of course, she'd jumped at the chance to go to Crucible---the Marine Corps training planet---as a temporary aide to Major Svensson.

There's no such thing as a dull life for Jon Hunter. He's come to grips with being an Admiral. But why does someone want to keep him from becoming a Duke so badly, that collateral damage doesn't matter? The Midgard war is over, the British coup behind him, but war comes in many forms. Life isn't the same when you fly a desk, unless the desk comes under direct attack.

When the hexarchate's gifted young captain, Kel Cheris, summoned the ghost of the long-dead General Shuos Jedao to help her put down a rebellion, she didn't reckon on his breaking free of centuries of imprisonment - and possessing her. Even worse, the enemy Hafn are invading, and Jedao takes over General Kel Khiruev's fleet, which was tasked with stopping them.

Keeping up-to-date with the most buzzworthy and cutting-edge science fiction requires sifting through countless magazines, e-zines, websites, blogs, original anthologies, single-author collections, and more - a task accomplishable by only the most determined and voracious readers. For everyone else, Night Shade Books is proud to introduce the latest volume of The Best Science Fiction of the Year, collecting the finest that the genre has to offer, from the biggest names in the field to the most exciting new writers.

Only as interstellar mercenaries can humans go to the stars; the aliens who already dominate the galaxy allow no other recourse. But when Swordsman Third Class Kana Karr and his comrades-in-arms are betrayed and abandoned on a hostile world by their alien masters, the warriors from Earth begin a desperate but glorious march across a planet whose every sword is against them. Their actions may doom humanity's future...or lead the way to an empire of their own!

The Amazon rainforest holds a world-changing secret—a ship lost to time from another world. College student Will Kaufman unearthed the biggest archaeological discovery in human history… he just needs to find a way back to Earth to tell people about it. Four thousand years ago, a Federation bounty hunter Void ship crashed on a remote and primitive planet. There it remained until Will found it and accidentally reactivated it, launching him light-years away.

The Aftermath of a stunning victory—especially an unexpected, complete, and final victory—should be high-fives all around, listening to politicians give boring congratulatory speeches, and a well-deserved rest for the Merry Band of Pirates. Yes, the galaxy is still a freakin' mess, but that is nothing new, and for a change, that can be someone else's problem. Until, you know, something really bad happens, and only the Pirates can deal with the problem... Or not.

When a minor trade partner sends the Castle Federation a desperate call for aid, they have few resources to spare from their all-consuming war against the Terran Commonwealth. Unwilling to be seen failing their allies but able to spare only a tiny force, Castle sends a hero to command the task group: Captain Kyle Roberts, the Stellar Fox. Beyond the Rimward frontier of the Federation and its allies, little is as it seems. The pirates are being armed by an outside force, and the politics of these worlds is made deadlier by their poverty.

The Troubles. A quaint name for a horrific period in the galaxy's history. A period whose atrocities were superseded only by the terror of the Savage Wars that had come before. Almost no corner of the galaxy was spared a taste of terrible war, cutthroat intrigue…and remorseless death. In the aftermath, this battered galaxy now longs for peace and stability. The Republic, now reformed, seeks to govern by the rule of law. But no matter how sincere the reform, how earnest and well-meaning the ruler, some worlds refuse to place their destiny in the hands of others. Ever again.

While the crew of the UN Expeditionary Force's pirate starship Flying Dutchman are enjoying a luxury vacation cruise (not!), UNEF troops are still stranded on an alien-controlled planet. Major Emily Perkins and her team are busy picking up the pieces, and it's not easy, because there is trouble on Paradise...

A company of Army Rangers is sent on an interstellar colony ship to secure a foothold on a dangerous, alien planet through violence of action. Leaving behind a warring Earth flung headfirst into a conflict of mutual assured destruction, the Rangers and the accompanying crew of first colonists are guided on a 40-year journey by an unprecedented artificial intelligence. But when they emerge from the frigid embrace of cryosleep, they awake to a nightmare, finding themselves greeted by the same ruthless enemy that brought about the ruin of Earth.

Peacetime can be a rough adjustment for the battle-hardened Merry Band of Pirates.

Especially when aliens don’t get the memo that the shooting is over.

After the Renegade mission by the crew of the starship Flying Dutchman, the UN Expeditionary Force thought Earth was safe for hundreds of years, at least. After there was trouble on the home front and the president had to authorize a nuclear strike on an American city, UNEF decided they did need the Merry Band of Pirates again. So, the Flying Dutchman is sent out on a simple recon mission. But for the pirates, nothing is ever simple, and their mission will become Armageddon.

Orson Scott Card, Kevin J. Anderson, and Larry Niven have seen the future. Now you can, too. A constellation of the brightest lights in the science fiction and fantasy firmament have judged these authors to be the best, the brightest, the truest emerging stars in the field.

The remnants of the Expeditionary Force stranded on the alien-controlled planet "Paradise" get a chance to prove themselves, in a simple off-world training mission with a ship full of teenage alien cadets. When the mission goes horribly wrong and the survival of everyone on Paradise is at risk, the Merry Band of Pirates may have to come to the rescue. Unless they get killed first....

Why we think it’s a great listen: It’s easy to say that when it comes to sci-fi you either love it or you hate it. But with Ender’s Game, it seems to be you either love it or you love it.... The war with the Buggers has been raging for a hundred years, and the quest for the perfect general has been underway for almost as long. Enter Andrew "Ender" Wiggin, the result of decades of genetic experimentation.

Terra is besieged. The outcome of the war lies on a knife edge. The Warmaster Horus’ bloody seven-year crusade has led to this – the cradle of humanity, where he is to kill his father, the Emperor. With the war at this critical juncture, Sanguinius, primarch of the loyalist Blood Angels, braves the horrors of the Warmaster’s flagship, The Vengeful Spirit, with a single purpose in mind – to slay his brother Horus, decapitate the Heresy once and for all, and stop the forces of Chaos from taking Terra.

"I'm not in the rescue business," states Jonathon Hunter, to the amusement of his crew. But rescues are the least of his concerns. Darkness is coming, and there are still people out there who don't like him. The Sirius system has always fascinated Jon, and he is drawn to solve its mysteries. But what is the price of being curious? Can one simple step cause what you dread the most? Is it possible to do one too many rescues? To take one step too far into the unknown?