Space Fantasy

Like every other citizen of the Federation of Sentient Planets, Lunzie Mespil believed that no harm would come to her, but when the planet pirates attack the space liner on which she is a passenger, she might have to suffer more than just inconvenience.

An attitude? Why not? After all, what would you do if you were abducted by aliens and transported into a strange new universe away from your home, your family - everything familiar to you? Would it make you happy? Not likely! Now imagine you're stronger, faster, and more coordinated than every alien species you encounter. Would you start kicking some ass? Of course you would! This is the story of human superiority in the galaxy, a gritty, realistic profile of a young Navy SEAL who doesn't like aliens very much - and he makes them pay for the bad mood he's in.

On the lost colony planet of Croatoan, the job of the police force is to keep the peace, even if it means turning a blind eye to all varieties of crimes. DCI Lutero Cade knows how to play the game – but when it comes to murder, he is more than willing to rock the boat. Now, with a serial killer on the loose, Cade knows he’s about to do a whole lot of boat rocking.

Adrian Tchaikovksy's critically acclaimed stand-alone novel Children of Time is the epic story of humanity's battle for survival on a terraformed planet. Who will inherit this new Earth? The last remnants of the human race left a dying Earth, desperate to find a new home among the stars. Following in the footsteps of their ancestors, they discover the greatest treasure of the past age - a world terraformed and prepared for human life. But all is not right in this new Eden.

Autistic scientist Yasira Shien has developed a radical new energy drive that could change the future of humanity. But when she activates it, reality warps, destroying the space station and everyone aboard. The AI gods who rule the galaxy declare her work heretical, and Yasira is abducted by their agents. Instead of simply executing her, they offer mercy - if she'll help them hunt down a bigger target: her own mysterious, vanished mentor. With her homeworld's fate in the balance, Yasira must choose who to trust: the gods and their ruthless post-human angels, or a rebel scientist....

The dwarfish, fetally damaged yet brilliant Miles Vorkosigan has more than his share of troubles. Having recently escaped an assassination plot whose tool was a brainwashed clone of himself, Miles has set the clone, Mark, free for a new chance at life. But when he decides to let his clone brother assume his secret identity and lead the Dendarii Free Mercenary on an unauthorized mission to liberate other clones from the outlaw planet of Jackson's Whole, things get really messy.

This third edition to the Prince Roger Series takes the Bronze Barbarians across the Eastern Ocean of Marduk, facing giant sea monsters, pirates, and the barbarian nations that dwell on the other side. Their destination is a spaceport held by humans of questionable loyalties. As Roger comes nearer to making his way home, he learns that his attempted assassination was part of a larger plot. Not all is as it seems on Earth or on Marduk.

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.

Jon Ryan is irreverent, cocky, funny, and walks with a swagger. The cocky fighter pilot turned astronaut is also Earth's only chance for survival. The planet Jupiter, thrown off orbit, will destroy Earth in less than a century. Jon volunteers for the most ambitious, desperate mission ever conceived: His consciousness must be transferred into an experimental android host, where he'll live an immortal - and lonely - life. Jon's only companion on his 50-year voyage is his ship's irritable AI.

Here is the novel that will be forever considered a triumph of the imagination. Set on the desert planet Arrakis, Dune is the story of the boy Paul Atreides, who would become the mysterious man known as Maud'dib. He would avenge the traitorous plot against his noble family and would bring to fruition humankind's most ancient and unattainable dream.

After being court-martialed by the Space Legion for ordering the strafing of a treaty-signing ceremony, multimillionaire Willard Phule receives his punishment: He must command the misfit Omega Company on Haskin's Planet, a mining settlement on the edge of settled space. At his duty station, he leverages his personal money and a knack for managing people to get the company to come together as a unit.

When Kell and his team return to Earth many years after their departure, they find that their world has changed almost beyond recognition. Not only has a second wave of greenhouse flooding caused sea levels to rise, but society has been changed by the consequences of the climate shift. Few people want to face Jordan Kell's news. He must convince Earth's new rulers that the human race is in danger of extinction unless it acts to forestall the death wave coming from the galaxy's heart.

For centuries, men and women have manned lighthouses to ensure the safe passage of ships. It is a lonely job and a thankless one for the most part. Until something goes wrong. Until a ship is in distress. In the twenty-third century, this job has moved into outer space. A network of beacons allows ships to travel across the Milky Way at many times the speed of light. These beacons are built to be robust. They never break down. They never fail. At least, they aren’t supposed to.

Neal Asher takes on first contact, Polity style. This original novel recounts the first contact between the aggressive Prador aliens, and the Polity Collective as it is forced to retool its society to a war footing. The overwhelming brute force of the Prador dreadnaughts causes several worlds and space stations to be overrun. Prador Moon follows the initial Polity defeats, to the first draws, and culminates in what might be the first Polity victory, told from the point of view of two unlikely heroes.

When petty criminal Cal Carver is locked in a cell with a deranged, semi-naked cannibal, he suspects his life has hit its lowest point. He is mistaken. Abducted by aliens and whisked across the galaxy, Cal is thrown into a team of misfits and criminals and sent on a top secret mission for the president of Space. And that's when everything starts to go very, very wrong....

January 1864: General Robert E. Lee faces defeat. The Army of Northern Virginia is ragged and ill-equipped. Gettysburg has broken the back of the Confederacy and decimated its manpower. Then, Andries Rhoodie, a strange man with an unplaceable accent, approaches Lee with an extraordinary offer. Rhoodie demonstrates an amazing rifle: its rate of fire is incredible, its lethal efficiency breathtaking - and Rhoodie guarantees unlimited quantities to the Confederates. The name of the weapon is the AK-47.

Outer Space, Inner Lands includes many of the best known Ursula K. Le Guin nonrealistic stories (such as "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas," "Semley' s Necklace," and "She Unnames Them") which have shaped the way many listeners see the world. She gives voice to the voiceless, hope to the outsider, and speaks truth to power - all the time maintaining her independence and sense of humor.

The Carryx—part empire, part hive—has waged wars of conquest for centuries, destroying or enslaving species across the galaxy in its conflict with an ancient and deathless enemy. When they descend on the isolated world of Anjiin, the human population is abased, slaughtered, and put in chains. The best and brightest are abducted, taken to the Carryx world-palace to join prisoners from a thousand other species. Dafyd Alkhor, assistant to a prestigious scientist, is captured along with his team.

Miles Vorkosigan graduates from the Barrayaran Military Academy with high expectations of ship command, but is disappointed with an assignment as meteorologist to Lazkowski Base, an arctic training camp. His tenure in the windy, snow-covered north is cut short when Miles narrowly averts a massacre between the trigger-happy base commander and mutinous recruits. After a brief stay under 'house arrest', Miles is re-assigned to investigate a suspicious military build-up near a wormhole nexus.

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.