Space Opera Science Fiction

During a routine survey mission on an uncolonized planet, Kira finds an alien relic. At first she's delighted, but elation turns to terror when the ancient dust around her begins to move. As war erupts among the stars, Kira is launched into a galaxy-spanning odyssey of discovery and transformation. First contact isn't at all what she imagined, and events push her to the very limits of what it means to be human. While Kira faces her own horrors, Earth and its colonies stand upon the brink of annihilation. Now, Kira might be humanity's greatest and final hope....

One hundred and ten centuries from now, humanity has spread across space. And all-powerful machines rule the humans who were once their masters. It began in the Time of Tyrants, when ambitious men and women used high-powered computers to seize control of the heart of the Old Empire including Earth itself. The tyrants translated their brains into mobile mechanical bodies and created a new race, the immortal man-machine hybrids called cymeks.

Here, Simmons returns to this richly imagined world of technological achievement, excitement, wonder and fear. Endymion is a story about love and memory, triumph and terror - an instant candidate for the field's highest honors.

For an overpopulated Earth, whose resources are strained to the breaking point, there is only one place to look for relief: straight up. With the successful completion of the Padrugoi Space Station, humanity has at last achieved its first large-scale permanent presence in space. Additional bases are feverishly being built on the Moon and on Mars, stepping-stones to the greatest adventure in all history.

The human race is at War with the "Buggers," an insect-like alien race. As Earth prepares to defend itself from total destruction at the hands of an inscrutable enemy, all focus is on the development of military geniuses who can fight such a war, and win. The long distances of interstellar space have given hope to the defenders of Earth--they have time to train these future commanders up from childhood, forging them into an irresistible force in the high orbital facility called the Battle School.

On Mars, a scientist experiments with a new engine that will one day become the drive that fuels humanity's journey into the stars. On an asteroid station, a group of prisoners are oblivious to the catastrophe that awaits them. On a future Earth beset by overpopulation, pollution, and poverty, a crime boss desperately seeks to find a way off planet. On an alien world, a human family struggles to establish a colony and make a new home. All these stories and more are featured in this unmissable collection of short fiction set in the hardscrabble world of The Expanse.

The story line tells the origins of the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood and its breeding program, the human-computer Mentats, and the Navigators (the Spacing Guild), as well as a crucial battle for the future of the human race, in which reason faces off against fanaticism. These events have far-reaching consequences that will set the stage for Dune, millennia later.

Arriving in the capital, John finds a world just as unfair to its citizens as it was to humanity. Now, the retired Adventurer has to choose if he’ll return to battling for those who are unable to fight themselves or if he’ll pursue the System Quest quietly and peacefully. Either way, people are going to get hurt. Includes three books in the System Apocalypse, a post-apocalyptic series that combines modern day life, aliens, science fiction and fantasy elements along with game mechanics. Does not include harems.

On a little-known planet, Archmage Varic Vallenar casts a grand spell to empower himself with the magical abilities of his alternate selves. The ritual works too well, granting Varic not only the magic but also the memories from six lives. Including their gruesome deaths. Now, Varic has power greater than any wizard in galactic history, but he knows that won’t be enough. The enemies he faced in those alternate lives were apocalyptic in scale. Terrors of technology and magic. Nothing that he, or anyone, can defeat.

From the dawn of history onward, commanding the most powerful ship around has been a dream of admirals, sultans, emperors, kings, generalissimos, and sea captains everywhere. For what the intimidation factor alone doesn't achieve, a massive barrage from super-weapons probably will.

The Custodian Guard have stood watch over the Emperor's Palace on Terra since the foundation of the Imperium. Charged with protecting the Master of Mankind from all threats, within and without, their fearsome resolve is renowned throughout the galaxy, and their golden armour is the last thing that a would-be assassin or saboteur will ever see.

Three decades ago, a colossal Empire unleashed its wrath upon a single world—Earth. Their intent was complete annihilation. However, when the dust cleared, the people of Earth were instead scattered to the stars, their home now a frozen waste at the center of a fortress system that none dared approach. Now, Earth's survivors are spread far and wide. Most lost to the stars, but some remained close to their enemy, waiting for a chance to finish the war on their own terms. For the Empire, the sins of the past are converging. The seeds are sown... and Harvest is coming.

The Empire stands at the brink of total collapse. But they have saved their most heinous plan for last. First a plot is hatched that could destroy the New Republic in a bloodbath of genocide and civil war. Then comes the shocking news that Grand Admiral Thrawn--the most cunning and ruthless warlord in history--has apparently returned from the dead to lead the Empire to a long-prophesied victory.

An elite team of SAS special operators battle across the multiverse after a plague of land-hungry sentient robots invade today’s Earth. But, when an aircraft carrier-based counterattack goes horribly wrong, it traps the team in an alien universe with a top-secret group who’ve already saved the world twice. After discovering a dark plot that threatens humanity’s very existence, the two groups jump into action, fighting both on the surface and in orbit in a last-ditch effort to stop the enemy before time runs out.

It's been a year since Binti and Okwu enrolled at Oomza University. A year since Binti was declared a hero for uniting two warring planets. A year since she found friendship in the unlikeliest of places. And now she must return home to her people, with her friend Okwu by her side, to face her family and face her elders. But Okwu will be the first of his race to set foot on Earth in over a hundred years, and the first ever to come in peace.

Grand Admiral Thrawn faces the ultimate test of his loyalty to the Empire in this epic Star Wars novel from best-selling author Timothy Zahn.

Fans have long wondered what happened to Ahsoka after she left the Jedi Order near the end of the Clone Wars and before she reappeared as the mysterious Rebel operative Fulcrum in Rebels. Finally her story will begin to be told. Following her experiences with the Jedi and the devastation of Order 66, Ahsoka is unsure she can be part of a larger whole ever again. But her desire to fight the evils of the Empire and protect those who need it will lead her right to Bail Organa - and the Rebel Alliance.

Six Jedi Masters, 12 Jedi Knights, and 50,000 men, women, and children, will embark - aboard a gargantuan vessel, equipped for years of travel - on a mission to contact intelligent life and colonize undiscovered worlds beyond the known galaxy. The government bureaucracy threatens to scuttle the expedition before it can even start - until Master C’baoth foils a murderous conspiracy plot, winning him the political capital he needs to set in motion the dream of Outbound Flight.

It is a golden age. Intrepid hyperspace scouts expand the reach of the Republic to the furthest stars, worlds flourish under the benevolent leadership of the Senate, and peace reigns, enforced by the wisdom and strength of the renowned order of Force users known as the Jedi. With the Jedi at the height of their power, the free citizens of the galaxy are confident in their ability to weather any storm But the even brightest light can cast a shadow, and some storms defy any preparation.

In the 25th century, humans have conquered space. The advent of faster-than-light travel has opened up hundreds of habitable planets for colonization, and humans have exploited the virtually limitless space and resources for hundreds of years with impunity. So complacent have they become with the overabundance that armed conflict is a thing of the past, and their machines of war are obsolete and decrepit. What would happen if they were suddenly threatened by a terrifying new enemy?