Fantasy Opera

The escape pods are long gone. A distress beacon is still active. Chase off the pirates and the wreck is all theirs. What was a crime scene moments before just became legitimate salvage, fair game for an opportunistic starship captain. Carl Ramsey is that opportunist. His crew of misfits includes his ex-wife as pilot, a drunken mechanic, a predatory bodyguard, and an outcast wizard from the Convocation. On their best days, they’re a well-oiled machine, capable of taking on any challenge. In theory. If that ever happened, Carl would be as shocked as anyone.

Micah Cole has been in deep space for three years while his parents chase their obsession with finding intelligence to the far corners of the universe, but Micah dreams of the friends he left behind and counts the days until they return home. When a devastating meteor shower nearly destroys their ship, Micah is separated from his family and stranded on Sovereign, a vast planet of raging rivers, towering forests, and deadly creatures. If Micah ever wants to see his family or his home again, he’ll have to learn to how to survive on a hostile alien world, all alone.

The galaxy was once terrorized by the Sturm, a group of “species purists” intent on destroying any human with genetic or cybernetic enhancements. Fashioning themselves as the one true “Human Republic,” the Sturm cut a bloody swath across the stars, killing billions before finally being defeated and driven into the far reaches of Dark Space. Centuries of peace bred complacency. Everyone believed the Sturm had died out in the Dark. They were wrong.

In Chris Wraight’s Homebound, Ilya Ravallion must choose between the decimated White Scars and living out what remains of her life in peace. An embattled Ahzek Ahriman must race against time to learn what he can of the warp before its gates close to him forever in Ex Libris by John French. Featuring tales from Dan Abnett, Aaron Dembski-Bowden, Guy Haley and many more, this anthology follows mighty Custodians, scheming sorcerers, and the lowly footsoldiers of the Imperial Army as all negotiate the devastating aftermath of Humanity's greatest reckoning.

The galaxy is doomed. Monkeys may be clever and too stubborn to give up, but Skippy The Idiot Who Got Played knows the harsh truth: this is a fight he can’t win. The odds are not only stacked against him, he was designed not to win this fight. Maybe he can salvage some faint memory of the civilizations that inhabit the galaxy, but those beings are doomed. Doomed. Including the Merry Band of Pirates.

The lines. No ship can traverse the void without them. Only linesmen can work with them. But only Ean Lambert hears their song. And everyone thinks he's crazy.... Most slum kids never go far, certainly not becoming a level 10 linesman like Ean. Even if he's part of a small and unethical cartel, and the other linesmen disdain his self-taught methods, he's certified and working. Then a mysterious alien ship is discovered at the edges of the galaxy.

The last reward Kira Demirci expected for heroism in a time of war was to spend the rest of her life dodging assassins - but when her government betrays her as part of their surrender, she and her comrades flee the star system of Apollo to the edge of civilized space. The Syntactic Cluster is disorganized, disunified, and in desperate need of the nova fighters Kira smuggled out of Apollo with her. With an entire squadron supposed to follow in her wake, it falls to her to build a new home for her comrades.

A great darkness has befallen the galaxy, and the armies of Chaos are rampant. To survive, humanity must retaliate and take back what they have lost. By the will of the reborn primarch, Roboute Guilliman, is the Indomitus Crusade launched - a military undertaking that eclipses all others in known history. From the Throneworld of Terra does the Avenging Son hurl his fleets, their mission the very salvation of mankind.

The galaxy remembers Hadrian Marlowe as a hero: the man who burned every last alien Cielcin from the sky. They remember him as a monster: the devil who destroyed a sun, casually annihilating four billion human lives - even the emperor himself - against Imperial orders. But Hadrian was not a hero. He was not a monster. He was not even a soldier. Fleeing his father and a future as a torturer, Hadrian finds himself stranded on a strange, backwater world.

Paul's mission in Andromeda comes to an end and he must reluctantly return to the Deebees to oversee their critical early development...but on the way back he goes nightcrawler hunting, rescuing the last pieces of the Progarren civilization that the previous Gauntlet War failed to eradicate, as this one is only beginning to escalate.

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.

Jack Bennet returns from the war to find the life he left behind has moved on without him. The only option he has to make ends meet lies in a military surplus junkyard starship. What’s a former Combat Search and Rescue soldier to do? Fix up the ship, hire the cheapest pilot—a notorious drunk—and take the first contract that comes up: collect a bounty on one of the most ruthless killers in the Pirate Worlds, a place crawling with thieves, cutthroats and con artists whose primary language is violence. Jack must abandon his nice guy persona, or exploit it, if he is to survive.

He is Fulgrim's champion, the Soulthief, and the Scion of Chemos. His name is whispered and cursed across both time and space, a peerless blademaster who even death cannot threaten. He is Lucius the Eternal, blessed by Slaanesh and the greatest swordsman of all the fell Legions imprisoned within the Eye of Terror. He's died a thousand times, but for Lucius the Eternal, there's something worse than death on the horizon unless he can control the forces that threaten to annihilate all that he has worked to build.

Once again, reluctant hero Commissar Cain is catapulted into glory in the fourth instalment of this tremendously popular series. Escaping from a disastrous space battle, the commissar and his malodorous sidekick Jurgen crash-land behind enemy lines. Even the sly Cain can't avoid a straight fight this time, as the only way out is to round up what few troops they can find and fight their way back to safety. Unfortunately, hundreds of thousands of barbaric alien orks stand in their way.

Gaining intel that a high-value target is aboard a luxury starliner, REC-Team Pelican hightails it to intercept. Dropping in system, they arrive to find the starliner crashed, enemy combatants swarming the vessel, and thousands of people in need of rescue from the ocean swallowing the ship. And while the REC-team works to avoid dangers at sea, their enemies close in for the kill. Can the team accomplish their mission and save the passengers? Or will their creed to bring the heartbeats home take a back seat to finally exposing the cabal that forced them into hiding?

TwiceFar station is at the edge of the known universe, and that’s just how Niko Larson, former admiral in the Grand Military of the Hive Mind, likes it. Retired and finally free of the continual war of conquest, Niko and the remnants of her former unit are content to spend the rest of their days working at the restaurant they built together, The Last Chance. But, some wars can’t ever be escaped, and unlike the Hive Mind, some enemies aren’t content to let old soldiers go.

Out of the blue, a young Space Fleet officer's dream becomes reality: He's made captain of a starship. Just in time for the return of humanity's most terrible enemy, after 50 years of peace. To survive against this enemy, Captain Tad Thatcher will have to do more than learn how to become an effective commander, or how to wrangle his wayward crew. He will need to reinvent space combat. From scratch.

When asubatomic physics experiment causes a massive explosion, interdimensional gateways open in Florida - and aliens pour out. Some intend to bring Earth to its knees. Others seem willing to help, but will annihilate the planet if Navy SEAL Command Master Chief Robert Miller can't stop the menace from spreading.

The 200 years' (and counting) peace was a time of tranquility that hasn't been seen since...well, ever. Mankind in the Galactic Age had finally conquered war, so what was left for the military to do but drink and barbecue? That's the kind of military that Sergeant R. Wilson Rogers lived in before he left the fleet to become a smuggler. But it turns out that smuggling is hard. Like getting-arrested-for-dealing-with-pirates-and-forced-back-into-service kind of hard.

Some starship captains explore strange new worlds, seeking out new life and new civilizations. Some lead missions of discovery through wormholes to the other side of the galaxy. Then there's Captain Iridius B. Franklin, someone who spent too long seeking out strange new bars and new alien cocktails.