Fantasy Opera

Nicole Lee's life is going nowhere. No family, no money, and stuck in a relationship with a thug named Bungie. But, after one of Bungie's "deals" goes south, he and Nicole are whisked away by a mysterious moth-like humanoid to a strange ship called the Fyrantha. Once aboard, life on the ship seems too good to be true. All she has to do is work on one of the ship's many maintenance crews. However, she learned long ago that nothing comes without a catch. When she's told to keep quiet and stop asking questions, she knows she is on to something.

The battle-scarred star carrier Flying Dutchman is finally on her way back to Earth, after an exceptionally successful series of missions that have once again saved the world. The ship needs a serious refit, and her exhausted crew just wants a break from constant clandestine warfare against a vicious and superior enemy. Wishes come true, right? Not for the Merry Band of Pirates.

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.

Earth is dying, and humanity is scrambling to set up colonies in other star systems. But the search process for habitable planets is not perfect, as the crew of the Ouroboros discover on arrival at their new home.

It is the dawn of the 21st century, and America is in trouble. Public schools breed apathy and ignorance, and politics has become the art of the quick fix. There is one woman, though, who has both the vision and the money to leverage change. Mariesa Gorley van Huyten, heiress to one of the great American fortunes, is determined to bring America, and the rest of the world, back on track. She founds an educational subsidiary in hopes of raising a new, less cynical generation.

This audiobook brings together 13 uproarious short stories and one novella, focused on Ciaphas Cain, Hero of the Imperium. His stories are celebrated as heroic propaganda pieces, but he’s simply trying to stay alive in a hostile galaxy.

In another galaxy, far, far away from Earth, an evil Empire controls 3/4ths of the star systems and yearns for more. Those regions not under their control have either traded obedience for their sovereignty, are too wild to tame, or too dangerous for Imperial troops to tread upon. The main thorn in the Emperor's side is the Frontier, which occupies a third of the lawless and barbaric Outer Rim. Countless commanders and fleets have been sent to pacify and annex it into the Empire. All have failed.

Millennia ago, the great empire of the Lazax brought the galaxy to heel, but now their ancient doctrine of strength and peace is failing. In the shadows, other factions begin to move against each other and their authoritarian masters. To rule themselves they must first tear down the crumbling regime they are forced to serve. When the Barony of Letnev, supplier of the Lazax's grand fleet, blockades a crucial wormhole to force the empire to listen to its demands, the spark of war is ignited and Zara Hail, an official for the Federation of Sol, is caught in the middle.

Ada Lamarr may have gotten to the spaceship wreck first, but looter’s rights won’t get her far when she’s got a hole in the side of her ship and her spacesuit is almost out of air. Fortunately for her, help arrives in the form of a government salvage crew—and while they rescue her from certain death, they are not pleased to have an unexpected passenger along on their classified mission. But Ada doesn’t care—all that matters to her is enjoying their fine food and sweet, sweet oxygen—until Rian White, the government agent in charge, starts to suspect that there’s more to Ada than meets the eye.

A cease-fire that has lasted seven years... Worlds half-destroyed that have been rebuilt anew... Friends and crewmates scattered light-years apart... New leaders that would be kings... The Jung threat has been renewed, in ways not imagined. It will take a new savior to inspire the masses, and once again lead those willing to fight against oppression. But who will the new savior be?

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.

Jonathon Hunter has evoked the wrath of 27th-century pirates. With his sexy twin bodyguards, Jonathon seeks to come to grips with station life in a suddenly hostile universe. Celebrity, gratitude, sudden attacks, and a mysterious prophecy are more than most 18-year-olds can handle. A reluctant hero, Jonathon is on a journey, seemingly out of his time, but always in time. Meet Jon Hunter as he starts a two-year journey to prophecy, with his AI sidekick and mostly female mercenary team.

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 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.

On the 13th day of Secundus, the bombardment of Terra began. With the solar defences overcome through the devastating strength of the Traitor armada and the power of the warp, Horus launches his assault on the Throneworld in earnest. After withstanding a ferocious barrage of ordnance, an immense ground war commences outside the Palace, with every inch gained paid for in the lives of billions.

Thirteen hundred gates have opened to solar systems around the galaxy. But as humanity builds its interstellar empire in the alien ruins, the mysteries and threats grow deeper. In the dead systems where gates lead to stranger things than alien planets, Elvi Okoye begins a desperate search to discover the nature of a genocide that happened before the first human beings existed and to find weapons to fight a war against forces at the edge of the imaginable. But the price of that knowledge may be higher than she can pay.

It has been nearly two hundred years since Hadrian Marlowe assaulted the person of the Emperor and walked away from war. From his Empire. From the will and service of the eldritch being known only as the Quiet. The galaxy lies in the grip of a plague, and worse, the Cielcin have overrun the realms of men. A messenger has come to Jadd, bearing a summons from the Sollan Emperor for the one-time hero. A summons, a pardon, and a plea. HAPSIS, the Emperor’s secret intelligence organization, has located one of the dreadful Watchers, the immense, powerful beings worshipped by the Pale Cielcin.

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.

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.

Chuck Ramsey is a traveling comedian trying to turn a planetside gig on Earth into a cash cow. Of course, the cost of living on Earth is astronomical. He needs to get rich quick - or at least come out ahead - and head for cheaper pastures. Enter Mordecai The Brown. Once the golden boy of the Convocation, Guardian of the Plundered Tomes and the Convocation's number one hunter of dark wizards, "Mort" has found himself on the wrong end of an internal investigation.