Fiction Space Adventure

Peril and strife strike on a double front for Honor Harrington and company. After a brutal attack on the Manticoran home system, Honor Harrington and the Star Kingdom she serves battle back against a new, technologically powerful, and utterly nefarious enemy. And as if that weren’t task enough, Honor must also face down a centuries-old nemesis in the crumbling, but still mighty, Solarian League.

With The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume 3, award-winning editor Neil Clarke provides a year-in-review and 27 of the best stories published by both new and established authors in 2017.

The People's Republic of Haven made a tiny mistake when it announced the execution of Honor Harrington. It seemed safe enough. After all, she was already dead. Unfortunately, they were wrong. Now Honor has escaped from the prison planet called Hell and returned to the Manticoran Alliance with a few friends. Almost half a million of them, to be precise including some who know what really happened when the Committee of Public Safety seized power in the PRH.

As the Great Crusade enters its sixth decade, the fleets and armies of the Emperor spear out into the galaxy to bring the Imperial Truth to thousands of worlds. Expansion has been swift, but must now be tempered with consolidation. Even so, the Emperor demands that the boundaries of the Imperium be pushed further into the unknown. The Master of Mankind tasks four primarchs with the dangerous mission of securing the worlds of the Occluda Noctis—hundreds of star systems on the far side of the Northern Major Warp Storm.

The first interstellar war, a generation ago, left humanity enslaved. Now humans fight in the armies of their masters to save themselves from annihilation. At least, that's what the propaganda insists is true. What the layers of lies keep hidden is how badly the new war is going for the people of earth. Now it's Dylan Kane's turn to blast into the heavens and join the battle, but what his masters don't know is that by putting a weapon in his hands, they're giving him the key to unlocking his hopes of freedom.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER An unexpected offer threatens the bond between Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi as the two Jedi navigate a dangerous new planet and an uncertain future in the first canon Star Wars novel to take place before the events of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. A Jedi must be...

Rumors have swirled around about the demise of the ConFed for as long as Jason Burke had been in space, a lone human among countless alien species. He largely ignored them...until now. For the first time since any of the members of Omega Force can remember, someone may have figured out how to destroy the ConFed without directly engaging its powerful military. As one crewmember's past seems connected to the current trouble, Jason must decide what side of the fight he's on....

Accidental space adventurer Cal Carver has had a rough few months. He's fought spider-dragons, battled space clowns, and been repeatedly tortured by the galaxy's oldest assassin. And don't even get him started on the squirrel-tits. Now all that's behind him, Cal just wants to kick back and relax. The universe, however, has other ideas. He and his crew find themselves in possession of the Symmorium Sentience, a once god-like entity now stripped of its power.

Captain Ivan Vorpatril is happy with his relatively uneventful bachelor's life as a staff officer to a Barrayaran admiral. Cousin to imperial troubleshooter Miles Vorkosigan, Ivan is not far down the hereditary list for the emperorship. Thankfully, new heirs have directed that headache elsewhere, leaving Ivan to enjoy his life on Komarr, far from the Byzantine court politics of his home system. But when an old friend in Barrayaran intelligence asks Ivan to protect an attractive young woman who may be on the hit list of a criminal syndicate, his chivalrous nature takes over.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Join Republic spy Theron Shan as he faces off against the Sith Empire itself in this epic installment of The Old Republic. Light side, dark side—these are just empty words. . . . There are only two sides I care about: us and them. Republic or Empire! The Sith...

William Chanokh is immortal...and he’s trapped on the Galahad, an interstellar starship on a never-ending journey through open space. His only companions are Capria - mortal and in cryo-sleep - and Gal, an artificial intelligence, and the love of his life, with whom he spends every waking moment in the "Great Escape". After untold years living countless lives, Gal begins acting strange. Betrayed by his digital love, his long-term memory overwritten, and enduring violent manipulation, Will painfully peels back layers of simulation, fighting to reach reality 1.0...

The Battle of Serenity Valley was the turning point that led the Independents to their defeat at the hands of the Alliance. Yet the Browncoats had held the valley for weeks against all odds, before being ordered to lay down their arms. Command stated they refused to send in airpower because the ground war was "too hot". But the soldiers who were there insist that was not true.... While picking up a new cargo on Persephone, Captain Malcolm Reynolds is kidnapped by a bunch of embittered veteran Browncoats who suspect him of sabotaging the Independents during the war.

Will Kaufman is the only Void Navigator the New Federation has left. Missions for the Phaelon's crew are practically unending. When rumors of a mysterious and elusive marauding army ravaging colony worlds prove to be true, Will is given a new mission: stop the marauders at all costs, or else Earth might be next. But these foes have a Navigator of their own, and finding them proves next to impossible.

Evan and Anya flee Aethos with a target on their backs. Unfortunately, the ship's sentient AI is missing thousands of years of history and is just as surprised to be on the run. As they search for the ship's makers, Evan and Anya soon discover that the interstellar plot to transform the Commonwealth with alien tech runs much deeper than they'd ever imagined.

The once-utopian Chasm City - a domed human settlement on an otherwise inhospitable planet---has been overrun by a virus known as the Melding Plague, capable of infecting any body, organic or computerized. Now, with the entire city corrupted - from the people to the very buildings they inhabit---only the most wretched sort of existence remains. The stakes are raised when Tanner Mirabel's search brings him face to face with a centuries-old atrocity that history would rather forget.

After discovering a cache of Prothean technology on Mars in 2148, humanity is spreading to the stars---the newest interstellar species, struggling to carve out its place in the greater galactic community. On the edge of colonized space, ship commander and Alliance war hero David Anderson investigates the remains of a top secret military research station---smoking ruins littered with bodies and unanswered questions. Who attacked this post, and for what purpose?

Prince Roger is coming home, but home isn't what it was when he left. Traitors have murdered his brother and sister, his nieces and nephews. His mother, the empress, is still alive but in the hands of Roger's own biological father, who controls her through drugs and physical and psychological torture. A new heir to the throne has been conceived, and once the child is born his mother will no longer be necessary to the traitors' plans.

The Coalition is reeling. New Vega and its other worlds have fallen beneath the boot of the newly allied Savage marines, and the death count continues to rise at a staggering rate. One thing is clear: The war to come will be a fight for the very survival of the species. For both sides in this conflict, now is the time to become what fate, and victory, demand. The Savages - post-human monsters who believe themselves to be gods - are intent on remaking civilization in their own violent and pathological image. Yet their alliance is tenuous.

Long ago, a human astrophysicist, Inigo, began dreaming scenes from the life of a remarkable human being named Edeard, who lived within the Void, a self-contained microuniverse at the heart of the galaxy. There, under the beneficent gaze of mysterious godlike entities, humans possessed uncanny psychic abilities, and Edeard's were the strongest of all. Equally strong was his determination to bring justice and freedom to a world terrorized by criminal violence and corruption.

Lieutenant Magnus survives the harrowing rescue of his unit only to find himself charged with treason by the very military he’s pledged his allegiance to. Now, he must attempt to escort Piper to the Luma, homeward of Worru before dark forces discover her otherworldly abilities. But once there, Magnus finds himself confronting new enemies in the place he least expects to find them. Meanwhile, Awen uncovers a new plot that threatens to upend order throughout the galaxy. She and Magnus find their way to an alien world where they must work together to build a new team from the ruins....