Hard Ships

A thief turned spy, turned bounty hunter, turned hero! After surviving an all-out implosion of catastrophic proportions following the failed fusion of twin stars Mira A and B in a class B Supernova, the people of galaxy Proxima Centauri have pressed forward with dreams and hopes of finally living in peace. But for Bounty Hunter Steel Reign, the clock of destiny is speeding ahead at a steadfast pace as he desires to hunt down a group of rogue super-soldiers before they can plot against King William Derry and his kingdom on planet Fabricius.

Zen and the Art of Starship Maintenance and Other Stories is Tobias S. Buckell's seventh short fiction collection and is comprised of 15 stories, several of which are original to the collection or were previously only available through his Patreon. This collection ranges from galactic adventures to intimate explorations of humanity—sometimes in the same story—rich with a sense of wonder and deft storytelling.

A space portal to remote colonies held by Earth is captured by a hostile species, which wants to place a toll on it. While authorities on Earth and considering whether to wage war, they manage to capture an alien spaceship, and hand it over to a group of scientists for military research. Will the scientists succeed in discovering any secrets that will give humanity the upper hand in the impending conflict?