Hard Space Opera

Commander Joe Pikeman is on a mission he didn’t ask for…and wasn’t ordered on. Then again, he isn’t in the mood to sit back while Fairfax takes over the galaxy, either. Fairfax’s power stretches across the stars, and he’s calling in all his favors. From sparking a bot rebellion to engineering godlike monsters to crush his enemies, he seems determined to ruin Joe’s day. But he made one mistake: he screwed with Joe’s family. And as messed up as they are, that simply isn’t something Joe can allow.

Habitats is the seventh in a series of near future sci-fi/thrillers, whose young heroine Ell Donsaii has a nerve mutation which has made her a genius as well as an athletic phenomenon. In Habitats, she is continuing to find uses for the quantum-entangled wormholes she discovered. These wormholes aren’t big enough to send people through, yet they are making huge changes in our world.

Lee's parents and their business partner, Gordon, found a class A habitable planet. They thought their quest as explorers was over and they'd live a life of ease. But before they could return and register their claim, Lee's parents died doing a survey of the surface. That left Lee two-thirds owner of the claim and their partner Gordon obligated by his word with her parents to raise Lee. She had grown up aboard the ship with her uncle Gordon and he was the only family she'd ever known. Him adopting her was an obvious arrangement to them.

Adrift in the divide between galaxies and surrounded by the vast emptiness of the intergalactic void, the Tantalus Cluster is the only home humanity has ever known. Desperate and facing starvation, humanity’s only hope is a strange nebula that has suddenly appeared beyond the edge of the cluster. Its shifting clouds may hide a source of salvation for the people of Tantalus, but time is running out.

This prequel to the Trade Pact Universe series begins in a time before the Clan had learned how to manipulate the M'hir to travel between worlds. Aliens have begun to explore the world of Cersi, upsetting the delicate balance between the Clan and the two other powerful races who coexist by set rules. And one young woman is on the verge of finding the forbidden secret of the M'hir - a discovery that could prove the salvation or ruin of her entire species.

While battles rage across the Transcend and the Inner Stars, Tangel's focus shifts to Orion space.

Chief Warrant Officer Benjamin “Benno” Sanchez has devoted over 20 years of his life to the Alliance of Liberated Systems’ Navy, defending his colony world from the continued encroachment of the Terran Union. His young daughter has been virtually orphaned for years, but his time away is coming to an end. On Adelaide, 14-year-old Mio Sanchez chafes at the limitations placed upon her. With her father away and her mother long since passed, she struggles with an indifferent foster family and yearns to leave her simple life and join her father in the Alliance Navy.

Tanis and Sera have taken the I2 to Khardine, the new capital of the Transcend, and must now travel to the Inner Stars and meet with Scipian Empress, Diana - who they hope will be an ally to the Transcend. With the Trisilieds Kingdom, the Hegemony of Worlds, and the Nietzschean Empire all aligned with the Orion Guard - not to mention a civil war brewing in the Transcend - they will need all the help they can get to secure the Inner Stars. But Empress Diana has her own plans for the Inner Stars, and while they may dovetail with the Transcend's for now, they may not always do so....

The war will come - it is inevitable. After centuries of struggle, the ISF Intrepid has finally brought its colonists to New Canaan, a star system better than any they imagined. They made landfall and began to build their new home, far from the troubles of Sol and the Inner Stars. Yet no one in the Orion Arm has forgotten that the colonists possess the most valuable technology known to humankind, least of all Tanis Richards - as she secretly prepares to defend New Canaan against any and all aggressors.

Tangel is still reeling from her battle with the ascended AI, but she still needs to complete her negotiations with the League of Sentients and bring them into the Alliance. Once that agreement is in place, the Alliance will be in a position to hit the Hegemony on multiple fronts, beginning the process of defeating humanity's oldest empire. But unbeknownst to Tangel, a force of Widows is present on Lunic station, eager for the opportunity to derail that agreement though Tangel's death.

The Allies have solidified their hold on the Large Magellanic Cloud and turn their sights on the Inner Stars and Perseus Arm. With forces spread thin, they must depend on superior technology and quantum entanglement communication to retain their edge. But their enemies have not been idle. Ascended AIs move to destroy Tangel, as Garza and the Orion Widows strike out at both Tangel and Airtha. Deep in the Transcend, Justin readies his new stasis ship for an assault on Vela, and the League of Sentients dithers on whether to join the fight.

Old Captain Orbus commandeered a ship to flee Spatterjay, desperate to escape the violent planet. Orbus’ alien enemy, the Prador Vrell, is also moving on. The Spatterjay virus mutated him into something even more dangerous. And he’s hunting the Prador King himself - who sought to kill him, to bury the secret of their similar transformations. Orbus and Vrell clash in the Graveyard, a lawless zone where the Prador have seized a key space station. Official action by humanity or Prador would end peace, as a centuries-long cold war simmers.

Luhman 16 ist ein Doppel-System aus Braunen Zwergen – Sternen, die es nicht geschafft haben, den nuklearen Fusionsprozess in ihrem Inneren zu zünden. Auf den sie umkreisenden Planeten geht deshalb nie die Sonne auf, wie die Menschen es kennen. Die Crew des Raumschiffs "Majestätische Dracht", aus Außerirdischen und Menschen bestehend, muss sich tief in die Dunkelheit stürzen, um ausgerechnet hier um ihr Leben kämpfenden Schiffbrüchigen zu helfen. Doch dann geschieht etwas, mit dem niemand rechnen konnte.

Les Premiers-Nés – la mystérieuse espèce extraterrestre, déjà connue par les fans de science-fiction pour avoir édifié le monolithe noir de 2001 : l'Odyssée de l'espace – ont hanté l'œuvre de Sir Arthur C. Clarke, monstre sacré de la SF, pendant des décennies. Avec L'Œil du Temps et Tempête solaire, les deux premiers volumes de la trilogie de L'Odyssée du Temps, Clarke et Stephen Baxter ont imaginé un futur proche dans lequel les Premiers-Nés tentent d'arrêter l'avancée de la civilisation humaine en employant une technologie indiscernable de la magie.

Kylara had to leave a bright future as a military cadet and was thrown into the brutal world of off-world trading. This subsequent career in the family business was tough: marked by war, mutiny, and attempted assassination. But then her home was attacked and her parents killed - their trading empire left in ruins. Now she must save what is left of the family and the business, with few friends and too few assets. She must make full use of her hard-won experience to not just survive, but to restore the shattered fortunes of the Vatta family and their allies.

Centuries after a war with the Mutes, the first aliens to be encountered by humankind, a startling new discovery in the far reaches of the Orion Nebula appears. On a planet with conditions favorable to life, explorer vessel The Columbia comes across a small town seemingly inhabited by an intelligent species not yet discovered. But when a highly publicized follow-up mission is sent to make contact mere months later, the entire town has vanished, leaving no trace—or such is presumed to be the case until Alex Benedict and his archaeological crew show up to investigate.

In Neal Asher's Hilldiggers, during a war between two planets in the same solar system - each occupied by adapted humans - what is thought to be a cosmic superstring is discovered. After being cut, this object collapses into four cylindrical pieces, each about the size of a tube train. Each is densely packed with either alien technology or some kind of life. They are placed for safety in three ozark cylinders of a massively secure space station.

The United States of North America is now engaged in a civil war with the Earth Confederation, which wants to yield to the demands of the alien Sh'daar, limit human technology, and become a part of the Sh'daar Galactic Collective. USNA President Koenig believes that surrendering to the Sh'daar will ultimately doom humankind. But when highly advanced, seemingly godlike aliens appear through an artificial wormhole in the Omega Centauri Cluster 16,000 light years from Earth, President Koenig is faced with a tremendous choice.

Two years after the initial invasion of Hayden's World, the newly reinforced Hayden Militia is in a state of stalemate with the remaining enemy forces, but neither side is content to leave things at that. The alien alliance has dispatched their varsity to clean up the resistance on Hayden while the USF has officially activated Task Force V, the latest and most advanced combat ships built by humans. In the end there are some things you decide in the skies, but some can be settled only in the mud.

The generation ship Peerless is in search of advanced technology capable of sparing their home planet from imminent destruction. In theory, the ship is traveling fast enough that it can traverse the cosmos for generations and still return home only a few years after they departed. But a critical fuel shortage threatens to cut their urgent voyage short, even as a population explosion stretches the ship’s life-support capacity to its limits.