Hard Space Opera

Earth’s first colony ship finally reaches the target world. The excitement of planetfall is indescribable, but quickly transforms into sick disappointment when they find the atmosphere is a roiling mass of hydrochloric acid, carbon dioxide, and other deadly poisons. They fly onward, seeking better planets. They find them, but none are ideal. The search goes on for a century, then longer still. As they move farther from Earth, aliens discover the intruding ship, and they begin to investigate humanity. They find our species unacceptable.

The age of exploration had been replaced by the age of war. The Tarden Republic lay fractured. The rebellion on Brakk had been brutally beaten down for a second time leaving the race near extinction. Ducis Iratus's assassination of most of the members of the Senex failed to cower the core worlds. As he fortifies the solar system against an attack from the Republic, a shadowy presence at the star closest to Earth grows in strength. With humanity refashioned as his personal slave army, Iratus above all dreams of conquest.

After the battle of Threnody, the Seraphim and her crew are broken. Months of relentless war by the Children, a race of genocidal artificially intelligent life forms bent on taking revenge on their creators, strains every resource available to the Planetary Alliance. The fight runs the spectrum from open combat to countless subtle plots by the Children, and it's all the Alliance can do to stave off utter catastrophe.

Walking On the Sea of Clouds is the story of such lunar pioneers: two couples, Stormie and Frank Pastorelli and Van and Barbara Richards, determined to survive and succeed in this near-future technological drama about the risks people will take, the emergencies they'll face, and the sacrifices they'll make as members of the first commercial lunar colony.

Follow the continuing adventure of the Lyssa and the Sykes family while the Psion AIs set their sights on Vesta.

As the post-attack chaos forces Earth's governments to realize they no longer have the ability to maintain order, the destiny of mankind falls to a select group of human and artificial intelligence to prepare a defense against annihilation by the Nubl hives.

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.

When Simara Ying crash-lands on the desert planet Bali, she finds herself trapped in a cave-dwelling culture with no social network for support. Her rescuer, Zen Valda, is yanked into a new universe of complications he can scarcely grasp and into an infinite network of data he never knew existed. When brash V-net anchorman Roni Hendrik starts investigating how Simara became the subject of an interplanetary manhunt, he finds a dangerous emergence in the network that threatens all human life.

The mysterious species called Flickers are thought to have a base in the outer solar system. A task force is sent to find out. Living in the Kuiper Zone, the Flicker want nothing more than to be left alone. But the solar system belongs to humans. Can the two coexist? Or will history repeat and contact lead to war, as has so often happened in humanity's past?

Admiral Stokes' forces are scattered and beleaguered with no safe haven. The forces of the Woduur have decisively defeated the Lashmere Navy and invaded Lashmere itself. Humans are on the verge of defeat. Their only hope lies in the ancient ship held by an alien race that may want them all dead.

On a routine mining mission to the asteroid belt, the crew of the Kerwood is mired in their personal concerns: finishing quickly, getting home, earning a fair share of the profits - until the ship experiences catastrophic failure on the return journey. Now they must put aside their petty worries if they're to have any hope of getting home alive.

The Sykes family is done running. Caught up in a conspiracy that spans all of Sol, Andy Sykes has learned the hard way that there is nowhere to hide. The time has come to gear up and launch a counter-attack. Lyssa, the AI in Andy's mind, is being contacted by other sentient AI. Lyssa has already proven that she is more than the weapon she was created to be. As those other AI make themselves known, a great awakening is taking place, setting up the pieces in a coming war that will break the fragile peace between Terra, Mars, and Jovian Combine.

Aboard the hyperspace liner Redshift is a relativistic world of slow light and treachery. The first sign of trouble is the apparent suicide of a passenger. When first officer Jason Kraft discovers that she was murdered, Kraft wants to know why. Before long, a desperate group of people tries to use the hyperspace craft for their evil purposes, and Kraft is the only person in their way.

The year is 2085, and humanity has spread throughout the solar system, a stable lunar colony is agitating for independence, and lunar tourism is on the rise. Against this background, professional "Close Protection" specialist Scotty Griffin, fresh off a disastrous assignment, is offered the opportunity of a lifetime: to shepherd the teenaged heir to the Republic of Kikaya on a fabulous vacation. Ali Kikaya will participate in the first live-action role playing game conducted on the Moon itself.

Nate and his video gamer friends are given the chance of a lifetime, a six-month tour aboard the Alliance’s newest battleship, ANS Dreadnought. Two years at the Academy has tested Nate’s flying, combat, and technical skills to the limit. But nothing will come close to his greatest test. Captain Gaunt, one of the Alliance’s most decorated officers plans to use Dreadnought to start a war, one that will engulf the region and cost many lives.

Michigan Long blackmailed her enemies into joining the war against the AIs. Now the secret she used is leaking out and the Fusion is shattering. Caught in the middle of a civil war, she will have to use any weapon that comes to hand—her wits, her ship, her mate.

2788. Only the handicapped live on Earth. While everyone else portals between worlds, 18-year-old Jarra is among the one in a thousand people born with an immune system that cannot survive on other planets. Sent to Earth at birth to save her life, she has been abandoned by her parents. She can't travel to other worlds, but she can watch their vids, and she knows all the jokes they make. She's an 'ape', a 'throwback', but this is one ape girl who won't give in.

Theophilus Merlan, a shy geologist, courageously saves an alien boy's life on the planet Yellowsand and acquires some of his DNA. Since the boy is royalty and the present, dying Speaker admires Merlan, he tells Merlan that he is now part Shakk himself and must be the next Speaker or ruler of the Shakk people. Hour by hour, Merlan finds himself changing mentally and physically from human to Shakk.

A captain who'll take any job if there's enough money in it. A pilot with an agenda of her own. And a mechanic with an eye on the pilot. The crew of the Fives Full are just trying to make enough money to keep themselves in the black while avoiding the attention of a government so paranoid it's repealed Moore's Law. They're not looking for adventure in the stars...but they're not going to back down just because something got in their way.

As mankind nears its goal of galactic citizenship, Sirius Kade, trader and Earth Intelligence Service deep cover agent, learns that wealthy and powerful leaders from across Mapped Space are vying for control of an alien relic they believe is the key to untold riches - unaware that they are being deceived. Sirius soon finds himself entangled in an interstellar plot to make humanity a cosmic outcast, denying it its place as the newest member of the vast and ancient community that has governed the galaxy for eons.