Space Opera Science Fiction

The return of humanity's oldest enemy... An alien prophecy that predicts our species' downfall... And a captain who's the only thing standing in the way of his starship getting mothballed. Wait, what? Imagine Captain Keyes’ surprise when the fate of the galaxy turns out to depend on him, his decrepit ship, and his oddball crew.

Captain Cirilo Webster is a loyal officer of the Santiago Corporation, the multistellar megacorporation that controlls all travel between the Seventy-Seven human colonies. Finally given command of his first interstellar freighter, he is determined to do well by both his crew and his employers—but nothing is ever that simple. His crew is used to Captains passing through on their way to better ships. The Company’s policies have made more enemies than he can count. Their mission is unusual and the client might be lying to him. And if all of that wasn’t enough?

To win an impossible war, Captain Kel Cheris must awaken an ancient weapon and a despised traitor general.

Captain Kel Cheris of the Hexarchate is disgraced for using unconventional methods in a battle against heretics. Kel Command gives her the opportunity to redeem herself by retaking the Fortress of Scattered Needles, a star fortress that has recently been captured by heretics. Cheris' career isn't the only thing at stake. If the fortress falls, the Hexarchate itself might be next.

Here is the novel that will be forever considered a triumph of the imagination. Set on the desert planet Arrakis, Dune is the story of the boy Paul Atreides, who would become the mysterious man known as Maud'dib. He would avenge the traitorous plot against his noble family and would bring to fruition humankind's most ancient and unattainable dream.

In the year 2280, an alien fleet attacked the Earth. Their weapons were unstoppable, their defenses unbreakable. Our technology was inferior, our militaries overwhelmed. Only one starship escaped before civilization fell. Earth was lost. It was never forgotten. Fifty-two years have passed. A message from home has been received. The time to fight for what is ours has come.

January 1864: General Robert E. Lee faces defeat. The Army of Northern Virginia is ragged and ill-equipped. Gettysburg has broken the back of the Confederacy and decimated its manpower. Then, Andries Rhoodie, a strange man with an unplaceable accent, approaches Lee with an extraordinary offer. Rhoodie demonstrates an amazing rifle: its rate of fire is incredible, its lethal efficiency breathtaking - and Rhoodie guarantees unlimited quantities to the Confederates. The name of the weapon is the AK-47.

For nearly a billion years, every known sentient species in the universe has been the result of genetic and cultural guidance - or "uplifting" - by a previously uplifted patron race. Then humans are discovered. Having already uplifted chimps and dolphins, humanity clearly qualifies as an intelligent species, but did they actually evolve their own intelligence, or did some mysterious patron race begin the process, then suddenly abandon Earth?

When Rab was a baby, his mother made a decision which would change his life. She feared he would be sent to work in the hellish mines of Mercury, to eke out his life until he was worn out, all in the name of maintaining the defense of the Solar System. But when her desperate attempt to flee with her 2 year old failed, she took a desperate step to save him. She cut off his hand. Decades later, Rab has been spared the physical hardships he can no longer endure, and is now based on the Mask, the all-encompassing structure which hides the Solar System from alien eyes.

On the run and out of chances, he guides his ship and crew into the heart of a relic older than the galaxy itself - and find himself on the edge of an eternal war he never knew existed. The relic is a mech, lost to history and forgotten by all who remain. Built by an ancient race to be the ultimate weapon, the machine is capable of unspeakable destruction, and its discovery could unhinge the balance of power throughout known space.

Hugo Award winner Harry Turtledove is the master of alternate history. In American Front he envisions World War I as it may have been if fought on American soil. The United States and Germany clash with the Confederacy, France, and Britain as the machines of modern warfare litter the landscape with carnage. Meanwhile, oppressed southern blacks head toward a fateful confrontation.

Three hundred years from now, Earth has been rendered uninhabitable due to the technological catastrophe known as the Nanocaust. Archaeologist Verity Auger specializes in the exploration of its surviving landscape. Now, her expertise is required for a far greater purpose. Something astonishing has been discovered at the far end of a wormhole: mid-twentieth-century Earth, preserved like a fly in amber.

Captain James Decker has lived a life of hunting, killing, and earning credits. To some, it hasn’t amounted to much, but to him, it’s led to him captaining the SC Fortune, a space cruiser with a competent crew that he’s grown fond of. After accepting a bounty hunting mission with a beautiful blonde woman as the mark, Decker finds himself soon without a ship and a crew. But as luck would have it, this same mission gives him back what he lost: a new ship and a new crew.

The year is 3326. Nigel Sheldon, one of the founders of the Commonwealth, receives a visit from the Raiel - self-appointed guardians of the Void, the enigmatic construct at the core of the galaxy that threatens the existence of all that lives. The Raiel convince Nigel to participate in a desperate scheme to infiltrate the Void. Once inside, Nigel discovers that humans are not the only life-forms to have been sucked into the Void. The humans trapped there are afflicted by an alien species of biological mimics.

Fate had made Owen Deathstalker a rebel hero in an empire choked by tyranny. Embracing his warrior lineage for the sake of freedom, he stoked the flames of revolution, gathering the forces that one day must strike against Imperial authority. That day has come. With his valiant compatriots Hazel d'Ark and Jack Random, Owen must now bring the uprising to a fiery conclusion.

Rose McKenzie may be far from Earth with no way back, but she's made a powerful ally - a fellow prisoner with whom she's formed a strong bond. Sazo's an artificial intelligence. He's saved her from captivity and torture, but he's also put her in the middle of a conflict, leaving Rose with her loyalties divided. Captain Dav Jallan doesn't know why he and his crew have stumbled across an almost legendary Class 5 battleship, but he's not going to complain. The only problem is, all its crew are dead - all except for one strange, new alien being.

Anya Nowicki, along with thousands of people around the globe, has found herself a host for alien technology known as the Archive. The Archive allows its hosts to alter their minds and bodies in an instant through holographic menu systems. With the touch of a button, anyone can become super strong, gain magical abilities, purchase a giant robot, or become a master in an almost infinite number of skills ranging from advanced combat techniques to fidget-spinning.

In The Jesus Incident, Frank Herbert and Bill Ransom introduced Ship, an artificial intelligence that believed it was God, abandoning its unworthy human cargo on the all-sea world of Pandora. Now centuries have passed. The descendants of humanity, split into Mermen and Islanders, must reunite--because Pandora's original owner is returning to life.

On the edge of a war-weary and devastated galaxy, charismatic Lewis Orne has landed on Hamal. His assignment: To detect any signs of latent aggression in this planet's population. To his astonishment, he finds that his own latent extrasensory powers have suddenly blossomed, and he is invited to join the company of "gods" on this planet - and the people here place certain expectations on their gods.

In the distant future, humans and several other races have been granted membership in the Confederation - at a price. They must act as soldier/protectors of the far more civilized races who have long since turned away from war.

When Streaker - the first starship designed and crewed by dolphins - discovers a derelict ancient armada with evidence of the first sentient species ever, she sets off a war between dozens of galactic races eager to use the information for their own advancement.