Space Opera Science Fiction

In 2204, humanity is expanding into the wider galaxy in leaps and bounds. Cutting-edge technology of linked jump gates has rendered most forms of transportation - including starships - virtually obsolete. Every place on Earth, every distant planet humankind has settled, is now a step away from any other. And all seems wonderful - until a crashed alien spaceship of unknown origin is found on a newly located world 89 light-years from Earth, carrying a cargo as strange as it is horrifying. To assess the potential of the threat a high-powered team is dispatched to investigate. But one of them may not be all they seem....

A collection of the year’s best science fiction and fantasy short fiction selected by New York Times bestselling author of the Silo series Hugh Howey and series editor John Joseph Adams. “These are dangerous stories. The kind that warp reality and threaten to change the world” warns guest...

Major Kira Miyaru embarks on a top-secret mission that will reshape the destiny of the galaxy. Chosen to lead a stealth bombing operation on the enemy homeworld, Kira faces unimaginable risk as hostile xenos and the perils of galactic war threaten to consume her.

Chuck Ramsey is a traveling comedian trying to turn a planetside gig on Earth into a cash cow. Of course, the cost of living on Earth is astronomical. He needs to get rich quick - or at least come out ahead - and head for cheaper pastures. Enter Mordecai The Brown. Once the golden boy of the Convocation, Guardian of the Plundered Tomes and the Convocation's number one hunter of dark wizards, "Mort" has found himself on the wrong end of an internal investigation.

Rix Banner thought his fighting days ended with World War II. Back home in Cranberry Cove, he just wants to fix cars, drink coffee, and put the past behind him. But when a broken-down starship crash-lands in a Wisconsin cornfield, Rix discovers the universe isn’t done with him yet. The Galactic Empire doesn’t care about Earth’s isolation. They want their ship back—and the fugitive who stole it. Rix isn’t a soldier anymore, but he’s the only one standing between his town and an alien war.

There are those in the great expanse of the galaxy that seek profit wherever it is to be found: the deal makers, the opportunists and explorers – the Rogue Traders. Granted power by an ancient charter, sanctioned by the Emperor Himself, these scoundrels, entrepreneurs and adventurers roam the galaxy in search of fortune and glory. None perhaps are as hungry for these twin vices as Janus Draik.

Eleven years ago, Army Ranger Jason King lost his job when the aliens came to Earth and outlawed war among nations. Now he makes a fairly decent living as the top real estate broker on the planet Sylox, the capital of the Galactic Union. His clients are primarily Humans coming to the planet to work at the huge Embassy Complex, and they find Earth-like housing—along with a little taste of home—in the sprawling Enclaves of Sylox.

Once, Master Commander Carter Rose was the Union’s secret weapon. An augmented, bio-engineered officer in command of the most powerful warship ever devised by human minds, Rose brought them victory against the post-human Aternien Empire. Then they cast him aside. A century later, living alone on a distant forest moon, feared and forsaken by the people he fought to save, Rose has grown bitter and resentful, while his superhuman body refuses to age.

Follow a core group of characters known as the Trailblazers as they use alien technology and knowledge discovered in Antarctic ruins to obtain limited immortality and lead humanity out into the galaxy, encountering, befriending, and fighting hundreds of alien races, all the while desperately trying to prepare Earth for the unbeatable threat at the core of the Milky Way that is destined to return and reclaim their lost colony... and their former human slaves.

Spensa made it out of the Nowhere, but what she saw in the space between the stars has changed her forever. She came face to face with the Delvers, and finally got answers to the questions she’s had about her own strange Cytonic gifts. The Superiority didn’t stop fighting for galactic dominance while she was gone, though. Spensa’s team, Skyward Flight, was able to hold Winzik off, and even collect allies to help with the cause, but it’s only a matter of time until humanity—and the rest of the galaxy—falls.

Michael Wallace presents the first book in his Alliance Trilogy.

When Lieutenant Alex "Flex" Callahan encounters mysterious alien probes near Luna Station, no one believes his warnings—until it's too late. Human activity has awakened an alien presence deep in our Solar System. Now, humanity faces extinction as this ancient and forgotten foe launches a devastating invasion. Their goal? To reclaim Earth as their ancestral home. Flying his Firebird fighter from the carrier ECS Vanguard, Flex leads the desperate fight against overwhelming odds.

Born to oppression, Siena is an ordinary young woman, until an act of defiance leaves her scarred and marked as a rebel. She's sold to Ero, a fallen Krey with a desperate plan to redeem his once-powerful family. He intends to enhance slaves by altering their genetic code, increasing their value through an illegal experiment.

On the planet now known as High Tortuga, the mine workers are far too close to being slaves so the ruler of the planet shut them down. Except for the mine owned by Venfirdri Lan. He's taken his mine off the grid and decided to keep everything running. With no need to pay the workers, profits should be good. After all, who's going to stop him? He had no idea there was a new type of man working for justice on the planet. A man named Barnabas. In fact, he didn't even know who Barnabas was. But he's about to.

Dr. Neil Anson Clemons was born at the very moment that men first landed on the moon and always strived to become an astronaut and reach the stars. Neil devoted his life to staying physically fit as any astronaut should be through martial arts and mentally fit by studying and becoming one of the world's foremost experts in quantum physics and gravitational theory. Now he and his team have achieved a breakthrough, both in building a warp drive, and finding a new energy source powerful enough to make the drive more than an interesting theoretical concept.

Reformed, repackaged, and re-engineered, the Stillness reveal that they never went away. They merely waited. Watching. Planning. And those plans will collide with the rising stars of an empire based on justice and action. Out in the deep black, Abel Tudor and his crew will fight to prove that command isn't given, it's earned—and their parents chose well, giving them the helm to a warship that could change history with one fateful journey.

Lieutenant Becky Keller’s brain is fitted with a processing core which can outthink and outfly the most advanced battle computers in the Space Corps. Joe Nation is packed with so many augmentations, he can’t remember which parts of his body are real anymore. All he knows is covert ops, and there’s no one better than Nation. The pair of them are given a mission - infiltrate the Isob-2 processing facility of a semi-hostile alien species known as Estral and find out if they’re breaking the terms of a peace treaty.

The lines. No ship can traverse the void without them. Only linesmen can work with them. But only Ean Lambert hears their song. And everyone thinks he's crazy.... Most slum kids never go far, certainly not becoming a level 10 linesman like Ean. Even if he's part of a small and unethical cartel, and the other linesmen disdain his self-taught methods, he's certified and working. Then a mysterious alien ship is discovered at the edges of the galaxy.

Thirty-three shorter tales of the Liaden Universe® brought together for the first time in two mega-volumes. Seventeen tales to start with in Volume One! The nationally bestselling Liaden Universe® novels are treasured by space opera aficionados for their wit, world-building, strong characterizations, tender romance, and edge-of-the-chair action.

On a distant mining colony, Samantha Weaver is in line for a promotion, and is working hard to have hope for the future. She came to this desolate place to give her sickly brother Aiden a better life, but is it really better? Sometimes she wonders how best to help him, and if they made the right decision. Their mundane existence is blown apart from the moment the monstrous creatures breach the mines. The colony descends into chaos. All the workers are trapped, abandoned by the very administrators who once drove them to exhaustion.