Hard Science Fiction Space Opera

The best of the year's science fiction and fantasy stories as selected by the multiple award-winning editor Jonathan Strahan. Distant worlds, time travel, epic adventure, unseen wonders, and much more! The best, most original and brightest science fiction and fantasy stories from around the globe from the past 12 months are brought together in one collection by multiple award winning editor Jonathan Strahan.

New Alliances After some terrible secrets come to light, humans must rethink their relationship with the Akkato. Nothing less than the continued existence of mankind is at stake. Will Dominic Porter and his comrades decide to forge new alliances, even if it means going against their conscience? NOMADS This is what humans are called by the many races of the Milky Way. As survivors and refugees, they try to assert themselves among the cultures of the galaxy, which is called ASGAROON by its inhabitants. Some of them have managed to make a name for themselves in the feudal society of ASGAROON. ...

A hundred years in the future, a war wages between the Five Dragons - five families that control the moon's leading industrial companies. Each clan does everything in their power to claw their way to the top of the food chain - marriages of convenience, corporate espionage, kidnapping, and mass assassinations. Through ingenious political manipulation and sheer force of will, Lucas Corta rises from the ashes of corporate defeat and seizes control of the moon. The only person who can stop him is a brilliant lunar lawyer: his sister, Ariel.

Devastated early in the war, the United Systems Alliance has retaken several key systems lost to the Galactic Union. But getting even isn’t good enough for General Hella. Determined to end the costly war and destroy the Union, Hella launches a daring offensive against the planet Kuut, a key military base deep in Union space. At the tip of the spear, Lieutenant Mark Rizer and the Marines of Orcus Company find themselves in the mud and blood of a planetary ground invasion.

Although the exciting military career she hoped for never got off the ground, Ky Vatta ended up seeing plenty of combat when she took the helm of one of the commercial transport vessels in her family's fleet...and steered it into a full-blown war. Now the lessons she learned in that trial by fire are about to pay off - because this time, the war has come to her. Someone has launched a full-throttle offensive against Vatta Transport Ltd., Ky's father's interstellar shipping empire.

Onboard an ancient starship, Killeen and the Bishop tribe escape the mech-ruled world of Snowglade. Seeking refuge on a faraway planet, they discover vast wonders: an organic life-form as large as a world, a planet-coring cosmic string, a community of humans ruled by a brutal tyrant, and ultimately an alien race more awesome than any they have encountered. As they battle for survival against these myriad dangers, Killeen and his crew will gain an unforeseen ally - one that may determine humanity’s true destiny.

Penumbra, a haphazard city of outcasts, rebels, and malcontents, has floated around a dead planet in a backwater system for longer than living memory can recall. Its towers abandoned starships melded to an ancient, mysterious core, Penumbra is the last remnant of chaotic individualism in a galaxy where conformity to the will of the all-powerful Galactic Council is paramount.

Contemplating war is a terrible thing, but not contemplating it can be worse. As terrible as war is, failure to prepare is more terrible yet. This story is set at the same time and in the same universe as Hannah Sawyer.

It's the beginning of a new golden age of space exploration. Finally, humanity is taking the commercialization of space to the next level-mining asteroids. The new gold rush of the commercial space era has begun. Another commercial venture, an attempt to put a hotel on the Moon, is seeking the space tourism gold of the ultra wealthy. And it seems as if the dream of finally sending people to Mars is finally going to happen using a ship propelled by a powerful nuclear rocket. But space travel isn't cut and dry, and there is nothing routine about it.

For Ky, it’s not just about liberating the star systems subjugated by Turek and defending the rest of the galaxy’s freedom. There’s also a score to be settled and payback to be meted out for the obliteration of the Vatta Transport dynasty...and the slaughter of Ky’s family. But the enemy have their own escalation efforts under way - including the placement of covert agents among the allies with whom Ky and the surviving Vattas are collaborating in the war effort.

"Pellucidar" is a fantasy novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs, part of his series about the fictional "hollow earth" land of Pellucidar. David Innes and his captive, a member of the reptilian Mahar master race of the interior world of Pellucidar, return from the surface world in the Iron Mole invented by his friend and companion in adventure Abner Perry. Emerging in Pellucidar at an unknown location, David frees his captive.

Captain Graciela is where she wants to be, far from her controlling mother, in a rented solar sail cargo ship, trading and gambling throughout the heliosphere. It can be lonely in the void, but the crew on the H2LiftShip, the LunaCola, is all the help she needs: Jack, a talking dog with a nose for Earth jerky, Tang, a poker-obsessed orangutan, and Octopus, in his watery navigation station, are her constant companions on her journey.

There is no turning back from war now. The Fringe Liberation Campaign has sparked protests and rebellions across the Collective. Can the fringe unite into a single front before the Collective Unified Forces send everything they’ve got to destroy the Campaign and kill every last torrent?

Four sci-fi short stories where you'll find good computers, people who regret their past, and an explanation for something you're familiar with.

Becky Cooper isn’t exceptionally intelligent, she isn’t exceptionally brave -- she is however, competent. And that’s something circumstances demonstrate that you can’t have enough of.

A man battles for his life, two AIs vie for supremacy and a civilization hangs in the balance.... Several forces now pursue rogue artificial intelligence Penny Royal, hungry for revenge or redemption. And the Brockle is the most dangerous of all. This criminal swarm-robot AI has escaped confinement and is upgrading itself, becoming ever more powerful in anticipation of a showdown. Events also escalate aboard the war factory.

The UHS Providence is restored to her former glory, with a fully reconstituted Air Group ready for war. But the Ixan fleet has grown far larger than anyone anticipated, and the onslaught has begun. As system after system is consumed, the Ixan Prophecies' terrifying nature is revealed.

Humanity has taken to the stars, using faster-than-light travel to reach distant planets and new worlds. But in the far reaches of the galaxy, John Grant will discover a planet of humans who believe he has travelled not only through space to find them, but time. On Apis, the mysterious Fermi appear to have vanished, taking with them knowledge of the universe that humanity desires. But Marcus Owen, the robot AI now plagued with sentience, knows that the Fermi would not easily abandon the native life of Apis.

Captain Graciela is where she wants to be, far from her controlling mother, in a rented solar sail cargo ship, trading and gambling throughout the heliosphere. It can be lonely in the void, but the crew on the H2LiftShip, the LunaCola, is all the help she needs: Jack, a talking dog with a nose for Earth jerky, Tang, a poker-obsessed orangutan, and Octopus, in his watery navigation station, are her constant companions on her journey.

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