Space Opera Science Fiction

At a time when Humans were just starting to venture forth into the Galactic Union as mercenaries, Martin Quincy survived long enough to do something no one else had - he retired. There was only one problem: He got bored. After battling aliens for many years - killing aliens and getting paid - retirement didn’t suit him, and he decided to strap on the combat armor and go back to the stars. Along with his old friend Kal, Martin joined Cartwright’s Cavaliers, humanity’s best merc company. Life was exciting! But he got bored. Again.

AD 3580. The Intersolar Commonwealth has spread through the galaxy to over a thousand star systems. It is a culture of rich diversity with a place for everyone. A powerful navy protects it from any hostile species that may lurk among the stars. For Commonwealth citizens, even death has been overcome.

New ER doctor Alexi Sur always intended to join an aid agency. She'd just expected to work among humans. When the Pax Galactica Corps becomes her only option (don't ask—the debts aren't hers, but the family is, much to her regret), Alexi finds herself traveling the galaxy and learning alien physiology and culture, all while becoming a reality TV star. Being pursued by camera drones and starring in her very own Welcome-to-the-Universe documentary was never on Alexi's to-do list.

Deception Well is a world on the edge, home to an isolated remnant surviving at the farthest reach of human expansion. All across the frontier, other worlds have succumbed to the relentless attacks of robotic alien warships, while hundreds of light years away, the core of human civilization - those star systems closest to Earth, known as the Hallowed Vasties - have all fallen to ruins. Powerful telescopes can see only dust and debris where once there were orbital mega-structures so huge they eclipsed the light of their parent stars

Wrench is a Fixer. Someone born to maintain, fix, and correct any and every issue that could go wrong in the habitat he lives in. Someone who makes sure he and his fellow humans can remain on display and entertain their owners as any good human pet would. At least, that’s what he was born to be. He’s taken a different route and joined a resistance faction to help free humanity to become more than just pets to an alien race.

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.

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.

Bob thought he was doing fine on his own. Then the love of his life fell out of the sky. Can he get her back in the air with auto parts and a cutting torch? If he does, will she ever come back? Nikki took a job before she saw the equipment. Can she keep her passengers alive on a strange planet? Are the natives friendly?

In 2118 the first daring mission to another star, Tau Ceti - 12 light-years away - is launched. Tom Hites and Harry Cosgrove command the starship Endeavour on an epic journey to solve the Fermi paradox. From the first nearly disastrous steps on a distant world, their quest takes them further than they ever imagined.

After decades of scraping by with whatever work the galaxy offers, Crix Nakato finally has his own ship—a temperamental ex-courier vessel with one dead engine and enough quirks to match its world-weary new owner. When a routine delivery leads him to a derelict ship harboring the sole survivor of a family massacre, Crix faces a choice that will challenge everything he thought he wanted. With a nine-year-old stowaway now aboard his ship and dangerous cargo in his hold, Crix navigates the murky waters between profit and conscience as Izzy Garcia's irrepressible spirit begins to thaw his ...

Evelyn enjoyed living a nice quiet life in an anarchic pirate port, far from the world she’d once conquered. Then came an attack by mercenaries that made her angry. By the time the dust settled, she had a group of former slaves which she’d freed, her djinn assistant had convinced several of the women that they should join Evelyn’s brand-new harem, and she was looking for a new home, likely aboard a ship.

Zac was the most senior REV alive, a miracle of science and a legend in the Corps. His job was to be the battering ram for the Marines, the first in while revved up on NT-4. During a Run, he was a mindless killing machine, dangerous to both foe and friend alike. But something was happening to Zac. Long after most other REVs were dead, burned out or "retired", Zac was growing stronger, more powerful. He was also doing what no REV had ever done before during a Run. He was beginning to think.

Decades after the last footprints were left on the Moon, the US was preparing to return to the Lunar surface in a new class of rockets, when the mission suddenly became much more urgent. It would have to be a rescue mission. Unbeknownst to the rest of the world China had sent its own Lunar expedition. A manned expedition. Until a distress call was received, no human outside of China even knew that the mission was manned - or that their ship had crash-landed and couldn't take off again.

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.

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.

Think there's an unbridgeable gulf between human and alien thought? Not so! There's a common tongue, all right - and Nicholas Van Rijn speaks it fluently: trade. For behind the buffoonish blarney and bawdy bonhomie of the Falstaffian Van Rijn is a man who gets things done. A born wheeler-dealer who usually leaves both sides better off in the bargain. (While pocketing a hefty cut of the profits himself, of course!)

Kelly Frank is EarthCent's top diplomat on Union Station, but her job description has always been a bit vague. The pay is horrible and she's in hock up to her ears for her furniture, which is likely to end up in a corridor because she's behind on rent for her room. Sometimes she has to wonder if the career she has put ahead of her personal life for 15 years is worth it.

The Alliance has been fighting a losing battle against the Syndicate Worlds for over a century. Now, Captain John “Black Jack” Geary, who returned to the fleet after a hundred-year suspended animation, must keep the Alliance one step ahead of its merciless foe… After a series of deadly engagements, the Alliance fleet is severely damaged and its arsenal is running low. Forced to halt in the Baldur Star System to raid the Syndic mines for raw materials, Geary is anxious to get moving again.

The first of the acclaimed Vatta's War books, the exciting military science fiction series that features a swashbuckling spaceship-captain heroine who mixes commerce with combat.

First contact with a mysterious race of aliens reveals an unusual request; a family's pet dog comes to grips with the newly bestowed gift of human-like intelligence; a poet, in danger and alone on a distant world, makes unlikely allies; hundreds of years in the future, a famous hermit lives in the sea above the now-underwater Harvard University; former friends navigate unsteady peace between human refugees and the technologically superior race that saved them; in a future where human life can be infinitely extended through cybertronic rebirth, one woman declines immortality.