Showing titles in Space Opera

Bradbury's Mars is a place of hope, dreams, and metaphor - of crystal pillars and fossil seas - where a fine dust settles on the great, empty cities of a silently destroyed civilization. It is here the invaders have come to despoil and commercialize, to grow and to learn - first a trickle, then a torrent, rushing from a world with no future toward a promise of tomorrow. The Earthman conquers Mars...and then is conquered by it, lulled by dangerous lies of comfort and familiarity, and enchanted by the lingering glamour of an ancient, mysterious native race.

On Mars, a scientist experiments with a new engine that will one day become the drive that fuels humanity's journey into the stars. On an asteroid station, a group of prisoners are oblivious to the catastrophe that awaits them. On a future Earth beset by overpopulation, pollution, and poverty, a crime boss desperately seeks to find a way off planet. On an alien world, a human family struggles to establish a colony and make a new home. All these stories and more are featured in this unmissable collection of short fiction set in the hardscrabble world of The Expanse.

For Van and his crew, danger is no longer just among the stars. On earth, the Fafnir has drawn the attention of the most dangerous predator known to humanity—Bureaucrats. Between human enemies and alien allies, Van finds himself on the edge of a powerful change in his career. From the depths of his family history, an old enemy returns with plans for power at any cost. Just as his grandfather did fifty years earlier, Van will meet and challenge the threat of an ancient empire that spans deserts, stars, and time.

A revolution brewing for generations has begun in fire. It will end in blood. The Free Navy - a violent group of Belters in black-market military ships - has crippled the Earth and begun a campaign of piracy and violence among the outer planets. The colony ships heading for the thousand new worlds on the far side of the alien ring gates are easy prey, and no single navy remains strong enough to protect them. James Holden and his crew know the strengths and weaknesses of this new force better than anyone.

The Imperium grip is slipping, thanks to Will's unexpected ability as a Void Drifter. But in revealing his abilities, Will may have put his home planet, a backwater most of the galaxy didn't even know existed, on the frontlines. But Earth is not as defenseless as it seems. An enigmatic billionaire, aware of the true nature of the Imperium's galactic menace, has been secretly building a defensive fleet. Still more fleets have been secretly constructed in the far reaches of the galaxy.

When Una Chin-Riley and Christopher Pike meet at Starfleet Academy after one of his lectures, they immediately become friends. A stellar student, Una is the “poster girl” of her class, and Pike is determined to become a Starfleet captain with his own ship, rhetorically assembling his dream crew. As their friendship evolves, Pike also suspects Una is involved with the Euxhana, a Chionian cultural minority, who are seeking asylum in Federation space, leading to more questions than answers.

A full-cast production of the science fiction classic featuring original recordings of Orson Scott Card

The Cadian Gate is broken, and the Imperium is riven in two. The might of the Traitor Legions, kept shackled for millennia behind walls of iron and sorcery, has been unleashed on a darkening galaxy. Among those seeking vengeance on the Corpse Emperor’s faltering realm are the Death Guard, once proud crusaders of the Legiones Astartes, now debased creatures of terror and contagion.

Experience Star Wars: A New Hope from a whole new point of view. On May 25, 1977, the world was introduced to Han Solo, Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, C-3PO, R2-D2, Chewbacca, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Darth Vader, and a galaxy full of possibilities. In honor of the 40h anniversary, more than 40 contributors lend their vision to this retelling of Star Wars. Each of the 40 short stories reimagines a moment from the original film, but through the eyes of a supporting character.

On the planet Tython, the ancient Je’daii order was founded. And at the feet of its wise Masters, Lanoree Brock learned the mysteries and methods of the Force - and found her calling as one of its most powerful disciples. But as strongly as the Force flowed within Lanoree and her parents, it remained absent in her brother, who grew to despise and shun the Je’daii, and whose training in its ancient ways ended in tragedy. Now, from her solitary life as a Ranger keeping order across the galaxy, Lanoree has been summoned by the Je’daii Council on a matter of utmost urgency.

Held captive by Dark Horse Company, Captain Axel Finn is faced with a mission to humanity’s ancestral home after all contact with the planet is lost. Learning his mother might be hiding there, Axel agrees to help his adversaries, and deploy on Vengeance, the last Steward ship. But his decision might lead to his downfall if the Wrath have already arrived on Earth. On the treacherous Wooly planet of Dari, bounty hunter Rangnar Soki becomes the prey, finding himself the target in a deadly game of survival. His path to rejoin Axel’s crew hinges on passing a test of Dari’s most revered guardian.

Captain Jack Hale and his crew of ragtag scavengers live by a code. They do the job, get paid, and keep their heads down. Salvaging a distant section of the asteroid belt seemed like the perfect job. But when he and his crew stumble across a mining camp filled with dead bodies, their plans for a quick payday quickly go out the airlock. Especially when they find a scared little girl who knows the truth about the massacre.

The complete Baldwin's Legacy series.

Out among the stars, his cousin, Carter Yost, drags Van and his team into a criminal ring run by the High Doctor—a dangerous con artist with delusions of grandeur. Working from the abandoned world of Pathway, the High Doctor has created a cult, stealing a fortune from the fearful, sick, and scared. If there’s one thing Van hates, it’s a bully, and the High Doctor has his full attention. But in order to crush the criminal cult, Van needs bigger, better armor—and that comes with a price.

For the handful of scattered Jedi, survival is imperative if the light side of the Force is to be protected and the galaxy somehow, someday reclaimed. Yet more important still is the well-being of the twin infants, Leia and Luke Skywalker, the children of Anakin and his doomed bride, Padme Amidala. Separated after Padme's death, they must be made safe at all costs, lest the hope they represent for the future be turned to horror by the new Sith regime, and the unspeakable power of the dark side.

The collapse of The Flow, the interstellar pathway between the planets of the Interdependency, has accelerated. Entire star systems - and billions of people - are becoming cut off from the rest of human civilization. This collapse was foretold through scientific prediction...and yet, even as the evidence is obvious and insurmountable, many still try to rationalize, delay and profit from, these final days of one of the greatest empires humanity has ever known.

Tanis is looking forward to a long journey in stasis before arriving at the newly terraformed world of New Eden. New Life. New Start. Getting a berth on the Intrepid is her ticket out of the Sol System. But nothing proves easy for Major Tanis Richards. Nothing is at it seems. What should be a simple trip is fraught with danger and filled with adventure. An array of forces seek to stop the Intrepid - no matter the cost, or lives lost. From competing corporations, to stellar eco-terrorists, no one wants the Intrepid to arrive at New Eden.

Hadrian Marlowe is trapped. For nearly a century, he has been a guest of the Emperor, forced into the role of advisor, a prisoner of his own legend. But the war is changing. Mankind is losing. The Cielcin are spilling into human space from the fringes, picking their targets with cunning precision. The Great Prince Syriani Dorayaica is uniting their clans, forging them into an army and threat the likes of which mankind has never seen.

Ghostworld. Unseeli. A dead world, at least since the Ashrai Rebellion ten years before. A world of metal trees crucial to the Empire, as crucial as Captain John Silence will one day be to the Empress. But not now. Silence botched the Empire's response to the Rebellion, and bears the burden for a world wiped clean of all life, save its precious metal trees. Now, Base Thirteen has gone silent, cut itself off from the Empire, and stopped its crucial shipments. Silence has to find out why, and clean up his mess, aided by the ESPer Diane Vertue and Investigator Frost.

Long ago, a human astrophysicist, Inigo, began dreaming scenes from the life of a remarkable human being named Edeard, who lived within the Void, a self-contained microuniverse at the heart of the galaxy. There, under the beneficent gaze of mysterious godlike entities, humans possessed uncanny psychic abilities, and Edeard's were the strongest of all. Equally strong was his determination to bring justice and freedom to a world terrorized by criminal violence and corruption.