Hard Space Opera

“There’s a lot of things they didn’t tell me when I signed on with this outfit.” At least that’s what Sam Washington discovered after he got hired as Spaceport Manager on Space Station Zion. For one thing, everyone hated his predecessor, so now they hate Sam. Still, once he took the job, Sam considered it his duty to get the place back in shape. But angry admirals and profit-crazed tycoons keep crawling into his job description. Too bad no one is on his side – even when the fate of the entire station is on the line! Can Sam fix this mess, or is it time to start updating his resume?

While battles rage across the Transcend and the Inner Stars, Tangel's focus shifts to Orion space.

Captain Jackson Wolfe never thought he'd see the end of the Phage War in his lifetime. The enemy was too powerful, too numerous, and utterly determined to exterminate humanity. But the appearance of a new ally in the fight has changed all of that. For the first time since the original incursion, Wolfe thinks that maybe there's a chance to stop their implacable enemy before they have the chance to wipe out any more human planets.

In 3001: The Final Odyssey, Arthur C. Clarke brings the greatest and most successful science fiction series of all time to its magnificent, stunningly unforeseen conclusion. As we hurtle toward the new millennium in real time, Clarke brilliantly - daringly - leaps 1,000 years into the future to reveal a truth we are only now capable of comprehending. An epic masterpiece at once dazzlingly imaginative and grounded in scientific actuality, 3001 is a story that only Arthur C. Clarke could tell.

For generations, the solar system—Mars, the Moon, the Asteroid Belt—was humanity's great frontier. Until now. The alien artifact working through its program under the clouds of Venus has appeared in Uranus's orbit, where it has built a massive gate that leads to a starless dark. Jim Holden and the crew of the Rocinante are part of a vast flotilla of scientific and military ships going out to examine the artifact. But behind the scenes, a complex plot is unfolding, with the destruction of Holden at its core.

Bob Johansson didn't believe in an afterlife, so waking up after being killed in a car accident was a shock. To add to the surprise, he is now a sentient computer and the controlling intelligence for a Von Neumann probe. Bob and his copies have been spreading out from Earth for 40 years now, looking for habitable planets. But that's the only part of the plan that's still in one piece.

Years have passed since Earth encountered its first known interstellar object: Oumuamua. Now an even larger one has been discovered, following the exact same trajectory as its predecessor. Scientists around the world theorize that this can no longer be passed off as mere coincidence - the new contact must be an artificial construct of some kind.

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.

Generations ago, nine ships headed into the unknown to explore a distant star called LQ Pyx. Eons later, the convoy has returned to LQ Pyx to begin work on the Web, the alien megastructure that covers the star. Is it a Dyson Sphere, designed to power a civilization as everyone believes - or something far more sinister? Meanwhile, Planet United's littlest convoy, long thought to be lost, reemerges in a different sector of deep space. What they discover holds the answers to unlocking the Web's greater purpose.

In the 20th century Earth sent probes, transmissions, and welcoming messages to the stars. Unfortunately, someone noticed. The Galactics arrived with their battle fleet in 2052. Rather than being exterminated under a barrage of hell-burners, Earth joined their vast Empire. Swearing allegiance to our distant alien overlords wasn't the only requirement for survival. We also had to have something of value to trade, something that neighboring planets would pay their hard-earned credits to buy. As most of the local worlds were too civilized to have a proper army, the only valuable service Earth could provide came in the form of soldiers....

The fourth book in the NYT best-selling Expanse series, Cibola Burn sees the crew of the Rocinante on a new frontier, as the rush to colonize the new planets threatens to outrun law and order and give way to war and chaos. Enter a new frontier. "An empty apartment, a missing family, that's creepy. But this is like finding a military base with no one on it. Fighters and tanks idling on the runway with no drivers. This is bad juju. Something wrong happened here. What you should do is tell everyone to leave".

The Theocracy has been dead for 20 years, and the Polity rules on Masada - but it is an order that the rebels of the Tidy Squad cannot accept, and the iconic Jeremiah Tombs is top of their hitlist. Tombs, meanwhile, has escaped his sanatorium. His insanity must be cured, because the near-mythical hooder, called "the Technician", that attacked him all those years ago, did something to his mind even the AIs fail to understand. Tombs might possess information about the suicide of an entire alien race.

For 12,000 years the Galactic Empire has ruled supreme. Now it is dying. But only Hari Seldon, creator of the revolutionary science of psychohistory, can see into the future - to a dark age of ignorance, barbarism, and warfare that will last thirty thousand years. To preserve knowledge and save humankind, Seldon gathers the best minds in the Empire - both scientists and scholars - and brings them to a bleak planet at the edge of the galaxy to serve as a beacon of hope for future generations. He calls his sanctuary the Foundation.

My name is Zane Zimmer. To most folks, I live a seemingly charmed life as a Regal lord and the heir apparent to the powerful, wealthy House Zimmer, and the gossipcasts breathlessly follow my every swaggering move across the Archipelago Galaxy. I’m also a powerful psion capable of telekinesis, telepathy, and telempathy, and my deadly skills and prowess with my stormsword have made me the golden boy of the Arrows, the Imperium’s elite fighting force. But even golden boys have bad days, and the truth is I have more hard problems than I can solve.

The Overlords appeared suddenly over every city - intellectually, technologically, and militarily superior to humankind. Benevolent, they made few demands: unify earth, eliminate poverty, and end war. With little rebellion, humankind agreed, and a golden age began.

Seven years after the indomitable Doug Stavenger has realized his cherished dream of establishing a colony on the inhospitable lunar surface, Moonbase is a thriving community, a marvel of scientific achievement created and supported by nanotechnology: virus-sized machines that can build, cure, and destroy. But nanotechnology has been declared illegal by the home planet’s leaders, and a powerful despot is determined to lay claim to Stavenger’s peaceful city - or obliterate it, if necessary.

When the Earth is invaded by a rival empire, James McGill's legion must defend the Home World. The top brass has complex plans, but none of that matters much to McGill, who chooses his own unique path. Traveling to star systems no human has ever visited, he searches for a technological edge to beat the enemy before it's too late. Along the way he unleashes new terrors, triggering the biggest battles in human history.

The planet Lusitania is home to three sentient species: a large colony of humans; the Pequeninos; and the Hive Queen, who was brought there by Ender Wiggin. Once again, the enemy (the Starways Congress) has gathered a fleet and is threatening to destroy Lusitania. Ender's oldest friend, Jane, an evolved computer intelligence, is trying to save the three sentient species of Lusitania, but the Starways Congress is destroying the computer world she lives in.

The day that changed Melody's life was like any other over the previous two years. She'd found she had a gift for writing, and her career as an author had almost healed the pain of losing her job. When the Secret Service rang her bell, everything changed. Something was nearing Saturn…and it was slowing down. Had she been right about the object?

After two years of pensive peace, an investigation points to the use of a Galio super-weapon as the culprit. The Jarog, Valdivia assists mankind's march into unknown space. With the galaxy's most powerful empire nipping at Earth's borders, First Lieutenant Warder must put every ounce of his skill and luck into stopping the imminent onslaught of his people in the most dangerous mission he's been given yet.