Swayed by the promise of financial rewards, a new batch of recruits joins the fight alongside a slew of neurally resocialized criminals—and a few dubious military leaders. Eighteen-year-old Jim Raynor, full of testosterone and eager to make things right at home, ships off to boot camp and finds his footing on the battlefield, but he soon discovers that the official mission is not what he’s really fighting for.For the first time ever, StarCraft enthusiasts will learn the origins of the enduring friendship between the young upstart Jim Raynor and the streetwise soldier Tychus Findlay. Watch as they battle on the front lines of a fierce interplanetary war and bear witness to the Confederacy’s rank corruption—corruption so reprehensible that it rains immeasurable death and destruction upon the government’s own people.

    Hired to investigate a recently unearthed Xel'Naga temple, he knows this latest assignment will open up whole new possibilities for his career. Yet, when Jake discovers the remains of a long-dead protoss mystic, his hopes and dreams are irrevocably drowned in a flood of alien memories. Bonded to the spirit of the dead protoss, Jake has become the sole inheritor of the protoss's total history -- every event, every thought -- every feeling.

    Each species struggles to ensure its own survival among the stars in a war that will herald the beginning of mankind's greatest chapter--or foretell its violent, bloody end.Danny Liberty was a good reporter...too good. When his investigations struck too close to the heart of the corrupt Terran Confederacy, he faced a simple choice: continue his current series of exposés, or take a hazardous new assignment covering the Marines on the front lines of the Koprulu Sector. It didn't take him long to decide...Behind the attacks of the Zerg and the Protoss lies the story of a lifetime, but every piece of information blurs the mystery further. Thrown into the middle of a war where the outcome will determine mankind's very survival, the only thing that Danny Liberty knows for sure is that the only person he can trust to keep him alive is himself.

    After discovering a cache of Prothean technology on Mars in 2148, humanity is spreading to the stars; the newest interstellar species, struggling to carve out its place in the greater galactic community. On the edge of colonized space, ship commander and Alliance war hero David Anderson investigates the remains of a top secret military research station; smoking ruins littered with bodies and unanswered questions. Who attacked this post and for what purpose? And where is Kahlee Sanders, the young scientist who mysteriously vanished from the base hours before her colleagues were slaughtered?Sanders is now the prime suspect, but finding her creates more problems for Anderson than it solves. Partnered with a rogue alien agent he can't trust and pursued by an assassin he can't escape, Anderson battles impossible odds on uncharted worlds to uncover a sinister conspiracy . . . one he won't live to tell about. Or so the enemy thinks.

    Within this boiling cauldron of strife and subversion, a young woman known only as Nova shows the potential to become Mengsk's most lethal and promising "Ghost" operative. Utilizing a combination of pure physical aptitude, innate psychic power, and advanced technology, Nova can strike anywhere with the utmost stealth. Like a phantom in the shadows, she exists only as a myth to the enemies of the Terran Dominion. Yet Nova wasn't born a killer. She was once a privileged child of one of the Old Families of the Terran Confederacy, but her life changed forever when a rebel militia murdered her family. In her grief, Nova unleashed her devastating psychic powers, killing hundreds in a single, terrible moment. Now, on the run through the slums of Tarsonis, she is unable to trust anyone. Pursued by a special agent tasked with hunting down rogue telepaths, Nova must come to terms with both her burgeoning powers and her guilt -- before they consume her and destroy everything in her path....

    It doesn't appear as a standalone work, but is included with several collections. The story is a prequel to the events in The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy and has the young Zaphod Beeblebrox working as a salvage ship operator. He guides some bureaucrats to a crashed spaceship which may be leaking some hazardous materials. The bureaucrats are determined to "make it safe". The comic asides in the story include some of the time travel paradoxes which are a common running theme in Adams' SF work, and plenty of material about lobsters

    the desperate, take-no-prisoners struggle that led humanity to Halo--the fall of the planet Reach. Now, brought to life for the first time, here is the full story of that glorious, doomed conflict.While the brutal Covenant juggernaut sweeps inexorably through space, intent on wiping out humankind, only one stronghold remains--the planet Reach. Practically on Earth's doorstep, it is the last military fortress to defy the onslaught. But the personnel here have another, higher priority: to prevent the Covenant from discovering the location of Earth.Outnumbered and outgunned, the soldiers seem to have little chance against the Covenant, but Reach holds a closely guarded secret. It is the training ground for the very first "super soldiers." Code-named SPARTANs, these highly advanced warriors, specially bioengineered and technologically augmented, are the best in the universe--quiet, professional, and deadly.Now, as the ferocious Covenant attack begins, a handful of SPARTANs stand ready to wage ultimate war. They will kill, they will be destroyed, but they will never surrender. And at least one of them--the SPARTAN known as Master Chief--will live to fight another day on a mysterious and ancient, artificial world called Halo...

    100,000 years ago, the galaxy was populated by a great variety of beings. But one species--eons beyond all others in both technology and knowledge--achieved dominance. They ruled in peace but met opposition with quick and brutal effectiveness. They were the Forerunners, the keepers of the Mantle, the next stage of life in the Universe's Living Time. And then they vanished. This is their story. Bornstellar Makes Eternal Lasting is a young rebellious Forerunner. He is a Manipular, untried, yet to become part of the adult Forerunner society, where vast knowledge and duty waits. He comes from a family of Builders, the Forerunners' highest and most politically powerful rate. It is the Builders who create the grand technology that facilitates Forerunner dominance over the known universe. It is the Builders who believe they must shoulder the greatest burden of the Mantle, as shepherds and guardians of all life. Bornstellar is marked to become a great Builder just like his father. But this Manipular has other plans. He is obsessed with lost treasures of the past. His reckless passion to seek out the marvelous artifacts left behind by the Precursors, long-vanished superbeings of unknowable power and intent, forces his father's hand. Bornstellar is sent to live among the Miners, where he must come to terms with where his duty truly lies. But powerful forces are at play. Forerunner society is at a major crux. Past threats are once again proving relentless. Dire solutions, machines and strategies never before contemplated, are being called up, and fissures in Forerunner power are leading to chaos. On a Lifeworker's experimental planet, Bornstellar's rebellious course crosses the paths of two humans, and the long lifeline of a great military leader, thus forever changing Bornstellar's destiny ...and the fate of the entire galaxy.

    Before Assassin's Creed Origins, there was an Oath.Egypt, 70BC, a merciless killer stalks the land. His mission: to find and destroy the last members of an ancient order, the Medjay - to eradicate the bloodline.In peaceful Siwa, the town's protector abruptly departs, leaving his teenage son, Bayek, with questions about his own future and a sense of purpose he knows he must fulfill. Bayek sets off in search of answers, his journey taking him along the Nile and through an Egypt in turmoil, facing the dangers and the mysteries of the Medjay's path.

    Great changes are brewing that will shape and twist all of humankind. The war hero Vorian Atreides has turned his back on politics and Salusa Secundus. The descendants of Abulurd Harkonnen Griffen and Valya have sworn vengeance against Vor, blaming him for the downfall of their fortunes. Raquella Berto-Anirul has formed the Bene Gesserit School on the jungle planet Rossak as the first Reverend Mother. The descendants of Aurelius Venport and Norma Cenva have built Venport Holdings, using mutated, spice-saturated Navigators who fly precursors of Heighliners. Gilbertus Albans, the ward of the hated Erasmus, is teaching humans to become Mentats…and hiding an unbelievable secret. The Butlerian movement, rabidly opposed to all forms of “dangerous technology,” is led by Manford Torondo and his devoted Swordmaster, Anari Idaho. And it is this group, so many decades after the defeat of the thinking machines, which begins to sweep across the known universe in mobs, millions strong, destroying everything in its path. Every one of these characters, and all of these groups, will become enmeshed in the contest between Reason and Faith. All of them will be forced to choose sides in the inevitable crusade that could destroy humankind forever….

    For the black-clad Leiters were on the prowl ... and the grim red planet was not far behind. First published in 1954.

    Venturing to the surface, three crew members become trapped as the asteroid suddenly leaves orbit, transporting them to a strange planet light years away. To find their way home, the intrepid explorers must embark on a dangerous archaeological adventure in this tale of galactic intrigue and suspense.

    . .The doomed crew of a starship follow their blind, mad captain on a quest into deepest space to joust with destiny, eternity, and God Himself . . .Now and Forever is a bold new work from an incomparable artist whose stories have reshaped America's literary landscape; two bewitching novellas that have never before appeared in print—each distinctly different, yet uniquely Bradbury—demonstrating the breathtaking range of the master's talent and the irrepressible vitality of his mind, spirit, and heart.In Somewhere a Band Is Playing, a writer is drawn by poetry and dreams to tiny Summerton, Arizona, a community hidden in plain view, where no small children play, and where the residents never seem to age. Enchanted by its powerful rural magic—and by a beautiful, enigmatic lady who bears the name of an Egyptian queen—the writer sets out to uncover Summerton's mysteries before the inevitable arrival of a ruthless destruction.With Leviathan '99, the author who once colonized Mars returns to the cosmos to brilliantly reimagine Herman Melville's classic masterwork of obsession and the sea, transforming a great whale into a worlds-devouring comet. In the year 2099, fledgling astronaut Ishmael Hunnicut Jones boards the Cetus 7, placing his fate in the hands of a relentless madman who is blindly chasing the celestial monster's tail. And in the merciless void, a crew of earthborn and alien star-travelers will face a divine judgment, and an "enemy" wielding the most fearsome weapon of all . . . Time.More than a half century into his remarkable career, Ray Bradbury continues to delight and astound with grand visions, lyrical prose, and provocative thought. Rich in poetry, wonder, imagination, and truth, here is proof positive that the words and stories of the inimitable Bradbury will live on . . . Now and Forever.

    Each of the long stores also shows his considerable skill in fully fleshing out a speculative scientific or social possibility.Contents:· The Martian Way · na Galaxy Nov ’52 · Youth · nv Space Science Fiction May ’52 · The Deep · ss Galaxy Dec ’52 · Sucker Bait [Troas] · na Astounding Feb ’54

    But now, a mysterious energy rift within the mountains of Kalimdor propels three former warriors into the distant past -- a time long before orcs, humans or even high elves roamed the land. A time when the Dark Titan Sargeras, and his demon pawns persuaded Queen Azshara and her Highborne to cleanse Azeroth of its lesser races. A time when the Dragon Aspects were at the height of their power -- unaware that one of their own would soon usher in an age of darkness that would engulf the world of...War Craft®. In the first chapter of this epic trilogy, the outcome of the historic War of the Ancients is forever altered by the arrival of three time-lost heroes: Krasus, the dragon mage whose great power and memories of the ancient conflict have inexplicably diminished; the human wizard Rhonin, whose thoughts are divided between his family and the seductive source of his now-growing power; and Broxigar, a weathered orc veteran who seeks a glorious death in combat. But unless these unlikely allies can convince the demigod, Cenarius, and the untrusting night elves of their queen's treachery, the burning Legion's gateway into Azeroth will open anew. And this time -- the struggles of the past may well spill over into the future...