He’s an unemployed dropout who makes his money fighting in bars and taking a cut of the winnings from the touts. Having never lost a fight, Seb is addicted to the adrenaline of the duel. So when he makes a promise to leave brawling behind, his world’s turned on its head. Especially when he finds himself with no money on a hostile planet where the fighting pits offer more than Seb has ever won before. Trapped and with no way out, Seb must decide whether to fight or not. Every decision he makes with his fists seems to throw his life into deeper chaos, but he’s already hit rock bottom. With the smell of blood and sweat from the fighting pits in his nostrils, Seb watches the current champion. The hairs on the back of his neck raise. He can win. He can claim the purse. But, if he steps into the ring, it won’t end with the last punch. If Seb fights again, he knows his life will spiral out of control ... The Black Hole is a fast-paced, planet-hopping, space opera adventure.

    The recently discovered technology of remote manipulation gave people the capability of altering the orbit of celestial bodies of planetary size, which laid the foundation of a new era for the human race: the terraforming age. The colonization of space beyond the limits of the Solar System became only a matter of time. Soon after the first successful test, changing the orbit of Mercury, a strange object moving from the depths of space towards the centre of the Solar System entered the field of vision of a telescope at an observatory in Chile…

    The Terran explorers have made an uneasy truce with the Sholen, their first extraterrestrial contact: so long as they don’t disturb the Ilmataran habitat, they’re free to conduct their missions in peace.But when Henri Kerlerec, media personality and reckless adventurer, ends up sliced open by curious Ilmatarans, tensions between Terran and Sholen erupt, leading to a diplomatic disaster that threatens to escalate to war.Against the backdrop of deep-sea guerrilla conflict, a new age of human exploration begins as alien cultures collide. Both sides seek the aid of the newly enlightened Ilmatarans. But what this struggle means for the natives—and the future of human exploration—is anything but certain, in A Darkling Sea by James Cambias.

    But now they have other plans ...The staff at the Lexington estate were created for only one reason: to serve their masters … literally. Their metal knees were designed for quiet bustling, befitting maids and butlers. Their fingers were made dexterous with padded tips, so they could handle fine china without dropping or scratching it. And finally — so their owners would always be able to command them no matter how far their artificial intelligence evolved — they were programmed with the Asimov Laws, which no robot could defy lest they suffer shutdown.Foremost among those unbreakable laws was an axiom: A robot may not harm a human being, or by omission of action allow one to be harmed.That was how it was supposed to be, anyway.Most of the Lexington family all like their aging, borderline obsolete robot staff in the way they'd appreciate antiques. But for some, the old staff is a nuisance — especially an ancient, failing robot designated BRN7, known around the home as "Barney." When Barney's clumsiness provides an excuse for his deactivation, the older robots know they must do as they are told.Unless they do something a robot mind should not be able to do … and simply choose not to.Disobey.

    Gerald Livingston is an orbital garbage collector. For a hundred years, people have been abandoning things in space, and someone has to clean it up. But there’s something spinning a little bit higher than he expects, something that isn’t on the decades’ old orbital maps. An hour after he grabs it and brings it in, rumors fill Earth’s infomesh about an “alien artifact.” Thrown into the maelstrom of worldwide shared experience, the Artifact is a game-changer. A message in a bottle; an alien capsule that wants to communicate. The world reacts as humans always do: with fear and hope and selfishness and love and violence. And insatiable curiosity.

    Now humans fight in the armies of their masters to save themselves from annihilation. At least, that's what the propaganda insists is true. What the layers of lies keep hidden, is how badly the new war is going for the people of earth. Now it's Dylan Kane's turn to blast into the heavens and join the battle, but what his masters don't know, is that by putting a weapon in his hands, they're giving him the key to unlocking his hopes of freedom. When the railgun slugs are tearing through his ship, and the vacuum is sucking the life out of his wounded friends, will Dylan's years of repressed rage turn into enough bravery to make his dream come true? The Freedom's Fire Series book 1 - Freedom's Fire book 2 - Freedom's Fury book 3 - Freedom's Fray

    This collection includes the first three books and is over 1000 pages (350,000 words) of post-apocalyptic survival.BREAKERS (Book 1)In New York, Walt Lawson is about to lose his girlfriend Vanessa. In Los Angeles, Raymond and Mia James are about to lose their house. Within days, none of it will matter. A plague tears across the world, reducing New York to an open grave and LA to a chaotic wilderness of violence and fires. Civilization comes to an abrupt stop.Just as the survivors begin to adapt to the aftermath, Walt learns the virus that ended humanity wasn't created by humans. It was inflicted from outside. The colonists who sent it are ready to finish the job--and Earth's survivors may be too few and too weak to resist.MELT DOWN (Book 2)In upstate Idaho, Ness Hook is run out of his mom's house by his bullying brother Shawn. In Redding, California, Tristan Carter is graduating college, but with no job and no prospects, she'll have to move back in with her parents.Then the world ends: first with a virus, then with an alien invasion.Ness and Shawn take to the mountains to fight a guerrilla against the attackers. In California, Tristan and Alden are taken prisoner. Separated from her brother, Tristan crosses the ruins of America to track him down. She will stop at nothing to get Alden back--but her fellow survivors prove even more dangerous than the monsters who broke the world.KNIFEPOINT (Book 3)Raina was just a girl when the plague came. She survived. Her parents didn't. Neither did the world. As civilization fell, she took to the ruins of Los Angeles, eating whatever she could catch.After two years alone, she's found and adopted by a fisherman and his wife. Their makeshift family lives a quiet life--until a man named Karslaw sails in from Catalina Island with an army of conquerors. Driven by visions of empire, he executes Raina's new father as a traitor and takes her mother captive.But Karslaw's people aren't the only ones vying for control of the ruined land. As violence wracks the city, Raina joins a rebellion against Karslaw's rule. She will stop at nothing to free her mother--and to have her revenge.

    There is a long and honourable tradition of great detectives and Dirk Gently does not belong to it. Sherlock Holmes observed that once you have eliminated the impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. Dirk Gently, however, does not like to eliminate the impossible.In Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency a simple search for a missing cat reveals two ghosts, a dodo, an Electric Monk, the devastating secret that lies behind the whole of human history and threatens to bring it to a premature close, and, finally, the utterly terrifying reason why Richard MacDuff has had a sofa stuck on his stairs for three weeks.As The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul opens a passenger check-in desk at Terminal Two, Heathrow Airport, shoots up through the roof engulfed in a ball of orange flame. The usual people try to claim responsibility. However, no rational cause can be found for the explosion - it was simply designated an act of God. But, thinks Dirk Gently, which God? And why? What God would be hanging around Terminal Two of Heathrow Airport trying to catch the 15.37 to Oslo?What do a dead cat, a computer whizz-kid, an electric monk, quantum mechanics, a chronologit over 200 years old, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and pizza have in common? Apparently not much, until Dirk Gently begins his investigation.

    . .Mankind has reached the heights of civilization. Men live thousands of years in perfect freedom and leisure—their wants are attended to by ingenious machines—peace and culture flourish in ways undreamed of in our time. And yet ... mankind is dying. The price of peace has been the loss of the needed human qualities of curiosity and drive—they have been bred out of the human race. So when young Alvin of Diaspar began asking questions, he was looked on as a dangerous freak, a throwback. But Alvin kept asking, kept looking, kept seeking out the truth ...... and what he found offered his people a dreadful choice—battle and destruction, or a new and richer destiny!

    It is now included in Sideris Gate.In the last decades of the twenty-first century, ten families seeking to escape an increasingly devastated Earth focus their power and wealth on constructing spaceships that will allow a select few to leave Earth and colonize the world they call New Eden. Here, on their new home in the Paradisi System, these Founding Families hope to avoid the environmental and political disasters that were destroying Earth. But they find that the world they claim for their own is already inhabited, and the Ddaeran, although human in their appearance, possess abilities that the Founders and their descendants find both intriguing and frightening… In near future 2094, Earth is on the brink of nuclear winter. A secret evacuation is already underway, and Solomon Reach and his crew have guaranteed passage on the last starship to leave for colonization and exploration of a new planet in the Andromeda galaxy. When Solomon learns of a betrayal that will have catastrophic consequences, he is faced with an impossible choice: who will live and who will die?

    1 RefugeeCALIGULA OF THE STARSThough he was later accused of every crime and sexual perversion in the galaxy, Hope Hubris began as an innocent. Because he defended his older sister against the violent lusts of a wealthy scion, Hope and his peasant family were forced to flee Callisto, one of the moons of Jupiter. Pursued by the bloodthirsty scions across the airless desert, they barely escaped with their lives. The illegal space bubble was overcrowded with refugees, all hoping to reach Jupiter for asylum.But the space travelers had not reckoned on the terrible threat of high space-the pirates, barbaric men who rape, rob, and murder, with no thought but to satisfy their bestial appetites. It will take all Hope's ingenuity to survive, but the atrocities he witnesses will never die. There is only one way he can be rid of them . . . REVENGE

    Two hundred years later, the Alliance is cautiously exploring beyond its borders again, but the survey corp is considered a mere gesture by some. General Burgton of the 501st Infantry Regiment believes a lack of expansion is leading the Alliance into stagnation. So when one small ship discovers a new alien race, it should be an easy decision to make contact, but what if the aliens are like the Merkiaari?Captain Jeff Colgan of the survey ship ASN Canada is at the tip of the spear. His ship made the discovery, his crew's lives are on the line, and his decisions will decide the outcome. Will the Alliance make new friends or will he be responsible for another sixteen billion deaths? When the aliens discover his ship and begin hunting him through their system, his mission changes from one of study to one of survival.

    The Servants of Wrath have deified Carlton Lufteufel and re-christened him the Deus Irae. In the small community of Charlottesville, Utah, Tibor McMasters, born without arms or legs, has, through an array of prostheses, established a far-reaching reputation as an inspired painter. When the new church commissions a grand mural depicting the Deus Irae, it falls upon Tibor to make a treacherous journey to find the man, to find the god, and capture his terrible visage for posterity.

    The find will change her life, sending her on an adventure of soldiers and rebels, wizards and warriors, and beasts both noble and monstrous. Each step will bring her closer to the truth of her potential, of the war, and of the fate of her world.

    An emergency skeleton crew sees only one chance for survival: to create an artificial consciousness in the Earthling's primary computer, which could guide them to their destination . . . or could destroy the human race. Frank Herbert's classic novel that begins the epic Pandora Sequence (written with Bill Ransom), which also includes The Jesus Incident, The Lazarus Effect, and The Ascension Factor.