Their charter was for a Class III uninhabited planet, which Zarathustra was, and it meant they owned the planet lock stock and barrel. They exploited it, developed it and reaped the huge profits from it without interference from the Colonial Government. Then Jack Holloway, a sunstone prospector, appeared on the scene with his family of Fuzzies and the passionate conviction that they were not cute animals but little people.

    The one place that they cannot go is the bulge, the bright, hot center of the galaxy. There dwell the Aloof, who for millions of years have deflected any and all attempts to communicate with or visit them. So when Rakesh is offered an opportunity to travel within their sphere, in search of a lost race, he cannot turn it down.Roi is a member of that lost race, which is not only lost to the Amalgam, but lost to itself. In their world, there is but toil, and history and science are luxuries that they can ill afford.Rakesh's journey will take him across millennia and light years. Roi's will take her across vistas of learning and discovery just as vast.

    Stackpole presents a stirring new tale set in the Star Wars® universe: the dramatic story of a heroic X-wing pilot on the razor's edge between the Force--and the dark side.Corran Horn has distinguished himself as one of the best and brightest of Rogue Squadron's elite fighting force. Then his wife, Mirax, vanishes on a covert mission for the New Republic, and Corran vows to find her. To do so, he knows he must develop the latent Force powers inherited from his grandfather, a legendary Jedi hero. He joins Luke Skywalker's famed Jedi academy to begin training, only to quit in frustration at Skywalker's methods. Now Corran is on his own. Using his Corellian undercover experience, he must infiltrate, sabotage, and destroy a ruthless organization in order to find his wife. But to succeed, Corran will have to come to terms with his Jedi heritage--and make a terrible choice: surrender to the dark side...or die.Features a bonus section following the novel that includes a primer on the Star Wars expanded universe, and over half a dozen excerpts from some of the most popular Star Wars books of the last thirty years!© 1999 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TMAll rights reserved. Used under authorization.

    But not before it scattered seeds of itself throughout the galaxy.On the terraformed planet Ventus, benign AIs -- the godlike Winds – which shaped and guarded its transformation, have fallen silent. Calandria May is sent down to the surface where she quickly finds that an extension of the rogue AI, a cyborg called Armiger, has planted a strange and powerful device in a young man named Jordan Mason. Jordan has visions. He is desperate to find their meaning and source -- desperate enough to risk awakening the Winds, perhaps invoking the power that can destroy technology to protect the environment they created. Ventus is an epic journey across a fascinating planet with two big mysteries -- why have the Winds fallen silent? And is Armiger, or Jordan, carrying a Resurrection Seed?

    Earth scientist Rocannon is on that world, and he sees his friends murdered and his spaceship destroyed. Marooned among alien peoples, he leads the battle to free this new world - and finds that legends grow around him even as he fights.

    Highly recommended.”—N.K. Jemisin, New York Times Book ReviewNeil Clarke, publisher of the award-winning Clarkesworld magazine, presents a collection of thought-provoking and galaxy-spanning array of galactic short science fiction.From E. E. "Doc" Smith’s Lensman, to George Lucas’ Star Wars, the politics and process of Empire have been a major subject of science fiction’s galaxy-spanning fictions. The idiom of the Galactic Empire allows science fiction writers to ask (and answer) questions that are shorn of contemporary political ideologies and allegiances. This simple narrative slight of hand allows readers and writers to see questions and answers from new and different perspectives.The stories in this book do just that. What social, political, and economic issues do the organizing structure of “empire” address? Often the size, shape, and fates of empires are determined not only by individuals, but by geography, natural forces, and technology. As the speed of travel and rates of effective communication increase, so too does the size and reach of an Imperial bureaucracy. Sic itur ad astra—“Thus one journeys to the stars.”At the beginning of the twentieth century, writers such as Kipling and Twain were at the forefront of these kinds of narrative observations, but as the century drew to a close, it was writers like Iain M. Banks who helped make science fiction relevant. That tradition continues today, with award-winning writers like Ann Leckie, whose 2013 debut novel Ancillary Justice hinges upon questions of imperialism and empire.Here then is a diverse collection of stories that asks the questions that science fiction asks best. Empire: How? Why? And to what effect?Table of Contents:- “Winning Peace” by Paul J. McAuley- “Night’s Slow Poison” by Ann Leckie- “All the Painted Stars” by Gwendolyn Clare- “Firstborn” by Brandon Sanderson- “Riding the Crocodile” by Greg Egan- “The Lost Princess Man” by John Barnes- “The Waiting Stars” by Aliette de Bodard- “Alien Archeology” by Neal Asher- “The Muse of Empires Lost” by Paul Berger- “Ghostweight” by Yoon Ha Lee- “A Cold Heart” by Tobias S. Buckell- “The Colonel Returns to the Stars” by Robert Silverberg- “The Impossibles” by Kristine Kathryn Rusch- “Utriusque Cosmi” by Robert Charles Wilson- “Section Seven” by John G. Hemry- “The Invisible Empire of Ascending Light” by Ken Scholes- “The Man with the Golden Balloon” by Robert Reed- “Looking Through Lace” by Ruth Nestvold- “A Letter from the Emperor” by Steve Rasnic Tem- “The Wayfarer’s Advice” by Melinda M. Snodgrass- “Seven Years from Home” by Naomi Novik- “Verthandi’s Ring” by Ian McDonaldSkyhorse Publishing, under our Night Shade and Talos imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of titles for readers interested in science fiction (space opera, time travel, hard SF, alien invasion, near-future dystopia), fantasy (grimdark, sword and sorcery, contemporary urban fantasy, steampunk, alternative history), and horror (zombies, vampires, and the occult and supernatural), and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller, a national bestseller, or a Hugo or Nebula award-winner, we are committed to publishing quality books from a diverse group of authors.

    She was expected to do her duty, even to the extent of entering into a marriage alliance she did not understand with a man she despised. Lady Caissa, beautiful, rich, and well-educated, had never learned the great secret of Demeathorn, although she was about to be caught in its spell.In the aftermath of disastrous diplomatic negotiations, she fled north toward interdicted territory. A distress signal from deep within the forbidden zone drew her to a rocky island where she would encounter a man alone: intense, handsome, and severely injured in the crash of his antique flyer. Lady Caissa did not know it, but she had just set in motion events which would determine the fate of her family, her planet...and her happiness.

    His sidekick just stole his girlfriend. The galaxy's most hideous and feared bounty hunter wants to lay eggs in his brain. And the luxury space yacht Cole just hijacked turns out of be filled with interstellar do-gooders, one especially loathsome stowaway, and a cargo of freeze-dried orphans.Reluctantly compelled to deliver these defenseless, fluidless children to safety, Cole gathers a misfit crew for a desperate journey to the far reaches of the galaxy. Their destination: the mysterious world of Yrnameer, the very last of the your-name-heres—planets without corporate sponsors. But little does Cole know that this legendary utopia is home to a murderous band of outlaws bent on destroying the planet's tiny, peaceful community.Follow Cole's adventures through a delightfully absurd science-fiction universe, where the artificial intelligence is stupid, dust motes carry branding messages, and middle-management zombies have overrun a corporate training satellite. In the spirit of Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett, The Sheriff of Yrnameer is sci-fi comedy at its best—mordant, raucously funny, and a thrilling page-turner.

    Le Guin is one of the greatest science fiction writers and many times the winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards. Her career as a novelist was launched by the three novels contained in Worlds Of Exile And Illusion. These novels, Rocannon's World, Planet Of Exile, and City Of Illusions, are set in the same universe as Le Guin's ground-breaking classic, The Left Hand Of Darkness.Tor is pleased to return these previously unavailable works to print in this attractive new edition.

    Admiral Naismith of the Dendarii Free Mercenaries, is a young man of many parts.Miles and his handsome cousin Ivan are called upon to play a simple diplomatic role on the capital world of Barrayar's old enemy until murder and deceit thrust them into Cetagandan internal politics at the highest levels, and Miles discovers the secrets of the haut-women's biological domain to be very complicated indeed.Commander Elli Quinn, sent by Miles on the trail of those secrets, meets a man who marches to the beat of a very different drummer. Dr. Ethan Urquhart, obstetrician from a planet forbidden to women, is on a quest at cross-purposes to Elli's mission - or is it?Consequences of Cetagandan bioengineering continue to play out, this time on a Dendrii sortie to the crime planet of Jackson's Whole. When he encounters a genetically altered super-soldier, Miles's routine rescue strike takes a sudden hard turn for the unanticipated.Contents: CetagandaEthan of AthosLabyrinth.

    The World Government calls upon him for aid in protecting an alien diplomat from a powerful and hostile member of his own species. Knowing both the importance of the task and his inability to handle it on his own, Singer goes to confront his greatest conquest with a strange bargain. A shape-shifting alien, the last of his species, sits in a special cage at an institute dedicated to the study of extraterrestrial beings. Most frequently he projects the aspect of a one-eyed catlike creature, but he can appear as almost anything.One of Singer’s secrets, and his greatest guilt, is his suspicion that the creature is intelligent. He confronts him and offers his own life for Cat’s cooperation in saving the alien. Cat accepts, and later, their mission fulfilled, demands a refinement on the original bargain. Rather than a simple death he wants a return bout—a chase with Singer as the hunted rather than the hunter.The gods, powers and monsters of Navajo legend provide the backdrop for the working out of Singer’s fate—for the chase is as much for his soul as for his body. As he uses matter transmitters to flit from Paris to London to the Middle East to the American Southwest, he must search back into his own early life as well as the root beliefs of his vanished people and come to terms with a world that has adopted him, made use of his skills, and left him feeling that he has no place to call his own.

    They take a job on the odd-shaped ship Icarus. But the ragtag crew was found at taverns, the secret cargo sealed tight, the employer missing, and a saboteur is aboard. After a beautiful crew member helps uncover the nature of their cargo for Earth, Jordan suspects they are in a vast conspiracy set to change human history. Unfortunately, he's right.

    The Arisians, using advanced mental technology, have foreseen the invasion of their galaxy by the corrupt and evil Eddorians, so they begin a breeding program on every planet in their universe. Their goal...to produce super warriors who can hold off the invading Eddorians.

    Mankind has operated within their influence for two centuries, establishing a dozen human colony worlds scattered along Shoal trade routes. Dakota Merrick, while serving as a military pilot, has witnessed atrocities for which this alien race is responsible. Now piloting a civilian cargo ship, she is currently ferrying an exploration team to a star system containing a derelict starship. From its wreckage, her passengers hope to salvage a functioning FTL drive of mysteriously non-Shoal origin. But the Shoal are not yet ready to relinquish their monopoly over a technology they acquired through ancient genocide.

    Either all the millions of inhabitants are dead, or they have been transformed into energy beings beyond human perception. Earth’s population was reduced by ninety percent. Human civilization on Earth is now recovering from this trauma and even has a vigorous space program. Apollo Papadopulos is in training to become the captain of the starship Consensus. Apollo is a unique individual in that he/she/it is not an individual at all, but five separate teenagers who form a new entity. Strom, Meda, Quant, Manuel, and Moira are a pod, as these kinds of personalities are called, genetically engineered to work as one and to be able to communicate non-verbally. As a rare quintet, much relies on the successful training of Apollo, but as more accidents occur, the pod members struggle just to survive.