A Galaxy Unknown


Thomas DePrima - 2008
    The petite blonde pulls on some clothes and races through the spaceship in a desperate search for an available life pod-- but it appears all have already departed. So begins the epic story of Jenetta Carver. Get a tight grip on your book and prepare for an exciting adventure like few others because Jenetta is ready to take names and kick butts from one end of the galaxy to the other. She may be small, but she has an intellect as large as Colossus of Rhodes and makes General Sun-Tzu look like an amateur military enthusiast.

Sassinak


Anne McCaffrey - 1990
    That made her just the right age: old enough to be used, young enough to be broken. Or so the slavers thought. But Sassy turned out to be a little different from your typical slave girl. Maybe it was her unusual physical strength. Maybe it was her friendship with the captured Fleet crewman. Maybe it was her spirit. Whatever it was, it wouldn't let her resign herself to the life of a slave. She bided her time, watched for her moment. Finally it came, and she escaped.But that was only the beginning for Sassinak. Now she's a Fleet Captain with a pirate-chasing ship of her own, and only one regret in her life: not enough pirates.

The Stars Now Unclaimed


Drew Williams - 2018
    Her mission: to recruit children with miraculous gifts in the hope that they might prevent the Pulse from once again sending countless worlds back to the dark ages.Hot on her trail is the Pax--a collection of fascist zealots who believe they are the rightful rulers of the galaxy and who remain untouched by the Pulse.Now Jane, a handful of comrades from her past, and a telekinetic girl called Esa must fight their way through a galaxy full of dangerous conflicts, remnants of ancient technology, and other hidden dangers.And that's just the beginning . . .

Crystal Soldier


Sharon Lee - 2005
    Believing that they had won, the citizens of the galaxy rebuilt. The Inner Worlds, which had escaped the worst of the war's ravages, became even more insular, while the Rim worlds adopted a free and easy way with law and order. Now, hundreds of years after their withdrawal, the Enemy is back - and this time they'll be satisfied with nothing less than the extinction of the galaxy.

Leviathan Wakes


James S.A. Corey - 2011
    When he and his crew stumble upon a derelict ship, the Scopuli, they find themselves in possession of a secret they never wanted. A secret that someone is willing to kill for—and kill on a scale unfathomable to Jim and his crew. War is brewing in the system unless he can find out who left the ship and why.Detective Miller is looking for a girl. One girl in a system of billions, but her parents have money and money talks. When the trail leads him to the Scopuli and rebel sympathizer Holden, he realizes that this girl may be the key to everything.Holden and Miller must thread the needle between the Earth government, the Outer Planet revolutionaries, and secretive corporations—and the odds are against them. But out in the Belt, the rules are different, and one small ship can change the fate of the universe.

The Praxis


Walter Jon Williams - 2002
    But the Shaa will soon be no more. The dread empire is in its rapidly fading twilight, and with its impending fall comes the promise of a new galactic order... and bloody chaos.A young Terran naval officer marked by his lowly birth, Lt. Gareth Martinez is the first to recognize the insidious plot of the Naxid -- the powerful, warlike insectoid society that was enslaved before all others -- to replace the masters’ despotic rule with their own. Barely escaping a swarming surprise attack, Martinez and Caroline Sula, a pilot whose beautiful face conceals a deadly secret, are now the last hope for freedom for every being who ever languished in Shaa chains -- as the interstellar battle begins against a merciless foe whose only perfect truth is annihilation.

The Darwin Elevator


Jason M. Hough - 2013
    The world has succumbed to an alien plague, with most of the population transformed into mindless, savage creatures. The planet’s refugees flock to Darwin, where a space elevator—created by the architects of this apocalypse, the Builders—emits a plague-suppressing aura.Skyler Luiken has a rare immunity to the plague. Backed by an international crew of fellow “immunes,” he leads missions into the dangerous wasteland beyond the aura’s edge to find the resources Darwin needs to stave off collapse. But when the Elevator starts to malfunction, Skyler is tapped—along with the brilliant scientist, Dr. Tania Sharma—to solve the mystery of the failing alien technology and save the ragged remnants of humanity.

Ancillary Justice


Ann Leckie - 2013
    On a remote, icy planet, the soldier known as Breq is drawing closer to completing her quest.Once, she was the Justice of Toren - a colossal starship with an artificial intelligence linking thousands of soldiers in the service of the Radch, the empire that conquered the galaxy.Now, an act of treachery has ripped it all away, leaving her with one fragile human body, unanswered questions, and a burning desire for vengeance.

Orbs


Nicholas Sansbury Smith - 2013
    Cataclysmic solar storms have forced leaders from around the world to finally put aside their differences and agree on one thing—to jump ship. The human race is headed to Mars. Dr. Sophie Winston is hired by New Tech Corporation to test a biosphere deep within the heart of Cheyenne Mountain; a mission she believes will help prepare NTC for the three-year flight to the red planet. But, just days into the assignment, things start to go wrong. When the blast doors hiss open, Winton's team finds a changed world outside. Humans are gone, vanished without a trace, and they aren't the only thing missing. The planet's water is gone, too. As the team explores their surroundings, they find thousands of luminous blue orbs lining the streets. It isn't until they uncover what's inside that they realize the nightmare that lies ahead.

Bright of the Sky


Kay Kenyon - 2007
    In a land-locked galaxy that tunnels through our own, the Entire is a bizarre and seductive mix of long-lived quasi-human and alien beings gathered under a sky of fire, called the bright. A land of wonders, the Entire is sustained by monumental storm walls and an exotic, never-ending river. Over all, the elegant and cruel Tarig rule supreme. Into this rich milieu is thrust Titus Quinn, former star pilot, bereft of his beloved wife and daughter who are assumed dead by everyone on earth except Quinn. Believing them trapped in a parallel universe—one where he himself may have been imprisoned—he returns to the Entire without resources, language, or his memories of that former life. He is assisted by Anzi, a woman of the Chalin people, a Chinese culture copied from our own universe and transformed by the kingdom of the bright. Learning of his daughter’s dreadful slavery, Quinn swears to free her. To do so, he must cross the unimaginable distances of the Entire in disguise, for the Tarig are lying in wait for him. As Quinn’s memories return, he discovers why. Quinn’s goal is to penetrate the exotic culture of the Entire—to the heart of Tarig power, the fabulous city of the Ascendancy, to steal the key to his family’s redemption. But will his daughter and wife welcome rescue? Ten years of brutality have forced compromises on everyone. What Quinn will learn to his dismay is what his own choices were, long ago, in the Universe Entire. He will also discover why a fearful multiverse destiny is converging on him and what he must sacrifice to oppose the coming storm. This is high-concept SF written on the scale of Philip Jose Farmer’s Riverworld, Roger Zelazny’s Amber Chronicles, and Dan Dimmons’s Hyperion.

Death Becomes Her


Michael Anderle - 2015
    For a thousand years, it has felt stifled by Michael's strictures, the rules they must follow on pain of death. As the first and most powerful vampire in existence, he has the power to keep the power struggles under the radar from the rest of humanity. Unfortunately that is changing.Someone has found the serum to make intelligent nosferatu, a type of vampire little better than blood sucking beasts who can change the power struggle significantly. Michael thought this serum safely lost in the bombing of Japan in 1945.The third effort to overturn Michael's decrees is about to take place, the problem is Michael is tired. After a thousand years of fighting and keeping the peace with his Family, the Unforsaken and the known supernaturals he is world weary and ready to sleep a final time.He needs to find a way to bring another to take his place, someone with the will and desire to make a difference. He finds Bethany Anne.The daughter of a General, she excels were others fear to go. She accepts the offer but doesn't realize she won't be transformed like any other vampire in history, even Michael. The problem? Even he didn't realize exactly how he was transformed and it completely throws the understanding of vampires and why they were created out the window.When she wakes up, nothing is going to go like she thought. The UnkownWorld is going to change, it just doesn't know whose beat they will dance to, yet.

Outriders


Jay Posey - 2016
    And things only got harder from there.Snatched out of special operations and thrown headfirst into a secretive new unit, Lincoln finds himself as the team leader for the 519th Applied Intelligence Group, better known as the Outriders. And his first day on the job brings a mission with the highest possible stakes.A dangerously cunning woman who most assuredly should be dead has seemingly returned. And her plans aren’t just devastating, they might be unstoppable.How do you defeat a hidden enemy when you can’t let them know they’ve been discovered?You send in the Outriders.

War Dogs


Greg Bear - 2014
    Maybe my last.They made their presence on Earth known thirteen years ago.Providing technology and scientific insights far beyond what mankind was capable of. They became indispensable advisors and promised even more gifts that we just couldn't pass up. We called them Gurus.It took them a while to drop the other shoe. You can see why, looking back.It was a very big shoe, completely slathered in crap.They had been hounded by mortal enemies from sun to sun, planet to planet, and were now stretched thin -- and they needed our help.And so our first bill came due. Skyrines like me were volunteered to pay the price. As always.These enemies were already inside our solar system and were moving to establish a beachhead, but not on Earth.On Mars.

Foreigner


C.J. Cherryh - 1994
    Cherryh's eponymous series, Foreigner begins an epic tale of the survivors of a lost spacecraft who crash-land on a planet inhabited by a hostile, sentient alien race.From its beginnings as a human-alien story of first contact, the Foreigner series has become a true science fiction odyssey, following a civilization from the age of steam through early space flight to confrontations with other alien species in distant sectors of space. It is the masterwork of a truly remarkable author.

Chaos Rising


Timothy Zahn - 2020
    And nestled within its swirling chaos is the Ascendancy, home to the enigmatic Chiss and the Nine Ruling Families that lead them.The peace of the Ascendancy, a beacon of calm and stability, is shattered after a daring attack on the Chiss capital that leaves no trace of the enemy. Baffled, the Ascendancy dispatches one of its brightest young military officers to root out the unseen assailants. A recruit born of no title, but adopted into the powerful family of the Mitth and given the name Thrawn.With the might of the Expansionary Fleet at his back, and the aid of his comrade Admiral Ar’alani, answers begin to fall into place. But as Thrawn’s first command probes deeper into the vast stretch of space his people call the Chaos, he realizes that the mission he has been given is not what it seems. And the threat to the Ascendancy is only just beginning.