Book 2 follows a science survey into the Third Quadrant, a desolate wasteland left by ancient asteroids. Scenes of friends and family back on the crew's home planets are woven through the story. New characters join with major and minor characters we met in the first book to crew the expedition. They explore a desert planet and intervene in the shunning of a young cave dweller, who joins them on the ship. While surveying an unexpected gas giant, they...

In A Grand Imperial Heir, the enthralling sequel to A Grand Imperial War, the universe teeters on the edge of chaos once more. Years after her pivotal role in restoring Farsalian sovereignty, Princess Melorah finds herself thrust into an unexpected role as the Matriarch of Farsalia. Reluctant to embrace the weight of power, she stumbles through her royal duties until a fateful revelation unravels in the Human interstellar empire.Human Emperor Stanislaus...

Imprisoned as a hostage or a bargaining chip, Sasham Varan must rely on his friends The Eonwyl, Sooovickalassa, and Guvthor Hok Guvthor to find proof of the impossible truth: that Prime Monitor Shagrath is one of the legendary Demons, manipulating the Empire and others to destroy every civilization across the Galaxy. Even if they succeed and Varan gains his freedom and the Zchorada as allies, they will still need to assemble the largest fleet the...

Sasham Varan was a patriot, a true believer in the Reborn Empire. But after a secret project both gave him outlawed psionic powers and revealed that Prime Monitor Shagrath, head of the Monitor Corps and right hand of the Emperor, was a monster hiding behind a human face, Varan became a fugitive and the most-wanted man in the Empire. With the aid of the enigmatic trader The Eonwyl, reptilian psi-scientist Sooovickalassa, and the immense and far too...

Emperor Daniel Hankerson and his allies, including his new wife-and-super commando-in-one Hila Eban, have successfully ended the war on the other side of the Central Imperium. A huge fleet is now assembling at planet Davenport for the final confrontation with the New Protectorate.But before the battle can start, Daniel needs to open the FTL gate leading to the heart of the Imperium. The gates are a legacy of an old civilization, the Protectors. However,...

Disaster sends a man across the universe in search of answers to life's big questions in this humorous classic adventure by a Science Fiction Grand Master. When a massive flood wipes out Earth and spoils his date, lone survivor Simon Wagstaff finds refuge in an abandoned Chinese spaceship, the Hwang Ho. Accompanied by three new companions-a dog, an owl, and a beautiful robot-and his electric banjo, Wagstaff sets off on an extraterrestrial adventure....

Two hundred thousand feet up, things go horribly wrong. An experimental low-orbit spaceplane breaks up on reentry, falling to earth over a trail hundreds of miles long. And it its wake is the beginning of the most important mission in the history of space. America needs energy, and Dan Randolph is determined to give it to them. He dreams of an array of geosynchronous powersats, satellites which gather solar energy and beam it to generators on Earth,...

It was big news for reporters throughout the solar system. After a cargo-liner en route from Earth to Mars blew up as it was coming in for a landing, killing all eight persons aboard, the workers went on strike. Spacemen had walked out in a demand for higher pay and better retirement benefits. The spacemen's union included not only pilots but crewmen, mechanics, and maintenance workers at the spaceports. But was it a tragic accident-or sabotage?

The closest planet to our Sun, Mercury is a rocky, barren, heat-scorched world. But there are those who hope to find wealth in its desolation. Saito Yamagata thinks Mercury's position will make it an ideal orbit point for satellites that could someday create enough power to propel starships into deep space. He hires Dante Alexios to bring his dreams to life. Astrobiologist Victor Molina thinks the water at Mercury's poles may harbor evidence of...

Gideon lowers his eye to the telescope lens, turns a dial, sees, collapses. Awakes concussed and rushes to the city square to announce his discovery: massive structures on another planet. Impossible without intelligence. He is burned at the stake for heresy. Will Lark is losing his mind. He's obsessed with a door on a roof of the apartment building next to his in San Francisco, thinks he's being followed, thinks the moon is swollen and likely...