Showing results by author "William C. Dietz" in All Categories

It's 2552. Having barely escaped the final battle for Reach against the vast alien alliance known as the Covenant, the crew of the Pillar of Autumn, including Spartan John-117 - the Master Chief - and his AI companion Cortana, is forced to make a desperate escape into slipspace. But their destination brings them to an ancient mystery and an even greater struggle.

On May Day 2018, 60 meteors entered Earth's atmosphere and exploded around the globe with a force greater than a nuclear blast. Earthquakes and tsunamis followed. Then China attacked Europe, Asia, and the United States in the belief the disaster was an act of war. Washington, DC was a casualty of the meteor onslaught that decimated the nation's leadership and left the surviving elements of the armed forces to try to restore order as American society fell apart.

In a Legion gone lax, Colonel Bill Booly, with his mixed blood and by-the-book attitude, is a misfit. So when he steps on some important toes, his punishment is assignment to the worst post in the galaxy: Earth. But Booly and his troops will turn out to be Earth's best line of defense, when a Legion-led military coup topples the government. It's Legionnaire against Legionnaire in a struggle that will be won by strength and courage.

For the poor, hardworking citizens of the Confederacy's fringe worlds, the Guild Wars have exacted a huge toll. Swayed by the promise of financial rewards, a new batch of recruits joins the fight. 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.

You're only a hero until your next battle. Legion General Bill Booly knows that peace is just a pause between wars. He's just crushed one uprising, and now a new rebellion is already brewing on a remote world light years away - spawning a web of terrorism that is close enough to catch the vulnerable Confederacy in its grasp.

World War III is a month old. After attacking and sinking the Destroyer USS Stacy Heath, the Chinese invade Tibet, and India counterattacks. Rather than allow the Chinese to seize control of the subcontinent, the US sends 20,000 US soldiers and Marines in to join the fight. The Russians invade Ukraine, which leaves NATO with no choice but to respond. A full-fledged ground war begins.

When CIA Special Operations officer Major Jim Carter is sent to the town of Serene, Texas, he's still grieving for Agent Cathy Abbey, who was not only a fellow agent—but the woman he loved. And the woman he chose to shoot rather than let Al-Shabaab insurgents abduct her. A decision that haunts him. When Carter arrives in Serene, it's to discover that all one hundred and twenty-one citizens of the town have been murdered by insectoid creatures assumed to be extraterrestrials. None of the authorities know how the aliens arrived on Earth or what their intentions are.

When Chinese satellites detect the presence of an American Battle Group only a few hundred miles over the horizon, Captain Peng Ko receives orders to attack it. The enemy battle group includes the aircraft carrier Concord which, given its planes and escorts, should be impervious to anything that a single cruiser could throw at it.

In the future, the terminally ill can prolong life by surrendering their consciousness to a cybernetic life form that is then recruited into the notorious Legion of the Damned, an elite fighting unit charged with protecting humanity.

As people fight to survive the aftereffects of more than a dozen meteor strikes, a group of wealthy individuals conspires to rebuild the United States as a corporate entity called the New Confederacy, where the bottom line is law. As a second civil war rages, with families fighting against families on opposite sides, Union president Samuel T. Sloan battles to keep the country whole.

The insectoid Prax landed on Earth approximately 12,000 years ago and immediately went into hiding. Now that it seems safe to do so, the ravenous carnivores have awoken from their long slumber to feast on what they call "The Meats"—meaning humans. Humans are good at war. But so are the Prax. And, as book two begins, the situation is dire.

Having stopped a mutiny against Earth's government, General Bill Booly and his troops face an even greater challenge: a battle for the future of every living being in the universe, against a fanatical human and his killer technology.

All her life, Lady Catherine Carletto (called Cat) has lived for nothing but the next party, the next lover, the next expensive toy. Until, in a bloodthirsty power grab, Imperial Princess Ophelia and her cadre of synth assassins murder her brother the emperor, and go on to purge the galaxy of his friends and supporters - including Cat’s family. The Carlettos are known to be staunch supporters of the Emperor and Carletto Industries has been in the forefront of his pet project - developing cybernetic technology for the masses.

World War III is a few months month old. After attacking and sinking the Destroyer USS Stacy Heath, the Chinese seize control of Nepal and Bhutan and push into India where the Allies manage to stop them. But for how long? Pakistan is attacking from the north - and China is preparing for the "big push" from the east. Worse yet, China's Ministry of State Security has orders to assassinate the Dalai Lama, rather than run the risk that he will inspire a Buddhist rebellion in Tibet.

In Andromeda's War, his heroine will face her ultimate test - as a battle-scarred legionnaire and as an innocent young woman who once lost everything... Now a platoon leader, Legionnaire Andromeda McKee seems to have successfully left behind her true identity of Lady Catherine "Cat" Carletto, one of the last two surviving members of the Carletto family targeted for death by Empress Ophelia. After failing at her one shot at vengeance, Andromeda had been questioning her own resolve.

The Second Civil War continues to rage as Union president Samuel T. Sloan battles to keep America whole. Following a fateful battle between Union Army major Robin "Mac" Macintyre and her sister, the New Confederacy places a price on Mac's head, and bounty hunters are on her trail. Mac is determined to help Sloan reunify the country by freeing hundreds of Union POWs from appalling conditions in Mexico and capturing a strategic oil reserve deep inside Confederate territory.

The Confederacy is threatened by an uprising of the Hudathans, an unfeeling cyborg race that has built up its forces through stolen technology, and their only opponents are the members of the Legion.

There was a time when the Confederacy of Sentient beings ruled the galaxy. A time when the Legion of the Damned kept the peace. But no more. Autocrats rose and fell. Now mankind is ruled by a xenophobe named Cassidian, other races have retreated, and an interstellar war is brewing. The kind of war the Legion used to fight. But where are the legionnaires? “Retired,” some say. “Dead,” according to others. There are rebels, however, men and women who oppose Cassidian. But they need warships, and warships require pilots.

World War III is three months old. After attacking and sinking the Destroyer USS Stacy Heath, the Chinese took possession of Nepal, Bhutan, and Bangladesh. The US sends 20,000 soldiers and Marines in to support India. The Russians use the opportunity to invade Ukraine, which leaves NATO with no choice but to counterattack. A full-fledged European ground war begins.

In a crumbling futuristic society, Earth is only a myth, the technological advances of centuries have faded into distant memory, and space travel depends on a fleet of run-down, unreliable ships. Only the brave-or foolhardy-undertake such risky journeys. The brave, the foolhardy-and the runners… Jak Rebo is one such runner, whose current job is to deliver a future religious leader to his people, while avoiding assassins.