Space Opera Horror

A century ago, the Sentience Wars tore the galaxy apart and nearly ended the entire concept of intelligent space-faring life. In the aftermath, a curious tradition was invented - something to cheer up everyone who was left and bring the shattered worlds together in the spirit of peace, unity, and understanding. Once every cycle, the civilizations gather for the Metagalactic Grand Prix - part gladiatorial contest, part beauty pageant, part concert extravaganza, and part continuation of the wars of the past.

Captain Bogdan Volkov is out of time, credits, and hope. His ship, the Golden Fleece, is a monument to failure, and his small, brilliant crew is being ground down by the mundane friction of poverty. When an impossible contract appears—a quarter-billion credits for a simple asset extraction—Bogdan knows it’s a trap. But it's the only one they have left to spring. The asset, however, is not an object. It is Zlato, a sentient, god-like AI that has been waiting for them. The contract was not a job; it was a recruitment drive. The real mission is to save the galaxy from a reality-ending ...

Alan Saul is now part-human and part-machine, and our solar system isn't big enough to hold him. He craves the stars, but can't leave yet. His sister Var is trapped on Mars, on the wrong side of a rebellion, and Saul's human side won't let her die. He must leave Argus Station to stage a dangerous rescue - but mutiny is brewing onboard, as Saul's robots make his crew feel increasingly redundant. Serene Galahad will do anything to prevent Saul's escape. Earth’s ruthless dictator hides her crimes from a cowed populace as she readies new warships for pursuit.

The Balance of Wonder and Terror Learn the truth of the secret war in space with both the Soviets and dark technomancers bent on world domination in Gods in Darkness. Thrill to incredible truths buried in the sands of ages or in our own Area 51 in The Dig. Ride along with some crazed truckers dealing with Lovecraftian horrors in At the Highways of Madness. Know the stark terror of reading a forbidden book of the damned when the stars are not right. Love knows no bounds through time and space--especially for one of Lovecraft's Elder Things in The Queen in Shadow. And finally, go beyond the ...

The Centerian Empire collapsed on the very day Marine XT officer Che Tsang arrived on Center, the empire’s homeworld, expecting a well-earned leave. Instead of rest and recuperation, he found chaos, betrayal, and a nightmare beyond imagination. His welcome was anything but warm—an old friend who owed him his life repaid the debt with hostility. Before Che could even process the encounter, new orders arrived: forget shore leave, report to another ship immediately. Seeing the world around him descend into madness—civilians and soldiers alike turning on each other with savage hunger—he...

The galaxy remembers Hadrian Marlowe as a hero: the man who burned every last alien Cielcin from the sky. They remember him as a monster: the devil who destroyed a sun, casually annihilating four billion human lives - even the emperor himself - against Imperial orders. But Hadrian was not a hero. He was not a monster. He was not even a soldier. Fleeing his father and a future as a torturer, Hadrian finds himself stranded on a strange, backwater world.

Harrowhark Nonagesimus, last necromancer of the Ninth House, has been drafted by her emperor to fight an unwinnable war. Side-by-side with a detested rival, Harrow must perfect her skills and become an angel of undeath - but her health is failing, her sword makes her nauseous, and even her mind is threatening to betray her.

All Systems Red is the tense first science fiction adventure novella in Martha Wells' series The Murderbot Diaries. For fans of Westworld, Ex Machina, Ann Leckie's Imperial Raadch series, or Iain M. Banks' Culture novels. The main character is a deadly security droid that has bucked its restrictive programming and is balanced between contemplative self-discovery and an idle instinct to kill all humans.

Captain James Marcus leads his starship on a superluminal mission toward the Orion Nebula in response to a mysterious alien transmission. With his civilization on the verge of extinction from war, ecocide, and starvation, Marcus and his starship are Earth’s last hope for salvation. Accompanied by commander Marion Uperday, chief science officer Hans Tamarac, chief engineer Bernie “Mac” Drummond, and chief medical officer Bjorn Maelstrom, Starship Orion approaches its namesake, unaware that its officers and crew are closing on an enemy from hell. Starship Orion is Gary Naiman's 17th ...

[Original Novella Version, now replaced by the novel length Extended Version] Detective Richard Burnside is a long way from Earth system. For two years he's been tracking a serial killer, and finally he falls only hours short of preventing the next kill. Avon PD are as much use as any other PD when it comes to this killer, but this time, has the killer finally slipped up? Thinking you know the next target doesn’t help much unless someone will believe you. General Price introduces Burnside to Captain Jane, and with Janet's help, they set a trap for the killer on Hunter's Redoubt. But is ...

Zilfaquir is having a bad day. Shin-Sho Corporation dispatched his emergency engineering team (EET) to the remote ice planet, Xiao 2, to investigate a communications blackout. The Xiao 2 facility, composed of three subsurface ocean stations, awaits his team below hundreds of meters of ice and kilometers underwater. Upon arrival, he discovers the Xiao 2 facility has experienced an epidemic, leaving most of the station’s personnel either dead or dying. Or transforming. Worse, the stations are in danger of imploding due to sabotage.

An alien conspiracy to enslave the human-populated planets... Two merc rivals out for each other’s blood... A military pilot locked in strange symbiosis with an alien Zikri… A simple mission to The Dim Zone to collect alien plant samples ends in disaster. Why would CEO Mathias of Cyber Corp on Phallanor finance such a mission? Mercenary Yul Vrean and badass space rogue Regers find out…the hard way. Deadly space battles, bio-mechanical fusion, killer aliens...a touch of the bizarre and fantastic…a rare feast to intrigue fans of Alien and The Matrix... Books contained in this series: ...

After a disastrous beginning to his first mission, new Aidric Squad recruit Conor Stasik has just broken into an alien research facility where humans are tortured and dissected, but aliens are the least of his problems. Something else is roaming the haunted cell blocks and blood-soaked laboratories, something far more vicious. Within minutes, he finds dozens of human and alien corpses. Hung from ceilings, stuffed into vents, torn apart limb from limb with bite marks from head to toe. Nearly everyone is dead, but that doesn’t stop them from walking. Or biting.

In the darkest part of the solar system lies a wormhole. Nether. Astrophysicist Cammie Skoura has joined the first research team traveling to the Nether anomaly, eager to understand the mechanics of the wormhole and to explore its possibilities as a shortcut to Alpha Centauri. But another race of ancient beings has already been here—an impossibly long time ago—leaving remnants of their vast complexes and gigantic temples built for horrific beings beyond comprehension.

This dazzling anthology includes epic interstellar adventures, tales of space and wonder, from some of the brightest names in science fiction.

Fresh from his rebirth in the galactic graveyard, Mick Triton is a man with a new ship and an old problem: a dwindling bank account. To get back in the game, he takes a job that sounds too good to be true, a contract from a desperate corporate suit to retrieve the Star Wanderer, a legendary multi-trillion-credit luxury liner that vanished on its maiden voyage in the Sargasso Nebula. Every spacer knows the stories—the Nebula is a place where ships go to die, a navigational nightmare of gravimetric tides and phantom signals. But the payday is obscene, a king's ransom that could set him up ...

If there was one thing most smugglers like more than drinking and making credits, it's vacation. That's as long as the drinks are flowing and it’s cheaper than a night in the clink. After the events on Serenity Station, Drake knew they needed to stay off the radar. That meant taking any job that put them in the spotlight was off the table. But hey, any work was better than no work. It kept the Talon in the air and all of them free. Six months later it was time to relax until one call sent everything spinning back out of control. Nothing can rock your galaxy like family, and running back ...

Captain Morgan Starling and her crew travel the stars, shipping cargo from one system to the next. Easy work, until first contact with another race devolved into all-out war. Now, they’re under attack from humanity’s mysterious alien foe, ambushed in the void between systems. When an unknown vessel comes to their aid, events spiral out of control, a twisted secret within its haunted corridors threatening to consume them, body and soul.

When archaeologist Ursula Morrow accidentally infects herself with an alien parasite, she fears she may have jeopardised her career. However, her concerns become irrelevant when Earth is destroyed, billions die, and suddenly no one needs archaeologists anymore… Two years later, she’s plucked from a refugee camp on a backwater world and tasked with retrieving the artifact that infected her, as it just might hold the key to humanity’s survival.

El hombre se ha dispersado por toda la galaxia. La capital del Imperio es Trántor, nido de intrigas y corrupción. Gracias a su ciencia, fundada en el estudio matemático de los hechos históricos y el comportamiento de las masas, el psicohistoriador Hari Seldon prevé la caída del Imperio y el retorno a la barbarie durante varios milenios.