Dark Space Opera

Ten years ago the Sythians invaded the galaxy with one goal: to wipe out the human race. Now the survivors are hiding in the last human sector of the galaxy: Dark Space--once a place of exile for criminals, now the last refuge of mankind.

Rose McKenzie may be far from Earth with no way back, but she's made a powerful ally - a fellow prisoner with whom she's formed a strong bond. Sazo's an artificial intelligence. He's saved her from captivity and torture, but he's also put her in the middle of a conflict, leaving Rose with her loyalties divided. Captain Dav Jallan doesn't know why he and his crew have stumbled across an almost legendary Class 5 battleship, but he's not going to complain. The only problem is, all its crew are dead - all except for one strange, new alien being.

The Majority always gets what it wants. Thomas Hill just wishes it didn't want him. There's no way to escape a galactic mob of mind readers, no way for him to blend in with his foster family and other average Americans. Because Thomas invented a way to save his own life. His custom medicine halts the progress of his degenerative neuromuscular disease. Newscasters proclaim him the next Einstein, but mere humans have no idea his bioengineered processing capacity rivals that of a supercomputer. They just think he's smart. However, there are other bioengineered supergeniuses in the Majority.

One man will transcend death to seek vengeance. One woman will transform herself to gain power. And no one will emerge unscathed... Thorvald Spear wakes in a hospital to find he's been brought back from the dead. What's more, he died in a human vs. alien war that ended a century ago.

Following the success of their Locus Award-winning anthology

The New Space Opera, editors Gardner Dozois and Jonathan Strahan up the ante with

The New Space Opera 2, in which more of the most beloved names in science fiction spin stunning tales of interstellar adventure and wonder.

Far from the fury of The Great War, the citizens of the Liberty Federation live in peace and prosperity. The Dawn Empire’s light is fading. Admiral Ikson Koto has one chance to renew the flame before it is extinguished forever. To save the Empire from a slow death, he must destroy the Federation’s fleet in one fell swoop. His plan calls for a brutality that has never been seen before. For Lieutenant Shannon Reeve, the horrors of battle still burn strong in her mind. Her posting to a fighter squadron in the paradise of the Federation’s premier base, Azure Anchorage, should be a welcome...

Hadrian Marlowe is lost. For half a century, he has searched the farther suns for the lost planet of Vorgossos, hoping to find a way to contact the elusive alien Cielcin. He has not succeeded, and for years has wandered among the barbarian Normans as captain of a band of mercenaries. Determined to make peace and bring an end to nearly 400 years of war, Hadrian must venture beyond the security of the Sollan Empire and among the Extrasolarians who dwell between the stars.

In the near future, an elderly English widow is stirred from her mundane existence by surreal omens and visitations. Centuries later, the space freighter Nova Swing takes on an illegal alien artifact as cargo, with consequences beyond reckoning. While on a distant planet, a nameless policewoman tries to bring order to an event zone where ordinary physics do not apply, only to find herself caught up in something even stranger and more sublime....

Samantha was badass even before she learned magic. Fending for herself in the cauldron of a planet torn apart by an alien invasion taught Samantha how to kill. Ruthlessly efficient, her abilities have caught the attention of the Shadow Corps. A group comprised of deadly warriors who focus on galactic safety, using any means necessary. Her first mission puts her team up against a space dragon, death reapers, and the ultimate sorcerer. Samantha had better learn to master her alien magic, or be forced to watch her world, and many others, burn.

After achieving Tier 3 as a Dark Matter Aspirant, Jace Seren and his allies—Priam Westerfold, Greg Bhastal, and Quinn Cipher—are on their way to Earth. Their mission is dangerous: take down all five megacorporations to clear the way for the Star Council to instill their control over the world and lift Earth’s civilization to its pinnacle of possibility. Corpo-mercs, cybered-up soldiers, lingering Aspirants, and Ascendants? That’s only the start of it. For the Nebula Alliance already has agents on Earth, and they do not take kindly to hostile takeovers.

The dying Empire's most cunning and ruthless warlord - Grand Admiral Thrawn - has taken command of the remnants of the Imperial fleet and launched a massive campaign aimed at the New Republic's destruction. With the aid of unimaginable weapons long hidden away on a backwater planet, Thrawn plans to turn the tide of battle, overwhelm the New Republic, and impose his iron rule. Meanwhile, Han and Lando Calrissian race against time to find proof of treason inside the highest Republican Council.

The Confederation has fought three wars against the forces of the totalitarian Union. Three generations of its warriors have gone off to war, held the line against the larger, more powerful enemy. Now the fourth conflict is imminent, and the Confederation's navy is on alert, positioned behind the frontier, waiting for the attack it knows is coming.

Packed with slaughter and swordplay, these audio dramas, written by Black Library authors including Gav Thorpe, James Swallow, Ben Counter and more, offer fresh insight into two of the Imperium's most beloved fighting forces.

Tamsyn Muir’s Gideon the Ninth unveils a solar system of swordplay, cut-throat politics, and lesbian necromancers. Her characters leap out of the audio, as skillfully animated as arcane revenants. The result is a heart-pounding epic science fantasy. Brought up by unfriendly, ossifying nuns, ancient retainers, and countless skeletons, Gideon is ready to abandon a life of servitude and an afterlife as a reanimated corpse.

Naira and Tarquin have escaped vicious counter-revolutionaries, misprinted monsters, and the pull of a dying planet. Now, bound together to find the truth behind the blight that has been killing habitable planets, they need to hunt out the Mercator family secrets. But, when the head of Mercator disappears, taking the universe’s remaining supply of starship fuel with him, chaos breaks loose between the ruling families. Naira’s revolution must be put aside for the sake of humanity’s immediate survival.

When Master Yewlo is abducted by unknown forces, the Peacemakers are thrown into chaos as the rescue mission begins. Finding Yewlo will be hard, but the search reveals secrets the guild might not survive - secrets about a system so corrupt, it will take Van and his team's best efforts to untangle the truth.

Earth is conquered. The Shongairi have arrived in force, and humanity’s cities lie in radioactive ruins. In mere minutes, over half the human race has died. Master Sergeant Stephen Buchevsky, who thought he was being rotated home from his latest tour in Afghanistan, finds himself instead prowling the back country of the Balkans, dodging alien patrols and trying to organize the scattered survivors without getting killed.

In the war for control of the galaxy between the armies of the dark side and the Republic, former Jedi Master turned ruthless Sith Lord Count Dooku has grown ever more brutal in his tactics. Despite the powers of the Jedi and the military prowess of their clone army, the sheer number of fatalities is taking a terrible toll. And when Dooku orders the massacre of a flotilla of helpless refugees, the Jedi Council feels it has no choice but to take drastic action: targeting the man responsible for so many war atrocities, Count Dooku himself.

Fiona Russell has been snatched from Earth, imprisoned, and used as slave labor, but nothing about her abduction makes sense. When she's rescued by the Grih, she realizes there's a much bigger game in play than she ever could have imagined, and she's right in the middle of it.

It was not his fight. But he will still be the one to end it. The galaxy remembers Hadrian Marlowe as a hero who burned every last alien Cielcin from the sky. The man remembers how he tried to save them - to negotiate with them, to learn more of them - and how his attempts were frustrated by his own side and creatures stranger still than any Cielcin he'd encountered thus far. Hadrian Marlowe's path might have ended in fire...but the road to it was winding and leads through intrigue, and battle, to war.