Search Worlds Without End

Each story included here represents the author's personal tribute to Rudyard Kipling, the story he or she feels was most directly influence by Kipling's work. It's a literary feast for those who themselves were influenced by and appreciate Kipling, as well as for those merely looking for top-flight science fiction by the greatest in the field.

Table of Contents:

• Beyond the Loom of the Last Lone Star... - essay by Poul Anderson
• Introduction: No Truce With Kings - essay by Poul Anderson
• No Truce With Kings - (1963) - novella by Poul Anderson
• Introduction: Continuing Westward - essay by Gene Wolfe
• Continuing Westward - (1973) - shortstory by Gene Wolfe
• Soldiers' Stories - essay by David Drake
• Under the Hammer - (1974) - shortstory by David Drake
• Introduction: Saul's Death - essay by Joe Haldeman
• Saul's Death - (1983) - poem by Joe Haldeman
• The Art of Things as They Are - essay by Gordon R. Dickson and Sandra Miesel
• Carry Me Home - (1954) - novelette by Gordon R. Dickson
• Of Kipling and Me - essay by L. Sprague de Camp
• Ghost Ships - (1968) - poem by L. Sprague de Camp
• What Kipling Meant to Richard McKenna - essay by Gordon R. Dickson
• The Night of Hoggy Darn - (1958) - novelette by Richard McKenna
• Introduction: The Long Watch - essay by David Drake
• The Long Watch - (1949) - shortstory by Robert A. Heinlein
• Introduction: An Interview with Mark Twain - essay by David Drake
• Prologue: An Interview with Mark Twain - shortfiction by Robert A. Heinlein
• An Interview with Mark Twain - essay by Rudyard Kipling
• With the Night Mail - (1905) - novelette by Rudyard Kipling
• As Easy as A.B.C. - (1912) - novelette by Rudyard Kipling
• MacDonough's Song - (1912) - poem by Rudyard Kipling

The year is 1999. CIA agent Larry Fox has stumbled into the most frightening espionage plot in U.S. history. The president of the United States is a Soviet agent - and no one but Fox, running for his life in Istanbul, can take the truth to Washington.

Fox realizes that what he has discovered makes terrifying sense. Around the world U.S. forces are abandoning allies while Soviet power and influence reaches new heights. The nascent U.S. Space Command leads the retreat from space. Whites enroll their children in neo-Nazi organizations and turn their communities into armed camps while blacks demand outright ownership south of the Mason-Dixon line. Fox is America's only hope, and Fox doesn't have any hope at all...

Table of Contents:

• 1 - Why Gallows Humor? - essay by David Drake
• 5 - The Enchanted Bunny
• 71 - The Noble Savages - [The Harriers]
• 111 - Airborne All the Way! - [Magic: The Gathering]
• 125 - Cannibal Plants from Heck
• 145 - The Bond
• 153 - Mom and the Kids - [The Fleet]
• 189 - The Bullhead
• 231 - A Very Offensive Weapon

Table of contents:

• 1 - The Last Battle - short story by Elizabeth Moon
• 9 - Ils ne passeront pas - novelette by Harry Turtledove
• 42 - The Call - short story by Joel Rosenberg
• 47 - Leeward of Broken Jerusalem - short story by Carla Montgomery
• 67 - O'er the Land of the Freaks and the Home of the Braves - short story by Gregory Nicoll
• 79 - Riding Shotgun to Armageddon - novelette by S. M. Stirling
• 103 - Dead Men Talk a Lot - short story by William C. Dietz
• 123 - A Watery Silence - novelette by Billie Sue Mosiman
• 146 - Basic Training - novelette by Mark L. Van Name
• 167 - Mrs. Lurie and the Rapture - novella by Esther M. Friesner
• 215 - With the Sword He Must Be Slain - novelette by David Drake
• 239 - Twelve Gates to the City - novella by Margaret Ball

Balefires is the long-awaited collection of David Drake's weird and fantastic fiction. Before Drake was a best-selling author of military science fiction, he was a prolific writer of horror and fantasy short fiction. Balefires collects some of his earliest professional sales (including his first sale to Arkham House.) In addition, Balefires brings together many stories set in the worlds of his fantasy novels (Ranks of Bronze, Lord of the Isles, etc.) and contains original fiction. More than just a collection of stories, Balefires features extensive story notes that chronicle the development of the writing career of one of the science fiction's most popular writers, and provides detailed snapshots of the larger than life editors, publishers and writers that Drake has worked with throughout his career.

Table of Contents:

• The Red Leer - (1979) - short story
• A Land of Romance - (2005) - novelette
• Smokie Joe - (1977) - short story
• Awakening - (1975) - short story
• Denkirch - (1967) - short story
• The False Prophet - (1989) - novella
• Black Iron - (1975) - short story
• The Shortest Way - (1974) - short story
• Lord of the Depths - (1971) - short story
• Children of the Forest - (1976) - novelete
• The Barrow Troll - (1975) - short story
• Than Curse the Darkness - (1980) - novelette
• The Song of the Bone - (1973) - short story
• The Master of Demons - (1975) - short story
• The Dancer in the Flames - (1982) - short story
• Firefight - (1976) - novelette
• Best of Luck - (1978) - short story
• Arclight - (1973) - short story
• Something Had to Be Done - (1975) - short story
• The Elf House - (2004) - short story
• The Hunting Ground - (1976) - short story
• The Automatic Rifleman - (1980) - novelette
• Blood Debt - (1976) - short story
• Men Like Us - (1980) - novelette

Rome, 262 A.D. It has been the capital of the greatest civilization on Earth. Now both city and civilization are dying. Germans flood across the borders from Britain to the Bosporus, leaving a trail of rape, carnage, and ashes. In the cities, mobs riot; in the countryside, cults seek salvation in dark rituals. Imperial unity has shattered into a mosaic of separatists and usurpers, squabbling among themselves as greater enemies gather to swallow them all.

One man stands between humanity and the Long Night, matching savage determination against a hopeless future. He is Aulus Prennius, an Imperial secret agent as tough and ruthless as the age in which he lives. Until now, though, his enemies have all been human...

FROM THE HEART OF DARKNESS come no gentle wraiths, no pastel fantasies of bittersweet, seductive evil. This horror slams like a muzzle blast into its victim's awareness, carves its image with razor claws of violence as vivid as graphic as uncensored imagination. This horror comes from the center of the man soul, FROM THE HEART OF DARKNESS.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - (1983) - essay by Karl Edward Wagner
• Children of the Forest - (1976) - novelette
• The Barrow Troll - (1975) - short story
• Smokie Joe - (1977) - short story
• The Shortest Way - (1974) - short story
• Dragons' Teeth - (1975) - novelette
• Men Like Us - (1980) - novelette
• The Automatic Rifleman - (1980) - novelette
• Something Had to Be Done - (1975) - short story
• Out of Africa - (1983) - short story
• Best of Luck - (1978) - short story
• The Hunting Ground - (1976) - short story
• Than Curse the Darkness - (1980) - novelette
• Blood Debt - (1976) - short story
• The Dancer in the Flames - (1982) - short story
• The Red Leer - (1979) - short story
• Firefight - (1976) - novelette

Table of Contents:

• 1 - Introduction: Coming Home By the Long Way (Grimmer Than Hell) - essay by David Drake
• 5 - Rescue Mission - [The Fleet]
• 28 - When the Devil Drives - [The Fleet]
• 67 - Team Effort - [The Fleet]
• 95 - The End - [The Fleet]
• 113 - Smash and Grab - [The Fleet]
• 142 - Mission Accomplished - [The Fleet]
• 161 - Facing the Enemy - [Battlestation]
• 185 - Failure Mode - [Battlestation]
• 210 - The Tradesmen
• 226 - Coming up Against It
• 245 - With the Sword He Must Be Slain
• 268 - Nation Without Walls - [Jed Lacey - 1]
• 299 - The Predators - [Jed Lacey - 2]
• 329 - Underground - [Jed Lacey - 3]

Eyes to the future, heads to the storm, the heirs of Rudyard kipling have written some of the most profound and thrillling science fiction in the English language. Some of the very best are gathered here to pay tribute to the man who inspired them all.

Table of Contents:

• Why I Admire Rudyard Kipling - essay by Gordon R. Dickson
• Because Our Hearts Are Small - essay by Gordon R. Dickson and Sandra Miesel
• Our First Death - (1955) - shortstory by Gordon R. Dickson
• Introduction - essay by Poul Anderson
• The Visitor - (1974) - shortstory by Poul Anderson
• On Kipling and Weekday Afternoons - essay by C. J. Cherryh
• The Haunted Tower - (1981) - novelette by C. J. Cherryh
• Late, Have I Loved Thee, Kipling - essay by Sandra Miesel
• The Shadow Hart - (1985) - shortstory by Sandra Miesel
• Introduction - essay by David Drake
• The Barrow Troll - (1975) - shortstory by David Drake
• Introduction - essay by Poul Anderson
• The Ballad of the Three Kings - (1980) - poem by Poul Anderson
• Introduction - essay by Gene Wolfe
• Love, Among the Corridors - (1984) - shortstory by Gene Wolfe
• Introduction - essay by Jerry Pournelle
• The Friggin Falcon - (1981) - poem by Theodore R. Cogswell
• The Writer as Showman and Bard: A Personal View of Rudyard Kipling - essay by John Brunner
• Mowgli - (1956) - shortstory by John Brunner
• Introduction - essay by George R. R. Martin
• And Seven Times Never Kill Man - (1975) - novelette by George R. R. Martin
• East is East - essay by Sandra Miesel
• The Burning of the Brain - (1958) - shortstory by Cordwainer Smith
• Big Friend of the World - Rudyard - essay by Anne McCaffrey
• The Ship Who Sang - (1961) - novelette by Anne McCaffrey
• Introduction - essay by Roger Zelazny
• Lucifer - (1964) - shortstory by Roger Zelazny
• Kipling - (1981) - essay by John Brunner
• The Eye of Allah - (1926) - novelette by Rudyard Kipling
• "They" - (1904) - novelette by Rudyard Kipling

Tells the stories of Jed Lacey, a twenty-first century policeman, Carl, a young man who joins the crew of an airship, and Vickers, a hunting guide who leads time travelers in search of dinosaurs.

Table of Contents:

• 3 - Nation Without Walls - [Jed Lacey 1]
• 45 - The Predators - [Jed Lacey 2]
• 85 - Underground - [Jed Lacey 3]
• 147 - Travellers
• 209 - Time Safari

FIFTH YEARS AFTER THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, MAGIC IS LOOSE IN THE BACKWOODS

The forces of evil are poised to prey on the folk of the hamlets and hollows: witches, demons, and red-handed men--but first they'll have to overcome Old Nathan the Wizard.

He doesn't claim much for his magical powers, but they're real enough for what they are--and besides, he hasn't forgotten how to use his long flintlock rifle ....

Enter the gritty, realistic world of Old Nathan, a backwoodsman who talks to animals and says he'll face The Devil himself-and who in the end will have to face The Devil in very fact.

Table of Contents:

• The Bull - (1987) - novelette
• The Gold - novelette
• The Bullhead - novelette
• The Fool - (1987) - novelette
• The Box - novella

Table of Contents:

• 1 - Introduction: A Range of Treatments - essay by David Drake
• 3 - Lambs to the Slaughter - [Ranks of Bronze]
• 61 - Men Like Us
• 79 - The Day of Glory - [Hammer's Slammers]
• 107 - The Interrogation Team - [Hammer's Slammers]
• 119 - A Death in Peacetime - [Hammer's Slammers]
• 141 - Dreams in Amber
• 155 - Safe to Sea
• 171 - The Murder of Halley's Comet - [The Fleet]
• 197 - The Hunting Ground - (1976)
• 217 - The False Prophet
• 263 - A Grand Tour - [Honor Harrington Universe Short Fiction]

The corrupt Earth government is sending an army to Greenwood to remove the pioneers who discovered and settled the planet: the potential profits are too great to leave the world to scraggly ne'er-do-wells!

Though the rugged individualists of Greenwood may be fractious and disinclined to agree on most things, the greedy politicians of Earth will learn a harsh lesson if they think the settlers won't join together to save their livelihoods and homes! Under Yerby Bannock, who never walked away from a drink or a fight, the Greenwood patriots will face thugs in the night, lawyers in a distant court, traitors in their own ranks--

And, if they have to, a fortress built to shrug off the assault of a battlefleet!

The Empress of Earth: Finest passenger liner in the galaxy. Brightest link in the chain that binds the starflung civilization of the 23rd century. Six thousand lives in a single hull, trembling through multiple universes to land on raw, often violent worlds, each with its own history and wonder.

The Empress of Earth: Neutral pawn in an interstellar war!

When hostile necessity knows no law, Ran Colville and the rest of the complement of the Empress of Earth must bring home their ship and the passengers entrusted to them. From the Captain on his bridge to the Cold Crewmen who work in conditions that differ from Hell only by name, they'll have their work cut out for them this voyage!

WFA nominated short story. It originally appeared in Whispers #8, December 1975. The story has been reprinted many times. It can also be found in the anthologies:

• Whispers: An Anthology of Fantasy and Horror (1977), edited by Stuart David Schiff
• The World Fantasy Awards, Volume Two (1980), Stuart David Schiff and Fritz Leiber
• Heads to the Storm (1989), edited by Sandra Miesel and David Drake
• The Century's Best Horror Fiction 1951-2000 (2012), edited by John Pelan
• The Sword & Sorcery Anthology (2012), edited by Jacob Weisman and David G. Hartwell

The story is included in the collections:

• From the Heart of Darkness (1983)
• Vettius and His Friends (1989)
• Balefires (2007)
• Night & Demons (2012)

Read the full story for free at the Baen website.

Table of Contents:

• 1 - Introduction: The Creation of Rome (The Eternal City) - essay by David Drake
• 5 - Delenda Est - [Time Patrol - 5] - novelette by Poul Anderson
• 47 - Nightfall on the Dead Sea - short story by Ray Nelson
• 65 - The Prince - novella by C. J. Cherryh
• 103 - The Bottom of the Gulf - short story by Barry Pain
• 107 - An Elixir for the Emperor - novelette by John Brunner
• 129 - Some Very Odd Happenings at Kibblesham Manor House - short story by Michael Harrison
• 145 - Time Grabber - short story by Gordon R. Dickson
• 163 - Survey of the Third Planet - short story by Keith Roberts
• 181 - Don't Be a Goose - [Murchison Morks] - short story by Robert Arthur
• 197 - Domitia. - short story by Mrs. Richard S. Greenough
• 215 - Survival Technique - short story by Poul Anderson and Kenneth Gray
• 233 - Ranks of Bronze - [Ranks of Bronze] - short story by David Drake
• 245 - Kings of the Night - [Bran Mak Morn] - novelette by Robert E. Howard

They had fought long and hard, and damn near won in spite of everything. But now the men who hired them are going to sell them to the enemy...and so begins a novel of adventure in which a band of Star Mecenaries is driven across the face of a planet by enemies bent on their distruction. With only the guns in their hands, this tiny band must battle ships, artillery, treachery, and the most powerful tank in the universe.

Table of Contents:

• 1 - Welcome to the War Zone - essay by David Drake
• 7 - Rescue Mission - [The Fleet]
• 35 - The Dancer in the Flames
• 49 - Arclight
• 73 - Band of Brothers
• 95 - Firefight
• 121 - Contact!
• 143 - Best of Luck
• 151 - The Guardroom
• 177 - The Last Battalion
• 201 - The Tank Lords - [Hammer's Slammers]
• 261 - The Way We Die

Three Masters of Military Science Fiction
Three Great Science Fiction Series:

• Honor Harrinqton
• Hammer's Slammers
• Belisarius

Three Short Novels in One Volume

Before she saved the galaxy, she was "Ms. Midshipwoman Harrington"-- New York Times bestselling author David Weber reveals how Honor Harrington's long and brilliant career began with an encounter with "pirates" who turned out to be much more than they seemed....

Another day, another planet at war. But in David Drake's "Choosing Sides," Lieutenant Huber stepped off the starship right into an ambush. The attackers didn't survive, but neither did far too many of Huber's troops--and Slammers aren't supposed to get caught in ambushes. Now, to redeem himself, Huber is being sent on a special mission that may be his last. But even so, the enemy will learn the cost of killing even a single one of Colonel Hammer's Slammers....

If the enemy thought General Belisarius was tough, wait until they meet the wife of one of his soldiers in Eric Flint's "Island." She was wed just before her husband left with Belisarius to fight an evil from beyond time. Now her husband is wounded, and she is going to travel a thousand miles to reach his side--and few who get in her way will live to regret it....

Contents:

• 1 - Ms. Midshipwoman Harrington - [Honor Harrington Universe Short Fiction] - (2001) - novella by David Weber
• 145 - Islands - [Belisarius] - novella by Eric Flint
• 215 - Choosing Sides - [Hammer's Slammers] - novella by David Drake

When readers first encounter science fiction, they find adventures on other planets and in future worlds, explorations of future technology and its implications, and extrapolations of social trends and warnings of where they may lead--but they also encounter concepts heretofore undreamed of, and the impact on the readers' thinking does nothing less than turn their world upside down.

Now, David Drake, Jim Baen and Eric Flint gather together some of the greatest science fiction ever written in one volume, with each story chosen for a startling breakthrough concept which left readers stunned and changed the course of science fiction.

In the Golden Age of science fiction, the science fiction magazines weren't given titles such as Astounding, Amazing, Startling, etc., for nothing! Pick up this generous serving of the very best of science fiction and prepared to be astounded, amazed, startled--and entertained.

Table of Contents:

• Preface - essay by Eric Flint
• Rescue Party - (1946) - novelette by Arthur C. Clarke
• The Menace from Earth - (1957) - shortfiction by Robert A. Heinlein
• Code Three - (1963) - novella by Rick Raphael
• Hunting Problem - (1955) - shortstory by Robert Sheckley
• Black Destroyer - (1939) - novelette by A. E. van Vogt
• A Pail of Air - (1951) - shortstory by Fritz Leiber
• Thy Rocks and Rills - (1953) - novelette by Robert E. Gilbert
• A Gun for Dinosaur - (1956) - novelette by L. Sprague de Camp
• Goblin Night - (1965) - novelette by James H. Schmitz
• The Only Thing We Learn - (1949) - shortstory by C. M. Kornbluth
• Trigger Tide - (1950) - shortstory by Wyman Guin
• The Aliens - (1959) - novelette by Murray Leinster
• All the Way Back - (1952) - shortstory by Michael Shaara
• The Last Command - (1967) - shortstory by Keith Laumer
• Who Goes There? - (1938) - novella by John W. Campbell, Jr.
• Quietus - (1940) - shortstory by Ross Rocklynne
• Answer - (1954) - shortstory by Fredric Brown
• The Last Question - (1956) - shortstory by Isaac Asimov
• The Cold Equations - (1954) - novelette by Tom Godwin
• Shambleau - (1933) - novelette by C. L. Moore
• Turning Point - (1963) - shortstory by Poul Anderson
• Heavy Planet - (1939) - shortstory by Milton A. Rothman
• Omnilingual - (1957) - novelette by H. Beam Piper
• The Gentle Earth - (1957) - novella by Christopher Anvil
• Environment - (1944) - shortstory by Chester S. Geier
• Liane the Wayfarer - (1950) - shortstory by Jack Vance
• Spawn - (1939) - novelette by P. Schuyler Miller
• St. Dragon and the George - (1957) - novelette by Gordon R. Dickson
• Thunder and Roses - (1947) - novelette by Theodore Sturgeon

Taranis and his men forage for the collected tribes of the Crow as they march against the Romans, but he brings back more than he bargained for when he frees a beautiful and mysterious prisoner, Alpnu. Together they face a power sealed in a cave for millennia and newly risen from Hell.

Read the full story for free at Tor.com.

Having seen too much war to be safely returned to civilian life, Strike Force Company C41 is assigned to guard a colony on a hostile planet, but when the mission goes terribly wrong, the troops encounter unexpected danger.

A desperate plot to destroy the United States - a desperate race to save it!

The 52,000 Year War

In the twenty-third year of LBJ's martial rule, the war for Nam has spread to Central China, and rogue generals with nuclear weapons are poised to blast America into oblivion.

Reactionary twenty-third century conspirators have changed history... or will, unless the elite Anti-Revision Command, the ARC Riders, aided by Nam vet Major Rebecca Carnes, can find the terrorists. In a manhunt that ranges from Southeast Asia to Washington, D.C., from the twenty-sixth century to 50,000 B.C., the ARC Riders must stop the killing before they lose their one slender chance to untie the fatal knots in Time.

Elite 26th-century commandos, the ARC Riders patrol time to protect all human history...

As the USSR crumbles, Russian hardliners jump from 1991 to AD 9, when their modern weapons can warp the course of the Roman Empire and create a world ruled by the Kremlin - using time technology that doesn't exist in the 20th century... or the 26th!

To solve the mystery, the Riders must split into teams separated by millennia. And while three Riders are trapped between the Roman legions and a blood-maddened barbarian horde, their comrades are at war on the Moscow streets. And fighting an inconceivable enemy.

Table of Contents:

• Prologue and Interludes - short fiction by Bill Fawcett
• 4 - Facing the Enemy - novelette by David Drake
• 27 - Trading Up - short story by Barbara Delaplace and Mike Resnick
• 38 - Goblin's Children - novelette by Christopher Stasheff
• 83 - The Eyes of Texas - short story by Shariann Lewitt
• 109 - Starlight - short story by Jody Lynn Nye
• 133 - Comrades - short story by S. M. Stirling
• 151 - Gung Ho - poem by Judith R. Conly
• 153 - Blind Spot - novelette by Steve Perry
• 180 - The Stand on Luminos - novelette by Robert Sheckley
• 211 - Killer Cure - short story by Diane Duane
• 231 - A Transmigration of Soul - novelette by Janet Morris

Table of Contents:

• Prologue and Interludes - short fiction by Bill Fawcett
• 3 - Deadfall - novelette by Scott MacMillan
• 32 - Hearing - novelette by Christopher Stasheff
• 65 - Charity - short story by Shariann Lewitt
• 85 - Medic - novelette by Mercedes Lackey and Mark Shepherd
• 117 - Taken to the Cleaners - short story by Peter Morwood
• 126 - Imperatives - poem by Judith R. Conly
• 128 - You Can't Make an Omelet - short story by Esther M. Friesner
• 148 - Joint Ventures - novelette by Don John Dugas
• 178 - The Handmaiden - short story by Diane Duane
• 197 - Shooting Star - short story by Jody Lynn Nye
• 216 - Battle Offering - novelette by Katherine Kurtz
• 242 - Failure Mode - novelette by David Drake

Only three things stand between the Malwa and the conquest of Earth: Byzantium, the empire of Rome in the East; a crystal that urges mankind to fight; and Belisarius, general of the Byzantine Empire, and arguably the greatest commmander the Earth has ever known.

Belisarius is all that stands between the alien Malwa and the domination of sixth-century Earth. The ruthless supermind that controls the Malwa intends first to rule the world and then to put its stamp upon all eternity. Guided by visions from a future that may never be, Belisarius and his companions must fight their way across Northern India, seeking the heart of the enemy's power. Against them are numbers, savagery and an icy inhuman intelligence that is without weakness or mercy. And Belisarius has another enemy to contend with, closer to home: in Constantinople, his own emperor, Justinian the Great, begins to see him as a threat...

The author of "Mother of Demons" offers a tale of the cruel, depraved Malwa Empire, which dominates 6th century India, and the thing from the distant future that commands it!.

EVIL FROM BEYOND TIME RULES THE GREATEST EMPIRE ON EARTH!

Link, the supercomputer from a future that should not exist, has used terror and gunpowder weapons to forge the Malwa Empire, harnessing the vast manpower of the Indian subcontinent and using the barbarian races of the periphery to bind the whole together. No power on Earth in the 6th century could stand against Link's evil.

Aide, a human soul embodied in a jewel, has come back to halt evil's progress. Aide has no power but that of truth, but truth is the only power that could move the greatest general of the age, Belisarius.

With his sword, his paladins, and his genius, Belisarius has turned the armies of Byzantium into a weapon capable of blunting the first assault of the Malwa hordes. Now, supported by allies from all the world yet free, Belisarius, with his wife and co-commander Antonina, faces overwhelming Malwa numbers in a ring that tightens about them.

There is no room for maneuver and no safety in defeat. The armies of Good and Evil gathered on the fertile plains of Mesopotamia will decide the fate of the world --

And the fate of all the future!

AN EVIL

The creators of the monster called Link once were human, but that was distant ages in their past. Now, from the far future, they have sent their creation back to shape the world of the 6th century AD into the form that will make their own foul existence possible.

Taught and ruled by Link, the Malwa Empire has spread from the Indus Valley, across India and into Mesopotamia. Its inhuman master has chosen its instruments from the most brutal and degraded members of humanity, and they have served its monstrous ends well.

A GUIDE

Those in the future who never were human have sent their own messenger to the past: Aide, a gleaming jewel who can warn but not lead; who can teach the construction of new weapons but cannot wield those weapons himself.

Aide has come to Belisarius, the greatest general of the 6th century and perhaps any century. Between them they have forged an alliance of all the world against evil -- and an army that can be the spear through evil's heart.

A CRUSADE

With lancers and breech-loading rifles, with steamships and with galleys, Belisarius is marching into the Malwa heartland. In a world aflame with treachery, assassination, and slaughter beyond anything save the battles of mythology, he and his companions know only one sure thing: if they fail, their whole world is doomed to living Hell -- for all time!

A VICTORY!

Politics, battle, and heroic adventure in a vivid alternate past!

The Malwa and their evil have been driven back to their Indian heartland, but there they coil to strike again. Ruled by a monster from the future which is part computer and part demon, they prepare a fresh attack whose success will leave them rulers of the world—and the monster that guides the Malwa will rule the whole future!

Belisarius, the greatest general of his age, has arrayed the forces of Mankind against the Malwa evil. On his breast is the jewel sent to his support from a future of hope and freedom, willing to guide him but never to direct his actions. Behind him are allies from across Europe, Asia and Africa--mutually distrustful but aware that neither they nor Mankind have any hope if the Malwa prevail. Belisarius faces armies and assassins, ruthless brutality and inhuman cruelty. There is no hope for Mankind if he fails--so he must not fail!

The assassination of the emperor disrupts the carefully crafted balance of power in an empire that blends humans and other sentient species. Who will give up the peace first in a move toward domination? The blow falls on the paradise world of Palaccio, a green and blue planet of fair winds and playtime for humans, which most other species avoid as "Stink World." When the war breaks out, the man who must devise a defense is the least likely to succeed, Taddeuz Bertingas, a public relations functionary who never took basic military service. He finds himself the point man in an interspecies coalition to save the last remnants of empire.

THEIR FINEST HOUR,
OR THEIR FINAL DAYS...

The First Empire has entered what may very well be its last crisis: the Emperor is dead by assassination and has left an infant heir. Worse, the imperial mystique is but a fading memory: nobody believes in empire anymore. Indeed nobody believes in much of anything beyond the boundaries of self. There are exceptions, of course, and to those few falls the self-appointed duty of maintaining a military-civil order that is corrupt, despotic--and infinitely preferable to the barbarous chaos that will accompany its fall.

One such is commander Anson Merikur. This is his story.

What's worse than a corrupt, decadent, autocratic, oppressive regime? Corrupt, decadent, autocratic, oppressive aliens...

"For Reasons of State" they ripped his marriage apart and forced his wife into the bed of another man. Now their empire is in danger and he is the one man in place to stop the alien threat.

But there's a problem: when the Empire ruined this loyal servant's perfect marriage--and his life--with its political maneuverings they turned Captain Allison Spencer into a junkie.

But sometimes necessity can bring out the best in a man, no matter how far he's fallen. In a story of personal heroism and individual boldness Drake & Allen bring The Crisis of Empire to a rousing climax.

THE LONG WAY HOME

Hammer's Slammer Don Slade is coming home to the planet Tethys, to his son and the woman he loves. But the space between is dark and cold. And the stars he must pass shine their light on planets which beckon to the weary traveler, planets which hold hidden dangers.

And if Don Slade should ever reach Tethys... that is when the real fighting starts.

When a planetary government faces threats from guerrillas, insurgents or terrorists, the men they hire are Hammer's Slammers—known throughout the galaxy for their cold, ruthless ferocity, their ability to defeat overwhelming forces, and their willingness to go up against impossible odds.

Table of contents:

• Intro: Mercenaries and Military Virtue by Jerry Pournelle
• But Loyal to His Own
• The Butcher's Bill
• Under the Hammer
• Cultural Conflict
• Caught in the Crossfire (Caught in the Crossfire)
• Hangman
• Standing Down
• Interludes: Supertanks, The Church of the Lord's Universe, Powerguns, Backdrop to Chaos, The Bonding Authority, and Table of Organization and Equipment, Hammer's Regiment (The Tank Lords, as Appendix) The Baen (1987) edition adds The Tank Lords

Col. Alois Hammer's indomitable Slammers are called in to support human colonists against a native uprising in this novel-length adventure. But even though the natives' off-world weapons are no match for the Slammers, their ability to teleport gives them a frightening advantage!

Table of Contents:

• At Any Price
• The Interrogation Team
• Code-Name Feirefitz

The hottest science fiction mercenaries of the decade are back, so why count the cost? The other guy is going to pay for it! Hammer's Slammers must win a two-front war while maintaining the civilian power structure against hordes of religious fanatics.

Colonel Hammer has only a mixed bag of recruits and battle-fatigued veterans to relieve a district capital that has to be rescued.

Rolling Hot is sure to follow the success of David Drake's Hammer's Slammers (nearly a million in print) and the bestselling tie-in adventure game.

Colonel Alois Hammer, Luke Broglie, Tess Kuykendall, and Slick Des Grieux, cogs in a killing machine, find themselves at the center of a potential bloodbath.

A tough, battle-scarred survey team arrives on Cantilucca--a place ruled by gangs and guns where things apparently can't get any worse--seasoned professionals ready for violence and able to destroy anything except their own consciences.

Colonel Alois Hammer: to the galaxy, a legendary commander of mercenaries. To his troops, a leader who can be trusted to always back them to the hilt - and meet a payroll. When the situation on a planet has gone beyond desperate, it's time to call for Hammer's Slammers.

THE SAGA OF THE SLAMMERS BEGINS!

COLONEL ALOIS HAMMER: He welded five thousand individual killers into a weapon more deadly than any other in the human universe. When a planetary government faces unfriendly natives, guerrilla insurgents, or ruthless terrorists, they do the only thing that might save them -- they hire Hammer's Slammers, the toughest, meanest bunch of mercs who ever wrecked a world for pay. Known throughout the galaxy for their cold, ruthless ferocity, the men of Colonel Hammer's indomitable armored brigade routinely accept impossible missions. Again and again, they go up against overwhelming forces, or fight a two-front war against ferocious opposition, all without atomizing their civilian employers. Can they keep doing it? Not if they abide by the rules of civilized warfare...but nobody ever said the Hammers were nice. Even when their chances are not good -- those who oppose them have no chance at all!

Mercenary leader Alois Hammer has created an armored regiment that wins battles--Hammer's Slammers. "Booklist" says "Drake's popular Hammer's Slammers series about futuristic mercenary tank troops . . . has produced some of the best in military science fiction".

This book contains two novels, "Counting the Cost" and "The Warrior", two short stories, and a completely new novelette, arranged in the order the author finds most satisfactory.

They were the best mercenaries in the galaxy. They were Hammer's Slammers! "The Butcher's Bill" contains a novel, two novellas, four short stories, and a new novelette written for the collection, in addition to an Introduction by the author.

A multitude of histories finest (and worst) explorers find plenty to do in the new Hell novel.

With Lord of the Isles, David Drake returns to fantasy with a towering and complex epic of heroic adventure in an extraordinary and colorful world where the elemental forces that empower magic are rising to a thousand-year peak.

In the days following an unusually severe storm, the inhabitants of a tiny seaport town travel toward romance, danger, and astonishing magic that will transform them and their world.

Epic Fantasy author David Drake continues his saga The Lord of the Isles with Queen of Demons

In the world of the Isles, the elemental forces of magic are rising to a thousand-year peak. A small bank of companions has set forth across a world in the process of transformation in search of their destinies. Now their epic adventure continues.

Return again to the world of the Isles in Servant of the Dragon, a world with hundred of warring kingdoms without a single overlord for many centuries. Now the sources of magic are reaching a thousand-year peak, and the present generation of sorcerers is the most powerful in the millennium. Follow the small band of heroes and heroines as they journey across these landscapes, these seas, to find their loves, their destinies and -- for one -- a crown.

Return to the the epic tale of the Lord of the Isles, David Drake's saga of magic and might.

For the first time in a thousand years, the Kingdom of the Isles has a government and a real ruler: Prince Garric of Haft. The enemies joining against him intend to destroy not only the kingdom but humankind as well.

The rebels gathering in the West outnumber the royal army and the magic they wield can strike into the heart of the palace itself, but far greater dangers lie behind those. On the far fringes of the Isles, ancient powers ready themselves for a titanic struggle in which human beings are mere pawns--or fodder!

Reptilian and insect monsters from out of the ages march on the kingdom, commanded by wizards no longer human or never human at all. If unchecked, their ravening slaughter will sweep over the Isles as destructively as a flood of lava. Garric, ripped from his time and body, must make new allies if he and his kingdom are to survive.

Watching them all from the blackness of a tomb walled off in time and space, the Mistress waits...

And her fangs drip poison!

Starting in Lord of the Isles and continuing in Queen of Demons, Servant of the Dragon, and Mistress of the Catacombs, David Drake has told the continuing, interlocking stories of Garric and Sharina, Cashel and Ilna, young brother and sister pairs who journey together from a small town to the capital. Their destiny is to reunite the island kingdoms of the Isles into one empire for the first time in a millennium. They seek to do this at a moment in history when the cosmic forces upon which magicians draw are at a thousand year peak. Wizards of even small learning are immensely powerful. Human greed and evil are reinforced by supernatural energies

In Goddess of the Ice Realm, as Garric and his retinue reach the island city of Carcosa, the wizard Tenoctris perceives a powerful supernatural assault directed against them. Ilna and her beloved, Chalcus, are sent to investigate a magical threat to shipping in the north. Cashel is translated into another world by evil magic, and Sharina to yet another. All of them face deadly dangers and overcome them before they are again united during the terrifying and dramatic climax.

Filled with action, startling revelations, romance and sorcery, Goddess of the Ice Realm is epic fantasy at its exciting best.

Garric or-Reise was born the son of an innkeeper in Barca's Hamlet on the Isle of Haft, but through valor and determination became first a prince and then the Regent and successor to the feeble Valence III, King of the Isles. But the Kingdom is weak, its rule barely extending past the island of Ornifal.

The Isles need a strong king to bring unity, because danger is coming. Magic is stronger now than at any time since the fall of the Old Kingdom in a cataclysm of uncontrolled magic. Evil is growing in the spaces beyond the world, waiting to complete the destruction begun a millennium before. Only if the Isles are united into a strong New Kingdom can humanity survive.

Garric has sworn to become a true Lord of the Isles. Standing with him are his sister, Sharina; his friend and Sharina's lover, the shepherd Cashel; and Cashel's sister, the weaver-witch Ilsa. They have been to Hell and back together in their quest.

The four friends and the armies of the Kingdom have undertaken a Royal Progress to renew the bonds of fealty among the Isles. Now they come to Sandrakkan, which fought a long and bloody war with Haft less than a generation ago.

On Sandrakkan, Wilduf's Countess, Balila, schemes with her court wizard to destroy the boy king from the hated isle of Haft. Strange evils lurk on demon-haunted Volita, and she will wake them all if necessary to make her husband the new King of the Isles.

Rich with action, guile, and heroism in the face of dangers both physical and moral, Master of the Cauldron stands alone or as part of a ground-breaking fantasy epic.

The Fortress of Glass by David Drake is the first in the Crown of the Isles trilogy, which will conclude the epic Lord of the Isles series. A true trilogy, the action extends over the whole three-book arc. The Fortress of Glass begins the story of how the new kingdom of the Isles is finally brought into being by the group of heroes and heroines who have been central to all the books in the series. The group includes Prince Garric, heir to the throne of the Isles, his consort Liane, his sister Sharina, her herculean sweetheart Cashel, his sister Ilna, with her adopted child Merota and piratical Chalcus.

On giant triremes filled with soldiers and diplomats, they journey to the small kingdoms of the Isles to confirm the succession of Garric and to subdue, if necessary, any local rulers too fond of their own kingship to pledge fealty to Garric. All this is being done in a time when the powers of magic in the Isles have flooded to a thousand-year peak, and even local magicians can perform powerful spells normally beyond their control. Fantastic forces from all angles try to keep them apart and unable to continue the reunification of the Isles. So separately and together, they must fight their way back to the same time and place to combat the mysterious and supernatural menace of The Green Woman in her Fortress of Glass.

The Mirror of the Worlds is the second in David Drake's Crown of the Isles trilogy, which will conclude the epic Lord of the Isles series.

The Fortress of Glass began the tale of how the new kingdom of the Isles is finally brought into being by the group of heroes and heroines who have been central to all the books in the series: Prince Garric, heir to the throne of the Isles, his consort Liane, his sister Sharina, her herculean sweetheart Cashel, and his sister Ilna.

The powers of magic in the Isles have flooded to a thousand-year peak, and even local magicians can perform powerful spells normally beyond their control. Fantastic forces from all angles threaten, trying to keep Garric and his companions apart to thwart the reunification of the Isles.

Now the world itself has suffered a magical upheaval. The ocean has receded and the Isles have become the higher ground of a newly formed continent. But the new continent is a patchwork of geography from the dispast and future, peopled by creatures from all times and places. Garric and his companions must now struggle for the survival of humanity.

The Gods Return is the end of the Crown of the Isles trilogy and the final chapter in the Lord of the Isles. The Fortress of Glass began the tale of how the new kingdom of the Isles is finally created by the heroes and heroines who have been central to the tale: Prince Garric, heir to the throne of the Isles, his consort Liane, his sister Sharina, her herculean sweetheart Cashel, and Cashel's sister Ilna. The Mirror of Worlds followed them on an overland journey to the small kingdoms of the Isles to confirm Garric's succession and subdue, if necessary, any who refused to pledge fealty.

In The Gods Return, the Isles have been more or less unified under Garric's rule, but the Change that created the continent, has removed the old Gods of the Isles from reality and released other Gods from other planes of existence. Now the servants of the forbidden Gods of Palomir call forth The Worm, an ancient thing that threatens to devour all life in the newly formed kingdom and make way for the reign of dark Gods, now awakened to ambitions of worship and dominion. Some are bad... and some are worse.

Worlds at War

The Consensus ruled twelve hundred worlds--but not Northworld. Three fleets had been dispatched to probe the enigma of Northworld. None returned.

Now, Commissioner Nils Hansen must face the challenge of this distant planet.. a gateway to nine alternate worlds. There, he will confront a world at war, a worlds of androids, a world of sentient machines... all unique, all lethal.

But deadliest of all are the men who would be gods. Who rule these worlds with absolute poer. And who challenge all trespassers...

Like Commissioner Hansend.

The wars on Northworld begine!

Return to Northworld...

A world of ice and snow, where barbarians fight in high-text suits of armor. A world where machines rule, under a dying sun. A world where ferocious lizardmen ride dinosaurs into battle. All these, and six other worlds, are Northworld--a space-time enigma that defies explanation.

Nils Hansen is Commissioner of Security Forces, his life pledged to keep the peace. Three failed missions have preceded Hansen to Northworld--none have returned. He alone must solve the enigma of a world whre some men rule as gods... and can die as men.

Armored Apocalypse

A world of eight warring planes, where gods and men battle for mastery of the Matrix, a high-tech bridge through space and time. A world where weaponry is the supreme art. Where peace can be crueler than combat. Where a single battle could puncture the Matrix and plunge the entire population--king, android, lizard, and serf--into the void...

It is the closing act of a desperate campaign. In a last titanic conflict, Security Forces Commissioner Nils Hansen face the ultimate test.

Northrold approaches its final day. It is written that not all are fated to die.

But which few will survive?

HE WHO LIVES BY THE SWORD...

The races which ruled the Galactic Federation knew they were vastly superior to the inferior species restricted to the narrow confines of their own star systems by the crudity of their technology... and they had every intention of keeping things that way.

It was a neat little scam, a rigged game in which only the House could win, which the Federation had played for over a hundred thousand years, and no one had ever managed to challenge it.

Yet all good things come to an end, and the Galactics made one mistake. It didn't seem all that terrible at first, only a single merchant guild which bought itself a Roman legion to use as enslaved sepoys on the primitive worlds where they weren't permitted to use their own weapons to force trading concessions. But the Romans were too good at what they did, and a desperate competing guild decided that the only way it could continue to compete was if it had Romans of its own.

Unfortunately, Roman legions were no longer available, so the competing guild had to settle for something else: English longbowmen on their way to the Battle of Crecy.

Roman legions make dangerous pets... but English longbowmen are even worse.

It may take a century or so, but the Galactics are about to discover what happens when the sword finally comes out of the stone.

Lots of Soldiers Work for Civilians They don't Like, but these Romans had It Worse than Most -- Their Commanders were Blue-Skinned Aliens!

The guilds of star-traveling merchants had strict rules to prevent their technology from falling into the hands of the natives of planets they were exploiting: military operations had to be carried out with weaponry no more complex than swords and bows.

That was no handicap to merchant princes with a galaxy to scour for military slaves to do their fighting for them. Some came to Earth for soldiers and returned to the stars with the best the planet had to offer. For over two thousands years the aliens thought they'd succeeded brilliantly--but then things changed!

Set in the universe of Ranks of Bronze, masterful new novellas by:

• David Drake
• Eric Flint
• S. M. Stirling
• Mark L Van Name
• and David Weber

explore the bleeding edge between human courage and the science of alien slavemasters. The right man with a sword is just as deadly as a technician with a laser -- And not all the blood spilled is red!

Yesterday they were the best infantry on Earth -- Now they're going to take on the whole galaxy.

• 1 - Introduction (Foreign Legions): Well It Happened This Way... - essay by David Drake
• 5 - Ranks of Bronze - (1975) - short story by David Drake
• 17 - Sir George and the Dragon - novella by David Weber
• 101 - Lambs to the Slaughter - novella by David Drake
• 165 - A Clear Signal - novella by Mark L. Van Name
• 217 - The Three Walls--32nd Campaign - novelette by S. M. Stirling
• 243 - Carthago Delenda Est - novella by Eric Flint

Daniel Leary is a lieutenant in the Cinnabar Navy with no money and no prospects. Adele Mundy is a scholar whose family was massacred by the government of Cinnabar. In a few hours, diplomacy is going to fail on the planet Kostroma. Daniel, Adele, and the scratch crew they gather aren't much to stand in the way of a powerful invasion fleet, but just possibly they're enough.

Lieutenant Daniel Leary of the Republic of Cinnabar Navy commands the corvette Princess Cecile; his friend Signals Officer Adele Mundy has the latest in spy apparatus and the skill to prowl the most tightly guarded database. All they lack are enemies, and fate is about to supply that need in abundance!

A hostage uses the Princess Cecile to regain his freedom-and his throne!

An ally intrigues with enemies of Cinnabar-knowing the plot can only be safeguarded by destroying the Princess Cecile!

A pirate chief joins in a cutthroat battle with a rival-and the Princess Cecile is a pawn!

While the Republic of Cinnabar is at peace with the Alliance, warriors like Lt. Daniel Leary and Signals Officer Adele Mundy must find other work--like escorting a pair of wealthy nobles on an expedition to the back of beyond!

The Princess Cecile, the corvette in which they carved their reputations in letters of fire, has been sold as a private yacht, but she still has her guns, her missiles, and her veteran crew. Daniel and Adele will need all of those things as they face winged dragons, an Alliance auxiliary cruiser, jealous lovers, and a mysterious oracle which really does foresee the future.

That won't be enough, though, when they penetrate a secret Alliance base and find a hostile fleet ready for a war that will sweep Cinnabar out of a strategically crucial arm of the galaxy. Preventing that will involve skill, courage, and more luck than a sane man could even pray for; and it will require a space battle on a scale that a tiny corvette like the Princess Cecile has no business being involved in. But she'll be in the middle of it anyway, because Daniel, Adele, and their Cinnabar crew would never turn their backs on a fight!

Violence racks Cinnabar. The fleets of the tyrannical Alliance are on the move, and at home class riots threaten to rip apart not only society but the Republic of Cinnabar Navy. Lt. Daniel Leary has earned promotion, but the needs of the Republic and the RCN require that he serve under an officer whose paranoia has already led him to execute crewmen out of hand.

Signals Officer Adele Mundy has repeatedly proved her skills and loyalty as Cinnabar's most accomplished intelligence agent, but now elements within the Republic want to draw her into a conspiracy like the one that led to her parent's massacre. Leary and Mundy battle their way from riot-torn streets to spies in an outlying base and an anarchic planet where violence is the only law, but if they succeed at every stage, one test still remains: a space battle against an overwhelming Alliance force.

Even for Daniel Leary it will be a difficult fight to win... and almost impossible to survive.

The tyrannical Alliance continues its war against the Republic of Cinnabar, and Daniel Leary, newly promoted to Commander, and his crew have a new mission: Stop Dunbar’s World from falling to an invasion by the planet Pellegrino. Nataniel Arruns, son of the dictator of Pellegrino, has landed with a large contingent, intending to set himself up as the ruling warlord, with the planet’s population becoming workers—serfs—of the Pellegrinian overlords. And Dunbar’s world has no more than their local police force to oppose him.

Leary again commands the corvette Princess Cecile, but on this mission her missile tubes are empty. Only one man is in a position to aid Leary, but the rich and powerful would rather see him fail than succeed in stopping the invasion. Leary must somehow overcome a large entrenched force on an island defended by powerful plasma cannon and shipkilling missiles and backed up by a heavily armed warship in orbit, all while commanding only a small and virtually unarmed spacecraft.

But Leary again has the help of Signals Officer Adele Mundy, who can make computer networks do the apparently impossible. Leary, Mundy and the crew of the Princess Cecile have gone up against impossible odds before . . . and their opponents in those victorious missions are still wondering just what hit them.

When the Republic of Cinnabar doesn't have enough battleships to deal with all the crises in its war with the Alliance, it sends the next best thing: Commander Daniel Leary and his friend, the spy Adele Mundy. This time they're off to help the Bagarian cluster in its rebellion against the Alliance, but they'll quickly find that the worst threats to the rebels are the treacherous politicians.

Leary and Mundy use electronic espionage, sub-machine guns, and shipkilling missiles to outwit political rivals, put down mutiny, and capture an Alliance fortress. When all else fails, they'll strike for the heart of the Alliance--and then throw their tiny corvette into a major fleet action.

A cascade of non-stop action as vivid as only David Drake can write it!

Daniel Leary is Cinnabar's most successful space captain; his friend, Lady Adele Mundy, is its most efficient spy—but they've got their hands full this time as they face:

A Cinnabar Senator furious at losing an election—and still powerful enough to make her anger deadly.

The boy ruler of a star cluster who thinks he's a god—and who can sign the death warrants of even Cinnabar officials if a mad whimsy tells him to.

A world of slaves and escaped slaves, where the most savage beasts in the jungle used to be human.

An enemy base that could shrug off attack by powerful battlefleets—but which must fall to a single cruiser if Cinnabar is to survive.

From palace to reeking jungle, from gunfights in grimy hangars to the flagship's bridge during a sprawling space battle, Leary and Mundy are in the thick of it again. Watch the galaxy explode — IN THE STORMY RED SKY!

NO REST FOR THE WEARY

Captain Daniel Leary and his friend, the spy Adele Mundy, have been in the front lines of Cinnabar's struggle against the totalitarian Alliance. Now these galactic superpowers have signed a peace of mutual exhaustion--

But the jackals are moving in!

The Republic of Cinnabar was on the verge of collapse under the weight of taxes, casualties, and war's disruption of trade. That the Alliance of Free Stars was in even worse condition helped only because it has made peace possible.

Years of war have been hard on Daniel and harder still on Adele, whose life outside information-gathering is a tightrope between despair and deadly violence. Their masters in the RCN and the Republic's intelligence service have sent them to the fringes of human space to relax away from danger.

But the barbarians of the outer reaches have their own plans, plans which will bring down both Cinnabar and the Alliance. The enemies of peace include traitors, giant reptiles, and barbarian pirates whose ships can outsail even Daniel Leary's splendid corvette, the Princess Cecile.

Unless Daniel, Adele, and their unlikely allies succeed, galactic civilization will disintegrate into blood and chaos.

So they will succeed—or they'll die trying!

Captain Daniel Leary with his friend--and spy--Officer Adele Mundy are sent to a quiet sector to carry out an easy task: helping the local admiral put down a coup before it takes place. But then the jealous admiral gets rid of them by sending them off on a wild goose chase to a sector where commerce is king and business is carried out by extortion and gunfights.

With anarchy and rebellion in the air, a rogue intelligence officer plots the war that will destroy civilization and enlists the help of a brute whom even torturers couldn't stomach.

And, of course, it's up to Leary and Mundy to put a stop to the madness.

LEARY AND MUNDY RETURN in the RCN SERIES.

#10 in the nationally best-selling Republic of Cinnabar Navy space adventure series.

Cinnabar's chief spymaster is a mother also--and her son is determined to search for treasure in the midst of a civil war. Who better to hold the boy's hand--and to take the blows directed at him--than Captain Daniel Leary, the Republic of Cinnabar Navy's troubleshooter, and his friend the cyberspy Adele Mundy?

The only thing certain in the struggle for control of the mining planet Corcyra is that the rival parties are more dangerous to their own allies than to their opponents. Daniel and Adele face kidnappers, hijackers, pirates and a death squad--even before they can get to their real business of ending the war on Corcyra. Only with planetary peace can the boy they're escorting get on with his mission.

The boy thinks the treasure he's looking for is a thousand years old. Daniel and Adele know that it's probably a dream--

But if the treasure is real, it just might be tens of thousands of years older than anyone imagines, and incalculably more valuable!

A NEW NOVEL IN THE NATIONALLY BEST-SELLING RCN MILITARY SF SERIES! Leary and Mundy are back in another military science fiction adventure as they undertake a mission to a distant but critical star system.

IT'S JUST A REBELLION IN A DISTANT STAR CLUSTER.

Captain Daniel Leary thinks that his marriage will allow him to slip into the quiet role of a naval officer in peacetime. His friend, the spy and cybrarian Adele Mundy, is content to be collating data in her library. But high officials of both superpowers are involved! Those who want Daniel and Adele to become involved in the Tarbell Stars claim that only they can prevent a war between the Republic of Cinnabar and its great rival, the Alliance of Free Stars. The conflict is political, but at the sharp end it means blazing warfare and cold-blooded murder. Daniel and Adele will be at the sharp end.

The odds in ships and guns are badly in the enemy's favor. Daniel, Adele, and the crew of the Princess Cecile will do everything humanly possible, but that may not be enough against an enemy battleship. And even if Daniel and his companions succeed in battle, they can't be sure whether their employers really wanted them to win--or whether they even want them alive. All they can do is to race forward, hoping to come through into DEATH'S BRIGHT DAY.

FROM WEALTH AND POWER, TO POVERTY AND INSULTS!

Roy Olfetrie planned to be an officer in the Republic of Cinnabar Navy, but when his father was unmasked as a white-collar criminal he had to take whatever he was offered.

What is offered turns out to be a chance to accompany Captain Daniel Leary and Lady Adele Mundy as they go off to start a war that will put Roy at the sharp end.

Duty snatches Roy from the harem of a pirate chief to a world of monsters, from interstellar reaches in a half-wrecked starship to assassination attempts at posh houses. Roy has the choice of making friends or dying friendless; of meeting betrayal and responding to it; of breaking his faith or keeping it at the risk of his life.

Pirates, politics, and spies--and waiting for Roy if he survives all the rest, a powerful warship.

The action doesn't slow--nor can Roy, for if he does the only question is which of the many threats will be the one to catch and kill him. But Captain Leary himself has given Roy a chance, and Roy is determined make the most of it--THOUGH HELL SHOULD BAR THE WAY.

ADVENTURES BEYOND THE EDGE OF THE KNOWN UNIVERSE

The truce between Cinnabar and the Alliance is holding, and the Republic of Cinnabar Navy is able to explore regions of the galaxy without the explorers being swept up in great power conflict.

The Far Traveller is probing sponge space to open routes for Cinnabar traders--and for RCN warships if war breaks out again. But besides astrogation, the Far Traveller is to survey and catalog life forms on the worlds it touches.

Harry Harper has just been posted to the Traveller. He's an RCN officer by convention, a scientist by training--and a member of one of leading aristocratic families on Cinnabar by birth.

Lieutenant Rick Grenville would rather serve on a warship in the heart of battle, but peace and the whim of the Navy Board have put him on an exploration vessel instead. He finds that the dangers on the fringes of civilization are just as great as those from missiles and gunfire that he expected to face.

As internal struggles cause the Alliance to relax its iron grip, regional forces are attempting to increase their own power--and they're not fussy about the means they use.

Besides the biological answers that officials on Cinnabar expect the Far Traveller to find, the ship's Director of Science, Doctor Veil, has her own agenda: to learn more about the Archaic Spacefarers who roamed the universe tens of thousands of years before humans reached the stars.

The crew of the Far Traveller is poised to clear more of the shadows away from the deep past than ever before in human history--if they survive.

In a distant galaxy where immense danger threatens, desperate pirates travel to the outer limits of space, doing trade with the star colonies and encountering rivals, aliens, and strange human hybrids.

The Venus Asteroid Expedition is en route to the ""Mirror,"" an impenetrable membrane to another universe that holds all the riches of the Federation, but the only point of entry is the point through which Landolph and his men traveled long ago--with most of the men never returning.

Fending off a Federation attempt to take over her ship, intergalactic pirate captain Sarah Blythe vows to make the Federation President pay for her cargo losses and plans to join the Venus rebellion.

THE ULTIMATE TERRORIST ACT...

Though Man reaches to the stars, he has not forgotten how to hate. Now the lunar headquarters of the United Nations has become the target of a secret terrorist group.

The plague has already been unleashed into the closed lunar complex. A new strain of bioengineered virus, it carefully choses its victims, mercelessly wiping out entire bloodlines.

Only one man can stop it. His name is Sam Yates. A member of the lunar security force, he's seen his share of action in Earth wars. But he's never seen anything like the slaughter that has now begun...

REFUGEE FROM ARMAGEDDON

San Yate's job- Commissioner of Security for United Nations lunar headquarters- was a pretty boring one... until mankind's first extrsterrestrial visitor arrived on the moon asking for political asylum.

Now, everyone wants a piece of the action; scientists, soldiers, and spiesfrom both the U.S. and U.S.S.R. are determined to study the alien. But the petty conflicts of humanity are the least of Yates' worries...

The hunters are coming! Warlike, inhuman, light-years beyond us in science and technology, they will destroy anything that comes between them and the alien prey.

Including Earth itself...

Earth has been destroyed by the nuclear folly of her children, and mankind's remnant now lives in dome-enclosed colonies on Venus. Will history repeat itself as warring factions threaten to reintroduce the scourge of nuclear weapons? Not if Johnnie Gordon can help it.

Venturing to the surface of the sea to wage war for the Keeps--the domed undersea worlds where human colonists live on Venus--Ensign Brainard and his mercenary naval troops are about to face their greatest foe.

From the Bestselling author of the Lord of the Isles...

In this novel of magical menace to the survival of all humanity, David Drake introduces a new fantasy world, Carce, based on Europe during the later Roman Empire.

Far in the north, a group of magicians perform a strange dance on a volcanic island intended to open a gateway for supernatural creatures that will allow them to devastate the whole Earth and destroy all life. Not knowing the cause, two young men, Corylus and Varus, and two women, Hedia and Alphena, each separately pursue the answer to mysterious and threatening happenings that prefigure disaster in the great city of Carce, the center of civilization. Through magical voyages in other realities where fantastic creatures, and even gods, help or hinder them, each of them must succeed or not just the city but the world will end in fire.

The Legions of Fire is the first of a fantasy quartet set in the world of the city of Carce.

The second novel of The Books of the Elements.

The wealthy Governor Saxa, of the great city of Carce, has generously and lavishly subsidized a theatrical/religious event. During this elaborate staging of Hercules founding a city on the shores of Lusitania, strange and dark magic turns the panoply into a chilling event. The sky darkens and the waves crash in the flooded arena. A great creature rises from the sea: a huge, tentacled horror on snake legs. It devastates the city, much to the delight of the crowd. A few in the audience, although not Saxa, understand that this was not mere stagecraft, but something much darker and more dangerous. If all signs are being read right, this illusion could signify a dreadful intrusion of supernatural powers into the real world. Saxa's son, Varus, has been the conduit for such an event once before.

This new novel in David Drake's chronicles of Carce, The Books of the Elements, is as powerful and elaborate as that fantastic theatrical event, a major fantasy for this year.

Governor Saxa, of the great city of Carce, a fantasy analog of ancient Rome, is rusticating at his villa. When Saxa's son Varus accompanies Corylus on a visit to the household of his father, Crispus, a retired military commander, Saxa graciously joins the party with his young wife Hedia, daughter Alphena, and a large entourage of his servants, making it a major social triumph for Crispus. But on the way to the event, something goes amiss. Varus, who has been the conduit for supernatural visions before, experiences another: giant crystalline worms devouring the entire world.

Soon the major characters are each involved in supernatural events caused by a struggle between two powerful magicians, both mentored by the deceased poet and mage Vergil, one of whom wants to destroy the world and the other who wishes to stop him. But which is which? There is a complex web of human and supernatural deceit to be unraveled.

Monsters of the Earth, the new novel in David Drake's ongoing chronicles of Carce, The Books of the Elements, is a gripping and intricate work of fantasy.

Air and Darkness, an intriguing and fantastic adventure, is both an independent novel and the gripping conclusion of the Books of the Elements, a four-volume set of fantasies set in Carce, an analog of ancient Rome by David Drake. Here the stakes are raised from the previous novels in an ultimate conflict between the forces of logic and reason and the forces of magic and the supernatural. During the extraordinary time in which this story is set, the supernatural is dominant. The story is an immensely complex journey of adventure through real and magical places.

Corylus, a soldier, emerges as one of the most compelling heroic figures in contemporary fantasy. Battling magicians, spirits, gods, and forces from supernatural realities, Corylus and his companions from the family of the nobleman Saxa-especially Saxa's impressive wife Hedia, and his friend (and Saxa's son) Varus-must face constant deadly and soul-destroying dangers, climaxing in a final battle not between good and evil but in defense of logic and reality.

With a veteran's eye for the harsh and gritty details of war, David Drake depicts a futuristic analog of tank combat in his Hammer's Slammers fiction. The Slammers are neither cartoon heroes nor propaganda villains; rather they are competent professionals engaged in a deadly business. The inevitable conflicts between policy, necessity, and human nature make Drake's Slammers fiction instantly identifiable and utterly compelling.

This is the first of a three volume set presenting for the first time the entire genre-defining Slammers series in a uniform trade paperback set, with new introductions by major SF figures and new afterwords. Each volume will also include a Slammers story not collected in previous Slammer's books.

Table of Contents:

• The Complete Hammer's Slammers Volume 1 - interior artwork by John Treadaway
• 1 - Introduction (The Complete Hammer's Slammers Volume 1) - (2005) - essay by Gene Wolfe
• 5 - Foreword: Becoming a Professional Writer by Way of Southeast Asia - (1998) - essay (variant of Becoming a Professional Writer by Way of Southeast Asia)
• 9 - Under the Hammer - (1974) - short story
• 25 - Supertanks - (1979) - essay
• 29 - The Butcher's Bill - (1974) - novelette
• 45 - The Church of the Lord's Universe - (1979) - essay
• 47 - But Loyal to His Own - (1975) - novelette
• 67 - Powerguns - (1979) - essay
• 71 - Caught in the Crossfire - (1978) - short story
• 83 - Backdrop to Chaos - (1979) - essay
• 87 - Cultural Conflict - (1979) - short story
• 101 - The Bonding Authority - (1979) - essay
• 105 - Hangman - (1979) - novella
• 147 - Table of Organization and Equipment, Hammer's Regiment - (1979) - essay
• 149 - Standing Down - (1979) - novelette
• 163 - Code-Name Feirefitz - (1984) - novelette
• 189 - The Interrogation Team - (1985) - short story
• 201 - The Tank Lords - (1986) - novella
• 237 - Liberty Port - (1987) - novella
• 289 - Night March - (1997) - novelette
• 305 - The Immovable Object - (1998) - novelette
• 337 - The Irresistible Force - (1998) - novella
• 373 - A Death in Peacetime - (2005) - novelette
• 391 - Afterword: Accidentally and by the Back Door (The Complete Hammer's Slammers Volume 1) - essay

This Omni-trade paperback volume collects the first four novels in the series: At Any Price, Counting the Cost, Rolling Hot, and The Warrior-all have been out of print and unavailable for several years...

Neither stainless white knights nor bloodthirsty killers, the Slammers are competent professionals, with recognizable human flaws, engaged in a deadly business. Their internal conflicts, set against vivid scenes of battle, make their stories exciting and compelling.

This is the second of the three volume set presenting for the first time the entire genre-defining Slammers series in uniform Omni-trade paperback volumes, with new introductions by major SF figures and new afterwords. Each volume will also include a Slammers story not collected in previous Slammer's books.

Table of Contents:

• The Complete Hammer's Slammers Volume 2 - interior artwork by John Treadaway
• 1 - In Defense of David Drakes's Hammer's Slammers Stories: An Introduction (The Complete Hammer's Slammers Volume 2) - (2005) - essay by David G. Hartwell
• 5 - Foreword: We Happy Few (The Complete Hammer's Slammers Volume 2) - (1997) - essay (variant of Afterword: We Happy Few (The Tank Lords))
• 9 - At Any Price - (1985) - novel
• 109 - Counting the Cost - [Hammer's Slammers - 3] - (1987) - novel
• 229 - Rolling Hot - [Hammer's Slammers - 4] - (1989) - novel
• 379 - The Warrior - [Hammer's Slammers - 5] - (1991) - novel
• 481 - The Day of Glory - (2006) - novelette
• 503 - Afterword: What's for Sale (The Complete Hammer's Slammers Volume 2) - essay

This volume features the final two Slammers novels, The Sharp End and Paying the Piper, as well as an original novelette, The Darkness. This volume will feature an introduction by Barry Malzberg.

Table of Contents:

• 1 - Inextricable Disengagement: The War Games of David Drake: An Introduction - (2005) - essay by Barry N. Malzberg
• 5 - The Sharp End - [Hammer's Slammers - 6] - (1993) - novel
• 231 - Paying the Piper - [Hammer's Slammers - 7] - (2002) - collection
• 232 - Choosing Sides - (2002) - novella
• 290 - The Political Process - (2002) - novella
• 377 - Neck or Nothing - (2002) - novella
• 483 - The Darkness - (2006) - novelette
• 511 - Jim - (2007) - essay

The Fleet is mankind's last line of defense against the vicious Khalia. This is their story-told by the masters of this universe.

Contributors: Anne McCaffrey, Poul Anderson, Margaret Weis, Steve Perry, David Drake, Janet Morris, Jody Lynn Nye, John Brunner, Bill Fawcett, E. Gary Gygax, Robert Sheckley

The shared-world military science fiction anthology series continues-with stories by:

Christopher Stasheff, Jody Lynn Nye, Judith R. Conly, Janny Wurts, Robert Sheckley, Shariann Lewitt, Piers Anthony, Mike Resnick, Bill Fawcett, Janet Morris, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, David Drake

They've tasted defeat. Now the men and women of the Fleet live only for victory.

The soldiers of the alliance come from different worlds and cultures, but share one mission: to reclaim occupied space from the savage Khalian invaders. These are their stories.

National bestselling authors in the breakthrough military science fiction series.

The Fleet must destroy a human foe capable of infiltrating the Fleet itself.

Includes stories by:

Anne McCaffrey, Katherine Kurtz and Scott McMillan, David Drake, Christopher Stasheff, Janny Wurts, Diane Duane and Peter Norwood, N. Lee Wood, Bill Fawcett, Jody Lynn Nye

Humanity joins forces with its centuries-old enemy, the Khalians, to combat a common foe--the Syndicate of Families, which stands poised to seize control of the known universe.

On planet Bellevue, isolated for centuries after the collapse of interstellar civilization, a sentient computer still functions. When it and Raj, a young military officer, discover each other, a spark is struck which offers hope to benighted Bellevue. But first Raj must become the General.

A monolithic computer is using General Raj Whitehall to reunite the planet and start humanity back on the road to technological achievement, but armies of musket- and saber-wielding barbarians stand in the way.

With the aid of a sentient battle computer, Raj Whitehall and his band of sworn Companions struggle to reunite the entire planet of Bellevue and find their mission impeded by Barholm Clerett.

On a mission to reunite the planet Bellvue, Raj Whitehall and his men must conquer a group of barbarians or else his civilization could plunge into an era of darkness.

Undertaking a mission to conquer the last of the barbarian nations and restore the Federation on the planet Bellevue, Raj Whitehall finds a desperate challenge in paranoid overlord Barholm Clerett, who is determined to kill Raj.

Picking up where their highly successful sreies The General leaves off, The Chosen follows the further adventures of Raj Whitehall and Battle Central--this time to the stars! Working with an ancient battle computer in order to prepare hundreds of planets for membership in the Second Federation of Man, Raj Whitehall encounters the militarist planet of Visigar, where racial practices are used to prevent unity.

After the collapse of galactic civilization, the computer named Center still functioned and launched electronic copies of itself and its human agent, Raj, to the thousands of worlds still waiting for the light of civilization to dawn. On Hafardine, civilization had fallen further than most. That men came from the stars was not even a rumour of memory in Adrian Gellert's day. A philosopher and Student of the Grove, Adrian's greatest desire was a life of contemplation in the service of wisdom. Until the day he touched the holy relic that contained the discarnate minds of Center and Raj Whitehall ...From that day on his life became one of action, from the law-courts of the Empire of Vanbret to the pirate cities of the Archipelago, on battlefields bloodier than any he'd learned of in history - where the prize at stake was the future of humanity.

If the corrupt Empire ruling most of planet Hafardine falls, so will the last remnants of civilization left behind when galactic civilization collapsed long ago. Only two men see the coming disaster, and have a plan to save the future.

ABEL DASHIAN'S WORLD DOESN'T NEED A HERO

Duisberg is one of thousands of planets plunged into darkness and chaos by the collapse of the galactic republic, but where other worlds have begun to rebuild a star-travelling culture, Duisberg remains in an uneasy balance between mud-brick civilization and bloodthirsty barbarism.

The people of Duisberg have a god: Zentrum, a supercomputer from the ancient past. Zentrum has decided avoid another collapse by preventing civilization from rising from where it is. And because even a supercomputer and the powerful religion which it founded cannot block all progress, Zentrum has another tool: every few centuries the barbarians sweep in from the desert, slaughtering the educated classes and cowing the peasants back into submission. These are the Blood Winds, and the Blood Winds are about to blow again.

This time, however, there's a difference: Abel Dashian, son of a military officer, has received into his mind the spirit of Raj Whitehall, the most successful general in the history of the planet Bellevue--and of Center, the supercomputer which enabled Raj to shatter his planet's barbarians and permit the return of civilization.

One hero can't stop the tide of barbarians unless he has his own culture supporting him. To save Duisberg, Abel must break the power of Zentrum.

With the help of Raj and Center, Abel Dashian must become... THE HERETIC!

Sequel to The Heretic, Book 10 in the nationally best-selling General series.

FROM HERETIC TO SAVIOR

Duisberg is one of thousands of planets plunged into darkness and chaos by the collapse of the galactic republic, but where other worlds have begun to rebuild a star-travelling culture, Duisberg remains in an uneasy balance between mud-brick civilization and bloodthirsty barbarism.

The people of Duisberg have a god: Zentrum, a supercomputer from the ancient past. Zentrum has decided avoid another collapse by preventing civilization from rising from where it is. This is known as the Stasis. And because even a supercomputer and the powerful religion which it founded cannot block all progress, Zentrum has another tool: every few centuries the barbarians sweep in from the desert, slaughtering the educated classes and cowing the peasants back into submission. These are the Blood Winds, and the Blood Winds are about to blow again.

This time, however, there's a difference: Abel Dashian, son of a military officer, has received into his mind the spirit of Raj Whitehall, the most successful general in the history of the planet Bellevue--and of Center, the supercomputer which enabled Raj to shatter his planet's barbarians and permit the return of civilization.

One hero can't stop the tide of barbarians unless he has his own culture supporting him. To save Duisberg, Abel must conquer the very land of his origin and attempt to destroy the computer A.I. "god" who has doomed his world to an everlasting Dark Age. Abel is a heretic, but now he must go beyond and become--THE SAVIOR.

The dagger's blade was double-edged with magic...and danger. And Samlor hil Samt was its new owner. Caravan master, warrior extraordinaire, Samlor had come to the foul city of Sanctuary to protect his niece's claim in a secret inheritance. Yet something dark and savage lurked in the shadowed streets--something evil--born of the mystical blade Samlor dared to wield...

In the time of the Ancients the universe was united--but that was so far in the past that not even memory remains, only the broken artifacts that a few Makers can reshape into their original uses. What survives is shattered into enclaves--some tiny, some ruined, some wild.

Into the gaps between settlements, and onto the Road that connects all human reality and the reality that is not human and may never have been human, have crept monsters. Some creatures are men, twisted into inhuman evil; some of them are alien to Mankind--

And there are things which are hostile to all life, things which will raven and kill until they are stopped.

A Leader has arisen, welding the scattered human settlements together in peace and safety and smashing the enemies of order with an iron fist. In his capital, Dun Add, the Leader provides law and justice. In the universe beyond, his Champions advance--and enforce--the return of civilization.

Pal, a youth from the sticks, has come to Dun Add to become a Champion. Pal is a bit of a Maker, and in his rural home he's been able to think of himself as a warrior because he can wield the weapons of the Ancient civilization.

Pal has no idea of what he's really getting into in Dun Add. On the other hand, the Leader and Dun Add have no real idea of what might be inside this hayseed with high hopes.

THE SPARK: A story of hope and violence and courage. And especially, a story of determination.

THE THRILLING RE-TELLING OF ARTHURIAN LEGEND FROM MASTER OF SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY DAVID DRAKE CONTINUES! A young Champion must rescue a friend and battle an enemy at the heart of a chaotic world.

The universe has shattered into chaos and monsters. Jon, the Leader, is dedicating his life to reuniting the scattered hamlets into a Commonwealth where all humans can live protected against the darkness and the things that live in that darkness.

But no man can reshape the universe by himself. Jon has Makers to build weapons and clerks to handle the business of government--but he also needs Champions to face the powers of chaos which will not listen to any argument but force.

Lord Pal of Beune is one of those Champions. He has fought monsters and evil on behalf of Mankind, and he will fight them again. But now Guntram, the man who transformed Pal from an ignorant rube into a bulwark of the Commonwealth, has disappeared. Pal must locate his friend and mentor--and then he must battle an entity which may be at the core of the splintered universe!

Pal of Beune: A humane man in a universe full of inhumanity.

Pal of Beune: A strong man in a universe where some recognize only strength.

Pal of Beune: A hero who will keep going until something stops him--and who hasn't been stopped yet!

Jon of Dun Add has created a civilization where before there had only been isolated pockets of humanity in a shattered cosmos.

Young knight Pal is one of the most respected members of Lord Jon's Hall of Champions. But Pal's greatest talent lies not on the field of battle, though he's no slouch there. He is also a Maker, one who can repair the tools the Ancients had left--sometimes. Moreover, he has learned to use his warrior dog's ability to predict motion better than any human could, an ability that has saved his skin and won the day more than once.

Now, Pal will need all his talent--as a fighter, as a Maker, and as a Champion--to deal with the monsters the Waste throws at him--and to deal with his fellow humans. For there are those who would destroy Dun Add and Lord Jon's vision of a humanity united in peace from within...

In five years Little Green Men are going to invade Earth

...and the only man who knows is Professor Emil Vlasov. The reason he knows is that he hears voices. He also knows that only the US is capable of turning his ideas into weapons in the time allowed; so even though he's fanatically loyal to his country, the Soviet Union's top physicist wants to five America the plans and formulae for anti-missile lasers that can gut Russion ICBNs like so many trout. He's craxy of course--at least US Military Intelligence thinks so--but that doesn't matter; they just want those plans. And they're going to get them. Any way they can...

Sometimes a fighting man just can't wait for Congress to make up its mind--especially when someone is pointing a gun at him.

Tom Kelly's been in that position before--so far he's always come out with his skin. Now some people are asking him to rish his life again; this time they want him to tangle wiht aliens who have landed in Turkey. And the have an alien corpse around just to prove it to him.

Kelly can't trus tanyone. His case officer, Elaine Tuttle, and his co-agent, Doug Blakeley, are lying to him; his government is prepared to deny him; the beautify stripper, Gisels Romer belongs to a terrorist conspiracy; his old Kurdish allies are dead or gone. Only the aliens are left--and they could be even less trustworthy than any himan being he has ever known...

This is the first anthology of stories set in the Honorverse. The stories in the anthologies serve to introduce characters, provide deeper, more complete backstory and flesh out the universe of the main series. David Weber, author of the mainline Honor Harrington series, serves as editor for the anthologies, maintaining fidelity to the series' canons.

Table of Contents:

"A Beautiful Friendship" by David Weber: The story of the first meeting between humans (Stephanie Harrington) and treecats (Climbs Quickly). This story was later expanded to a full length young adult novel, published in 2011.

"A Grand Tour" by David Drake: A story with few links to any other in the Honorverse setting. Careful reading may reveal similarities to the first novel in his RCN Series, in the characters, style, and attitude. Both were published in 1998. Indeed Drake confirms that "A Grand Tour" is the conceptual antecedent of With the Lightnings.

"A Whiff of Grapeshot" by S. M. Stirling: This story serves as background to the "Leveler Uprising" mentioned in the early chapters of In Enemy Hands. A radical Havenite faction stages an uprising against the rule of the Committee of Public Safety, wreaking havoc in the Havenite capital city of Nouveau Paris. With the Committee's security forces in complete disarray following an attack on its information network, the only forces able to intervene and restore order are Navy ships under the command of Admiral Esther McQueen, even though the Admiral is not precisely a supporter of the Committee and has an agenda of her own.

"The Universe of Honor Harrington" by David Weber: A "deep background" essay covering such diverse topics as the physics of space travel, the mechanics space colonization and politics of various "star nations", such as Manticore, Haven and the Solarian League.