TWO NOVELS IN THE NEW YORK TIMES BEST-SELLING SERIES IN ONE VOLUME—INCLUDING THE FIRST COMPLETE AND UNCUT PUBLICATION OF THE NOVEL INSURRECTION

The Shiva Option:
The war wasn't going well. The alien Arachnids were an enemy whose like no civilized race had ever confronted, overrunning planet after planet. The "Bugs" regarded any sentient species as a handy protein source. Defeat was not an option. The Grand Alliance of Humans and other races has been driven to the wall. Whatever they do, the Bugs just keep coming.

Reluctantly, they now must reactivate General Directive 18, however horrible it may be. Because when the only possible outcomes are victory or racial extermination, only one option is acceptable: The Shiva Option.

Insurrection:
And peace isn't always wonderful. Once the enemy was defeated, the central governments of the Inner Worlds were anything but willing to relinquish their wartime powers. To insure that their grip on the reins of power remained firm, the establishment plans to allow the non-human beings of the Khanate to join the Federation, thus reducing the Fringe Worlds voting bloc to impotent minority status.

The ruthless bureaucrats of the Corporate Worlds are smugly confident that this power play will keep the colonial upstarts in their place. But the Fringers have only one answer to that: Insurrection

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

David Weber is the author of the New York Times best-selling Honor Harrington series, and is often compared to C.S. Forester (the celebrated creator of Captain Horatio Hornblower). His novels range from epic fantasy (Oath of Swords, The War God' s Own, Wind Rider's Oath) to breathtaking space opera (Path of the Fury, Empire from the Ashes) to military science fiction with in-depth characterization (the bestselling Honor Harrington series, War of Honor being the latest, and the popular Starfire series written in collaboration with Steve White). He lives in South Carolina with his wife Sharon and their three children.

Steve White was an officer in Naval Intelligence, and served in the Mediterranean and the Vietnam War Zone. In addition to the Starfire series written in collaboration with David Weber, he has written several popular science fiction adventure novels for Baen. They include the trilogy comprising The Disinherited, Legacy and Debt of Ages, which combine fast-paced space opera with Arthurian mythology. He has also written the galaxy-spanning adventure Prince of Sunset, and its sequel Emperor of Dawn. His latest is Eagle Against the Stars. He currently works for a legal publishing company in Charlottesville, Virginia. He is married and has three daughters.

To the North of the Holy Roman Empire lie the pagan Norse-lands. It is here that Manfred, Prince of Brittany, and his Icelandic bodyguard, Erik, must venture in the dead of winter. To a rugged land of trolls and ice, to find a Pagan relic, something so magical that should not be possible to touch it, let alone steal it. Yet, it is gone. Unless it is recovered before Yuletide, a new Viking age will be born. King Vortenbras will lead his berserks in an orgy of rapine, looting and destruction across the Empire's unguarded flank.

Princess Signy is the King's older stepsister. Everyone believes her to be the thief, a witch and murderess. Everyone but Cair, her stable-thrall, an ocean-plucked man with a hidden past. Cair doesn't believe in witches or magic, let alone that Signy could steal and murder. And if he has to drag the foremost knight of the age and his bodyguard kicking and screaming through the entire Norse underworld to prove it, he'll do it. No kobold, dwarf or troll is going to stop him or his scepticism. Not the wild hunt. Not even a grendel. He doesn't believe in this superstitious rubbish. He's a man of science, and he's used that to fake his way into being feared as magic-worker. But for Signy, he'll be all of mankind's witches.

He'll have to be. Because that's what it'll take to defeat the dark magics massed against her.

A tale of intrigue, murder, love and magic set in the alternate history world SHADOW OF LION and THIS ROUGH MAGIC.

About the Author:

Dave Freer is an Ichthyologist turned author because he'd heard that the spelling requirements were simpler. They lied about that. He lives in a remote part of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, with his wife and chief proof-reader, Barbara, four dogs and four cats, two sons (Paddy and James) and just at the moment no shrews, birds, bats or any other rescued wildlife. He does his best to blame his extraordinary spelling on an Old English Sheepdog nose, or the cat/s on his lap. It has nothing to do with falling out of pear trees onto his head or spending too long underwater freediving for spiny lobster.

His first book — The Forlorn (Baen) came out in 1999. Since then he has co-authored with Eric Flint (Rats, Bats and Vats, Pyramid Scheme, and The Rat, Bat and the Ugly) and, with Mercedes Lackey and Eric Flint (Shadow of the Lion, This Rough Magic, Wizard of Karres) as well writing as various shorter works.

Besides working as a Fisheries Scientist for the Western Cape shark fishery, running a couple of fish farms, he has worked as a commercial diver, and as a relief chef at several luxury game lodges. Yes: he can both cook and change diapers. (No man ever really gets tired of danger sports.) He spent two years as a conscripted soldier along the way, so he can iron too. His interests are rock climbing (he's still good at it), diving, fly-fishing (he's still bad at it), fly-tying, wine-tasting and the preparation of food, especially by traditional means - smoking and salting, all the good unhealthy things.

Jos� aimed straight for the tank ahead, was doing 80 kph by the time he reached it, jogged the wheel and was around it, still accelerating. He was screaming right onto 48th Street before the tank's turret could swivel around to track him.

He did not turn south again until he had reached the theater district. All the lights were out on The Great White Way. Things were relatively quiet for half a dozen blocks, then, until they reached Times Square, where a full-scale riot was in progress. Broadway was blocked with jammed-together burning cars, so Jos� turned left and rocketed up 42nd Street, dodging dead cars and dead people at high speed.

Within a few blocks he had hit more than half a dozen people and lost his left headlight.

On either side of the street Jennifer saw a parade of clubbings, knifings, shootings. She saw something that had once been a white policeman; she saw a bag lady murder a child her age, only to have her own throat cut by a weeping priest; she saw a white woman in full dominatrix gear running from a pack of black boys, trying to clear her path with her whip. Jennifer put her face in her hands and closed her eyes.

Jos� warned her before turning right. They were back on Fifth Avenue, and all at once the trouble was, incredibly, behind them. They saw absolutely nothing out of the ordinary all the way down to 33rd Street. There were calmly strolling pedestrians and singing drunks, necking couples and break-dancing kids.

The Wit and Wisdom of Robert A. Heinlein, author of multiple New York Times best sellers, on subjects ranging from Crime and Punishment to Nuclear Power; from the Pragmatics of Patriotism to Post-Holocaust America; from the Nature of Courage to the Nature of Reality; it's all here and it's all great—straight from the mind of the finest science fiction writer of them all. Read and enter an Expanded Universe.

For the Millions of Heinlein Fans—a Guided tour Through the Thoughts and Insights of "One of the Most Influential Writers in American Literature" (New York Times Book Review)

"Not only America's premier writer of speculative fiction, but the greatest writer of such fiction in the world." —Stephen King

"There is no other writer whose work has exhilarated me as often and to such an extent as Heinlein."
—Dean Koontz

"Robert Heinlein is America's acknowledged master of science fiction."
—Chicago Tribune

"Heinlein knows more about blending provocative scientific thinking with strong human stories than any dozen other contemporary science fiction writers."
—Chicago Sun-Times

"One of the grand masters of science fiction."
—The Wall Street Journal

Keith Laumer's Bolos are Back
—and New York Times Best-Selling
Author John Ringo has Signed on
with the Bolo Brigade!

When a ruthless political regime seizes power on a world struggling to recover from alien invasion, a former war hero finds herself leading a desperate band of freedom fighters. Kafari Khrustinova, who fought Deng infantry from farmhouses and barns, finds herself struggling to free her homeworld from an unholy political alliance, headed by the charismatic and ambitious Vittori Santorini, which has seduced her young daughter with its propaganda and subverted the planet's Bolo, using the war machine to crush all political opposition. To free her homeworld, Kafari must somehow cripple or kill the Bolo she once called friend. Unit SOL-0045, "Sonny," is a Mark XX Bolo, self-aware and intelligent. When Sonny's human commander is forced off-world, Sonny tries to navigate his way through ambiguous moral and legal issues, sinking into deep confusion and electronic misery. He eventually faces a dark night of the soul, with no guarantee that he will understand—let alone make—the right decision. And caught in the middle of this volatile battlefield is Yalena Khrustinova, Kafari's young daughter. Will she open her eyes in time to save herself—and millions of innocents—or will Santorini's relentless brainwashing campaign continue to blind her while the tyrant engineers the ultimate destruction of a helpless and enslaved population

Praise for the Science Fiction of John Ringo

"MARVELOUS!" —David Weber

"As much action as you could hope for. . . . And then there's that quirky sense of humor running like a vein of gold under the mayhem." —Eric Flint

"Explosive. . . . Fans of strong military SF will appreciate Ringo's lively narrative and flavorful characters. . . . One of the best new practitioners of military SF." —Publishers Weekly

". . . since [Ringo's] imagination, clearly influenced by Kipling and rock and roll, is fertile, and his storytelling skill sound, [When the Devil Dances] is irresistible." —Booklist

"[Ringo demonstrates a] flair for fast-paced military sf peopled with three-dimensional characters and spiced with personal drama as well as tactical finesse." —Library Journal

"If Tom Clancy were writing SF, it would read much like John Ringo . . . good reading with solid characterizations—a rare combination." —Philadelphia Weekly Press

"Ringo provides a textbook example of how a novel in the military SF subgenre should be written. . . . For those who have read everything David Drake has written or who may have wished that Tom Clancy, Larry bond or Harold Coyle would write SF, Ringo provides what's needed. . . .Crackerjack storytelling." —Starlog

WE DIDN'T KNOW—WE ONLY BELIEVED—NOW YOU'VE COME BACK

"Does it seem reasonable to you that a Regency continues—into an Emperor's thirtieth year "

"No, m'lord," Shoka said.

"Not to us, either. Not to many of us. We were ready to make that objection—when lord Gitu overran Yijang and Hua.... Assassinations, elsewhere. Hired killers. Bands of mercenaries traveling under imperial orders. The Emperor's seal, and the Regent's orders. How do we stop such a thing How do we prevent it—when every lord able to lead is apprehended, assassinated, when they strip us of men, even boys out of the fields—go to Saukendar, some said. Go to Saukendar. They urged me to send to you. This time he has to listen, they said. But if I had sent—and Ghita had known—you understand—" Reidi gave an uncomfortable twitch of the shoulders. His horse shifted again. "I had no true hope that you'd come. You'd indicated to the villagers—that you had no wish to hear from anyone. That you would refuse any such petitions—"

"You were watching me."

"It's my village, m'lord—as the Regent pointed out to me again and again, and threatened my life should you leave that mountain. Of course the word came to me. I tried to get a messenger down the road to you when I knew you'd left Mon.... We believed you'd come back to deal with Ghita and his partisans."

Shoka felt cold, cold all the way to the bones.

"There are men ready to follow you, lord Saukendar. There are men who've committed their lives to this— We didn't know the hour. We only believed. Now you've come back ..."

"It's gripping drama, tightly focussed and inexorable as Taizu herself. Read The Paladin and you'll never settle for another ordinary sword-wielding female."
—Faren Miller LOCUS