Beginning a new series from a military science fiction master with over 3 million books in print. A young hero comes of age in the crucible of war and galactic struggle.
When Allen Allenson, scion of a noble family that has fallen on hard times, gets a mission to roust the power-hungry Terrans from a "wild" star sector where they're encroaching, he jumps at the chance to show his individual worth, improve his family's fortunes—and gather enough lucre to make a good marriage. But the wily Terrans are not so easily persuaded by a young colonial they think of as a "rube."
Worse, "Riders"—the being who naturally ply the wilderness between the stars, are playing their own deadly political games—against the Terrans, against the colonials, and against one young greenhorn commander in particular: naïf young Allen, whom they figure they can manipulate to do their bidding. The one thing nobody has counted on is the fact that Allen, while young and inexperienced, happens to be a hero in the making much to his own amazement.
Kenneth Chinran commanded the elite unit assigned to take out an entire planet in a terrible war. Millions died; billions more perished in the aftermath. One doesn't send a sociopath on such a mission. A sociopath might not stop. Chinran did stop—but in the process nearly lost his sanity and his soul.
But one of Chinran's men was a sociopath going in. Now he's a trained sociopath with the knowledge and firepower to take out entire tactical teams, evaporate security cordons and change identity at will. Who do you send after a killer like that? There's only one answer: the man who trained him. The man who made him.
The Liaden Universe® "origin" novels, which set the standard for full-on, audacious space adventure, collected together for the first time in one omni edition.
Crystal Soldier: The galaxy is in danger. A mysterious alien race of energy beings called the shereika is destroying entire star systems and humans are making their last stand. Their only hope: soldier M. Jela and talented space ship pilot Cantra yos'Phelium.
Crystal Dragon: Cantra is revealed to be not merely a great pilot, but a genetically engineered aelantaza, or assassin and spy. She infiltrates the world of Landomist and liberates Liad dea'Syl, along with the equations stored inside his head. Then, she founds an alliance to protect her child by Jela—to be known (and become legendary) as Clan Korval.
Balance of Trade: Jethri Gobelyn is a young Terran, working on his family's trading spaceship. When he finds that he has invested in a con game, he must master the intricacies of Liaden society to regain his place—and face—within the clan.
War is brutal. Colonel Wes Stauer gets it. He ought to. He was once one of war's most brutal practitioners—not to mention one of its most effective and least bloody. Brutal yes; stupid no. Now, not only must Stauer command his crack outfit of former comrades and pull off yet another miracle mission, he must also harness and direct the brute within himself—a beast he will need in order to destroy an intelligent enemy who is as implacable as Stauer himself. Okay, almost as implacable. There will be war. And there will be warriors like Wes Stauer who have the know-how and, once set in motion, the unstoppable professional drive, to see the bad guys to their graves and destroy every last earthly piece of their nasty legacies.
It is the twilight of the Terran Empire. The warriors who made it great are long gone now, and the Traders of the Polesotechnic League who made it possible are the dimly-remembered stuff of legend. Alien enemies prowl its outer precincts, and Sector Governors conspire for the Throne of Man. On Terra herself, those who occupy the labyrinthine corridors of power busy themselves with trivialities and internal politics, as outside the final darkness gathers.
In this scene of terminal disarray one man stands like a giant: Dominic Flandry, Agent of the Terran Empire. In three full-length novels, he will rise from young ensign to lieutenant commander as he outthinks rivals and thwarts adversaries, blazing a trail across the galaxy in defense of an Empire which barely appreciates him and against alien enemies who appreciate him all too well.
Captain Alexandra "Alex" McLaughlin is not a woman to be underestimated. Under her petite exterior is a spine of solid steel and a disposition to laugh in the face of impending death. A former member of the Terran Navy's elite force, the Dead Jokers, electronic-warfare pilots with a mortality rate to match that of old Japan's Kamikazes, Alex is a born survivor. But sometimes survival can be a curse.
Humanity is locked in a war of survival with the Xan-Sskarn, an alien race that refuses to acknowledge the rights of "weaker" creatures to live. It is a war that will not end with a peace treaty, but only the complete subjugation of one species to the other. And right now, the alien side is winning.
However, the enemy on the outside is not the only one to be faced. As the battles take on an eerily familiar pattern of no-win scenarios, Alex realized the horrifying truth; humanity has a traitor, and it's somebody close. As each battle brings more death, Alex's ghosts grow and so does her desire for vengeance. There is only one way for this to end, and Alex is just the human to take it there—to Ragnarok.
Fleeing the armageddon that has left evil in control of her world, a beautiful Enchantress journeys to Earth in search of a champion and finds an FBI agent hunting for a terrorist bomber in the middle of a science fiction convention.
Sharon Ahern 
