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!
Having made him look a fool, she's been exiled to Basilisk Station in disgrace and set up for ruin by a superior who hates her.
Her demoralized crew blames her for their ship's humiliating posting to an out-of-the-way picket station.
The aborigines of the system's only habitable planet are smoking homicide-inducing hallucinogens.
Parliament isn't sure it wants to keep the place; the major local industry is smuggling; the merchant cartels want her head; the star-conquering, so-called "Republic" of Haven is Up To Something; and Honor Harrington has a single, over-age light cruiser with an armament that doesn't work to police the entire star system.
But the people out to get her have made one mistake. They've made her mad.
2105, September: Intelligence Analyst Caine Riordan uncovers a conspiracy on Earth's Moon—a history-making clandestine project—and ends up involuntarily cryocelled for his troubles. Twelve years later, Riordan awakens to a changed world. Humanity has achieved faster-than-light travel and is pioneering nearby star systems. And now, Riordan is compelled to become an inadvertent agent of conspiracy himself. Riordan's mission: travel to a newly settled world and investigate whether a primitive local species was once sentient—enough so to have built a lost civilization.
However, arriving on site in the Delta Pavonis system, Caine discovers that the job he's been given is anything but secret or safe. With assassins and saboteurs dogging his every step, it's clear that someone doesn't want his mission to succeed. In the end, it takes the keen insights of an intelligence analyst and a matching instinct for intrigue to ferret out the truth: that humanity is neither alone in the cosmos nor safe. Earth is revealed to be the lynchpin planet in an impending struggle for interstellar dominance, a struggle into which it is being irresistibly dragged. Discovering new dangers at every turn, Riordan must now convince the powers-that-be that the only way for humanity to survive as a free species is to face the perils directly—and to fight fire with fire.
Listen to the author discuss the book here on the Baen Free Radio Hour.
After carving a place for itself in war-torn 17th century Europe, the modern time-displaced town of Grantville, West Virginia has established its new mission and identity. Yet some have been left behind—people like goodtime Bernie Zeppi, courageous in battle, but a bust in life.
Bernie gets his second chance when he’s hired to help Mother Russia modernize. Now war with Poland is afoot and Russia is about to get a revolution from within—three centuries early! It’s do or die time for good-time Bernie. His task: to save the Russian woman he has come to love and the country he has come to call his own from collapse into a new Dark Age.
Lyonesse: a world formed by magic, where a dark power struggle is underway between an ancient sorceress with her shadow army and the human subjects of Lyonesse's power-mad wizard. The only spark of hope is a prophecy that tells of a Defender who will one day come and set things to right.
Young Meb doesn't think she's obligated to be the prophesied Defender of Lyonesse, but she is adept at the universe-folding skill of Planomancy and has been trained by a world-walking trouble shooter of the multiverse, the great Dragon Fionn himself—a dragon who is desperately searching the universes for his lost Meb, whom he's come to love.
As the legions of Shadow Hall gather and with the Dragon Fionn fast on the way, magical battle is joined, and the destiny of universes hangs upon the courage in one young woman's heart.
Number three in a six-volume collection of the legendary John Grimes of the Galactic Rim series. Classic Star Trek meets the high seas. If space travel is going to be anything like sailing the oceans, then A. Bertram Chandler has surely caught its absolute essence in his Grimes novels. Here are the crowning tales of Grimes' career—the Grimes Rim Commodore stories. In these tales, Grimes has found his true calling out on the edge of galactic civilization. He's the sheriff of a realm where pioneer colonies and parallel dimensions overlap, and a starship captain must be prepared for adventure in ALL possible worlds.
Includes four space-adventure novels starring the indefatigable John Grimes: Star Courier, To Keep the Ship, Matilda's Stepchildren, and Star Loot.
The human race had settled more than a hundred worlds before it met the Emerging Planets Fairness Court—six alien species who sit in judgment on all galactic newcomers. Humanity must now pass the EPFC test. Soon the human fleets find themselves under the eyes of stern overseers known as the Mromrosii. It seems the Mromrosii do not like humanity's freewheeling ways. Most of all, they have severe problems with that group of fleet troubleshooters, the Harriers, for whom breaking the rules is sometimes the only way to get the job done. Features novellas by David Drake, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, and Christopher Stasheff.
Perhaps it is not true that there will always be war. Perhaps, one day, humanity will succeed in taming its savage nature so that peace for all humanity will not be merely a pious hope but a concrete reality. Perhaps, on day, we will all be angels. But until then, there will be war—and humanity, being what it is, will always form graven images to give life to its greatest hopes and fears. Because our modern age is "scientific" does not make us immune to this reality. And those images will always take on a life their own.
And, lo, there was TEK.
He is the latest in a long tradition of militant deities. But before this god can take his rightful place at the head of the pantheon, he has to survive the not-so-low-tech efforts of jealous older gods to destroy him.
Featuring stories by Mike Resnick, Jody Lynn Nye, Katherine Kurtz, Diane Duane, and other great military SF storytellers.
W201304 April 2013 Monthly Baen Bundle (Last date to buy Mar. 15 2013)
