The best action-packed military science fiction—FIVE BY FIVE showcases work by bestselling, award-winning authors: Five novellas covering battlefields across the galaxy. It’s a war out there!
LEGIO PATRIA NOSTRA—by William C. Dietz. An interstellar war is raging, the insectoid Ramanthians have occupied Earth, and the Confederacy of Sentient Beings needs assistance from the xenophobic Hudathans in order to survive. But some Hudathan relics have been stolen, and the Hudathans won't join the Confederacy unless Legion Captain Deacon Smith can get them back. And that's going to be difficult because the thieves are ex-legionnaires—and they have a platoon of heavily armed cyborgs! A Legion of the Damned® story.
PRISONER OF WAR—by Kevin J. Anderson. Set in the world of Harlan Ellison’s classic Outer Limits episode “Soldier,” this is a tale about a set of warriors in a never-ending future war, men bred for nothing but the battleground—and how they cope with the horrors of…peace.
REARDON’S LAW—by Brad R. Torgersen. When expensive, classified shipments of military hardware go missing, Conflux Armed Forces policewoman Kalliope Reardon is called in to work the case. She gets way more than she bargained for, as the trail takes her far outside the boundaries of the civilized galaxy, and into the heart of occupied enemy territory.
DAGGER TEAM SEVEN—by R.M. Meluch. The evidence is clear and damning—A.C. Cade was a fraud. Cade’s son makes himself into the man he used to believe his father was—a pilot of an elite Dagger Team, defending Earth against a desperate alien invader which has no use for humankind and absolutely nothing to lose.
COFFEE-BLACK SEA—by Aaron Allston. The saga of the Dollgangers from “Big Plush” (Five by Five Vol. 1) continues. Bow, BeeBee, Lina, and new ’gangers escalate the risks of their quest for survival...by turning their eyes to the stars.
Suppose you could switch bodies with another person. What exciting new experiences would you choose to explore? What forbidden desires would you indulge? Suppose someone stole your life—how far would you go to get it back?
A pure adrenaline thriller of hijacked identities, elusive motives, and deeply buried secrets.
Brian Herbert creates a universe of wondrous possibilities that is populated by sentient spaceships, shapwshifters, intriguing robots, and miniature aliens with mysterious powers. Humanity has become a mercantile society that has spread throughout the galaxy, ruled by wealthy merchant princes who live in decadent splendor—entirely unaware of another realm just beneath the fabric of the universe.
When galactic ecologist Noah Watanabe discovers the cause of a strange, cosmic disintegration, he embarks on an epic journey to restore the ancient balance to the crumbling galaxy. Noah must work with warring, alien races to unlock the secrets to a vast celestial puzzle.
In Timeweb, Brian Herbert introduced readers to the fantastically beautiful galactic web of space and time that interconnects the cosmos, which can be used as a transportation infrastructure for sentient starships. But the web is unraveling, threatening to plunge the universe into oblivion.
Galactic ecologist Noah Watanabe is struggling to hold the cosmic filigree together, while the evil shapeshifter race of Mutatis threatens to use a doomsday weapon against humanity. Noah has his own paranormal ability to journey into the depths of the universe, but he has made enemies of his own, including a third powerful force determined to destroy humans and Mutatis alike.
The conclusion to Brian Herbert’s epic Timeweb trilogy. As the human race and the sinister shape-shifting Mutatis continue their epic war, the connecting filigree of Timeweb strands that hold the universe together, begins to unravel. Sentient podships travel the strands of the web, but the cosmos itself is disintegrating.
Galactic ecologist Noah Watanabe, possessed of special powers, is the one person who has a chance of saving all races. He is immortal, and faced with the crisis to the universe, he is also evolving, changing both mentally and physically … but into what? Noah is swept on a tidal wave of destiny and knows there is no turning back.
