Daniel Clay fought across the galaxy as a corporate soldier. He left the violence behind for a life of science, raising a family far from the bloodshed of the Corporation. With his wife, Sarah, and son, Michael, he studied the alien Tyr for years, hidden among their complex societies. Their mission should have ended with the arrival of a replacement team. Instead, the Clays’ corporate overlords choose a death sentence: an invasion fleet to conquer the Tyr.

Get ready to experience two more origin stories in the Backyard Starship universe.

Born on a forsaken desert planet, Cole Shaw has two options - perish from starvation and disease, or enlist in the New World Republic’s armed forces. He chooses the military. For the first time, he thinks he has a shot at a better life. But survival is not guaranteed. Leading an elite team of mech operators, he is deployed to a frozen planet called Ferrous where dangerous relics of a past war lurk beneath the ice and savage creatures prowl the barren wastelands. Scientists on Ferrous are chasing rumors of godlike technologies buried in the ruins of a long-extinct civilization.

In the 20th century Earth sent probes, transmissions, and welcoming messages to the stars. Unfortunately, someone noticed. The Galactics arrived with their battle fleet in 2052. Rather than being exterminated under a barrage of hell-burners, Earth joined their vast Empire. Swearing allegiance to our distant alien overlords wasn't the only requirement for survival. We also had to have something of value to trade, something that neighboring planets would pay their hard-earned credits to buy. As most of the local worlds were too civilized to have a proper army, the only valuable service Earth could provide came in the form of soldiers....

The year is 2108, and the North American Commonwealth is bursting at the seams. For welfare rats like Andrew Grayson, there are only two ways out of the crime-ridden and filthy welfare tenements: You can hope to win the lottery and draw a ticket on a colony ship settling off-world...or you can join the service. With the colony lottery a pipe dream, Andrew chooses to enlist in the armed forces for a shot at real food, a retirement bonus, and maybe a ticket off Earth.

Out of the blue, a young Space Fleet officer's dream becomes reality: He's made captain of a starship. Just in time for the return of humanity's most terrible enemy, after 50 years of peace. To survive against this enemy, Captain Tad Thatcher will have to do more than learn how to become an effective commander, or how to wrangle his wayward crew. He will need to reinvent space combat. From scratch.

Go to war or go to jail. For small-time street hustler Cam Alvarez, the choice is simple.... He has no family, no friends, no place in the world...nothing to lose. When his latest con results in the death of a cartel hit man, Cam opts to join the Marines and leave Earth to fight a vicious alien enemy. Drafted into the Marine Drop-Troopers, Cam discovers there’s one thing he’s even better at than running street-con games, and that’s killing the enemy.

Diving into a revolutionary new video game, Marcus and his friends escape a stagnant society, entering into a world that defies their wildest imaginations. But from the moment that he logs in, Marcus finds himself separated from his friends and thrown into a remote village under attack by a horde of goblins. Forced into battle, Marcus rallies the beleaguered villagers and, with their help, manages to drive off the invading creatures. With the village in ruins and their supplies spoiled, the villagers turn to Marcus for help in rebuilding the village.

Engines. Genetically modified warriors that keep the great Nova Alliance war machine churning against the enemy Coalition. Most days, Engines are all that stand between salvation and chaos. Led by legendary Engine Captain Akira Hayashi, Shadow Squad has fought on the frontlines for a decade. They are on the brink of victory when the Coalition launches a series of desperate and devastating attacks that cripple the Nova Alliance restoration sites vital to save the dying planet.

Harry Potter has never even heard of Hogwarts when the letters start dropping on the doormat at number four, Privet Drive. Addressed in green ink on yellowish parchment with a purple seal, they are swiftly confiscated by his grisly aunt and uncle. Then, on Harry's eleventh birthday, a great beetle-eyed giant of a man called Rubeus Hagrid bursts in with some astonishing news: Harry Potter is a wizard, and he has a place at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. An incredible adventure is about to begin!

Contains books one and two of The Acheron series: The Acheron and The Prodigal. Sandi and Ash never set out to be heroes. She joined the Fleet to please her mother, the Admiral. He signed up to escape the grinding poverty of the Housing Blocks. And the unlikely friends envisioned boring, peacetime careers as shuttle pilots. The Tahni Imperium had other ideas.

For centuries, mankind has searched for nonhuman civilizations in the cosmos. These lost alien societies have finally been discovered—but they were destroyed long ago. Devin Starn starts off as a lowly rock rat aboard Borag, a mining ship working the dangerous end of the asteroid belt. Slowly, he gains prestige and purpose. When an alien base is uncovered, however, he must risk everything to protect his ship and her crew. What wiped out all the civilizations that came before humanity?

In Wyoming, a little girl reads people’s darkest secrets. In New York, a man sensing patterns in the stock market racks up $300 billion. In Chicago, a woman can go invisible. They’re called "brilliants," and since 1980, one percent of people have been born this way. Nick Cooper is among them; a federal agent, Cooper has gifts rendering him exceptional at hunting terrorists. His latest target may be the most dangerous man alive, a brilliant drenched in blood and intent on provoking civil war. But to catch him, Cooper will have to violate everything he believes in.

Captain Caleb Card and his crew are on a mission to investigate a transmission believed to be from the lost ship. Ambushed upon arrival, they immediately fear the worst. But the beacon isn’t only active, it’s on the move, and where it leads will change everything they thought they knew about the universe. Cast into a distant galaxy brimming with unknown dangers, they’ll need to adapt quickly if they want to survive long enough to help the missing colonists.

From Brandon Sanderson, the number one New York Times best-selling author of the Reckoners series, Words of Radiance, and the internationally best-selling Mistborn series, comes the first book in an epic new series about a girl who dreams of becoming a pilot in a dangerous world at war for humanity's future.

The plot by the Galactic Union’s Mercenary Guild against the Four Horsemen has culminated in an invasion of Earth. Faced with an overwhelming force, the human mercs had no choice. They’ve fled, leaving Sansar Enkh to go to the Mercenary Guild headquarters on Capital Planet to stand trial for humanity. On the run, Jim Cartwright and Nigel Shirazi have travelled to the Winged Hussars’ secret base of New Warsaw, in an effort to convince Alexis Cromwell to join the fight, while the other mercenaries who escaped the fall of Earth have gone to the perceived safe haven of Karma.

The Peacemaker-enforced ceasefire brought an end to the hostilities, but not a resolution, and now it’s up to the Four Horsemen to forge a lasting peace. Alexis Cromwell, despite her pregnancy, heads off to Capital with Nigel Shirazi to obtain justice from the enigmatic Mercenary Guild Council, but when they arrive, they’re quickly embroiled in galactic politics, and find out the situation is far, far worse than they could possibly have imagined.

The galaxy was once terrorized by the Sturm, a group of “species purists” intent on destroying any human with genetic or cybernetic enhancements. Fashioning themselves as the one true “Human Republic,” the Sturm cut a bloody swath across the stars, killing billions before finally being defeated and driven into the far reaches of Dark Space. Centuries of peace bred complacency. Everyone believed the Sturm had died out in the Dark. They were wrong.

The first book in an action–packed new SF adventure series. Vulcan is a factory planet, centuries old, Company run, ugly as sin, and unfeeling as death. Vulcan breeds just two types of native: complacent or tough. Sten is tough. When his family is killed in a mysterious accident, Sten rebels, harassing the Company from the metal world’s endless maze-like warrens. He could end up just another burnt–out Delinquent. But people like Sten never give up.

Earth is conquered. Sol is lost. One ship is tasked to free them. One Captain to save them all. When an alien armada destroys the United Earth Space Force and takes control of the human homeworld, newly reinstated Captain Annette Bond must take her experimental hyperspace cruiser Tornado into exile as Terra's only interstellar privateer. She has inferior technology, crude maps, and no concept of her enemy, but the seedy underbelly of galactic society welcomes her so long as she has prizes to sell and money to spend.

For millennia, the Shaa have subjugated the universe, forcing the myriad sentient races to bow to their joyless tyranny. But the Shaa will soon be no more. The Dread Empire is in its rapidly fading twilight, and with its impending fall comes the promise of a new galactic order...and bloody chaos. A young Terran naval officer marked by his lowly birth, Lt. Gareth Martinez is the first to recognize the insidious plot of the Naxid - the powerful, warlike insectoid society that was enslaved before all others - to replace the masters’ despotic rule with their own.

When Simon and Katherine Hawke stumble upon an alien shuttle that has landed on earth, it’ll not only change the course of their lives, but of the entire world. Taking the shuttle into orbit, they discover a much larger ship left adrift with no one on board. Commandeering it, they confirm that we’re not alone in the universe and must prepare the human race for what is about to come. Recruiting from all over the world, they begin to expand their fleet and build a federation to give humans a foothold in the galaxy.

The last reward Kira Demirci expected for heroism in a time of war was to spend the rest of her life dodging assassins - but when her government betrays her as part of their surrender, she and her comrades flee the star system of Apollo to the edge of civilized space. The Syntactic Cluster is disorganized, disunified, and in desperate need of the nova fighters Kira smuggled out of Apollo with her. With an entire squadron supposed to follow in her wake, it falls to her to build a new home for her comrades.

When the biggest colony ship in human history was sent to settle a paradise world, an accident hurtled it deep into uncharted space. A thousand light years from Earth, with no way home and no way to call for help, the colonists’ only hope for survival was the one barely habitable planet in range, a nightmare world they named Croatoan. Landing on the only five mountain peaks tall enough to rise above the lethal acid clouds, the settlers carved a civilization from the rock.

The Hundred Worlds have withstood invasion by the relentless Hok for decades. The human worlds are strong, but the Hok have the resources of a thousand planets behind them, and their fleets attack in endless waves. The long war has transformed the Hundred Worlds into heavily fortified star systems. Their economies are geared for military output, and they raise specialized soldiers to save our species. Assault Captain Derek Straker is one such man among many.

They’ve watched us for centuries through the Rift. They’ve prepared. Invasion is inevitable. The Earth Fleet has known of the Watchers for years, unwilling to share the knowledge with humanity. Now it might be too late. Hidden away from the Fleet, one man is creating a new colony ship destined for the other side of the Rift, but he’s missing a few pieces. Three other people have varied paths to get there. Ace goes from the streets of Earth to the Fleet training facility on the moon. Flint, an ex-Fleet pilot, must decide if a job is worth his life.

Legion Dark Ops has always been a unit shrouded in secrecy. Tasked with performing covert missions, its kill teams are filled with the best warriors from within the ranks of the Legion. Kel Turner is one of the youngest legionnaires ever to be selected to its ranks. After many battles and trials, he is faced with the greatest challenge of his life - operating by himself on a remote planet at the galaxy's edge, a foot soldier for the policies of the duplicitous House of Reason, tasked with solving a crisis that would take ten kill teams to resolve.

Jack Forge started as an unwilling recruit, but quickly established himself as a top-notch Marine and an inspired leader. When faced with impossible odds, he has repeatedly saved the day...and his fellow marines. As his status grows, he must fight to keep a secret that could cost himself and his friends everything. One thing is certain, Jack has been forged in space and will fight to save humanity from the hostile aliens who inhabit it.

A thousand years ago, an alien invasion set humanity back to the Iron Age. Slowly, we recovered, colonizing the Solar System in peace. And discovered that an unknown force is stopping us from exploring any farther. But before the cause can be discovered, a slow-burning conspiracy threatens to explode into System-wide war. With enemies at home and in the darkness beyond, a team of unlikely heroes-a janitor, a mercenary, an asteroid miner, and a pirate-are the only ones who can avert a second apocalypse. This set includes the first three books of the newly-finished REBEL STARS series.

Within the L, a tri-star system located inside the Aquilian Nebula, Jax makes a living trading and smuggling whatever goods pay the best. So far, he’s avoided being caught with anything too damning in his ship’s holds, but when he takes a job for Korinth, an infamous arms dealer, all that changes. The haul is worth 10 times his ship, and when the contents gets him embroiled in a tug of war between the major political factions of the L, Jax has to keep the criminals he works for from discovering that he’s playing both sides.

Two hundred years ago, a fleet of colony ships left Earth and started a settlement on Proxima Centauri. Centurion Space Force pilot Nathan Stacker didn't expect to return home to find his wife dead. He didn't expect the murderer to look just like him, and he definitely didn't expect to be the one to take the blame. But his wife had control of a powerful secret. A secret that stretches across the light years between two worlds and could lead to the end of both. Now that secret is in Nathan's hands, and he's about to make the most desperate evasive maneuver of his life.

The Hundred Worlds have withstood invasion by the relentless Hok for decades. The human worlds are strong, but the Hok have the resources of a thousand planets behind them, and their fleets attack in endless waves. The long war has transformed the Hundred Worlds into heavily fortified star systems. Their economies are geared for military output, and they raise specialized soldiers to save our species. Assault Captain Derek Straker is one such man among many.

Ben Dailey's Viper Company has one motto: Play hard and fight even harder. The crew is comprised of some of the most elite fighters in the Fleet, though occasionally overconfident and, some might say, obnoxious. So when Dailey is handed down a mysterious, high-security mission that's ostensibly a search-and-rescue for his once-upon-a-time academy rival turned brother in arms, he's convinced there's more to the job than meets the eye. Soon, the USF Murphy is on its way to the edge of the Void to track down what happened to Capt. Rick Bearing and the Asher-5.

Alec works in the Detroit Overseer-factories, building a mysterious alien device. When three strangers appear, he's provided an opportunity to escape after years of servitude. Cole, a Freeborn loner, encounters Lina after her village is destroyed by the alien Occupation. Together, they make the arduous journey to a fabled safe-zone, trying to stay one step ahead of the enemy drones on their trail. Dex is a Hunter, working for the Occupation to track down escaped factory slaves, or Roamers, at all costs. But his latest hunt uncovers a massive secret.

Mathematician Lakshmi Nayak receives a letter from her future self about faster-than-light travel. The equations work, and the letter itself seems to prove the possibility will someday be realized. But her paper on the topic is fiercely criticized, and she's warned away by a sinister Alliance agent. After defecting to the Union, she gets an unexpected offer: "I can build your ship." Shipbuilder John Grant learns of a secret project, which unknown to the world has been traveling to the stars for decades: Black Horizon.

Leading astrophysicist Liam Jackson is participating in a scientist exchange program in Germany when a curveball of universal proportions is thrown at him. Planes fall from the sky, cars explode, and strange particles rain down from the heavens as monsters appear out of thin air. The laws of physics have changed in the world. The fundamental forces of the universe are behaving differently, and Liam needs to understand them if he wants to survive.

Dennis E. Taylor, author of the best-selling Bobiverse trilogy, explores a whole different, darker world in this sci-fi stand-alone. Determined to give his wife and children a better life back home, Ivan Pritchard ventures to the edge of known space to join the crew of the Mad Astra as an asteroid miner. He's prepared for hard work and loneliness—but not the unthinkable. After coming into contact with a mysterious alien substance, Pritchard finds an unwelcome entity sharing his mind, and a disturbing physical transformation taking place.

Dr. Tyson Klein is a quantum physicist who has dedicated his entire life to his research. At CERN, he analyses data generated by the Large Hadron Collider, the world's biggest and most powerful particle accelerator. Now, Ty believes he's found a pattern in its output. It looks like an organised data stream, being broadcast over what he calls a quantum radio. Could it be a signal from another universe? A message sent from the future? Or something else entirely?

U.S. Marine Tyson Gage has only one option left: to become a bounty hunter, then collect enough loot and upgrades to mount a rescue among the stars... Eight hundred years in the future. Joined by his dog and a beautiful woman who, despite their attraction, is on his last nerve, Gage must leave life on Earth behind for a universe of aliens, criminals, and hyperspace more deadly and awesome than he can imagine.

Contains books one and two in the Bounty Hunter series: Lone Gunfighter of the Wastelands and Dig Two Graves.