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

Inheriting your uncle's supervillain business is more complicated than you might think. Particularly when you discover who's running the place. Charlie's life is going nowhere fast. A divorced substitute teacher living with his cat in a house his siblings want to sell, all he wants is to open a pub downtown, if only the bank will approve his loan. Then his long-lost uncle Jake dies and leaves his supervillain business (complete with island volcano lair) to Charlie. But becoming a supervillain isn't all giant laser death rays and lava pits.

A man. His ex-girlfriend's cat. A sadistic game show unlike anything in the universe: a dungeon crawl where survival depends on killing your prey in the most entertaining way possible. In a flash, every human-erected construction on Earth - from Buckingham Palace to the tiniest of sheds - collapses in a heap, sinking into the ground. The buildings and all the people inside have all been atomized and transformed into the dungeon: an 18-level labyrinth filled with traps, monsters, and loot.

After eight years alone on Earth 2, Geddy Starheart is ready to get off. Off-world, that is. But before he can, someone steals his ship. His quest to find it takes him on a hilarious, galaxy-spanning adventure with his only friend--the ancient alien trapped in his head. Geddy rose through the ranks of a shady auction house dealing in stolen goods. When it got too dicey, he fled to Earth 2 and changed his identity. Years later, he watched the last transport leave for Earth 3. Everyone figured him dead, and he was good with that.

Hank is a thug. He knows he's a thug. He has no problem with that realization. In his view the galaxy has given him a gift: a mutation that allows him to withstand great deals of physical trauma. He puts his abilities to the best use possible and that isn't by being a scientist. Besides, the space station Belvaille doesn't need scientists. It is not, generally, a thinking person's locale. It is the remotest habitation in the entire Colmarian Confederation. There is literally no reason to be there.

My name is Kazimir Wolfe. People call me "Kaz", except they don’t. I never use my real name; it’s too dangerous, for me and for anyone I meet. I’m on the run from the law, who think I killed my aunt, and from whoever did kill her, because they want to finish the job. So, I move around a lot, working construction or whatever job I can find. It’s a lonely life. I don’t let anyone get close...people who get close to me end up dead. Why? I’m a wizard. The world’s only wizard, as far as I know.

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....

Aliens exist...and, as it turns out, most of them aren’t that friendly. Jacob Brown wasn’t even born yet the first time they attacked Earth. He was only 14 the second time it happened. When Earth finally came together and fielded its first spaceborne military, Jacob didn’t hesitate to volunteer. Serving aboard a mighty starship, he’d be able to defend his planet - and his family - when, inevitably, they came again.

A secret buried in the Antarctic. A puzzle unsolved for thousands of years. And a Brooklyn-born master gunnery sergeant who's royally pissed that he has to babysit the researchers sent to figure it all out. But when Patrick "Wic" Finnegan finally sees what the team has uncovered, he can't believe his eyes, nor is he prepared for the violence to come. Soon, the portal opens and unleashes a storm of unbridled fury upon humanity.

Few know the warship’s actual name. But everyone has heard the rumors. The PUV James Keeling can do something no other vessel in existence can do—slip into another dimension, travel undetected, then re-emerge onto our plane and surprise enemy targets. But the thing that makes the Crypt unique also makes it a nightmare for those onboard; interdimensional travel causes hallucinations, violent behavior, and psychotic breakdowns. Keeling could be the Union’s greatest weapon, a game-changing asset that can defeat the bloodthirsty zealots of the Purist Nation, the Union’s mortal enemy.

John, Chris, and Erik are neighbors in the quaint subdivision of the Creeks of Sage Valley, Phase II. The three men happily live the typical suburban family life. Their only real problems have been with each other and the draconian rules of the HOA. But, all that changes when the dead rise from their graves and walk the Earth. Now, they must reluctantly join together to survive the spreading apocalypse and find their families.

A peaceful organization of civilized planets is faced with a threat to their very existence. Desperate to save themselves, they turn for help to the most brutal, backward, violent species in the known galaxy: humans.

Cole Riker is a Slip Runner. A contractor tasked with finding alien salvage in exchange for credits. For an ex-smuggler like Cole, there’s a catch: Don’t break the terms of parole. That means doing things by the book. Find salvage, turn it in, get paid. But everything changes when a retrieval mission lands him in a previously unknown sector. There, he finds the material he’s been sent to recover, along with something more. A brand-new form of ancient alien life.

An old friend. A new course. A deadly ship with a secret cargo. Ishmael Wang returns to Port Newmar, but ghosts from his past have followed him. His old shipmate, Phillip Carstairs, offers him the opportunity to track down the man who killed his lover. The catch? He must take command of the Chernyakova, a ship that still stinks of death and haunts Ishmael's nightmares. Together Phillip and Ismael begin a journey into unknown reaches of the Deep Dark to bring back the man who killed Greta.

Jon Ryan is irreverent, cocky, funny, and walks with a swagger. The cocky fighter pilot turned astronaut is also Earth's only chance for survival. The planet Jupiter, thrown off orbit, will destroy Earth in less than a century. Jon volunteers for the most ambitious, desperate mission ever conceived: His consciousness must be transferred into an experimental android host, where he'll live an immortal - and lonely - life. Jon's only companion on his 50-year voyage is his ship's irritable AI.

Long before Casmir Dabrowski and Kim Sato leave their world for the epic adventures of the Star Kingdom series, long before they outwit terrorists and mercenaries and do battle on a galactic scale, long before they become best friends and roommates...they have to meet for the first time. This is that story.

An industrial hell. The foulest and most decrepit slum on Parsephon. A nest of human misery, where hope is word long forgotten, and the dead are carted away every day. It is the worst pit in the Confederation’s great industrial machine known as the Iron Belt. Among the millions born into misery, poverty, and despair under the dark and smoky haze that covers the planet, Andromeda Lafarge is unique. One lost soul among billions, she is tough, relentless, determined to get out, to escape, to blaze her own trail, and to make a name for herself across the stars.

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.

From birth to death, The War is all the citizens of Dystance know. As children it is drilled into their heads that war is the purpose behind all existence. Winter doesn't agree. She's stumbled across remnants of life the way it was before The War began, and now she longs to be as free as her ancestors. With help from her best friend Cedar and the boy she is forbidden to love, Tallow. She believes she can do it. Winter can see a life beyond the Pickets, beyond the constant hunger and the threat of death, beyond the war machine.

As a sci-fi author with a hit TV show, I have a few ideas about what alien invaders are supposed to look like. In my stories, they’re technologically advanced monsters, with tentacles, and no faces. Turns out I was right about the technology. And about how angry they’d be. But the way they look…that’s more terrifying than even I could have imagined. They look exactly like us. Because they are us.

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.

Two hundred years ago, aliens invaded Earth. A violent war followed. The enemy won. Some of us escaped, most of us didn’t. On Proxima they flourished - the invasion forgotten. On Earth we floundered - the horror began. Their world is advanced, peaceful, and secure. Our world is broken, savage, and overrun. A new invasion is coming. A hunger that has swallowed half the universe. They don’t care which planet we live on. They want to end us all. But where there is life, there is hope. And where there is hope, there are heroes. This time, vengeance will be ours.

We were fighting on the wrong side of a war we couldn't win. And that was the good news. The Ruhar hit us on Columbus Day. There we were, innocently drifting along the cosmos on our little blue marble, like the native Americans in 1492. Over the horizon come ships of a technologically advanced, aggressive culture, and BAM! There go the good old days, when humans only got killed by each other. So, Columbus Day. It fits. When the morning sky twinkled again, this time with Kristang starships jumping in to hammer the Ruhar, we thought we were saved.

When a mine owner thinks that he's above the law and continues to utilize slave labor to keep his mines running, Barnabas, a former Ranger One, must fight for justice.

Any kind of death annuls everything except his present knowledge and returns him to the past. This is a good way to test all sorts of things. That is, it would be, if not for one little thing.... This loop has real lords and it's unlikely that they'll be happy to hear about an uninvited guest. And that isn't his only problem - all of his memories of the last year have simply disappeared, but the world around him has changed in the meantime.

Doctor Benjamin Schröder was far from a man of action. In fact, he was a history teacher - chairman of the Castle Rock University history department - and if his life wasn't perfect, it was close. Until, that is the discussion of his star student Elzbietá Abramowski's dissertation on Operation Oz, the Pacific Allies' invasion of Vladivostok, was brutally interrupted. The psychotic episode that turned his entire world upside down struck with absolutely no warning, and it was more terrifying than anything he should have been able to imagine.

Logan Conner is the son of a king, the heir to the largest of the five star-dominions, and the best mech pilot in the galaxy. His people are plagued by pirates and raiders, surrounded by enemies, and not even his father can fight them all. Logan gives up his position, his rank, even his name, and becomes Jonathan Slaughter, leader of a rough-and-ready band of mercenary mech-jocks bent on taking the battle to the enemy on their own terms.

When a high-value scientist is taken hostage inside the galaxy's most dangerous prison, Halek Cain is the only man for the job. The last remaining survivor of the Reaper program, Hal is an unstoppable force of fuel and madness. A veteran amputee-turned-cyborg, he has a history of violence and a talent for killing that is unmatched by any soldier. With the promise of freedom as his only incentive, he'll stop at nothing to earn back his life from the people who made him, imprisoned him, and were too afraid to let him die.

Jason Burke was a man hiding from himself in a small cabin high in the American Rocky Mountains when his simple, quiet life was shattered one night by what he first assumed was an aviation mishap. But when he investigates the crash, what he finds will yank him out of his self-imposed exile and thrust him into a world he could have never imagined.

These are the voyages of the starship A.S.F. Willful Child. Its ongoing mission: to seek out strange new worlds on which to plant the Terran flag, to subjugate and if necessary obliterate new life-forms, to boldly blow the... And so we join the not-terribly-bright but exceedingly cock-sure Captain Hadrian Sawback and his motley crew on board the Starship Willful Child for a series of devil-may-care, near-calamitous and downright chaotic adventures through "the infinite vastness of interstellar space".