Ace science fiction

In an army of perfect soldiers, being human could kill you...Earth, 2508 A.D. Humans have spread across the six arms of the Milky Way Galaxy. The Unified Authority controls Earth's colonies with an iron fist and a powerful military—a military made up almost entirely of clones…Private first-class Wayson Harris was raised in a U.A. orphanage among thousands of clones born and bred to be the ultimate soldiers. But Harris isn't like the other Marines: he has a mind of his own. He figures he's paying for that independent streak when his first assignment out of boot camp is the smallest Marine outpost in the whole U.A.When a rogue general surfaces, the remote desert world Harris thought was a dead-end posting becomes anything but. Fighting off the general's raid gains Harris a promotion. But it also brings him to the attention of some unfriendly U.A. leaders. They have their own plans for the military—plans Harris disrupts by his very existence. For in an army of clones, the one unforgivable sin is to be different…

A thousand years in the past, human civilization had suffered an overwhelming loss of technology, colonies and life. Earth was sorely damaged but the survivors of the war - as usual started by people from greed and the lust for power over others - had formed replacement governments, the most dangerous of which is ruled by a dictator who wants to control everything and everybody. Venus had suffered when the war isolated them from trade and supply, but she and some of her people had survived. They chafe at the restrictions the dictator wishes to impose on them, until he can get around to absorbing them into his government as virtual slaves. Some men feel that action to prevent this and improve their lot seems to be a far better deal. The first of a trilogy, David Drake once again gives us a first rate adventure.

As the carrier of a rare gene, Sirantha Jax has the ability to jump ships through grimspace-a talent which makes her a highly prized navigator for the Corp. Then a crash landing kills everyone on board, leaving Jax in a jail cell with no memory of the crash. But her fun's not over. A group of rogue fighters frees her...for a price: her help in overthrowing the established order.

The students of Starbridge Academy--a training school for Earth's young diplomats, translators, and explorers--meet representatives from sixteen other races and, together, they journey across the universe.

Its about a middle aged man who loses everything to a scam artist and has to start from scratch. He tried many different jobs and never seems to be able to make it at one. He ends up adopting a mouthy orphan who aids him in his search to land a job. They end up in a high speed race, and cemetery, and undercover job dealing with shrinking corpses. n amazing book, its never dull.

From the book: It must have been a little after three o'clock in the afternoon that it happened - the afternoon of June 3rd, 1916. It seems incredible that all that I have passed through - all those weird and terrifying experiences - should have been encompassed within so short a span as three brief months. Rather might I have experienced a cosmic cycle, with all its changes and evolutions for that which I have seen with my own eyes in this brief interval of time - things that no other mortal eye had seen before, glimpses of a world past, a world dead, a world so long dead that even in the lowest Cambrian stratum no trace of it remains. Fused with the melting inner crust, it has passed forever beyond the ken of man other than in that lost pocket of the earth whither fate has borne me and where my doom is sealed. I am here and here must remain.

Earth, 2512 A.D. Humans have spread across the six arms of the Milky Way Galaxy. The Unified Authority controls Earth's colonies with an iron fist and a powerful military—a military made up almost entirely of clones. But four centuries of relative peace are about to be shattered...Lt. Wayson Harris is one of thousands of clones born and bred to be the ultimate soldiers. But unlike the others, Harris is an outlawed model—one with independent thoughts and an addiction to violence.Presumed dead after his troops were massacred, Harris—who blames the U.A. for the slaughter—has gone AWOL as a bounty hunter. Still, it’s hard for a clone to overcome his conditioning, and Harris finds himself drawn back into the U.A.'s service by his mentor and creator, Fleet Admiral Bryce Klyber.Now, with separatists rebelling throughout the galaxy, the fate of the U.A. depends on Admiral Klyber’s plans for the Doctrinaire—the largest, most powerful battleship ever constructed. But there are those who would do anything to stop Klyber, and Harris must decide whether he should fight against them…or work for them.

"Sirantha Jax isn't known for diplomatic finesse. As a 'jumper' who navigates ships through grimspace, she's used to kicking ass first and taking names later--much later. She's not exactly the obvious choice to sell the Conglomerate to the Ithtorians, a people whose opinions of humans are as hard as their exoskeletons. And Ithtorian council meetings aren't the only place where Ambassador Jax needs to maneuver carefully. Her lover is frozen in permanent kill mode, and his hair trigger threatens to sabotage the talks--not to mention their relationship. But Jax won't give up on the man or the mission. With the Outskirts beleaguered by raiders, pirates, and flesh-eating aliens, an alliance with the Ithtorians may be humanity's only hope. Which has Jax wondering why a notorious troublemaker like her was given the job..."--p. of cover.

There are no heroes, only villains. My father believed that a hero was going to step in, and he died for that belief. Steelheart killed him for seeing that he had a weakness, and no one knows I saw. Now I've spent years getting their weaknesses, and plotting my revenge.

Winner of the Locus Award: Space-station workers discover a shocking global surveillance plot in this novel from “the master of science-fiction intrigue” (The Washington Post). Popeye Hooker knows that space isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. A former fisherman who takes a job building low orbital stations to escape a failed relationship, he finds that in space, construction work is still a grind. And when they aren’t building the space stations that will usher humanity into the stars, Sam Sloane and the rest of the beamjacks get high, blast the Grateful Dead, and stare through telescopes at the world they left behind. But life in orbit is about to get much more interesting. Nestled among the life support equipment that keeps them alive and the entertainment systems that keep them happy, the beamjacks find something astonishing. Turns out, their home isn’t just a space station—it’s a giant antenna designed to spy on every inhabitant of Earth. It’s the greatest privacy invasion ever perpetrated, and the beamjacks won’t stand for it. They may not be pioneers, but these roughnecks are about to become revolutionaries. Timely—and with Orwellian undertones, Allen Steele’s debut won the Locus Award for Best First Novel

Before Owen Deathstalker, there was the Twilight of the Empire… Hellworld. Wolf IV. It’s the next stop for Captain Scott Hunter, who’d been given a choice. Get booted, or join the Hell Squads. For Russel Corbie, it was prison or the Hell Squads. Megan DeChance was an ESPer, so for her the only other choice was death. That’s the kind of choice you’re given when your new job puts you on the frontlines of the dangerous unknown... Hellworld. “Lots of action, an uncomplicated plot, plenty of exotic dangers and scenes, the kind of story you read to clear your mind of everyday hassles.” Science Fiction Chronicle Hellworld has previously been published singly, as well as in the omnibus editions Twilight of the Empire (US) and Deathstalker Prelude (UK). Be sure to enjoy the other Prelude/Twilight of the Empire novels Mistworld and Ghostworld, and the entire Deathstalker series, all from New York Times bestselling author Simon R. Green.

In the future, war is still hell, and man retains one inescapable impulse: survival. As technology advances, the tools of battle-the strategies, the weaponry, the scope of destruction-also advance. Here are eleven riveting tales of the future's battlefields-the high-tech hardware of tomorrow's wars, the bare emotions of tomorrow's warriors-from the celebrated masters of science fiction, including... C. J. Cherryh, David Drake, Gordon R. Dickson, Harry Harrison, Joe Haldeman.

A young governess accompanies her two charges to a frontier planet and finds the children are involved with an evil power.

An entertaining anthology of short fiction by some of speculative fiction's biggest names--including Arthur C. Clarke, Kim Stanley Robinson, Michael Swanwick, Alastair Reynolds, Howard Waldrop, Jonathan Lethem, Ian McDonald, and Robert Reed--journeys into the offbeat world of sports competition.

Haunted by her past encounter in Dream Park, where the horrific special effects became real, Eviane returns to confront her nightmares but gets entangled in a vicious game where she is stalked by a killer.

The orphaned Joktar is on the run. A xenophobic maniac wants him dead because of his mysterious origins. He is sent fleeing for his life, leaving behind his life as a curiously young-looking Casino Dealer in the spaceport of N'Yok. He is captured and shipped as slave labor to the company run ice planet of Fenris. He escapes captivity and survives against all odds, with the help of some of his strange genetic quirks. He falls in with a group of freedom fighters, and finds a mysterious mentor. He thinks he is safe, but his enemies find him again. This time he decides to fight back... Nonstop action, and Norton's wonderfully drawn characters make this a must read for anyone who loves space opera!

From the back cover of Ace paperback May 1984: Rob Merlin was the best engineer who had ever lived. That was why Darius Regulo, "The King of Space," had to have Rob for the most spectacular construction project in the history of the human race... Thus begins a breakthrough novel, written by the President of the American Astronautical Society about an idea whose time has come: a shimmering bridge between earth and space, a ladder that mankind will climb to the stars? Fantasy? The concept has been in the literature of physics for nearly two decades, but only a writer with the scientific background of Charles Sheffield could bring the idea to life.

The Face in the Frost is a fantasy classic, defying categorization with its richly imaginative story of two separate kingdoms of wizards, stymied by a power that is beyond their control. A tall, skinny misfit of a wizard named Prospero lives in the Southern Kingdom—a patchwork of feuding duchies and small manors, all loosely loyal to one figurehead king. Both he and an improbable adventurer named Roger Bacon look in mirrors to see different times and places, which greatly affects their personalities and mannerisms and leads them into a myriad of situations that are sometimes frightening and often hilarious. Hailed by critics as an extraordinary work, combining the thrills of a horror novel with the inventiveness of fantasy, The Face in the Frost is the debut novel that launched John Bellairs' reputation as one of the most individual voices in young adult fiction. Written with an older audience in view, this book was inspired by Bellairs's reading of the Lord of the Rings series. An unfinished sequel titled The Dolphin Cross can be found in the anthology titled Magic Mirrors.

2000 years from now, the Earth has acid oceans, mutating exploding plants, silent, tentacled observers, doomed Hill cities, nomad Outcasts, vicious, power-mad rebels. The Earth does not have oxygen; it has all been trapped in The Nitrogen Fix, a novel of the ultimate ecological disaster.