Showing results by author "Christopher Ruocchio" in All Categories

Crispin Marlowe grew up in his brother’s shadow, but Hadrian is gone, and his grandmother - the Duchess of Delos - is dying. Answering her summons, Crispin takes off on what should be a routine flight to the ducal palace from the castle at Devil’s Rest. But he is flying into a trap. There are whispers of treachery among the duchess’s many daughters, rumors of hidden knives in the planet’s court...if he can even make it there.

For thousands of years, the planet of Belusha has served the galactic Sollan Empire as its most notorious prison planet. It is here the very worst men in the Empire are locked away: murderers, traitors, deserters—each condemned to toil on the oil rigs and scrapyards of the planet in bitter cold, preyed upon both by the men of the Martian Guard set to watch over them, and by the Outborn reavers whose fathers escaped the work camps to scratch a living from the icy wilderness. It is a hard world. A desperate world. And it is here that Lorian Aristedes finds himself: alone; friendless; betrayed.

Hadrian Marlowe is newly a knight of the galaxy-spanning Sollan Empire: a hero who they say slew the alien Prince Aranata Otiolo in single combat; a man they say no man or xenobite can kill. Acting on the Emperor’s orders, Hadrian has come to the desert planet Thagura and driven off the Cielcin invaders, rescuing in the process the Lady Gadar Malyan, Baroness of that entire world. But not all the fighting is ended.

Space pirates! Words that conjure up rousing tales of adventure, derring-do, brave heroes battling the scurvy vermin of the galaxy. Those vermin have taken to pillaging cargo ships and, even worse, space liners, relieving the helpless passengers of their valuables, and worse with the comely women passengers, then spacing the lot - unless one or more of the aforementioned brave heroes arrive in the nick of time, and turn the tables, making the spaceways safe again for the innocent and helpless.

Sul pianeta sbagliato, ma al momento giusto e per le ragioni migliori, Hadrian Marlowe intraprende una strada che non può che finire nel sangue. Fuggendo dal padre e da un futuro come torturatore, si ritrova bloccato su un mondo arretrato e bizzarro. Costretto a combattere come gladiatore e a destreggiarsi fra gli intrighi di una corte planetaria straniera, viene coinvolto in una guerra che non ha iniziato lui, per un Impero che non ama, contro un nemico che non potrà mai capire.

From the dawn of history onward, commanding the most powerful ship around has been a dream of admirals, sultans, emperors, kings, generalissimos, and sea captains everywhere. For what the intimidation factor alone doesn't achieve, a massive barrage from super-weapons probably will.

A new anthology of science-fiction stories, Overruled! explores what the future of jurisprudence might well be like, with thrilling, hilarious, and downright entertaining results.

Formed from cold steel and superpowered computing brains, these gigantic tanks with the firepower of an entire army have been the decisive factors in interplanetary battle. But are humans worthy of the extraordinary instruments of war that they have created? Are the Worldbreakers the greatest protector of human liberty, or its worst threat?