by William C. Dietz (2012)
Every fifty thousand years, a race of sentient machines, called the Reapers, invades our galaxy to harvest all organic life-forms. Navy Admiral David Anderson and his partner, Kahlee Sanders have uncovered evidence of the Reaper threat, but in so doing have exposed the machinations of a secretive paramilitary organization called Cerberus. Cerberus will stop at nothing to protect its secrets. Gillian Grayson, a young woman with extraordinary powers swears vengeance against Cerberus -- threatening to unravel everything Kahlee and David are fighting for.
Larry Niven and Edward M. Lerner
A tale set ten years after the events in "Juggler of Worlds" traces the reluctant efforts of the Puppeteers to counter onrushing alien refugees who are ransacking the planets they pass on their way toward the Fleet of Worlds.
Neal Asher
"Thorvald Spear, resurrected from his death over a hundred years earlier, continues to hunt Penny Royal, the rogue AI and dangerous war criminal on the run from Polity forces. Beyond the Graveyard, a lawless and deadly area in deep space, Spear follows the trail of several enemy Prador, the crab-like alien species with a violent history of conflict with humanity. Sverl, a Prador genetically modified by Penny Royal and slowly becoming human, pursues Cvorn, a Prador harboring deep hatred for the Polity looking to use him and other hybrids to reignite the dormant war with mankind. Blite, captain of a bounty hunting ship, hands over two prisoners and valuable memplants from Penny Royal to the Brockle, a dangerous forensics entity under strict confinement on a Polity spaceship that quickly takes a keen interest in the corrupted AI and its unclear motives. Penny Royal meanwhile continues to pull all the strings in the background, keeping the Polity at bay and seizing control of an attack ship. It seeks Factory Station Room 101, a wartime manufacturing space station believed to be destroyed. What does it want with the factory? And will Spear find the rogue AI before it gets there?"--
Orson Scott Card and Aaron Johnston
Orson Scott Card and Aaron Johnston return to their Ender's Game prequel series with this first volume of an all-new trilogy about the Second Formic War in The Swarm. The first invasion of Earth was beaten back by a coalition of corporate and international military forces, and the Chinese army. China has been devastated by the Formic's initial efforts to eradicate Earth life forms and prepare the ground for their own settlement. The Scouring of China struck fear into the other nations of the planet; that fear blossomed into drastic action when scientists determined that the single ship that wreaked such damage was merely a scout ship. There is a mothership out beyond the Solar System's Kuiper Belt, and it's heading into the system, unstoppable by any weapons that Earth can muster. Earth has been reorganized for defense. There is now a Hegemon, a planetary official responsible for keeping all the formerly warring nations in line. There's a Polemarch, responsible for organizing all the military forces of the planet into the new International Fleet. But there is an enemy within, an enemy as old as human warfare: ambition and politics. Greed and self-interest. Will Bingwen, Mazer Rackam, Victor Delgado and Lem Juke be able to divert those very human enemies in time to create a weapon that can effectively defend humanity in the inexorable Second Formic War?
Tsutomu Nihei
"Get to know a new character who may be this futuristic series' most traditionally virtuous female. Drawing on deep wells of filial piety and perseverance, unfailingly modest, she is Tsumugi. 'I've read one other series produced by Tsutomu Nihei--Biomega-- which turned me into a major fan of his art and imagination and sensibility, but not so much of his story-telling, because I spent parts of that series mildly puzzled about what was going on (admittedly, I'm not the hardest guy in the world to puzzle when it comes to manga). With Knights of Sidonia, he's clearly trying something a bit more accessible... The art is really good, a simplified, clarified version of the style I've seen Tsutomu Nihei use elsewhere'"--Back cover.