Showing results for "Brian Scott" in Space Opera

One hundred and ten centuries from now, humanity has spread across space. And all-powerful machines rule the humans who were once their masters. It began in the Time of Tyrants, when ambitious men and women used high-powered computers to seize control of the heart of the Old Empire including Earth itself. The tyrants translated their brains into mobile mechanical bodies and created a new race, the immortal man-machine hybrids called cymeks.

Between the end of Frank Herbert's Dune and his next novel, Dune Messiah, lies a mystery: how a hero adored by a planet became a tyrant hated by a universe. Paul of Dune begins the story of those 12 fateful years and the wars of the jihad of Paul Muad'Dib. It is an epic of battle and betrayal; of love and idealism; of ambition and intrigue. Above all, it is the story of how Paul Atreides - who achieved absolute power when scarcely more than a boy - changes from an idealist into a dictator who is the prisoner of the bureaucrats and fanatics who surround him.

The first battle was a victory. But the war is just beginning.... Earth is a radioactive ruin. But the initial campaign of the Butlerian Jihad has given new hope to mankind. Serena Butler, whose murdered child has become a symbol for oppressed humanity, inspires a war against the thinking computers led by Xavier Harkonnen and Vorian Atreides. But four of the Titans - murderous machines with human brains and human cunning - still remain. And the universal computer mind, Omnius, still wields most of its power.

This new Dune trilogy focuses on the beloved core characters of Frank Herbert's classic novel Dune, the world's best-selling science-fiction book. Leto Atreides, duke of Caladan and father of the Muad'Dib. While all know of his fall and the rise of his son, little is known about the quiet ruler of Caladan and his partner, Jessica. Or how a duke of an inconsequential planet earned an emperor's favour, the ire of House Harkonnen and set himself on a collision course with his own death. This is the story.

The Road to Dune is a compilation of material celebrating - and adding to - the epic Dune series. In this fascinating volume, the world's millions of Dune fans can now listen - at long last - to the unpublished chapters and scenes from the original Dune books; as well as correspondence with Frank Herbert relating to Dune, short stories by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson and also Spice Planet, an original novella by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson, based on a detailed outline left by Frank Herbert.

As Shaddam sits at last on the Golden Lion Throne, Baron Vladimir Harkonnen plots against the new emperor and House Atreides - and against the mysterious Sisterhood of the Bene Gesserit. For Leto Atreides, grown complacent and comfortable as ruler of his House, it is a time of momentous choice: between friendship and duty, safety and destiny. But for the survival of House Atreides, there is just one choice - strive for greatness or be crushed.

The universal computer mind Omnius has retreated to its last stronghold, where it plots a devastating new strategy that could undo the victories of the Butlerian Jihad. The surviving Titans are creating new lieutenants to do their will when at last they return to attack the human beings they once ruled. In the years of peace too many of mankind have forgotten that their machine enemies never sleep. But some have forgotten nothing - and learned from their triumphs.

Navigators, mutated by spice into beings far superior to normal humans, make space travel possible across the burgeoning Imperium. Their prescient awareness allows them to foresee safe paths through the universe as starship engines 'fold' space. Only industrial magnate Josef Venport knows the secret of creating Navigators, and he intends to build a commercial empire to span the galaxy.

Raised in the Imperial court and born to be a political bargaining chip, Irulan was sent at an early age to be trained as a Bene Gesserit Sister. As Princess Royal, she also learned important lessons from her father—the Padishah Emperor Shaddam Corrino IV. Now of marriageable age, Princess Irulan sees the machinations of the many factions vying for power. Meanwhile, on Arrakis, Chani—the daughter of Liet-Kynes, the Imperial Planetologist who serves under the harsh rule of House Harkonnen—is trained in the Fremen mystical ways by an ancient Reverend Mother.

More than two decades have passed since the events chronicled in The Butlerian Jihad. The crusade against thinking robots has ground on for years, but the forces led by Serena Butler and Irbis Ginjo have made only slight gains; the human worlds grow weary of war, of the bloody, inconclusive swing from victory to defeat. Get ready for Dune: The Machine Crusade.

Lady Jessica, mother of Paul and consort to Leto Atreides, is torn from her home and her family. Her choices will shape an empire, but first the Lady of Caladan must reckon with her own betrayal of the Bene Gesserit. Refusing to become a pawn, she must decide if her loyalty to the Sisterhood is more important than the love of her own family.

Lady Jessica, mother of Paul, and consort to Leto Atredies. The choices she made shaped an empire, but first, the Lady of Caladan must reckon with her own betrayal of the Bene Gesserit. She has already betrayed her ancient order, but now she must decide if her loyalty to the Sisterhood is more important than the love of her own family. Meanwhile, events in the greater empire are accelerating beyond the control of even the Reverend Mother, and Lady Jessica's family is on a collision course with destiny.

Paul is faced with turbulent crises on Caladan—political turmoil, as well as the unravelling of his family. His mother, Lady Jessica, has been blackmailed and forced by the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood to leave Caladan and become the new concubine of another lord, in an effort to prove her loyalty...and break her heart. Duke Leto Atreides, driven to extremes to prove his service to Emperor Shaddam, and to preserve and strengthen his Great House at all costs, has undertaken a dangerous mission that goes against the grain of his honour.

Fearful of losing his precarious hold on the Golden Lion Throne, Shaddam IV, emperor of a Million Worlds, has devised a radical scheme to develop an alternative to melange, the addictive spice that binds the Imperium together and that can be found only on the desert world of Dune. In subterranean labs on the machine planet Ix, cruel Tleilaxu overlords use slaves and prisoners as part of a horrific plan to manufacture a synthetic form of melange known as amal. If amal can supplant the spice from Dune, it will give Shaddam what he seeks: absolute power.

Tales of Dune collects eight of Herbert and Anderson’s Dune short stories, ranging from the period of the Butlerian Jihad to the time of young Paul Atreides to a story set during the events of the novel Dune to the very end of Frank Herbert’s future history.

Paul Atreides is the man who overthrew a corrupt empire and then launched a terrible jihad across the galaxy, shedding the blood of trillions. The now-hated tyrant, the blind Emperor Paul Muad'Dib, has walked off into the endless desert of the planet Arrakis, known as Dune, leaving his turbulent empire without guidance. It's up to his mother, Jessica, with her daughter, Alia, the brave troubadour-warrior Gurney Halleck, the resurrected Duncan Idaho, the Fremen leader Stilgar, as well as Paul's wife-in-name and biographer, Princess Irulan, to try to hold an empire together.

The world of Dune has shaped an entire generation of science fiction. From the sand-blasted world of Arrakis, to the splendor of the imperial homeworld of Kaitain, readers and listeners have lived in a universe of treachery and wonder. Now, these stories expand on the Dune universe.

It’s the 22nd century. The galaxy has opened up to humanity as a hyperactive beehive of stargates and new technologies, and we suddenly find ourselves in a vast playground of different races, environments, and cultures. There’s just one catch: We are pretty much at the bottom of the food chain, and there’s only one way for humanity to move up - by becoming mercenaries. In every mercenary’s life, though, there comes a time when things go wrong and even the best laid plans go awry.

Orson Scott Card, Kevin J. Anderson, and Larry Niven have seen the future. Now you can, too. A constellation of the brightest lights in the science fiction and fantasy firmament have judged these authors to be the best, the brightest, the truest emerging stars in the field.