Showing results by author "David Drake" in All Categories

On a planet that was once part of a vast interstellar civilization, humans survive on the edge of barbarism amid the ruins of the once-great empire.

In Northern India, the Malwa have created an empire of unexampled evil. Guided or possessed by an intelligence from beyond time, with new weapons, old treachery, and an implacable will to power, the Malwa will sweep over the whole Earth. Only three things stand between the Malwa and their plan of eternal domination: the empire of Rome in the East, Byzantium; a crystal with vision; and a man named Belisarius, the greatest commander Earth has ever known....

The truce between Cinnabar and the Alliance is holding, and the Republic of Cinnabar Navy is able to explore regions of the galaxy without the explorers being swept up in great power conflict. The Far Traveller is probing sponge space to open routes for Cinnabar traders - and for RCN warships if war breaks out again. But besides astrogation, the Far Traveller is to survey and catalog life forms on the worlds it touches.

Captain Daniel Leary thinks that his marriage will allow him to slip into the quiet role of a naval officer in peacetime. His friend, the spy and cybrarian Adele Mundy, is content to be collating data in her library. But high officials of both superpowers are involved! Those who want Daniel and Adele to become involved in the Tarbell Stars claim that only they can prevent a war between the Republic of Cinnabar and its great rival, the Alliance of Free Stars.

The Malwa Empire has conquered 6th century India and is forging the subcontinent's vast population into an invincible weapon of tyranny. Belisarius, the finest general of his age, must save the world. Guided by visions from a future that may never be, he and a band of comrades penetrate the Malwa heartland, seeking the core of the enemy's power. And when Belisarius leads the forces of good, only a fool would side with evil.

Return again to the world of the Isles in Servant of the Dragon, a world with hundreds of warring kingdoms without a single overlord for many centuries. Now the sources of magic are reaching a thousand-year peak, and the present generation of sorcerers is the most powerful in the millennium. Follow the small band of heroes and heroines as they journey across these landscapes, these seas, to find their loves, their destinies and - for one - a crown.

After the collapse of the galactic Web, civilizations crumbled and chaos reigned on thousands of planets. Only on planet Bellevue was there a difference. There, a Fleet Battle Computer named Center had survived from the old civilization. When it found Raj Whitehall, the man who could execute its plan for reviving human civilization, he and Center started Bellevue back on the road leading to the stars; and when Bellevue reached that goal, Center sent copies of itself and Raj to the thousands of worlds still waiting for the light of civilization to dawn.

The Malwa Empire squats like a toad across 6th century India, commanded by ruthless men with depraved appetites. The thing from the distant future that commands them is far worse. Those who oppose the purulent hell the Malwa will make of Earth have sent a crystal, Aide, to halt their advance. Aide holds all human knowledge - but he cannot act by himself. Count Belisarius, the greatest general of the age and perhaps of all ages, must outwit the evil empire - and then, when there is no longer room to maneuver, to meet it sword-edge to sword-edge, because evil cannot be allowed to rule men!

In the time of the Ancients the universe was united - but that was so far in the past that not even memory remains, only the broken artifacts that a few Makers can reshape into their original uses. What survives is shattered into enclaves - some tiny, some ruined, some wild. Into the gaps between settlements, and onto the road that connects all human reality and the reality that is not human and may never have been human, have crept monsters.

The Consensus ruled twelve hundred worlds - but not Northworld. Three fleets had been dispatched to probe the enigma of Northworld. None returned. Now, Commissioner Nils Hansen must face the challenge of this distant planet - a gateway to nine alternate worlds. There, he will confront a world at war, a world of androids, a world of sentient machines - all unique, all lethal. But deadliest of all are the men who would be gods.

Steamboats that launch Greek fire; telegraph lines connecting the battlefront on the Indus to ancient Constantinople, Byzantine palace plots aided by wireless devices: General Belasarius and his battle-hardened troops must advance quickly through the history of technology to stave off a coming age of ultimate darkness. And now - the epic final battle that will either give birth to or destroy Aide, Belasarius' doughty crystalline advisor and humanity's loyal friend!

With Lord of the Isles, David Drake returns to fantasy with a towering and complex epic of heroic adventure in an extraordinary and colorful world where the elemental forces that empower magic are rising to a thousand-year peak. In the days following an unusually severe storm, the inhabitants of a tiny seaport town travel toward romance, danger, and astonishing magic that will transform them and their world.

Roy Olfetrie planned to be an officer in the Republic of Cinnabar Navy, but when his father was unmasked as a white-collar criminal he had to take whatever he was offered. What is offered turns out to be a chance to accompany Captain Daniel Leary and Lady Adele Mundy as they go off to start a war that will put Roy at the sharp end.

For five years Raj Whitehall has led his men across the face of the planet Bellevue. With saber and bayonet he has conquered one barbarian nation after another. Now his greatest enemy is his own overlord, Barholm Clerett, who’s so paranoid of Raj’s victories that he is reduced to only one thought: Raj Whitehall must die.

Duisberg is one of thousands of planets plunged into darkness and chaos by the collapse of the galactic republic, but where other worlds have begun to rebuild a star-travelling culture, Duisberg remains in an uneasy balance between mud-brick civilization and bloodthirsty barbarism. The people of Duisberg have a god: Zentrum, a supercomputer from the ancient past. Zentrum has decided to avoid another collapse by preventing civilization from rising from where it is. This is known as the Stasis.

Hammer's Slammer Don Slade is coming home to the planet Tethys, to his son and the woman he loves. But the space between is dark and cold. And the stars he must pass shine their light on planets which beckon to the weary traveler, planets which hold hidden dangers. And if Don Slade should ever reach Tethys... that is when the real fighting starts.

Riots blaze in the streets of Cinnabar, threatening not only the Government but the Republic of Cinnabar Navy. The forces of the tyrannical Alliance are probing outnumbered Cinnabar garrisons among the distant stars, using guile and treachery as well as brute strength.

Gangs ruled Cantilucca. Guns were the only law, and there was no lack of guns. It was hard to imagine matters getting worse. Until the survey team arrived.... Major Matthew Coke was not a squeamish man, but the state of affairs on Cantilucca turned his stomach. He was only human after all. Where some of the rest of his team were concerned, it was difficult to be sure: five professional mercenaries who'd learned the hard way that in the end they could defeat anything - except their own consciences.

New York Times best-selling author David Weber invites David Drake and S.M. Stirling, two of today's top writers of military science fiction, to join him in an exploration of Honor Harrington's universe.