Charles E Gannon

"Major Rodger Y. Murphy should have died when his helicopter crashed off the coast of Mogadishu in 1993. Instead, he woke up in 2125, 152 light-years from home. Murphy and 100 other “Lost Soldiers” have been retrieved and awakened by two officers of the Consolidated Terran Republic: Trevor Corcoran and Richard Downing. Promising to return, Corcoran and Downing leave the twentieth-century castaways with a daunting objective: establish a base of...

"Caine Riordan and his self-styled 'Crewe' have survived their first months on the planet they call Bactradgaria. They've overcome floods, dust storms, tornadoes, searing heat, bitter cold, desperate battles, and attacks by various strange species. However, their most desperate struggles have been against the wildly ferocious x'qao, for whom the pursuit and genocide of other beings is as much a sport as it is a strategy. Accordingly, Caine and his...

"It has been 15 Terran months since Colonel Rodger Murphy and his Lost Soldiers were dropped in the 55 Tauri binary system. Since then, they have forged an uneasy alliance with space-dwelling descendants of the Ktor, liberated the earlier human inhabitants of the planet R’bak, and driven their oppressors from the neighboring system back into a few fortified cities. But there’s another pivotal battle looming before them: intercepting the Harvester...

"Caine Riordan, fresh from serving as envoy to the aliens known as the Slaasriithi, has been given yet another daunting task: apprehend raiders that are terrorizing a distant planet. As difficulties mount, Caine realizes that the mission his superiors sent him on may not be the one they actually hope he will achieve. Which means he may be forced to choose between honoring a promise or following orders--a choice that could put him in front of a board...

"CASTAWAYS IN A ZOMBIE PLAGUE. Behold the ketch Crosscurrent Voyager, bound on a senior year summer cruise to adventure and serious fun. Six kids ranging from suburban geeks to street-smart pariahs,and a British captain who rarely smiles. What could go wrong? Zombies. Just days after they leave, a plague starts speading like wildfire, turning most of its survivors into shrieking, cannibalistic rage-monsters. Now the Crosscurrent Voyager becomes these...

Major Rodger Y. Murphy should have died when his helicopter crashed off the coast of Mogadishu in November, 1993. Instead, he woke up in August, 2125, in a binary star system 152 light years from home. Without any memory of the otherworldly abductors who spirited them away in cold sleep, Murphy and 100 other "Lost Soldiers" have been retrieved and awakened by officers of the Consolidated Terran Republic. Promising to return to the 55 Tauri B system...

"The war with the profoundly alien Arduans has ended, and the Arduans have come to call humanity their allies. Most of them--the Arduan warrior caste refuses to accept defeat. Now known as the Kaituni, they are waging a war of extermination against all members of the pan-Sentient Union, human and Arduan alike. What's more, the Kaituni have an unexpected weapon in their arsenal: the alien Arachnids, once thought driven to extinction. The Kaituni drive...

The embers of War still glow as memories of strange skies over an alien landscape, light-years from home, bring back the sensations of battle; a time when personal sacrifice meant the difference between salvation for all, or total destruction. Gathered here is a cross-section of stories from the first decade of the award-winning Defending The Future series. Written by the known and up-and-coming in the military science fiction genre, these stories...

SEVEN DAYS IN MAY, 1636 It's spring in Burgundy. The flowers are out and so are the cardinals-of Pope Urban's renegade papacy, now on the run from the Vatican's would-be usurper Borja. Most of the Church's senior leaders have converged upon the city of Besancon, where the Pope plans to offer an ecumenical olive branch to the other Christian denominations with which Rome has been at war. Fortunately, Urban has up-time help. He can rely upon Cardinal-Protector...