Cirrus@Austlit

'Tam Pokkar and his crew have done the impossible and found the legendary Omega Point.

'Now, with the help of the ancient and erratic transhuman Martin Lanham, they must fight their way through fractured space to stop the weapon that is destroying humankind. But, even if they reach it, the mysterious enemy who sent it, is out there, watching, ready to strike again, while a massive interstellar war engulfs all of Human Space. In this final novel in the Deep Fracture series, the crew of the Canta Libre is beset by enemies and unreliable friends on all sides as they make their final stand for the future of their whole species above the beautiful planet Nadezhda.'

(Source: publisher's blurb)

'After the disastrous encounter at Loner’s Deep, Captain Tam Pokkar and his crew head to distant Earth convinced that an alien attack on Human Space has begun.

'The ancient robot, Broome, has convinced them their only hope to save humanity is to find the long lost Omega Point, a forgotten civilisation that few believe ever existed. Behind them, an alien weapon is shattering space itself and a massive interstellar war has erupted among the human polities affected by it. Soon, the war will draw in all the worlds of Human Space, even mighty Earth and little time remains to find help.

'But Earth itself is divided and Captain Pokkar’s crew are in danger of becoming pawns in its internal political struggles. All they have to convince hard-nosed, hard pressed politicians are the word of an unreliable robot, unintelligible new theories in physics developed by a brilliant but emotionally crushed young woman, and unbelievable intelligence reports from remote and war-torn regions far, far away. But Tam and his partner, Prad, are determined and resourceful and it will take more than the forces of Earth to stop them—no matter how hopeless their quest to find the mythical Omega Point may seem.'

(Source: publisher's blurb)

Human Space is being torn apart, figuratively and literally.

Ten thousand years after the events in the Canta Libre books, humankind has spread across a hundred star systems. Scores of civilisations share Human Space in an uneasy network of trade and alliances. Amongst them, one power-hungry polity planning for war. And then ships begin to be destroyed by an invisible force and a strange astronomical anomaly is discovered at the edge of Human Space. War breaks out as neighbouring governments rush to examine the anomaly while the chaos it appears to be causing spreads among them. Some believe the catastrophe threatening humanity is an alien invasion, and as interstellar war engulfs the worlds around them, a small group of people and Broome, an ancient robot surviving from humanity's forgotten past, decide their only hope is to seek help from the mythical Omega Point and the god-like beings that once lived there. But first, they have to find it.

The Deep Fracture trilogy is the third series of novels set in the Placid Point Universe.

'Walking away from the world never kept Rik Sylver out of trouble before and it didn’t this time.

'Even working in a mining camp on Saturn’s moon, Enceladus, didn’t stop the transhumans of Omega Point reaching out across the Solar System and dragging him back into their world of danger and intrigue. A transhuman has been murdered and, somehow, this is tied to a covert plot within the US Government that has MI6 operative, Fariba Freymann, investigating against the orders of her superiors. When the upload, Rivers Valdinger, is drawn into the operation, the action ratchets up a notch and the violence escalates. Rik, as ever, is well out of his depth but, as the scope of the conspiracy is finally revealed, he finds himself once more to be the only person with any chance of preventing a catastrophe.

'The Dissonance Factor is the third Rik Sylver novel.'

'Ten thousand years after the human race fought off the terrors its first small steps into the galaxy unleashed on it, no-one remembers what is out there.

'Alone on a rain-swept mountain top, the robot, Broome, waits for rescue. Worshipped by the simple tribespeople below, it remembers its long existence, its long-dead friends, and ponders the tragedy of war and human frailty.

'To stave off the boredom, it decides to tell the story of Loner’s Deep and the events that took place there, events which threatened to destroy the fragile peace among the great spacefaring civilisations of Human Space and bring the whole human race to the edge of extinction. Broome’s story is about Berenetta, an Earth woman who, alone among her kind, is able to understand the true nature of the beautiful alien object that appears from nowhere to spark a conflagration. It is about Tam and Prad, traders from the Republic of Karmarg, who are drawn into the chaos around Loner’s Deep after the death of hundreds of their people. And it is about Broome itself, the ancient war machine that is trying to live a life of peace and contemplation, but which finds itself at the centre of a wild and dangerous adventure spanning half of Human Space.

'The Federation is itching for war, The Republic and The Sphere of Light stand against it, and Earth, the six hundred pound gorilla they all fear, is watching and waiting. But, at Loner’s Deep, something much worse is stirring.'

(Source: publisher's blurb)

'Arramar is a mindrider, an incorporeal alien who lives in the minds of other species, and his people have arrived here to colonise the Earth. But Arramar begins to see that humanity is not an appropriate species for colonisation, not least because they are already inhabited by the indigenous, mind-dwelling monsters his people call “nightmares”. Now, as a war between his colony and the nightmares begins to escalate, with collateral damage among the humans inevitable, he is desperately trying to persuade his people to leave. But the leader of the colony has disappeared and both his own people and the human military are hunting him down. His only allies in his struggle to save the Earth are a handful of humans whose minds he rides and who are as scared and confused as he is.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'First contact with alien species had been a disaster, opening a Pandora's box of trouble for humanity.

'Hunted by alien warships, the survivors of the crew of the Canta Libre travel back to Earth, only to discover a ferocious global war has broken out in their absence. Earth's governments have branded them traitors and they too are hunting Captain Ashton and his crew for the alien technology they are supposed to have brought back.

'Fighting for their lives against old allies and new enemies, only the Canta Libre, with its rag-tag crew of scientists and civilians, can bring the world the weapon it needs to defeat the alien warships hot on their tail. But the strange reality-bending force they have on board is a two-edged sword and, in the end, the Canta Libre may be the biggest threat to human survival of them all.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'The Sentience Machine is the sequel to The Credulity Nexus, a fast-paced, science fiction thriller set at the end of the 21st century.

'Two years have passed since PI Rik Sylver became involved in the credulity nexus affair and things are looking up for him – until his old nemesis, Rivers Valdinger, shows up with a message from Omega Point. Rivers is a “zombie” – the mind of a dead human uploaded into a powerful robot body. Omega Point is a “ghost farm” a satellite, orbiting the Sun, with the disembodied minds of 20,000 dead rich people living inside its virtual world. The message Rivers brings is that Omega Point is under attack by an unknown enemy and Martin Lanham, the uberghost who runs Omega Point, is holding one of Rik’s friends hostage until Rik finds out who the culprit is.

'Once again, Rik and Rivers become unlikely allies as they track down the perpetrator. Once again, they quickly find themselves tangled up in a web of lies and misdirection, prejudice, deadly danger, and high-level corruption, as they stumble towards a discovery that neither of them could have foreseen.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'This is the story of Vincent Demarco, a man whose life becomes increasingly bizarre after he meets Tony Tyde, an eccentric entrepreneur claiming to be a researcher who has come from the future to study him. As a result of Tony's persistent interference in his life, and his own weakness in resisting it, Vince is drawn into Tony's world of money, beautiful women, and events so extraordinary that he begins to doubt his own sanity.

'Nothing makes sense any more to Vincent. Yet, when he finally begins to assert his independence from Tony, things go from bad to much, much worse.

'It turns out that being insane and being visited by an amoral jerk from the future are not all that different. Whether he believes his troubles are down to one or the other, for Vince the outcome is just the same – and just as disastrous.

'There is plenty of comedy in this otherwise very dark drama. If Nick Hornby had written K-PAX, the result might have been something like this.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

Collection of short fiction. Contains the following stories:

Skyball

Party Time

The Shouter and the Chanter

Signs of Life

Two Fools in Love

Special

M'Aidez

Swan Song

Gays and Commies

After the Party

Finding the Future

The City

Snowy

Too Late

Out of Time

'First contact with an intelligent alien species had not just been a disaster, it had been a bloodbath.

'Now, what is left of the crew of the Canta Libre, Earth's emissaries, must travel on, deeper into the galaxy, to plead for help from another, more powerful race, the Iffot Onni. But their would-be saviours are in the throes of a violent civil war when the humans arrive and Iffot leaders are in no mood to deal with backward aliens from the Milky Way's rimward wasteland.

'Struggling to bring their message to the Iffot kings despite factional wars and interspecies treachery, the humans hear that a war has broken out at home. Now their own people have cancelled the mission and are demanding the crew of the Canta Libre return to Earth to face trial for treason. But Captain Robert Ashton and his unlikely collection of civilians, scientists and engineers are determined to save humanity, whatever the cost.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'First contact was a surprise when it came. A silly, childish message of peace and friendship from a place so far away only Earth's newest prototype spaceship, the Canta Libre, could reach it - or so people thought.

'The UN-led team that went out to represent humanity was mostly scientists and soldiers, led by General Ramirez, and carrying Ambassador Hartmann to the most momentous meeting in human history. But they were not alone. Other teams went too; one led by Petrov, a gang boss with dreams of technological riches and power beyond measure, the other crewing an ancient ark ship the rest of the world had long since forgotten, its mission changed by an unscrupulous government, its half-human captain, Ken Lee, bitter and heartbroken.

'Some, like young Kitty Hamilton and drug designer Mike McBain, were dragged into the race for first contact against their will. Others, like Geoffrey Cejka and physicist Susan Iverson were eager participants. But none of them – not even the military robot – would complete the mission unscathed or unchanged. Some wouldn't complete it at all.

'Yet, though the struggle to answer the call of the enigmatic aliens would challenge the hapless travellers to the limits of their endurance, and the struggle to be the first to represent humanity would be vicious and deadly, for the survivors, the real struggle was still to come.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'In a clash between transhumans and the religious right, a washed up PI ends up as the meat in the sandwich, with the fate of humanity resting on his reluctant shoulders.

'When struggling PI Rik Sylver takes on a simple courier's job, it turns out the package he is transporting contains a virus that can control people's minds and powerful, dangerous people want to take it from him - many of them dangerous transhumans from Omega Point. All Rik has to do is hand over the package and get paid - but then he loses the package and the only way to save himself and everyone he loves, is to collaborate with these people to retrieve it Yet things are not what they seem and deciding who or what to believe is the only way Rik can save himself and the world he knows.

'The Credulity Nexus is the first book in the Rik Sylver series and also the first of Graham Storrs's novels set in his Placid Point universe. Moving between the Earth, the Moon and Omega Point, this is a fast-paced science fiction thriller, with the trademark plot twists that will delight readers of this author's previous work.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'When a Vinggan ship crash-lands on the uncharted planet Earth, the marooned survivors – twelve religious zealots, their leader, and a single, low-ranking crewman, called Drukk – decide to make the best of it by converting humanity to their rather authoritarian religion. Inadvertently disguised as megastar actress Loosi Beecham, they set off to begin their evangelical mission.

'And that’s when things really begin to go wrong. For their crash was not all it seemed, interstellar law enforcement is on their tail, and the humans are inexplicably strange – especially the busload of old folk they make off with, the New Age cargo cult that welcomes them, the local police force that is following them around, and an overambitious reporter and her idiot brother who don’t help matters by kidnapping crewman Drukk.

'Oh, and did I mention the talking kangaroos?

'Only Drukk finally begins to understand what is really going on, but by then the Vinggans have unwittingly carted dozens of humans off-world and the only plan anyone can come up with to get home again is complete and utter insanity.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Ginny had only dated Cal Coplin a couple of times when the police arrived to question her about him. He'd disappeared – something that should be completely impossible in the late 21st century when everyone was electronically tagged. And then Ginny received a recorded message from Cal, asking her to deliver a small package for him. Her decision to help him plunges Ginny into a world of fear, corruption, and massive deception. On the run from the police, a dangerous terrorist organisation, and a shadowy corporation, Ginny struggles to stay alive and free while she tries to understand what is happening and prevent a deadly attack on the government. But in a world dominated by augmented and virtual realities, nothing is as it seems, and the deception runs deeper than anyone could imagine.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

Collection of short stories. Contains the following works:

Jim's World

All the Way Down

Drifting Down

Rite of Spring

The Whispering Dead

In the Dark of Secondsleep

Murathera's Orgy

Last Christmas