Centauri The Novel

After a ship malfunction leads to the death of the captain, members of the starship Unity break into factions, hindering plans for building peaceful human civilization on their new planet.

Set eighty years in the future, this novel by the best-selling author Michael O'Brien is about an expedition sent from the planet Earth to Alpha Centauri, the star closest to our solar system. The Kosmos, a great ship that the central character Neil de Hoyos describes as a "flying city", is immense in size and capable of more than half light-speed. Hoyos is a Nobel Prize winning physicist who has played a major role in designing the ship. Hoyos has signed on as a passenger because he desires to escape the seemingly benign totalitarian government that controls everything on his home planet. He is a skeptical and quirky misanthropic humanist with old tragedies, loves, and hatreds that are secreted in his memory. The surprises that await him on the voyage-and its destination-will shatter all of his assumptions and point him to a true new horizon. Science fiction and fantasy literature are genres that have become dominant forces in contemporary worldwide culture. Our fascination with the near-angelic powers of new technology, its benefits and dangers, its potential for obsession and catastrophe, raises vital questions that this work explores about human nature and the cosmos, about man's image of himself and where he is going-and why he seeks to go there.

The beginning of an exciting new adventure that continues the Babylon 5 legacy . . . Bombed to the brink of oblivion, the planet Centauri Prime is starting the slow and painful process of rebuilding, under the watchful eye of Emperor Londo Mollari. But Londo is in turn being watched--and manipulated--by the conquest-hungry Drakh. The malevolent beings are reshaping the Centauri Republic into a secret seat of power from which to strike out at their enemies--especially the Interstellar Alliance. All but helpless to resist, Londo watches as his beloved Homeworld is transformed into a ruthless police state. And the Drakh have willing allies, including one of Londo's own countrymen--Durla, a powerful official with his own sinister agenda. As the abuses of the repressive new Republic escalate, the double-edged Drakh master plan begins to unfold. Their goal is to smash the Interstellar Alliance by assassinating its president, John Sheridan, and to obliterate Earth, using a fabled, monstrous Shadow weapon known as a Planet Killer . . .

A century has passed since events of "Alpha Centauri #2: Dragon Sun." Civilization is braced for final reckoning. Science and faith collide as the fanatical Believers of Sister Miriam vie with the technological might of Prokhor Zakharov in a merciless war of destruction. Five besieged factions join the battle against Miriam's zealots as the planet Chiron prepares itself for a new era.

John Truck was to outward appearances just another lowlife spaceship captain. But he was also the last of the Centaurans, or at least half of him was, which meant that he was the only person who could operate the Centauri Device, a sentient bomb which might hold the key to settling a vicious space war. M. John Harrison's classic novel turns the conventions of space opera on their head, and is written with the precision and brilliance for which is famed.

A growing rebellion beneath the surface of the planet Chiron threatens Sheng-ji Yang's dreams of immortality. Meanwhile, Lady Deirdre Skye's life is in jeopardy as the Planetary Council withholds vital supplies, and orders her to turn over research data on the life force awakening on Chiron's surface. Though an ocean apart, Yang and Skye seek an alliance to overcome the forces arrayed against them.

"Address: Centauri" by F. L. Wallace is an imaginative and visionary science fiction novel that propels readers on a thrilling journey to the distant Centauri star system. Wallace's narrative explores the possibilities of interstellar travel and the challenges faced by humanity as it seeks to expand its reach beyond Earth. The novel delves into themes of exploration, survival, and the quest for knowledge in the vastness of space. "Address: Centauri" is a captivating and thought-provoking read for science fiction enthusiasts who enjoy contemplating the future of space exploration.