Recommendations based on "Rifts Xiticix Invasion"

Set in a chillingly realistic far-future world, and featuring a gritty antihero even more frightening than the evil empire he serves as soldier and assassin, Death’s Head is sure to be one of the most talked-about novels of the year. David Gunn is loaded–and he shoots to kill.At the top of the galactic pecking order is the United Free, a civilization of awe-inspiring technological prowess so far in advance of other space-faring powers as to seem untouchable gods. Most of the known universe has fallen under their inscrutable sway. The rest is squabbled over by two empires: one ruled with an iron fist by OctoV, a tyrant who appears to his followers as a teenage boy but is in reality something very different, the other administered by the Uplifted, bizarre machinelike intelligences, and their no-longer-quite-human servants, cyborgs known as the Enlightened.Sven Tveskoeg, an ex-sergeant demoted for insubordination and sentenced to death, is a vicious killer with a stubborn streak of loyalty. Sven possesses a fierce if untutored intelligence and a genetic makeup that is 98.2 percent human and 1.8 percent . . . something else. Perhaps that “something else” explains how quickly he heals from even the worst injuries or how he can communicate telepathically with the ferox, fearsome alien savages whose natural fighting abilities regularly outperform the advanced technology of their human enemies. Perhaps it is these unique abilities that bring Sven to the attention of OctoV.Drafted into the Death’s Head, the elite enforcers of OctoV’s imperial will, Sven is given a new lease on life. Armed with a SIG diabolo–an intelligent gun–and an illegal symbiont called a kyp, Sven is sent to a faraway planet, the latest battleground between the Uplifted and OctoV. There he finds himself in the midst of a military disaster, one that will take all his courage–and all his firepower–to survive.But an even deadlier struggle is taking place, a struggle that will draw the attention of the United Free. Sven knows he is a pawn, and pawns have a bad habit of being sacrificed.But Sven is nobody’s sacrifice. And even a pawn can checkmate a king.

The sixth and penultimate novel of the galaxy-spanning Sun Eater series merges the best of space opera and epic fantasy, as Hadrian Marlowe continues down a path that can only end in fireAmbitious universe-building combines with intimate character portraits for storytelling on a truly epic scale—for fans of Orson Scott Card, Adrian Tchaikovsky, Patrick Rothfuss and Jack CampbellThe end is nigh.It has been nearly two hundred years since Hadrian Marlowe assaulted the person of the Emperor and walked away from war. From his Empire. His duty. From the will and service of the eldritch being known only as the Quiet. The galaxy lies in the grip of a terrible plague, and worse, the Cielcin have overrun the realms of men.A messenger has come to Jadd, bearing a summons from the Sollan Emperor for the one-time hero. A summons, a pardon, and a plea. HAPSIS, the Emperor’s secret first-contact intelligence organization, has located one of the dreadful Watchers, the immense, powerful beings worshipped by the Pale Cielcin.Called out of retirement and exile, the old hero—accompanied by his daughter, Cassandra—must race across the galaxy and against time to accomplish one last, impossible task:To kill a god.

**Special deluxe edition with sprayed edges, premium cover effects, map, new foreword, bonus content, and the short story "The Pits of Emesh"** Hadrian Marlowe, a man revered as a hero and despised as a murderer, chronicles his tale in the galaxy-spanning debut of the Sun Eater series, merging the best of space opera and epic fantasy. Ambitious universe-building combines with intimate character portraits for storytelling on a truly epic scale—for fans of Orson Scott Card, Adrian Tchaikovsky, Patrick Rothfuss and Jack CampbellIt was not his war.On the wrong planet, at the right time, for the best reasons, Hadrian Marlowe started down a path that could only end in fire. The galaxy remembers him as a hero: the man who burned every last alien Cielcin from the sky. They remember him as a monster: the devil who destroyed a sun, casually annihilating four billion human lives--even the Emperor himself--against Imperial orders.But Hadrian was not a hero. He was not a monster. He was not even a soldier.Fleeing his father and a future as a torturer, Hadrian finds himself stranded on a strange, backwater world. Forced to fight as a gladiator and into the intrigues of a foreign planetary court, he will find himself fight a war he did not start, for an Empire he does not love, against an enemy he will never understand.

Gary Jennings's Aztec is the extraordinary story of the last and greatest native civilization of North America. Told in the words of one of the most robust and memorable characters in modern fiction, Mixtli-Dark Cloud, Aztec reveals the very depths of Aztec civilization from the peak and feather-banner splendor of the Aztec Capital of Tenochtitlan to the arrival of Hernán Cortás and his conquistadores, and their destruction of the Aztec empire. The story of Mixtli is the story of the Aztecs themselves---a compelling, epic tale of heroic dignity and a colossal civilization's rise and fall.

In The Eye of God, a Sigma Force novel, New York Times bestselling author James Rollins delivers an apocalyptic vision of a future predicted by the distant past.In the wilds of Mongolia, a research satellite has crashed, triggering an explosive search for its valuable cargo: a code-black physics project connected to the study of dark energy—and a shocking image of the eastern seaboard of the United States in utter ruin.At the Vatican, a package arrives containing two strange artifacts: a skull scrawled with ancient Aramaic and a tome bound in human skin. DNA evidence reveals that both came from the same body: the long dead Mongol king Genghis Khan.Commander Gray Pierce and Sigma Force set out to discover a truth tied to the fall of the Roman Empire, to a mystery going back to the birth of Christianity, and to a weapon hidden for centuries that holds the fate of humanity.

Follow the story of Jack McKinley in the mysterious, action-packed adventure series that takes place throughout the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Jack discovers a secret organization on a hidden island and becomes the leader of a mission to retrieve seven lost magical orbs. As Jack and his three friends realize their lives are at stake, they have no choice but to accept the quest and embark on the challenge of their lives. Four friends. Six months. Seven Wonders. One goal. This collection includes books 1 through 3 in this bestselling series (The Colossus Rises, Lost in Babylon, and The Tomb of Shadows). It also includes the thrilling prequel novella to book 1, Seven Wonders Journals: The Select, plus Seven Wonders Journals: The Orphan, a short novella that chronicles a key character's valiant battle to rescue her best friend.

Based on the blockbuster Xbox game, this is the stunning story of the men and women who stood between a planet and total destruction—and now have to face the consequences of their actions. After a brutal fifteen-year war for survival, the Coalition of Ordered Governments is forced to destroy mankind’s last city in a final bid to stop the Locust Horde. As the survivors flee Jacinto, they must contend with the last of the Locust, bent on vengeance, as they struggle to stay alive in an icy wilderness. Marcus Fenix, Dom Santiago, and their fellow Gears fight to get Jacinto’s refugees to a safe haven, but find themselves in a lawless new world where the enemy is human—and as desperate and dangerous as any grub.

Reminiscent of the works of James Rollins and Matthew Reilly comes the latest in an action-packed series about the nation’s most secret agency---the Event GroupTen thousand years before the Roman Empire marched great legions across the known world, there was a civilization dedicated to the sciences of earth, sea, and sky. In the City of Light lived people who made dark plans to lay waste to their uncivilized neighbors using the very power of the planet itself. As the great science of their time was brought to bear on the invading hordes, hell was set loose on Earth. And the civilization of Atlantis disappeared in a suicidal storm of fire and water.Now history threatens to repeat itself. The great weapon of the Ancients has been uncovered in the South Pacific, and it is being deciphered by men of hatred---by an evil once thought banished from history. Again, the black swastika of hate is rising. Their plan is to attempt to control and direct the most destructive force this world has yet to see, a weapon that would make nuclear arms pale in comparison. The world starts to tremble under the power of the ancient science. The seas rise, the earth cracks, and entire cities crumble to dust as the evil plan mapped out thousands of years before takes shape.The Event Group, the most secret department of the United States government, staffed by the most brilliant men and women of science, philosophy, and the military, must take the lead and try to stop the power of the Ancients. With a presidential mandate to discover the truth behind the myths and legends of history, the Event Group fights to ensure that mistakes from the past are never repeated. Headed by Colonel Jack Collins, the Group must face its most dangerous assignment ever: to find the lost trail of the Ancients and unearth the missing key before the new Reich. Can the most secret federal service of the United States track down the lost trail that will lead them to the lair of this secret power? Or will the world explode in a chain reaction that began more than eleven thousand years ago? The Event Group is the world's only hope as they search and battle for the lost power of the Ancients.Heart-pounding action combines with historical adventure as the Event Group discovers that some myths never die. . . .

The third book in the Worldshaper portal fantasy series by an Aurora Award-winning author, in which one woman's powers open the way to a labyrinth of new dimensions.Fresh from their adventures in a world inspired by Jules Verne, Shawna Keys and Karl Yatsar find themselves in a world that mirrors much darker tales. Beneath a full moon that hangs motionless in the sky, they’re forced to flee terrifying creatures that can only be vampires…only to run straight into a pack of werewolves.   As the lycanthropes and undead battle, Karl is spirited away to the castle of the vampire queen. Meanwhile, Shawna finds short-lived refuge in a fortified village, where she learns that something has gone horribly wrong with the world in which she finds herself. Once, werewolves, vampires, and humans lived there harmoniously. Now every group is set against every other, and entire villages are being mysteriously emptied of people.   Somehow, Karl and Shawna must reunite, discover the mysteries of the Shaping of this strange world, and escape it for the next, without being sucked dry, devoured, or—worst of all—turned into creatures of the night themselves.   Beneath the frozen, gibbous moon, allies, enemies, surprises, adventures, and unsettling revelations await.

As billions die and the flames of destruction rage unchecked, the Shadows seem poised for absolute victory. Soon the entire galaxy will fall to their evil. But the war isn't over ... not yet. At long last, in a forgotten corner of the universe, Galen has finally won the Circle's permission to leave the techno-mage hiding place. He is the only mage who has faced the Shadows and lived, the only one who possesses the unstoppable Spell of Destruction.