Plot summary
The novel is set in a distant future. Following the accidental discovery of interstellar travel via 'warp points', humanity has expanded throughout space, evolving into a Terran Federation consisting of Core Worlds like Earth and Alpha Centauri, Corporate Worlds like Galloway's Star, and Fringe Worlds colonized by small groups of like-minded people seeking to preserve ethnic or cultural identities from getting lost in a cosmopolitan sameness. (Tensions exist between the three groups of worlds, and are further explored in Insurrection, another novel also written by Weber and White).
Following a series of three interstellar wars (ISWs 1–3) with different species (warlike felinoid Orions and their centauroid Gorm associates, birdlike Ophiuchi, the genocidal Rigelians, and the Thebans (explored in a prequel novel Crusade), humanity has experienced a seventy-year "vacation from history", i.e. seven decades of peace.
A survey squadron travels through a previously uncharted warp point and encounters a hive-like species referred to derisively as the 'Bugs' (inspired by the Arachnids in Robert A. Heinlein's Starship Troopers ). All attempts at communication fail, and the Bugs ambush the survey squadron, with a great loss of material and human life. Pursuing the survivors, the Bugs mount a massive invasion of Terran and Orion space.
Satellites left behind monitor the conquered planets and reveal that Bugs regard other sentient life forms as food sources; indeed the Bugs prefer to consume their prey alive. It is later revealed that the Bugs raise ranches of conquered species.
The alternative being "equal opportunity genocide", Terrans, Orions, Gorm, and Ophiuchi form a Grand Alliance, with Terrans and Orions as the senior members. The novel features long and very detailed space and ground battle sequences, detailed discussions of tactical doctrine, the ongoing arms race between the Alliance and the Bugs, and the development of interpersonal relations between military people of different background and species.
The universe and novels are based on the Starfire wargame series, which David Weber helped to develop, and which has existed in various editions since 1976.
Terran is an adjectival form of Earth similar to Earthling, often used in the context of Earth in science fiction.
The Shiva Option, published by Baen Books, is the sequel to David Weber and Steve White's military science fiction novel In Death Ground.
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The Commonwealth Saga is a series of science fiction novels by British science fiction writer Peter F. Hamilton. This saga consists of the novels Pandora's Star (2004) and Judas Unchained (2005). Hamilton has also written several books set in the same literary universe. Misspent Youth (2002) takes place 340 years before the events of Pandora's Star. The Void Trilogy, consisting of The Dreaming Void (2008), The Temporal Void (2009), and The Evolutionary Void (2010), takes place 1,200 years after the events of Judas Unchained; several of the main characters from Judas Unchained and Pandora's Star also appear in the Void trilogy.
Starfire is a board wargame simulating space warfare and empire building in the 23rd century, created by Stephen V. Cole in 1979.
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The Continent Makers and Other Tales of the Viagens is a 1953 collection of science fiction stories by American writer L. Sprague de Camp, the fifth book in his Viagens Interplanetarias series. It was first published in hardcover by Twayne Publishers, and in paperback by Signet Books in 1971 with a cover by illustrator Bob Pepper. An E-book edition was published by Gollancz's SF Gateway imprint on September 29, 2011 as part of a general release of de Camp's works in electronic form. It has also been translated into Portuguese, Dutch, and Italian. The pieces were originally published between 1949 and 1951 in the magazines Astounding Science-Fiction, Startling Stories, Future Combined with Science Fiction, and Thrilling Wonder Stories.
The planetary systems of stars other than the Sun and the Solar System are a staple element in many works of the science fiction genre.
The Viagens Interplanetarias series is a sequence of science fiction stories by L. Sprague de Camp, begun in the late 1940s and written under the influence of contemporary space opera and sword and planet stories, particularly Edgar Rice Burroughs's Martian novels. Set in the future in the 21st and 22nd centuries, the series is named for the quasi-public Terran agency portrayed as monopolizing interstellar travel, the Brazilian-dominated Viagens Interplanetarias. It is also known as the Krishna series, as the majority of the stories belong to a sequence set on a fictional planet of that name. While de Camp started out as a science fiction writer and his early reputation was based on his short stories in the genre, the Viagens tales represent his only extended science fiction series.
"The Road Not Taken" is a science fiction short story by American writer Harry Turtledove, set in 2039, in which he presents a fictitious account of a first encounter between humanity and an alien race, the Roxolani. Turtledove wrote a sequel, a short story entitled "Herbig-Haro".
Probability Sun is a 2001 science fiction novel by American writer Nancy Kress, a sequel to her 2000 publication Probability Moon. It was followed in 2002 by Probability Space, which won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award.
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Exodus is a 2007 military science fiction novel, and sequel to the "Stars at War" series, written by Steve White and Shirley Meier.
The Star Conquerors is a science fiction novel by American writer Ben Bova. It was published in 1959 by the John C. Winston Company.
Charles E. Gannon is a novelist, and a game designer who has worked primarily on hard science-fiction and role-playing games.
Star Rangers, also known as The Last Planet, is a science fiction novel by the American author Andre Norton. The novel was published on August 20, 1953, by Harcourt, Brace & Company. This is one of Norton's Central Control books, which lay out the history of a galactic empire through events suggested by Norton's understanding of Terran history.
