The Hinder Stars Series

The 2nd novel of The Hinder Stars series returns to an intergalactic corporate conflict, set in the Hugo Award–winning Alliance-Union Universe.

With deft prose and complex characters, Alliance Unbound is thought-provoking science fiction that shrewdly examines the technological and sociopolitical challenges of humanity’s journey to the stars.

When Cyteen opened up faster-than-light travel, it gave the technology for free to any ship that could reach it; and with that technology, it provided a map of jump-points, points of mass enabling starships to navigate hyperspace safely.

The map of jump-points, however, stopped with the route to Alpha—thus excluding Sol, and Earth, and the Earth Company, whose gateway to the stars was Alpha. Cyteen knew exactly what it was doing with its gift. Sol and the EC could still reach Alpha with sub-light pusher-ships as it always had—but Sol and the Earth Company no longer had any authority in the Beyond.

But Sol intends to take back control of its star-stations and stop Cyteen’s unbridled expansion, however it can. To do that, they are willing to starve Alpha and concentrate their efforts on a huge FTLer capable of carrying military force.

SFWA Grand Master C. J. Cherryh and Jane S. Fancher  return to the Hugo-award winning Alliance-Union Universe with a thrilling entry in her far-reaching sci-fi saga.

For years, the stations of the Hinder Stars, those old stations closest to Sol, have lagged behind the great megastations of the Beyond, like Pell and Cyteen. But new opportunities and fears arise when Alpha station, the oldest of them all, receives news of a huge incoming faster-than-light ship with no identification. The denizens of Alpha wait anxiously for news about the outsiders, each with their own suspicions about the ship and its motivations.

Ross and Fallan, crew members of the Galway, believe the unidentified ship belongs to Pell and has come to investigate another massive ship docked at Alpha, The Rights of Man. Though Rights is under the command of the Earth Company, it is not quite perfected—and its true purpose is shrouded in mystery.

James Robert Neihart, the captain of the strange ship—finally identified as one of the two largest ships of the Beyond, the Merchanter vessel Finity’s End—has heard whispers of The Rights of Man and wonders at its design and purpose, especially as Sol has struggled to rival the progress of the Farther Stars. Now docked at Alpha, he must convince the crews that there is more to The Rights of Man than meets the eye.

Because the reasons behind the creation of The Rights of Man, and its true plans, could change everything—not just for Sol, but for the Hinder Stars and the Beyond itself.