Star Rigger

Wrongly discredited as a space pilot, Panglor Balef is doomed to die in space, if sheer luck doesn’t bring him through. But luck has never been in Panglor’s cards. Bad enough to be coerced into a mission of murder and suicide, he must also contend with Alo - a young woman, stowaway, and impossible companion. Neither of them, nor his empathic ou-ralot, could possibly anticipate the journey through space-time they are about to embark on, through a door to an insane reality from which there is almost certainly no return.

Dragons in space? A preposterous legend. But when star pilot Jael defies an abusive ship's master and rigs "the mountain route" through the hyperdimensional Flux, the dragons indeed appear—and challenge her to duel. If she escapes, will she ever dare this route again? Fate has its ways, and when next the currents of space bring her near, she finds Highwing the dragon under sentence of death for the kindness he showed her. Only Jael can intervene—and so she must, for the sake of the one who risked his life to save hers.

A realm at war. The star dragons struggle under the oppression of an unseen foe—a creature of terrible power, who seeks to shape all of space-time into a web of subjugation and death. The Dream Mountain, source of knowledge and life to the dragons, is held by the enemy; and yet, hope burns in the dragons’ hearts. According to ancient prophecy, One will come from outside to challenge the darkness. Star pilot Jael LeBrae may be that savior.

His shipmates dead, star rigger Gev Carlyle is adrift in the Flux, the subjective hyperdimensional sea that carries ships between the stars. His lone companion, and sole hope for survival, is a suicidal catlike alien named Cephean. Only a compatible rigger team, their visions meshed in psychic unity, can safely harness the turbulent currents of the Flux - and Carlyle's ship is sailing inexorably toward the deadly maelstrom of the Hurricane Flume. For even a chance at survival, he needs Cephean's help. But the price for that is a complete merging of minds and memories.

Ghost ship Impris, lost during the War of a Thousand Suns, is the stuff of legend. Her very name conjures the perils of interstellar travel. But no mere legend, she is real - glimpsed on occasion in the hyperdimensional Flux and then gone. Her passengers and crew live on in a strange limbo, their fate hopelessly caught up in quantum defects in space-time, interstellar piracy, and galactic coverup.

Starship rigging is a long-lost art. But the ocean world Ernathe may hold the key to its rediscovery, if a young star pilot can learn the ways of the mysterious sea people, the Nale’nid. A touching story of love and personal discovery, Seas of Ernathe takes us on a journey back toward the mode of star travel that once knit the galaxy together. Seas of Ernathe was Jeffrey A. Carver’s first novel, and the first full-length tale of what was to become his popular Star Rigger Universe. Set farthest into the future of all the Star Rigger stories, Seas of Ernathe sets the stage for a new cycle of star-faring history. From the Nebula-nominated author of Eternity’s End and The Chaos Chronicles.