A.C. Crispin

Twenty-five-year-old Jack Sparrow is a clean-cut merchant seaman pursuing a legitimate career as a first mate for the East India Trading Company. He sometimes thinks back to his boyhood pirating days, but he doesn’t miss Teague’s scrutiny or the constant threat of the noose. Besides, he doesn’t have much choice—he broke the Code when he freed a friend who had been accused of rogue piracy, and he can no longer show his face in Shipwreck Cove. When Jack’s ship is attacked by pirates and his captain dies in the altercation, he suddenly finds himself in command. The wily sailor’s skillful negotiations with the pirate captain—who turns out to be a woman from his past—result in a favorable outcome that puts Jack in line for an official promotion. After making port in Africa, Jack is summoned by Cutler Beckett, who makes him captain of a ship called the Wicked Wench . Beckett gives Jack an assignment. He has heard a legend about a magical island named Zerzura whose labyrinthine bowels are said to contain a glorious treasure. Beckett suspects that one of his house slaves, a girl named Ayisha, is from Zerzura. He asks Jack to take her along on his voyage and seduce her into divulging the island’s whereabouts. In payment for his services, Beckett promises Jack a share of the treasure. But this task isn’t as easy as Jack initially believes. Before she agrees to reveal the location of her home, Ayisha insists that Jack take her to the New World to rescue her brother, who has been sold into slavery in the Bahamas. Their voyage is long and arduous, and as they weather a vicious storm and a surprise attack from an old pirate foe, Jack grows to respect and admire Ayisha’s bravery. He knows that Beckett intends to enslave her people after robbing them of their treasure, and Jack’s moral compass revolts at the idea. It might be possible to deliver Ayisha safely to Zerzura, obtain some of the treasure, and convince Beckett that he never found it . . . but the greedy E. I. T. C. official has eyes everywhere, and if he learns that Jack has foiled his plans, he could take away the thing that Captain Sparrow loves his ship—and his freedom.

At the farthest reaches of the solar system, Ellen Ripley awakens on board the space station "Auriga". Her last memory is of her own fiery death. And yet she is somehow alive. Ripley discovers that her "resurrection" is a result of an incredible experiment which has altered both her and the creature she has been carrying. To combat the incalculable alien menace, she teams up with a renegade band of space smugglers.

Han Solo trascorre i suoi primi anni di vita praticamente sempre a bordo della Trader’s Luck, una nave pirata comandata dal barbaro Garris Shrike: questi ha scovato Han su Corellia, quando era solo un bambino, e lo ha portato con sé. Han e altri ragazzi di strada fanno così la fortuna di Shrike mendicando - e non solo - per le vie dei vari mondi.

TRY TO RESIST They arrived—tens of thousands of extraterrestrial beings—in huge spaceships the size of a modern metropolis. They came from a dying planet. All they wanted, in exchange for their vast knowledge of science and technology, was a small share of the earth's natural resources. Theirs was a mission of peace ... and mankind believed them. Until they began to multiply into an army of alien invaders. Until men, women, and children—entire cities—began to vanish from the earth. Until the horrifying reality behind their mission of peace—a reign of terror reminiscent of Nazi Germany on a global scale—created the human imperative... RESIST OR PERISH

Here is the second novel in the blockbuster new trilogy that reveals the never-before-told story of the young Han Solo. Set before the Star Wars movie adventures, these books chronicle the coming-of-age of the galaxy's most famous con man, smuggler and thief. Solo is now a fugitive from the Imperial Navy. But he has made a valuable friend in a former Wookiee slave named Chewbacca, who has sworn Han a life debt. Han will need all the help he can get. For the Ylesian Hutts have dispatched the dreaded bounty hunter Boba Fett to track down the man who already outsmarted them once. But Han and Chewie find themselves in even bigger trouble when they agree to lend their services to the crime lords Jiliac and Jabba the Hutt. Suddenly the two smugglers are thrust into the middle of a battle between the might of the Empire and the treachery of their outlaw allies...a battle where even victory means death! Features a bonus section following the novel that includes a primer on the Star Wars expanded universe, and over half a dozen excerpts from some of the most popular Star Wars books of the last thirty years!

Star Wars: The Han Solo Trilogy contains the following novels: The Paradise Snare - Han Solo was a child without a past, a Corellian street urchin, abandoned, foraging for scraps of food, when the cruel Garris Shrike whisked him away to a nomadic band of spacefaring criminals. Now, years later, Han fights his way free. His goal: to become an Imperial Navy pilot. But first he needs hand-on experience flying spacecraft, and for that he takes a job on the planet Ylesia—a steaming world of religious fanaticism, illicit drugs, and alluring sensuality…where dreams are destroyed and escape is impossible. The Hutt Gambit - Once one of the Academy's brightest stars, Han Solo is now a fugitive from the Imperial Navy. But he has made a valuable friend in a former Wookiee slave named Chewbacca, who has sworn Han a life debt. Han will need all the help he can get. For the Ylesian Hutts have dispatched the dreaded bounty hunter Boba Fett to track down the man who already outsmarted them once. But Han and Chewie find themselves in even bigger trouble when they agree to lend their services to crime lords Jiliac and Jabba the Hutts. Suddenly the two smugglers are thrust into the middle of a battle between the might of the Empire and the treachery of their outlaw allies…a battle where even victory means death! Rebel Dawn - The Millennium Falcon is "the fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy." So when Han Solo wins it in a game of sabacc, he and Chewbacca become kings of the smugglers—uncatchable and unstoppable. But with the Empire clamping down, Han knows his luck can't last. Still, when an old girlfriend who is now the leader of an insurgent Rebel group offers him a shot at an incredible fortune, Han can't resist. The plan seems a sure thing. The resistance will be light and the take enormous. Han and his friends will divide it equally with the Rebels. Too bad for Han that the planet of Ylesia is far from a pushover, that the Rebels have an agenda of their own, and that smuggler friends can often turn into enemies…quicker than lightspeed. Source: Wookieepedia

Yan Solo n’avait qu’un rêve : devenir l’un des plus brillants sujets de l'Académie Impériale, et il y était presque parvenu. Pour avoir osé sauver une vie, celle de Chewbacca le Wookiee, il a été renvoyé. A présent, il est perpétuellement en fuite, car sa tête est mise à prix par Durga le Hutt, qui ne lui a pas pardonné le désastre qu’il a créé sur Ylesia. Même le redoutable Boba Fett est maintenant à ses trousses, et l’aide de son nouvel ami ne sera pas de trop pour rester en vie. Lorsque les deux aventuriers proposent leurs services à deux seigneurs de la contrebande Hutt, Jilliac et Jabba, les rivaux directs de Durga, c’est pour enfin trouver une vie qui leur convient et des amis qui les acceptent, du moins, pour un temps.

The crew of the Désirée was unprepared. The Simiu were unexpected... Earth's first contact with an alien race turns to disaster when a friendly encounter erupts into inexplicable violence and the threat of interstellar war. But two ordinary individuals--Mahree Burroughs, an ordinary woman with a gift for friendship, and Dhurrrkk', a male Simiu with boundless curiosity--have forged a bond of understanding that bridges their many differences. Along with a reluctant Robert Gable, brilliant young ship's physician, they make an astounding journey across the stars, to seek a way to save the future of both species!

With the help of the Vulcan leader T'Pau, Spock gets permission to use the Guardian of Forever, a portal through time constructed by a long-vanished race, to venture into the past. On another trip into history, on the planet Sarpeidon, Spock had loved a woman who could not return with him to the future, and now Spock wishes to see the son she bore him, 5,000 years earlier. But a Romulan attack on the Guardian's planet could interfere, unless the Enterprise™ can keep the Guardian out of their hands.