Washoe County Library System

Presents a prequel to Star Wars: The force awakens, set roughly six years before the events of the film.

The story of the Spiders, inhabitants of a planet where the sun regularly stops shining for periods of 200 years, during which they are frozen in ice. The novel picks them up emerging from their most recent hibernation in a frenzy of activity and innovation to make up for lost time. After thousands of years searching, humans stand on the verge of first contact with an alien race. Two human groups: the Qeng Ho, a culture of free traders, and the Emergents,...

Navigators, mutated by spice into beings far superior to normal humans, have made space travel possible: their prescient awareness allows them to foresee safe paths through the universe as starships "fold" space. Only one man knows the secret of creating Navigators, and he intends to use them to build a commercial empire that spans the galaxy. However, Josef Venport is embattled by antitechnology fanatics led by charismatic and dangerous Manford Torondo....

Mentat School founder Gilbertus Albans makes uneasy compromises to survive the Butlerian fanatics while ambitious student Valya Harkonnen plots revenge on a hero she blames for her family's downfall.

"Lynesse is the lowly Fourth Daughter of the queen, and always getting in the way. But a demon is terrorizing the land, and now she's an adult (albeit barely) with responsibilities (she tells herself). Although she still gets in the way, she understands that the only way to save her people is to invoke the pact between her family and the Elder sorcerer who has inhabited the local tower for as long as her people have lived here"--

Two children looking up at the night sky wonder what kind of creatures and planets exist in other parts of the universe.