Splintered Suns
'Proper galaxy-spanning space opera' Iain M. Banks on Seeds of Earth
Action-orientated sci-fi with a spaceship crewed by rogues and scoundrels, perfect for fans of Star Wars, Firefly or Farscape
For Pyke and his crew it should have been just another heist. Travel to a backwater desert planet, break into a museum, steal a tracking device then use it to find a ship buried in the planet's vast and trackless sandy wastes.
Except that the museum vault is a bio-engineered chamber, and the tracking device is sought after by another gang of treasure hunters led by an old adversary of Pyke's, the devious Raven Kaligara. Also, the ship is a quarter of a million years old and about two kilometres long and somewhere aboard it is the Essavyr Key, a relic to unlock all the treasures and technologies of a lost civilisation . . .
'Splintered Suns splices new and old space opera, cyberpunk, quest fantasy and heist caper -- the maddest thing I've read since Van Vogt!'
Ken MacLeod
"Splintered Suns is a masterpiece of future nostalgia. All who love mischievous interstellar derring-do in pursuit of ancient relics of departed races as well as exotic panoplies of sentient species, all who love space opera should feast upon this generous novel. Let us revel in the admirable jaunty technicolour richness which Mike Cobley serves up so entertainingly-for this is how the universe ought to be"
Ian Watson, author of the Games Workshop Warhammer 40K novels Space Marine and The Inquisition Wartrilogy