Saga of Seven Suns
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The Saga of Seven Suns is a series of science fiction novels written by Kevin J. Anderson. As of November 2006, it is a series planned to span seven books, with the seventh and last to be published in two years. The series is set in a space opera scenario, a distant future in which humanity has spread out among the stars, colonizing a number of planets in the Milky Way galaxy.
[edit] Synopsis
[edit] Prequel: Veiled Alliances (Graphic Novel) (2004)
Centuries ago, the human race began searching the Milky Way for hospitable planets, hoping to alleviate crowded conditions on Earth. Eleven ships filled with self-sufficient explorers set out for the stars, knowing that, at best, their grandchildren might someday find a new home. And now the Caillié, a generation ship on the verge of despair, has discovered something FAR more interesting - an advanced race capable of faster-than-light travel.
The Ildirans not only help the people of the Caillié settle the planet Theron, they seek out survivors of the other ships launched so long ago. Once they've located most of the remaining human pioneers, the Ildirans send an envoy to the much-changed planet Earth seeking an alliance between the two races. The Earth is now governed by the wisened King Ben, with the shadowy figure of Chairman Malcolm Stannis pulling the strings for the Terran Hanseatic League behind the scenes.
[edit] Book 1: Hidden Empire (2002)
Having colonized the worlds of the Spiral Arm, the three branches of humanity -- the Earth-based Terran Hanseatic League, the telepathic green priests of Theroc, and the fiercely rebellious, starship-dwelling Roamers -- consider themselves lords of creation. After all, humans share the galaxy with only two alien species, one harmless and one extinct. The benign Ildirans are an ancient, senescent civilization, while the Klikiss vanished ages before, leaving behind vast ruins filled with technological wonders, but no clues to their mysterious disappearance.
So ambitious humans see the galaxy as wide open for the taking. And when two xenoarchaeologists discover a Klikiss device that can convert gas giant planets into new, life-giving suns, the humans promptly put their new technology to the test. The result is hideous beyond imagination. For the supposedly uninhabitable gas giants are the homeworlds of another alien species - the Hydrogues. Infinitely more advanced than the Ildirans, supremely more powerful than the Klikiss, and now the victims of accidental genocide, the hydrogues don't seek explanations, apologies, or reparations. Instead, armadas of invincible, city-sized warships emerge from their gaseous worlds with a single purpose: to annihilate every last human - whether Hansa, Theron, or Roamer.
Suddenly, humans need allies, but the Klikiss can't help them and the Ildirans won't. In their pride, the upstart worlds of Man have misunderstood the brutal realities of the galaxy and now face their own impending doom.
[edit] Book 2: A Forest of Stars (2003)
Five years after attacking human-colonized worlds of the Spiral Arm, the enigmatic hydrogues maintain absolute control over the galaxy's gas giant planets. On Earth, the corrupt government is exploiting the crisis, tightening an iron grip on rebellious colonies while seeking to dominate the other humans throughout the galaxy. Earth's alien "friends", the seemingly gentle Ildirans, are secretly abducting and breeding people in enforced sex camps. And the government is using military robots to build cybernetic legions to fight the war, robots that have exterminated their own makers and may turn on mankind.
Five years ago, humans thought they ruled the cosmos. Today they're the galaxy's most endangered species. But when an incredible new race of elemental entities suddenly appear, they destroy all known balances of power. For these beings have suffered genocide for millions of years and are seeking to annihilate all living things.
Now for the humans and the myriad alien factions in the universe, the real war is about to begin.
[edit] Book 3: Horizon Storms (2004)
The titanic war between hydrogues - powerful aliens that live within gas-giant planets - and faeros, fiery creatures inhabiting suns, continues to sweep across the Spiral Arm, extinguishing suns and destroying planets. It is a time when Chairman Basil Wenceslas of the Terran Hanseatic League and his figurehead King Peter must unify all branches of the human race to stand together against the threat even if they must resort to deception and oppression to do so.
But the freedom-loving Roamer clans and the forest-dwelling people of Theroc, whose "green priests" can communicate across vast distances through a network of sentient worldtrees, will not give up their independence so easily.
The iron-fist policies of Chairman Wenceslas force the disparate civilizations to forge alliances of their own, creating turmoil that may break human civilization apart, as surely as the destructive Hydrogues will.
Partly as a distraction from their peril, partly as a desperate hope, the Hanseatic League launches an ambitious new colonization program using the new network of alien transportals, instantaneous gateways that take hardy pioneers to settle new worlds once abandoned by the ancient insectlike Klikiss race. But the new territory comes with its own dangers and deeply buried mysteries.
In the ancient Ildiran Empire, Jora'h - the newly crowned Mage-Imperator - must face the awful responsibilities and sinister secrets his predecessors have imposed upon him: from the extensive breeding program forced upon a colony of hopeless human captives, to a surprising and uneasy pact with the beetle-like Klikiss robots that could result in the total extinction of the human race. But Jora'h must also survive a threat no other Mage-Imperator has faced in ten thousand years - open rebellion among the Ildirans, an astonishing civil war and a challenge to his rule that could break apart the entire Empire.
[edit] Book 4: Scattered Suns (2005)
The destructive Hydrogues continue their war against humans and the fiery entities, the Faeros -a struggle that kills planets and extinguishes whole stars. Newly crowned Mage-Imperator Jora'h, the leader of the ancient and vast Ildiran Empire, struggles with the knowledge that the Hydrogues are only willing to give them peace if they help destroy the humans. But Jora'h's empire is destroying itself from within, when his mad brother launches a bloody rebellion across the Ildiran planets, appointing Jora'h's own first-born son as its leader.
In the Terran Hanseatic League, Chairman Basil Wenceslas continues his red-herring war against the Roamer clans, eager to achieve a decisive victory, even against a supposed enemy that poses no threat. Their homes destroyed, the wandering Roamers scatter into hiding, trying to keep their culture and government intact, even when faced with enemies from all sides. Cesca Peroni, leader of the Roamers, finds herself stranded on a small icy outpost where miners have uncovered a hibernating army of alien Klikiss robots. Once released, these robots trigger another dark and ancient plot, one that could lead to a massacre across all human-inhabited planets. In a galaxy torn by war, treachery, and shifting alliances, it is clear that many of the races are untrustworthy, and that they are likely to turn on each other.
[edit] Book 5: Of Fire And Night (July 2006)
The extermination of mankind is at hand. In a war against alien races, killer robots, and elemental beings, Earth slips deeper into desperation. The Terran government always knew the hydrogues were a vicious enemy bent on humanity’s destruction, but they didn’t predict how many other factions would turn against them.
With his increasingly irrational leadership, Chairman Basil Wenceslas has driven humanity into a corner. The Chairman’s punitive treatment of Hansa colonies and free-spirited Roamers, as well as his refusal to aid the burned forest world of Theroc, has made enemies all around. Enemies that Earth cannot afford.
Earth’s own Soldier compies have rebelled, taking over much of the military, stealing ships and slaughtering crews across the galaxy. Even our staunch allies the Ildirans, led by Mage-Imperator Jora’h, are secretly scheming with the hydrogues to exterminate the human race.
As the war continues to go badly for Earth, the remaining factions of humanity plan for their own salvation. Worldtrees allied with “green priests” on Theroc have rallied hulking, thorny tree battleships, while Roamers work with powerful water entities, the wentals, to seed scattered planets with a growing force to challenge the hydrogues.
After Chairman Wenceslas has alienated and cut off so many potential allies, it seems clear that Earth is not well defended, and that it may be destroyed.
[edit] Book 6: Metal Swarm (Due out June 2007)
[edit] Final Book 7: The Ashes of Worlds (Due out June 2008)
[edit] Timeline
Ca. 1940's - Ildirans discover Klikiss robots on Hyrillka ice moons.
2100 - Peary, Balboa, Marco Polo; first 'Generation' ships to depart from Earth.
2103 - Burton, Caillie depart.
2104 - Amundsen departs.
2106 - Clark, Vichy depart.
2109 - Stroganov departs.
2110 - Abel-Wexler departs.
2113 - Kanaka departs, last Generation ship.
2196 - Kanaka leaves colony at Meyer rubble belt; becomes Rendezvous.
2200 - Christian Gellar made Chairman of Terran Hanseatic League.
2215 - Roseanna Burke made Chairman of Terran Hanseatic League.
2221 - King Ben crowned on Earth.
2223 - William Danforth Pape made Chairman of Terran Hanseatic League.
2230 - Mage-Imperator Yura'h ascends.
2243 - Malcolm Stannis made Chairman of Terran Hanseatic League.
2244 - Ildirans encounter Caillie; Theroc established as colony.
2245 - Ildirans come to Earth, search for more Generation ships.
2247 - Kanaka found, settlers taken to Iawa.
2249 - Compy OX returns to Earth.
Thara Wen (14 years old) becomes the first to 'take the green'.
2250 - Roamers begin skymining operations at Daym and elsewhere.
2253 - Francine Meyer made Chairman of Terran Hanseatic League.
2254 - Dobro experiments begin.
First Klikiss ruins (Llaro) reported by Madeliene Robinson.
Theroc officially delcares its independence from the Hansa.
King Ben poisoned; King George crowned.
2270 - Adam Cho made Chairman of Terran Hanseatic League.
2274 - King Christopher crowned.
2291 - Bertram Goswell made Chairman of Terran Hanseatic League.
2298 - Regan Chalmers made Chairman of Terran Hanseatic League.
2299 - Sandra Abel-Wexler made Chairman of Terran Hanseatic League.
2307 - King Jack crowned.
2315 - Clare Faso made Chairman of Terran Hanseatic League.
2323 - King Bartholomew crowned.
2337 - Mage-Imperator Yura'h dies; Cyroc'h ascends.
2338 - Miguel Byron made Chairman of Terran Hanseatic League.
2347 - Tam Charles Wicinsky made Chairman of Terran Hanseatic League.
2352 - Uthair and Lia Theron born.
2357 - Bram Tamblyn born.
2359 - Caleb Tamblyn born.
Robert Roberts II made Chairman of Terran Hanseatic League.
2360 - Andrew Tamblyn born.
2363 - Wynn and Torin tamblyn born.
2367 - Kelly Kirk made Chairman of Terran Hanseatic League.
2372 - Alexa Theron born.
2373 - Uthair and Lia Theron become Father and Mother of Theroc.
2375 - Yarrod Theron born.
2376 - Karla Baker born.
2380 - Maureen Fitzpatrick made Chairman of Terran Hanseatic League.
2381 - King Frederick crowned.
2389 - Ronald Palomar made Chairman of Terran Hanseatic League.
2390 - Margaret and Louis Colicos married.
2397 - Ross Tamblyn born.
2400 - Idriss and Alexa married.
2402 - Reynald Theron born.
Jess Tamblyn born.
2403 - Beneto Theron born. Uthair and Lia Theron retire.
2406 - Sarein Theron born.
Basil Wenceslas made Chairman of Terran Hanseatic League.
2408 - Nira Khali born.
2411 - Tasia Tamblyn born.
2413 - Raymod Aguerra born.
2415 - Estarra Theron born.
2417 - Celli Theron born.
2427 - Oncier ignited with Klikiss Torch.
Ross Tamblyn dies.
King Peter crowned.
[edit] See also
- Races and Species
- Characters: Ildirans, Humans
- Planets
