Ron Collins is a bestselling Science Fiction and Dark Fantasy author who writes across the spectrum of speculative fiction.

Ron's short fiction has received a Writers of the Future prize and a CompuServe HOMer Award. His short story "The White Game" was nominated for the Short Mystery Fiction Society's 2016 Derringer Award. With his daughter, Brigid, he edited the anthology Face the Strange.

His nonfiction book On Writing (And Reading!) Short is about his lifetime spent writing short fiction.

Stealing the Sun: Books 1-3 by Ron Collins

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence

Everguard's mission: Establish a multidimensional gate inside Alpha Centauri A for Interstellar Command to fuel their new faster-than-light spaceships.

Lieutenant Commander Torrance Black, career already on shaky grounds, finds himself facing a quandry.

Did they just contact sentient life in the Centauri system?

Will humankind sacrifice an entire alien species in their quest for the stars?

Starflight, Btarburts, and Starfall: the first three books of Stealing the Sun, a space based Science Fiction series from frequent Analog contributor and bestselling Amazon Dark Fantasy author Ron Collins.

CURATOR'S NOTE

•When a writer as great as Ron Collins gets his groove on, all you can do is come along for the thrill ride that is racing your way. A frequent contributor to Analog magazine, Ron is a master of weaving irresistible tales with incredible core ideas and fast-paced action that will leave your heart racing and a fierce smile on your face. These first three novels in the Stealing the Sun series don't let up in the high-stakes drama department, and the characters driving the action will pull you through from start to finish. Will the hero help create a multidimensional gate inside Alpha Centauri-A to fuel faster-than-light starships, no matter the cost to any sentient lifeforms in the vicinity? Ron reveals the answers in surprising and emotionally resonant ways, weaving an unforgettable space opera trilogy that will make you fall in love with the genre all over again. – Robert Jeschonek

 

REVIEWS

  • "Ron Collins is one of our best hard science fiction writers—a novel from him is a major event. Enjoy!"

    – Robert J. Sawyer, Hugo Award-Winning Author of Quantum Night
  • "Great characters I cared about, a kick-ass plot with surprising twists, great techie details, and a powerful story. Pick up Starburst. I guarantee you won't set it down until you've read every last word."

    – Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Hugo Award–winning author of the Diving Universe
 

BOOK PREVIEW

Excerpt

UGIS Everguard
Ship Local Date: May 5, 2204
Ship Local Time: 1425

Lieutenant Commander Torrance Black stood on the gunmetal runway that circled Everguard's pod engineering assembly area. The rail was cold against his grip. Machinery ozone seeped through the deck's grate and hung in the open space like acrid memories, unchangeable and vaguely distant.

Everything appeared to be on plan.

Each tube bay stood open, the collection forming a perfectly spaced row of a dozen chambers, their three-meter spans empty, pristinely round, and gleaming with stainless steel beauty. The wormhole pods that went into these tubes were the size of G-class riders—thirty meters tip to tip with rounded cross sections that fit into circular launch tubes. Rugged brown thermal material gave them a stark, utilitarian appearance in the brightly lit assembly area. Each end of the pods was capped with conical black boots of heat-treated alloy, banded with a titanium-steel composite fashioned in the zero-g environment of Aldrin Station.

His staff wore fresh whites. Their voices echoed with professional bearing in the open expanse. A computer reported the status of the automated routine controlling the launch sequence.

"I want these tubes loaded by 1800 hours, folks," he barked with what even he realized was too much vinegar.

"We'll make it, LC," Malloy replied with a quick salute.

Torrance returned the gesture halfheartedly, then stepped into his glass-enclosed office. Malloy was the chief operations officer on this assignment, and trustworthy enough to keep things on track by himself. Torrance settled into his chair, sighed, and stared through a holographic image of the wormhole pod's internal guts.

LC.

Lieutenant commander.

The title echoed in his mind.

That was the thing about rank in the military.

Everyone understood what it meant. Rank labeled a man. It stayed with him. It would not be long before the promotion list was made public—not long before everyone knew where Torrance stood.

He would change the world today. As chief launch engineer, he would release a dozen wormhole pods that would burrow into Alpha Centauri A. Their external shells would burn away inside the star's core, and if at least nine of the twelve systems made it to the target point, they would rend space and create the far end of a wormhole. Raw hydrogen and helium would flow to the other side, where fellow crew members would latch these extradimensional warps to the back end of starships.

Then the universe would be open for the first time.

Faster-than-light travel.

Sirius for breakfast, the Aldebaran double star for dinner.

It would change everything, even the name of the command he worked for. From the moment the pods took hold, Solar Command, the United Government's chief projection of force, would be reborn as Interstellar Command. Everguard—complete with 2,158 crew members and their families, and a soon-to-be obsolete propulsion system—was the first cruiser to carry the United Government Interstellar Ship (UGIS) designation, but it would not be the last.

He supposed he should feel something appropriate.

But Kip Levitt, the ship's propulsion officer, and a man Torrance had gone to school with so many years ago, had been promoted to full commander today.

Torrance had not.

And it didn't take a lifer to know that when a person in the chain of command is passed over for promotion, their career, for all effective purposes, is over.