Fire with Fire

2105, September: Investigative Journalist Caine Riordan uncovers a secret conspiracy on Earth's Moona history-changing clandestine projectand ends up involuntarily cryotanked for twelve years for his troubles. Riordan awakens to a changed world. Humanity has achieved faster-than-light travel and is pioneering nearby star systems. And now, Riordan has become the inadvertent agent of conspiracy himself. Riordan's mission: travel to a newly settled world and investigate whether a local species is sentientand find out whether the mysterious ruins within the jungles there are of alien origin. However, arriving on site in the Delta Pavonis system, Caine discovers that the job he's been given is anything but secret or safe. With assassins and saboteurs dogging his every step, it's clear that someone doesn't want his mission to succeed. In the end, it takes the generalist's eye of a reporter with a nose for intrigue to ferret out the truth: not only is humanity not alone, there are other species' whose primary objective is we are about to be pulled into a fight for our life in a galaxy that is a lot more dangerous than we ever expected. Now Riordan must convince the powers-that-be that the only way for humanity to end up a free species is to face the periland to fight fire with fire. About Starfire series hit, Extremis, coauthored by Charles E. Gannon: "Vivid. . . Battle sequences mingle with thought-provoking exegesis . . ." Publishers Weekly "It's a grand, fun series of battles and campaigns, worthy of anything Dale Brown or Larry Bond ever wrote." Analog About Charles E. Gannon: "[A] strong [writer of]. . .military SF. . .[much] action going on in his work, with a lot of physics behind it. There is a real sense of the urgency of war and the sacrifices it demands." Analog

Charles E. Gannon is a breakthrough rising star in science fiction with a multiple short story and novella publications in Baen anthologies, Man-Kzin Wars XIII, Analog, and elsewhere. Gannon is coauthor with Steve White of Extremis, the latest entry in the legendary Starfire series created by David Weber. His most recent novel is 1635: The Papal Stakes cowritten with alternate history master, Eric Flint.  A multiple Fulbright scholar, Gannon is Distinguished Professor of American Literature at St. Bonaventure University.