Challenger's Hope

Attacked and betrayed, Nick Seafort must lead a stranded ship to safety, in a science fiction adventure from the John W. Campbell Award–winning author.

After his heroics aboard the Hibernia in Midshipman’s Hope, Nicholas Seafort wins command of his first ship, the Challenger, and joins Admiral Tremaine’s task force. Their first meeting is a rude awakening, however, as Tremaine demotes him to a smaller, overcrowded ship and blatantly ignores Seafort’s report of alien life on Hope Nation. Above all, Seafort is anxious for his pregnant wife, who’s due to have their baby on the journey. After an alien attack and an admiral’s betrayal, a wounded Seafort is left stranded aboard a ship short of weapons and fuel. Hundreds of lives hang in the balance as Seafort must find a way to survive.

David Feintuch (1944–2006) was the author of the award-winning military science fiction Seafort Saga series, which spans Midshipman’s Hope, Challenger’s Hope, Prisoner’s Hope, Fisherman’s Hope, Voices of Hope, Patriarch’s Hope, and Children of Hope. Feintuch came to writing late, previously having worked as a lawyer and antiques dealer. In 1996, at the age of fifty, he won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer from the World Science Fiction Society. He later expanded into the fantasy genre with his Rodrigo of Caledon series, including The Still and The King.