Mike Shepherd – författare

NATIONAL BESTSELLING SERIESThere’s no rest for a Longknife—even if you’re a newlywed. Vice Admiral Kris Longknife’s honeymoon gets cancelled when she hears that the space raider’s home world may have been discovered. Finding where the raiders came from could be the key to saving humanity. If only uncovering their secrets was that easy…As Kris returns home, she ends up tangling with a mutinous crew determined to take off on their own. The dissident group leads Kris straight into a new mess—a system filled with strange, deadly enemies poised to wipe another sentient civilization out of existence. Kris and her squadron are ready to prevent total annihilation, but the mutineers have other plans…

In the New York Times bestselling Kris Longknife novels, “fans of the Honor Harrington escapades will welcome the adventures of another strong female in outer space starring in a thrill-a-page military space opera” (Alternative Worlds).The aliens attacking the planetary system of Alwa are an enemy unlike any Admiral Kris Longknife has ever encountered before. She doesn’t know who they are, only that they worship a being known as the Enlightened One and are unafraid to sacrifice themselves against her fleet.But Kris faces more than just the fanatical behavior of an alien armada. A saboteur has infiltrated the military’s medical facility and unleashed an epidemic that has spread throughout the fleet without warning.Seventy-two career military women are down with something not even the aliens could do to them—including Admiral Kris Longknife…

Kris Longknife “can kick, shoot, and punch her way out of any dangerous situation,”* and her latest adventure in the New York Times bestelling series is as perilous as they come...   Despite her role as a fleet Admiral and protector of a planetary system, Kris is still beholden to her great grandfather King Raymond’s commands. She has been personally selected for a mission that, should she succeed, will save millions of lives.   The Peterwald Empire is in the midst of civil war. On one side is the tyrannical Empress, on the other is the last person Kris ever wants to see again—Grand Duchess Vicky Peterwald. Due to their shared history, the Emperor believes Kris can mediate between the factions and bring about peace.   But before Kris even begins her mission, she survives multiple assassination attempts on her family home world. Someone doesn’t want her interfering in the Empire’s affairs. Kris immediately suspects Vicky or the Empress, only to learn that it could also be a traitor among her own people...   *Sci Fi magazineFrom the Paperback edition.

Kris Longknife has been assigned to The Wasp, the best warship beyond the Rim of Human Space. But while hunting for pirates, Kris stumbles upon something. It’s a plan to kill one of the members of the aristocratic Peterwald family—and the would-be killers are setting her up as the assassin.

Kris Longknife encounters some peaceful aliens who have come to warn humanity of an unidentifiable force that is roaming the galaxy, obliterating everything in its path-a path now leading directly toward the human worlds.

You can''t keep a good woman down-Kris Longknife returns. Once again Kris finds herself caught in the crosshairs of unknown enemies who want her dead. Factions, both legitimate and underground, vie for control of the planet New Eden. And someone is taking advantage of the chaos to unleash a personal vendetta against Kris.

Lieutenant Commander Kris Longknife has precise orders: seek out, engage, and destroy pirates, slavers, and drug lords operating beyond the rim of human space-without interfering in Peterwald family affairs. But when slavers kidnap a twelve-year-old girl, Kris''s mission becomes personal. And if destroying the pirate compound flattens some Peterwald interests-well, to hell with politics.

As part of an agenda to oust her father from his political position, Kris Longknife is relieved of command. But when an alien enemy launches an invasion, she defies both government and military authority to lead a rag-tag fleet against the threat.

Lieutenant Commander Kris Longknife leads a reconnaissance mission of the vast uncharted regions of space. No one, least of all Kris, expects to find a hostile alien starship. Now, she must determine the extent of the alien threat-and whether to start an interstellar war...

More information to be announced soon on this forthcoming title from Penguin USA.

An original novella in the “fast-paced, exciting military SF series”* featuring Kris Longknife. Kris Longknife is back home from her galactic adventures, but her entire Fleet of Discovery has been annihilated. Now, humanity finds itself at war with an alien race more monstrous than anyone could have possibly imagined. General Terrance “Trouble” Tordon, Kris’s great-grandfather, is given the task of calming the panicked politicians, some of whom blame Kris for the disaster and would like to eliminate the ever bothersome Commander Longknife. But as “Trouble” struggles to defend his Kris, the level of uncertainty among the civilians leads to more panic and a rush to judgment that makes him believe that he’s facing a fight he’s bound to lose… Includes a preview of the newest Kris Longknife novel, Furious, available November 2012. *SF Site 

From the national bestselling author of the Kris Longknife series comes an all-new Jump Universe novel.Retired Colonel Ray Longknife and Marine Captain Terrence “Trouble” Tordon come to Savannah via different routes, but what they find is the same. One bully strongman is intent on keeping power no matter what the new rules are for peace. He’s got the population cowered by thugs, and tanks at the ready. He expects to win the coming elections handily.He doesn’t expect trouble. Or, in this case, Mrs. Trouble—aka Ruth Tordon—a Marine wife on a mission to find the drug lords that almost killed her and her husband and put them out of business—and she’s not about to be stopped by some barely trained roughnecks.Abandoned by their strongman and desperate in defeat, the heavy armor get ready to roll into town over anybody in their way. But Ray Longknife, Trouble and Ruth are standing in their way…and nothing is going to flatten them.From the Paperback edition.

Having used unorthodox methods to save a world—and every sentient being on it—Lieutenant Commander Kris Longknife is wanted across the galaxy for crimes against humanity. For her own safety, she’s been assigned to a backwater planet where her Fast Patrol Squadron 127 enforces immigration control and smuggler interdiction.

But Kris is a Longknife, and nothing can stop her from getting back to the center of things—not when all hell is breaking loose. Now she’s on the run, hunted by both military and civilian authorities—and since the civilian authorities happen to be her immediate family, Kris soon finds herself homeless, broke, and on trial for her life on an alien world…

BEAUTY AND THE BATTLEFIELDHer Imperial Highness the Grand Duchess Victoria Maria Teresa Inez Smythe-Peterwald, daughter of wealth and power, was raised to do little except be attractive and marry well. Then everything changed—her brother, her father’s favorite and the heir apparent, was killed in battle by Lieutenant Kris Longknife, daughter of the Peterwald’s longtime enemies. Vicky vowed revenge, but her skill set was more suitable for seduction than assassination, and she failed. Angry and disappointed, her father decided she needed military training and forced her to join the Navy.Now Ensign Vicky Peterwald is part of a whole new world, where use of her ample charms will not lead to advancement. But her father is the Emperor, and what he wants he gets. What he wants is for Vicky to learn to be efficiently ruthless and deadly.Though the lessons are hard learned, Vicky masters them—with help from an unexpected source: Kris Longknife.

From the New York Times bestselling author of the Kris Longknife series comes a military science fiction adventure featuring Vicky Peterwald...Vicky Peterwald is no longer just the heir apparent to an imperial dynasty. She survived naval training and proved her mettle in combat to help the starving people of the ravaged world of St. Petersburg. Now, she is truly a Grand Duchess, leading a growing battle fleet in a rebellion against the tyranny of her stepmother, the Empress.Determined to stop her spoiled stepdaughter’s betrayal from upsetting the balance of power within the Peterwald Empire, the Empress is leading her own armada to St. Petersburg, intent on killing Vicky and every soul on the planet that gave her refuge. But Vicky is her father’s daughter, and it would be a grave mistake to underestimate her...From the Paperback edition.

Kris Longknife is back in the good graces of the brass—and to demonstrate that, they''ve promoted her to Admiral.  Now her mission is to find the home base of the space pirates who are plaguing the fringes of the galaxy. But no mission is ever simple when your name is Longknife. And this time the complications range from the military to the personal, as Kris finds herself—reluctantly—having to make some command decisions about her future...

A search for her lost friend leads the female space warrior into a galactic hellhole with no way out.

Kris Longknife is a daughter of privilege, born to money and power. Her father is the Prime Minister of her home planet, her mother the consummate politician’s wife. She’s been raised only to be beautiful and to marry well. But the heritage of the military Longknifes courses through Kris’s blood—and, against her parents’ objections, she enlists in the marines.She has a lot to live up to and a lot to prove in the long-running struggle between her powerful family, a highly defensive—and offensive—Earth, and the hundreds of warring colonies. And then an ill-conceived attack brings the war close to home, putting Kris’s life on the line. Now she has only one choice: certain death on the front lines of rim space—or mutiny...

Kris Longknife has been given her first independent command in the very remote system of Chance, an assignment that''s as much exile as promotion.

But Kris isn''t on the job long when she captures pirates hiding the location of an uncharted and unpopulated planet of miraculous technology.

As a freelance CIA operative, Mick Scott was no stranger to danger. He had infiltrated the violent Weather Underground, and now he was assigned to pose as a Russian correspondent for Radio Moscow while actually reporting on the atrocities of Pol Pot in Cambodia for Voice of America.

In the process, he helped to liberate a young French/Cambodian woman named Lovea Duval, who in the midst of Pol Pot''s murderous rampage, emerged as the leader of a counterinsurgency known as the People''s Republican Army (PRA).

Utilizing guerrilla warfare, the PRA (also known as the "War Wolves") pursued Pol Pot''s Communist army, the Khmer Rouge, across northern Cambodia from Thailand to Vietnam. Eventually becoming allied with invading Vietnamese forces who deposed Pol Pot, the PRA evolved into the People''s Republican Party, and Duval was considered to be a prime candidate to represent Cambodia in a coalition government. But the Khmer Rouge, who remained active despite being on the run, had other plans for Duval.

Days of Rage is the story of Mick Scott who, after returning home from the Vietnam War in 1968, attends school on the G.I. Bill at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale. There he makes the acquaintance of David Gordon, the director of the controversial Vietnamese Studies Center; controversial because it is rumored to be affiliated with the CIA.

Scott soon concludes it is no rumor when Gordon recruits him to infiltrate the local Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) in an effort to uncover a spy that has infiltrated the Center. As Gordon suspects, it is someone who is affiliated in some way (directly or indirectly) with the SDS.

Tavang Sing, the son of a CIA mercenary and a woman who lived in the Hmong village of Ban Xon in Laos, was born after his father was captured by the Pathet Lao in that country''s civil war in the 1960''s. After his birth his mother took him to Chicago, where as a teenager he became involved with a street gang. But, with the help of a stranger, who turns out to be his long lost father, Tavang left the gang. He then graduated from high school and Northwestern University, and joined the Peace Corps in Laos. Upon his return, he graduated from the University of Chicago School of Law. He then became a lawyer, and eventually a politician.

After the September 11, 2001 al-Qaeda attack on the World Trade Center in New York City, Tavang joined the military to exact revenge on Osama bin Laden, one of the masterminds of 9/11.

This is the story of Mick Scott, some of which is based on the author''s Vietnam wartime experiences as an Air Force correspondent for Armed Forces Radio. In the fictionalized version of events, on his way to Vietnam, Scott is ordered to report to US Intelligence in San Francisco where he is recruited for a special assignment. It entails finding a Saigon street kid who is the long-lost son of a top North Vietnamese Communist official; perhaps Ho Chi Minh himself. Once found, intelligence hopes to use the kid as a pawn in peace negotiations. Meanwhile, Scott travels throughout Vietnam as a reporter, which provides a vehicle to impart what is happening in arguably the most pivotal year of the war; 1967-68, with the Tet Offensive as the catalytic episode. As the story progresses, he crosses paths with a double agent, and the infamous Panther Lady, who is riding around Saigon on a motorbike gunning down GIs. Along with them, the kid intelligence wants him to find, and his drinking buddy Bobby, Scott becomes entangled in a sticky web of intrigue and deceit.

Collage is collection of short stories, poems, and prose about my life experiences and members of my family.