Ryk E Spoor – författare

It was supposed to be a simple test flight, one that pilot Ariane Austin was on only as a last-ditch backup; intelligent, superhumanly fast automation would handle the test activation and flight of humanity's first faster-than-light vessel. But when the Sandrisson Drive activated, every automated system crashed, the nuclear reactor itself shut down, and only the reflexes and training of a racing pilot saved the test vessel Holy Grail from crashing into the impossible wall that had appeared before them, a wall which is just part of a monstrous enclosure surrounding a space 20,000 kilometers across. With all artificial intelligences inert and their reactor dead, they had to find some other source of power to reactivate the Sandrisson Drive and - hopefully - take them home.And that was only the beginning. As Ariane, Dr. Simon Sandrisson, darkly enigmatic power engineer Marc C. DuQuesne, and the rest of the Holy Grail's crew explore the immense artifact, they discover that they are not alone; they have entered a place the alien inhabitants call "The Arena", and there is no way out without joining one of the alien factions...or winning recognition as a faction in their own right, playing by the Arena's rules - and by the Arena's rules, one failed challenge could mean death or worse - perhaps for the entire human race. Surrounded by alien factions, each with its own secret plans and motivations, some wielding powers so strange as to be magical, Ariane sets out to beat the Arena at its own game. With DuQuesne's strategies, Sandrisson's genius, and her own unyielding determination, she's going to bring the Holy Grail home - even if she has to beat every faction in the Arena to do it!

Sequel to popular space adventure, Grand Central Arena!Leader of the Faction of Humanity. It was a ridiculous title, but the Arena said that was what Captain Ariane Austin was since she'd led the crew of the Holy Grail in their discovery of the impossible, physics-violating place and their eventual return, and when the nigh-omnipotent Arena said something, it meant it.Ariane must discover what it means to be the Leader of Humanity, both for herself and for humanity, before her enemies - at home or in the Arena - depose her, kill her, or worse. It will take all her luck, Marc DuQuesne's indomitable will, Simon Sandrisson's genius, and the peerless skill of a living legend. And, in the end, humanity's fate in the galaxy and beyond will hinge on the choice of an uncertain ally who has nothing to gain, and everything to lose, by aiding those neophyte upstarts, the humans.

When astronomer Stephanie Bronson uncovers a massive alien vessel named Fenrir racing toward the Sun, she must lead a desperate mission to rescue its crew before a catastrophic failure dooms them both to fiery destruction.It was just a dot of light . . . . . . a dot of light that appeared out of nowhere. Stephanie Bronson thought she might have found a distant supernova. Instead, what she'd found was something more than a thousand miles across, moving towards the Sun at almost a third the speed of light from the constellation of Lupus, the Wolf. Even more frightening, the objectcalled Fenrir, after the Norse Wolf of the World's Endwas slowing down. It was not a comet or even a rogue planet. It was an alien vessel. And despite the increasingly detailed and insistent messages of greeting from Earth, it showed no sign of responding. As the world braced itself for the arrival of the immense, frighteningly silent alien visitor, Stephanie held hope that they still might communicate with Fenriruntil something happened that no one had imagined: Fenrir flared and its drive died, leaving the huge ship careening out of control to a fiery death inside the orbit of Venus. There wasjust possiblya chance for Earth to actto rescue the now-shipwrecked ';Fens.' But even Stephanieor those trying to stop her and the rescue ship Carpathiacould not imagine that not merely the fate of the aliens, but that of Earth itself, would be decided by Fenrir.