Imperial Knight

"A gripping sci-fi plot that spans a vast universe. Combining exciting adventure with political intrigue, the plot is fast paced and sprawling... [Imperial Knight] features strong writing...echoes classics like Dune...original and unique." The BookLife Prize from Publishers Weekly A THRILLING STANDALONE NOVEL IN A NEW SEQUENCE INSPIRED BY THE GALACTIC EMPIRES OF ASIMOV'S "FOUNDATION" AND FRANK HERBERT'S "DUNE" ROBOTS, ALIEN WARS, TERRORISM AND IMPERIAL INTRIGUE IN THE FAR FUTURE! Aaron den Per is the son and great-grandson of Imperial Knights: fearsome warriors and great captains of the Empire, men and women who have led resurgent Imperial armies to celebrated victories over alien races and vanquished the enemies of Humaniti to reclaim worlds long lost in the aftermath of the Great War a hundred centuries before. Newly qualified from military college in the outlying system of Gelavan, the eager young man travels with his restless twin sister Maxima to a distant world, to the great chapterhouse fortress of the renowned Military Order of Avanti Azur Apollon, to follow in the footsteps of their father and great-grandfather, to take his own place as one of the Imperium's illustrious heroes, to transform himself into an Imperial Knight. * * * * * Black Space was the reality on which space travel relied. It was the emptiness between the stars and paradoxically the endless paths between worlds, never failing to crowd out all thought the first time it was encountered by a mortal human mind. What if? The question was as imprecise, as immense as Black Space itself; it had an uncertain, wondrous beginning but failed to find an end: What if? "I cannot see any of the stars. Not even a hint," Maxima remarked. It was true. They might as well have been in a tunnel, some place else, some place alone. If the innumerable stars of the Galactic Core, if the wheels of distant galaxies, if everything that was familiar was unseen, how certain could they be that those things were actually still there and that nothingness was an optical illusion?