Hellhole Awakening

Book excerpt: The second in a newepic science fiction series from the internationally bestselling co-authors of the DUNE prequels General Adolphus knows the Monarchy crackdown is coming. Now he needs to pull together all the resources of the Hellhole colony, the ever-expanding shadow-Xayan settlement, and his connections with the other Deep Zone worlds. On Sonjeera, Diadem Michella Duchenet has collected a huge fleet, led by firebrand Commissar Escobar Hallholme, son of the man who originally defeated Adolphus. Uniting themselves and pooling their minds, the shadow-Xayans send a power surge along the original stringline path that links Hellhole with the Monarchy's hub on Sonjeera. All of the Diadem's battleships are currently approaching on that route, and when the mental blast wipes out all the substations, the battleships are effectively stranded. But now a bigger threat appears. Three large asteroids come in from the outer reaches of the Candela system. On Hellhole, the awakened Xayans finally reveal information that has been hidden even from their own followers. A large group of powerful, rogue telemancers split away from the main race-fanatics, violent, and ruthless. And now that the Xayan civilization is reawakening, the rogues have come back to destroy them once and for all. They are coming for Hellhole, and this time they will completely destroy it. Kevin J. Anderson has over 20 million books in print in 30 languages worldwide. As well as his STAR WARS, DUNE and X-FILES novels, he has written an ambitious space-opera series, THE SAGA OF SEVEN SUNS. He holds the Guinness world record for the largest single-author book signing. Kevin Anderson lives in Colorado. The son of DUNE author Frank Herbert, Brian Herbert is a bestselling science fiction author in his own right.