Children of the Stars: The Boxset: Books 1-4 by author and noted filksinger Juanita Coulson (
ISFDB,
Wikipedia,
SFE) comprises the entirety of her Children of the Stars quartet of epic star-spanning generational saga science fiction beginning with an alien first contact that apparently merely intensifies the squabbling between competing branches of a particular dominant Earth family dynasty, whose wealthy and powerful members each forge their own path towards the ensuing galactic future in the separate tales of their dealings with both humans and non-humans, free for a limited time courtesy of publisher Endeavour Press' Venture imprint.
The four novels in this omnibus edition were originally published between 1981 to 1989 by Ballantine's Del Rey imprint.
Currently free @
Amazon (available to Canadians & in the UK and pretty much everywhere else worldwide that Amazon sells, since this is being done via their KDP Select exclusive or else program)
Description
Children of the Stars Boxset collects the complete epic saga from award winning Juanita Coulson
Tomorrow’s Heritage
2041. When the first alien was approaching Earth, it found itself in the grip of the all-powerful Saunder Family. Every member of this dynasty seemed at war with the other.
In the quest for the Chairmanship of the people, the Saunders must struggle and fight in a contest over Earth’s very future. Project Search is in action, while brave pilots take to the stars.
Can human civilization survive with the coming of alien life, and can the Saunders find a way to listen to one another and lead humanity to that survival?
Outward Bound
Brenna Foix Saunder is the Martian-reared daughter of Earth’s dynastic Saunder family.
Fiercely ambitious, beautiful and determined, she puts an untried and dangerous experimental star drive above her own life. Stifled by the media frenzy surrounding the Saunder family, she has utter contempt for newshunters. Charlie Dahl is one such newshunter.
Brenna must seek refuge in the arms of her lover Derek, but trouble brews when he tries to stand in the way of her dreams.
To reach the stars by passing long years in frozen sleep is the only safe and sure way to complete her star drive mission. But Brenna Saunder can’t wait. She meant to conquer the light barrier — and to hell with everything her family and her lover could do to stop her.
Legacy of Earth
Aliens are aliens, and humans are humans, and never the twain shall meet — or shall they?
Faster-than-light gravel to the stars was a discovery of the great Saunder family, and the vast Saunder fortune helped in the colonizing of alien worlds, among strange, nonhuman races.
But Anthony Saunder had no share in that fortune of heritage. He was only a clone, not truly human. And the business he had started on Procyon Four was on the brink of failure.
Then the catlike humanoid Whimeds came, asking him to use his skill in directing a presentation for the coming Interspecies Conference. And once he saw Yrae, the beautiful, almost human-seeming star, he could not refuse, though the job seemed impossible and led to endless trouble.
But all that was simple, compared to what he found at the Conference. There he ran squarely into the middle of a secret war between Whimeds and equally alien Vahnaj…
The Past of Forever
Dan McKelvey is a simple indie-hauler turned tech-mech, until a delivery leads him to a strange new planet.
His whole life he has had to live up to the legacy of his Saunder-McKelvey ancestors, but now, on this strange world, he has the chance to uncover the tragic past of a near-extinct race.
Joining Dr Juxury’s multi-racial xenoarchaeology team, Dan becomes their resident xenomechanician, helping them to restore the technologies of the native race of old.
But when Dan learns that he must travel to present the team’s scientific findings at the Twelfth Xenoarchaeological Assembly, he realises that his journey could never have been that simple.
Will Dan and his friends discover the sordid truth behind the downfall of an entire race?