Le Guin's Hainish series begins with the assumption that centuries ago humanoids from the planet Hain ventured through the solar system establishing colonies on various planets including Earth. For mysterious reasons these colonies lose all contact and knowledge of each other until the 21st century when an attempt is made to establish a galactic league. Individual stories in this loosely organized series explore the inherent communication difficulties...

Case, a nerve-damaged data thief, is recruited by a new employer for a last-chance run against a powerful artificial intelligence. "Case was the hottest computer cowboy cruising the information superhighway - jacking his consciousness into cyberspace, soaring through tactile lattices of data and logic, rustling encoded secrets for anyone with the money to buy his skills. Then he double-crossed the wrong people, who caught up with him in a big way...

Captain John "Black Jack" Geary tries a desperate gamble to lead the Alliance Fleet home-through enemy-occupied space-only to lose half the Fleet to an unexpected mutiny.

After rescuing POWs from a labor camp in the Heradao Star System, Captain John "Black Jack" Geary discovers that the Syndics plan to ambush his fleet, forcing him to jump from one star system to the next in an effort to avoid the enemy.

Alex Benedict and his assistant look for a stone tablet that may prove the existence of several forms of alien life, an investigation that sends them into the path of an assassin.