Engines of Light Series by Ken MacLeod

Matt Cairns is a 21st-century outlaw Programmer who takes on the shady jobs no one else will touch. Against his better judgment, he accepts an assignment to crack the Marshall Titov, a top-secret orbital station operated by the European Space Agency. But what Matt will discover there will propel him on an extraordinary and quite unexpected journey.Gregor Cairns is an exobiology student and descendant of one of Terra Nova's first families... moreMatt Cairns is a 21st-century outlaw Programmer who takes on the shady jobs no one else will touch. Against his better judgment, he accepts an assignment to crack the Marshall Titov, a top-secret orbital station operated by the European Space Agency. But what Matt will discover there will propel him on an extraordinary and quite unexpected journey.Gregor Cairns is an exobiology student and descendant of one of Terra Nova's first families. Hopelessly infatuated with a lovely young trader's daughter, he is unaware that his research partner, Elizabeth, has fallen in love with him. Together, Gregor and Elizabeth confront the great work his family began three centuries earlier-to rediscover the secret of interstellar travel.Ranging from a gritty near-future Earth to a distant alien world, Cosmonaut Keep is contemporary science fiction at its highest level, a visionary epic filled with daring individuals seeking a place for themselves in a vast, complex, and enigmatic universe. Cosmonaut Keep is a 2002 Hugo Award Nominee for Best Novel. less

The Second Sphere was founded by gods and populated with a host of kidnapped alien races. For Matt Cairns and the cosmonauts of the Bright Star it is their new home, but their unexpected arrival may trigger disaster. For, hidden among the stars, the gods still watch over their creation... and they do not tolerate dissent... moreThe Second Sphere was founded by gods and populated with a host of kidnapped alien races. For Matt Cairns and the cosmonauts of the Bright Star it is their new home, but their unexpected arrival may trigger disaster. For, hidden among the stars, the gods still watch over their creation... and they do not tolerate dissent.Following on from COSMONAUT KEEP, which was shortlisted for the 2002 Hugo Award, this is the second book in the dazzling new space opera series by one of SF's most exciting new authors. less

WHO OWNS THE STARS?For ten thousand years Nova Babylonia has been the greatest city of the Second Sphere, an interstellar civilization of human and other beings who have been secretly removed, throughout history, from Earth. Now humans from the far reaches of the Sphere have come, to offer immortality-and to urge them to build defenses against the alien invasion they know is coming... moreWHO OWNS THE STARS?For ten thousand years Nova Babylonia has been the greatest city of the Second Sphere, an interstellar civilization of human and other beings who have been secretly removed, throughout history, from Earth. Now humans from the far reaches of the Sphere have come, to offer immortality-and to urge them to build defenses against the alien invasion they know is coming.As humans and aliens compete and conspire, the wheels of history will lathe all the players into shapes new and surprising. The alien invasion will reach New Babylon at last-led by the most alien figure of all. less

Omnibus edition of "Cosmonaut Keep", "Dark Light" and "Engine City".