Fwd: Re: books

Part 2 of my summary--know it is long but it contains more material for
gaming,I believe.
Feedback welcome--Mark

Enzo,
     Thanks for the regards to my son;he is just getting over a
virus,which is why I did not get back to you in a timely fashion
earlier.

Great Space Battles--stories of space battles involving human
forces;only remember @ 3 of them:
1.small story of human mutants-banished from earth after becoming
victims of proxima nuke strikes from previous book (inference of how
ugly the prejudice of humans can be seen in the tale,I remember)--take
up residence in outer rim worlds and turn to space piracy until smashed
by FLEA-Federal Law Enforcement Agency (good illustration of power
armored recon trooper hovering off of ground shooting into crowd of
mutants trying to capture him)

2.FLEA smashes another band of illicit ship/spare parts traders;the
ships and parts were coming from a planet that was called "the spaceship
graveyard"--for some unknown reason ships from many eras and races were
orbiting around this planet until discovered by smugglers (one of the
ships was us space shuttle

3.main story dealt with human colonists in a system of worlds discover
and attacked by unknown race;earth sends fleet to investigate and find
underground cities on one planet,but cannot find out identity of
inhabitants,so they set up a blockade.
System natives launch blockade run,first using holograms to test human
defenses,followed by real fighters escorting transports (came from
nother in system planet);one transport damaged and captured with
prisoners and cargo--prisoners are humanoid,cargo is weapons,food and
unidentified milky white substance;prisoners only reveal they are
natives (believe descended from earlier settlers,not sure though),but
start dying from disease quickly;one of the prisoners asks for "droth"
to breathe but does not compute for humans at first--until humans
realize it is the white milky substance captured in the transport;its
function is to fight the planetary inherent disease that would normally
kill human/humanoid life forms
 Earth sends more ships/grond units to end the conflict as they figure
humanoids will either surrender or die;the noids choose option
3--counterattack!
Noids underground cities turn out to be city ships--massive ships that
lift off from ground,heavily armed and armored;there are 8 of them and
are escorted by large noid fleet--human forces outnumber them and have
better ships--apparently.
Noids unveil another secret weapon--jamming capability that renders most
human ships unable/barely to maintain control (most earth tech ships
rely on computer cotrols for the most part,with manual controls strictly
as backup);so noid fleet blows through earth fleets and heads out of
system--towards earth!
As earth fleet struggles to regroup,they do get word to human kind to
muster ships that have manual controls mainly;as there is some lead time
before noids arrive (dont know how long) so earth pulls all the old
ships out of mothballs it can find with manual controls to reequip its
fleet.
So the aliens show up,the battle ensues in sol system,one of our light
carrier squadrons finds the jamming source(2 alien ships outfitted with
long range antenna and projector arrays,plus advanced alien electronics)
and blows them away.now our better ships move into the battle--as well
as those ships that pursued from alien homeworld,some of which got back
in time to join in the battle--and our numbers and now better ships
prevail;the last cityship crashed into ocean instead of doing kamikaze
on Hong Kong (remember illustration of cityship crashing into large
communications tower--the tower looked like larger version of washington
monument,but was dwarfed in size by cityship)
Very exciting--so much soI still remeber most of the relevant details
and many of the illustrations some 18 years after owning this
book--would love to have it again if possible--definitely scenario rich
for gzg games!

Space Disasters--recounted tales of ships lost in space:passenger liner
that air leaked out and froze into large ice cube;colonizer ship that
fusion power plant blew;explorer vessel that harbored deadly disease
that drove crew insane before they died;the
gunship Malmo drifting back to earth from the noid homeworld,air gone
from leaking hull sustained in battle with the city ships,its crew long
dead (all ships were ordered to pursue city ships as best they
could--damaged ships to be left behind);as many relatives of the crew
were tracked down to decide the fate of this long dead ship;it was
decided to let the shift drift in space as is,to serve as a memorial to
the long dead crew  (always remember how sad this story was);last,the
alien ship drifting into our system,nicknamed the "warthog" due to many
dome-like projections from its hull--no trace of crew,log,computer
data,just many holes in hull.

If you ever find anyone of these books,get them!They were phenomenal.

Enzo,if you have any more questions on these books,let me know and I
will answer them as best I can--enjoy.

Mark