<p><b><font>''Proper galaxy-spanning space opera''</font><font>Iain M. Banks</font> on <i>Seeds of Earth</i></b><br><br><b>Action-orientated sci-fi with a spaceship crewed by rogues and scoundrels, perfect for fans of <i>Star Wars</i>,<i> Firefly </i>or<i> Farscape</i></b><br><br>For Pyke and his crew it should have been just another heist. Travel to a backwater desert planet, break into a museum, steal a tracking device then use it to find a ship buried in the planet''s vast and trackless sandy wastes. <br><br>Except that the museum vault is a bio-engineered chamber, and the tracking device is sought after by another gang of treasure hunters led by an old adversary of Pyke''s, the devious Raven Kaligara. Also, the ship is a quarter of a million years old and about two kilometres long and somewhere aboard it is the Essavyr Key, a relic to unlock all the treasures and technologies of a lost civilisation . . .<br><br><b>''<i>Splintered Suns</i> splices new and old spa