Honor Harrington returns to war and humanity encounters everything from temporal wormholes to the Ark of the Covenant in this month's space science fiction offerings. This month's standout book, however, may be Nalo Hopkinson's Midnight Robber, an offbeat novel written mostly in Creole.

A starship captain begins a dark odyssey through time in a universe where civilization is held together by "timeshafts" -- temporal wormholes in deep space. (Bantam Books, $13.95 paperback)

An organism from an alien world links with an artificial intelligence, creating a computer virus that hungers for flesh and blood. (Ace Books, $6.99 paperback )

The secret Area 51 group has discovered the shocking truth about alien plans to take over the planet. Now special forces officer Mike Turcotte and scientist Lisa Duncan search for the Ark of the Covenant, which holds the true record of mankind's origins. (Dell Books, $5.99 paperback )

Mariesa van Huyten's dream of a asteroid defense system for Earth is threatened by the vicious business manipulations of her cousin Adam -- but his revenge against her is coming just when the defense system is needed the most. (Tor Books, $24.95 hardcover )

Charles Dingillian's family vacation becomes a turning point in his life when his father takes him and his two brothers up a space elevator to Earth orbit and beyond. (Tor Books, $19.95 hardcover)

After being colonized by various races and alien interests, the seafaring natives of the planet Kilmoyn are beginning to fight back, and a marooned human soon finds himself in the thick of the war. (Tor Books, $24.95 hardcover)

A young girl living on a Caribbean-settled colony world is forced into exile by her father's misdeeds, and comes of age among the primitive conditions and alien life of the colony's alternate-universe counterpart, "New Half-Way Tree." (Warner Aspect , $13.95 paperback )

A lost orb of the Prophets leads the crew of Deep Space Nine to an alternate future where the Pah-Wraiths have triumphed over the Bajoran Prophets. First two books of a trilogy. (Pocket Books, $6.50 paperbacks)

A young aristocratic woman on a distant planet unearths the deadly secrets of her repressive society. (Avon Eos, $6.99 paperback )

Honor Harrington has escaped from the prison planet called Hell and has returned to the Manticoran Alliance with almost half a million prisoners. She soon finds herself back in the heart of the war, but this time the furnace may be too hot for even "The Salamander" to survive. (Baen Books, $24.00 hardcover )

A collection of five novellas set in the universe of Honor Harrington, featuring two by Weber himself as well as stories by Roland Green, Jane Lindskold, and Linda Evans. (Baen Books, $6.99 paperback )