Maybe the tariff dispute on Planner's World could've have been settled by arbitration, but when war broke out, the United Cities hired the best mercenaries money could buy:

HAMMER'S SLAMMERS

Lt. Arne Huber was old enough to be a veteran but still young enough to have principles. He commanded a platoon of combat cars, leading from the front because he was a Slammers officer and that's the only place you can lead.

From Huber's first

...

"The Fated Sky looks forward to 1961, when mankind is well-established on the moon and looking forward to its next step: journeying to, and eventually colonizing, Mars. Of course the noted Lady Astronaut Elma York would like to go, but there's a lot riding on whoever the International Aerospace Coalition decides to send on this historic--but potentially very dangerous--mission? Could Elma really leave behind her husband and the chance to start a family...

"In a United States not so unlike our own, the Department of Balance has adopted a radical new form of law enforcement: rather than incarceration, wrongdoers are given a second (and sometimes, third, fourth, and fifth) shadow as a reminder of their crime--and a warning to those they encounter. Within the Department, corruption and prejudice run rampant, giving rise to an underclass of so-called Shadesters who are disenfranchised, publicly shamed,...

"His name is Joshua Knight. Once a respected explorer, the press now calls him the Tarnished Knight. He took the fall for a disaster in the Underworld that destroyed his career. The devastating event occurred in the newly discovered sector known as Glass House--a maze of crystal that is rumored to conceal powerful Alien antiquities. The rest of the Hollister Expedition team disappeared and are presumed dead. Whatever happened down in the tunnels scrambled...

"Shuos Jedao is awake ... and nothing is as he remembers. He's a teenager, a cadet--a nobody--in the body of an old man; a general in command of an elite force. And he's the most feared, and reviled, man in the galaxy. Jedao carries orders from Hexarch Nirai Kujen to re-conquer the fractured pieces of the hexarchate. But he has no memory of ever being a soldier, let alone a general, and the Kel soldiers under his command hate him for a massacre he...

"Zenya was a teenager when she ran away from home to join the Mecha God's warrior sect. She was determined to earn her copper wings and protect the people and city she loved. Under the strict tutelage of a mercurial, charismatic leader, Zenya became Winged Zemolai. But after twenty-six years of service, Zemolai is disillusioned with her role as an enforcer in an increasingly fascist state. After one tragic act of mercy, she is cast out and loses everything...

"An ingeniously imagined, hilarious romp through time, space, and the human heart... The Ministry of Time asks: What does it mean to defy history, when history is living in your house?" -- In the near future, a civil servant is offered the salary of her dreams and is, shortly afterward, told what project she'll be working on. A recently established government ministry is gathering "expats" from across history to establish whether time travel is feasible--for...

The crew of the Swallow spend an adventurous summer on an English lake.

With Extinction, #1 New York Times bestselling author Douglas Preston has written a page-turning thriller in the Michael Crichton mode that explores the possible and unintended dangers of the very real efforts to resurrect the woolly mammoth and other long-extinct animals.
Erebus Resort, occupying a magnificent, hundred-thousand acre valley deep in the Colorado Rockies, offers guests the experience of viewing woolly mammoths,

...

Determined to catch a perfect snowflake, Liam sticks out his tongue and tries a number of tricks, all to no avail, but after giving it one last shot, he grabs one in an unexpected way.