Joe W. Haldeman

"Wounded in combat and honorably discharged nine years ago, Jack Daley still suffers nightmares from when he served his country as a sniper, racking up sixteen confirmed kills. Now a struggling author, Jack accepts an offer to write a near-future novel about a serial killer, based on a Hollywood script outline. It's an opportunity to build his writing career, and a future with his girlfriend, Kit Majors. But Jack's other talent is also in demand....

The mysterious alien Others have prohibited humans from space travel--destroying Earth's fleet of starships in a display of unimaginable power. Now Carmen Dula, the first human to encounter Martians and then the mysterious Others, and her colleagues struggle to find a way, using 19th-century technology, to reclaim the future that has been stolen from them.