story identification - Space Opera Novel Series ID

story identification - Space Opera Novel Series ID - Probably Read in 2003-2010

I'm looking for the name of a series of space opera novels I read some time ago, probably between 2003 and 2010.

It may have been published quite a few years before I read it, I don't think it was new at the time.

I borrowed the novels from the local library, but I can't find them in its catalogue.

I think the covers were fairly dark and plain, though there may have been some artwork on them.

There was a totalitarian empire that controlled most planets, possibly ruled by a queen.

There was no mention of Earth, the solar system or other real planets, the setting was completely fictional.

There were people with psychic/psionic powers, referred to as something like "psi". These people were second-class citizens or slaves.

Spaceships were used to travel between worlds. I'm not sure what kind of FTL technology they had, if any.

Beyond the edge of the empire was some kind of "dark space", where there was no light.

There were some horror themes: When travelling in dark space in one of the novels, a ships crew experienced strange thoughts and hallucinations. I remember finding this quite scary at the time.

Does anyone know which series this could be?

This isn't a duplicate of this question, since the two questions are about different parts of the same series (the first and second episodes).

Answer

You've summarised fairly accurately the background of the Deathstalker novels, by Simon R Green.

They're set in the far future; the empire of man is huge and old, ruled over by the Empress Lionstone. There's no mention of Earth that I can recall.

There are citizens with psi powers known as espers, who are treated as second class citizens at best; slaves at worst. There's also a zone of stars, extinguished in a long-ago war, called the Darkvoid; from where some nasty aliens appear to attack the Empire.

The first book in the series is Deathstalker. There are a total of five in the main series, another three in a trilogy that is set a couple of decades later, and three shorter, prequel novels , too.

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