Alasdair C. Shaw's Blog, page 10
March 3, 2018
An Interview with Leonora Meriel
Well, I asked for it to snow. And it did!
Living right in the centre of the Met Office's red warning one for the last couple of days has been great. Plenty of snow. Sub-zero (minus thriteen with wind chill) for days on end. The kind of weather I love!
OK. Not the depth or duration I was used to growing up, but pretty impressive for the south-west of England. And certainly good enough for sledging!
Had to up the bird feeding regime. Suet, mealworms and chopped apples on the ground in addition to the normal feeders, along with hourly trips to melt the ice in the bird baths. Got lots of beautiful species who are normally too timid to come into the garden.
Anyhow, in my interview today, I am talking to Leonora Meriel, author of The Unity Game and The Woman Behind the Waterfall.
Why do you write?
I write because I believe it is my strongest talent in this lifetime. Before I turned to writing full-time, I was the CEO of a successful internet business in Ukraine. I had an MBA and I was an effective manager, however I realized that there were many competent business leaders who could do the job as well or even better than me. My books, on the other hand, could not be written by anyone else in this universe.
Do you have a special time to write or how is your day structured?
Writing is my full time job, and my day is divided into mornings, when I create – working on first drafts or re-writing, and afternoons, when I do marketing tasks and administration. I am an independent author, so I effectively run my own publishing business, which means there is always a large amount of work to cover. However, the early writing hours are sacred.
How long on average does it take you to write a book?
Both of my two novels took an average of five years. The first draft is usually quick – between six and nine months. Then two more drafts can take a year. After that, I would hand the manuscript to a developmental editor who might suggest re-structuring it or re-writing parts of it. After that it goes to a line editor to check the language. Finally, there is the proof reader. Each of these rounds can take a month or more to do the edits and then check that they fit in with the original concept of the book. When you’ve been working on a book for years, you also need to take a break from it for a couple of months, before you can look at it with any kind of objectivity.
Can you give us an insight into your main character? What does he do that is so special?
The main character of my most recent novel The Unity Game is an investment banker named David. He is intensely driven and has a scientific, logical mind. He is ambitious and a risk taker and determined to make it on Wall Street. The plot gets interesting when David has some strange experiences that he can’t explain – he sees weird lights and finds himself writing an unknown language. His logical mind and ambition have no way of coping with these events, and he starts to self-destruct, taking bigger and wilder risks to try to keep his career on track, whilst being less able to function. It was great fun exploring the breakdown of a logical mind after exposure to events he could not explain or control.
And finally, which fictional world would you most like to visit on holiday?
The parallel thread to David the investment banker in The Unity Game, is a life form on a distant planet of highly evolved aliens. The planet is sparse, and has a faraway sun and three red moons of different sizes, which orbit close to the surface. Most of the light on the planet is in varying shades of red – sometimes golden-pink, and sometimes bloody crimson. I would absolutely love to visit this planet for a holiday and feel what it is like to be in a different part of space, and how different planetary bodies would influence emotions and physical state. I would like to try to understand the uniqueness of Earth from such a planet.
Thank you for taking the time to talk to me. Good luck with the writing...
Leonora Meriel grew up in London and studied literature at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland and Queen’s University in Canada. She worked at the United Nations in New York, and then for a multinational law firm.
In 2003 she moved from New York to Kyiv, where she founded and managed Ukraine’s largest Internet company. She studied at Kyiv Mohyla Business School and earned an MBA, which included a study trip around China and Taiwan, and climbing to the top of Hoverla, Ukraine’s highest peak and part of the Carpathian Mountains. She also served as President of the International Women’s Club of Kyiv, a major local charity.
During her years in Ukraine, she learned to speak Ukrainian and Russian, witnessed two revolutions and got to know an extraordinary country at a key period of its development.
In 2008, she decided to return to her dream of being a writer, and to dedicate her career to literature. In 2011, she completed The Woman Behind the Waterfall, set in a village in western Ukraine. While her first novel was with a London agent, Leonora completed her second novel The Unity Game, set in New York City and on a distant planet.
Leonora currently lives in Barcelona and London and has two children. She is working on her third novel.
[image error]
Living right in the centre of the Met Office's red warning one for the last couple of days has been great. Plenty of snow. Sub-zero (minus thriteen with wind chill) for days on end. The kind of weather I love!
OK. Not the depth or duration I was used to growing up, but pretty impressive for the south-west of England. And certainly good enough for sledging!
Had to up the bird feeding regime. Suet, mealworms and chopped apples on the ground in addition to the normal feeders, along with hourly trips to melt the ice in the bird baths. Got lots of beautiful species who are normally too timid to come into the garden.
Anyhow, in my interview today, I am talking to Leonora Meriel, author of The Unity Game and The Woman Behind the Waterfall.
Why do you write?
I write because I believe it is my strongest talent in this lifetime. Before I turned to writing full-time, I was the CEO of a successful internet business in Ukraine. I had an MBA and I was an effective manager, however I realized that there were many competent business leaders who could do the job as well or even better than me. My books, on the other hand, could not be written by anyone else in this universe.
Do you have a special time to write or how is your day structured?
Writing is my full time job, and my day is divided into mornings, when I create – working on first drafts or re-writing, and afternoons, when I do marketing tasks and administration. I am an independent author, so I effectively run my own publishing business, which means there is always a large amount of work to cover. However, the early writing hours are sacred.
How long on average does it take you to write a book?
Both of my two novels took an average of five years. The first draft is usually quick – between six and nine months. Then two more drafts can take a year. After that, I would hand the manuscript to a developmental editor who might suggest re-structuring it or re-writing parts of it. After that it goes to a line editor to check the language. Finally, there is the proof reader. Each of these rounds can take a month or more to do the edits and then check that they fit in with the original concept of the book. When you’ve been working on a book for years, you also need to take a break from it for a couple of months, before you can look at it with any kind of objectivity.
Can you give us an insight into your main character? What does he do that is so special?
The main character of my most recent novel The Unity Game is an investment banker named David. He is intensely driven and has a scientific, logical mind. He is ambitious and a risk taker and determined to make it on Wall Street. The plot gets interesting when David has some strange experiences that he can’t explain – he sees weird lights and finds himself writing an unknown language. His logical mind and ambition have no way of coping with these events, and he starts to self-destruct, taking bigger and wilder risks to try to keep his career on track, whilst being less able to function. It was great fun exploring the breakdown of a logical mind after exposure to events he could not explain or control.
And finally, which fictional world would you most like to visit on holiday?
The parallel thread to David the investment banker in The Unity Game, is a life form on a distant planet of highly evolved aliens. The planet is sparse, and has a faraway sun and three red moons of different sizes, which orbit close to the surface. Most of the light on the planet is in varying shades of red – sometimes golden-pink, and sometimes bloody crimson. I would absolutely love to visit this planet for a holiday and feel what it is like to be in a different part of space, and how different planetary bodies would influence emotions and physical state. I would like to try to understand the uniqueness of Earth from such a planet.
Thank you for taking the time to talk to me. Good luck with the writing...
Leonora Meriel grew up in London and studied literature at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland and Queen’s University in Canada. She worked at the United Nations in New York, and then for a multinational law firm.In 2003 she moved from New York to Kyiv, where she founded and managed Ukraine’s largest Internet company. She studied at Kyiv Mohyla Business School and earned an MBA, which included a study trip around China and Taiwan, and climbing to the top of Hoverla, Ukraine’s highest peak and part of the Carpathian Mountains. She also served as President of the International Women’s Club of Kyiv, a major local charity.
During her years in Ukraine, she learned to speak Ukrainian and Russian, witnessed two revolutions and got to know an extraordinary country at a key period of its development.
In 2008, she decided to return to her dream of being a writer, and to dedicate her career to literature. In 2011, she completed The Woman Behind the Waterfall, set in a village in western Ukraine. While her first novel was with a London agent, Leonora completed her second novel The Unity Game, set in New York City and on a distant planet.
Leonora currently lives in Barcelona and London and has two children. She is working on her third novel.
[image error]
February 27, 2018
The February Roundup of Scifi Books
Wow. Exciting news for scifi fans this month. Hot on the heels of Netflix's release of their adaptation of Altered Carbon, Amazon have bought the screen rights to Consider Phlebas, the first in Iain M Banks' Culture series. This is my all-time favourite set of SF novels!
Once you've recovered form this news, you'll realise that they haven't yet said when they intend to strt filming, let alone when it will be released. And then, like me, you have to decide if it is worth paying for Amazon Prime Video just for that.
Until then, here is my usual list of books to peruse, starting with one of mine that is on special offer - only 99p (or 99c or whatever your equivalent currency is)...
Harry Robinson lives an idyllic lifestyle. A brilliant computer engineer, he made his fortune pushing the limits of android design. When a neighbouring planet is hit by a global nuclear strike, he feels compelled to help. A chance encounter with a group of offworld soldiers launches him on the trail of the perpetrators.
Prefect Olivia Johnson leads a Legion of disillusioned soldiers from both sides of the civil war. She blames herself for failing to prevent the attack. Now her mission is to hunt for its architect. But first, she must reclaim their adopted home from a different enemy. An enemy who won’t even talk.
The Indescribable Joy of Destruction is Johnson’s best friend and closest ally. Despite the lives they have saved, artificial intelligences are still the victims of fear and prejudice. The shadowy warship fights to defend the first place it felt accepted, and for equal rights for its kind.
Murdered parents. A busted spaceship. Stories that horrified the therapists and terrified the space stations. That’s what pirates left to twelve-year-old Meriel Hope. But pirates didn’t exist, and for the authorities, that defined her as crazy.
After ten years fighting flashbacks, nightmares, and involuntary drugs, she’s put her life back together and her past behind her. She searches for a mythical planet called Home to reboot her life, but the Wars of Immigration ensnare her in the largest diaspora in human history.
When her ruined ship lands on the recycle dock, she has only days to untangle the mysteries surrounding her parents’ death or face her own.
What she discovers could rescue humanity from slavery, but it makes her a target.
Again.
And this time she can’t escape.
Sergeant Jerry Harper recently caused an interstellar incident. As a result, tensions are high, and the Reliants of the Mentarchy have offered to host a conference to settle the matter peacefully. Jerry is ordered by his government to attend the talks and testify. He travels with the rest of the Agrarian diplomatic delegation to the planet Cortex, home of the Mentarch.
Cortex is supposed to be neutral ground, but that changes when an assassin targets the Agrarians. Jerry chases the shooter, but the pursuer quickly becomes the pursued, and he's forced to go on the run. While Jerry's wandering in the wilderness, the Mentarch activates its anti-gravity jammer, blockading space travel. The Agrarian delegates are now stuck on the planet, and Jerry is the only one in a position to do anything about it. He's tasked with disabling the jammer.
Jerry has no idea how he's going to do it, but he sets out anyway. Along the way, he starts to get a strange feeling about Cortex, some weird interaction between the planet and his psychic gift. He's not sure what's going on, but he suspects the Mentarch is up to something. Jerry must find a way to disable the jammer while also dealing with the Mentarch's mind games. And if he wants to get his people off Cortex alive, he must do it before the place turns into a war zone.
One thousand years after Earth was destroyed in an unprovoked attack, humanity has emerged victorious from a series of terrible wars to assure its place in the galaxy. But during celebrations on humanity’s new Homeworld, the legendary Captain Pantillo of the battle carrier Phoenix is court-martialed then killed, and his deputy, Lieutenant Commander Erik Debogande, the heir to humanity’s most powerful industrial family, is framed with his murder. Assisted by Phoenix’s marine commander Trace Thakur, Erik and Phoenix are forced to go on the run, as they seek to unravel the conspiracy behind their Captain’s demise, pursued to the death by their own Fleet. What they discover, about the truth behind the wars and the nature of humanity’s ancient alien allies, will shake the sentient galaxy to its core.
Kevin Connelly embarks on a quest to honor the memory of his grandfather, a war hero in a neighborhood without heroes, and rescue his twin siblings from mysterious aliens. His older brother, now the head of their orphaned family has other plans, requiring him to flee a contract with a powerful crime lord. Military enlistment might be the answer to his prayers or the beginning of his destruction.
Ace and Amanda-Margaret Connelly learn firsthand the secret of the Siren doom when they are captured by a race of giants opposing their Siren masters. Nothing is what it seems. The human race will soon learn rebels are treacherous allies.
Gunnery Sergeant Robert Priest, PhD, is dedicated to the 343rd Marauders despite the horror of Brookhaven and the damage done to his closest friends. Duty doesn't get easier when the Connelly family complicates his mission of vengeance and redemption.
The world was melting down. North Korea had tested another nuclear missile. Terrorist attacks were happening with frightening regularity in European cities. In the United States, the FBI and CIA were investigating multiple computer hacks in which the Russians were the prime suspects. Then the news took an even more ominous tone. People began seeing UFOs and strange, alien-looking creatures with humanoid shapes, green skin and large black eyes. In places where this occurred, doctors reported the spread of a mysterious virus that scrambled people’s thoughts and caused hallucinations. Many experts believed the virus came from the aliens. The pathogen had not yet been identified; there was no known cure.
Psychology professor Dr. Cora Frost had a different theory: the bizarre symptoms were nothing more than mass hysteria, not unlike the hysteria that caused people in our not-too-distant past to see witches flying through the sky, which justified hanging them or burning them at the stake. Intense stress within societies gives rise to scapegoats. Doing field research within the compound of a cult in Roswell, New Mexico that revered the exact same kinds of aliens being reported on the news, Cora’s entire worldview is shaken and upended. In a shocking series of events, her past and future collide, forever changing her life.
Captain Aurora Hawke loves a challenge. But her current mission comes with an unexpected catch. She has to accept the help of Cade Ellis, a man she’s spent years trying to forget. She doesn’t want his help. She wants to blow him out an airlock. Or let her overprotective engineer tear him to pieces. Instead, she must convince the two hot-heads to work together without killing each other.
She’ll do whatever it takes. The survival of a planet depends on it. But what starts out as an investigation into a potential biological attack quickly reveals a much more insidious threat, thrusting Aurora into a confrontation with a mysterious enemy of incredible destructive power.
And triggering an unearthly ability she’s kept secret for twenty years…
We were fighting on the wrong side, of a war we couldn't win. And that was the good news. The Ruhar hit us on Columbus Day. There we were, innocently drifting along the cosmos on our little blue marble, like the native Americans in 1492. Over the horizon come ships of a technologically advanced, aggressive culture, and BAM! There go the good old days, when humans only got killed by each other. So, Columbus Day. It fits.
When the morning sky twinkled again, this time with Kristang starships jumping in to hammer the Ruhar, we thought we were saved. The UN Expeditionary Force hitched a ride on Kristang ships to fight the Ruhar, wherever our new allies thought we could be useful. So, I went from fighting with the US Army in Nigeria, to fighting in space. It was lies, all of it. We shouldn't even be fighting the Ruhar, they aren't our enemy, our allies are.
Captain Luta Paixon of the far trader Tane Ikai needs to know why she looks like a woman in her thirties–even though she’s actually eighty-four. She isn’t the only one desperate for that information.
The explanation might lie with her geneticist mother, who disappeared over sixty years ago, but even if her mother is still alive, it’s proving to be no small task to track her down in the vast, wormhole-ridden expanse of Nearspace. With the ruthless PrimeCorp bent on obtaining Luta’s DNA at any cost, her ninety-year-old husband asking for one last favor, and her estranged daughter locking horns with her at every turn, Luta’s search for answers will take her to the furthest reaches of space–and deep inside her own heart.
Once you've recovered form this news, you'll realise that they haven't yet said when they intend to strt filming, let alone when it will be released. And then, like me, you have to decide if it is worth paying for Amazon Prime Video just for that.
Until then, here is my usual list of books to peruse, starting with one of mine that is on special offer - only 99p (or 99c or whatever your equivalent currency is)...
Harry Robinson lives an idyllic lifestyle. A brilliant computer engineer, he made his fortune pushing the limits of android design. When a neighbouring planet is hit by a global nuclear strike, he feels compelled to help. A chance encounter with a group of offworld soldiers launches him on the trail of the perpetrators.
Prefect Olivia Johnson leads a Legion of disillusioned soldiers from both sides of the civil war. She blames herself for failing to prevent the attack. Now her mission is to hunt for its architect. But first, she must reclaim their adopted home from a different enemy. An enemy who won’t even talk.
The Indescribable Joy of Destruction is Johnson’s best friend and closest ally. Despite the lives they have saved, artificial intelligences are still the victims of fear and prejudice. The shadowy warship fights to defend the first place it felt accepted, and for equal rights for its kind.
Murdered parents. A busted spaceship. Stories that horrified the therapists and terrified the space stations. That’s what pirates left to twelve-year-old Meriel Hope. But pirates didn’t exist, and for the authorities, that defined her as crazy.
After ten years fighting flashbacks, nightmares, and involuntary drugs, she’s put her life back together and her past behind her. She searches for a mythical planet called Home to reboot her life, but the Wars of Immigration ensnare her in the largest diaspora in human history.
When her ruined ship lands on the recycle dock, she has only days to untangle the mysteries surrounding her parents’ death or face her own.
What she discovers could rescue humanity from slavery, but it makes her a target.
Again.
And this time she can’t escape.
Sergeant Jerry Harper recently caused an interstellar incident. As a result, tensions are high, and the Reliants of the Mentarchy have offered to host a conference to settle the matter peacefully. Jerry is ordered by his government to attend the talks and testify. He travels with the rest of the Agrarian diplomatic delegation to the planet Cortex, home of the Mentarch.
Cortex is supposed to be neutral ground, but that changes when an assassin targets the Agrarians. Jerry chases the shooter, but the pursuer quickly becomes the pursued, and he's forced to go on the run. While Jerry's wandering in the wilderness, the Mentarch activates its anti-gravity jammer, blockading space travel. The Agrarian delegates are now stuck on the planet, and Jerry is the only one in a position to do anything about it. He's tasked with disabling the jammer.
Jerry has no idea how he's going to do it, but he sets out anyway. Along the way, he starts to get a strange feeling about Cortex, some weird interaction between the planet and his psychic gift. He's not sure what's going on, but he suspects the Mentarch is up to something. Jerry must find a way to disable the jammer while also dealing with the Mentarch's mind games. And if he wants to get his people off Cortex alive, he must do it before the place turns into a war zone.
One thousand years after Earth was destroyed in an unprovoked attack, humanity has emerged victorious from a series of terrible wars to assure its place in the galaxy. But during celebrations on humanity’s new Homeworld, the legendary Captain Pantillo of the battle carrier Phoenix is court-martialed then killed, and his deputy, Lieutenant Commander Erik Debogande, the heir to humanity’s most powerful industrial family, is framed with his murder. Assisted by Phoenix’s marine commander Trace Thakur, Erik and Phoenix are forced to go on the run, as they seek to unravel the conspiracy behind their Captain’s demise, pursued to the death by their own Fleet. What they discover, about the truth behind the wars and the nature of humanity’s ancient alien allies, will shake the sentient galaxy to its core.
Kevin Connelly embarks on a quest to honor the memory of his grandfather, a war hero in a neighborhood without heroes, and rescue his twin siblings from mysterious aliens. His older brother, now the head of their orphaned family has other plans, requiring him to flee a contract with a powerful crime lord. Military enlistment might be the answer to his prayers or the beginning of his destruction.
Ace and Amanda-Margaret Connelly learn firsthand the secret of the Siren doom when they are captured by a race of giants opposing their Siren masters. Nothing is what it seems. The human race will soon learn rebels are treacherous allies.
Gunnery Sergeant Robert Priest, PhD, is dedicated to the 343rd Marauders despite the horror of Brookhaven and the damage done to his closest friends. Duty doesn't get easier when the Connelly family complicates his mission of vengeance and redemption.
The world was melting down. North Korea had tested another nuclear missile. Terrorist attacks were happening with frightening regularity in European cities. In the United States, the FBI and CIA were investigating multiple computer hacks in which the Russians were the prime suspects. Then the news took an even more ominous tone. People began seeing UFOs and strange, alien-looking creatures with humanoid shapes, green skin and large black eyes. In places where this occurred, doctors reported the spread of a mysterious virus that scrambled people’s thoughts and caused hallucinations. Many experts believed the virus came from the aliens. The pathogen had not yet been identified; there was no known cure.
Psychology professor Dr. Cora Frost had a different theory: the bizarre symptoms were nothing more than mass hysteria, not unlike the hysteria that caused people in our not-too-distant past to see witches flying through the sky, which justified hanging them or burning them at the stake. Intense stress within societies gives rise to scapegoats. Doing field research within the compound of a cult in Roswell, New Mexico that revered the exact same kinds of aliens being reported on the news, Cora’s entire worldview is shaken and upended. In a shocking series of events, her past and future collide, forever changing her life.
Captain Aurora Hawke loves a challenge. But her current mission comes with an unexpected catch. She has to accept the help of Cade Ellis, a man she’s spent years trying to forget. She doesn’t want his help. She wants to blow him out an airlock. Or let her overprotective engineer tear him to pieces. Instead, she must convince the two hot-heads to work together without killing each other.
She’ll do whatever it takes. The survival of a planet depends on it. But what starts out as an investigation into a potential biological attack quickly reveals a much more insidious threat, thrusting Aurora into a confrontation with a mysterious enemy of incredible destructive power.
And triggering an unearthly ability she’s kept secret for twenty years…
We were fighting on the wrong side, of a war we couldn't win. And that was the good news. The Ruhar hit us on Columbus Day. There we were, innocently drifting along the cosmos on our little blue marble, like the native Americans in 1492. Over the horizon come ships of a technologically advanced, aggressive culture, and BAM! There go the good old days, when humans only got killed by each other. So, Columbus Day. It fits.
When the morning sky twinkled again, this time with Kristang starships jumping in to hammer the Ruhar, we thought we were saved. The UN Expeditionary Force hitched a ride on Kristang ships to fight the Ruhar, wherever our new allies thought we could be useful. So, I went from fighting with the US Army in Nigeria, to fighting in space. It was lies, all of it. We shouldn't even be fighting the Ruhar, they aren't our enemy, our allies are.
Captain Luta Paixon of the far trader Tane Ikai needs to know why she looks like a woman in her thirties–even though she’s actually eighty-four. She isn’t the only one desperate for that information.
The explanation might lie with her geneticist mother, who disappeared over sixty years ago, but even if her mother is still alive, it’s proving to be no small task to track her down in the vast, wormhole-ridden expanse of Nearspace. With the ruthless PrimeCorp bent on obtaining Luta’s DNA at any cost, her ninety-year-old husband asking for one last favor, and her estranged daughter locking horns with her at every turn, Luta’s search for answers will take her to the furthest reaches of space–and deep inside her own heart.
January 27, 2018
The January Roundup of Scifi Books
Well, the first roundup of a new year. I can't believe it's come round already.
Hope you enjoy this selection of books...
A deadly artificial virus is missing...
The corporation that hired her to find it wants her dead... Melanie Destin's life is a mess...
Desperate to start over, she accepts an interplanetary salvage job that will pay her enough to start a new life on Mars.
When she learns the real purpose of the mission is to recover an apocalyptic virus, everything begins to unravel...
With her life in danger and not knowing who to trust, Mel must find a way to keep the virus out of the wrong hands... If she fails, billions will die...
Rei had lost it all: her family, a safe home, and, most important, her freedom.
Despite all odds, she managed to escape and make her life among the stars. It's not easy to be a fugitive of the largest galactic power ever known. Making a living requires being flexible, and not particularly caring for things like laws or rights of property.
Even in her new life the ghosts of Rei's past refuse to leave her in peace. She's been changed by her captivity in more ways than one and the mysteries abound. There are untold questions that demand answers, but the only way she can find out the truth is to start back at the beginning.
To complicate matters, she is approached to stop her old enemies from retrieving priceless artifacts of untold knowledge. The idea is as murky as they come but they have to take the chance. Even if it might cost her crew dearly.
It all starts with an interstellar cargo barge full of corpses...
The criminal scum of the galaxy have found a new playground and its name is Jafla Base. Now Galactic Vice Detective Etch Knowles has to infiltrate that playground before the criminal syndicates end up in all-out war.
Corruption on every level of government, brutal violence around every corner, alien races that consider humans the lowest of low, and a laser blaster always pointed at his back, Knowles needs Galactic Vice Lieutenant Angie McDade and Galactic Vice Detective Kalaka to back him up. Their job is to keep Knowles from getting his head blown off or die trying.
But there are forces at work that want nothing more than for Jafla Base to burn. And some of those forces may be coming from within the Jafla Base Vice Squad itself!
New Bali is a swamp world located 20 light-years from Earth. Colonized by humans almost two hundred years before, the planet is also home to an intelligent, methane-breathing race of amphibians. The natives have a unique culture that precludes war and vengeance, but recent events have begun to unravel a once fragile peace.
Sophie Singh, heir to a vast conglomerate, must decide whether to retain her family's control of Wetworld while Brother Moises Borbon, a conflicted Jesuit researcher, races against time to unlock the true meaning behind an alien art form that might be the key to truly understanding the natives.
On the planet Fortune, tech is low and the price of doing business dangerously steep.
A year after the war with the Coalition states has ended, John Pitte and the crew of the Errant aren't just scraping the bottom of the barrel, they're scraping the deck under the bottom of the barrel.
So when a mysterious woman offers the crew salvation—or, at least a paying job—John signs on, only to discover that neither the job, nor the woman, are what they appear.
Soon, the crew of the Errant are on the run and embroiled in hive of madness and deception, while everything John hoped to save teeters on the brink of disaster.
After inciting rebellion against Earth throughout Titan's off-world colonies, Kale Trass learns that leadership isn't only about fighting. Keeping control of his people - even his own family - requires a different set of skills. Following a pivotal battle over Saturn, Kale travels deep into enemy territory under the guise of seeking peace, though peace is the last thing on his mind.
Malcolm Graves used to be an infamous Collector for a powerful Earther corporation--and then he nearly lost his life on Titan. Now he's retired. But when Kale's wake of destruction follows Malcolm to Mars and claims the life of a friend, it's time for the ex-Collector to dust off his pulse-pistol and leap back into a fight he thought he'd left behind.
With the solar system divided, heroes are few and short-lived... but someone has to put the self-proclaimed King Trass of Titan in his place.
The Ixa smashed the galaxy to bits before they were defeated. Captain Husher has sounded the alarm in the decades since: the Ixa’s creators will return to finish the job.
But unlike Husher, the galactic government didn't battle the Ixa, and the politicians have convinced themselves that maintaining peace means limiting the ability to wage war.
Now, the enemy has returned, with high-tech weapons that prove they haven’t limited their own combat capabilities in the slightest. If Captain Husher and his beleaguered supercarrier crew can't manage to stop the invaders, they will happily devour the galaxy whole.
They think they are alone.
They are mistaken.
Now they face annihilation.
For Fleet Admiral James Byrd — overworked and underpaid — a vacation is all he wanted. It only lasts five minutes and eleven seconds. When his fleet is attacked by an unknown enemy, Admiral Byrd does everything in his power to prevent genocide.
Then Admiral Byrd quickly finds out there's an even bigger problem. He's the enemy's number one target.
And it's not because he's the leader of Star Guild.
A battered but undefeated Alliance
A war they cannot win by force
A plan to turn the tide of history!
For two years, the Castle Federation and the Alliance of Free Stars have stood against Marshal James Walkingstick of the Terran Commonwealth and his mission of conquest. Battles have been won and lost, worlds have died, and soldiers like Admiral Kyle Roberts have been forged on the anvil of war.
But the Alliance cannot win. The Commonwealth has more worlds, more ships, more soldiers. They claim their victory is inevitable. That history is on their side.
Refusing to accept the Commonwealth’s future, the Alliance embarks on a do-or-die mission to end the war in one strike. If Kyle Roberts’s plan works, the Commonwealth will break.
But if it fails the Alliance will be broken.
On the fire planet of Abalon 3, an evil warlord threatens to unleash a wave of destruction in order to take control of the planet's valuable source of trioxyglobin, a dangerous but valuable liquid used for starship fuel. The only person capable of stopping him is Lianetta Jansen, a disgraced former Galactic Military Policewoman now turned smuggler, who is haunted by a terrible tragedy in her past. Along with her ragtag, wisecracking crew—the one-armed pilot Caladan, and the malfunctioning droid, Harlan5—Lia must confront her own demons, while trying to stop another.
The final battle between Mars and Earth approaches.
Forces array themselves for a showdown, and humanity’s fate lies in the balance. Thomas leads a new force of the most powerful infantry humans have ever fielded, but even that may not be enough to prevail against Earth's newest plot.
The stakes are higher than anyone knows. The secrets deeper than anyone has guessed. And the truth could free or enslave humanity forever.
After twenty five years serving as the lone human Monitor of the Interstellar Ark, Hermes, Orion is scheduled to be placed back in his hibernation chamber with the other members of the crew. Knowing that he will die there and be replaced before the ship's voyage is over, he decides that he won't accept that fate. Whatever it takes he will escape Hermes and see space again, even if it means defying the regulations of his only friend -- the ship-wide artificial intelligence known as Dan.
Tabitha has one night to challenge her past, and her belief in herself. Normally, a person would fail. However, Tabitha has an ace in the hole. A female vampire with hundreds of years of life and wisdom and she is willing to protect Tabitha and tell her the truth.
Whether Tabitha wants it, or not.
And whether the Vampire wants to hurt others is not in question. It is what her Queen would expect.
And Gabrielle will make it happen, like it or not.
Hope you enjoy this selection of books...
A deadly artificial virus is missing...
The corporation that hired her to find it wants her dead... Melanie Destin's life is a mess...
Desperate to start over, she accepts an interplanetary salvage job that will pay her enough to start a new life on Mars.
When she learns the real purpose of the mission is to recover an apocalyptic virus, everything begins to unravel...
With her life in danger and not knowing who to trust, Mel must find a way to keep the virus out of the wrong hands... If she fails, billions will die...
Rei had lost it all: her family, a safe home, and, most important, her freedom.
Despite all odds, she managed to escape and make her life among the stars. It's not easy to be a fugitive of the largest galactic power ever known. Making a living requires being flexible, and not particularly caring for things like laws or rights of property.
Even in her new life the ghosts of Rei's past refuse to leave her in peace. She's been changed by her captivity in more ways than one and the mysteries abound. There are untold questions that demand answers, but the only way she can find out the truth is to start back at the beginning.
To complicate matters, she is approached to stop her old enemies from retrieving priceless artifacts of untold knowledge. The idea is as murky as they come but they have to take the chance. Even if it might cost her crew dearly.
It all starts with an interstellar cargo barge full of corpses...
The criminal scum of the galaxy have found a new playground and its name is Jafla Base. Now Galactic Vice Detective Etch Knowles has to infiltrate that playground before the criminal syndicates end up in all-out war.
Corruption on every level of government, brutal violence around every corner, alien races that consider humans the lowest of low, and a laser blaster always pointed at his back, Knowles needs Galactic Vice Lieutenant Angie McDade and Galactic Vice Detective Kalaka to back him up. Their job is to keep Knowles from getting his head blown off or die trying.
But there are forces at work that want nothing more than for Jafla Base to burn. And some of those forces may be coming from within the Jafla Base Vice Squad itself!
New Bali is a swamp world located 20 light-years from Earth. Colonized by humans almost two hundred years before, the planet is also home to an intelligent, methane-breathing race of amphibians. The natives have a unique culture that precludes war and vengeance, but recent events have begun to unravel a once fragile peace.
Sophie Singh, heir to a vast conglomerate, must decide whether to retain her family's control of Wetworld while Brother Moises Borbon, a conflicted Jesuit researcher, races against time to unlock the true meaning behind an alien art form that might be the key to truly understanding the natives.
On the planet Fortune, tech is low and the price of doing business dangerously steep.
A year after the war with the Coalition states has ended, John Pitte and the crew of the Errant aren't just scraping the bottom of the barrel, they're scraping the deck under the bottom of the barrel.
So when a mysterious woman offers the crew salvation—or, at least a paying job—John signs on, only to discover that neither the job, nor the woman, are what they appear.
Soon, the crew of the Errant are on the run and embroiled in hive of madness and deception, while everything John hoped to save teeters on the brink of disaster.
After inciting rebellion against Earth throughout Titan's off-world colonies, Kale Trass learns that leadership isn't only about fighting. Keeping control of his people - even his own family - requires a different set of skills. Following a pivotal battle over Saturn, Kale travels deep into enemy territory under the guise of seeking peace, though peace is the last thing on his mind.
Malcolm Graves used to be an infamous Collector for a powerful Earther corporation--and then he nearly lost his life on Titan. Now he's retired. But when Kale's wake of destruction follows Malcolm to Mars and claims the life of a friend, it's time for the ex-Collector to dust off his pulse-pistol and leap back into a fight he thought he'd left behind.
With the solar system divided, heroes are few and short-lived... but someone has to put the self-proclaimed King Trass of Titan in his place.
The Ixa smashed the galaxy to bits before they were defeated. Captain Husher has sounded the alarm in the decades since: the Ixa’s creators will return to finish the job.
But unlike Husher, the galactic government didn't battle the Ixa, and the politicians have convinced themselves that maintaining peace means limiting the ability to wage war.
Now, the enemy has returned, with high-tech weapons that prove they haven’t limited their own combat capabilities in the slightest. If Captain Husher and his beleaguered supercarrier crew can't manage to stop the invaders, they will happily devour the galaxy whole.
They think they are alone.
They are mistaken.
Now they face annihilation.
For Fleet Admiral James Byrd — overworked and underpaid — a vacation is all he wanted. It only lasts five minutes and eleven seconds. When his fleet is attacked by an unknown enemy, Admiral Byrd does everything in his power to prevent genocide.
Then Admiral Byrd quickly finds out there's an even bigger problem. He's the enemy's number one target.
And it's not because he's the leader of Star Guild.
A battered but undefeated Alliance
A war they cannot win by force
A plan to turn the tide of history!
For two years, the Castle Federation and the Alliance of Free Stars have stood against Marshal James Walkingstick of the Terran Commonwealth and his mission of conquest. Battles have been won and lost, worlds have died, and soldiers like Admiral Kyle Roberts have been forged on the anvil of war.
But the Alliance cannot win. The Commonwealth has more worlds, more ships, more soldiers. They claim their victory is inevitable. That history is on their side.
Refusing to accept the Commonwealth’s future, the Alliance embarks on a do-or-die mission to end the war in one strike. If Kyle Roberts’s plan works, the Commonwealth will break.
But if it fails the Alliance will be broken.
On the fire planet of Abalon 3, an evil warlord threatens to unleash a wave of destruction in order to take control of the planet's valuable source of trioxyglobin, a dangerous but valuable liquid used for starship fuel. The only person capable of stopping him is Lianetta Jansen, a disgraced former Galactic Military Policewoman now turned smuggler, who is haunted by a terrible tragedy in her past. Along with her ragtag, wisecracking crew—the one-armed pilot Caladan, and the malfunctioning droid, Harlan5—Lia must confront her own demons, while trying to stop another.
The final battle between Mars and Earth approaches.
Forces array themselves for a showdown, and humanity’s fate lies in the balance. Thomas leads a new force of the most powerful infantry humans have ever fielded, but even that may not be enough to prevail against Earth's newest plot.
The stakes are higher than anyone knows. The secrets deeper than anyone has guessed. And the truth could free or enslave humanity forever.
After twenty five years serving as the lone human Monitor of the Interstellar Ark, Hermes, Orion is scheduled to be placed back in his hibernation chamber with the other members of the crew. Knowing that he will die there and be replaced before the ship's voyage is over, he decides that he won't accept that fate. Whatever it takes he will escape Hermes and see space again, even if it means defying the regulations of his only friend -- the ship-wide artificial intelligence known as Dan.
Tabitha has one night to challenge her past, and her belief in herself. Normally, a person would fail. However, Tabitha has an ace in the hole. A female vampire with hundreds of years of life and wisdom and she is willing to protect Tabitha and tell her the truth.
Whether Tabitha wants it, or not.
And whether the Vampire wants to hurt others is not in question. It is what her Queen would expect.
And Gabrielle will make it happen, like it or not.
January 2, 2018
An Interview with Rachel Barnard
Well, I have to say that the weather over Christmas and New Year was attrocious. Cold and wet but I somehow managed to miss all the snow. It dumped in the north, then we went up there and it had melted (but was snowing in the south). By we came south again, it had all gone (but the next day it snowed in the north). I was hoping for something like the picture below of Pendle Hill, behind the house I grew up in. Grrr!
Anyhow, in my interview today, I am talking to Rachel Barnard, author of Ataxia and the Ravine of Lost Dreams.
Do you read much, and if so who are your favourite authors?
I absolutely love to read. I read quite a few Indie books (and do reviews every week on my blog). My favorite authors are David Estes, Stephanie Perkins, Starla Huchton, Nikki McCormack, and Cathy Yardley to name a few.
Who designed your book covers?
Both my sci-fi and fantasy book covers were designed by Dodo's Design. My contemporary book covers were designed by Designed by Starla.
How did you select your formatter, and what was your experience?
Formatting is simple if you're not trying to put anything fancy into your ebooks, but I wanted to put an image as a scene break in At One's Beast and I couldn't get my files right - time and time again. It was quite frustrating, so I reached out to the Google. I found Polgarus Studio and chose them because they claimed to have formatted Hugh Howey's books and at the time I had just read Wool and been very impressed. Polgarus Studio worked fast and they had competitive pricing.
What advice would you give to aspiring writers?
One comment from an editor stuck with me from a writer's conference I went to years ago. She said that she could always tell when a book had been written without an outline. I would tell aspiring writers to figure out how to make outlines work for them and to use outlines! I'm still figuring out how to make the right outline. It's possible to write a good first draft and you shouldn't settle for the typical messy nearly unusable first draft if you can take your time before you write so that you can write a usable first draft.
What is the hardest thing about writing?
The hardest part about writing is starting and finishing. I've started different novels three times in the past several months without getting very far. I've also spent months attempting to finalize the final draft into the finished manuscript.
Thank you for taking the time to talk to me. Good luck with the writing...
Rachel Barnard's greatest accomplishments have been eating an entire half gallon of ice cream in one sitting, winning a boot toss, and writing a novel about herself. Rachel Barnard wishes she were taller, that chocolate had no calories, and that books could be eaten after they were read. Rachel Barnard resides in the Pacific Northwest and loves to dress up, talk about writing and books, and dance. Rachel Barnard primarily writes young adult books, including Ataxia and the Ravine of Lost Dreams, At One's Beast, and her For the Love of Donuts series.
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Anyhow, in my interview today, I am talking to Rachel Barnard, author of Ataxia and the Ravine of Lost Dreams.
Do you read much, and if so who are your favourite authors?
I absolutely love to read. I read quite a few Indie books (and do reviews every week on my blog). My favorite authors are David Estes, Stephanie Perkins, Starla Huchton, Nikki McCormack, and Cathy Yardley to name a few.
Who designed your book covers?
Both my sci-fi and fantasy book covers were designed by Dodo's Design. My contemporary book covers were designed by Designed by Starla.
How did you select your formatter, and what was your experience?
Formatting is simple if you're not trying to put anything fancy into your ebooks, but I wanted to put an image as a scene break in At One's Beast and I couldn't get my files right - time and time again. It was quite frustrating, so I reached out to the Google. I found Polgarus Studio and chose them because they claimed to have formatted Hugh Howey's books and at the time I had just read Wool and been very impressed. Polgarus Studio worked fast and they had competitive pricing.
What advice would you give to aspiring writers?
One comment from an editor stuck with me from a writer's conference I went to years ago. She said that she could always tell when a book had been written without an outline. I would tell aspiring writers to figure out how to make outlines work for them and to use outlines! I'm still figuring out how to make the right outline. It's possible to write a good first draft and you shouldn't settle for the typical messy nearly unusable first draft if you can take your time before you write so that you can write a usable first draft.
What is the hardest thing about writing?
The hardest part about writing is starting and finishing. I've started different novels three times in the past several months without getting very far. I've also spent months attempting to finalize the final draft into the finished manuscript.
Thank you for taking the time to talk to me. Good luck with the writing...
Rachel Barnard's greatest accomplishments have been eating an entire half gallon of ice cream in one sitting, winning a boot toss, and writing a novel about herself. Rachel Barnard wishes she were taller, that chocolate had no calories, and that books could be eaten after they were read. Rachel Barnard resides in the Pacific Northwest and loves to dress up, talk about writing and books, and dance. Rachel Barnard primarily writes young adult books, including Ataxia and the Ravine of Lost Dreams, At One's Beast, and her For the Love of Donuts series.
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December 27, 2017
The December Round-Up of Scifi Books
And so, another year draws to a close. I'm writing this a little ahead of time as I'm off to stay with family in Lancashire for a a few days. Everyone's hoping for some proper snow while we're up there.
Those of you who've read The Officer will remember Dave, my hard-pressed security chief. Well, this holiday, I've made big inroads into the first novel featuring him. I'm not sure when it'll be released, but I'll keep you posted...
If you know anyone who just got an e-reader for Christmas, perhaps you could forward this email to them so they have some suggestions to start building their library?
Sometimes spaceships disappear with everyone on board – the Lost Ships. But sometimes they come back, strangely altered, derelict, and rumoured to be full of horrors.
Opal is on a mission. She’s been seeking something her whole life. Something she is willing to die for. And she thinks it might be on a Lost Ship.
Opal has stolen Clarissa, an experimental AI-controlled spaceship, from the military. Together they have tracked down a Lost Ship, in a lonely nebula far from colonised space.
The Lost Ship is falling into the gravity well of a neutron star, and will soon be truly lost … forever. Legends say the ships harbour death, but there’s no time for indecision.
Opal gears up to board it. She’s just one woman, entering an alien and lethal environment. But perhaps with the aid of Clarissa’s intelligence – and an armoured spacesuit – Opal may stand a chance.
For Captain John Duggan, it seems like war never ends. Each success brings another mission and more death.
Following events at the Helius Blackstar, Duggan is given the Space Corps’ newest warship – a heavy cruiser armed to the teeth with the latest weapons and technology. A prospector craft, the SC Lupus, has gone missing and his superiors want to find out what happened and the aggressors dealt with accordingly.
The wrecked spaceship is soon found. However, nothing is as it seems. What Duggan finds on a distant planet turns everything on its head. With the survival of humanity potentially in the balance, Duggan – a man forever chained by duty – is required to take the biggest risk of all. The man who has faced everything is about to come up against an opponent he cannot possibly defend himself against.
Get ready to travel to travel THROUGH THE NEVER with brave characters who break free from familiar confines and launch themselves into the dangerous unknown as they seek new lives and race down pathways from which there is no return.
From Earth to far-off galaxies to fantastic new realms, embark on fourteen exciting adventures in science fiction and fantasy where dangerous new worlds, epic quests, and heart-pounding adventures await.
Earth spirals into chaos.
World war ravages every border.
The human race teeters on the edge of extinction.
Survival hinges on the success of one colony located in a decimated valley.
Walt Marshall, government contractor, is no stranger to loss after the death of his wife and son.
Now he’ll honor them by doing whatever it takes to ensure the survival of humankind.
Walt gets more than he bargained for when he uncovers a puzzling clue left behind by a mysterious woman. Destined to unveil the truth, he embarks down a dangerous path of espionage and treason.
He quickly learns the dark truth about the past, and the future in this daring science fiction novel.
Abducted from Earth as a child. Sold into slavery. Forced to fly the ship of a ruthless pirate. Sarah knows nothing of her homeworld or her people. Her one longing is to return home.
Little does she know humanity is no better off. The Elders, a ruthless alien race rule Earth with an iron grip.
When Sarah’s ship is ambushed by an Elder frigate she is thrown into a life and death battle. Survival would send shockwaves throughout the galaxy. Never before has an Elder warship been beaten in one-on-one combat. For Sarah, it would also open up a way for her to return to the home she has never known.
What if you could command the physical laws of the universe?
The already controversial Dr. Darian Leigh has outdone himself this time with a magnanimous gift to humanity: a device that can create whole new universes and alter the laws of physics. The theory alone sets the worlds of science, religion, and politics ablaze. Now, if only he could get it working. Little does he know, it already does. Lines between good and evil get blurry when a misguided lab associate and the scheming leader of an influential church join forces to harness the power for the glory of God. What—or who—are they willing to sacrifice to possess the machine? Mired in secrets, betrayal, good intentions, and murder, the struggle to control it will rage for eons.
Five hundred years in the future, the Earth is dying, overrun with pollution that the Great Council refuses to stop. 16-year-old Tess is a proud Earther who wants to save the planet, but the government says that shipping all humans to Mars must happen for humankind to survive. Tess fears the day she gets drafted because no one ever hears back from the Red Planet.
When Tess's turn comes to board a one-way ship, she discovers a horrible truth: an alien race has taken over the government and wants Earth for themselves. But Tess's horror has only begun. The settlements on Mars are harsh, where colonists struggle to survive. All Tess wants is to get back to her rightful home, but by running into Matthew, a fellow colonist with some secrets of his own, she gets wrapped up in a dangerous plan to do so: Mars must invade Earth. Tess has no choice but to face war, and perhaps even to question the identity she holds dear.
It was supposed to be a simple mission. A suspected Russian spy boat is in trouble in Canadian waters. Investigate and report are the orders.
But when Captain John Banks and his squad arrive, it is to find an empty vessel, and a scene of bloody mayhem.
Soon they are in a fight for their lives, for there are things in the icy seas off Baffin Island, scuttling, hungry things with a taste for human flesh.
As nations argue over who should possess the alien entity called the Lamotelokhai, 15-year-old Bobby Truex knows the answer—no one should. After all, he’s the one who told it to go into hiding. He knows, better than anyone, that misusing it leads to death and destruction. After months trying to overcome his guilt, Bobby’s life is suddenly shattered, forcing him to risk everything and once again ask for help from the most dangerous object imaginable.
Meanwhile, Quentin and Lindsey Darnell are tormented by the memory of leaving their son Addison to die in the Papuan rainforest. After learning he is still alive, they set out to find him but are shocked by what they discover. Addison is now part of something truly amazing, something that may result in the next stage of human evolution.
Now, Bobby must not only survive—he must make his way to the other side of the world to find Quentin and Lindsey. The fate of the planet depends on it.
After her homeworld suffers a devastating attack, Grand Admiral Nayasar Khariah wants nothing more than vengeance upon the Galactic Alliance, the interplanetary civilization that had expelled her people and then refused to punish the organizers of the attack. Her opportunity finally comes when she meets Executor Darkclaw, who has been tasked with conquering the Galactic Alliance— to be followed by the rest of the galaxy—by his master, the all-powerful energy being known only as the High Lord.
Things abruptly change, however, when Darkclaw unexpectedly starts feeling emotions he does not understand, and finds himself heretically questioning the only purpose he has ever known—irrevocably altering his view of the ongoing war.
Meanwhile, within the Galactic Alliance, Second Scion Dalcon Oresh, member of an order dedicated to preserving the it, struggles to stop the Alliance’s bleeding, the source of which may not be entirely external.
Darkclaw’s friendship with Nayasar will be pushed to its breaking point, Nayasar’s relationships with her closest friends and loved ones will be strained as her quest for vengeance becomes more and more a personal obsession, and Dalcon must determine who he can truly trust.
All the while, the imminent existential threat of the High Lord looms over everything, and the key to stopping him, and saving not just the Alliance, but the entire galaxy, may only be found in the remains of a ancient, powerful race, and the creations they left behind...
One last mission. One mysterious passenger. One baffling destination. After centuries of travel, an ancient log buoy finally reaches human-controlled space. In the midst of a stalemated interstellar war, the Admiralty has little interest in wasting resources on what would likely be a fruitless search for the truth, but someone was able to convince them they could afford to send an old, obsolete frigate soon destined for the scrapyard, on this quest. Pulled from her patrol route, Siobhan Dunmoore is ordered to take an envoy aboard Stingray and sail into a poorly charted and virtually unexplored region of the galaxy hidden behind interstellar dust clouds. Along the way, she’ll come to the attention of an old enemy, now also relegated to the fringes of the war, turning a voyage of discovery into a race against time and against each other. Though her troubles quickly multiply, Dunmoore has faced worse odds. She’s determined to bring Stingray home with its honor intact, and few are brave enough to bet against her, not even their old Shrehari foes.
Everyone thought Arizona would be forever safe from earthquakes, volcanoes, and shifting water tables.
Only, they aren't.
Yellowstone's impending rupture will lead to a year-long winter, and global cooling for a generation, or more. Without seeds, farming techniques, and other life skills long forgotten, those who remain won't survive the coming year.
With her powers the only thing standing between the system and certain collapse, Karin Makos has spent the last two months running from one thing or another—but all that's about to change. Her sister's back, and Nomiki's ready to grab their problems by the horns, throw them on their backs, and rip into them with her modified carbon steel blades.
With the backing of the Fallon Empire, and a promising new lead, the two are determined to reach down into the mystery of their past and pull out its secrets, once and for all.
But they aren't the only ones on the move. And looking may uncover more than even they could have bargained for.
Those of you who've read The Officer will remember Dave, my hard-pressed security chief. Well, this holiday, I've made big inroads into the first novel featuring him. I'm not sure when it'll be released, but I'll keep you posted...
If you know anyone who just got an e-reader for Christmas, perhaps you could forward this email to them so they have some suggestions to start building their library?
Sometimes spaceships disappear with everyone on board – the Lost Ships. But sometimes they come back, strangely altered, derelict, and rumoured to be full of horrors.
Opal is on a mission. She’s been seeking something her whole life. Something she is willing to die for. And she thinks it might be on a Lost Ship.
Opal has stolen Clarissa, an experimental AI-controlled spaceship, from the military. Together they have tracked down a Lost Ship, in a lonely nebula far from colonised space.
The Lost Ship is falling into the gravity well of a neutron star, and will soon be truly lost … forever. Legends say the ships harbour death, but there’s no time for indecision.
Opal gears up to board it. She’s just one woman, entering an alien and lethal environment. But perhaps with the aid of Clarissa’s intelligence – and an armoured spacesuit – Opal may stand a chance.
For Captain John Duggan, it seems like war never ends. Each success brings another mission and more death.
Following events at the Helius Blackstar, Duggan is given the Space Corps’ newest warship – a heavy cruiser armed to the teeth with the latest weapons and technology. A prospector craft, the SC Lupus, has gone missing and his superiors want to find out what happened and the aggressors dealt with accordingly.
The wrecked spaceship is soon found. However, nothing is as it seems. What Duggan finds on a distant planet turns everything on its head. With the survival of humanity potentially in the balance, Duggan – a man forever chained by duty – is required to take the biggest risk of all. The man who has faced everything is about to come up against an opponent he cannot possibly defend himself against.
Get ready to travel to travel THROUGH THE NEVER with brave characters who break free from familiar confines and launch themselves into the dangerous unknown as they seek new lives and race down pathways from which there is no return.
From Earth to far-off galaxies to fantastic new realms, embark on fourteen exciting adventures in science fiction and fantasy where dangerous new worlds, epic quests, and heart-pounding adventures await.
Earth spirals into chaos.
World war ravages every border.
The human race teeters on the edge of extinction.
Survival hinges on the success of one colony located in a decimated valley.
Walt Marshall, government contractor, is no stranger to loss after the death of his wife and son.
Now he’ll honor them by doing whatever it takes to ensure the survival of humankind.
Walt gets more than he bargained for when he uncovers a puzzling clue left behind by a mysterious woman. Destined to unveil the truth, he embarks down a dangerous path of espionage and treason.
He quickly learns the dark truth about the past, and the future in this daring science fiction novel.
Abducted from Earth as a child. Sold into slavery. Forced to fly the ship of a ruthless pirate. Sarah knows nothing of her homeworld or her people. Her one longing is to return home.
Little does she know humanity is no better off. The Elders, a ruthless alien race rule Earth with an iron grip.
When Sarah’s ship is ambushed by an Elder frigate she is thrown into a life and death battle. Survival would send shockwaves throughout the galaxy. Never before has an Elder warship been beaten in one-on-one combat. For Sarah, it would also open up a way for her to return to the home she has never known.
What if you could command the physical laws of the universe?
The already controversial Dr. Darian Leigh has outdone himself this time with a magnanimous gift to humanity: a device that can create whole new universes and alter the laws of physics. The theory alone sets the worlds of science, religion, and politics ablaze. Now, if only he could get it working. Little does he know, it already does. Lines between good and evil get blurry when a misguided lab associate and the scheming leader of an influential church join forces to harness the power for the glory of God. What—or who—are they willing to sacrifice to possess the machine? Mired in secrets, betrayal, good intentions, and murder, the struggle to control it will rage for eons.
Five hundred years in the future, the Earth is dying, overrun with pollution that the Great Council refuses to stop. 16-year-old Tess is a proud Earther who wants to save the planet, but the government says that shipping all humans to Mars must happen for humankind to survive. Tess fears the day she gets drafted because no one ever hears back from the Red Planet.
When Tess's turn comes to board a one-way ship, she discovers a horrible truth: an alien race has taken over the government and wants Earth for themselves. But Tess's horror has only begun. The settlements on Mars are harsh, where colonists struggle to survive. All Tess wants is to get back to her rightful home, but by running into Matthew, a fellow colonist with some secrets of his own, she gets wrapped up in a dangerous plan to do so: Mars must invade Earth. Tess has no choice but to face war, and perhaps even to question the identity she holds dear.
It was supposed to be a simple mission. A suspected Russian spy boat is in trouble in Canadian waters. Investigate and report are the orders.
But when Captain John Banks and his squad arrive, it is to find an empty vessel, and a scene of bloody mayhem.
Soon they are in a fight for their lives, for there are things in the icy seas off Baffin Island, scuttling, hungry things with a taste for human flesh.
As nations argue over who should possess the alien entity called the Lamotelokhai, 15-year-old Bobby Truex knows the answer—no one should. After all, he’s the one who told it to go into hiding. He knows, better than anyone, that misusing it leads to death and destruction. After months trying to overcome his guilt, Bobby’s life is suddenly shattered, forcing him to risk everything and once again ask for help from the most dangerous object imaginable.
Meanwhile, Quentin and Lindsey Darnell are tormented by the memory of leaving their son Addison to die in the Papuan rainforest. After learning he is still alive, they set out to find him but are shocked by what they discover. Addison is now part of something truly amazing, something that may result in the next stage of human evolution.
Now, Bobby must not only survive—he must make his way to the other side of the world to find Quentin and Lindsey. The fate of the planet depends on it.
After her homeworld suffers a devastating attack, Grand Admiral Nayasar Khariah wants nothing more than vengeance upon the Galactic Alliance, the interplanetary civilization that had expelled her people and then refused to punish the organizers of the attack. Her opportunity finally comes when she meets Executor Darkclaw, who has been tasked with conquering the Galactic Alliance— to be followed by the rest of the galaxy—by his master, the all-powerful energy being known only as the High Lord.
Things abruptly change, however, when Darkclaw unexpectedly starts feeling emotions he does not understand, and finds himself heretically questioning the only purpose he has ever known—irrevocably altering his view of the ongoing war.
Meanwhile, within the Galactic Alliance, Second Scion Dalcon Oresh, member of an order dedicated to preserving the it, struggles to stop the Alliance’s bleeding, the source of which may not be entirely external.
Darkclaw’s friendship with Nayasar will be pushed to its breaking point, Nayasar’s relationships with her closest friends and loved ones will be strained as her quest for vengeance becomes more and more a personal obsession, and Dalcon must determine who he can truly trust.
All the while, the imminent existential threat of the High Lord looms over everything, and the key to stopping him, and saving not just the Alliance, but the entire galaxy, may only be found in the remains of a ancient, powerful race, and the creations they left behind...
One last mission. One mysterious passenger. One baffling destination. After centuries of travel, an ancient log buoy finally reaches human-controlled space. In the midst of a stalemated interstellar war, the Admiralty has little interest in wasting resources on what would likely be a fruitless search for the truth, but someone was able to convince them they could afford to send an old, obsolete frigate soon destined for the scrapyard, on this quest. Pulled from her patrol route, Siobhan Dunmoore is ordered to take an envoy aboard Stingray and sail into a poorly charted and virtually unexplored region of the galaxy hidden behind interstellar dust clouds. Along the way, she’ll come to the attention of an old enemy, now also relegated to the fringes of the war, turning a voyage of discovery into a race against time and against each other. Though her troubles quickly multiply, Dunmoore has faced worse odds. She’s determined to bring Stingray home with its honor intact, and few are brave enough to bet against her, not even their old Shrehari foes.
Everyone thought Arizona would be forever safe from earthquakes, volcanoes, and shifting water tables.
Only, they aren't.
Yellowstone's impending rupture will lead to a year-long winter, and global cooling for a generation, or more. Without seeds, farming techniques, and other life skills long forgotten, those who remain won't survive the coming year.
With her powers the only thing standing between the system and certain collapse, Karin Makos has spent the last two months running from one thing or another—but all that's about to change. Her sister's back, and Nomiki's ready to grab their problems by the horns, throw them on their backs, and rip into them with her modified carbon steel blades.
With the backing of the Fallon Empire, and a promising new lead, the two are determined to reach down into the mystery of their past and pull out its secrets, once and for all.
But they aren't the only ones on the move. And looking may uncover more than even they could have bargained for.
December 9, 2017
An Interview with Yudhanjaya Wijeratne
OK. I'll admit it. I'm doing a lot of panicked Christmas shopping this weekend. Every year, I promise myself that I'll get it all done early. This year, I actually did buy quite a few presents well in advance. Unfortunately, I gave them out early too because I couldn't resist cheering people up with them.
Well, if that sounds like you too, perhaps I can help. My Newcomer series of scifi anthologies is available in paperback, perfect stocking-fillers for anyone who likes the genre.
In my interview today, I am talking to Yudhanjaya Wijeratne, author of Numbercaste.
What were you like at school?
I think I was a know-it-all. Definitely a know-it-all: I aced every test and discovered friendship (and people in general) late in life.
What draws you to writing science fiction?
I've thought about this quite often, and I think the best answer is something Brandon Sanderson said in his writing class at Brigham Young Uni. To paraphrase a bit - it's a field that has no limits; you can touch on politics, race, cultural commentary, romance, everything - AND you can have starships. That's the best thing ever.
Why did you choose independent publishing?
Trad pub has its advantages, but it also has one very interesting disadvantage: each book has a high unit cost. Paper, printing, storage, warehousing - the cost of replicating a work is quite high, and the entire publishing industry, since the Gutenberg Press, has been build on the fact that some people can afford this and some people can't. Those who can afford it become gatekeepers.
With digital, the cost of replicating a book drops to almost nothing: just a few hundred kilobytes of storage space. The cost and delay of transmitting a work drops to almost nothing. Whereas print, by default, imposes geographical limits, digital just nukes all that. The gatekeepers start vanishing.
I think for me and my fellow authors, this is really important. Our markets and readerships are scattered throughout the world. And now you and I can go live across the world with the click of a button and be read from Colombo to Colombia.
I had realized this on a theoretical level before, but I think this really hit when a student from the University of California mailed me. Their professor had apparently come across TSSRW and they were discussing it informally in class - and this was three days after I hit that publish button. I don't think it could ever have propagated that far and that fast without digital.
What’s your views on social media for marketing?
I think it's absolutely one of best tools ever, provided you engage with the audience. Backstory - I run a blog called icaruswept, which is read by around 200,000 people, mostly Sri Lankan. 70% of that traffic is from Facebook.
The problem is that a lot of authors don't engage. They tick the boxes - they make Twitter and Facebook accounts - and then they just constantly spam their books. That's a massive turnoff. You have to be social on these media for things to work out.
I have to say, I love it when my readers get in touch. Knowing that actual real people are interested in my work is profoundly humbling.
If you could have been the original author of any book, what would it have been and why?
Hard pick... but I'd say Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, because that is simply a mind-blowing masterpiece of imagination. The way it blends science and myth together is... let's just say reading those books make me sit down and hold a few day's of silence in sheer respect for what's been done there on those pages.
That is a great choice. I'd go for pretty much anything by Iain M Banks, but if I had to pick one it'd be Excession.
Thank you for taking the time to talk to me. Good luck with the writing...
Yudhanjaya Wijeratne is a Big Data researcher and a former journalist. He's run news operations, designed games, and fallen off cliffs (most of these things by accident), but he's known in his native Sri Lanka for sparking political commentary under the Icaruswept moniker.
[image error]
Well, if that sounds like you too, perhaps I can help. My Newcomer series of scifi anthologies is available in paperback, perfect stocking-fillers for anyone who likes the genre.
In my interview today, I am talking to Yudhanjaya Wijeratne, author of Numbercaste.
What were you like at school?
I think I was a know-it-all. Definitely a know-it-all: I aced every test and discovered friendship (and people in general) late in life.
What draws you to writing science fiction?
I've thought about this quite often, and I think the best answer is something Brandon Sanderson said in his writing class at Brigham Young Uni. To paraphrase a bit - it's a field that has no limits; you can touch on politics, race, cultural commentary, romance, everything - AND you can have starships. That's the best thing ever.
Why did you choose independent publishing?
Trad pub has its advantages, but it also has one very interesting disadvantage: each book has a high unit cost. Paper, printing, storage, warehousing - the cost of replicating a work is quite high, and the entire publishing industry, since the Gutenberg Press, has been build on the fact that some people can afford this and some people can't. Those who can afford it become gatekeepers.
With digital, the cost of replicating a book drops to almost nothing: just a few hundred kilobytes of storage space. The cost and delay of transmitting a work drops to almost nothing. Whereas print, by default, imposes geographical limits, digital just nukes all that. The gatekeepers start vanishing.
I think for me and my fellow authors, this is really important. Our markets and readerships are scattered throughout the world. And now you and I can go live across the world with the click of a button and be read from Colombo to Colombia.
I had realized this on a theoretical level before, but I think this really hit when a student from the University of California mailed me. Their professor had apparently come across TSSRW and they were discussing it informally in class - and this was three days after I hit that publish button. I don't think it could ever have propagated that far and that fast without digital.
What’s your views on social media for marketing?
I think it's absolutely one of best tools ever, provided you engage with the audience. Backstory - I run a blog called icaruswept, which is read by around 200,000 people, mostly Sri Lankan. 70% of that traffic is from Facebook.
The problem is that a lot of authors don't engage. They tick the boxes - they make Twitter and Facebook accounts - and then they just constantly spam their books. That's a massive turnoff. You have to be social on these media for things to work out.
I have to say, I love it when my readers get in touch. Knowing that actual real people are interested in my work is profoundly humbling.
If you could have been the original author of any book, what would it have been and why?
Hard pick... but I'd say Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, because that is simply a mind-blowing masterpiece of imagination. The way it blends science and myth together is... let's just say reading those books make me sit down and hold a few day's of silence in sheer respect for what's been done there on those pages.
That is a great choice. I'd go for pretty much anything by Iain M Banks, but if I had to pick one it'd be Excession.
Thank you for taking the time to talk to me. Good luck with the writing...
Yudhanjaya Wijeratne is a Big Data researcher and a former journalist. He's run news operations, designed games, and fallen off cliffs (most of these things by accident), but he's known in his native Sri Lanka for sparking political commentary under the Icaruswept moniker.
[image error]November 27, 2017
November Round-up of Scifi Books
As you probably know, I love caving, climbing, walking, and other outdoor activities. This photo just won the Kendal Mountain Festival photo competition. Cool!
And here are the books you want...
Melanie Destin has been many things in her troubled life... a drug dealer, a doctor, a fugitive, and most recently, the saviour of Mars...what she doesn't want to be is a mother.
When circumstances make her responsible for a young orphan, she soon discovers the girl comes with a terrifying past...one that binds them to each other.
Pursued by a ruthless government assassin, Mel must get the girl to safety before they are both captured. If she fails, the secrets hidden within the child's genes will make a dictator unstoppable and forever change the course of human history.
Guardians are defenders, carers and guides. Some look after individual people, others whole planets or universes, but all share a strong belief in their responsibility to protect their charges.
The Guardian is an anthology of eleven science fiction short stories by writers from across the globe. It is part of the Newcomer series of scifi anthologies.
Year 200, Atlantic Federation Calendar. It has been two full centuries since the surface of the Earth was destroyed and humanity retreated to the bottom of the ocean. No one is old enough to remember the world outside the station they now call home. Life is peaceful in this artificial world. There is no war. Crime is low. But questions are raised once an experimental submarine is attacked during a routine test mission. The enemy is unknown. There are no leads. For the first time in generations, a long isolated city will have to confront what may lurk above the surface.
Rei had lost it all: her family, a safe home, and, most important, her freedom.
Despite all odds, she managed to escape and make her life among the stars. It's not easy to be a fugitive of the largest galactic power ever known. Making a living requires being flexible, and not particularly caring for things like laws or rights of property.
Even in her new life the ghosts of Rei's past refuse to leave her in peace. She's been changed by her captivity in more ways than one and the mysteries abound. There are untold questions that demand answers, but the only way she can find out the truth is to start back at the beginning.
To complicate matters, she is approached to stop her old enemies from retrieving priceless artifacts of untold knowledge. The idea is as murky as they come but they have to take the chance. Even if it might cost her crew dearly.
Earth is a dying planet. To survive, humanity founds the Circuit, a string of colonies across the solar system, dedicated to mining resources vital to preserving what remains of mankind.
The New Earth Tribunal, a powerful religious faction, rises to rule the Circuit. They believe a Spirit within the Earth will one day appear and welcome humanity back home. Following a string of seemingly random attacks, the Tribunal suspects its mortal enemy, the Ceresians, have again rallied to challenge their absolute rule.
Join an unlikely band of would-be saviors - the Tribunal's best spy, a roguish Ceresian mercenary, a subservient android and a disgraced general - as they are drawn into a conspiracy destined to change the Circuit forever.
A new, sinister threat has arisen - and it plans to bring down the Tribunal once and for all.
Dorian Anino thought her research would change the world. The discovery of the so-called “hero-gene” taught her and her team that it was possible for some humans to have incredible strength, speed, and agility. But when Dorian discovers that the gene only expresses in people on the brink of death, her team can’t help but be disappointed. Except for Dorian’s protégé, who opts to poison the water supply to unearth more heroes...
Luc Gray is a hero through and through. But when the squadron leader loses a pilot and then his position in quick succession, he has no idea what to do next. Without a mission, he jumps at an assignment from Dorian to investigate the pilot’s death. But when the mission puts him in grave danger, Luc is about to find out just how much of a hero he is...
To defeat a scientist who wants to play god, Dorian may just have to create her own team of heroes…
When others run from danger, Riot runs toward it.
When others throw up, she throws down.
And when there’s a brawl in a bar, well... she’s probably the one who caused it.
But now, the person voted least likely not to blow stuff up by her unit has been given another mission: explore the universe and forge bonds with new alien races in order to save Earth from another invasion.
Backed by her ride or die crew - the only guys she’d trust on a mission such as this - and a scientist, because, well, science, Riot blasts off in a spaceship headed to distant galaxies, the fate of the planet resting on her shoulders.
Grace Gushiken is a grifter and a liar. Worse, she’s an esper, an abhorrent creation of the Old Empire. Grace keeps her blade sharp and her wits sharper. She’s on the run from the Republic’s justice.
Nathan Chevell captains the free trader Tyche, an ex-war heavy lifter. He’s no pirate, but he’s no white knight either. An encounter with espers saw him discharged from the Emperor’s Black before the real fighting even started.
When the crew of the Tyche are hired to deliver a new transmitter for a downed Guild Bridge, Grace hitches a ride. They find the Absalom Delta colony deserted, its people turned into slaves by the insect-like Ezeroc. The aliens have descended like locusts on humanity, consuming all in their path. No one is safe. Even the Republic Navy is powerless against them.
Facing an impossible foe, odds are stacked against the Tyche. The ship and her crew need to test their skill and their luck to survive. Will Grace and Nate be able to work together to get away? Or will fears and rivalries from the past destroy humanity’s hopes, ceding victory to the Ezeroc?
It’s against the law to have children without winning the lottery. Implanted with a birth control device as required by law, Evangeline Hubbard, a dirt farmer in the down deep, discovers that implants sometimes fail. But in a world strictly controlled by the authorities, one pays a terrible price for tampering with the established order. Consumed by fear and madness after things go horribly wrong, Evangeline hoards in order to hang onto things. She adds them to the nest she’s building in the down deep.
1984 meets The Incredible Journey in thirteen dystopian tales by some of today's most accomplished writers of science fiction.
In this title in the acclaimed Future Chronicles series of speculative fiction anthologies created by award-winning author Samuel Peralta, discover tales of dark futures, tragic pasts, and a present that's run off the rails are presented in landscapes as varied as their authors' imaginations.
Set in bestselling worlds fully realized by their authors, the stories of Chronicle Worlds: Tails of Dystopia unfold as seen through the eyes of animals - tamed and feral, domestic and savage - as they traverse a world of perdition where often their capacity for nobility and self-sacrifice transcends our own.
Enter these worlds with some of the most inventive authors writing today, including USA Today bestselling authors David Adams and Cheri Lasota, Wall Street Journal bestselling authors Daniel Arthur Smith and Ann Christy, and Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award winner Rysa Walker.
Dystopian deserts, post-apocalyptic mountain ranges, the medieval English countryside, the far reaches of the galaxy - in each of these and more, animals and their human companions discover heart-stopping adventure among the ruins - and you will, too.
Silver Cane is hot on the trail of the first interstellar terrorist in recorded history. As he continues to elude capture, more destruction ensues. Along the way, Silver learns that not everyone thinks their perfect world is all it’s made out to be. Can she catch the criminal and stop more acts of terror or will the perfect world she has always known come crumbling down around her.
Sixty years ago a plan was conceived to help humanity survive its first contact with an alien race. Now it’s time to put that plan to the test. No country can stand alone. The world must unite if there is to be any hope of survival.
Commander Kaylan Farrow and her crew are investigating an ancient alien signal from beyond the fringes of known space. After months of searching, the Athena is starting to wear down. It’s only a matter of time before a catastrophic failure destroys their ship, but if they return to Earth now, Kaylan knows that humanity will not survive their first contact with hostile aliens. They must find the source of the signal and with it a means to end this war before it has a chance to reach Earth.
Lieutenant Wyatt Wills stared at his mission log. He couldn't believe he had written it.
Juliet was a colony world with twenty million people. It had resources and infrastructure, scientists and law enforcement. A reconnaissance mission to the thriving planet hadn't made any sense. Then again, lots of rumors floated through space, and stories of military actions and a strange pandemic seemed no different.
These were not the things Wyatt typically managed. As a member of RESIT, his job consisted of deep space rescues and keeping the interstellar shipping lanes clear of pirates and smugglers.
But marooned on Juliet, Wyatt knew what his squad had seen.
He just didn't know if any of them would live to tell about it.
The decades long conflict comes crashing to a dramatic conclusion as the alliance faces off with their age old enemy to determine the fate of the galaxy. As the massive fleet launches for a final battle, The Behemoth and The Crystal Font are tasked with a dangerous mission to destroy a transmission facility which may well be the deciding factor in the outcome of the attack.
They’ve committed everything, heading into a situation which may well spell their end. Pilots, marines and crewmen alike look toward the moment that will make history regardless if they are victorious. A win means peace for the beleaguered alliance, a chance to heal from the wounds of war while a loss could lead to the destruction of their respective cultures if not civilization as they know it.
They had seven years to prepare.
Earth is lost.
Seven years ago the New Earth colony received one final message from Earth…a warning. First, a global pandemic, then the emergence of a new species. A war for survival ravaged the Sol system. Now they are coming for the colony.
Many colonists don’t believe it, but Connor does. They must prepare. They must fight. But how can they survive something that killed every person back on Earth?
A devastated galaxy.
A mythical quest fulfilled.
Mysterious new friends.
Ruthless enemies.
A young Emperor finding his way.
A civilization on the verge of annihilation.
Admiral Jon Pike has found the fabled Builders in the Andromeda galaxy. With vague promises of help against the evil Erinyie, his warships embark on a perilous journey back home. But new, unknown enemies lurk in the darkness.
Can Jon Pike overcome countless dangers and return home in time, and in one piece? Or will he arrive to find only death, desolation, and humanity finally crushed under the alien boot?
Axel Ryan is running for his life.
Pursued by bounty hunters with a price on his head, he should disappear into the stars to hide and continue his search for Stardrives. But his soulmate, Element Cruz, has resurfaced and after spending the last six months searching for her with no luck, finding her again is worth gambling his life. She’s putting her own in danger by infiltrating an illegal slave auction where the Star Keeper of Endaria is being sold; a woman with empathic abilities, worth more credits then Axel can legally gather.
It should be an easy mission. Crash the auction, save his girl, and fly off into the galaxy to live happily ever after together. But the universe has another destiny in store for Axel, one he’ll need to embrace to save them all, or die trying.
Earth desperately wants Rhon Lassting's technology. With his company Lassting Space Enterprises now soaring into space with a Moon base and a new resort called the Veronika, it is clear Rhon is someone to be reckoned with. When Darees gives Rhon the power to go Translight it transforms his ability to reach out of the galaxy. Now his vision to form a new government is quickened by America’s president declaring him a traitor. Will his people trust him to lead them into the unknowns of space?
Humans made their final stand on Mars and lost.
Now the aliens are coming. They want to occupy Earth. They want to destroy humanity. They want to kill every last one of us.
But we are legion. Seven billion humans are tough to kill. Pockets of survivors band together to fight back. It's hard to know who to trust. Human collaborates will do anything to live one more day.
The US mounts an offensive. They turn loose Lt William "Don't ever call me the Kid" Bonney and his eight headhunters to wreak havoc on the invaders. Their business is killing Licks and brother, business is good.
But the Lick Commander has a plan. More betrayal.
When Bonney and his squad raid a supply train on the orders of High Command, they rescue a prisoner with a secret. One that will change the tide of war and help the human cause win. If they can last long enough to reach it.
Each of them is fleeing something different, but they've all come to the same place. When their ship is attacked and marooned in deep space, three dozen refugees pass the time by sharing stories. Things that have happened to them, events they've witnessed, and rumours they've heard.
As time passes and despair sets in, they must rely upon each other to survive. But when the chips are down, will they all be pulling in the same direction?
Featuring stories from twenty-four brilliant writers from around the world, the All The King’s Men anthology takes a look at the lives of those on the periphery, ordinary people struggling to make sense of their lives and dreams in a galaxy torn apart by civil war.
Sergeant Jerry Harper left the military nine years ago. The four Breeds of humanity are at peace, and he's just a landscaper now. He spends his days mowing lawns and his nights playing gigs with his band. Civilian life in the Wheel of Fire galaxy is quiet and steady, and that's the way he likes it.
That steady life is interrupted when a colonel from military intelligence shows up. Jerry's old war buddy, Brandon Woods, has gone missing, and the colonel is assembling a motley group of rescuers. He wants Jerry to join the team.
Jerry owes Brandon his life, so he agrees to help. He travels to another planet and soon finds himself mired in interstellar politics. There's something psychological going on, too, a legacy of his last battle nine years ago. Finding Brandon is challenging enough by itself, but now those secrets from the past threaten to drive Jerry insane. He hopes he can grab his friend and get out without attracting too much attention, and he certainly doesn't want to risk starting another Breed war. But he's on a hostile planet now, and it won't give Brandon up without a fight.
Lance Corporal Hondo McKeever is a peacetime Marine. Humanity is involved in a limited war with the alien Klethos, where gladitorial combat decides the fate of worlds, but that doesn’t affect the common Marine or sailor. His career has been training hard but never seeing actual combat.
All of that changes when a new enemy invades the galaxy, one that threatens both humanity and Klethos.
Mankind hasn’t fought an all-out war in centuries, but they’re about to. McKeever is assigned to a special task force with the mission to find out what makes this new enemy tick, and, if possible, stop them in their tracks before humanity is eliminated like so much insignificant vermin.
Would you sacrifice your future to practice magic?
Artificers are the gilded princes of the Iron Empire. Mages are violent criminal outcasts. Devin competes to become the best artificer in the empire . . . but he's secretly a mage.
All the apprentices in the Artificer's Guild compete by building crude prototypes of powered armor for mock battles. When Devin transforms himself into a mechanical dragon to slaughter the competition, his rival Benson steps into the role of dragon slayer. But Devin's secret grows heavier as he claws his way to the top. He's started hearing eerie voices in his head: the stout words of the being he calls 'the artificer' and the oily voice of 'the mage.' How long can Devin be satisfied with fake dragon armor when the promise of true arcane power whispers in his ear?
By wing, by claw
By fire, by death
So long as dragons rule the skies, Scotland will forever be free.
After a long and bloody war, Scotland has finally won its independence. But Highland dragon Moiread MacAlasdair knows peace balances on the edge of a blade, and she will do anything to keep her homeland from falling to English control.
Even if that means escorting a powerful new ally into the otherworld itself... and defending him with her life.
Madoc of Avandos is on a critical mission to cement alliances against the British. Powerful men would kill to see him fail—but as he and his fiercely beautiful warrior fight their way through hostile lands, Madoc is faced with a difficult choice: sacrifice everything for the cause... or let himself burn for the love of a dragon.
Forcing her way into Videus’ vassalage may be the last thing Runa will ever do, but she knows she has to try. Not only are there others like her—others with powers—but they’re directly tied to her by blood. With Trae's mental stability in question, and Kani missing, Runa can only rely on herself and the aid of her brother to fulfill her destiny. If she can embrace her role as the Daughter of Five, hopefully she can set things right and free Trae from whatever madness is taking over his mind.
There’s more than meets the eye to Videus’ obsession with Runa and her bloodlines. The only problem is, unraveling the mystery could unleash catastrophe on everything she holds dear, if she’s not careful. Can Runa stop Videus once and for all—or will the fate of Pendomus be locked forever by one man’s madness?
King Arthur lives. Now, he's up against a threat that can destroy what he's built. But he must trust her, so she can kill him.
Brilliant scientist and Binary A.I. CEO Anora Myrrdin has lost her only brother. She's out for revenge and everyone is going to pay--including Arthur, her brother's final experiment and killer.
Arthur's Avallach Team is fractured and half are dead or missing, yet Arthur drives toward his vision of the future. The Paladins grow in power, ability and doubt.
Sergeant Percival 'Percy' Jones is Arthur's most loyal Paladin, but months after the destruction of Tintagel and the death of Indiana, he questions Arthur's leadership and the uneasy partnership with the shadowy group known as the Sisterhood. Percy has a future of his own in mind, and he turns to the most unlikely of mentors - Anora.
Owen LaFayette in every way is Arthur's equal and now he has Arthur's technology and powers. The Chevaliers are growing fast in numbers. Yet Owen doesn't have all that Arthur has--Caliburn and his charisma. Owen wants what Arthur has and he's going to do whatever he must to be Arthur. Anora may be the link that takes it all away.
What will Anora be - the Betrayer or the Savior of Avallach?
Halcyon is a tattoo artist with a secret. Once a respected academic, she has exiled herself to the slums of Panacea City, to avoid too many questions. After discovering an ancient language that enables her to hack human’s DNA, she has discovered she can change the future of mankind. The human race is now living in dome-covered cities that shelter its inhabitants from the Earth’s harsh atmosphere. War and global warming have all but destroyed the Earth and only a small number of humans have survived. Halcyon believes what she has discovered will change the course of history. She just needs to find the right test subject.
Misha has never met anyone like Halcyon. Out of work and fed up with life, he is dragged to a tattoo parlour where he meets the blue haired genius, and is immediately struck by her. Soon after getting his tattoo, Misha begins to notice a great change in his body, he now has super strength. How can a tattoo change him physically?
Halcyon is soon pursued by the gangs that run the city, who want to use her discoveries as addictive drugs. Knowing that Misha has super strength, Halcyon is forced to trust him and ask for help. Misha is falling in love with Halcyon, and is all too willing to help her, no matter what the cost.
Will Halcyon and Misha be able to escape the gang leaders and bring Halcyon’s discoveries to the attention of all humankind? Do they have what it takes to be heroes and save the city?
On the night before Christmas, mercenary Scullion’s ride home is ambushed halfway between the last surviving cities in America. Concerned only with getting drunk for the holiday, his attempts to abandon his fellow passengers to bandits lead him on a collision course with a barbaric community who have utterly distorted the seasonal spirit. This is one madcap night he cannot survive alone, challenging his perceptions of the meaning of Christmas.
Enter a galaxy full of snarky comebacks, inappropriate use of tentacles, and a mythical warrior girl on the edge in this fast-paced, Douglas Adams style space romp.
A life of captivity is getting to Kirian, the self-styled Destroyer of Planets. She has never actually destroyed any planets, but getting to choose your own title is one of the few perks you get when you work against your will for an evil Octopus Overlord.
In an attempt to regain her freedom, Kirian defies her tentacled boss and secretly saves Ari, the human she is supposed to kill. Can the two of them and a band of misfits join forces to thwart the Octopus Overlord? And can a revolutionary rock song from an illegal grunge band save a planet?
The scum of the galaxy are using Earth as a nuclear winter death camp. It outrages pirate captain Kohia Jekyll’s sense of justice. No one deserves to die agonizingly of radiation poisoning, especially not on the planet humanity had to evacuate seven generations ago. So Kohia intends to close the prison camp down.
Ebola, one of the most feared of the hemorrhagic diseases, begins spreading across the borders of countries in West Africa. Soon after, the disease mutates into the “Z” or Zombie Virus. Journalist Hunter Morgan uncovers a disturbing connection between Chen-Zamora Pharmaceuticals and this mutation. Further investigation reveals a web of sinister intrigue connecting the pharmaceutical company to a treatment and research camp in West Africa, U.S. government officials, the CDC and the World Health Organization. Racing against time to find a cure, Hunter and several scientists go underground in order to hide from powerful forces trying to silence them forever.
[image error]
And here are the books you want...
Melanie Destin has been many things in her troubled life... a drug dealer, a doctor, a fugitive, and most recently, the saviour of Mars...what she doesn't want to be is a mother.
When circumstances make her responsible for a young orphan, she soon discovers the girl comes with a terrifying past...one that binds them to each other.
Pursued by a ruthless government assassin, Mel must get the girl to safety before they are both captured. If she fails, the secrets hidden within the child's genes will make a dictator unstoppable and forever change the course of human history.
Guardians are defenders, carers and guides. Some look after individual people, others whole planets or universes, but all share a strong belief in their responsibility to protect their charges.
The Guardian is an anthology of eleven science fiction short stories by writers from across the globe. It is part of the Newcomer series of scifi anthologies.
Year 200, Atlantic Federation Calendar. It has been two full centuries since the surface of the Earth was destroyed and humanity retreated to the bottom of the ocean. No one is old enough to remember the world outside the station they now call home. Life is peaceful in this artificial world. There is no war. Crime is low. But questions are raised once an experimental submarine is attacked during a routine test mission. The enemy is unknown. There are no leads. For the first time in generations, a long isolated city will have to confront what may lurk above the surface.
Rei had lost it all: her family, a safe home, and, most important, her freedom.
Despite all odds, she managed to escape and make her life among the stars. It's not easy to be a fugitive of the largest galactic power ever known. Making a living requires being flexible, and not particularly caring for things like laws or rights of property.
Even in her new life the ghosts of Rei's past refuse to leave her in peace. She's been changed by her captivity in more ways than one and the mysteries abound. There are untold questions that demand answers, but the only way she can find out the truth is to start back at the beginning.
To complicate matters, she is approached to stop her old enemies from retrieving priceless artifacts of untold knowledge. The idea is as murky as they come but they have to take the chance. Even if it might cost her crew dearly.
Earth is a dying planet. To survive, humanity founds the Circuit, a string of colonies across the solar system, dedicated to mining resources vital to preserving what remains of mankind.
The New Earth Tribunal, a powerful religious faction, rises to rule the Circuit. They believe a Spirit within the Earth will one day appear and welcome humanity back home. Following a string of seemingly random attacks, the Tribunal suspects its mortal enemy, the Ceresians, have again rallied to challenge their absolute rule.
Join an unlikely band of would-be saviors - the Tribunal's best spy, a roguish Ceresian mercenary, a subservient android and a disgraced general - as they are drawn into a conspiracy destined to change the Circuit forever.
A new, sinister threat has arisen - and it plans to bring down the Tribunal once and for all.
Dorian Anino thought her research would change the world. The discovery of the so-called “hero-gene” taught her and her team that it was possible for some humans to have incredible strength, speed, and agility. But when Dorian discovers that the gene only expresses in people on the brink of death, her team can’t help but be disappointed. Except for Dorian’s protégé, who opts to poison the water supply to unearth more heroes...
Luc Gray is a hero through and through. But when the squadron leader loses a pilot and then his position in quick succession, he has no idea what to do next. Without a mission, he jumps at an assignment from Dorian to investigate the pilot’s death. But when the mission puts him in grave danger, Luc is about to find out just how much of a hero he is...
To defeat a scientist who wants to play god, Dorian may just have to create her own team of heroes…
When others run from danger, Riot runs toward it.
When others throw up, she throws down.
And when there’s a brawl in a bar, well... she’s probably the one who caused it.
But now, the person voted least likely not to blow stuff up by her unit has been given another mission: explore the universe and forge bonds with new alien races in order to save Earth from another invasion.
Backed by her ride or die crew - the only guys she’d trust on a mission such as this - and a scientist, because, well, science, Riot blasts off in a spaceship headed to distant galaxies, the fate of the planet resting on her shoulders.
Grace Gushiken is a grifter and a liar. Worse, she’s an esper, an abhorrent creation of the Old Empire. Grace keeps her blade sharp and her wits sharper. She’s on the run from the Republic’s justice.
Nathan Chevell captains the free trader Tyche, an ex-war heavy lifter. He’s no pirate, but he’s no white knight either. An encounter with espers saw him discharged from the Emperor’s Black before the real fighting even started.
When the crew of the Tyche are hired to deliver a new transmitter for a downed Guild Bridge, Grace hitches a ride. They find the Absalom Delta colony deserted, its people turned into slaves by the insect-like Ezeroc. The aliens have descended like locusts on humanity, consuming all in their path. No one is safe. Even the Republic Navy is powerless against them.
Facing an impossible foe, odds are stacked against the Tyche. The ship and her crew need to test their skill and their luck to survive. Will Grace and Nate be able to work together to get away? Or will fears and rivalries from the past destroy humanity’s hopes, ceding victory to the Ezeroc?
It’s against the law to have children without winning the lottery. Implanted with a birth control device as required by law, Evangeline Hubbard, a dirt farmer in the down deep, discovers that implants sometimes fail. But in a world strictly controlled by the authorities, one pays a terrible price for tampering with the established order. Consumed by fear and madness after things go horribly wrong, Evangeline hoards in order to hang onto things. She adds them to the nest she’s building in the down deep.
1984 meets The Incredible Journey in thirteen dystopian tales by some of today's most accomplished writers of science fiction.
In this title in the acclaimed Future Chronicles series of speculative fiction anthologies created by award-winning author Samuel Peralta, discover tales of dark futures, tragic pasts, and a present that's run off the rails are presented in landscapes as varied as their authors' imaginations.
Set in bestselling worlds fully realized by their authors, the stories of Chronicle Worlds: Tails of Dystopia unfold as seen through the eyes of animals - tamed and feral, domestic and savage - as they traverse a world of perdition where often their capacity for nobility and self-sacrifice transcends our own.
Enter these worlds with some of the most inventive authors writing today, including USA Today bestselling authors David Adams and Cheri Lasota, Wall Street Journal bestselling authors Daniel Arthur Smith and Ann Christy, and Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award winner Rysa Walker.
Dystopian deserts, post-apocalyptic mountain ranges, the medieval English countryside, the far reaches of the galaxy - in each of these and more, animals and their human companions discover heart-stopping adventure among the ruins - and you will, too.
Silver Cane is hot on the trail of the first interstellar terrorist in recorded history. As he continues to elude capture, more destruction ensues. Along the way, Silver learns that not everyone thinks their perfect world is all it’s made out to be. Can she catch the criminal and stop more acts of terror or will the perfect world she has always known come crumbling down around her.
Sixty years ago a plan was conceived to help humanity survive its first contact with an alien race. Now it’s time to put that plan to the test. No country can stand alone. The world must unite if there is to be any hope of survival.
Commander Kaylan Farrow and her crew are investigating an ancient alien signal from beyond the fringes of known space. After months of searching, the Athena is starting to wear down. It’s only a matter of time before a catastrophic failure destroys their ship, but if they return to Earth now, Kaylan knows that humanity will not survive their first contact with hostile aliens. They must find the source of the signal and with it a means to end this war before it has a chance to reach Earth.
Lieutenant Wyatt Wills stared at his mission log. He couldn't believe he had written it.
Juliet was a colony world with twenty million people. It had resources and infrastructure, scientists and law enforcement. A reconnaissance mission to the thriving planet hadn't made any sense. Then again, lots of rumors floated through space, and stories of military actions and a strange pandemic seemed no different.
These were not the things Wyatt typically managed. As a member of RESIT, his job consisted of deep space rescues and keeping the interstellar shipping lanes clear of pirates and smugglers.
But marooned on Juliet, Wyatt knew what his squad had seen.
He just didn't know if any of them would live to tell about it.
The decades long conflict comes crashing to a dramatic conclusion as the alliance faces off with their age old enemy to determine the fate of the galaxy. As the massive fleet launches for a final battle, The Behemoth and The Crystal Font are tasked with a dangerous mission to destroy a transmission facility which may well be the deciding factor in the outcome of the attack.
They’ve committed everything, heading into a situation which may well spell their end. Pilots, marines and crewmen alike look toward the moment that will make history regardless if they are victorious. A win means peace for the beleaguered alliance, a chance to heal from the wounds of war while a loss could lead to the destruction of their respective cultures if not civilization as they know it.
They had seven years to prepare.
Earth is lost.
Seven years ago the New Earth colony received one final message from Earth…a warning. First, a global pandemic, then the emergence of a new species. A war for survival ravaged the Sol system. Now they are coming for the colony.
Many colonists don’t believe it, but Connor does. They must prepare. They must fight. But how can they survive something that killed every person back on Earth?
A devastated galaxy.
A mythical quest fulfilled.
Mysterious new friends.
Ruthless enemies.
A young Emperor finding his way.
A civilization on the verge of annihilation.
Admiral Jon Pike has found the fabled Builders in the Andromeda galaxy. With vague promises of help against the evil Erinyie, his warships embark on a perilous journey back home. But new, unknown enemies lurk in the darkness.
Can Jon Pike overcome countless dangers and return home in time, and in one piece? Or will he arrive to find only death, desolation, and humanity finally crushed under the alien boot?
Axel Ryan is running for his life.
Pursued by bounty hunters with a price on his head, he should disappear into the stars to hide and continue his search for Stardrives. But his soulmate, Element Cruz, has resurfaced and after spending the last six months searching for her with no luck, finding her again is worth gambling his life. She’s putting her own in danger by infiltrating an illegal slave auction where the Star Keeper of Endaria is being sold; a woman with empathic abilities, worth more credits then Axel can legally gather.
It should be an easy mission. Crash the auction, save his girl, and fly off into the galaxy to live happily ever after together. But the universe has another destiny in store for Axel, one he’ll need to embrace to save them all, or die trying.
Earth desperately wants Rhon Lassting's technology. With his company Lassting Space Enterprises now soaring into space with a Moon base and a new resort called the Veronika, it is clear Rhon is someone to be reckoned with. When Darees gives Rhon the power to go Translight it transforms his ability to reach out of the galaxy. Now his vision to form a new government is quickened by America’s president declaring him a traitor. Will his people trust him to lead them into the unknowns of space?
Humans made their final stand on Mars and lost.
Now the aliens are coming. They want to occupy Earth. They want to destroy humanity. They want to kill every last one of us.
But we are legion. Seven billion humans are tough to kill. Pockets of survivors band together to fight back. It's hard to know who to trust. Human collaborates will do anything to live one more day.
The US mounts an offensive. They turn loose Lt William "Don't ever call me the Kid" Bonney and his eight headhunters to wreak havoc on the invaders. Their business is killing Licks and brother, business is good.
But the Lick Commander has a plan. More betrayal.
When Bonney and his squad raid a supply train on the orders of High Command, they rescue a prisoner with a secret. One that will change the tide of war and help the human cause win. If they can last long enough to reach it.
Each of them is fleeing something different, but they've all come to the same place. When their ship is attacked and marooned in deep space, three dozen refugees pass the time by sharing stories. Things that have happened to them, events they've witnessed, and rumours they've heard.
As time passes and despair sets in, they must rely upon each other to survive. But when the chips are down, will they all be pulling in the same direction?
Featuring stories from twenty-four brilliant writers from around the world, the All The King’s Men anthology takes a look at the lives of those on the periphery, ordinary people struggling to make sense of their lives and dreams in a galaxy torn apart by civil war.
Sergeant Jerry Harper left the military nine years ago. The four Breeds of humanity are at peace, and he's just a landscaper now. He spends his days mowing lawns and his nights playing gigs with his band. Civilian life in the Wheel of Fire galaxy is quiet and steady, and that's the way he likes it.
That steady life is interrupted when a colonel from military intelligence shows up. Jerry's old war buddy, Brandon Woods, has gone missing, and the colonel is assembling a motley group of rescuers. He wants Jerry to join the team.
Jerry owes Brandon his life, so he agrees to help. He travels to another planet and soon finds himself mired in interstellar politics. There's something psychological going on, too, a legacy of his last battle nine years ago. Finding Brandon is challenging enough by itself, but now those secrets from the past threaten to drive Jerry insane. He hopes he can grab his friend and get out without attracting too much attention, and he certainly doesn't want to risk starting another Breed war. But he's on a hostile planet now, and it won't give Brandon up without a fight.
Lance Corporal Hondo McKeever is a peacetime Marine. Humanity is involved in a limited war with the alien Klethos, where gladitorial combat decides the fate of worlds, but that doesn’t affect the common Marine or sailor. His career has been training hard but never seeing actual combat.
All of that changes when a new enemy invades the galaxy, one that threatens both humanity and Klethos.
Mankind hasn’t fought an all-out war in centuries, but they’re about to. McKeever is assigned to a special task force with the mission to find out what makes this new enemy tick, and, if possible, stop them in their tracks before humanity is eliminated like so much insignificant vermin.
Would you sacrifice your future to practice magic?
Artificers are the gilded princes of the Iron Empire. Mages are violent criminal outcasts. Devin competes to become the best artificer in the empire . . . but he's secretly a mage.
All the apprentices in the Artificer's Guild compete by building crude prototypes of powered armor for mock battles. When Devin transforms himself into a mechanical dragon to slaughter the competition, his rival Benson steps into the role of dragon slayer. But Devin's secret grows heavier as he claws his way to the top. He's started hearing eerie voices in his head: the stout words of the being he calls 'the artificer' and the oily voice of 'the mage.' How long can Devin be satisfied with fake dragon armor when the promise of true arcane power whispers in his ear?
By wing, by claw
By fire, by death
So long as dragons rule the skies, Scotland will forever be free.
After a long and bloody war, Scotland has finally won its independence. But Highland dragon Moiread MacAlasdair knows peace balances on the edge of a blade, and she will do anything to keep her homeland from falling to English control.
Even if that means escorting a powerful new ally into the otherworld itself... and defending him with her life.
Madoc of Avandos is on a critical mission to cement alliances against the British. Powerful men would kill to see him fail—but as he and his fiercely beautiful warrior fight their way through hostile lands, Madoc is faced with a difficult choice: sacrifice everything for the cause... or let himself burn for the love of a dragon.
Forcing her way into Videus’ vassalage may be the last thing Runa will ever do, but she knows she has to try. Not only are there others like her—others with powers—but they’re directly tied to her by blood. With Trae's mental stability in question, and Kani missing, Runa can only rely on herself and the aid of her brother to fulfill her destiny. If she can embrace her role as the Daughter of Five, hopefully she can set things right and free Trae from whatever madness is taking over his mind.
There’s more than meets the eye to Videus’ obsession with Runa and her bloodlines. The only problem is, unraveling the mystery could unleash catastrophe on everything she holds dear, if she’s not careful. Can Runa stop Videus once and for all—or will the fate of Pendomus be locked forever by one man’s madness?
King Arthur lives. Now, he's up against a threat that can destroy what he's built. But he must trust her, so she can kill him.
Brilliant scientist and Binary A.I. CEO Anora Myrrdin has lost her only brother. She's out for revenge and everyone is going to pay--including Arthur, her brother's final experiment and killer.
Arthur's Avallach Team is fractured and half are dead or missing, yet Arthur drives toward his vision of the future. The Paladins grow in power, ability and doubt.
Sergeant Percival 'Percy' Jones is Arthur's most loyal Paladin, but months after the destruction of Tintagel and the death of Indiana, he questions Arthur's leadership and the uneasy partnership with the shadowy group known as the Sisterhood. Percy has a future of his own in mind, and he turns to the most unlikely of mentors - Anora.
Owen LaFayette in every way is Arthur's equal and now he has Arthur's technology and powers. The Chevaliers are growing fast in numbers. Yet Owen doesn't have all that Arthur has--Caliburn and his charisma. Owen wants what Arthur has and he's going to do whatever he must to be Arthur. Anora may be the link that takes it all away.
What will Anora be - the Betrayer or the Savior of Avallach?
Halcyon is a tattoo artist with a secret. Once a respected academic, she has exiled herself to the slums of Panacea City, to avoid too many questions. After discovering an ancient language that enables her to hack human’s DNA, she has discovered she can change the future of mankind. The human race is now living in dome-covered cities that shelter its inhabitants from the Earth’s harsh atmosphere. War and global warming have all but destroyed the Earth and only a small number of humans have survived. Halcyon believes what she has discovered will change the course of history. She just needs to find the right test subject.
Misha has never met anyone like Halcyon. Out of work and fed up with life, he is dragged to a tattoo parlour where he meets the blue haired genius, and is immediately struck by her. Soon after getting his tattoo, Misha begins to notice a great change in his body, he now has super strength. How can a tattoo change him physically?
Halcyon is soon pursued by the gangs that run the city, who want to use her discoveries as addictive drugs. Knowing that Misha has super strength, Halcyon is forced to trust him and ask for help. Misha is falling in love with Halcyon, and is all too willing to help her, no matter what the cost.
Will Halcyon and Misha be able to escape the gang leaders and bring Halcyon’s discoveries to the attention of all humankind? Do they have what it takes to be heroes and save the city?
On the night before Christmas, mercenary Scullion’s ride home is ambushed halfway between the last surviving cities in America. Concerned only with getting drunk for the holiday, his attempts to abandon his fellow passengers to bandits lead him on a collision course with a barbaric community who have utterly distorted the seasonal spirit. This is one madcap night he cannot survive alone, challenging his perceptions of the meaning of Christmas.
Enter a galaxy full of snarky comebacks, inappropriate use of tentacles, and a mythical warrior girl on the edge in this fast-paced, Douglas Adams style space romp.
A life of captivity is getting to Kirian, the self-styled Destroyer of Planets. She has never actually destroyed any planets, but getting to choose your own title is one of the few perks you get when you work against your will for an evil Octopus Overlord.
In an attempt to regain her freedom, Kirian defies her tentacled boss and secretly saves Ari, the human she is supposed to kill. Can the two of them and a band of misfits join forces to thwart the Octopus Overlord? And can a revolutionary rock song from an illegal grunge band save a planet?
The scum of the galaxy are using Earth as a nuclear winter death camp. It outrages pirate captain Kohia Jekyll’s sense of justice. No one deserves to die agonizingly of radiation poisoning, especially not on the planet humanity had to evacuate seven generations ago. So Kohia intends to close the prison camp down.
Ebola, one of the most feared of the hemorrhagic diseases, begins spreading across the borders of countries in West Africa. Soon after, the disease mutates into the “Z” or Zombie Virus. Journalist Hunter Morgan uncovers a disturbing connection between Chen-Zamora Pharmaceuticals and this mutation. Further investigation reveals a web of sinister intrigue connecting the pharmaceutical company to a treatment and research camp in West Africa, U.S. government officials, the CDC and the World Health Organization. Racing against time to find a cure, Hunter and several scientists go underground in order to hide from powerful forces trying to silence them forever.
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November 3, 2017
An Interview With Chogan Swan
Over the past year, I've been working on quite a few physics projects. These have included revision guides, sample papers, and workbooks. Whilst some are still works in progress, others have now been published. You can see them at http://www.alasdairshaw.co.uk/bbop/papers.
Right, so today I am talking to Chogan Swan, author of 1799 Planetfall.
So. What draws you to writing science fiction?
I was always a reader. When I was in the seventh grade, I started spending a lot of time reading in the science fiction and fantasy genres, and that helped me realize that speculative fiction allowed a much greater range of palette for a writer who wanted to evoke a sense of wonder and possibility. At the same time, it lets writers question assumptions and point out problems that could be harder to portray and easier to ignore in a 'real world setting'. Whatever that means, right? Like Robin Williams once said, "Reality, what a concept."
Which writers inspire you?
Many writers have inspired me through the years, capturing my imagination with adventure and inspiring me to consider different viewpoints and ways of looking at life. But, the writers who inspired me to write were the ones who could pull off a great adventure story while saying things that were important about life and the human experience. You know, things that make you want to strive to be a better person and work for a better world.
Of the many I could mention, I’ll just point out a couple who I don’t think get enough recognition today, though they were recognized and honored when they were alive. So first, Octavia E. Butler. What inspires me about her is that she lived the kinds of struggles she wrote about. Her characters were interesting and vivid and struggling with hard moral choices as they fought through challenging times.
Another of my favorites is David Feintuch, who wrote the Seaford Saga series. He did a smashing job with space opera, but he also explored the concepts of honor and duty in ways that make you think.
Give us an insight into your main character. What does she do that is so special?
The main protagonist in Sentients in the Maze is an alien who crash lands on Earth in 1799 while pursuing a ship of parasitic monsters. She tries to destroy their ship before they can land on Earth, but can’t be certain there weren’t survivors. She can’t let this race of parasites get another start multiplying. So, to save the world and the primitive sentient beings living there, she follows them down in a ship-to-ship battle. The two ships crash a thousand miles apart, and she’s the only survivor from her own vessel.
Two things make her special. She is from a race of omnivores who cannot survive only on plants and synthetic nutrition but need substances only available from animals. Thousands of years ago, her people decided to refrain from killing for food, if possible, and developed ways of living in symbiosis with other beings for what they needed to survive. They chose to partner with other sentient species rather than domesticating livestock, choosing mutually beneficial arrangements for both sides instead.
Part of her challenge on Earth is finding new partners in order to survive, because her entire crew dies. The other part, of course, is killing the monsters. The second thing that makes her special is her race’s ability to reproduce either sexually or parthenogenetically. So, with a bit of time, effort and technology, she can produce a full clone of her own genetic materials. In addition, she can pass on all her own memories to her offspring.
This ability to retain valuable knowledge, even if one branch of her genotype dies, has allowed her people to survive in the Symbiont Wars they have been fighting against the parasitic niaaH for thousands of years.
The last trait has been fun to work with. I get to write about different characters, who have some of the same memories, but have become different people because of their experiences after the branching that produces the next ‘generation’. The scene I enjoyed most with this dynamic is when one character has to fight her full-clone in a challenge match over a disagreement in strategy.
Tell us a little about the series.
I’m now working on the fourth book in the Symbiont Wars Universe—which includes two series. The books already span hundreds of years of Earth history, and soon will expand to outer space and past the near future where the action is taking place now.
After the first book—which sets the stage for both the YA and the adult books—all the books can be enjoyed without needing to know everything that happened in the others but they also dovetail with each other like puzzle pieces. Should I make a new verb? Puzzletail maybe? Whatever... My readers seem to like the way things fit together, so I’ll keep doing it as long as I’m having fun and getting good feedback.
How are you publishing this book and why?
I decided to publish independently, because of my experience with traditional publishing. A number of years ago, I wrote an epic fantasy trilogy (Against That Shining Darkness). When I showed it to my mother, she said, "With all the garbage that gets out these days, surely someone will want to publish that."
Well she was right, even if it wasn’t phrased in an ego boosting endorsement. Somebody did want to publish it. I found an editor with an international publishing company who wanted it ... and it only took me two years.
In the middle of working on some changes requested, the editor left the company, and the young adult line he was developing went on the back burner... along with my trilogy. Since I had done everything without an agent, there was no contract yet, so at least it didn’t tie up my rights to go elsewhere, but it was discouraging when I realized I probably couldn’t make ends meet by writing.
It took so long to get it in front of someone only to have it dropped. I couldn’t stand to go through it all again, so I just shelved it.
My kids ended up loving it though, so that was nice.
If it hadn’t been for the changes in the independent publishing arena, I probably would have never followed my lifelong dream of writing full-time.
Now, I can write what I want to for the people who want to read it. I don’t have to satisfy some publisher’s idea of what people want. If I just tell good stories, and get them in front of the right people, it will happen.
These days, it is much easier for me to make ends meet than it used to be. I have readers waiting for what I write, and there are more of them every day.
Thank you for taking the time to talk to me. Good luck with the series...
Chogan Swan lives in the country of the mind in the world of thoughts in the universe of ideas. In your space-time continuum, Chogan studied Philosophy as a youth at an accredited college earning an undergraduate degree in that discipline and later graduate degrees in Business and Engineering from a major US university. These studies led to Chogan’s interest in Systems Thinking and how to work together to save the world for everyone.
Philosopher, poet, prophet, revolutionary and warrior-sentients in many universes have used these words to describe Chogan. As always, the truth is in the interstices.
Right, so today I am talking to Chogan Swan, author of 1799 Planetfall.
So. What draws you to writing science fiction?
I was always a reader. When I was in the seventh grade, I started spending a lot of time reading in the science fiction and fantasy genres, and that helped me realize that speculative fiction allowed a much greater range of palette for a writer who wanted to evoke a sense of wonder and possibility. At the same time, it lets writers question assumptions and point out problems that could be harder to portray and easier to ignore in a 'real world setting'. Whatever that means, right? Like Robin Williams once said, "Reality, what a concept."
Which writers inspire you?
Many writers have inspired me through the years, capturing my imagination with adventure and inspiring me to consider different viewpoints and ways of looking at life. But, the writers who inspired me to write were the ones who could pull off a great adventure story while saying things that were important about life and the human experience. You know, things that make you want to strive to be a better person and work for a better world.
Of the many I could mention, I’ll just point out a couple who I don’t think get enough recognition today, though they were recognized and honored when they were alive. So first, Octavia E. Butler. What inspires me about her is that she lived the kinds of struggles she wrote about. Her characters were interesting and vivid and struggling with hard moral choices as they fought through challenging times.
Another of my favorites is David Feintuch, who wrote the Seaford Saga series. He did a smashing job with space opera, but he also explored the concepts of honor and duty in ways that make you think.
Give us an insight into your main character. What does she do that is so special?
The main protagonist in Sentients in the Maze is an alien who crash lands on Earth in 1799 while pursuing a ship of parasitic monsters. She tries to destroy their ship before they can land on Earth, but can’t be certain there weren’t survivors. She can’t let this race of parasites get another start multiplying. So, to save the world and the primitive sentient beings living there, she follows them down in a ship-to-ship battle. The two ships crash a thousand miles apart, and she’s the only survivor from her own vessel.
Two things make her special. She is from a race of omnivores who cannot survive only on plants and synthetic nutrition but need substances only available from animals. Thousands of years ago, her people decided to refrain from killing for food, if possible, and developed ways of living in symbiosis with other beings for what they needed to survive. They chose to partner with other sentient species rather than domesticating livestock, choosing mutually beneficial arrangements for both sides instead.
Part of her challenge on Earth is finding new partners in order to survive, because her entire crew dies. The other part, of course, is killing the monsters. The second thing that makes her special is her race’s ability to reproduce either sexually or parthenogenetically. So, with a bit of time, effort and technology, she can produce a full clone of her own genetic materials. In addition, she can pass on all her own memories to her offspring.
This ability to retain valuable knowledge, even if one branch of her genotype dies, has allowed her people to survive in the Symbiont Wars they have been fighting against the parasitic niaaH for thousands of years.
The last trait has been fun to work with. I get to write about different characters, who have some of the same memories, but have become different people because of their experiences after the branching that produces the next ‘generation’. The scene I enjoyed most with this dynamic is when one character has to fight her full-clone in a challenge match over a disagreement in strategy.
Tell us a little about the series.
I’m now working on the fourth book in the Symbiont Wars Universe—which includes two series. The books already span hundreds of years of Earth history, and soon will expand to outer space and past the near future where the action is taking place now.
After the first book—which sets the stage for both the YA and the adult books—all the books can be enjoyed without needing to know everything that happened in the others but they also dovetail with each other like puzzle pieces. Should I make a new verb? Puzzletail maybe? Whatever... My readers seem to like the way things fit together, so I’ll keep doing it as long as I’m having fun and getting good feedback.
How are you publishing this book and why?
I decided to publish independently, because of my experience with traditional publishing. A number of years ago, I wrote an epic fantasy trilogy (Against That Shining Darkness). When I showed it to my mother, she said, "With all the garbage that gets out these days, surely someone will want to publish that."
Well she was right, even if it wasn’t phrased in an ego boosting endorsement. Somebody did want to publish it. I found an editor with an international publishing company who wanted it ... and it only took me two years.
In the middle of working on some changes requested, the editor left the company, and the young adult line he was developing went on the back burner... along with my trilogy. Since I had done everything without an agent, there was no contract yet, so at least it didn’t tie up my rights to go elsewhere, but it was discouraging when I realized I probably couldn’t make ends meet by writing.
It took so long to get it in front of someone only to have it dropped. I couldn’t stand to go through it all again, so I just shelved it.
My kids ended up loving it though, so that was nice.
If it hadn’t been for the changes in the independent publishing arena, I probably would have never followed my lifelong dream of writing full-time.
Now, I can write what I want to for the people who want to read it. I don’t have to satisfy some publisher’s idea of what people want. If I just tell good stories, and get them in front of the right people, it will happen.
These days, it is much easier for me to make ends meet than it used to be. I have readers waiting for what I write, and there are more of them every day.
Thank you for taking the time to talk to me. Good luck with the series...
Chogan Swan lives in the country of the mind in the world of thoughts in the universe of ideas. In your space-time continuum, Chogan studied Philosophy as a youth at an accredited college earning an undergraduate degree in that discipline and later graduate degrees in Business and Engineering from a major US university. These studies led to Chogan’s interest in Systems Thinking and how to work together to save the world for everyone.Philosopher, poet, prophet, revolutionary and warrior-sentients in many universes have used these words to describe Chogan. As always, the truth is in the interstices.
October 27, 2017
The October Round-up of Scifi Books
Hello out there. This month's round-up is being recorded in advance as by the time you read this I'll be back in Cornwall. If the weather is OK, I'll be coasteering and kayaking near Falmouth. I also hope to return to Kynance Cove and explore some more.
Well, I'm sure you don't really bother reading the bits about my life and want to dive striaght into the book suggestions. So here they are...
We’re all Orphans in the Black...
Strap yourself in for nineteen thrilling short stories of space pirates, time travelers, aliens, AI, and more! Meet determined heroes forging their own path through the universe, men and women who won’t go down without a fight.
From gruesome alien invasions to epic space battles, the second volume of The Expanding Universe will expand your imagination. Explore the possibilities that our infinite universe holds with psychic hunters, brave soldiers who battle vicious invaders, and brilliant engineers who must act quickly to save their crewmembers. And only in The Expanding Universe will you find mercenary nuns.
Chivalry in space, pirates versus drones, a starship teetering on the edge of a gravity well, and space marines doing what they do best - kicking ass - will have you on the edge of your seat, turning pages long into the night to find out what happens next. And only in The Expanding Universe will you find mercenary nuns.
Being an officer means balancing many conflicting demands. Making the wrong decision can have serious consequences. It takes a special kind of person to cope with the responsibility.
The Officer is an anthology of eleven science fiction short stories by writers from across the globe. It is part of the Newcomer series of scifi anthologies.
Cosette Sinclair, pregnant with an illegal second child, makes a discovery that will change the course of humanity. While on assignment to find a habitable planet for mankind’s first colony, she witnesses a tear in space—a gateway for a devastating alien invasion. Now she’s faced with the heart-wrenching choice between saving her unborn child and saving the world.
Moshie lives in a culture that prizes competition about all else. His mother raises him to dominate every creature he encounters. As Moshie trains for the day when he will rule an ancient alien civilization, a whisper in the young man’s mind calls him to something greater. Can he put aside a lifetime of striving for power and heed the cry to save those he despises the most?
She has one chance to save the human race. He has one chance to save himself. Both learn that trusting their long-hated enemies might be their only chance of survival.
In a few hundred years, the Algol system becomes humanity's new home. The question is: is it a better one? When a crew of arms smugglers botches their latest job, Corps-deserter and crewmember, Aly Erikson, is separated from her brother, the only person she can trust, and left behind to fight for her life. In the aftermath, as she tries to piece together what happened, a crew of roughneck settlers pressgang her into a dangerous mission in the heart of Corps territory. Time is running out to get back everything she's lost: her crew, her brother, and her options. But no one is taking her gun.
Walt Marshall is no stranger to loss after the global infertility epidemic claimed his wife and unborn son. Now he’ll honor them by doing whatever it takes to restore life to a decimated valley.
War consumes the planet, Earth spirals into chaos, and the human race teeters on the edge of extinction. As Walt works towards a brighter future, he uncovers a secret rivaling military claims. Destined to unveil the truth, he embarks down a dangerous path of espionage and treason as he desperately vies for answers.
Earth has been destroyed, the entire solar system turned to dust by a cataclysmic event known as the Fracture. Now, the last survivors of humanity live on vast arkships drifting through the Cluster, doing what they can to survive in a hostile ever-changing environment.
When the arkship Obsidian is attacked, Wynn awakes in an escape pod fleeing from a huge space battle, unable to remember who he is. Hunted by a killer robot, the forces of a rival arkship, and the Church of the Infinite, Wynn must survive long enough to unlock his lost memories, discover who is behind the attack and take his revenge.
Professor Rachel Jordan dared to defy 3000 years of angelic doctrine, teaching that the ancient angels were never the saviors they claimed to be. The Redeemers, self-appointed guardians of angelic law, branded her a heretic. Hunted by zealots who would brainwash her back into the angels’ good graces, she flees to the edge of civilized space.
But not to hide.
Rachel’s only hope is a fabled lost book of the Codex, written by a rogue angel: the Sefer Raziel. Tracking the book to a desolate former prison world, she delves into the criminal underworld to ferret out its location. But her search draws the ire of greedy megacorporations, shadowy puppet governments, and the zealots who chased her there in the first place.
As conflicting forces close in, Rachel must rely on dangerous allies and question the limits of her moral code to be the first to claim the Sefer Raziel. Even if it kills her. Because the only fate worse than death is knowing that her failure doomed humanity to eternal servitude.
Centuries after three quarters of the human population on earth fell victim to a savage plague, a new enemy rises to threaten the existence of humanity. A population divided by those still fully human, those part machine and those who are both dead and alive at the same time, what it means to be truly human has already been long forgotten.
Enter one man who knows. Encased in cryo-stasis for three hundred years, his connection to the past could potentially save the human race from extinction once again, if he can stay alive long enough. Pursued by enemies on all sides, Nathan Ironside has one mission: to survive. Because if he doesn't nobody will...
For Karin Makos, the chance to pilot a small-time scrounging vessel to remote corners of space is the dream. After years on the run with her sister and enduring the constant paranoia of living planet-side, going off-radar gives her exactly what she wants: freedom.
After what seems like a routine mission, that dream is shattered.
A system-wide attack decimates humanity and leaves the survivors scraping for clues. And Karin might know where to look.
But digging into her past comes with a whole new set of secrets and consequences, none of which she wants to face. Plagued by strange dreams of her sister and a sense of growing danger, Karin and the crew of the Nemina must race desperately across space to find their loved ones—and answers.
Nine brilliant scientists travel light years on a one-way trip to an Earth-like planet. Their mission is to study from orbit the two species of intelligent lifeforms on the surface. The first: an isolated people embarking on civilization and building their world’s first city. The second: a brutal race of massive predators, spread thick and still growing across the dominant landmass—destined to breed and eat their way to extinction within a few centuries.
After eight years of observation, disaster strikes the orbiting station and only two crewmembers eject successfully. Drifting down through a dark alien sky, the pair realizes their escape pod launched not toward the safety of the city, but to the other side of the planet, touching down deep inside a land no human could possibly survive.
Far from Earth and shipwrecked on a desolate alien planet, a band of brave settlers strive to carve out a life for themselves on a range of hills while battling to hold back the carpet of deadly microorganisms that creeps across the lowlands below, devouring all in its path. The settlers survive from day to day, but their lives are thrown into chaos on one fateful night when five of their young men and women go missing. And that’s when they see the lights. Out there in the deadly wasteland, there are headlights carving through the darkness. Someone is coming. And perhaps, they mean to stay.
When Rosalen Maldonado tinkers with the derelict freighter, she's just hoping to prove she deserves a scholarship to University. She certainly doesn't count on waking the ship's damaged AI or having three stowaways, Micah Rotherwood and brothers Jem and Barre Durbin, along for the ride. They all have their private reasons for hiding aboard and lives they are seeking to escape, but if the accidental crew can't work together and learn to trust each other, they'll die together, victims of a computer that doesn't realize the war ended decades before any of them were even born.
In the year 2432, humans think they are alone in the universe. They’re wrong.
Commander Noa Sato plans a peaceful leave on her home planet Luddeccea ... but winds up interrogated and imprisoned for her involvement in the Archangel Project. A project she knows nothing about.
Professor James Sinclair wakes in the snow, not remembering the past twenty four hours, or knowing why he is being pursued. The only thing he knows is that he has to find Commander Sato, a woman he’s never met.
A military officer from the colonies and a civilian from Old Earth, they couldn’t have less in common. But they have to work together to save the lives of millions—and their own.
Every step of the way they are haunted by the final words of a secret transmission: The archangel is down.
Genetically engineered from birth, Karin Makos’s powers have made her the Alliance’s most wanted person. With her sister still missing, and only a cryptic notebook left behind for clues, the mystery of her past is going to take a lot more time and resources than they have to unravel it.
And there’s a bigger problem looming. Keeping their promise to heal Ethan’s stepfather and the rest of the people on the Ozark puts them right past Caishen station and its Alliance allies—and there might be another force on their tail.
After the crew split apart on a wild chase that puts Karin in the hot seat, it’ll take all of their strength and ingenuity to bring them back together. With enemies gathering in the wings, a desperate, heavy-handed station commander hard on their tail, and the Shadows an ever-present threat, they must race against the odds and scramble to fight their way out.
Lucas Odin can’t catch a break. What began as a shuttling mission under flag of truce escalated to a fight to keep the Fairfax in one piece. Now he and his crew are plunging back in-system in search of the missing Martian Ambassador Taurius, whom they are supposed to convey to a peace summit on Pluto. But Odin has reasons to suspect Taurius isn’t all he seems. He’d better be worth sneaking into enemy space, taking on hostile pirates at every turn, and courting an all-out war with the mafia bosses of Ceres. The walls are closing in around Odin and the Fairfax. Can they find the ambassador and get back to Kuiper space before they become the very enemy they are fighting to destroy?
Io Suta was a mother and a relic of the Last War. A hard-wire robot pilot using a coupling system to control her giant bipedal war machine. A mech or "mobile suit". After the Final Crisis, she found a lost population of migrants and fell in with them doing the only thing she had ever been any good at. Fighting.
Io and her suit, the Areol ended up the migrant's first and last line of defense against the dangers of a universe in chaos.
Her story starts when a dangerous new kind of Jack, an uncontrollable enemy, drives the migrant fleet to crash on an abandoned terraforming experiment. A new life? New hope? There was no way to know, and no turning back.
NASA discovered the alien ship lurking in the asteroid belt in the 1960s. They kept the Target under intense surveillance for decades, letting the public believe they were exploring the solar system, while they worked feverishly to refine the technology needed to reach it.
The ship itself remained silent, drifting.
Dr. Jane Holloway is content documenting nearly-extinct languages and had never contemplated becoming an astronaut. But when NASA recruits her to join a team of military scientists for an expedition to the Target, it’s an adventure she can’t refuse.
The ship isn’t vacant, as they presumed.
A disembodied voice rumbles inside Jane’s head, "You are home."
Jane fights the growing doubts of her colleagues as she attempts to decipher what the alien wants from her. As the derelict ship devolves into chaos and the crew gets cut off from their escape route, Jane must decide if she can trust the alien’s help to survive.
Join Captain Bartholomew Quasar and the crew of the Effervescent Magnitude in this hilarious collection of short stories as they confront bands of nefarious space pirates, cantankerous bandits, exotic aliens, devious powers of persuasion, mysterious ghosts from the past, deep space identity crises, a runaway hyperspeed train, an insidious computer virus, and a villain with the fastest thumbs in the quadrant.
Did you see the guy in the video wearing the purple tights and mask robbing that bank?
That’s Brendan’s dad. He’s a supervillain. The law is after him. The internet loves him. Brendan wishes they weren’t related. Fortunately a scholarship fell into his lap to an exclusive private high school across the country in California. The chance of a lifetime. The teachers are attentive and Brendan is making new friends, but Dutchman Springs Academy has its own mysteries.
A girl keeps showing up in his electronics lab who can vanish at will, the phone and internet keep going out, and Brendan believes the Headmaster of the school is conducting secret experiments on the students.
As the only woman on the first contact team, xenolinguist Toni Donato expected her assignment on Christmas would be to analyze the secret women's language -- but then the chief linguist begins to sabotage her work. What is behind it? Why do the men and women have separate languages in the first place? What Toni learns turns everything she thought they knew on its head.
A murderous computer program has seized her cyborg partner's body and mind, turning him into a super assassin bent on destroying everything she's vowed to protect. In a high-stakes game of cat and mouse, Kimber FitzWarren faces her deadliest challenge yet, a man with all the skills and knowledge of her lover Wolf Youngblood, but controlled by the mind of a killer. Fitz has to find a way to protect her Emperor while keeping her adversary alive until she can free her partner.
A prisoner in the dark labyrinth of his own mind, Wolf struggles to regain control of his body, concocting a plan to use the killer as a Trojan Horse to lead him to his attacker. In the meantime, he can only watch as a helpless passenger as the assassin plots to kill all the people he loves.
They barely escaped with their lives, and pursuit is hot on their tail. While Higgins and Mimic begin the journey to find the shapeshifter’s home, the fugitive crew must stay ahead of ship that would gladly sell them all for profit. In the process, Higgins and Mimic will learn more about their vastly different races and explore unknown worlds. Whether she finds home or not, Mimic has found a friend for life.
A fourth volume in the prestigious series of space opera collections emerges, featuring ten authors, some best-selling and some freshly emerging, telling bold new tales. Join these award-winning writers as they take you on a journey... beyond the stars.
Underwater cities, lost civilizations, crops, climate change, and dead zones.
In this collection of ocean-themed stories, twelve of today’s top speculative fiction writers explore our morality, our built-in societal restraints, and reflect upon our state of grace.
The waves roll in, the waves roll out.
Dictators. Devices. Destruction.
With worlds fallen and tyrants rising in their wake, can these heroes and heroines survive the End of Days?
Uncover secrets and flirt with death when you immerse yourself in these 16 all-new, exclusive stories of economic collapse, war, disease, and disaster from today’s New York Times, USA Today, and award-winning authors.
Fear ripples through human galactic society.
Another ship travels from humanity's bleak future, targets a populated planet ... and lays it waste in a fiery apocalypse. Nothing survives, and the ship disappears. In the midst of the recovery, Admiral Jack Mattis finds more questions than answers as he tracks down the dreadfully powerful enemy ship.
But the most pressing question: why are these mutated humans from the future relentlessly attacking us? What do they want? And at what cost?
And are these the same creatures created by the genetic research corporation exposed by Mattis on the planet Chrysalis?
The answers lie at the root of a deep conspiracy that goes beyond governments, beyond corporations. A conspiracy that will stop at nothing to succeed, and achieve ultimate power over humanity.
And as the deadly ship prepares for its final catastrophic strike, Admiral Jack Mattis and the crew of the Midway are the last defense between us, and our last dawn.
Yara Ortuso always knew she'd follow in her father's footsteps as a Spell Slinger--until her mother sold her off as a concubine to a lord, after a forbidden romance.
Yara would have served her time as a wife to keep her family safe, but when King Loric sets a decree to abolish magic, she has no choice but to make plans for her escape.Her best friend--a crow shifter named Hero is just what she needs. Yara vows to end the reign of murder and tyranny. But when the skeleton key transports Yara to a distant future, she must adapt to this new world. A mysterious prince with his own secret motives might stand between Yara and her quest for vengeance.
In a world where mythical creatures are either controlled, or on the brink of extinction—a prophecy reveals there's one who can restore balance. The only problem is, she has no idea how to do it.
Separated from the only people who've had her back—as well as the love of her life, Traeton—Runa must go on a quest alone to uncover what it means to be human, as well as the Daughter of Five. Dropped in an unknown location, presumably still on the planet, she only has a monolithic book—the Caudex—as her guide, but it's not giving up its answers easily. Will she be able to uncover the mysteries? The fate of the entire word rests on her shoulders and her ability to push through all of the challenges set her way.
A woman with the power to raise the dead. A man stranded on another world, fighting all alone for a lost cause. Zombies invading New York. Alien artifacts. Sci-Fi battle angels. Samurais fighting demons. Interplanetary detectives and lost unicorns.
Everyone knows that there's no such thing as ghosts, but when a client claims that her house is being haunted, Ivy tries to keep her mind open and her weapons handy. If her psychic gifts and recent cases have taught her anything, it's that you're better off arming yourself for the unexpected.
Anything is possible in Harborsmouth.
Well, I'm sure you don't really bother reading the bits about my life and want to dive striaght into the book suggestions. So here they are...
We’re all Orphans in the Black...
Strap yourself in for nineteen thrilling short stories of space pirates, time travelers, aliens, AI, and more! Meet determined heroes forging their own path through the universe, men and women who won’t go down without a fight.
From gruesome alien invasions to epic space battles, the second volume of The Expanding Universe will expand your imagination. Explore the possibilities that our infinite universe holds with psychic hunters, brave soldiers who battle vicious invaders, and brilliant engineers who must act quickly to save their crewmembers. And only in The Expanding Universe will you find mercenary nuns.
Chivalry in space, pirates versus drones, a starship teetering on the edge of a gravity well, and space marines doing what they do best - kicking ass - will have you on the edge of your seat, turning pages long into the night to find out what happens next. And only in The Expanding Universe will you find mercenary nuns.
Being an officer means balancing many conflicting demands. Making the wrong decision can have serious consequences. It takes a special kind of person to cope with the responsibility.
The Officer is an anthology of eleven science fiction short stories by writers from across the globe. It is part of the Newcomer series of scifi anthologies.
Cosette Sinclair, pregnant with an illegal second child, makes a discovery that will change the course of humanity. While on assignment to find a habitable planet for mankind’s first colony, she witnesses a tear in space—a gateway for a devastating alien invasion. Now she’s faced with the heart-wrenching choice between saving her unborn child and saving the world.
Moshie lives in a culture that prizes competition about all else. His mother raises him to dominate every creature he encounters. As Moshie trains for the day when he will rule an ancient alien civilization, a whisper in the young man’s mind calls him to something greater. Can he put aside a lifetime of striving for power and heed the cry to save those he despises the most?
She has one chance to save the human race. He has one chance to save himself. Both learn that trusting their long-hated enemies might be their only chance of survival.
In a few hundred years, the Algol system becomes humanity's new home. The question is: is it a better one? When a crew of arms smugglers botches their latest job, Corps-deserter and crewmember, Aly Erikson, is separated from her brother, the only person she can trust, and left behind to fight for her life. In the aftermath, as she tries to piece together what happened, a crew of roughneck settlers pressgang her into a dangerous mission in the heart of Corps territory. Time is running out to get back everything she's lost: her crew, her brother, and her options. But no one is taking her gun.
Walt Marshall is no stranger to loss after the global infertility epidemic claimed his wife and unborn son. Now he’ll honor them by doing whatever it takes to restore life to a decimated valley.
War consumes the planet, Earth spirals into chaos, and the human race teeters on the edge of extinction. As Walt works towards a brighter future, he uncovers a secret rivaling military claims. Destined to unveil the truth, he embarks down a dangerous path of espionage and treason as he desperately vies for answers.
Earth has been destroyed, the entire solar system turned to dust by a cataclysmic event known as the Fracture. Now, the last survivors of humanity live on vast arkships drifting through the Cluster, doing what they can to survive in a hostile ever-changing environment.
When the arkship Obsidian is attacked, Wynn awakes in an escape pod fleeing from a huge space battle, unable to remember who he is. Hunted by a killer robot, the forces of a rival arkship, and the Church of the Infinite, Wynn must survive long enough to unlock his lost memories, discover who is behind the attack and take his revenge.
Professor Rachel Jordan dared to defy 3000 years of angelic doctrine, teaching that the ancient angels were never the saviors they claimed to be. The Redeemers, self-appointed guardians of angelic law, branded her a heretic. Hunted by zealots who would brainwash her back into the angels’ good graces, she flees to the edge of civilized space.
But not to hide.
Rachel’s only hope is a fabled lost book of the Codex, written by a rogue angel: the Sefer Raziel. Tracking the book to a desolate former prison world, she delves into the criminal underworld to ferret out its location. But her search draws the ire of greedy megacorporations, shadowy puppet governments, and the zealots who chased her there in the first place.
As conflicting forces close in, Rachel must rely on dangerous allies and question the limits of her moral code to be the first to claim the Sefer Raziel. Even if it kills her. Because the only fate worse than death is knowing that her failure doomed humanity to eternal servitude.
Centuries after three quarters of the human population on earth fell victim to a savage plague, a new enemy rises to threaten the existence of humanity. A population divided by those still fully human, those part machine and those who are both dead and alive at the same time, what it means to be truly human has already been long forgotten.
Enter one man who knows. Encased in cryo-stasis for three hundred years, his connection to the past could potentially save the human race from extinction once again, if he can stay alive long enough. Pursued by enemies on all sides, Nathan Ironside has one mission: to survive. Because if he doesn't nobody will...
For Karin Makos, the chance to pilot a small-time scrounging vessel to remote corners of space is the dream. After years on the run with her sister and enduring the constant paranoia of living planet-side, going off-radar gives her exactly what she wants: freedom.
After what seems like a routine mission, that dream is shattered.
A system-wide attack decimates humanity and leaves the survivors scraping for clues. And Karin might know where to look.
But digging into her past comes with a whole new set of secrets and consequences, none of which she wants to face. Plagued by strange dreams of her sister and a sense of growing danger, Karin and the crew of the Nemina must race desperately across space to find their loved ones—and answers.
Nine brilliant scientists travel light years on a one-way trip to an Earth-like planet. Their mission is to study from orbit the two species of intelligent lifeforms on the surface. The first: an isolated people embarking on civilization and building their world’s first city. The second: a brutal race of massive predators, spread thick and still growing across the dominant landmass—destined to breed and eat their way to extinction within a few centuries.
After eight years of observation, disaster strikes the orbiting station and only two crewmembers eject successfully. Drifting down through a dark alien sky, the pair realizes their escape pod launched not toward the safety of the city, but to the other side of the planet, touching down deep inside a land no human could possibly survive.
Far from Earth and shipwrecked on a desolate alien planet, a band of brave settlers strive to carve out a life for themselves on a range of hills while battling to hold back the carpet of deadly microorganisms that creeps across the lowlands below, devouring all in its path. The settlers survive from day to day, but their lives are thrown into chaos on one fateful night when five of their young men and women go missing. And that’s when they see the lights. Out there in the deadly wasteland, there are headlights carving through the darkness. Someone is coming. And perhaps, they mean to stay.
When Rosalen Maldonado tinkers with the derelict freighter, she's just hoping to prove she deserves a scholarship to University. She certainly doesn't count on waking the ship's damaged AI or having three stowaways, Micah Rotherwood and brothers Jem and Barre Durbin, along for the ride. They all have their private reasons for hiding aboard and lives they are seeking to escape, but if the accidental crew can't work together and learn to trust each other, they'll die together, victims of a computer that doesn't realize the war ended decades before any of them were even born.
In the year 2432, humans think they are alone in the universe. They’re wrong.
Commander Noa Sato plans a peaceful leave on her home planet Luddeccea ... but winds up interrogated and imprisoned for her involvement in the Archangel Project. A project she knows nothing about.
Professor James Sinclair wakes in the snow, not remembering the past twenty four hours, or knowing why he is being pursued. The only thing he knows is that he has to find Commander Sato, a woman he’s never met.
A military officer from the colonies and a civilian from Old Earth, they couldn’t have less in common. But they have to work together to save the lives of millions—and their own.
Every step of the way they are haunted by the final words of a secret transmission: The archangel is down.
Genetically engineered from birth, Karin Makos’s powers have made her the Alliance’s most wanted person. With her sister still missing, and only a cryptic notebook left behind for clues, the mystery of her past is going to take a lot more time and resources than they have to unravel it.
And there’s a bigger problem looming. Keeping their promise to heal Ethan’s stepfather and the rest of the people on the Ozark puts them right past Caishen station and its Alliance allies—and there might be another force on their tail.
After the crew split apart on a wild chase that puts Karin in the hot seat, it’ll take all of their strength and ingenuity to bring them back together. With enemies gathering in the wings, a desperate, heavy-handed station commander hard on their tail, and the Shadows an ever-present threat, they must race against the odds and scramble to fight their way out.
Lucas Odin can’t catch a break. What began as a shuttling mission under flag of truce escalated to a fight to keep the Fairfax in one piece. Now he and his crew are plunging back in-system in search of the missing Martian Ambassador Taurius, whom they are supposed to convey to a peace summit on Pluto. But Odin has reasons to suspect Taurius isn’t all he seems. He’d better be worth sneaking into enemy space, taking on hostile pirates at every turn, and courting an all-out war with the mafia bosses of Ceres. The walls are closing in around Odin and the Fairfax. Can they find the ambassador and get back to Kuiper space before they become the very enemy they are fighting to destroy?
Io Suta was a mother and a relic of the Last War. A hard-wire robot pilot using a coupling system to control her giant bipedal war machine. A mech or "mobile suit". After the Final Crisis, she found a lost population of migrants and fell in with them doing the only thing she had ever been any good at. Fighting.
Io and her suit, the Areol ended up the migrant's first and last line of defense against the dangers of a universe in chaos.
Her story starts when a dangerous new kind of Jack, an uncontrollable enemy, drives the migrant fleet to crash on an abandoned terraforming experiment. A new life? New hope? There was no way to know, and no turning back.
NASA discovered the alien ship lurking in the asteroid belt in the 1960s. They kept the Target under intense surveillance for decades, letting the public believe they were exploring the solar system, while they worked feverishly to refine the technology needed to reach it.
The ship itself remained silent, drifting.
Dr. Jane Holloway is content documenting nearly-extinct languages and had never contemplated becoming an astronaut. But when NASA recruits her to join a team of military scientists for an expedition to the Target, it’s an adventure she can’t refuse.
The ship isn’t vacant, as they presumed.
A disembodied voice rumbles inside Jane’s head, "You are home."
Jane fights the growing doubts of her colleagues as she attempts to decipher what the alien wants from her. As the derelict ship devolves into chaos and the crew gets cut off from their escape route, Jane must decide if she can trust the alien’s help to survive.
Join Captain Bartholomew Quasar and the crew of the Effervescent Magnitude in this hilarious collection of short stories as they confront bands of nefarious space pirates, cantankerous bandits, exotic aliens, devious powers of persuasion, mysterious ghosts from the past, deep space identity crises, a runaway hyperspeed train, an insidious computer virus, and a villain with the fastest thumbs in the quadrant.
Did you see the guy in the video wearing the purple tights and mask robbing that bank?
That’s Brendan’s dad. He’s a supervillain. The law is after him. The internet loves him. Brendan wishes they weren’t related. Fortunately a scholarship fell into his lap to an exclusive private high school across the country in California. The chance of a lifetime. The teachers are attentive and Brendan is making new friends, but Dutchman Springs Academy has its own mysteries.
A girl keeps showing up in his electronics lab who can vanish at will, the phone and internet keep going out, and Brendan believes the Headmaster of the school is conducting secret experiments on the students.
As the only woman on the first contact team, xenolinguist Toni Donato expected her assignment on Christmas would be to analyze the secret women's language -- but then the chief linguist begins to sabotage her work. What is behind it? Why do the men and women have separate languages in the first place? What Toni learns turns everything she thought they knew on its head.
A murderous computer program has seized her cyborg partner's body and mind, turning him into a super assassin bent on destroying everything she's vowed to protect. In a high-stakes game of cat and mouse, Kimber FitzWarren faces her deadliest challenge yet, a man with all the skills and knowledge of her lover Wolf Youngblood, but controlled by the mind of a killer. Fitz has to find a way to protect her Emperor while keeping her adversary alive until she can free her partner.
A prisoner in the dark labyrinth of his own mind, Wolf struggles to regain control of his body, concocting a plan to use the killer as a Trojan Horse to lead him to his attacker. In the meantime, he can only watch as a helpless passenger as the assassin plots to kill all the people he loves.
They barely escaped with their lives, and pursuit is hot on their tail. While Higgins and Mimic begin the journey to find the shapeshifter’s home, the fugitive crew must stay ahead of ship that would gladly sell them all for profit. In the process, Higgins and Mimic will learn more about their vastly different races and explore unknown worlds. Whether she finds home or not, Mimic has found a friend for life.
A fourth volume in the prestigious series of space opera collections emerges, featuring ten authors, some best-selling and some freshly emerging, telling bold new tales. Join these award-winning writers as they take you on a journey... beyond the stars.
Underwater cities, lost civilizations, crops, climate change, and dead zones.
In this collection of ocean-themed stories, twelve of today’s top speculative fiction writers explore our morality, our built-in societal restraints, and reflect upon our state of grace.
The waves roll in, the waves roll out.
Dictators. Devices. Destruction.
With worlds fallen and tyrants rising in their wake, can these heroes and heroines survive the End of Days?
Uncover secrets and flirt with death when you immerse yourself in these 16 all-new, exclusive stories of economic collapse, war, disease, and disaster from today’s New York Times, USA Today, and award-winning authors.
Fear ripples through human galactic society.
Another ship travels from humanity's bleak future, targets a populated planet ... and lays it waste in a fiery apocalypse. Nothing survives, and the ship disappears. In the midst of the recovery, Admiral Jack Mattis finds more questions than answers as he tracks down the dreadfully powerful enemy ship.
But the most pressing question: why are these mutated humans from the future relentlessly attacking us? What do they want? And at what cost?
And are these the same creatures created by the genetic research corporation exposed by Mattis on the planet Chrysalis?
The answers lie at the root of a deep conspiracy that goes beyond governments, beyond corporations. A conspiracy that will stop at nothing to succeed, and achieve ultimate power over humanity.
And as the deadly ship prepares for its final catastrophic strike, Admiral Jack Mattis and the crew of the Midway are the last defense between us, and our last dawn.
Yara Ortuso always knew she'd follow in her father's footsteps as a Spell Slinger--until her mother sold her off as a concubine to a lord, after a forbidden romance.
Yara would have served her time as a wife to keep her family safe, but when King Loric sets a decree to abolish magic, she has no choice but to make plans for her escape.Her best friend--a crow shifter named Hero is just what she needs. Yara vows to end the reign of murder and tyranny. But when the skeleton key transports Yara to a distant future, she must adapt to this new world. A mysterious prince with his own secret motives might stand between Yara and her quest for vengeance.
In a world where mythical creatures are either controlled, or on the brink of extinction—a prophecy reveals there's one who can restore balance. The only problem is, she has no idea how to do it.
Separated from the only people who've had her back—as well as the love of her life, Traeton—Runa must go on a quest alone to uncover what it means to be human, as well as the Daughter of Five. Dropped in an unknown location, presumably still on the planet, she only has a monolithic book—the Caudex—as her guide, but it's not giving up its answers easily. Will she be able to uncover the mysteries? The fate of the entire word rests on her shoulders and her ability to push through all of the challenges set her way.
A woman with the power to raise the dead. A man stranded on another world, fighting all alone for a lost cause. Zombies invading New York. Alien artifacts. Sci-Fi battle angels. Samurais fighting demons. Interplanetary detectives and lost unicorns.
Everyone knows that there's no such thing as ghosts, but when a client claims that her house is being haunted, Ivy tries to keep her mind open and her weapons handy. If her psychic gifts and recent cases have taught her anything, it's that you're better off arming yourself for the unexpected.
Anything is possible in Harborsmouth.
October 7, 2017
An Interview with Tyler Wandschneider
I had a really good caving trip to Pridhamsleigh Cavern last weekend. Even though the water levels were very low, we still came out thoroughly muddy! Shame the ducks were gaping air passages, but it was still enjoyed by the whole group. The slides near the end were possibly the favourite of many.
Right, so today I am talking to Tyler Wandschneider, author of Lockheed Elite.
So. Why do you write?
I write because.
I know it sounds like a fake answer or a cop-out or maybe, if you know me, a bit of a widely missed attempt at a quick joke.
To be honest, I’m a pretty decent writer, but I wish I could tell you I write because I’m really good at it. That I have an extraordinary list of original prose that you’ve already enjoyed. I wish I could tell you about the many years I’ve toiled in front of a white screen staring back at me with a blank look. I wish I could tell you about the hundreds of rejection letters I suffered trying to get published only to find that one that changed everything.
But I can’t do that.
I can only tell you that I’ve been writing for the last six years, that I am a structural engineer and that day in and day out I’m face deep in calculations and drawings with an inbox relentlessly telling me what’s next; desperately eyeing the very first day I can write as a full-time writer. I can only tell you that my entire life has been one of countless immersions in stories both on the screen and in the pages of a binding. Inspiring me. Building me. Storytelling me.
I have been ripped from a typical daily grind over and over again and thrown into alternate realities only to walk next to the one who must take and destroy the ring, to follow the life of an orphaned boy as he seeks the ones who killed his troupe, to explore the London Underground while chased by two crazy men. These, of course, are stories by the greats that I dare not name here because truth be told, I can’t hold a candle to them.
I write because maybe, just maybe, I could lay down that one story that will take someone I will never meet on a ride they will always remember. Maybe some kid comes across one of my pieces and gets an inkling to pick up a pen and twenty years later their stories take the world by storm. I write because I love stories. I write because so many before me picked up their pen and poured out their heart and risked total vulnerability. Today, because they wrote, and some continue to do so, we have countless bookshelves littered with beautiful and amazing stories. Original pieces that inspire us and wake in us that addiction that says, "One more chapter, then I’ll go to bed."
I write because.
Some writers believe in Writer’s Block, others don't. Which camp are you in?
Honestly, I think writer's block is a myth. Sure you can stare at the page and wonder what to write but I don't think it's writer's block.
Consider it as I do - a moment of preparation. A calm before the storm of sorts where you gather the known elements of the scene and then let your fingers start going. I do A LOT of revising in my writing so when that moment happens that others might call writer's block, I just start writing. Anything. I'll even literally write, "I'm a little foggy on how to write this scene but it goes something like this..." And I go. My mind knows the story I want to write and once I get my fingers going, somehow I arrive there, I write what I want to say, and then later go back to make the changes the story needs.
It's your story. Own it. Take charge and write it down. Don't let little things like the myth of writer's block get in your way. That's just silly. :)
Do you proofread/edit all your own books or do you get someone to do that for you?
I edit like crazy! I write for awhile revise, rewrite, revise rewrite then move on to the next 5,000 words. I constantly follow an idea and then change what I said, go back and review, and when I finally gain some traction and lay down 10 or even 15K words, I realize I need to drop in some red herrings or a gun on the mantle some while back. Then all of a sudden I'm spending a month or two on my previous 25,000 words. It’s a constant back and forth, two steps ahead four steps back, process that requires patience, discipline and above all a desire, nay, a passion for telling that story.
That being said... :) ...when it's all said and done. I let my beta readers take a crack at it. Then I go through it again. Then I hand it over to my copy editor (professional) then I go through a couple more times myself. And then my proofreader (professional, again) does her magic. Boom! Then it's ready.
So the answer to the above is yes. I edit and I also hire pros to help. I'll never publish something without that. 'Cept wonderful interviews like this! :)
What advice would you give to aspiring writers?
Always, always, always finish every story you start. If you write more beginnings than endings then your endings will never be as good as your beginnings.
What was the hardest thing about writing your latest book?
I would say it was the times I'd read other books that were written really well. I have a proclivity for getting down on myself and thinking I'm not good enough. So when I read great books or even high praising reviews of great books, it puts me in place where I question my ambition to write. "Why am I doing this? There are so many more better writers than me." Then the itch to write strikes and I start to crawl out of that hole. I pick up my book Lockheed Elite and read a couple pages and actually feel better about myself. I can write. Maybe not as good as the greats but my writing will entertain and it won't pull you from the story. Then I might read a couple things others have said about my book. This helps too. So I keep going.
Thank you for taking the time to talk to me. Good luck with the next few months!
Tyler Wandschneider is a Seattle-based novelist working in the professional world. He and his wife are expecting their first child in October 2017. It is a girl, and he is delighted to meet her. Lockheed Elite is his second novel, and no, you cannot read his first. You can follow Tyler on some of the usual social media channels, and he has a website for you to check out as well, www.tylerwandschneider.com. You can subscribe to his newsletter there in which he shares all the trouble he gets into. He is also fond of hearing from those who have enjoyed reading Lockheed Elite.
Right, so today I am talking to Tyler Wandschneider, author of Lockheed Elite.
So. Why do you write?
I write because.
I know it sounds like a fake answer or a cop-out or maybe, if you know me, a bit of a widely missed attempt at a quick joke.
To be honest, I’m a pretty decent writer, but I wish I could tell you I write because I’m really good at it. That I have an extraordinary list of original prose that you’ve already enjoyed. I wish I could tell you about the many years I’ve toiled in front of a white screen staring back at me with a blank look. I wish I could tell you about the hundreds of rejection letters I suffered trying to get published only to find that one that changed everything.
But I can’t do that.
I can only tell you that I’ve been writing for the last six years, that I am a structural engineer and that day in and day out I’m face deep in calculations and drawings with an inbox relentlessly telling me what’s next; desperately eyeing the very first day I can write as a full-time writer. I can only tell you that my entire life has been one of countless immersions in stories both on the screen and in the pages of a binding. Inspiring me. Building me. Storytelling me.
I have been ripped from a typical daily grind over and over again and thrown into alternate realities only to walk next to the one who must take and destroy the ring, to follow the life of an orphaned boy as he seeks the ones who killed his troupe, to explore the London Underground while chased by two crazy men. These, of course, are stories by the greats that I dare not name here because truth be told, I can’t hold a candle to them.
I write because maybe, just maybe, I could lay down that one story that will take someone I will never meet on a ride they will always remember. Maybe some kid comes across one of my pieces and gets an inkling to pick up a pen and twenty years later their stories take the world by storm. I write because I love stories. I write because so many before me picked up their pen and poured out their heart and risked total vulnerability. Today, because they wrote, and some continue to do so, we have countless bookshelves littered with beautiful and amazing stories. Original pieces that inspire us and wake in us that addiction that says, "One more chapter, then I’ll go to bed."
I write because.
Some writers believe in Writer’s Block, others don't. Which camp are you in?
Honestly, I think writer's block is a myth. Sure you can stare at the page and wonder what to write but I don't think it's writer's block.
Consider it as I do - a moment of preparation. A calm before the storm of sorts where you gather the known elements of the scene and then let your fingers start going. I do A LOT of revising in my writing so when that moment happens that others might call writer's block, I just start writing. Anything. I'll even literally write, "I'm a little foggy on how to write this scene but it goes something like this..." And I go. My mind knows the story I want to write and once I get my fingers going, somehow I arrive there, I write what I want to say, and then later go back to make the changes the story needs.
It's your story. Own it. Take charge and write it down. Don't let little things like the myth of writer's block get in your way. That's just silly. :)
Do you proofread/edit all your own books or do you get someone to do that for you?
I edit like crazy! I write for awhile revise, rewrite, revise rewrite then move on to the next 5,000 words. I constantly follow an idea and then change what I said, go back and review, and when I finally gain some traction and lay down 10 or even 15K words, I realize I need to drop in some red herrings or a gun on the mantle some while back. Then all of a sudden I'm spending a month or two on my previous 25,000 words. It’s a constant back and forth, two steps ahead four steps back, process that requires patience, discipline and above all a desire, nay, a passion for telling that story.
That being said... :) ...when it's all said and done. I let my beta readers take a crack at it. Then I go through it again. Then I hand it over to my copy editor (professional) then I go through a couple more times myself. And then my proofreader (professional, again) does her magic. Boom! Then it's ready.
So the answer to the above is yes. I edit and I also hire pros to help. I'll never publish something without that. 'Cept wonderful interviews like this! :)
What advice would you give to aspiring writers?
Always, always, always finish every story you start. If you write more beginnings than endings then your endings will never be as good as your beginnings.
What was the hardest thing about writing your latest book?
I would say it was the times I'd read other books that were written really well. I have a proclivity for getting down on myself and thinking I'm not good enough. So when I read great books or even high praising reviews of great books, it puts me in place where I question my ambition to write. "Why am I doing this? There are so many more better writers than me." Then the itch to write strikes and I start to crawl out of that hole. I pick up my book Lockheed Elite and read a couple pages and actually feel better about myself. I can write. Maybe not as good as the greats but my writing will entertain and it won't pull you from the story. Then I might read a couple things others have said about my book. This helps too. So I keep going.
Thank you for taking the time to talk to me. Good luck with the next few months!
Tyler Wandschneider is a Seattle-based novelist working in the professional world. He and his wife are expecting their first child in October 2017. It is a girl, and he is delighted to meet her. Lockheed Elite is his second novel, and no, you cannot read his first. You can follow Tyler on some of the usual social media channels, and he has a website for you to check out as well, www.tylerwandschneider.com. You can subscribe to his newsletter there in which he shares all the trouble he gets into. He is also fond of hearing from those who have enjoyed reading Lockheed Elite.
