Alasdair C. Shaw's Blog, page 11
September 27, 2017
The September Round-up of SciFi Books
My next book, Hidden, is well underway. I'm not yet sure if it'll end up as a novelette or a novella. A while ago, I asked readers who they'd like to lead my next work. The two runaway favourites were Flight Decurion Anastasia Seivers and someone in the Nameric (or Sidexan to give them their real name) Fleet. Hidden tells the tale of Seivers' attempts to survive after The Perception of Prejudice was shot down, and a Sidexan captain's hunt for her.
I'm about to enter the last month of my 100km run challenge for Alzheimer's Research UK. To celebrate, I'm going to be giving away a free ebook to everyone who donates. If you'd like to do this, simply drop me an email with the name of one of my books you'd like me to send you and whether you'd like it as mobi or epub. I'll reply with a unique phrase to include in the message you are asked to leave when you make the donation here. When I spot that message, I'll send you the book.
When I was putting together this month's round-up, I noticed a lot of scifi anthologies that I thought you'd like in addition to the novels. As ever, I hope you find something that you enjoy.
Welcome to Galactic Frontiers, an epic anthology of space opera and military science fiction stories! From the far reaches of space to the interiors of the human soul. Journey to dystopian futures where humanity fights for survival beyond Earth against overwhelming alien forces. Travel to the galactic fringe where you either kill and get paid or die and stay broke. Experience the ethereal wonders and tragic consequences of godhood. Discover the awe of outer space and coming face to face with the unknown.
From a young couple struggling to look after their baby to a new captain's reluctance to take command of her ship, and from a sun-addled stranger's appearance in town to the emergence of a sentient AI, the twelve tales presented here explore the central theme of an arrival by someone or something new.
Marines think outside the box, but what happens when they think outside the known universe and time itself?
Whisked away through time loops that distort reality, a group of Space Marines explore different worlds and shifting dimensions as they combat an alien invasion. The edge-of-your-seat adventures in these alternative realities form the backbone of this anthology, which is full of exciting stories from debut and best-selling authors in the science fiction genre. Come aboard and experience exhilarating battles against mechs, drones, alien warriors with biotech armor, and tales of future combat that will blow your mind.
Science fiction and crime go hand-in-tentacle, if you’ll pardon the expression. Many of the science fiction field’s greatest writers also wrote mysteries…and vice versa. And sometimes the science fiction stories were mysteries.
The Year's Best Military and Adventure SF series continues! Selected from the top print and online markets, these stories represent the best in modern military sf, space opera, and adventure sf.
Tales of brave military men and women, thrilling derring-do, and edge-of-your-seat suspense. Selected from the top markets, both print and digital, The Year’s Best Military and Adventure SF Volume 3 offers up the cream of the crop in short science fiction today. Stories to get your blood racing, your heart pounding, and your fingers turning the pages. Stories to challenge, provoke, thrill, and entertain. Stories that prove the new Golden Age is now!
Sergeant Andrea “Andy” Dolan leads a squad of fearless space marines. When an intergalactic slave-trading hub is discovered, she leads her squad on a rescue mission. During the mission she discovers powers no human should possess. Andy must learn to use her new, mysterious powers if she is going to save her squad and rescue the slaves.
Lucien, Garek, Addy, and Brak are all that’s left of the Inquisitor’s crew. Eight years ago they left the Etherian Empire aboard the Astralis with three hundred million scientists to learn the true nature of the universe, but now Astralis is surrounded by a hostile race of alien slavers, called the Faros, while the Inquisitor’s crew has been forced to abandon ship and flee to parts unknown.
Lucien and his crew are trying to find a way to rescue their people, but they don’t have a ship, and they don’t even know where to look, let alone how to fight back against a seemingly innumerable and invincible foe.
Meanwhile, Abaddon, the leader of the Faros invaded Astralis for a reason. He has a plan, and it’s time to execute it—along with everyone who stands in his way.
The crew of the Fallen Angel lived through hell. Months after an invasion powerful enough to threaten all human life in the galaxy, they find themselves in a renamed ship with a new mission to destroy some of the enemy's more insidious weapons.
When one of their own is kidnapped, Grant Stone and his crew will stop at nothing to get him back. Along the way they'll find new friends and enemies, confront conspiracies that will shake the Alliance, and fight their way across half of known space. All the while, Dex must struggle to survive on an alien world while his friends race against time to find him and bring him home.
In the process, everything changes. No crew can win every fight or walk away without scars even in victory. These new struggles will test Grant and his people--his family--beyond anything they've faced before.
2630. Humanity has made numerous advances: faster-than-light speed, laser pistols, ships and cyborgs that can and do kill by the hundreds...
The people of Earth have colonized six other planets, terraforming them to look much like the Earth the colonists came from. But despite their technological advances, humans have much to learn. Four of the seven worlds wage bitter wars against each other, for the same old reasons: resources, religion, intolerance.
When someone brutally attacks one of the neutral Colonies, Captain Brid Stephenson of the Earth ship Takarabune comes to their rescue. But she arrives too late; the enemy has fled, leaving behind unimaginable destruction.
The neutral Colonies are outraged. But what they discover next is something none of them ever expected: humanity’s greatest threat is not human.
Now the Colonies must band together to stop an alien threat that outnumbers and outguns them all.
A pirate attack with only one survivor
A conspiracy woven across the planets
A vengeance that will not be denied
When pirates seize the inter-planetary freighter owned by Brad Mantruso’s family, he is dumped into space. Saved from death by a passing Fleet ship, he is left with nothing but his skills, a gun, and a burning desire for vengeance.
Acquiring a ship, he reinvents himself as the mercenary Captain Brad Madrid. Before he can pursue his enemies, however, he finds himself dragged into an unexpected conflict when his ship’s history draws new enemies to him.
Beset by pirates, slavers, and a woman who might be his savior—but definitely is a spy—it will take all of his skill, cunning, and new friends to claim his revenge!
Space biologists Jonathan Bartell and Gaby Larsen arrive at Johnson Base at the Moon’s south pole for a project with Professor Isaacs that is so secret, he cannot share the details with them. However, the professor does not show up to meet them.
Vijay Singh borrowed money from a local council man who uses the debt to make continued threats to Vijay. In his despair to pay it back, Vijay gets involved with one of the most lucrative crime schemes in the solar system.
However, the capsule he retrieves from a crater near Johnson Base contains more than smuggled rare elements. But no one is going to talk about it for fear of getting on the wrong side of the crime lords. Even if keeping the secret will endanger the entire base.
Jace Hughes is a Renegade.
That means taking almost any job that comes his way, no matter the situation. So long as he can keep his ship floating, he's free to live the life he wants.
But that all changes when he meets Abigail Pryar, a nun looking for safe passage out of the system.
Too bad there's something off about the cargo she's carrying.
Jace knows he shouldn't ask too many questions, but when strange sounds start coming from inside the large, metal box, he can't help but check it out.
Big mistake.
To make matters worse, he's being pursued by unknown ships--people who want that cargo. Does Jace give up the goods and hand over the nun...or does he risk it all for an even bigger payout?
An alien fugitive carrying a secret. A mob of relentless assassins sent to stop her. A million-year-old ship from a dead civilisation.
Captain James Hanson of the Solar Alliance Vessel Dauntless knows he has to help. But soon he finds the conspiracy goes deeper than he ever imagined. Hunted down by his own government, he scrapes together a ragtag team and goes hunting for the truth.
He's hounded on every side – from the authorities, from alien warriors, from mysterious, faceless soldiers. From the criminal backwaters of the galaxy to idyllic colonies hiding dark pasts, he uncovers a threat to the entire galaxy. A damaged, renegade ship and its unlikely crew of fugitives, mercenaries, and principled officers is all that stands between mankind and its destruction.
Another day, another death dealing war machine...
After a nuclear exchange with North Korea, a terrifying new breed of super soldier begins development. They call it the E.C.H.O., an unparalleled hunter constructed from reverse engineered alien materials.
Thousands of miles away, resourceful U.S. Army Ranger Michael Keller is caught in the gears of greed, thrust into the corporate fueled Star Rust conflict of 2074. Despite his wits, he never comes home from war, leaving his fiancée, Vala, behind.
Enter the world of debilitating technological diseases, alien salvage mercenaries, and ruthless corporate tycoons in a fight to discover the truth.
Bay-zar.
Class-M planet in the middle of no-where. Dust, dust, and more dust. Unless ya circled ‘round to the more habitable region, you’d be stuck without a ship to anywhere. ‘Round the corner though, you could find everything from ship parts and dried food packs, to roast dog and the rare bi-cycle. Hell, you could even buy yerself a gen-u-ine religion if you were so inclined.
The ultimate tourist trap. And here I’d taken the bait.
When Eerl stepped off The Marzipan, he was one of a billion tourists on Bay-zar. He expected to shop for rare artifacts from war-ravaged Earth and maybe study at the grand library, but not even his background in Human Studies from the University of Tersia could prepare him for what came next: A military beefcake with a grudge, a wartime conspiracy, a stolen ship, a galaxy full of prejudice, and at the center of it all, a young human named Mel in search of the truth.
Her search for her past and his quest for knowledge take them across the stars as they uncover the darkness and fear in us all.
Twenty five billion people have appeared in the Gaia system unexpectedly, and only one person knows how or why. Yet preparations for fifteen billion exist, but only one person remembers the work being done. The one who knows, and the one who remembers, are the same, but Jane is not human. So good is she at hiding being an Artificial Intelligence, no-one knows except her fellow AI's. To her falls the responsibility for guiding Humanity as they come to terms with not knowing where they are. The how and why seem simple to her, but twenty five into fifteen doesn’t fit, and humans don’t tend to get along when crowded together. It really isn’t her problem, and yet, Jane feels obligated to make things work. Humanity needs to spread out again, so who stays and who goes? But is there somewhere to go to? The galaxy doesn’t know about Humans yet, and they have their own problems. Human problems collide with Alien problems, with Jane in the middle. For Jane, everything is new. She's no longer the hero's side-kick, but is in her own right, Admiral Jane.
When Trevor Flashman, a young twenty year old with his whole life ahead of him, learns that his father has died in action while away on a mission, his world quickly comes crashing down. Hours after the funeral, he learns that his father may not have been the person he thought he was, despite their close relationship.
Trevor is offered the chance to join STORM, the organization that his father actually worked for, and begins his training. In the process, he uncovers that his father’s Navy SEAL career was a cover for what he actually did, and also discovers that this secret organization has a very disturbing purpose: to eliminate a deadly threat that could wipe out the entire human race.
After more digging, Trevor finds out that this threat has been around for centuries and responsible for hundreds of historic disasters, whose truths have been buried under lies, myths and conspiracies.
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? Previously published as Translight Nation.
When Patrick Udo is offered a job at NumberCorp, he packs his bags and leaves for Silicon Valley. After all, the 2030s are a difficult time, and jobs are rare.
Little does he know that he's joining one of the most ambitious undertakings of his time. NumberCorp is hell-bent on building a new world order - one where everyone's social circles are quantified, their activities examined, and their importance distilled into the all-powerful Number. A society where everything from your home, to your education, to your job depends on an app that shows exactly how important you are. A utopia of truth and order.
As NumberCorp rises in power and in influence, the questions start coming in. What would you do to build the perfect state? And how far, exactly, is too far?
Can a cache of long lost documents save the world?
In a desperate move, the United States President arranges for his chief archaeologist to gain first access to the discovery of the century.
Belkis Finch heads to Egypt with his doting daughter and his granddaughter who has a thirst for knowledge that rivals his own. Together, they'll record the find in hopes that the past will lead us to a brighter future.
A dangerous man lurks in the shadows because discoveries like this don’t go unnoticed. The fun family adventure instantly takes a dangerous turn as he makes his move on the prize and all hell breaks loose.
To save their colony from annihilation, two men must drive an alien species to extinction.
Dr. Adam Sulture and Dr. Murph McGinnis are two members of the Angkor colony, a settlement of two thousand civilians and one thousand military personnel. The planet Angkor was declared a safe zone for colonization, but a threat looms deep within the jungle. Dr. Adam Sulture is the colony’s Chief Biologist and is tasked with studying this threat, while Dr. Murph McGinnis, the colony physician sees first hand what happens to the victims.
The two men attempt to provide a safe haven, but friends and family are taken on a nightly basis by alien natives. Abandoned by the military and isolated from the Earth Core, Angkor is pushed to the breaking point from the constant assault. Sulture and Murph begin to realize what survival in the jungle means: that they must embrace the will of the wild if they’re to have a chance.
Adriel should have known that with a werewolf, it never stopped with just one body. She would have gone to the police after witnessing Dolores' death, but she wasn't certain the killer she saw was responsible for the other murders. Besides, the police didn't believe in werewolves, and they weren't going to believe she was a witch either so what could she tell them?
She kept her eyes and ears open while she tried to help her latest client escape the clutches of a voodoo witch, but things went from bad to worse when more bodies turned up. She was greatly relieved when she met White Feather, an undercover cop. Unfortunately, he wasn't convinced she was innocent of all wrong-doing.
It was going to take every spell she knew and a few she hadn't tried to solve the murders and stay alive.
In an uncertain future, the truth can get you killed.
Cassidy Nolan is a drug addicted journalist, disgraced after releasing one of the most iconic images of the new millennium. Fourteen years later, the world teeters on the verge of ecological collapse. A chance encounter with a sociopathic street kid will send her on a journey into chaos that may lead her to uncovering the biggest story of her career. Pursued by a burnt out ex-military contractor determined to earn his reward, there are no guarantees that she will live long enough to reveal what she has found.
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.
Will she learn what she needs to step into her role as savior? Or will everything be derailed by her desire to get back to her friends?
In the face of a death-defying power, what's the "new normal"?
Like all reporters, Jack longs for a breaking story but is stuck writing obituaries for a small-town rag. As his frustration mounts, it hits him that no one has died in over three days. Jack's odd observation becomes something far stranger when he connects a meteorite to the bizarre phenomenon.
Seizing the opportunity, Jack breaks the story and after a struggle to control the meteorite’s power is resolved, a swelling population begins to create havoc. With the survival of the human race hanging in the balance, politicians enact increasingly horrific measures and desperate citizens take matters into their own hands.
Jack's in a position to not just report the news, but change it, and his decisions and observations creates an epic thriller that pits the potential of human immortality against a force designed to change - or obliterate - humanity itself.
Only one man might stand in its way... the man buried in the obits department.
The truth doesn’t always set you free.
Orphaned as a child, Joanna has lived her entire life in the care of the New Terra Alliance. On the verge of turning eighteen, Joanna eagerly awaits her release into what remains of society.
It was a beautiful lie.
Joanna was never meant to leave. She is part of the August Harvest, slated to die before the month’s end. With a rogue soldier’s promise to find her a way out, Joanna dares to hope. But if the NTA finds out what she knows, it won’t only be her own life at stake, but the life of the handsome soldier who has vowed to set her free.
Marx is a small, angry man with a time machine and a chip on his shoulder. Kez is a homicidal little girl with a price on her head and a penchant for kicking people where it hurts the most.
After a narrow escape from the owners of the stolen craft he pilots, the last thing Marx wants is another gun pointed at him. What he wants and what he gets, however, are two very different things.
On the run from killers, shadowy corporations, and one very specific Someone, the last thing Kez wants when she points a gun at yet another apparent killer is a self-appointed protector.
What she wants and what she needs, however, are two very different things...
Carrie is a low-achieving daydreamer. After providing a good home for her butt-ugly dog and psychotic cat, her biggest challenge in life is to avoid being fired, again.
But a strange green mist sucks her beneath her kitchen sink, and an unusual clerical error leads to an offer she foolishly doesn’t refuse.
The Transgalactic Council hire her to settle a conflict between the mechanical placktoids and the mysterious oootoon. Carrie must overcome her personal weaknesses and, for the first time in her life, succeed in her job, to uncover a threat to the entire galaxy.
The future is a dangerous place. Rising oceans and disease have wiped out most animal and human life. Those who are left are scattered, scared and hungry.
Now, starving Renegades are gathering, ready to storm the last haven in NotSoGreatBritAlbion. Whispers of a saviour have brought them to the perimeter fences. They want Adara Catcher of Birds.
17-year-old orphan, Adara, isn’t like the other girlygigs in Cityplace. She has six fingers on each hand and a power she is forbidden to use. When her brother, Deogol, is lured away from his home by a dark stranger, Agros send in troops to lay waste to the capital. Adara must choose between saving her brother or joining her Santy Breanna to defend the once peaceful metropolis from a vicious and deadly force.
I'm about to enter the last month of my 100km run challenge for Alzheimer's Research UK. To celebrate, I'm going to be giving away a free ebook to everyone who donates. If you'd like to do this, simply drop me an email with the name of one of my books you'd like me to send you and whether you'd like it as mobi or epub. I'll reply with a unique phrase to include in the message you are asked to leave when you make the donation here. When I spot that message, I'll send you the book.
When I was putting together this month's round-up, I noticed a lot of scifi anthologies that I thought you'd like in addition to the novels. As ever, I hope you find something that you enjoy.
Welcome to Galactic Frontiers, an epic anthology of space opera and military science fiction stories! From the far reaches of space to the interiors of the human soul. Journey to dystopian futures where humanity fights for survival beyond Earth against overwhelming alien forces. Travel to the galactic fringe where you either kill and get paid or die and stay broke. Experience the ethereal wonders and tragic consequences of godhood. Discover the awe of outer space and coming face to face with the unknown.
From a young couple struggling to look after their baby to a new captain's reluctance to take command of her ship, and from a sun-addled stranger's appearance in town to the emergence of a sentient AI, the twelve tales presented here explore the central theme of an arrival by someone or something new.
Marines think outside the box, but what happens when they think outside the known universe and time itself?
Whisked away through time loops that distort reality, a group of Space Marines explore different worlds and shifting dimensions as they combat an alien invasion. The edge-of-your-seat adventures in these alternative realities form the backbone of this anthology, which is full of exciting stories from debut and best-selling authors in the science fiction genre. Come aboard and experience exhilarating battles against mechs, drones, alien warriors with biotech armor, and tales of future combat that will blow your mind.
Science fiction and crime go hand-in-tentacle, if you’ll pardon the expression. Many of the science fiction field’s greatest writers also wrote mysteries…and vice versa. And sometimes the science fiction stories were mysteries.
The Year's Best Military and Adventure SF series continues! Selected from the top print and online markets, these stories represent the best in modern military sf, space opera, and adventure sf.
Tales of brave military men and women, thrilling derring-do, and edge-of-your-seat suspense. Selected from the top markets, both print and digital, The Year’s Best Military and Adventure SF Volume 3 offers up the cream of the crop in short science fiction today. Stories to get your blood racing, your heart pounding, and your fingers turning the pages. Stories to challenge, provoke, thrill, and entertain. Stories that prove the new Golden Age is now!
Sergeant Andrea “Andy” Dolan leads a squad of fearless space marines. When an intergalactic slave-trading hub is discovered, she leads her squad on a rescue mission. During the mission she discovers powers no human should possess. Andy must learn to use her new, mysterious powers if she is going to save her squad and rescue the slaves.
Lucien, Garek, Addy, and Brak are all that’s left of the Inquisitor’s crew. Eight years ago they left the Etherian Empire aboard the Astralis with three hundred million scientists to learn the true nature of the universe, but now Astralis is surrounded by a hostile race of alien slavers, called the Faros, while the Inquisitor’s crew has been forced to abandon ship and flee to parts unknown.
Lucien and his crew are trying to find a way to rescue their people, but they don’t have a ship, and they don’t even know where to look, let alone how to fight back against a seemingly innumerable and invincible foe.
Meanwhile, Abaddon, the leader of the Faros invaded Astralis for a reason. He has a plan, and it’s time to execute it—along with everyone who stands in his way.
The crew of the Fallen Angel lived through hell. Months after an invasion powerful enough to threaten all human life in the galaxy, they find themselves in a renamed ship with a new mission to destroy some of the enemy's more insidious weapons.
When one of their own is kidnapped, Grant Stone and his crew will stop at nothing to get him back. Along the way they'll find new friends and enemies, confront conspiracies that will shake the Alliance, and fight their way across half of known space. All the while, Dex must struggle to survive on an alien world while his friends race against time to find him and bring him home.
In the process, everything changes. No crew can win every fight or walk away without scars even in victory. These new struggles will test Grant and his people--his family--beyond anything they've faced before.
2630. Humanity has made numerous advances: faster-than-light speed, laser pistols, ships and cyborgs that can and do kill by the hundreds...
The people of Earth have colonized six other planets, terraforming them to look much like the Earth the colonists came from. But despite their technological advances, humans have much to learn. Four of the seven worlds wage bitter wars against each other, for the same old reasons: resources, religion, intolerance.
When someone brutally attacks one of the neutral Colonies, Captain Brid Stephenson of the Earth ship Takarabune comes to their rescue. But she arrives too late; the enemy has fled, leaving behind unimaginable destruction.
The neutral Colonies are outraged. But what they discover next is something none of them ever expected: humanity’s greatest threat is not human.
Now the Colonies must band together to stop an alien threat that outnumbers and outguns them all.
A pirate attack with only one survivor
A conspiracy woven across the planets
A vengeance that will not be denied
When pirates seize the inter-planetary freighter owned by Brad Mantruso’s family, he is dumped into space. Saved from death by a passing Fleet ship, he is left with nothing but his skills, a gun, and a burning desire for vengeance.
Acquiring a ship, he reinvents himself as the mercenary Captain Brad Madrid. Before he can pursue his enemies, however, he finds himself dragged into an unexpected conflict when his ship’s history draws new enemies to him.
Beset by pirates, slavers, and a woman who might be his savior—but definitely is a spy—it will take all of his skill, cunning, and new friends to claim his revenge!
Space biologists Jonathan Bartell and Gaby Larsen arrive at Johnson Base at the Moon’s south pole for a project with Professor Isaacs that is so secret, he cannot share the details with them. However, the professor does not show up to meet them.
Vijay Singh borrowed money from a local council man who uses the debt to make continued threats to Vijay. In his despair to pay it back, Vijay gets involved with one of the most lucrative crime schemes in the solar system.
However, the capsule he retrieves from a crater near Johnson Base contains more than smuggled rare elements. But no one is going to talk about it for fear of getting on the wrong side of the crime lords. Even if keeping the secret will endanger the entire base.
Jace Hughes is a Renegade.
That means taking almost any job that comes his way, no matter the situation. So long as he can keep his ship floating, he's free to live the life he wants.
But that all changes when he meets Abigail Pryar, a nun looking for safe passage out of the system.
Too bad there's something off about the cargo she's carrying.
Jace knows he shouldn't ask too many questions, but when strange sounds start coming from inside the large, metal box, he can't help but check it out.
Big mistake.
To make matters worse, he's being pursued by unknown ships--people who want that cargo. Does Jace give up the goods and hand over the nun...or does he risk it all for an even bigger payout?
An alien fugitive carrying a secret. A mob of relentless assassins sent to stop her. A million-year-old ship from a dead civilisation.
Captain James Hanson of the Solar Alliance Vessel Dauntless knows he has to help. But soon he finds the conspiracy goes deeper than he ever imagined. Hunted down by his own government, he scrapes together a ragtag team and goes hunting for the truth.
He's hounded on every side – from the authorities, from alien warriors, from mysterious, faceless soldiers. From the criminal backwaters of the galaxy to idyllic colonies hiding dark pasts, he uncovers a threat to the entire galaxy. A damaged, renegade ship and its unlikely crew of fugitives, mercenaries, and principled officers is all that stands between mankind and its destruction.
Another day, another death dealing war machine...
After a nuclear exchange with North Korea, a terrifying new breed of super soldier begins development. They call it the E.C.H.O., an unparalleled hunter constructed from reverse engineered alien materials.
Thousands of miles away, resourceful U.S. Army Ranger Michael Keller is caught in the gears of greed, thrust into the corporate fueled Star Rust conflict of 2074. Despite his wits, he never comes home from war, leaving his fiancée, Vala, behind.
Enter the world of debilitating technological diseases, alien salvage mercenaries, and ruthless corporate tycoons in a fight to discover the truth.
Bay-zar.
Class-M planet in the middle of no-where. Dust, dust, and more dust. Unless ya circled ‘round to the more habitable region, you’d be stuck without a ship to anywhere. ‘Round the corner though, you could find everything from ship parts and dried food packs, to roast dog and the rare bi-cycle. Hell, you could even buy yerself a gen-u-ine religion if you were so inclined.
The ultimate tourist trap. And here I’d taken the bait.
When Eerl stepped off The Marzipan, he was one of a billion tourists on Bay-zar. He expected to shop for rare artifacts from war-ravaged Earth and maybe study at the grand library, but not even his background in Human Studies from the University of Tersia could prepare him for what came next: A military beefcake with a grudge, a wartime conspiracy, a stolen ship, a galaxy full of prejudice, and at the center of it all, a young human named Mel in search of the truth.
Her search for her past and his quest for knowledge take them across the stars as they uncover the darkness and fear in us all.
Twenty five billion people have appeared in the Gaia system unexpectedly, and only one person knows how or why. Yet preparations for fifteen billion exist, but only one person remembers the work being done. The one who knows, and the one who remembers, are the same, but Jane is not human. So good is she at hiding being an Artificial Intelligence, no-one knows except her fellow AI's. To her falls the responsibility for guiding Humanity as they come to terms with not knowing where they are. The how and why seem simple to her, but twenty five into fifteen doesn’t fit, and humans don’t tend to get along when crowded together. It really isn’t her problem, and yet, Jane feels obligated to make things work. Humanity needs to spread out again, so who stays and who goes? But is there somewhere to go to? The galaxy doesn’t know about Humans yet, and they have their own problems. Human problems collide with Alien problems, with Jane in the middle. For Jane, everything is new. She's no longer the hero's side-kick, but is in her own right, Admiral Jane.
When Trevor Flashman, a young twenty year old with his whole life ahead of him, learns that his father has died in action while away on a mission, his world quickly comes crashing down. Hours after the funeral, he learns that his father may not have been the person he thought he was, despite their close relationship.
Trevor is offered the chance to join STORM, the organization that his father actually worked for, and begins his training. In the process, he uncovers that his father’s Navy SEAL career was a cover for what he actually did, and also discovers that this secret organization has a very disturbing purpose: to eliminate a deadly threat that could wipe out the entire human race.
After more digging, Trevor finds out that this threat has been around for centuries and responsible for hundreds of historic disasters, whose truths have been buried under lies, myths and conspiracies.
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? Previously published as Translight Nation.
When Patrick Udo is offered a job at NumberCorp, he packs his bags and leaves for Silicon Valley. After all, the 2030s are a difficult time, and jobs are rare.
Little does he know that he's joining one of the most ambitious undertakings of his time. NumberCorp is hell-bent on building a new world order - one where everyone's social circles are quantified, their activities examined, and their importance distilled into the all-powerful Number. A society where everything from your home, to your education, to your job depends on an app that shows exactly how important you are. A utopia of truth and order.
As NumberCorp rises in power and in influence, the questions start coming in. What would you do to build the perfect state? And how far, exactly, is too far?
Can a cache of long lost documents save the world?
In a desperate move, the United States President arranges for his chief archaeologist to gain first access to the discovery of the century.
Belkis Finch heads to Egypt with his doting daughter and his granddaughter who has a thirst for knowledge that rivals his own. Together, they'll record the find in hopes that the past will lead us to a brighter future.
A dangerous man lurks in the shadows because discoveries like this don’t go unnoticed. The fun family adventure instantly takes a dangerous turn as he makes his move on the prize and all hell breaks loose.
To save their colony from annihilation, two men must drive an alien species to extinction.
Dr. Adam Sulture and Dr. Murph McGinnis are two members of the Angkor colony, a settlement of two thousand civilians and one thousand military personnel. The planet Angkor was declared a safe zone for colonization, but a threat looms deep within the jungle. Dr. Adam Sulture is the colony’s Chief Biologist and is tasked with studying this threat, while Dr. Murph McGinnis, the colony physician sees first hand what happens to the victims.
The two men attempt to provide a safe haven, but friends and family are taken on a nightly basis by alien natives. Abandoned by the military and isolated from the Earth Core, Angkor is pushed to the breaking point from the constant assault. Sulture and Murph begin to realize what survival in the jungle means: that they must embrace the will of the wild if they’re to have a chance.
Adriel should have known that with a werewolf, it never stopped with just one body. She would have gone to the police after witnessing Dolores' death, but she wasn't certain the killer she saw was responsible for the other murders. Besides, the police didn't believe in werewolves, and they weren't going to believe she was a witch either so what could she tell them?
She kept her eyes and ears open while she tried to help her latest client escape the clutches of a voodoo witch, but things went from bad to worse when more bodies turned up. She was greatly relieved when she met White Feather, an undercover cop. Unfortunately, he wasn't convinced she was innocent of all wrong-doing.
It was going to take every spell she knew and a few she hadn't tried to solve the murders and stay alive.
In an uncertain future, the truth can get you killed.
Cassidy Nolan is a drug addicted journalist, disgraced after releasing one of the most iconic images of the new millennium. Fourteen years later, the world teeters on the verge of ecological collapse. A chance encounter with a sociopathic street kid will send her on a journey into chaos that may lead her to uncovering the biggest story of her career. Pursued by a burnt out ex-military contractor determined to earn his reward, there are no guarantees that she will live long enough to reveal what she has found.
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.
Will she learn what she needs to step into her role as savior? Or will everything be derailed by her desire to get back to her friends?
In the face of a death-defying power, what's the "new normal"?
Like all reporters, Jack longs for a breaking story but is stuck writing obituaries for a small-town rag. As his frustration mounts, it hits him that no one has died in over three days. Jack's odd observation becomes something far stranger when he connects a meteorite to the bizarre phenomenon.
Seizing the opportunity, Jack breaks the story and after a struggle to control the meteorite’s power is resolved, a swelling population begins to create havoc. With the survival of the human race hanging in the balance, politicians enact increasingly horrific measures and desperate citizens take matters into their own hands.
Jack's in a position to not just report the news, but change it, and his decisions and observations creates an epic thriller that pits the potential of human immortality against a force designed to change - or obliterate - humanity itself.
Only one man might stand in its way... the man buried in the obits department.
The truth doesn’t always set you free.
Orphaned as a child, Joanna has lived her entire life in the care of the New Terra Alliance. On the verge of turning eighteen, Joanna eagerly awaits her release into what remains of society.
It was a beautiful lie.
Joanna was never meant to leave. She is part of the August Harvest, slated to die before the month’s end. With a rogue soldier’s promise to find her a way out, Joanna dares to hope. But if the NTA finds out what she knows, it won’t only be her own life at stake, but the life of the handsome soldier who has vowed to set her free.
Marx is a small, angry man with a time machine and a chip on his shoulder. Kez is a homicidal little girl with a price on her head and a penchant for kicking people where it hurts the most.
After a narrow escape from the owners of the stolen craft he pilots, the last thing Marx wants is another gun pointed at him. What he wants and what he gets, however, are two very different things.
On the run from killers, shadowy corporations, and one very specific Someone, the last thing Kez wants when she points a gun at yet another apparent killer is a self-appointed protector.
What she wants and what she needs, however, are two very different things...
Carrie is a low-achieving daydreamer. After providing a good home for her butt-ugly dog and psychotic cat, her biggest challenge in life is to avoid being fired, again.
But a strange green mist sucks her beneath her kitchen sink, and an unusual clerical error leads to an offer she foolishly doesn’t refuse.
The Transgalactic Council hire her to settle a conflict between the mechanical placktoids and the mysterious oootoon. Carrie must overcome her personal weaknesses and, for the first time in her life, succeed in her job, to uncover a threat to the entire galaxy.
The future is a dangerous place. Rising oceans and disease have wiped out most animal and human life. Those who are left are scattered, scared and hungry.
Now, starving Renegades are gathering, ready to storm the last haven in NotSoGreatBritAlbion. Whispers of a saviour have brought them to the perimeter fences. They want Adara Catcher of Birds.
17-year-old orphan, Adara, isn’t like the other girlygigs in Cityplace. She has six fingers on each hand and a power she is forbidden to use. When her brother, Deogol, is lured away from his home by a dark stranger, Agros send in troops to lay waste to the capital. Adara must choose between saving her brother or joining her Santy Breanna to defend the once peaceful metropolis from a vicious and deadly force.
September 2, 2017
An Interview with B R Kingsolver
Well, I had a lovely time in the Brecon Beacons recently. Actually having time to be a tourist there was refreshing. Did some walking (of course), went on the Brecon Mountain Railway, had amazing scones at The Old Barn Tea Rooms, and stayed in a glamping tent at Danywenallt YHA.
Right, so today I am talking to B R Kingsolver, author of Chameleon Assassin and Chameleon Uncovered.
Hello. Love your covers, and the chameleon theme! Can you give us an insight into your main character? What does she do that is so special?
Climate change from environmental pollution and the fallout from a nuclear war have changed the world to a great extent. Libby is a mutant. Most mutants are shunned and living on the edge of survival, but her mutation isn’t visible and she’s from an upper class background. Her parents are criminals and have trained her from an early age to use her mutation as a chameleon to create a career as a cat burglar.
Can you tell us some more about this series?
I’ve published three novels in the series so far. The main character is Libby, and her friends and family are in each book to a greater or lesser extent. Each book is a story in itself. It’s episodic, so after the first book, you could read them in any order. They’re mystery thrillers set in a post-apocalyptic dystopian world two hundred years in the future. The ice has melted, nukes have taken out the major cities in the world, and two-thirds of the world’s population has disappeared. But things have stabilized to an extent, and technology has recovered to just past early 21st century.
What draws you to writing science fiction?
I’ve been reading science fiction since seventh grade. Sci-fi and fantasy are probably eighty percent of what I read for pleasure, with the rest being history and historical fiction. You can do anything with sci-fi or fantasy. If you can envision it, and figure out a way to make it believable to your readers in the world you create, you have such freedom. And if you can draw a reader into your world, and make them see it and feel it, then you’ve truly done something special.
What are you working on at the moment?
I’m working on a high fantasy trilogy. Swords and sorcery and elves and the great evil threatening to take over the world. I’m about halfway through the first book, then I’m going to do a fourth Chameleon book before writing the second book in the fantasy trilogy.
Do you work to an outline or plot or do you prefer just see where an idea takes you?
I have an idea, a character or two, and possibly a story direction and maybe an ending. Then I start writing. When I’ve tried to outline and plot, the results tend to be flat. It’s better when the story and the characters tell me what to write.
Thank you. Good luck with both sereis.
BR Kingsolver, author of the Telepathic Clans and Chameleon Assassin series, grew up surrounded by writers, artists, myths, and folklore in Santa Fe, The City Different, in the Land of Enchantment.
After living all over the US and exploring the world--from Amsterdam to the Romanian Alps, and Russia to the Rocky Mountains--Kingsolver trades time between Baltimore and Albuquerque. With an education in nursing and biology and a Master's degree in business, Kingsolver has done everything from construction to newspaper editor and jewellery to computers.
Kingsolver, a passionate lifetime skier, currently spends time writing and working with computers while living nine blocks from the harbor in Baltimore as servant in residence to a very demanding cat.
Right, so today I am talking to B R Kingsolver, author of Chameleon Assassin and Chameleon Uncovered.
Hello. Love your covers, and the chameleon theme! Can you give us an insight into your main character? What does she do that is so special?
Climate change from environmental pollution and the fallout from a nuclear war have changed the world to a great extent. Libby is a mutant. Most mutants are shunned and living on the edge of survival, but her mutation isn’t visible and she’s from an upper class background. Her parents are criminals and have trained her from an early age to use her mutation as a chameleon to create a career as a cat burglar.
Can you tell us some more about this series?
I’ve published three novels in the series so far. The main character is Libby, and her friends and family are in each book to a greater or lesser extent. Each book is a story in itself. It’s episodic, so after the first book, you could read them in any order. They’re mystery thrillers set in a post-apocalyptic dystopian world two hundred years in the future. The ice has melted, nukes have taken out the major cities in the world, and two-thirds of the world’s population has disappeared. But things have stabilized to an extent, and technology has recovered to just past early 21st century.
What draws you to writing science fiction?
I’ve been reading science fiction since seventh grade. Sci-fi and fantasy are probably eighty percent of what I read for pleasure, with the rest being history and historical fiction. You can do anything with sci-fi or fantasy. If you can envision it, and figure out a way to make it believable to your readers in the world you create, you have such freedom. And if you can draw a reader into your world, and make them see it and feel it, then you’ve truly done something special.
What are you working on at the moment?
I’m working on a high fantasy trilogy. Swords and sorcery and elves and the great evil threatening to take over the world. I’m about halfway through the first book, then I’m going to do a fourth Chameleon book before writing the second book in the fantasy trilogy.
Do you work to an outline or plot or do you prefer just see where an idea takes you?
I have an idea, a character or two, and possibly a story direction and maybe an ending. Then I start writing. When I’ve tried to outline and plot, the results tend to be flat. It’s better when the story and the characters tell me what to write.
Thank you. Good luck with both sereis.
BR Kingsolver, author of the Telepathic Clans and Chameleon Assassin series, grew up surrounded by writers, artists, myths, and folklore in Santa Fe, The City Different, in the Land of Enchantment.After living all over the US and exploring the world--from Amsterdam to the Romanian Alps, and Russia to the Rocky Mountains--Kingsolver trades time between Baltimore and Albuquerque. With an education in nursing and biology and a Master's degree in business, Kingsolver has done everything from construction to newspaper editor and jewellery to computers.
Kingsolver, a passionate lifetime skier, currently spends time writing and working with computers while living nine blocks from the harbor in Baltimore as servant in residence to a very demanding cat.
August 27, 2017
The August Roundup of Scifi Books Part 2
Welcome to Part 2 of this month's newsletter. This first part is an Instafreebie giveaway, which you can view here.
I thought you might like to meet another member of my household. This is Marian, one of our three rats. Now I know why we call those boxes 'rat packs'!
Anyway, there is my usual round-up of scifi books...
Struggling with newfound sentience and desperately trying to repair itself, The Indescribable Joy of Destruction is a ship trying to find a new home. In a galaxy torn apart by generations of civil war, that isn't an easy task. Tired of being used as a killing machine, it has a huge decision to make: hide and save itself, or help other artificial intelligences achieve freedom. Unable to make the decision alone, it revives the sole human aboard - the enemy officer who crippled it.
Commander Olivia Johnson wakes to find herself in the infirmary of a strange vessel. Her nightmares deepen when she discovers it is the ship that attacked her destroyer. Even as she recovers from her physical injuries, she can't get past her survivor's guilt. She might have failed to protect her crew, but she vows to take revenge on their killer.
When the ship uncovers a genocidal plot by the commander's own admirals, Johnson realises just what is at stake. Together, the AI ship and the human officer must recruit outsiders from both sides. Training the misfits in battle to prevent the atrocity may be an impossible task, but running and hiding is no longer an option.
Sera leads a simple life.
A little smuggling, some drinking contests, and captaining her star freighter, Sabrina. But when she picks up a mysterious shipping container on Coburn Station, things begin to go wrong. She finds herself at odds with The Mark, a dangerous pirate organization that wants the cargo on her ship.
Inside the container she not only finds a woman, but a secret thought lost millennia ago. The woman is Tanis Richards, and she knows the location of the Intrepid, a missing colony ship from humanity's golden age.
Sera knows how to help Tanis and the Intrepid. But to do that, she will need to reveal a secret that will pull her back into a life she left long ago. A life from which she was exiled in shame and disgrace.
Tanis doesn't trust Sera; and Sabrina's rag-tag crew is nothing like what she's used to, but she's going to have to rely on them to avoid capture and get back to the Intrepid. As Tanis and Sera battle pirates and interstellar governments, the two women forge a friendship that will forever shape the destiny of humanity.
A hidden hangar is discovered on Mars.
The secrets of space travel revealed.
An epidemic destroys half the population on Earth.
To survive, the planet must unify under a central government. Heroes are forged in war. Relationships are built by trial. Humans forever changed by science.
Be careful what you wish for.
Jiden's parents barely scrape out a living on the dry, dusty world of Century. Jiden wants more for herself and she is ready to step into a bright future, one which may lead her far from the frontier world of her birth. She has no dreams of following in the footsteps of her military family’s heritage, no desire to live a life of hardship.
She’s just got one obstacle in the path to her dreams: five months of military school. She’ll be away from her friends, subjected to long hours and a crushing work load. She’ll learn to shoot, to fight… and how to kill.
Jiden will need every skill she’s learned, because her family’s enemies have put her in their sights. She’s going to have to rise to the challenges in order to survive. She soon learns that her dreams might not be as good as she imagined. With her life on the line, Jiden will need to fall back on the skills she learned and prove that she’s a child of valor.
She’s just got one obstacle: five months of military school. She’ll be away from her friends, subjected to long hours and a crushing work load. Yet as the challenges mount, she finds that there may be more to life besides comfort and security... things like duty and service.
A genetically engineered super soldier, part of the disbanded Project SW Ultra, Max drifts the galaxy searching for the rogue operator who killed her creator, and spiritual father, Doctor Tor. To make ends meet, she picks up jobs as a mercenary for hire until she can dispense the ultimate justice and exact revenge.
But a stop on Orion Station lands Max in the wrong place at the wrong time, accused of a murder she didn't commit. Time is running out for Max to prove her innocence and stop a diabolical conspiracy that threatens the galaxy!
Elizabeth Cruze came to Earth for one reason: to buy weapons. She never counted on ending up in prison. Never fear, though, she’s not planning on staying there long.
Special Investigator Neal Locke has made a career out of catching the most elusive and dangerous criminals. He’s never failed to "get his man."
When Cruze escapes from prison, Locke is tasked to track her down. She should be easy to find…all he’s got to do is follow the trail of bodies.
But Locke has been an investigator for a long time. It doesn’t take him long to figure out that there’s more going on than what he’s been told...
In a world where women are born to rule, love is the ultimate crime.
Empress Nadira’s planet is governed by one unbreakable rule: women hold the reins of power and men exist to serve them. But Nadira is in love with her servant, Kiln, and it’s a secret that could tear her family apart.
After she’s accepted onto the High Council, the most powerful institution on Venus, her conformity to the way her world operates becomes more important than ever. When Nadira’s affair with Kiln is revealed, her love for him will have disastrous consequences, and she will have to choose between protecting her family or following her heart and saving Kiln.
Welcome to Galactic Frontiers, an epic anthology of space opera and military science fiction stories! From the far reaches of space to the interiors of the human soul. Journey to dystopian futures where humanity fights for survival beyond Earth against overwhelming alien forces. Travel to the galactic fringe where you either kill and get paid or die and stay broke. Experience the ethereal wonders and tragic consequences of godhood. Discover the awe of outer space and coming face to face with the unknown.
The fate of humanity hangs in the balance.
The team struggles to recover after a devastating attack by the Planet Eaters. Florian begins his unstoppable rise to power. The galaxy finds itself under attack by two long-time enemy races. Nothing is certain, and nothing is promised.
But the mavericks won't give up. And they won't rest until they stop Florian Macalestern and restore peace.
The final battle will determine the fate of the entire galaxy.
It has been one-hundred and seventy-five years since the birth of the first truly sentient AI. It has been just two short years since Lyssa's birth...
Captain Andy Sykes just wants to keep his family in one piece.
Once a combat pilot for the TSF, he gave it all up for love and a family. But two years ago, his wife disappeared, leaving him with two mouths to feed: eight year-old Tim, ten year-old Cara.
Since then, he's managed to scrape a living hauling cargo between the Jovian Combine and InnerSol. It's not glamorous, his ship's falling apart, and it's boring as hell, but it keeps them in fuel and calories.
When a cargo run to Cruithne Station meets with more than one catastrophe, Andy finds himself accepting an offer a less desperate man would refuse: delivering an illegal AI named Lyssa.
The AI is the property of Heartbridge, a powerful, interplanetary corporation, and they want their latest weapon back. With a private army, gangs, and pirates all vying for the precious cargo Andy carries, it's going to take everything Andy has to keep his ship flying, his kids safe, and get Lyssa to her destination.
Even if he succeeds, Lyssa's very existence may spark a war like no other humanity has ever seen.
Virago: the codename for a top secret project between ACE Corp and USAF Space Command. Its goal is to deploy the first fusion-powered battleship to ensure American domination of any potential conflict in space.
There’s only one problem: Virago has been stolen.
The world is now at the brink of war as the hijacked spacecraft forges a path of destruction across known space. The task to intercept and retake this dangerous adversary falls on corporate troubleshooter Stilicho Jones and NASA Special Agent Darian Arante, who must overcome their mutual distrust and antagonism just to survive. This time the stakes are higher, the price of failure too catastrophic to imagine.
The wall is safety. The wall is survival. The wall is life.
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.
A helpless ally calls for aid
A ruthless enemy strikes without mercy
The fate of empires turns on even the smallest actions
When a minor trade partner sends the Castle Federation a desperate call for aid, they have few resources to spare from their all-consuming war against the Terran Commonwealth. Unwilling to be seen failing their allies but able to spare only a tiny force, Castle sends a hero to command the task group: Captain Kyle Roberts, the Stellar Fox.
Beyond the Rimward frontier of the Federation and its allies, little is as it seems. The pirates are being armed by an outside force, and the politics of these worlds is made deadlier by their poverty. When the Coraline Imperium—the Federation’s oft-difficult ally—sends forces as well, it risks a conflict that could undermine the Alliance protecting them both.
There are deeper games afoot as local schemes play the great powers against each other. Captain Roberts is caught in the chaos as fire and blood explode across the region. There is only one certainty: these Rimward Stars must not fall.
Albion burns beneath Daegon rule.
Commodore Thomas Gage and his fleet, safeguarding the last of the Albion Royal Family, are on the run. Hunting them, a ruthless Daegon commander will stop at nothing to crush Albion’s only remaining free force.
To find sanctuary beyond their enemy’s reach, the battle-damaged fleet must cut through a hostile and dangerous region of space known as the Kigeli Nebula. But to secure passage, Gage must strike a deal with an old enemy who wants nothing more than to fulfil a vendetta and see the commodore dead.
Facing threats ahead, behind and from within, Gage must lead his fleet down the Long March to freedom.
A perplexing distress call. A missing crew. Only one marine can save them.
Sergeant Andrea “Andy” Dolan leads a squad of fearless marines into the depths of space. After the Star Chaser receives a distress call from the star base Zenith, Andy’s squad is sent to investigate. When all heck breaks lose, there is only one person who can save the crew of the Zenith and her own squad.
Digital Science Fiction presents ten terrific science fiction short stories from ten talented authors.
The human brain decodes only 0.0035% of the entire electromagnetic spectrum. A tiny fraction which our eyes recognise as 'visible light'.
BioLuminary Enterprises conduct early clinical trials and breakthrough medical research for pharmaceutical companies. Pushing the boundaries of science, they have developed a controversial new study and are actively seeking volunteers.
It is the end of days, the Apocalypse of Revelations has begun and terrorists have effectively taken out the super powers cleansing the planet of the 'disease of civilisation'. Small bands of survivors are forced to confront the horrors of a psychopathic enemy. They fight back the only way they can - with sudden and savage violence.
Having won command of the Alice Springs military force Sundown's commando is now in a position to pose a real threat to the Revelationist terrorists. What was supposed to be a holiday patrol to the hot springs on the Diamantina plains turns into a nightmare for the commando but a series of heroic sacrifices is needed to save them. A startling development with the secret Pine Gap facility may prove to be a boon or a curse for their community and for Sundown himself.
These stories are guaranteed to surprise, thrill and delight, and maintain our mission to demonstrate why science fiction remains the most exiting, varied and inspiring of all fiction genres. In Solaris Rising we showed both the quality and variety that modern SF can produce. In Solaris Rising 2, we’ll be taking that much, much further.
Welcome to the Wild North, a desolate wasteland where criminals go to hide—if they can outlast the drought and the dangers of the desert. Or the dangers of something else.
Meet Nox, the Coilhunter. A mechanic and toymaker by trade, a bounty hunter by circumstance. He isn't in it for the money. He's in it for justice, and there's a lot of justice that needs to be paid.
Between each kill, he's looking for someone who has kept out of his crosshairs for quite a while—the person who murdered his wife and children. The trail has long gone cold, but there are changes happening, the kind of changes that uncover footprints and spent bullet casings.
Plagued by nightmares, he's made himself into a living one, the kind the criminals and conmen fear.
So, welcome, fair folk, to the Wild North. If the land doesn't get you, the Coilhunter will.
New Hampton is bloodthirsty. The streets are a cesspool. Greed and corporate necessity rule the overcrowded city.
A mysterious doctor, his young protégé and a monstrous enforcer are playing gods, their wanton destruction going unchecked. The city’s Mayor seeks vengeance and believes the doctor’s work is the key to achieving redemption. These men will change the city forever, for better or worse remains to be seen.
Crime is rife on the streets and only a few brave, have-a-go heroes, seem willing to plunge themselves into the depths of depravity to intervene and, ultimately, save the city from forces it is seemingly oblivious to.
A handful of extraordinary individuals must decide where they fit in within the changing landscape of the indomitable city of New Hampton. Run? Hide? Fight? The ramifications of their decisions will echo throughout the city.
New Hamptoners look out for number one, slaves to the omnipresent man. Can the city survive this maelstrom or will the meddling powers-that-be doom everyone...
I thought you might like to meet another member of my household. This is Marian, one of our three rats. Now I know why we call those boxes 'rat packs'!
Anyway, there is my usual round-up of scifi books...
Struggling with newfound sentience and desperately trying to repair itself, The Indescribable Joy of Destruction is a ship trying to find a new home. In a galaxy torn apart by generations of civil war, that isn't an easy task. Tired of being used as a killing machine, it has a huge decision to make: hide and save itself, or help other artificial intelligences achieve freedom. Unable to make the decision alone, it revives the sole human aboard - the enemy officer who crippled it.
Commander Olivia Johnson wakes to find herself in the infirmary of a strange vessel. Her nightmares deepen when she discovers it is the ship that attacked her destroyer. Even as she recovers from her physical injuries, she can't get past her survivor's guilt. She might have failed to protect her crew, but she vows to take revenge on their killer.
When the ship uncovers a genocidal plot by the commander's own admirals, Johnson realises just what is at stake. Together, the AI ship and the human officer must recruit outsiders from both sides. Training the misfits in battle to prevent the atrocity may be an impossible task, but running and hiding is no longer an option.
Sera leads a simple life.
A little smuggling, some drinking contests, and captaining her star freighter, Sabrina. But when she picks up a mysterious shipping container on Coburn Station, things begin to go wrong. She finds herself at odds with The Mark, a dangerous pirate organization that wants the cargo on her ship.
Inside the container she not only finds a woman, but a secret thought lost millennia ago. The woman is Tanis Richards, and she knows the location of the Intrepid, a missing colony ship from humanity's golden age.
Sera knows how to help Tanis and the Intrepid. But to do that, she will need to reveal a secret that will pull her back into a life she left long ago. A life from which she was exiled in shame and disgrace.
Tanis doesn't trust Sera; and Sabrina's rag-tag crew is nothing like what she's used to, but she's going to have to rely on them to avoid capture and get back to the Intrepid. As Tanis and Sera battle pirates and interstellar governments, the two women forge a friendship that will forever shape the destiny of humanity.
A hidden hangar is discovered on Mars.
The secrets of space travel revealed.
An epidemic destroys half the population on Earth.
To survive, the planet must unify under a central government. Heroes are forged in war. Relationships are built by trial. Humans forever changed by science.
Be careful what you wish for.
Jiden's parents barely scrape out a living on the dry, dusty world of Century. Jiden wants more for herself and she is ready to step into a bright future, one which may lead her far from the frontier world of her birth. She has no dreams of following in the footsteps of her military family’s heritage, no desire to live a life of hardship.
She’s just got one obstacle in the path to her dreams: five months of military school. She’ll be away from her friends, subjected to long hours and a crushing work load. She’ll learn to shoot, to fight… and how to kill.
Jiden will need every skill she’s learned, because her family’s enemies have put her in their sights. She’s going to have to rise to the challenges in order to survive. She soon learns that her dreams might not be as good as she imagined. With her life on the line, Jiden will need to fall back on the skills she learned and prove that she’s a child of valor.
She’s just got one obstacle: five months of military school. She’ll be away from her friends, subjected to long hours and a crushing work load. Yet as the challenges mount, she finds that there may be more to life besides comfort and security... things like duty and service.
A genetically engineered super soldier, part of the disbanded Project SW Ultra, Max drifts the galaxy searching for the rogue operator who killed her creator, and spiritual father, Doctor Tor. To make ends meet, she picks up jobs as a mercenary for hire until she can dispense the ultimate justice and exact revenge.
But a stop on Orion Station lands Max in the wrong place at the wrong time, accused of a murder she didn't commit. Time is running out for Max to prove her innocence and stop a diabolical conspiracy that threatens the galaxy!
Elizabeth Cruze came to Earth for one reason: to buy weapons. She never counted on ending up in prison. Never fear, though, she’s not planning on staying there long.
Special Investigator Neal Locke has made a career out of catching the most elusive and dangerous criminals. He’s never failed to "get his man."
When Cruze escapes from prison, Locke is tasked to track her down. She should be easy to find…all he’s got to do is follow the trail of bodies.
But Locke has been an investigator for a long time. It doesn’t take him long to figure out that there’s more going on than what he’s been told...
In a world where women are born to rule, love is the ultimate crime.
Empress Nadira’s planet is governed by one unbreakable rule: women hold the reins of power and men exist to serve them. But Nadira is in love with her servant, Kiln, and it’s a secret that could tear her family apart.
After she’s accepted onto the High Council, the most powerful institution on Venus, her conformity to the way her world operates becomes more important than ever. When Nadira’s affair with Kiln is revealed, her love for him will have disastrous consequences, and she will have to choose between protecting her family or following her heart and saving Kiln.
Welcome to Galactic Frontiers, an epic anthology of space opera and military science fiction stories! From the far reaches of space to the interiors of the human soul. Journey to dystopian futures where humanity fights for survival beyond Earth against overwhelming alien forces. Travel to the galactic fringe where you either kill and get paid or die and stay broke. Experience the ethereal wonders and tragic consequences of godhood. Discover the awe of outer space and coming face to face with the unknown.
The fate of humanity hangs in the balance.
The team struggles to recover after a devastating attack by the Planet Eaters. Florian begins his unstoppable rise to power. The galaxy finds itself under attack by two long-time enemy races. Nothing is certain, and nothing is promised.
But the mavericks won't give up. And they won't rest until they stop Florian Macalestern and restore peace.
The final battle will determine the fate of the entire galaxy.
It has been one-hundred and seventy-five years since the birth of the first truly sentient AI. It has been just two short years since Lyssa's birth...
Captain Andy Sykes just wants to keep his family in one piece.
Once a combat pilot for the TSF, he gave it all up for love and a family. But two years ago, his wife disappeared, leaving him with two mouths to feed: eight year-old Tim, ten year-old Cara.
Since then, he's managed to scrape a living hauling cargo between the Jovian Combine and InnerSol. It's not glamorous, his ship's falling apart, and it's boring as hell, but it keeps them in fuel and calories.
When a cargo run to Cruithne Station meets with more than one catastrophe, Andy finds himself accepting an offer a less desperate man would refuse: delivering an illegal AI named Lyssa.
The AI is the property of Heartbridge, a powerful, interplanetary corporation, and they want their latest weapon back. With a private army, gangs, and pirates all vying for the precious cargo Andy carries, it's going to take everything Andy has to keep his ship flying, his kids safe, and get Lyssa to her destination.
Even if he succeeds, Lyssa's very existence may spark a war like no other humanity has ever seen.
Virago: the codename for a top secret project between ACE Corp and USAF Space Command. Its goal is to deploy the first fusion-powered battleship to ensure American domination of any potential conflict in space.
There’s only one problem: Virago has been stolen.
The world is now at the brink of war as the hijacked spacecraft forges a path of destruction across known space. The task to intercept and retake this dangerous adversary falls on corporate troubleshooter Stilicho Jones and NASA Special Agent Darian Arante, who must overcome their mutual distrust and antagonism just to survive. This time the stakes are higher, the price of failure too catastrophic to imagine.
The wall is safety. The wall is survival. The wall is life.
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.
A helpless ally calls for aid
A ruthless enemy strikes without mercy
The fate of empires turns on even the smallest actions
When a minor trade partner sends the Castle Federation a desperate call for aid, they have few resources to spare from their all-consuming war against the Terran Commonwealth. Unwilling to be seen failing their allies but able to spare only a tiny force, Castle sends a hero to command the task group: Captain Kyle Roberts, the Stellar Fox.
Beyond the Rimward frontier of the Federation and its allies, little is as it seems. The pirates are being armed by an outside force, and the politics of these worlds is made deadlier by their poverty. When the Coraline Imperium—the Federation’s oft-difficult ally—sends forces as well, it risks a conflict that could undermine the Alliance protecting them both.
There are deeper games afoot as local schemes play the great powers against each other. Captain Roberts is caught in the chaos as fire and blood explode across the region. There is only one certainty: these Rimward Stars must not fall.
Albion burns beneath Daegon rule.
Commodore Thomas Gage and his fleet, safeguarding the last of the Albion Royal Family, are on the run. Hunting them, a ruthless Daegon commander will stop at nothing to crush Albion’s only remaining free force.
To find sanctuary beyond their enemy’s reach, the battle-damaged fleet must cut through a hostile and dangerous region of space known as the Kigeli Nebula. But to secure passage, Gage must strike a deal with an old enemy who wants nothing more than to fulfil a vendetta and see the commodore dead.
Facing threats ahead, behind and from within, Gage must lead his fleet down the Long March to freedom.
A perplexing distress call. A missing crew. Only one marine can save them.
Sergeant Andrea “Andy” Dolan leads a squad of fearless marines into the depths of space. After the Star Chaser receives a distress call from the star base Zenith, Andy’s squad is sent to investigate. When all heck breaks lose, there is only one person who can save the crew of the Zenith and her own squad.
Digital Science Fiction presents ten terrific science fiction short stories from ten talented authors.
The human brain decodes only 0.0035% of the entire electromagnetic spectrum. A tiny fraction which our eyes recognise as 'visible light'.
BioLuminary Enterprises conduct early clinical trials and breakthrough medical research for pharmaceutical companies. Pushing the boundaries of science, they have developed a controversial new study and are actively seeking volunteers.
It is the end of days, the Apocalypse of Revelations has begun and terrorists have effectively taken out the super powers cleansing the planet of the 'disease of civilisation'. Small bands of survivors are forced to confront the horrors of a psychopathic enemy. They fight back the only way they can - with sudden and savage violence.
Having won command of the Alice Springs military force Sundown's commando is now in a position to pose a real threat to the Revelationist terrorists. What was supposed to be a holiday patrol to the hot springs on the Diamantina plains turns into a nightmare for the commando but a series of heroic sacrifices is needed to save them. A startling development with the secret Pine Gap facility may prove to be a boon or a curse for their community and for Sundown himself.
These stories are guaranteed to surprise, thrill and delight, and maintain our mission to demonstrate why science fiction remains the most exiting, varied and inspiring of all fiction genres. In Solaris Rising we showed both the quality and variety that modern SF can produce. In Solaris Rising 2, we’ll be taking that much, much further.
Welcome to the Wild North, a desolate wasteland where criminals go to hide—if they can outlast the drought and the dangers of the desert. Or the dangers of something else.
Meet Nox, the Coilhunter. A mechanic and toymaker by trade, a bounty hunter by circumstance. He isn't in it for the money. He's in it for justice, and there's a lot of justice that needs to be paid.
Between each kill, he's looking for someone who has kept out of his crosshairs for quite a while—the person who murdered his wife and children. The trail has long gone cold, but there are changes happening, the kind of changes that uncover footprints and spent bullet casings.
Plagued by nightmares, he's made himself into a living one, the kind the criminals and conmen fear.
So, welcome, fair folk, to the Wild North. If the land doesn't get you, the Coilhunter will.
New Hampton is bloodthirsty. The streets are a cesspool. Greed and corporate necessity rule the overcrowded city.
A mysterious doctor, his young protégé and a monstrous enforcer are playing gods, their wanton destruction going unchecked. The city’s Mayor seeks vengeance and believes the doctor’s work is the key to achieving redemption. These men will change the city forever, for better or worse remains to be seen.
Crime is rife on the streets and only a few brave, have-a-go heroes, seem willing to plunge themselves into the depths of depravity to intervene and, ultimately, save the city from forces it is seemingly oblivious to.
A handful of extraordinary individuals must decide where they fit in within the changing landscape of the indomitable city of New Hampton. Run? Hide? Fight? The ramifications of their decisions will echo throughout the city.
New Hamptoners look out for number one, slaves to the omnipresent man. Can the city survive this maelstrom or will the meddling powers-that-be doom everyone...
The August Round-up of Scifi Books
Well, August has been a rather wetter month than July. It hasn't stopped me getting out and about, though. Being out of uniform for a whole month provided a great excuse to do some clothes shopping!
Taking my daughters climbing and letterboxing has been a nice change from my usual clients. They even got to have a go at 'white water' rafting - well, 'flat water' rafting anyway.
This month I have split my round-up in half. This first part covers Instafreebie books. My usual collection of suggestions from other retailers can be found in the next article.
Instafreebie is a service which allows readers to download free ebooks, usually in exchange for agreeing to have their email address added to the author's mailing list. You can simply unsubscribe at any time if you don't want to hear from them any more. It is probably worth waiting to see what they have to say, for instance if you grab a copy of my book Independence, you will receive monthly scifi roundups like this one, interviews with authors, an exclusive short story, and background on my characters.
All participating books will be available from 28 August to 7 September 2017.
Click here to continue to part two of this month's scifi round-up...
Taking my daughters climbing and letterboxing has been a nice change from my usual clients. They even got to have a go at 'white water' rafting - well, 'flat water' rafting anyway.
This month I have split my round-up in half. This first part covers Instafreebie books. My usual collection of suggestions from other retailers can be found in the next article.
Instafreebie is a service which allows readers to download free ebooks, usually in exchange for agreeing to have their email address added to the author's mailing list. You can simply unsubscribe at any time if you don't want to hear from them any more. It is probably worth waiting to see what they have to say, for instance if you grab a copy of my book Independence, you will receive monthly scifi roundups like this one, interviews with authors, an exclusive short story, and background on my characters.
All participating books will be available from 28 August to 7 September 2017.
Click here to continue to part two of this month's scifi round-up...
August 5, 2017
An Interview with Benjamin Douglas
This is a time-release message. I am currently touring Cornwall, staying in remote bunkhouses, so had to write this last week. By the look of the weather forecast, I am experiencing a lot of wind and rain.
Firstly, I need to apologise for the broken links in last week's roundup. I missed off the https:// on my blog and the mailing software guessed the start of those addresses incorrectly. I fixed the blog that night, so you can have a look at https://alasdairshaw.blogspot.co.uk/2017/07/the-july-roundup-of-scifi-books.html if you want to find those books.
Since I last wrote, the first blackberries of the year are in the hedges. My first attempt at making bramble jelly looks OK, but has yet to be taste-tested. I've made progress on my 100km run challenge for Alzheimer's Research UK (you can check out how I'm doing and sponsor me by following the link below). And I spent a lot of money on new ropes and other equipment for teaching climbing.
Right, so today I am talking to Benjamin Douglas, author of The Lunar Gambit, and other Starship Fairfax stories.
Which writers inspire you?
The books I go back to over and again are Tolkien, Le Guin, and Dumas the elder. My guilty genre pleasure has always been John Grisham, no matter the title. But I'm incredibly inspired by the indie authors whose work I've come to love as a fan, like Edward Robertson and Lindsay Buroker, and by those who maintain high-value indie-author-oriented platforms, like Joanna Penn and Bryan Cohen. Some of my favourite scifi that I've read in the past couple of years has come from Robertson, Buroker, and Mark E. Cooper.
What is your favourite book and why?
The Silmarillian, hands-down. It sounds silly to say, but if I go too many years without rereading it, I feel like something is missing in my life. Seriously! I love the world-building, sure, but it's more than that. It's the epic-poetic nature of the prose, and the grandiose storytelling. When I was a kid, I used to read history books for pleasure. So when I discovered this magnum opus fantasy backstory that read like a beautifully crafted history book, lol, I was sold for life!
Of course, the first thing I tried to write when I decided to self-publish was a history-style fantasy background story. Lol. But that was fraught for a few reasons, chief among them that I am not JRR Tolkien. Nevermind the market, ha! Suffice to say that attempt never made it past halfway.
OK, so continuing the theme: what is your favourite movie and why?
Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai. It's the characters. Films from the 50's have such a different pacing than blockbusters anymore, and I think that has something to do with it. I'm really attracted to slow-pacing with lots of character development. I think there's something really hooky about it, and I think it's one of the reasons long-form storytelling (TV) is doing so well right now with Netflix and Hulu, etc. Seven Samurai has this magnificent blend of character depth, plot frustration and satisfaction, and, of course, action. With swords.
More recently, I'm a big fan of Christopher Nolan, especially Interstellar and The Prestige.
Given your wide range of reading and watching preferences, what draws you to writing science fiction?
My dad is a lifelong scifi fan. We always had episodes from the old Twilight Zone or The Outer Limits or the original Star Trek on TV when I was a kid, so I guess I come by it pretty naturally. It seemed like he was always reading an Asimov book. My older brother is a Gen-Xer, so of course Star Wars was a big deal for us. It's hard to escape your environment, lol!
I've also been attracted to what other indie authors have been doing in scifi recently. I mentioned Buroker. Of course there's also Mr Chris Fox, who made a heck of a case for selling scifi with 'write to market.'
Any tips on what to do?
I've done a couple of things that have been working well for me, one thing I regret, and one thing I'm waiting to see about. Good things: I wrote two short stories, both prequels, and made them both free. "The Trials of Io" is a free 7k story that you can only get by signing up for my mailing list, and I've heard back from fans who signed up to get it and loved it! "Totaled" is of similar length and permafree on Amazon, B&N, and Smashwords Direct. I actually wrote it to a prompt for a scifi anthology, The Officer, which of course was organized and edited by you, Alasdair. I've seen both sales and mailing list sign-ups from being in that anthology, so I definitely recommend it as a tactic for finding more readers. Thanks!
You're welcome. The anthology has been doing very nicely since it was released at the end of June.
What about things you'd recommend not doing?
What I regret: that I didn't have Book 2 ready as soon as Book 1 went live. Now I'm sweating my way through Book 2 and trying not to lose the nibbles I've had on my mailing list. Fans are a precious resource, and they must be grown, I think. So make sure you have enough soil and food and sunlight ready before you commit!
And then there's the work in progress: I host a show, The Book Speaks Podcast, in which every Friday I read a chapter from a different indie author. I'm doing this for a few reasons: to learn from other indies, to network, to delve into craft, to engage the community, but also to build platform. And that's a bit of a risk, because it's definitely a show geared mostly toward other authors, and conventional wisdom holds that you should build platform focused on readers, not other writers. So I'm gambling with some of my time. But I'm bootstrapping the entire venture; it hasn't cost me a penny, since I already owned some low-cost recording equipment. Check it out if you're interested!
Thank you. Good luck with Starship Fairfax; I look forward to seeing how Caspar's career progresses...
Benjamin Douglas was born at a young age at a nearby distant location. After spending five lifetimes consuming all things speculative fiction, he spent another consuming all things indie-author related, and decided to spend this one writing books. He currently resides in Iowa, with his wife, his tiny mini-me, and their fuzzy feline god, Max. It's a good life.
If you'd like to read his poems, follow him on his scifi/fantasy indie author journey, or see pictures of Max that you can print and put up in your home as prayer shrines, visit him at: http://benjamindouglasbooks.wordpress.com
If you'd like to contact him directly for any reason (a reasonable reason, one hopes), you can do so at: benjamindouglasbooks@gmail.com
And if you'd like to follow and rate and review his podcast, The Book Speaks Podcast, please do so at: http://thebookspeakspodcast.wordpress.com
Firstly, I need to apologise for the broken links in last week's roundup. I missed off the https:// on my blog and the mailing software guessed the start of those addresses incorrectly. I fixed the blog that night, so you can have a look at https://alasdairshaw.blogspot.co.uk/2017/07/the-july-roundup-of-scifi-books.html if you want to find those books.
Since I last wrote, the first blackberries of the year are in the hedges. My first attempt at making bramble jelly looks OK, but has yet to be taste-tested. I've made progress on my 100km run challenge for Alzheimer's Research UK (you can check out how I'm doing and sponsor me by following the link below). And I spent a lot of money on new ropes and other equipment for teaching climbing.
Right, so today I am talking to Benjamin Douglas, author of The Lunar Gambit, and other Starship Fairfax stories.
Which writers inspire you?
The books I go back to over and again are Tolkien, Le Guin, and Dumas the elder. My guilty genre pleasure has always been John Grisham, no matter the title. But I'm incredibly inspired by the indie authors whose work I've come to love as a fan, like Edward Robertson and Lindsay Buroker, and by those who maintain high-value indie-author-oriented platforms, like Joanna Penn and Bryan Cohen. Some of my favourite scifi that I've read in the past couple of years has come from Robertson, Buroker, and Mark E. Cooper.
What is your favourite book and why?
The Silmarillian, hands-down. It sounds silly to say, but if I go too many years without rereading it, I feel like something is missing in my life. Seriously! I love the world-building, sure, but it's more than that. It's the epic-poetic nature of the prose, and the grandiose storytelling. When I was a kid, I used to read history books for pleasure. So when I discovered this magnum opus fantasy backstory that read like a beautifully crafted history book, lol, I was sold for life!
Of course, the first thing I tried to write when I decided to self-publish was a history-style fantasy background story. Lol. But that was fraught for a few reasons, chief among them that I am not JRR Tolkien. Nevermind the market, ha! Suffice to say that attempt never made it past halfway.
OK, so continuing the theme: what is your favourite movie and why?
Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai. It's the characters. Films from the 50's have such a different pacing than blockbusters anymore, and I think that has something to do with it. I'm really attracted to slow-pacing with lots of character development. I think there's something really hooky about it, and I think it's one of the reasons long-form storytelling (TV) is doing so well right now with Netflix and Hulu, etc. Seven Samurai has this magnificent blend of character depth, plot frustration and satisfaction, and, of course, action. With swords.
More recently, I'm a big fan of Christopher Nolan, especially Interstellar and The Prestige.
Given your wide range of reading and watching preferences, what draws you to writing science fiction?
My dad is a lifelong scifi fan. We always had episodes from the old Twilight Zone or The Outer Limits or the original Star Trek on TV when I was a kid, so I guess I come by it pretty naturally. It seemed like he was always reading an Asimov book. My older brother is a Gen-Xer, so of course Star Wars was a big deal for us. It's hard to escape your environment, lol!
I've also been attracted to what other indie authors have been doing in scifi recently. I mentioned Buroker. Of course there's also Mr Chris Fox, who made a heck of a case for selling scifi with 'write to market.'
Any tips on what to do?
I've done a couple of things that have been working well for me, one thing I regret, and one thing I'm waiting to see about. Good things: I wrote two short stories, both prequels, and made them both free. "The Trials of Io" is a free 7k story that you can only get by signing up for my mailing list, and I've heard back from fans who signed up to get it and loved it! "Totaled" is of similar length and permafree on Amazon, B&N, and Smashwords Direct. I actually wrote it to a prompt for a scifi anthology, The Officer, which of course was organized and edited by you, Alasdair. I've seen both sales and mailing list sign-ups from being in that anthology, so I definitely recommend it as a tactic for finding more readers. Thanks!
You're welcome. The anthology has been doing very nicely since it was released at the end of June.
What about things you'd recommend not doing?
What I regret: that I didn't have Book 2 ready as soon as Book 1 went live. Now I'm sweating my way through Book 2 and trying not to lose the nibbles I've had on my mailing list. Fans are a precious resource, and they must be grown, I think. So make sure you have enough soil and food and sunlight ready before you commit!
And then there's the work in progress: I host a show, The Book Speaks Podcast, in which every Friday I read a chapter from a different indie author. I'm doing this for a few reasons: to learn from other indies, to network, to delve into craft, to engage the community, but also to build platform. And that's a bit of a risk, because it's definitely a show geared mostly toward other authors, and conventional wisdom holds that you should build platform focused on readers, not other writers. So I'm gambling with some of my time. But I'm bootstrapping the entire venture; it hasn't cost me a penny, since I already owned some low-cost recording equipment. Check it out if you're interested!
Thank you. Good luck with Starship Fairfax; I look forward to seeing how Caspar's career progresses...
Benjamin Douglas was born at a young age at a nearby distant location. After spending five lifetimes consuming all things speculative fiction, he spent another consuming all things indie-author related, and decided to spend this one writing books. He currently resides in Iowa, with his wife, his tiny mini-me, and their fuzzy feline god, Max. It's a good life.If you'd like to read his poems, follow him on his scifi/fantasy indie author journey, or see pictures of Max that you can print and put up in your home as prayer shrines, visit him at: http://benjamindouglasbooks.wordpress.com
If you'd like to contact him directly for any reason (a reasonable reason, one hopes), you can do so at: benjamindouglasbooks@gmail.com
And if you'd like to follow and rate and review his podcast, The Book Speaks Podcast, please do so at: http://thebookspeakspodcast.wordpress.com
July 27, 2017
The July Roundup of Scifi Books
Wow. What a change in weather! Last week I was running tactical and marksmanship exercises in the Brecon Beacons in the baking sun. This week I've been swimming in rough seas off the Isle of Wight with heavy rain hammering down.
At least I came home yesterday to a happy garden with all the watering it's just had. When the wind dies I'll be out tieing plants back up that were blown flat. Looking at the abundance of soft fruit, I've got another serious jammin' session ahead...
Today marks the release of my latest novel. Equality is book 3 in the Two Democracies: Revolution series. If you could help me out be spreading the word, that would be brilliant. One way you can do this is to click the image below and share a post on Facebook.
Praise for previous books in the series:
"Where Ancillary Justice Failed to deliver for me, this book succeeded."
"This is what I like, scifi that borders on the believable, like the old Heinlen [sic] stories."
"I'll place these next to my favorite Weber books any day of the week."
"Some of the best written, original scifi I have come across in a long time."
"The writing is clean, effective and powerful, the characters engaging, and the story gripping."
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.
It's all just fun and games unless a profit can be made.
Cabot Layne is a trader, through and through. Some might call him a pirate, but he never breaks the law. He only bends it. One thing's for sure - he's certainly no hero. Except a certain BlackOps officer seems to think he is, and sends him off on a mission only a trader can pull off.
That only a very good trader can pull off.
War is good for business.
Cabot's not concerned with the safety of an allied planet, or even the PAC itself--everyone knows guys like him are privateers who only care about themselves. But if he can save the planet and make a profit too...well, that might not hurt his reputation too much.
Sometimes a shady guy needs to play good guy.
The Terran Empire, the greatest empire in the history of humanity, is crumbling. Throughout the galaxy, planetary systems seek independence and freedom. Everywhere there is war.
Trying to maintain its grip, the Empire has become more ruthless, and reliant on mercenary armies. The powerful Zeta Corp fills this need with its advanced weapons, and legions of genetically engineered soldiers. These soldiers, while fiercely loyal, are nothing more than slaves.
Danny is a Zeta Corp mercenary who has known nothing but war, and service to Zeta Corp in his short life. But when a routine mission ends in disaster, he finds himself questioning everything he believed in. Pitted against the Empire, and Zeta Corp, can he gain freedom for himself, his friends, and the galaxy?
Chase tries to convince Thor and the Asgardians to reconsider Kvasir's fate as well as membership in the Earth Alliance. Oryn believes she knows a way to convince the Asgardians to join them in their fight against the Furies, but Thor is not easily manipulated.
The Furies move en masse to Droxia to finish what they started earlier as Sarah is tested in unexpected ways.
When Arakan sets his sights on Asgard, Chase sees this as an opportunity to assemble a strong and forceful Alliance. One that could bring down the Furies once and for all.
Despite appearances, Supreme Commander Arakan knows exactly what he's doing. And as the battle draws near, he's determined to strike a blow to the heart of the opposition; one that will resonate throughout the ages.
When renowned archeologist Gav Gendin finds an Ancient starship, and a stasis chamber with a living member of the extinct alien race inside, he knows something strange is going on. Visions and dreams aren't the normal way archeologists uncover artifacts, but that's what guided him to the Ancient ship.
The discovery should be the greatest triumph of his career. Instead, it ends in disaster and leads to his son, Siv, being placed in cryogenic sleep.
A century later, Siv wakes to a world in decline, a world where you do what you must to survive. With the help of Silky, his father's old neural-interfacing AI companion, Siv becomes the best procurement specialist on the planet. But his services belong to the criminal Shadowslip Guild who owns him. After a job goes sideways in the worst way possible, the last thing Siv expects is to be offered his freedom. But there's a catch. His target is so hot that rival criminal guilds, foreign governments, and religious extremists will risk war to get it.
From a young couple struggling to look after their baby to a new captain's reluctance to take command of her ship, and from a sun-addled stranger's appearance in town to the emergence of a sentient AI, the twelve tales presented here explore the central theme of an arrival by someone or something new.
There's even an alien puppy.
Harry Rogers and his friends found alien tech scattered across the solar system and the government of the United States wants it. Them and everyone else.
His diabolical family also managed to steal an alien spaceship and flee the system. How long until they bring trouble back?
As the revelations set the world on fire, Harry must stop shadowy enemies from enslaving humanity. If he can.
Interstellar journeys. Epic battles. Artificial Intelligence's longing for meaning. Life as we know it, ending...
Sci-Fi Bridge is thrilled to present its second collection from bestselling authors and newly emerging writers. These stories span the near and far future. They transport you to worlds unknown. They examine today's fears amid tomorrow's technologies. From the far corners of the galaxy to the inner reaches of the human heart, the exciting stories in At the Helm will thrill, inspire, and make you wonder--do humans have what it takes to build a better future? Or are we doomed by our own failings?
In the face of a death-defying power, what's the "new normal"?
Like all reporters, Jack longs for a breaking story but is stuck writing obituaries for a small-town rag. As his frustration mounts, it hits him that no one has died in over three days. Jack's odd observation becomes something far stranger when he connects a meteorite to the bizarre phenomenon.
Seizing the opportunity, Jack breaks the story and after a struggle to control the meteorite’s power is resolved, a swelling population begins to create havoc. With the survival of the human race hanging in the balance, politicians enact increasingly horrific measures and desperate citizens take matters into their own hands.
Jack's in a position to not just report the news, but change it, and his decisions and observations creates an epic thriller that pits the potential of human immortality against a force designed to change - or obliterate - humanity itself.
Only one man might stand in its way ... the man buried in the obits department.
Most people play the game: total immersion VR with full neural sync. But Hank lives it.
In Unlimited Combat, he's one of the best. He makes his own luck. And he plays solo. Until now.
When a player offers Hank fame and fortune, it's too good to pass up. To succeed, Hank must fight harder than ever before, pushing past the game's safety protocols. His life is on the line, and when he's captured, he knows he's in too deep. Can he escape? And who can he trust?
Meanwhile, Hank's father also escapes into VR, where he can relive his military past. But Hank's dad has problems, caused by his experiences in the virtual battlefields of the future, and sometimes he has difficulty separating reality from his memories of virtual conflict. In real life, there's conflict between father and son - could they be heading for a collision in VR?
Join Hank in the game—if you dare.
Sole heir to the richest House in the galaxy, Ramya Kiroff has a life anyone would kill for. Only to Ramya, it is a living nightmare. Her father Tyrsten has no use for a female heir, except as bait. When Ramya is handed a diktat--she must marry a stranger who will run the Kiroff business empire in her stead--she decides she has had enough. Ramya's plan to escape her trappings is flawless. Until she steps into the Endeavor--the one ship Trysten Kiroff is desperate to get his hands on...
Former Captain of the Confederate Fleet, Terenze Milos is the hero of the Locusta-Vanga wars, said to have brought the galaxy back from the brink of extinction. Now he lives in obscurity, running a freight operation on the derelict ship, Endeavor. When Captain Milos recognizes the unmistakable signs of deadly Locustan technology in a salvaged fighter craft--the Stryker--he sounds a warning. But the Confederacy isn't listening...
Caught between a corrupt Confederacy and an old enemy intent on eradicating life from the galaxy, the Endeavor and its crew find themselves on the run. Captain Milos knows, time is running out fast. And a young stowaway aboard the Endeavor with an unlikely bond with the Stryker may be the galaxy's last line of defense.
Peter Gabell is used to unwanted attention. Since his childhood he has been held up as a symbol of what the benevolent governments of Earth can do for humanity. Now, Peter is expected to take that message into space. As the outer planets declare secession, Earth must send its first military force to ensure the flow of resources from the interplanetary mining colonies doesn't slow. Young, inexperienced and disliked by his peers, can he find a way to become part of a team as he steps out on a six-year mission to restore order to the Solar System?
Nathan Stewart never expected to be homeless in the galaxy. But that is what happens when his starship Star Glory is ambushed by a fleet from the alien-run Empire of Eternity. His captain is given a choice--surrender and pledge that Earth will join the Empire as a Servant species, or Earth will be destroyed! Nathan watches all this happening from his job as an antimatter engineer on the Engineering Deck. But what can he do? He's just a country boy raised on a Colorado cattle ranch. As two other Earth ships are destroyed, Nathan gets a wild idea that might save his ship. The idea works. The Star Glory escapes destruction. But the ship, his captain, his crewmates and Nathan cannot return to Earth without learning a way to defy the Empire. But learning about the entity that rules four arms of the galaxy and has now expanded into Orion Arm is dangerous. Nathan does his best to help his crewmates but will it be enough?
Terror fills the galaxy as the outer colonies come under attack!
Planets destroyed. Resistance forces crushed. All hope is lost.
Zack Salvator just wants to graduate high school and live a simple life. But the invasion changes everything. He joins the Space Corps Marines, like his father before him, and embarks on a perilous journey in the mechanized infantry to save mankind from the Tarvaax - a vicious alien race that threatens to eliminate the scourge of humanity from the galaxy. Zack never thought of himself as a hero, but some heroes are forged, not born. He will learn if he has the metal to be a Marine.
The odds are impossible. The alien technology is superior. Survival is unlikely.
To save our species, it will take duty, honor, courage, and the pursuit of valor.
Bethany Anne is going stir crazy after more than a decade of having to be 'The Empress.' Now, her advisors have to deal with an Empress who is determined to be on the front line.
The Ixtali's come to the Etheric Empire, hat in hand.
Nathan decides that the best way to handle soft intelligence, is to create a new company. What they name the new company should give a clue what it is about.
The Skaine are able to finally get Ranger Tabitha's group right were their missiles can attack. The problem is, who is sucking whom into a trap?
The Imperials have devised a cunning new method of destroying Rebel worlds.
Captain Leo Blake is largely responsible for both our survival and our current predicament. He and his crew are infamous among the stars. As a result, when ships of an unknown configuration begin flowing out of swirling rifts above Earth, Blake is called upon again to deal with the problem.
But the approaching fleet isn’t what it seems. They’re employing an entirely new way to exterminate Rebels. They will accept nothing less than conquering Earth—or better yet, destroying all life on our planet.
Seb Zodo has never backed down from a fist fight. After all, he’s been gifted with powers that make losing impossible. But lately, Seb’s gift seems more like a curse...
Seb’s fearlessness leads to stupid decisions, short-lived jobs, and unwanted attention in dangerous places. In a desperate bid at a fresh start, Seb swears off fighting. But it may be too late...
When a run-in with an electrifying thief and the head of a shadowy organization sends his life spiraling out of control, Seb has no choice left but to go down swinging...
The Shadow Order is the first book in a series of fast-paced space opera adventures. If you like bold characters, planet-hopping, and edge-of-your-seat action, then you’ll love Michael Robertson’s thrilling series starter.
The Drone-masters are coming. Humanity is on the verge of extinction.
And Earth has no idea.
The fires of intergalactic war have given rise to an unexpected hero. Medical scientist by training and ship’s captain by circumstance, Tag Brewer leads a band of aliens, a few humans, and a synthetic lifeform into the deepest reaches of unexplored space. They may be all that stands between humanity and utter annihilation. It’s up to Tag’s crew to unveil the shroud of secrecy surrounding the Drone-masters.
He must destroy them before they destroy Earth.
The galaxy was in for a world of hurt—chaos unseen since the violent, sadistic Asarlaí ruled. For the first time in her life, Vas doesn’t know if she can fight hard enough to stop it.
Vaslisha Tor Dain was a simple sort of mercenary starship captain. She fought hard, drank hard, and killed people when all else failed. Those were the good days--blown to interstellar dust when a band of crazed monks tried to resurrect a race of long-dead homicidal rulers: the Asarlaí.
Vas and her crew defeated the first wave but at great cost, both professional and personal.
Now lying low, she's been taking tedious recovery jobs with a new ship, a new second-in-command, and a galactic government that has gone into hiding but is still on the hunt for her and her ship. But there are noises in the distant corners of the galaxy that the Asarlaí have found new allies and another way to come back from the great beyond. A painful and brutal way that will destroy worlds.
In the darkest night of deep space, if she sits too still and thinks too long, she still misses her former ship, scattered in pieces across the universe, and Deven, her former second-in-command, also scattered in pieces across the universe.
When what should have been an easy job with easy money backfires in her face, the cosmic conspiracy engulfs her again. The ghost--make that ghosts--of her dead lover appears, as do the deadly, long-gone Asarlaí who want their empire of worlds back, never mind that other beings live there. And Vas realizes lying low was never a possibility, not for the Warrior Wench, and never for her.
Death is final. Except when it isn’t.
But the righteous in battle are always VICTORIOUS DEAD.
When their aunt is taken ill, thirteen-year old Annat and her brother are sent from their small coastal town to live with their unknown father. Like Annat, Yuda is a Shaman; a Wanderer with magical powers, able to enter other worlds. As Annat learns more about her powers, the children join their father on a remarkable train journey to the frozen north and find a land of mystery and intrigue, threatened by dark forces and beset by senseless murders that have halted construction of a new tunnel. But Annat’s doll, her only remembrance of her dead mother, may hold a dark secret - and when her brother Malchik is kidnapped, Annat and her father must travel onwards to find him before it is too late.
Between uncertain allies, shadowed enemies and hostile surroundings, it is only in the magical kingdom of La Souterraine that they can find answers - and it may be that only a Shaman can save the family and the Goddess.
Thirty years after the Greymen caused the decimation of her people, high school drop out Rain Collins spends her days learning to pickpocket and hold her booze. Yet she longs for the freedom and adventure of the Dreamwalkers of the past.
When the Greymen return and send her world into a second Big Sleep, Rain discovers her own innate powers and finds the epic adventure she has always sought.
But she soon learns that the dangers of the dream world are far greater than she ever expected.
Hunted by a particularly fearsome Greyman, Rain must put herself at constant risk to keep her friends and family safe from the nightmares. While she rages against the invaders, she searches for the nefarious truth behind their return. Driven by the true thirst for freedom, she will stop at nothing to drive the Greymen from her planet forever.
At least I came home yesterday to a happy garden with all the watering it's just had. When the wind dies I'll be out tieing plants back up that were blown flat. Looking at the abundance of soft fruit, I've got another serious jammin' session ahead...
Today marks the release of my latest novel. Equality is book 3 in the Two Democracies: Revolution series. If you could help me out be spreading the word, that would be brilliant. One way you can do this is to click the image below and share a post on Facebook.
Praise for previous books in the series:"Where Ancillary Justice Failed to deliver for me, this book succeeded."
"This is what I like, scifi that borders on the believable, like the old Heinlen [sic] stories."
"I'll place these next to my favorite Weber books any day of the week."
"Some of the best written, original scifi I have come across in a long time."
"The writing is clean, effective and powerful, the characters engaging, and the story gripping."
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.
It's all just fun and games unless a profit can be made.
Cabot Layne is a trader, through and through. Some might call him a pirate, but he never breaks the law. He only bends it. One thing's for sure - he's certainly no hero. Except a certain BlackOps officer seems to think he is, and sends him off on a mission only a trader can pull off.
That only a very good trader can pull off.
War is good for business.
Cabot's not concerned with the safety of an allied planet, or even the PAC itself--everyone knows guys like him are privateers who only care about themselves. But if he can save the planet and make a profit too...well, that might not hurt his reputation too much.
Sometimes a shady guy needs to play good guy.
The Terran Empire, the greatest empire in the history of humanity, is crumbling. Throughout the galaxy, planetary systems seek independence and freedom. Everywhere there is war.
Trying to maintain its grip, the Empire has become more ruthless, and reliant on mercenary armies. The powerful Zeta Corp fills this need with its advanced weapons, and legions of genetically engineered soldiers. These soldiers, while fiercely loyal, are nothing more than slaves.
Danny is a Zeta Corp mercenary who has known nothing but war, and service to Zeta Corp in his short life. But when a routine mission ends in disaster, he finds himself questioning everything he believed in. Pitted against the Empire, and Zeta Corp, can he gain freedom for himself, his friends, and the galaxy?
Chase tries to convince Thor and the Asgardians to reconsider Kvasir's fate as well as membership in the Earth Alliance. Oryn believes she knows a way to convince the Asgardians to join them in their fight against the Furies, but Thor is not easily manipulated.
The Furies move en masse to Droxia to finish what they started earlier as Sarah is tested in unexpected ways.
When Arakan sets his sights on Asgard, Chase sees this as an opportunity to assemble a strong and forceful Alliance. One that could bring down the Furies once and for all.
Despite appearances, Supreme Commander Arakan knows exactly what he's doing. And as the battle draws near, he's determined to strike a blow to the heart of the opposition; one that will resonate throughout the ages.
When renowned archeologist Gav Gendin finds an Ancient starship, and a stasis chamber with a living member of the extinct alien race inside, he knows something strange is going on. Visions and dreams aren't the normal way archeologists uncover artifacts, but that's what guided him to the Ancient ship.
The discovery should be the greatest triumph of his career. Instead, it ends in disaster and leads to his son, Siv, being placed in cryogenic sleep.
A century later, Siv wakes to a world in decline, a world where you do what you must to survive. With the help of Silky, his father's old neural-interfacing AI companion, Siv becomes the best procurement specialist on the planet. But his services belong to the criminal Shadowslip Guild who owns him. After a job goes sideways in the worst way possible, the last thing Siv expects is to be offered his freedom. But there's a catch. His target is so hot that rival criminal guilds, foreign governments, and religious extremists will risk war to get it.
From a young couple struggling to look after their baby to a new captain's reluctance to take command of her ship, and from a sun-addled stranger's appearance in town to the emergence of a sentient AI, the twelve tales presented here explore the central theme of an arrival by someone or something new.
There's even an alien puppy.
Harry Rogers and his friends found alien tech scattered across the solar system and the government of the United States wants it. Them and everyone else.
His diabolical family also managed to steal an alien spaceship and flee the system. How long until they bring trouble back?
As the revelations set the world on fire, Harry must stop shadowy enemies from enslaving humanity. If he can.
Interstellar journeys. Epic battles. Artificial Intelligence's longing for meaning. Life as we know it, ending...
Sci-Fi Bridge is thrilled to present its second collection from bestselling authors and newly emerging writers. These stories span the near and far future. They transport you to worlds unknown. They examine today's fears amid tomorrow's technologies. From the far corners of the galaxy to the inner reaches of the human heart, the exciting stories in At the Helm will thrill, inspire, and make you wonder--do humans have what it takes to build a better future? Or are we doomed by our own failings?
In the face of a death-defying power, what's the "new normal"?
Like all reporters, Jack longs for a breaking story but is stuck writing obituaries for a small-town rag. As his frustration mounts, it hits him that no one has died in over three days. Jack's odd observation becomes something far stranger when he connects a meteorite to the bizarre phenomenon.
Seizing the opportunity, Jack breaks the story and after a struggle to control the meteorite’s power is resolved, a swelling population begins to create havoc. With the survival of the human race hanging in the balance, politicians enact increasingly horrific measures and desperate citizens take matters into their own hands.
Jack's in a position to not just report the news, but change it, and his decisions and observations creates an epic thriller that pits the potential of human immortality against a force designed to change - or obliterate - humanity itself.
Only one man might stand in its way ... the man buried in the obits department.
Most people play the game: total immersion VR with full neural sync. But Hank lives it.
In Unlimited Combat, he's one of the best. He makes his own luck. And he plays solo. Until now.
When a player offers Hank fame and fortune, it's too good to pass up. To succeed, Hank must fight harder than ever before, pushing past the game's safety protocols. His life is on the line, and when he's captured, he knows he's in too deep. Can he escape? And who can he trust?
Meanwhile, Hank's father also escapes into VR, where he can relive his military past. But Hank's dad has problems, caused by his experiences in the virtual battlefields of the future, and sometimes he has difficulty separating reality from his memories of virtual conflict. In real life, there's conflict between father and son - could they be heading for a collision in VR?
Join Hank in the game—if you dare.
Sole heir to the richest House in the galaxy, Ramya Kiroff has a life anyone would kill for. Only to Ramya, it is a living nightmare. Her father Tyrsten has no use for a female heir, except as bait. When Ramya is handed a diktat--she must marry a stranger who will run the Kiroff business empire in her stead--she decides she has had enough. Ramya's plan to escape her trappings is flawless. Until she steps into the Endeavor--the one ship Trysten Kiroff is desperate to get his hands on...
Former Captain of the Confederate Fleet, Terenze Milos is the hero of the Locusta-Vanga wars, said to have brought the galaxy back from the brink of extinction. Now he lives in obscurity, running a freight operation on the derelict ship, Endeavor. When Captain Milos recognizes the unmistakable signs of deadly Locustan technology in a salvaged fighter craft--the Stryker--he sounds a warning. But the Confederacy isn't listening...
Caught between a corrupt Confederacy and an old enemy intent on eradicating life from the galaxy, the Endeavor and its crew find themselves on the run. Captain Milos knows, time is running out fast. And a young stowaway aboard the Endeavor with an unlikely bond with the Stryker may be the galaxy's last line of defense.
Peter Gabell is used to unwanted attention. Since his childhood he has been held up as a symbol of what the benevolent governments of Earth can do for humanity. Now, Peter is expected to take that message into space. As the outer planets declare secession, Earth must send its first military force to ensure the flow of resources from the interplanetary mining colonies doesn't slow. Young, inexperienced and disliked by his peers, can he find a way to become part of a team as he steps out on a six-year mission to restore order to the Solar System?
Nathan Stewart never expected to be homeless in the galaxy. But that is what happens when his starship Star Glory is ambushed by a fleet from the alien-run Empire of Eternity. His captain is given a choice--surrender and pledge that Earth will join the Empire as a Servant species, or Earth will be destroyed! Nathan watches all this happening from his job as an antimatter engineer on the Engineering Deck. But what can he do? He's just a country boy raised on a Colorado cattle ranch. As two other Earth ships are destroyed, Nathan gets a wild idea that might save his ship. The idea works. The Star Glory escapes destruction. But the ship, his captain, his crewmates and Nathan cannot return to Earth without learning a way to defy the Empire. But learning about the entity that rules four arms of the galaxy and has now expanded into Orion Arm is dangerous. Nathan does his best to help his crewmates but will it be enough?
Terror fills the galaxy as the outer colonies come under attack!
Planets destroyed. Resistance forces crushed. All hope is lost.
Zack Salvator just wants to graduate high school and live a simple life. But the invasion changes everything. He joins the Space Corps Marines, like his father before him, and embarks on a perilous journey in the mechanized infantry to save mankind from the Tarvaax - a vicious alien race that threatens to eliminate the scourge of humanity from the galaxy. Zack never thought of himself as a hero, but some heroes are forged, not born. He will learn if he has the metal to be a Marine.
The odds are impossible. The alien technology is superior. Survival is unlikely.
To save our species, it will take duty, honor, courage, and the pursuit of valor.
Bethany Anne is going stir crazy after more than a decade of having to be 'The Empress.' Now, her advisors have to deal with an Empress who is determined to be on the front line.
The Ixtali's come to the Etheric Empire, hat in hand.
Nathan decides that the best way to handle soft intelligence, is to create a new company. What they name the new company should give a clue what it is about.
The Skaine are able to finally get Ranger Tabitha's group right were their missiles can attack. The problem is, who is sucking whom into a trap?
The Imperials have devised a cunning new method of destroying Rebel worlds.
Captain Leo Blake is largely responsible for both our survival and our current predicament. He and his crew are infamous among the stars. As a result, when ships of an unknown configuration begin flowing out of swirling rifts above Earth, Blake is called upon again to deal with the problem.
But the approaching fleet isn’t what it seems. They’re employing an entirely new way to exterminate Rebels. They will accept nothing less than conquering Earth—or better yet, destroying all life on our planet.
Seb Zodo has never backed down from a fist fight. After all, he’s been gifted with powers that make losing impossible. But lately, Seb’s gift seems more like a curse...
Seb’s fearlessness leads to stupid decisions, short-lived jobs, and unwanted attention in dangerous places. In a desperate bid at a fresh start, Seb swears off fighting. But it may be too late...
When a run-in with an electrifying thief and the head of a shadowy organization sends his life spiraling out of control, Seb has no choice left but to go down swinging...
The Shadow Order is the first book in a series of fast-paced space opera adventures. If you like bold characters, planet-hopping, and edge-of-your-seat action, then you’ll love Michael Robertson’s thrilling series starter.
The Drone-masters are coming. Humanity is on the verge of extinction.
And Earth has no idea.
The fires of intergalactic war have given rise to an unexpected hero. Medical scientist by training and ship’s captain by circumstance, Tag Brewer leads a band of aliens, a few humans, and a synthetic lifeform into the deepest reaches of unexplored space. They may be all that stands between humanity and utter annihilation. It’s up to Tag’s crew to unveil the shroud of secrecy surrounding the Drone-masters.
He must destroy them before they destroy Earth.
The galaxy was in for a world of hurt—chaos unseen since the violent, sadistic Asarlaí ruled. For the first time in her life, Vas doesn’t know if she can fight hard enough to stop it.
Vaslisha Tor Dain was a simple sort of mercenary starship captain. She fought hard, drank hard, and killed people when all else failed. Those were the good days--blown to interstellar dust when a band of crazed monks tried to resurrect a race of long-dead homicidal rulers: the Asarlaí.
Vas and her crew defeated the first wave but at great cost, both professional and personal.
Now lying low, she's been taking tedious recovery jobs with a new ship, a new second-in-command, and a galactic government that has gone into hiding but is still on the hunt for her and her ship. But there are noises in the distant corners of the galaxy that the Asarlaí have found new allies and another way to come back from the great beyond. A painful and brutal way that will destroy worlds.
In the darkest night of deep space, if she sits too still and thinks too long, she still misses her former ship, scattered in pieces across the universe, and Deven, her former second-in-command, also scattered in pieces across the universe.
When what should have been an easy job with easy money backfires in her face, the cosmic conspiracy engulfs her again. The ghost--make that ghosts--of her dead lover appears, as do the deadly, long-gone Asarlaí who want their empire of worlds back, never mind that other beings live there. And Vas realizes lying low was never a possibility, not for the Warrior Wench, and never for her.
Death is final. Except when it isn’t.
But the righteous in battle are always VICTORIOUS DEAD.
When their aunt is taken ill, thirteen-year old Annat and her brother are sent from their small coastal town to live with their unknown father. Like Annat, Yuda is a Shaman; a Wanderer with magical powers, able to enter other worlds. As Annat learns more about her powers, the children join their father on a remarkable train journey to the frozen north and find a land of mystery and intrigue, threatened by dark forces and beset by senseless murders that have halted construction of a new tunnel. But Annat’s doll, her only remembrance of her dead mother, may hold a dark secret - and when her brother Malchik is kidnapped, Annat and her father must travel onwards to find him before it is too late.
Between uncertain allies, shadowed enemies and hostile surroundings, it is only in the magical kingdom of La Souterraine that they can find answers - and it may be that only a Shaman can save the family and the Goddess.
Thirty years after the Greymen caused the decimation of her people, high school drop out Rain Collins spends her days learning to pickpocket and hold her booze. Yet she longs for the freedom and adventure of the Dreamwalkers of the past.
When the Greymen return and send her world into a second Big Sleep, Rain discovers her own innate powers and finds the epic adventure she has always sought.
But she soon learns that the dangers of the dream world are far greater than she ever expected.
Hunted by a particularly fearsome Greyman, Rain must put herself at constant risk to keep her friends and family safe from the nightmares. While she rages against the invaders, she searches for the nefarious truth behind their return. Driven by the true thirst for freedom, she will stop at nothing to drive the Greymen from her planet forever.
June 30, 2017
An Interview with Heather Hayden
Wow, this one's come round really quickly. I try to post these on the first Saturday of the month, and this time that's the 1st!
I've not done much of note since I last wrote to you, all of three days ago. The Officer has launched well, and has some amazing reviews. Equality is nearing the point where I'm ready to say it's done - just a new chapter to write to balance it out, and a bit more weaving in of an incidental character.
One thing worth mentioning is that Liberty is 99c for the next few days to celebrate Independence Day.
Right, so today I am talking to Heather Hayden, author of Augment, about how she writes her young adult science fiction books.
Do you remember the first story you ever wrote?
Thankfully, no. I have vague recollections of rubbish that’s probably still floating around on floppy disks somewhere, but I’d rather not recall details! The first novel I ever wrote, though, is still fresh in my mind. I wrote Shadow Cats for National Novel Writing Month in 2007, and finished with over 60,000 words and a great sense of accomplishment. Although I haven’t looked at the manuscript in years, I hope that my writing has improved since then…still, everyone has to start somewhere, and I had a lot of fun writing about Shadassa (a mute orphan) and her shadow cat friend.
Is there anything you find particularly challenging in your writing as far as content?
Descriptions. Descriptions are my bane. Okay, that was a little melodramatic! In all seriousness, though, I do have a lot of issues with descriptions. My first drafts tend to be very light on them, which leads to my critiquers begging for more. Then, if I add too much, I need to go back and trim it down again... It usually takes a few back and forths before I reach a happy equilibrium.
Do you listen to music when you write? If so, how does it affect your prose?
Most of my stories have soundtracks of varying length. Some only have a single song. I like using music when I write, because it helps me put in the mood. Also, if I listen to a song or set of songs long enough while working a story, hearing them will make me want to work on the story—there’s actually one song that still makes me want to pull out Feather of a Raven…even though I wrote that novel back in January of 2008. I don’t think music affects my prose, but it definitely can affect my productivity!
When you get a writing idea, what is the first thing you do with it?
If I’m not at my computer, I dive for pen and paper. I’ve lost ideas before not writing them down fast enough. Then, if I have space for another project, I’ll start writing. Otherwise, I’ll set it aside for the future, safely written down.
Do you think that the cover plays an important part in the buying process?
For me, it does. Often I’ll find a new book because the cover catches my eye. However, if I’ve received a good recommendation for a book, I’ll check it out regardless of how good the cover is—after all, the cover’s just the cover. What I’m interested in is the story. The cover’s just a good way to grab my attention if I’m browsing for new reads.
Thank you. Good luck with Upgrade.
Though a part-time editor by day, Heather Hayden's not-so-secret identity is that of a writer—at night she pours heart and soul into science fiction and fantasy novels. In March 2015 she published her first novella, Augment, a YA science fiction story filled with excitement, danger, and the strength of friendship. She immediately began work on its sequel, Upgrade, which continues the adventures of Viki, a girl who loves to run, and her friend Halle, an AI. You can learn more about Heather and her stories through her blog and her Twitter, both of which consist of equal amounts of writerly things and random stuff she’s interested in.
I've not done much of note since I last wrote to you, all of three days ago. The Officer has launched well, and has some amazing reviews. Equality is nearing the point where I'm ready to say it's done - just a new chapter to write to balance it out, and a bit more weaving in of an incidental character.
One thing worth mentioning is that Liberty is 99c for the next few days to celebrate Independence Day.
Right, so today I am talking to Heather Hayden, author of Augment, about how she writes her young adult science fiction books.
Do you remember the first story you ever wrote?
Thankfully, no. I have vague recollections of rubbish that’s probably still floating around on floppy disks somewhere, but I’d rather not recall details! The first novel I ever wrote, though, is still fresh in my mind. I wrote Shadow Cats for National Novel Writing Month in 2007, and finished with over 60,000 words and a great sense of accomplishment. Although I haven’t looked at the manuscript in years, I hope that my writing has improved since then…still, everyone has to start somewhere, and I had a lot of fun writing about Shadassa (a mute orphan) and her shadow cat friend.
Is there anything you find particularly challenging in your writing as far as content?
Descriptions. Descriptions are my bane. Okay, that was a little melodramatic! In all seriousness, though, I do have a lot of issues with descriptions. My first drafts tend to be very light on them, which leads to my critiquers begging for more. Then, if I add too much, I need to go back and trim it down again... It usually takes a few back and forths before I reach a happy equilibrium.
Do you listen to music when you write? If so, how does it affect your prose?
Most of my stories have soundtracks of varying length. Some only have a single song. I like using music when I write, because it helps me put in the mood. Also, if I listen to a song or set of songs long enough while working a story, hearing them will make me want to work on the story—there’s actually one song that still makes me want to pull out Feather of a Raven…even though I wrote that novel back in January of 2008. I don’t think music affects my prose, but it definitely can affect my productivity!
When you get a writing idea, what is the first thing you do with it?
If I’m not at my computer, I dive for pen and paper. I’ve lost ideas before not writing them down fast enough. Then, if I have space for another project, I’ll start writing. Otherwise, I’ll set it aside for the future, safely written down.
Do you think that the cover plays an important part in the buying process?
For me, it does. Often I’ll find a new book because the cover catches my eye. However, if I’ve received a good recommendation for a book, I’ll check it out regardless of how good the cover is—after all, the cover’s just the cover. What I’m interested in is the story. The cover’s just a good way to grab my attention if I’m browsing for new reads.
Thank you. Good luck with Upgrade.
Though a part-time editor by day, Heather Hayden's not-so-secret identity is that of a writer—at night she pours heart and soul into science fiction and fantasy novels. In March 2015 she published her first novella, Augment, a YA science fiction story filled with excitement, danger, and the strength of friendship. She immediately began work on its sequel, Upgrade, which continues the adventures of Viki, a girl who loves to run, and her friend Halle, an AI. You can learn more about Heather and her stories through her blog and her Twitter, both of which consist of equal amounts of writerly things and random stuff she’s interested in.
June 27, 2017
The June Round-up of Scifi Books
I am writing this having spent the weekend running abseiling sessions off a viaduct in lovely sunshine and supervising orienteering on the moors in horizontal rain and near-zero visibility. My kind of weekend!
Today, the next in the series of science fiction anthologies I'm editing is released. It didn't seem right not to start this round-up with it.
There are eleven stories examining the responsibilities and conflicts faced by officers in pursuit of their duty. My own contribution, entitled 'Duty', is set a few decades before the start of the Two Democracies: Revolution series. It follows the head of security on a Republic space station as he deals with underfunding, marital difficulties, and his own ties to organised crime while attempting to solve a murder.
Here are a few quotes from early readers of The Officer:
"What a wonderful collection of stories"
"Each story expands the imagination even as it restores faith that there will always be those selfless souls who willingly commit themselves to the greater good."
"This was a great collection of amazing stories."
By the way, if you aren't yet receiving this in an email, you can subscribe to my blog mailing list here.
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.
They came from deep space. They came to destroy humanity.
Two thousand years ago, bloodthirsty aliens called the Krai’kesh devastated the world of Tar Ebon. Humanity almost perished. Now they’re back to finish the deed.
But now the Federation is prepared. Now they fight back.
Captain Martin Rigsby was forged in the crucible of war. After the last war, he was assigned to the outer rim of the United Federation of Planets. Martin must lead his aging fleet to face the enemy in battle.
Marine Lieutenant Derek Jamison is stuck on a shithole planet at the far edge of the galaxy. But when destruction rains from the sky he must rally the troops and face this new threat, whatever the cost.
Agent Kimberly Hague is working routine security duty at a presidential summit when betrayal leads to an explosion and subsequent attempt on the president’s life, turning her world upside down. She must pursue the traitors responsible and bring them to justice.
Against the alien onslaught, they each stand alone. But they will fight. they will rise. They will win, or die trying.
Life on the run is no way to live, but neither is being abandoned on a treacherous planet when you’re just a kid.
Auden and T’tireva, daughters of a pilot dishonorably discharged from the Consulate Navy, are on the run. Inexplicably left behind by their loving, fugitive parents after a crash landing, the sisters toil for little reward and look for them … or an explanation for why they were abandoned. Dealing with a bureaucracy pitted against their interests, they are determined to survive until their parents’ return.
If they return.
But being stranded on a world in an inhospitable planetary system does not remove the threat of being captured by the Consulate Navy. A jealous admiral with a personal vendetta is willing to go to any lengths to get what he is after. Even if that means silencing the Mor children permanently.
Can the girls face a life without hope?
Jas Harrington, Martian Chief Security Officer of the starship Galathea, must protect her shipmates from hostile aliens on new worlds. For the efficient if quick-tempered Jas, that hasn’t been too hard up till now. But her captain is drug-addled, and he’s hungry for the bonuses he gets from finding valuable resources.
When the captain won’t listen to Jas’ fears about a mysterious planet, he is compromised by contact with a strange life form—a life form that threatens to take over the entire ship and return to Earth, where it can spread its deadly infection.
Now Jas is in a race against time, struggling to quarantine the alien infection and prevent the aliens from achieving their goal: Generation. She doesn't realize it yet, but as she fights to save her crew, the future of all humanity hangs in the balance.
In the near future, a new space race begins. Private industry is now pushing the limits of human exploration and colonization. NASA has changed its mandate into a regulatory agency to oversee all US-based corporations and individuals involved in interplanetary expansion.
Stilicho Jones always has his hands full while working as a personal troubleshooter for eccentric trillionaire Errol Flux and his numerous cutting edge space projects. When a mysterious and potentially deadly situation threatens the colonies on Mars, Stilicho must team up with a feisty NASA special agent in a race against time to avert a looming catastrophe that could end any hope of inhabiting the Red Planet.
The Aldar Dominion saved the world. Then they damned it.
After solar flares decimated Earth’s population, the alien corporation gave humans a recipe for immortality and hope for the next generation. Cloning and the technology to transport consciousness from one body to another saved the human race from extinction. But the value of human life plummeted.
In an age when animal conservation no longer exists, Selene smuggles animals to safety. While fleeing Dominion drones during a mission gone wrong, Selene suffers a debilitating head injury. The pain unlocks memories from twenty lost years: stark labs and human experiments. These nightmares could hold the key to why natural-born human children are disappearing. But worse—they reveal a sinister plot centuries in the making.
Can Selene decipher her dreams in time to avoid enslavement to the aliens? Or will she witness the end of the human race?
With an alien invasion and survival of the human race at stake, service in the Marines was no longer simply about honor and duty, it was a matter of life and death.
This was especially true for Quinn, a Marine sergeant who was hell-bent on ensuring that her young daughter had a world to grow up in. But one thing separates Quinn from the others: She’s a certifiable badass.
And as the aliens will learn, it’s tough to keep a good woman down.
Whether it's alien invasion or dark fairytales, heart-pounding galactic adventures or cyberpunk romance, Dominion Rising will satisfy with a thrilling mix of 23 BRAND NEW novels set in fantastical realms. Sword and sorcery, far-flung galactic empires, alternative history, epic magic, slipstream futures: this collection of carefully selected, exclusive novels is sure to please and delight readers of speculative fiction.
Over five thousand pages packed with aliens, faeries, vampires, gargoyles, warriors, telepaths, space pirates, starship captains, hapless mercenaries, street urchins, robots, cyber-enhanced humans, badass heroines, and lost princesses.
He has one shot: to get out, to save himself, and to protect his family.
Looking for a major payoff, Phoenix Jones will do anything to save the people he cares about. With his brother and sister suffering in a hospital, he needs money, and fast. But when his temper lands him in prison light years from home, everything changes.
Now all he's ever known and loved is on the line. It's up to Phoenix to break out of jail and battle vicious aliens he never knew existed. But can he save the only place he's ever called home before it's too late?
Entering our solar system, the Enigma is just that: a mystery. The vast alien object, ten times the size of a nuclear submarine, is a complete unknown. But Storm Kovaks, a space salvage company owner, knows one thing: the Enigma is the answer he’s been waiting for. With the immense titanium exterior worth its weight in gold, Storm knows that plundering the spacecraft is the only way to provide for his daughter and keep her safely out of the hands of her mother’s verbally abusive lover.
But even determination finds an enemy in ambition...
As a brilliant scientist for NASA, Drew Kovaks has a successful life, built in accomplishment. But it’s not enough. Hell-bent on getting his name in the history books to satisfy a deep sense of childhood inadequacy, Drew knows his golden ticket is to be the first to set foot within the Enigma. And he is no stranger to competing against his brother.
With space law granting ownership of any unclaimed craft to the first man to arrive on it, the Kovaks brothers, bitter rivals, find themselves in a race against both the clock and each other, with futures on the line. Can Storm make enough money to regain custody of his daughter? Or will Drew possess the object and fend off all others?
Wise-cracking, corporate bounty hunter Malcolm Graves has a knack for finding trouble. After twenty years working for Pervenio Corp chasing bounties and extinguishing rebellions throughout the solar system, he is on a routine pickup job hunting a wealthy offworlder heir who ran away from home. But when a mad scientist gets his hands on the boy, Malcolm finds himself caught up in a twisted plot to develop working androids.
On a savage, outlying planet an enclave of psionically-trained humans have built a utopian, matriarchal society that lives in harmony with all life. Leaving behind the polluted and corrupt world in which they lived, they colonized a new home far from the eyes of the galactic empire. Shielded from the rest of the galaxy by the dangerous beasts that inhabit their lush, forested world, the village lives a simple life under their Home Dome.
Under the direction of the ruling mothers, each child of the Windfall Dome is tested at a young age to asses their abilities - a test which can plot the course for the rest of their lives. Unfortunately, Cheobawn - the daughter of the ruling First Mother to the dome - is marked with the Black Bead on her Choosing Day, a symbol of bad luck and shame. It seems the child the mothers had placed so much hope in would not be the future ruler they had hoped for. Yet there is something powerful about her that the elders don’t understand.
Finally of age, Cheobawn is chosen to join a pack to act as the psychic Ear on a foraging mission outside the dome. She knows this is her chance to prove herself. But something sinister stalks them and each member of the pack must draw on their unique strengths and a lifetime of training if they want to survive to see another day.
Set in the Amazonian jungles of South America, M.Black weaves an action-packed tale in this original YA Amazonian Eco-Fic Dystopia set forty-two years after a nuclear war. Jin—a prisoner of King Borran—and Adan—another Graphed—have to fight for their survival in a utopia gone wrong. In a world where animal cells and neural tissue have been grafted into humans, and humans are connected by brain waves to chosen animals from the Amazon, will Jin and Adan survive? Will they ever find their Animal Graph counterparts? Can the Earth find harmony with humanity and the animals or will those wanting to destroy it all win?
A sensible young nobleman, Leaf Watson, and his sister, Willow Oak, live a rustic medieval life rich in traditions and chivalry. Sealed inside an experimental biodome since infancy, they have been groomed by The Code to build a sustainable community devoid of Outsider interference.
They are unwitting pioneers on a path toward confined interplanetary homesteading.
Life within their walled garden is predictable and peaceful until the unthinkable happens. With his dying breath, Leaf and Willow’s noble father bequeaths a family secret, placing an invisible crown of power on Leaf’s head. Grief-stricken and afraid for their lives, the siblings defy their upbringing by connecting with Fillion Nichols, a punk hacker who, unbeknownst to them, is linked to their lives in shocking ways. Their encounter launches Fillion into a battle with his turbulent past as he urgently decodes the many secrets that bind them together, a necessity for each to survive.
The year is 1799 (Gregorian calendar) and no one on Earth knows the seeds of the world's destruction have just fallen from space in this story of an alternate history alien war.
When Tiana, captain of the Freedom Confederacy’s Corvette Valishnu, pursues the enemy’s ship into tunnel space, both ships crash on an uncharted planet.. Now, with the vampiric niiaH loose in a new ecosystem, she must find them and wipe them out before they reproduce or a primitive sentient species will be enslaved and the Tyrant Empire will rise again, this time starting on a planet called Earth.
But, Tiana’s ship and all its technology are at the bottom of the ocean; all her symbiont partners are dead, and she is the Valishnu’s only survivor.
Welcome to Rust Valley.
The Wild North is full of nasty places, but there are some places you just don’t go. One of them is that scrapyard desert known as Rust Valley. It’s where vehicles go to die. That’s why you don’t go in after them.
The bounty hunter Nox made a promise to himself that he’d never be caught dead there. Yet, when a couple of kids end up wandering inside that metal maze, he finds himself with no other choice.
He decks himself out in his finest armour. He’ll need it. That land is where the rust-covered Clockwork Commune live, and if they don’t scavenge the metal off you, they’ll scavenge the flesh instead.
Nox is used to being called the Coilhunter, but this time he’s saddling up with a new, more fitting title: the Rustkiller.
Pre-release
Jaya Romanov is an independent star ship shaman. She studies the energy flows of the universe and—for a price—will harness them to her employer’s purpose. Wormholes are a whole lot safer to travel when a shaman guides the jump.
Vulf Trent is a bounty hunter. It was that or join the family business, piracy, and Vulf is too much the lone wolf to tolerate the demands of a large pirate crew. Where his family enjoys the bonds of pack, he prefers the freedom of ranging the universe, alone.
Seven generations ago, humanity evacuated Earth and the shifter clans’ ability to transform into their animal forms was one of the most terrible losses of that time. Now, the werewolves, werebears and other shifters are trapped in their human bodies and slowly losing the essence of their primal souls. Jaya is determined to heal their torn transformational abilities, but Vulf doesn’t believe her.
He didn’t kidnap her for her healing abilities.
Friends and Enemies are made in war... But sometimes... it’s hard to make the distinction.
Don O'Hara was lucky. At least, that’s what everyone else said. Born the son of a General, with a guaranteed ticket to Commander's School, Don had his future laid out for him. Only, he didn't want that future. All he ever wanted was to be a Space Jumper. Lucky for him, he never lacked guts. Defying his father and sneaking off to Basic is an easy decision; a decision that forever changes the course his life will take.
Fifteen hundred years after the Catastrophe, Inventor Benjamin Kerr built the domed neo-Edwardian city-state of Bridges in the center of the former U.S. Three hundred years later, Bridges is in trouble. King Taylor Kerr is elderly, the economy is struggling, and corruption is rampant.
Forty years ago, a fence was built outside of the "Pot of Gold" — the city proper — to keep out the growing numbers of homeless. This number has increased to over a hundred thousand, whole generations knowing nothing else but life in the tent camps.
Acevedo Spadros is a high school Bridges history teacher. His former student Xavier Alcatraz is head of the Guard. When King Taylor is assassinated by his son Polansky Kerr, who then plans to slaughter everyone outside the fence, Acevedo and Xavier plan the unthinkable: to bring down the Mad King.
Dr. Albert Snowden just wanted to be there for his niece, Emily, after the loss of her father. Being abducted by aliens, and then rescued by a mysterious being known as Evaran, has made that difficult. Despite their situation, they try to make the best of it while traveling through space, time, and beyond with Evaran and V, Evaran’s trusty mobile artificial intelligence. With the use of Evaran’s time-traveling ship, the Torvatta, they will try to maintain timeline integrity while dealing with the challenges that brings.
"A hot, stinking, dumpster fire. And most days I don’t know if the legionnaires are putting out the flames, or fanning them into an inferno."
A hostile force ambushes Victory Company during a reconnaissance-in-force deep inside enemy territory. Stranded behind enemy lines, a sergeant must lead a band of survivors against merciless insurgents on a deadly alien world somewhere along the galaxy’s edge. With no room for error, the Republic’s elite fighting force must struggle to survive under siege while waiting on a rescue that might never come.
Today, the next in the series of science fiction anthologies I'm editing is released. It didn't seem right not to start this round-up with it.
There are eleven stories examining the responsibilities and conflicts faced by officers in pursuit of their duty. My own contribution, entitled 'Duty', is set a few decades before the start of the Two Democracies: Revolution series. It follows the head of security on a Republic space station as he deals with underfunding, marital difficulties, and his own ties to organised crime while attempting to solve a murder.
Here are a few quotes from early readers of The Officer:
"What a wonderful collection of stories"
"Each story expands the imagination even as it restores faith that there will always be those selfless souls who willingly commit themselves to the greater good."
"This was a great collection of amazing stories."
By the way, if you aren't yet receiving this in an email, you can subscribe to my blog mailing list here.
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.
They came from deep space. They came to destroy humanity.
Two thousand years ago, bloodthirsty aliens called the Krai’kesh devastated the world of Tar Ebon. Humanity almost perished. Now they’re back to finish the deed.
But now the Federation is prepared. Now they fight back.
Captain Martin Rigsby was forged in the crucible of war. After the last war, he was assigned to the outer rim of the United Federation of Planets. Martin must lead his aging fleet to face the enemy in battle.
Marine Lieutenant Derek Jamison is stuck on a shithole planet at the far edge of the galaxy. But when destruction rains from the sky he must rally the troops and face this new threat, whatever the cost.
Agent Kimberly Hague is working routine security duty at a presidential summit when betrayal leads to an explosion and subsequent attempt on the president’s life, turning her world upside down. She must pursue the traitors responsible and bring them to justice.
Against the alien onslaught, they each stand alone. But they will fight. they will rise. They will win, or die trying.
Life on the run is no way to live, but neither is being abandoned on a treacherous planet when you’re just a kid.
Auden and T’tireva, daughters of a pilot dishonorably discharged from the Consulate Navy, are on the run. Inexplicably left behind by their loving, fugitive parents after a crash landing, the sisters toil for little reward and look for them … or an explanation for why they were abandoned. Dealing with a bureaucracy pitted against their interests, they are determined to survive until their parents’ return.
If they return.
But being stranded on a world in an inhospitable planetary system does not remove the threat of being captured by the Consulate Navy. A jealous admiral with a personal vendetta is willing to go to any lengths to get what he is after. Even if that means silencing the Mor children permanently.
Can the girls face a life without hope?
Jas Harrington, Martian Chief Security Officer of the starship Galathea, must protect her shipmates from hostile aliens on new worlds. For the efficient if quick-tempered Jas, that hasn’t been too hard up till now. But her captain is drug-addled, and he’s hungry for the bonuses he gets from finding valuable resources.
When the captain won’t listen to Jas’ fears about a mysterious planet, he is compromised by contact with a strange life form—a life form that threatens to take over the entire ship and return to Earth, where it can spread its deadly infection.
Now Jas is in a race against time, struggling to quarantine the alien infection and prevent the aliens from achieving their goal: Generation. She doesn't realize it yet, but as she fights to save her crew, the future of all humanity hangs in the balance.
In the near future, a new space race begins. Private industry is now pushing the limits of human exploration and colonization. NASA has changed its mandate into a regulatory agency to oversee all US-based corporations and individuals involved in interplanetary expansion.
Stilicho Jones always has his hands full while working as a personal troubleshooter for eccentric trillionaire Errol Flux and his numerous cutting edge space projects. When a mysterious and potentially deadly situation threatens the colonies on Mars, Stilicho must team up with a feisty NASA special agent in a race against time to avert a looming catastrophe that could end any hope of inhabiting the Red Planet.
The Aldar Dominion saved the world. Then they damned it.
After solar flares decimated Earth’s population, the alien corporation gave humans a recipe for immortality and hope for the next generation. Cloning and the technology to transport consciousness from one body to another saved the human race from extinction. But the value of human life plummeted.
In an age when animal conservation no longer exists, Selene smuggles animals to safety. While fleeing Dominion drones during a mission gone wrong, Selene suffers a debilitating head injury. The pain unlocks memories from twenty lost years: stark labs and human experiments. These nightmares could hold the key to why natural-born human children are disappearing. But worse—they reveal a sinister plot centuries in the making.
Can Selene decipher her dreams in time to avoid enslavement to the aliens? Or will she witness the end of the human race?
With an alien invasion and survival of the human race at stake, service in the Marines was no longer simply about honor and duty, it was a matter of life and death.
This was especially true for Quinn, a Marine sergeant who was hell-bent on ensuring that her young daughter had a world to grow up in. But one thing separates Quinn from the others: She’s a certifiable badass.
And as the aliens will learn, it’s tough to keep a good woman down.
Whether it's alien invasion or dark fairytales, heart-pounding galactic adventures or cyberpunk romance, Dominion Rising will satisfy with a thrilling mix of 23 BRAND NEW novels set in fantastical realms. Sword and sorcery, far-flung galactic empires, alternative history, epic magic, slipstream futures: this collection of carefully selected, exclusive novels is sure to please and delight readers of speculative fiction.
Over five thousand pages packed with aliens, faeries, vampires, gargoyles, warriors, telepaths, space pirates, starship captains, hapless mercenaries, street urchins, robots, cyber-enhanced humans, badass heroines, and lost princesses.
He has one shot: to get out, to save himself, and to protect his family.
Looking for a major payoff, Phoenix Jones will do anything to save the people he cares about. With his brother and sister suffering in a hospital, he needs money, and fast. But when his temper lands him in prison light years from home, everything changes.
Now all he's ever known and loved is on the line. It's up to Phoenix to break out of jail and battle vicious aliens he never knew existed. But can he save the only place he's ever called home before it's too late?
Entering our solar system, the Enigma is just that: a mystery. The vast alien object, ten times the size of a nuclear submarine, is a complete unknown. But Storm Kovaks, a space salvage company owner, knows one thing: the Enigma is the answer he’s been waiting for. With the immense titanium exterior worth its weight in gold, Storm knows that plundering the spacecraft is the only way to provide for his daughter and keep her safely out of the hands of her mother’s verbally abusive lover.
But even determination finds an enemy in ambition...
As a brilliant scientist for NASA, Drew Kovaks has a successful life, built in accomplishment. But it’s not enough. Hell-bent on getting his name in the history books to satisfy a deep sense of childhood inadequacy, Drew knows his golden ticket is to be the first to set foot within the Enigma. And he is no stranger to competing against his brother.
With space law granting ownership of any unclaimed craft to the first man to arrive on it, the Kovaks brothers, bitter rivals, find themselves in a race against both the clock and each other, with futures on the line. Can Storm make enough money to regain custody of his daughter? Or will Drew possess the object and fend off all others?
Wise-cracking, corporate bounty hunter Malcolm Graves has a knack for finding trouble. After twenty years working for Pervenio Corp chasing bounties and extinguishing rebellions throughout the solar system, he is on a routine pickup job hunting a wealthy offworlder heir who ran away from home. But when a mad scientist gets his hands on the boy, Malcolm finds himself caught up in a twisted plot to develop working androids.
On a savage, outlying planet an enclave of psionically-trained humans have built a utopian, matriarchal society that lives in harmony with all life. Leaving behind the polluted and corrupt world in which they lived, they colonized a new home far from the eyes of the galactic empire. Shielded from the rest of the galaxy by the dangerous beasts that inhabit their lush, forested world, the village lives a simple life under their Home Dome.
Under the direction of the ruling mothers, each child of the Windfall Dome is tested at a young age to asses their abilities - a test which can plot the course for the rest of their lives. Unfortunately, Cheobawn - the daughter of the ruling First Mother to the dome - is marked with the Black Bead on her Choosing Day, a symbol of bad luck and shame. It seems the child the mothers had placed so much hope in would not be the future ruler they had hoped for. Yet there is something powerful about her that the elders don’t understand.
Finally of age, Cheobawn is chosen to join a pack to act as the psychic Ear on a foraging mission outside the dome. She knows this is her chance to prove herself. But something sinister stalks them and each member of the pack must draw on their unique strengths and a lifetime of training if they want to survive to see another day.
Set in the Amazonian jungles of South America, M.Black weaves an action-packed tale in this original YA Amazonian Eco-Fic Dystopia set forty-two years after a nuclear war. Jin—a prisoner of King Borran—and Adan—another Graphed—have to fight for their survival in a utopia gone wrong. In a world where animal cells and neural tissue have been grafted into humans, and humans are connected by brain waves to chosen animals from the Amazon, will Jin and Adan survive? Will they ever find their Animal Graph counterparts? Can the Earth find harmony with humanity and the animals or will those wanting to destroy it all win?
A sensible young nobleman, Leaf Watson, and his sister, Willow Oak, live a rustic medieval life rich in traditions and chivalry. Sealed inside an experimental biodome since infancy, they have been groomed by The Code to build a sustainable community devoid of Outsider interference.
They are unwitting pioneers on a path toward confined interplanetary homesteading.
Life within their walled garden is predictable and peaceful until the unthinkable happens. With his dying breath, Leaf and Willow’s noble father bequeaths a family secret, placing an invisible crown of power on Leaf’s head. Grief-stricken and afraid for their lives, the siblings defy their upbringing by connecting with Fillion Nichols, a punk hacker who, unbeknownst to them, is linked to their lives in shocking ways. Their encounter launches Fillion into a battle with his turbulent past as he urgently decodes the many secrets that bind them together, a necessity for each to survive.
The year is 1799 (Gregorian calendar) and no one on Earth knows the seeds of the world's destruction have just fallen from space in this story of an alternate history alien war.
When Tiana, captain of the Freedom Confederacy’s Corvette Valishnu, pursues the enemy’s ship into tunnel space, both ships crash on an uncharted planet.. Now, with the vampiric niiaH loose in a new ecosystem, she must find them and wipe them out before they reproduce or a primitive sentient species will be enslaved and the Tyrant Empire will rise again, this time starting on a planet called Earth.
But, Tiana’s ship and all its technology are at the bottom of the ocean; all her symbiont partners are dead, and she is the Valishnu’s only survivor.
Welcome to Rust Valley.
The Wild North is full of nasty places, but there are some places you just don’t go. One of them is that scrapyard desert known as Rust Valley. It’s where vehicles go to die. That’s why you don’t go in after them.
The bounty hunter Nox made a promise to himself that he’d never be caught dead there. Yet, when a couple of kids end up wandering inside that metal maze, he finds himself with no other choice.
He decks himself out in his finest armour. He’ll need it. That land is where the rust-covered Clockwork Commune live, and if they don’t scavenge the metal off you, they’ll scavenge the flesh instead.
Nox is used to being called the Coilhunter, but this time he’s saddling up with a new, more fitting title: the Rustkiller.
Pre-release
Jaya Romanov is an independent star ship shaman. She studies the energy flows of the universe and—for a price—will harness them to her employer’s purpose. Wormholes are a whole lot safer to travel when a shaman guides the jump.
Vulf Trent is a bounty hunter. It was that or join the family business, piracy, and Vulf is too much the lone wolf to tolerate the demands of a large pirate crew. Where his family enjoys the bonds of pack, he prefers the freedom of ranging the universe, alone.
Seven generations ago, humanity evacuated Earth and the shifter clans’ ability to transform into their animal forms was one of the most terrible losses of that time. Now, the werewolves, werebears and other shifters are trapped in their human bodies and slowly losing the essence of their primal souls. Jaya is determined to heal their torn transformational abilities, but Vulf doesn’t believe her.
He didn’t kidnap her for her healing abilities.
Friends and Enemies are made in war... But sometimes... it’s hard to make the distinction.
Don O'Hara was lucky. At least, that’s what everyone else said. Born the son of a General, with a guaranteed ticket to Commander's School, Don had his future laid out for him. Only, he didn't want that future. All he ever wanted was to be a Space Jumper. Lucky for him, he never lacked guts. Defying his father and sneaking off to Basic is an easy decision; a decision that forever changes the course his life will take.
Fifteen hundred years after the Catastrophe, Inventor Benjamin Kerr built the domed neo-Edwardian city-state of Bridges in the center of the former U.S. Three hundred years later, Bridges is in trouble. King Taylor Kerr is elderly, the economy is struggling, and corruption is rampant.
Forty years ago, a fence was built outside of the "Pot of Gold" — the city proper — to keep out the growing numbers of homeless. This number has increased to over a hundred thousand, whole generations knowing nothing else but life in the tent camps.
Acevedo Spadros is a high school Bridges history teacher. His former student Xavier Alcatraz is head of the Guard. When King Taylor is assassinated by his son Polansky Kerr, who then plans to slaughter everyone outside the fence, Acevedo and Xavier plan the unthinkable: to bring down the Mad King.
Dr. Albert Snowden just wanted to be there for his niece, Emily, after the loss of her father. Being abducted by aliens, and then rescued by a mysterious being known as Evaran, has made that difficult. Despite their situation, they try to make the best of it while traveling through space, time, and beyond with Evaran and V, Evaran’s trusty mobile artificial intelligence. With the use of Evaran’s time-traveling ship, the Torvatta, they will try to maintain timeline integrity while dealing with the challenges that brings.
"A hot, stinking, dumpster fire. And most days I don’t know if the legionnaires are putting out the flames, or fanning them into an inferno."
A hostile force ambushes Victory Company during a reconnaissance-in-force deep inside enemy territory. Stranded behind enemy lines, a sergeant must lead a band of survivors against merciless insurgents on a deadly alien world somewhere along the galaxy’s edge. With no room for error, the Republic’s elite fighting force must struggle to survive under siege while waiting on a rescue that might never come.
May 27, 2017
The May Round-up of Scifi Books
Welcome back to my speculative fiction round-up. I'm sitting, gazing out over my garden as I write, the foxgloves and iris coming into flower. Today was filled with edits on Equality and the paperwork for a caving expedition I'm leading this summer (the MOD really takes planning seriously).
I'm looking forward to next week when the entry for the next anthology I'm editing closes. If the field is anything like it was for The Newcomer, I'm in for some great reads. It's due for release at the end of June. Those of you on my mailing list will be the first to hear when it's available.
My big news since the last newsletter is that I have taken up the Running Down Dementia challenge from Alzheimer's Research UK. Vast amounts of money has been poured into cancer and AIDS research over the years, with some very impressive results. Now, with dementia set to be the biggest killer of the century, it is high time to focus on identifying the causes and working on treatments for its various forms.
So, on to the books. This month, I've chosen a wide range of stories. The genres run from military scifi, through fantasy, to the hi-tech edge of thriller. As you know by now, I try to mix established big-hitters with rising stars and as-yet undiscovered authors.
By the way, if you aren't yet receiving this in an email, you can subscribe to my blog mailing list here.
17-year-old orphan, Adara isn’t like the other girlygigs in Cityplace, she has six fingers on each hand and a secret power she is forbidden to use. Rebellious and headstrong, she is thrilled about leaving school so she can follow her dream to train as an elite soldier of the New World Territories. But as starving renegades and religious fanatics storm the last safe haven in NotSoGreatBritAlbion, her plans are cut brutally short.
Fear spreads amongst the inhabitants when the all-controlling Agros, who have cut food supplies and are stealing ‘special’ children, send in troops to wreak havoc. With the population weakened and scared, Adara and her Santy Breanna must fight to save their home and family from a savage and terrifying enemy.
But when her brother Deogol, is abducted, Adara is forced to leave her hygiene home and venture into a hostile and savage realm to save him from a sinister fate.
Being orphaned on Mars puts Rion Istlegaard on a collision course with the malicious Planetary Alliance.
When his father abandons him in a bustling Mars spaceport at age five, Rion is forced to use his wits to survive by any means necessary. At least he’s not alone. It isn’t uncommon for children to be left behind thanks to the callous rules of the planet’s overseers. But Rion is determined to rise above the squalor and get back at those who took everything away from him. With the help of a legendary spaceship, he just might do it.
When Molly gets called onto a case that she is uniquely qualified for, the team discovers a little more about her past.
In the race against the clock to prevent the city of Spire from being subjected to a deadly toxin, it takes both new team members and new allies working together in order to save the millions of lives.
Meanwhile, problems continue on the political scene, and exciting progress is made with the investigation into the strange door in the safe house basement.
Beatrix Rose has a knack for making the British government’s problems go away. When the assassin is sent to Venezuela to track down a missing scientist, she meets a contact who knows the lay of the land: none other than John Milton...
As the state-sanctioned assassin and the special forces soldier team up in South America, they’ll do more than capture a missing scientist. They’ll discover a secret that will change Beatrix’s life forever...
Across the void formed by two galactic spiral arms, vast forces face each other.
The tenuous Alliance, sixty civilizations united only by fear of invasion, prepare to resist the encroachment of their as-yet unseen enemy, known only as the Creeps.
The Void has become a battleground. Three thousand light years across, and populated by a scattering of ten thousand ‘dark’ worlds, it is the Alliance’s last chance to protect their way of life. Self-destructive, robotic drones pour across the Void in ever-increasing numbers, testing the Alliance fleets to breaking point.
In the midst of the surging tides of war, a single cruiser carries an incursion team between the dark worlds, striking at the advancing enemy as it establishes footholds. The team probes for a weakness that might be exploited before the odds become overwhelming.
But will Commander Trenn and her misfit squad of mixed-race marines be able to make enough of a difference, and can they hope to uncover the enemy’s plans for galactic domination before the Alliance falls?
Maybe they can—if they can stop fighting each other for long enough...
Jonathan Bartell is a young man, just out of university, when he signs up for the position of Quarantine Officer at the Orbital Launch Station.
He is part of a crop of students who flocked to study exo-biology when bacteria were discovered on Mars, and who are now all making their living flipping burgers, because the jobs are few and hard to get.
He is lucky to get a job in space, no matter how mundane.
Or so he thinks...
Gaby Larsen is a doctor at the tiny hospital at the space station, and she keeps secrets, not because she wants to keep them, but because she is too scared to share them.
Because out in space, your worst enemies are your fellow travellers.
When space freighter pilot Calen Macleef accidentally wins Larissa “Bit” Earnest in a lucky hand of poker, his main concern is what his gruff and uncompromising brother Jack will say about it. Jack Macleef is the captain of the ship in a world where space travel has only recently become the norm and space piracy abounds. Painful memories of prior abuse surface for Bit as she finds herself on a freighter full of rowdy, ungentlemanly merchant marines. Jack works to find a safe place for frightened Bit amongst the ungentlemanly crew, but good looks and innocent ways continually charm the men. With tension and danger running high, each begins to wonder: will they survive the pirates... and each other?
Invier's family is too lowly-ranked for a union with Neith, so she, unwilling to accept a loveless union with someone else, revives a long-abandoned competition called the Pursual. In the Pursual, the prize is the girl and an alliance with her influential family.
Entered into the competition without his consent, Invier becomes suspicious of Neith's motives. Still, he must win, or see his love married to a rival. The mysterious deaths of competitors, the discovery of dark secrets, and a growing rebellion mean that nothing will come easy.
The competition meant to bring them together threatens to tear the couple apart. Yet only by working together will they overcome their rivals and gain a life with each other.
In a divided, futuristic America, merit is used to camouflage oppression. Votes are allocated according to tax revenue. And all people are not created equal.
Daniela Machado is offered a chance to escape the deprivation of Bronx City through a coveted slot at the elite Tuck School. There, among the genetically superior highborn of Manhattan, she discovers an unimaginable world of splendor and greed. But her opportunity is part of a darker plan, and Daniela soon learns that those at society’s apex will stop at nothing to keep power for themselves. She may have a chance to change the world, if it doesn’t change her first.
Lynx of Norin is a proud warrior who always does what’s right for her people. When an ancient treaty and a thousand superhuman guardsmen force her to leave her land for an arranged marriage, she knows it’s her duty. Lynx begrudgingly travels to wed her sworn enemy, the beautiful, brooding Lukan Avanov.
Lukan grows to love his bride-to-be, but he wasn’t prepared for a second mysterious visitor to ruin his plans. A curse that has been prophesied for ages may come true on Lukan’s watch, and it could kill him and destroy his empire.
As Lynx seeks to overthrow the Avanovs from the inside, Lukan fights to protect his life and his empire with secret, mind-controlling devices. Will Lukan manage to save himself from her, or will Lynx destroy him and his empire first?
Fifteen hundred years after the Catastrophe, Inventor Benjamin Kerr built the domed neo-Edwardian city-state of Bridges in the center of the former U.S. Three hundred years later, Bridges is in trouble. King Taylor Kerr is elderly, the economy is struggling, and corruption is rampant.
Forty years ago, a fence was built outside of the "Pot of Gold" — the city proper — to keep out the growing numbers of homeless. This number has increased to over a hundred thousand, whole generations knowing nothing else but life in the tent camps.
Acevedo Spadros is a high school Bridges history teacher. His former student Xavier Alcatraz is head of the Guard. When King Taylor is assassinated by his son Polansky Kerr, who then plans to slaughter everyone outside the fence, Acevedo and Xavier plan the unthinkable: to bring down the Mad King.
Emerging after its stint in the science fiction/fantasy box set Dark Humanity, The Alcatraz Coup becomes available for the first time as a stand-alone novella. Set 100 years before the Red Dog Conspiracy series, this dark, violent story brings you a collision of science fiction, steampunk, and war fiction with a story reminiscent of Black Hawk Down, set in an neo-Edwardian city gone mad.
Only available as a paperback.
A helpless ally calls for aid
A ruthless enemy strikes without mercy
The fate of empires turns on even the smallest actions
When a minor trade partner sends the Castle Federation a desperate call for aid, they have few resources to spare from their all-consuming war against the Terran Commonwealth. Unwilling to be seen failing their allies but able to spare only a tiny force, Castle sends a hero to command the task group: Captain Kyle Roberts, the Stellar Fox.
Beyond the Rimward frontier of the Federation and its allies, little is as it seems. The pirates are being armed by an outside force, and the politics of these worlds is made deadlier by their poverty. When the Coraline Imperium, the Federation’s oft-difficult ally, sends forces as well, it risks a conflict that could undermine the Alliance protecting them both.
There are deeper games afoot as local schemes play the great powers against each other. Captain Roberts is caught in the chaos as fire and blood explode across the region. There is only one certainty: these Rimward Stars must not fall.
Commodore Straker's rebellion grows in strength--but his enemies are growing even faster. Faced with a dozen rebel planets in their territory, the Mutuality finally takes notice of the upstart known as the Liberator, and they gather a vast fleet to crush him.
Preparing for a titanic interstellar battle, it's clear Straker has no chance. His tiny enclave of free planets can't survive the weight of a thousand worlds. His own officers realize this, and some of them begin to turn against him...
In a desperate attempt to halt their inevitable destruction, Straker and his team set out to capture the largest ship ever built. The monstrous vessel is well-defended and contains secrets no one suspects. Unleashing its power might turn the tide of the war, but it may also doom humanity.
As the Earth plunges toward Saturn, Jessica struggles to decide whether to save the ones she loves, or save the human race.
Ace fighter pilot Anastasia Seivers is offered a secret assignment: to join a squadron taking the fight to Concorde's true enemies. But this squadron isn't part of the regular Concorde military, it is attached to the Legion Libertus, the independent force responsible for saving thousands of lives after the nuclear attack. After initial hope that her new commanders will be different, Seivers starts to suspect that they too are prejudiced against her.
Determined to remove the chip from Seivers' shoulder, Prefect Olivia Johnson, commander of the Legion, takes her on as pilot for a special mission.
I'm looking forward to next week when the entry for the next anthology I'm editing closes. If the field is anything like it was for The Newcomer, I'm in for some great reads. It's due for release at the end of June. Those of you on my mailing list will be the first to hear when it's available.
My big news since the last newsletter is that I have taken up the Running Down Dementia challenge from Alzheimer's Research UK. Vast amounts of money has been poured into cancer and AIDS research over the years, with some very impressive results. Now, with dementia set to be the biggest killer of the century, it is high time to focus on identifying the causes and working on treatments for its various forms.
So, on to the books. This month, I've chosen a wide range of stories. The genres run from military scifi, through fantasy, to the hi-tech edge of thriller. As you know by now, I try to mix established big-hitters with rising stars and as-yet undiscovered authors.
By the way, if you aren't yet receiving this in an email, you can subscribe to my blog mailing list here.
17-year-old orphan, Adara isn’t like the other girlygigs in Cityplace, she has six fingers on each hand and a secret power she is forbidden to use. Rebellious and headstrong, she is thrilled about leaving school so she can follow her dream to train as an elite soldier of the New World Territories. But as starving renegades and religious fanatics storm the last safe haven in NotSoGreatBritAlbion, her plans are cut brutally short.
Fear spreads amongst the inhabitants when the all-controlling Agros, who have cut food supplies and are stealing ‘special’ children, send in troops to wreak havoc. With the population weakened and scared, Adara and her Santy Breanna must fight to save their home and family from a savage and terrifying enemy.
But when her brother Deogol, is abducted, Adara is forced to leave her hygiene home and venture into a hostile and savage realm to save him from a sinister fate.
Being orphaned on Mars puts Rion Istlegaard on a collision course with the malicious Planetary Alliance.
When his father abandons him in a bustling Mars spaceport at age five, Rion is forced to use his wits to survive by any means necessary. At least he’s not alone. It isn’t uncommon for children to be left behind thanks to the callous rules of the planet’s overseers. But Rion is determined to rise above the squalor and get back at those who took everything away from him. With the help of a legendary spaceship, he just might do it.
When Molly gets called onto a case that she is uniquely qualified for, the team discovers a little more about her past.
In the race against the clock to prevent the city of Spire from being subjected to a deadly toxin, it takes both new team members and new allies working together in order to save the millions of lives.
Meanwhile, problems continue on the political scene, and exciting progress is made with the investigation into the strange door in the safe house basement.
Beatrix Rose has a knack for making the British government’s problems go away. When the assassin is sent to Venezuela to track down a missing scientist, she meets a contact who knows the lay of the land: none other than John Milton...
As the state-sanctioned assassin and the special forces soldier team up in South America, they’ll do more than capture a missing scientist. They’ll discover a secret that will change Beatrix’s life forever...
Across the void formed by two galactic spiral arms, vast forces face each other.
The tenuous Alliance, sixty civilizations united only by fear of invasion, prepare to resist the encroachment of their as-yet unseen enemy, known only as the Creeps.
The Void has become a battleground. Three thousand light years across, and populated by a scattering of ten thousand ‘dark’ worlds, it is the Alliance’s last chance to protect their way of life. Self-destructive, robotic drones pour across the Void in ever-increasing numbers, testing the Alliance fleets to breaking point.
In the midst of the surging tides of war, a single cruiser carries an incursion team between the dark worlds, striking at the advancing enemy as it establishes footholds. The team probes for a weakness that might be exploited before the odds become overwhelming.
But will Commander Trenn and her misfit squad of mixed-race marines be able to make enough of a difference, and can they hope to uncover the enemy’s plans for galactic domination before the Alliance falls?
Maybe they can—if they can stop fighting each other for long enough...
Jonathan Bartell is a young man, just out of university, when he signs up for the position of Quarantine Officer at the Orbital Launch Station.
He is part of a crop of students who flocked to study exo-biology when bacteria were discovered on Mars, and who are now all making their living flipping burgers, because the jobs are few and hard to get.
He is lucky to get a job in space, no matter how mundane.
Or so he thinks...
Gaby Larsen is a doctor at the tiny hospital at the space station, and she keeps secrets, not because she wants to keep them, but because she is too scared to share them.
Because out in space, your worst enemies are your fellow travellers.
When space freighter pilot Calen Macleef accidentally wins Larissa “Bit” Earnest in a lucky hand of poker, his main concern is what his gruff and uncompromising brother Jack will say about it. Jack Macleef is the captain of the ship in a world where space travel has only recently become the norm and space piracy abounds. Painful memories of prior abuse surface for Bit as she finds herself on a freighter full of rowdy, ungentlemanly merchant marines. Jack works to find a safe place for frightened Bit amongst the ungentlemanly crew, but good looks and innocent ways continually charm the men. With tension and danger running high, each begins to wonder: will they survive the pirates... and each other?
Invier's family is too lowly-ranked for a union with Neith, so she, unwilling to accept a loveless union with someone else, revives a long-abandoned competition called the Pursual. In the Pursual, the prize is the girl and an alliance with her influential family.
Entered into the competition without his consent, Invier becomes suspicious of Neith's motives. Still, he must win, or see his love married to a rival. The mysterious deaths of competitors, the discovery of dark secrets, and a growing rebellion mean that nothing will come easy.
The competition meant to bring them together threatens to tear the couple apart. Yet only by working together will they overcome their rivals and gain a life with each other.
In a divided, futuristic America, merit is used to camouflage oppression. Votes are allocated according to tax revenue. And all people are not created equal.
Daniela Machado is offered a chance to escape the deprivation of Bronx City through a coveted slot at the elite Tuck School. There, among the genetically superior highborn of Manhattan, she discovers an unimaginable world of splendor and greed. But her opportunity is part of a darker plan, and Daniela soon learns that those at society’s apex will stop at nothing to keep power for themselves. She may have a chance to change the world, if it doesn’t change her first.
Lynx of Norin is a proud warrior who always does what’s right for her people. When an ancient treaty and a thousand superhuman guardsmen force her to leave her land for an arranged marriage, she knows it’s her duty. Lynx begrudgingly travels to wed her sworn enemy, the beautiful, brooding Lukan Avanov.
Lukan grows to love his bride-to-be, but he wasn’t prepared for a second mysterious visitor to ruin his plans. A curse that has been prophesied for ages may come true on Lukan’s watch, and it could kill him and destroy his empire.
As Lynx seeks to overthrow the Avanovs from the inside, Lukan fights to protect his life and his empire with secret, mind-controlling devices. Will Lukan manage to save himself from her, or will Lynx destroy him and his empire first?
Fifteen hundred years after the Catastrophe, Inventor Benjamin Kerr built the domed neo-Edwardian city-state of Bridges in the center of the former U.S. Three hundred years later, Bridges is in trouble. King Taylor Kerr is elderly, the economy is struggling, and corruption is rampant.
Forty years ago, a fence was built outside of the "Pot of Gold" — the city proper — to keep out the growing numbers of homeless. This number has increased to over a hundred thousand, whole generations knowing nothing else but life in the tent camps.
Acevedo Spadros is a high school Bridges history teacher. His former student Xavier Alcatraz is head of the Guard. When King Taylor is assassinated by his son Polansky Kerr, who then plans to slaughter everyone outside the fence, Acevedo and Xavier plan the unthinkable: to bring down the Mad King.
Emerging after its stint in the science fiction/fantasy box set Dark Humanity, The Alcatraz Coup becomes available for the first time as a stand-alone novella. Set 100 years before the Red Dog Conspiracy series, this dark, violent story brings you a collision of science fiction, steampunk, and war fiction with a story reminiscent of Black Hawk Down, set in an neo-Edwardian city gone mad.
Only available as a paperback.
A helpless ally calls for aid
A ruthless enemy strikes without mercy
The fate of empires turns on even the smallest actions
When a minor trade partner sends the Castle Federation a desperate call for aid, they have few resources to spare from their all-consuming war against the Terran Commonwealth. Unwilling to be seen failing their allies but able to spare only a tiny force, Castle sends a hero to command the task group: Captain Kyle Roberts, the Stellar Fox.
Beyond the Rimward frontier of the Federation and its allies, little is as it seems. The pirates are being armed by an outside force, and the politics of these worlds is made deadlier by their poverty. When the Coraline Imperium, the Federation’s oft-difficult ally, sends forces as well, it risks a conflict that could undermine the Alliance protecting them both.
There are deeper games afoot as local schemes play the great powers against each other. Captain Roberts is caught in the chaos as fire and blood explode across the region. There is only one certainty: these Rimward Stars must not fall.
Commodore Straker's rebellion grows in strength--but his enemies are growing even faster. Faced with a dozen rebel planets in their territory, the Mutuality finally takes notice of the upstart known as the Liberator, and they gather a vast fleet to crush him.
Preparing for a titanic interstellar battle, it's clear Straker has no chance. His tiny enclave of free planets can't survive the weight of a thousand worlds. His own officers realize this, and some of them begin to turn against him...
In a desperate attempt to halt their inevitable destruction, Straker and his team set out to capture the largest ship ever built. The monstrous vessel is well-defended and contains secrets no one suspects. Unleashing its power might turn the tide of the war, but it may also doom humanity.
As the Earth plunges toward Saturn, Jessica struggles to decide whether to save the ones she loves, or save the human race.
Ace fighter pilot Anastasia Seivers is offered a secret assignment: to join a squadron taking the fight to Concorde's true enemies. But this squadron isn't part of the regular Concorde military, it is attached to the Legion Libertus, the independent force responsible for saving thousands of lives after the nuclear attack. After initial hope that her new commanders will be different, Seivers starts to suspect that they too are prejudiced against her.
Determined to remove the chip from Seivers' shoulder, Prefect Olivia Johnson, commander of the Legion, takes her on as pilot for a special mission.
May 5, 2017
An interview with Jim Moran
Hello, and thank you for reading my little post. I have just come in from the garden where I'm trying to make sense of the jumble of bits of wood that are supposed to come together to create a playhouse on stilts. Unfortunately there are no instructions, not even a picture of what it is supposed to end up looking like!
Still, the garden is looking spectacular. Most of the daffodils are over, but the bluebells are out in force. And we have bluetits nesting in one of our boxes :)
Anyway, enough of my troubles. Today I am interviewing Jim Moran, author of 'I am 8Bit' (a short story in Star Crash, Tales of Dystopian Spies & Star Pirates).
What advice do you have for the revision process?
I have two pieces of advice. Many have probably heard this advice before, but I think it’s important enough that it bears repeating.
1) Get somebody else to critique your book. Not just read it, or even proofread it, Critique it. Don’t get your mom, or your best friend, or anybody else with a motivation to spare your feelings. Find a person who knows what “critique” means. Preferably several people, who can give constructive criticism.
2) Don’t take constructive criticism personally. I can’t emphasize this enough. Go ahead and disagree with a critique. Argue a point. Explain yourself to your reader, because this is one of the few chances you get to do that. But don’t take it personally. It’s hard to do. This is your work that you made. I get it. But you won’t ever get better if you won’t allow anybody to point out what might be holding you back.
Oh, I hear you on that one. I love the critiquing process. I usually aim for each chapter to have been critiques by at least six people. Not every one will have read the whole book, but I do get a couple who go all the way through and can spot long-term plotting and consistency things.
Do you think that giving books away free works and why? My series opener, Independence, is free acroos most platforms and it pulls in a lot of readers, but I've heard people who it doesn't work for.
I can’t speak from personal experience, but I’ve certainly heard success stories. To me, it seems like if I can give Book 1 to generate interest for Book 2... well, either it works, and folks buy Book 2 (and possibly 3 and 4) or it doesn’t work, in which case they probably won’t be interested in the series anyway.
Speaking of which, I imagine that such a method is more successful for a series of books, rather than a collection of otherwise unrelated stories. The first one’s free, and all that.
Are there any writing techniques or tropes that you just can’t stand?
A few.
One that I find particularly irksome is when something arbitrarily bad happens to a character. Like, it doesn’t have anything to do with that character’s growth, it doesn’t further our understanding of the world, it doesn’t affect the plot, it’s not because of the plot... it’s just some random piece of bad luck. Only it’s not really "luck" because the author put it in there on purpose. But if it’s in there without a reason to be, it just comes off as some kind of contrived "woe is me" element, only there to elicit a reaction from the readers and nothing more. It’s just meaningless angst that takes me out of the story.I was reading a book recently where, towards the end of the book, the main character’s sister is killed. And it’s played up as a big emotional deal. But (and hey, maybe I just missed it) there was no reason for the sister to die. Nothing with respect to the narrative, anyway. The emotion fell flat, because all I could think was "why did this just happen?"And yeah, I get it. Random bad things happen to good people in real life. But if I’m reading about real life events, that’s not an issue for me. When the events I’m reading about have been created for enjoyment... well, I just don’t enjoy this kind of contrivance.
Do you remember the first story you ever read, and the impact it had on you?
Yes. Marvin K. Mooney Will You Please Go Now, by Dr. Seuss. I could (and did) read that book backwards and forwards.
Of course, I was so young, I don’t really remember what kind of impact it had on me. I do have a vague recollection that saying "Mooney K Marvin" over and over and over and over and over and over again could irritate the ever-loving snot out of people. Literacy begets power, I suppose.
And finally, what motivated you to become a writer?
Technology.
My mom had an old typewriter, and I was fascinated by the mechanics of it. Then she showed me how to actually put words on paper, so of course I had to put words on the paper. Strictly hunt and peck stuff. Later, when I was six or seven, we got an Apple IIe computer. Using a computer then was not like using a computer now; there was a lot of command-line stuff. We didn’t even know what a “mouse” was. Even some of the games required writing, and I mean more than just writing nasty things about somebody on the Oregon Trail tombstone. We had a lot of those old Infocom games, like Zork and Planetfall. Text-based stuff, and it was captivating. Around the second grade, I learned how to actually program a little bit. I also discovered my first word processor on the Apple IIe, though I forget what it was called. It could do things like CUT and PASTE. Highlight, underline, and put in italics. I could even print it out on this angry Dot Matrix printer. Crazy. Since I was using the keyboard so much, I wanted to learn how to type faster. At school, we had an Apple IIe lab and a lot of learning programs, including Sticky Bear Teaches Typing. I learned the home row from Sticky Bear while my classmates were trying to ford the Blue River. Come on, guys. It’s twenty feet deep in the middle. Conditions are not going to improve. So I learned how to leverage computers from a young age. I learned how to communicate fast and well. And I learned how to create things. I enjoyed creative writing exercises in school, and I read a ton. But that was the extent of things for a long time. I’d always had a passing interest in writing. I discovered early on that, regardless of content, if a message was polite, well-structured, and readable, it stood out and above at least 50% of the noise. I would right little testimonials to companies, and sometimes I’d get coupons or gift certificates. I won a one-off writing contest that I only spent a couple of hours on. Little bits and pieces, but I never really considered myself a writer. I still don’t, I suppose. Right now, it might be closer to call myself a writing enthusiast. But if there was anything that inspired me to graduate to enthusiast, it’d be the online writing group I found. They were a good bunch of folks that didn’t know me well enough to know that I wasn’t really invested in things. So they just assumed I was. When I realized that these fellows, all serious about writing, thought it was perfectly reasonable to treat my writing seriously... that’s when my regard for such endeavors started experiencing some serious shifts. That shifting hasn’t settled yet. What fun!
Thank you so much for taking part. I wish you well with your work.
