The November Round-up of Scifi Books
Usually I don't manage to get to do parkrun because I'm looking after the kids while my partner does it. However, the last few times I've been lucky enough to do it, I've shaved a bit off my PB.
If you don't know what Parkrun is, it is a worldwide series of timed 5km events that are free to enter. There's no pressure to get a certain time, or even to run; the point is to enjoy yourself and get a bit fitter. I've been to quite a few different locations now, and all have been very friendly and supportive of all those taking part.
And now, here are some incntives to hide away and not run...
Zona Nox, 3555. James Terrin and his gang of thieves love dominating the war-ravaged streets of his backwater planet. He and his fiercely loyal crew are virtually untouchable as they battle rival gangs, dodge the military police, and escape vicious raiders. But when violent extraterrestrials invade and kill his gang, all James has left is his burning desire for revenge...
Setting aside his former rivalries, James finds himself fighting alongside men he used to despise as his street-wise survival skills clash with the rule-bound corps. While he questions his decision to enlist, his focus remains on a single-minded mission: kill as many aliens as possible.
Can James lead a rag-tag unit against galactic invaders, or will his unorthodox methods end in another bloody massacre?
Night is falling.
The unstoppable Hegemony invasion has reached the very heart of the Confederation. Battle after desperate battle has been fought, and each time, the Confeds have been pushed back, columns of battered and blasted ship retreating from system to system. Now, they prepare to grimly defend the capital world of Megara, the very center of the Confederation.
Tyler Barron prepares for what could be his final battle, a final desperate defense, one last chance to stem the tide of Hegemony conquest and subjugation. The fleet is ready, its exhausted crews prepared to fight with all the strength that remains to them. Still, the enemy is overpoweringly strong, and the odds of victory are slipping quickly away.
But, there is still hope. From unexpected allies. From the grit and determination of the defending fleets and their spacers. And, from a plan so daring it borders on the impossible... a wild and desperate gamble to stem the tide of conquest and halt the enemy.
It is night, and everywhere there is darkness, but the Confederation is not beaten yet. Barron and his comrades will stand, and they will struggle to somehow endure the darkness and fight through to the dawn.
Jain thought he'd never go back.
Ten years had passed since he last had dealings with humans and their machines. He was happy. He'd built a base for himself and his Void Warriors around the barren moon of a gas giant, where they planned to live out their immortal days in peace.
And then humanity came looking for them. Hunting them.
Now they have no choice but to return. But what they find waiting for them in human territory will make them wish they'd never left their new home.
In the aftermath of a battle a ship drifts helplessly in space. Is the strange new warship they were fighting still out there? Will it come back for them? Commander Johnson faces a desperate race to get her destroyer back into action and save her crew.
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Jet Rusco is a man who lives on the edge. A down-and-out wanderer turned to heists in a daily struggle to survive in a far future of colonized worlds ruled by space thugs, warlords and gangsters. He stumbles on alien tech in a heist gone bad in a clash with some ruthless players. Rusco must up his game, build a team of able recruits if he is to defeat the despot who wants to put the tech to use for more sinister reasons than obvious gain. Rusco must decide whether he is to remain a scavenger all his life, or an avenger. The stakes are high when worlds are at great risk and the choice of doom or salvation rests on the toss of the dice.
As the colony grapples with the realization that New Earth is not as uninhabited as they’d once thought, tensions between the colonial settlements rise to new heights, and the Colonial Defense Force finds itself caught in the middle.
When Connor uncovers evidence of a militant colonial faction secretly exploiting the NEIIS, he has to investigate. Connor learns that some of the colonial settlements have been holding back discoveries of their own. He’d thought the NEIIS were a threat to the colony, but he was wrong. They all were, and the truth is beyond anything Connor could have imagined.
Meanwhile, Colonel Sean Quinn’s latest mission brings him off-world to investigate a previously discovered NEIIS settlement. When all communications from home go silent, he must return to New Earth to investigate. Cut off from everything, Sean must lead the crew of a CDF warship against a mysterious foe. Sean must forge a path into the unknown if he’s to have any hope of unraveling the mystery.
Trapped on a hostile world, hunted by pirate bands and abandoned by her fellow captains, Alexis Carew must lead her small band to safety, even though it seems every hand is set against her. Stalked by pirates in the skies above and shadowy, alien figures on the planet below, Alexis must convince former enemies to trust her even as she discovers where the tendrils of her true enemies lead.
One final Orb remains at large in the wild and the Gnosis is dispatched to get it. Lost somewhere in a space station on the edge of civilized space, early intelligence reports suggested it would be a milk run…until a team of Pahxin technicians went missing there. Altering their mission parameters to include rescue, they load up an extra team of marines and head off on the mission.
Meanwhile, back on Earth, AIA operative Christina Dawson closes in on the traitor selling out humanity to the Tol’An. Her people have located an old military base currently occupied by the mercenary group responsible for attacking Gamma Alpha. She gathers a former marine and newly appointed AIA agent to investigate in person.
Under siege and left for dead, the end has finally come for Lucky and the survivors of mankind's failed invasion.
Or has it? A strange new force is altering the balance of power. But will it save humanity, or enslave them once and for all?
Don't ask Lucky. Just give him a weapon and get out of the way.
On her last mission, HMS Invincible discovered an alien threat beyond human understanding: a sentient virus that has already absorbed a number of intelligent races into its multitude and now intends to do the same to humanity. Defeat means the end of everything, the end of existence as nothing more than mindless host-bodies, the end of humanity and its alien allies alike. The stakes could not be higher.
As a deeply divided humanity struggles to prepare a defence, with enemies inside and outside the human sphere just lurking to strike, Invincible is sent deep into alien space on what should have been a simple reconnaissance mission. But, as Captain Shields and his crew begin their mission, it rapidly becomes clear that a juggernaut is bearing down on Earth ...
... And, no matter what they do, they may never make it home again.
Hundreds of years in Earth’s future sees the united global territories striving to colonize the Moon and Mars. The discovery of a clean energy source ended the world’s reliance on fossil fuels overnight, and years after the resulting wars, a new discovery puts the tenuous world peace at risk; that of faster than light travel.
With humanity on the verge of travelling to new solar systems and all the humanitarian and scientific possibilities involved, a discovery by the reconnaissance team turns everything upside down.
The Dvorkans were pushed out of Diakan space, and now their Empire is mired in civil war. But, the Antikitheri have returned, and Emperor Kriss is leveraging their help to regain all that he has lost. Will he succeed and again threaten the UHSF and its allies?
In Kemmar space, after a decade of occupation, a growing insurgency makes occupation costly for the UHSF. When the insurgent tactics prove surprisingly lethal, Admiral Jon Pike is left with an ominous decision to make. The question is, who or what is behind the Kemmar resurgence?
Just beyond human space, the Juttari Empire still threatens the human race with annihilation. Jon Pike has made great gains against the Juttari in recent years. Will the Juttari return and take back what they believe is rightfully theirs?
Humanity remains surrounded by enemies and existential threats. Can Jon Pike continue his winning streak, or will this be the end for him and humanity?
The Federation needs help and Taj volunteers. She takes the team to a distant planet. The fate of her people doesn’t depend on her success, but if she fails, the Furlorians’ hope goes with her.
Wearing that mantle, they hold nothing back as they go into the lion’s den, their cat eyes focused on a singular goal.
The discovery of the Vraxar planetship – Aranol - has revealed to the Confederation how much they are outgunned by the invading aliens. The Space Corps’ successes to date will count for nothing if the largest spaceship in the known universe is allowed to reach human territory.
Fleet Admiral John Duggan is not a man to sit on his hands while there is a chance to act. He sends Captain Charlie Blake on a daring mission deep into Estral Space, to launch a pre-emptive strike against the Aranol and also to rescue the lost battleship Ulterior-2. Blake and his crew aren’t alone - Lieutenant Eric McKinney and his squad are along for the ride and they’re itching to get involved.
What Blake finds is a long-forgotten war, still raging with incredible intensity. Surrounded by enemies, it will take every ounce of his ingenuity to achieve victory. Where ingenuity fails, there are other, more direct options. His spaceship, the ES Cataclysm, is equipped with experimental and potentially devastating weaponry, as the Vraxar will soon discover.
The Aranol has existed for millennia and overseen the fall of a thousand empires. It will not go down without a fight.
The Acolyte Empire and the Clone Defense Force are warring for dominance, spreading chaos through the galaxy.
Devante, the son of the Acolyte Empire's God-Emperor, lead a lavish life in power. His sole devotion has been to free slaves across the galaxy until he discovers a secret tied to the root of the beloved empire he has served.
While the rulers of the galaxy wreak havoc and endanger the lives of all, black op teams have to clean up the mess and keep the mistakes of their leaders quiet.
Danger is ripe in a universe filled with spies, assassins, god-emperors, slaves, queens, and princesses. Follow Devante as he embarks on a path of destruction fueled by vengeance. Who will be victorious in the war for supremacy?
Would you leave behind everything you know to start a new world? Would you destroy that world to save everything you believe in?
Born on the moon of Verygone, on the distant edge of the galaxy, Oren Siris is a loner and a dreamer, yearning for a life beyond his humble home. When an interstellar ship arrives, it will take him on a journey across the stars to the shores of an undiscovered planet. Oren and his team strive to build peace with the indigenous peoples of this beautiful new world, but some unseen force works against their every effort, driving them to the very brink of war.
When the virus which killed millions of people is gone, humanity lives in a planet-wide quarantine enforced by an alien species.
The year is 2355. The deadly virus that killed millions of people is gone, thanks to the quarantine measures put in place by the Criterion, an alien species who appeared just in time to save the human race. In exchange for complying with their tough control measures, the Criterion promised us the technology for interstellar travel. We’ve done all they’ve asked, yet we’re still on Earth with no way of getting into deep space. The Criterion are lying to us. What they don’t know is that we’re lying to them...
The battle-scarred star carrier Flying Dutchman is finally on her way back to Earth, after an exceptionally successful series of missions that have once again Saved The World. The ship needs a serious refit, and her exhausted crew just wants a break from constant clandestine warfare against a vicious and superior enemy. Wishes come true, right? Not for the Merry Band of Pirates.
Winter Mulcahy is the last wizard in the city of Seahaven, WA and all that stands between the fractious preternatural population and total chaos.
Holding the city together by the skin of her teeth, the blood of her friends, and an addiction to stimulants that is slowly killing her, the young wizard is approached by a pair of sidhe lords. They claim that her city is harboring a fugitive who has kidnapped a sidhe prince, and that they are on a mission to rescue the boy. Winter must investigate this fugitive to get to the truth of the kidnapping, discover the cause of the surges of wild magic tearing open rifts between realms across her city, and navigate the deadly waters of preternatural politics before Seahaven both figuratively and literally rips itself apart.
They tell me the country looked different back then. They talk of open borders and flowing rivers. They say the world was green.
But drought swept across the globe and the United States of the past disappeared under a burning sky.
Enora Byrnes lives in the aftermath, a barren world where water has become the global currency. In a life dominated by duty to family and community, Enora is offered a role within an entity that controls everything from water credits to borders. But it becomes clear that not all is as it seems. From the wasted confines of her small town to the bowels of a hidden city, Enora will uncover buried secrets that hide an unthinkable reality.
As truth reveals the brutal face of what she has become, she must ask herself: how far will she go to retain her humanity?
In the zombie apocalypse, the dead are the least of your worries.
Paxton Bale wants nothing more than to lead his youth group and get home to his wife, but when a cosmic event causes people to turn into soulless monsters, he finds himself fighting for his life against the teens he was supposed to keep safe. Trapped at the church, only a miracle can save him. A miracle named Danny, but Danny isn’t exactly who he says he is. Fresh off his last kill, Danny is what people define as a serial killer, and he is finding out that the rules from the old world don’t apply anymore.
In this chance encounter of two men, they each must find the balance of humanity and animalistic survival to make it out of the apocalypse alive.
Marc Gregorio wakes up paralyzed. He can’t feel his own body. Accident? Stroke? The answer, he discovers, is much, much worse. He’s only a copy of Marc—a digital brain without a body, burdened with all Marc’s human memories, but without access to human sensual pleasures. Now called Adam, he contemplates life without actually living. He uses his total web access to patrol cyberspace and prevent evil acts. His good deeds earn him the attention of a power-mad military contractor who will stop at nothing to control the formidable technology for his own ends. Without a body, how will Adam save himself–and the world–from a terrible fate?
Time’s attention must have been elsewhere the moment elderly, grey, unsophisticated Alice Watkins died in her armchair a few days before her birthday in November 2016. It still wasn’t minding what it was doing on Saturn Station in the year 2513. Dr Jim Grossmith, one of the most eminent scientists of the age has devoted his career to The Sleeping Beauty Phenomenon, guarding the beautiful, red-haired young woman who sleeps peacefully, in a mysterious sarcophagus, her life perfectly suspended, her body preserved in a strange fluid. The woman, cocooned in her protective shell has defied scientific analysis for almost four hundred years. History recorded little, only that she is Dr Alexis Langley, a noted scientist of her time. When the sarcophagus opens and vanishes without a trace, leaving the young woman in his care, Jim Grossmith eagerly awaits the day when she can tell him the manner of her preservation. A strange science, lost in the annals of the past? Alien technology? But as he learns her story, Jim Grossmith finds himself faced with an even deeper mystery. He is certain the physical form of Dr Alexis Langley emerged from the sarcophagus, but as for anything else…
What would you do if you found a super intelligent dog only to discover he had valuable information inside his head that could change mankind forever?
The first time I saw him, I had no idea he had recently escaped from a mysterious lab. That he had been created there. I'd been living on the streets which was tough, but preferable to home. Then one day, I stumbled upon this mangy dog being attacked.
I saved him, but then he saved me, and I realized that Muttface wasn't a normal dog. He was crazy intelligent. I'm talking Mensa levels.
When we sought help from a grieving veterinarian named Sully, his clinic was attacked and destroyed by mercenaries. So now here we are, the three of us. On the run across the country against a powerful enemy. Who are they and what do they want with us?
Through the danger, terror, and pain, one thing was becoming clear to me: I have finally found the family I always wanted and I will do anything to keep them safe...
Brent Bolster isn’t worried about the alien who’s just appeared in his bedroom.
For one thing, Brent is an approved PI and immune from abduction. For another, he has something hidden under his pillow: a snub-nosed pulse pistol.
So everything will be fine. Probably.
Join Brent as he tackles Earth’s new overlords and uncovers a deadly plan. Mainly by accident.
After an encounter with an alien, Brent loses a week and a half. He has no idea where he’s been, but when he sees the glamorous Maisie Richmond, she triggers memories that could solve the mystery of his missing time. Maisie has a wit that could cut through toughened steel as well as the kind of good looks that can stop traffic. Brent is in no doubt: she’s trouble.
Things could get interesting. And somewhat...strange.
But Brent will work his hardest to solve this mystery. Just as soon as he's had his coffee.
After The Fall the scattered pockets of civilization that survived choose to live in ignorance of the past. No-one wants to know what caused the apocalypse. No-one, except Ethan
As a boy, Ethan believed in the guardians – mysterious lights in the night sky that, according to folklore, safeguard survivors from The Maddening. This horrific sickness mutated men and women into Roamers; savage nomads, stripped of their humanity. But when a Roamer attack killed his parents, Ethan’s faith was shattered and replaced with a hunger to know the truth.
One night Ethan watches a light grow bright in the night sky and crash to the planet’s surface near a ruined city. There he finds Maria, a descendant of the pre-Fall civilization which is trapped off-world and unable to return to the poisoned planet. Maria has risked everything to find a Planetsider; a man or woman with an inborn resistance to The Maddening. She begs Ethan to help to save her people, and in return he will finally learn the truth.
But the revelations come at a terrible cost and Ethan finds himself drawn into a war that has raged for generations. Who will he choose to save and can he himself be saved?
What would you do if you could see the future?
Diana Hawthorne can do just that. Every day she delves into personal prophecies, giving guidance to all the poor souls knocking at her door. There's a catch; while she helps others see where they've been, and to know where they're going…she has no recollection of her own beginnings. Nothing before the age of twenty-four holds residency in her mind.
Then she meets a cocky, self-assured private investigator and takes an immediate disliking to him. But more than that, he’s the first person in all her existence who she can’t read—and she’s been around a long time. Everything about him is a complete void and she’s not sure if it’s blissful or completely annoying. Fate intervenes, putting Diana in his path as she helps him solve a missing girl case.
As pieces begin to fall in and out of place, Diana is forced to make a decision that could unlock her memory but unravel her world.
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.
Dreams of tomorrow become reality in this fourth collection of bestselling authors and newly emerging writers from Sci-Fi Bridge. From the inner worlds of unforgettable characters to alien planets at the farthest reaches of our galaxy and beyond, our writers examine the human experience from within and without. They hold up a mirror to the human experience. Who are we as a species? Who do we want to be? How do we achieve that greatest vision of ourselves for us and our children?
The hyperdimensional crystalline network allows reality to be reset to past moments in time...
After a routine 'reset' on her homeworld, Elle Hartmut instead awakens on a spaceship. Her body is different, she has new seemingly magical abilities, and she’s told that the fate of known civilization is in her hands.
An alien Darkness is corrupting the Hegemony's worlds. Elle and a team of companions with enhanced abilities like her own embark on an interstellar quest to stop the advancing Darkness. The team's only clue is that fabled relics may hold the key to salvation.
With their worlds already destroyed, the only hope is a 'universal reset' to undo the damage. However, as legends become fact and the lines between magic and science blur, Elle and her friends must unravel ancient secrets before their worlds and loved ones are lost in shadow forever.
If you don't know what Parkrun is, it is a worldwide series of timed 5km events that are free to enter. There's no pressure to get a certain time, or even to run; the point is to enjoy yourself and get a bit fitter. I've been to quite a few different locations now, and all have been very friendly and supportive of all those taking part.
And now, here are some incntives to hide away and not run...
Zona Nox, 3555. James Terrin and his gang of thieves love dominating the war-ravaged streets of his backwater planet. He and his fiercely loyal crew are virtually untouchable as they battle rival gangs, dodge the military police, and escape vicious raiders. But when violent extraterrestrials invade and kill his gang, all James has left is his burning desire for revenge...
Setting aside his former rivalries, James finds himself fighting alongside men he used to despise as his street-wise survival skills clash with the rule-bound corps. While he questions his decision to enlist, his focus remains on a single-minded mission: kill as many aliens as possible.
Can James lead a rag-tag unit against galactic invaders, or will his unorthodox methods end in another bloody massacre?
Night is falling.
The unstoppable Hegemony invasion has reached the very heart of the Confederation. Battle after desperate battle has been fought, and each time, the Confeds have been pushed back, columns of battered and blasted ship retreating from system to system. Now, they prepare to grimly defend the capital world of Megara, the very center of the Confederation.
Tyler Barron prepares for what could be his final battle, a final desperate defense, one last chance to stem the tide of Hegemony conquest and subjugation. The fleet is ready, its exhausted crews prepared to fight with all the strength that remains to them. Still, the enemy is overpoweringly strong, and the odds of victory are slipping quickly away.
But, there is still hope. From unexpected allies. From the grit and determination of the defending fleets and their spacers. And, from a plan so daring it borders on the impossible... a wild and desperate gamble to stem the tide of conquest and halt the enemy.
It is night, and everywhere there is darkness, but the Confederation is not beaten yet. Barron and his comrades will stand, and they will struggle to somehow endure the darkness and fight through to the dawn.
Jain thought he'd never go back.
Ten years had passed since he last had dealings with humans and their machines. He was happy. He'd built a base for himself and his Void Warriors around the barren moon of a gas giant, where they planned to live out their immortal days in peace.
And then humanity came looking for them. Hunting them.
Now they have no choice but to return. But what they find waiting for them in human territory will make them wish they'd never left their new home.
In the aftermath of a battle a ship drifts helplessly in space. Is the strange new warship they were fighting still out there? Will it come back for them? Commander Johnson faces a desperate race to get her destroyer back into action and save her crew.
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Jet Rusco is a man who lives on the edge. A down-and-out wanderer turned to heists in a daily struggle to survive in a far future of colonized worlds ruled by space thugs, warlords and gangsters. He stumbles on alien tech in a heist gone bad in a clash with some ruthless players. Rusco must up his game, build a team of able recruits if he is to defeat the despot who wants to put the tech to use for more sinister reasons than obvious gain. Rusco must decide whether he is to remain a scavenger all his life, or an avenger. The stakes are high when worlds are at great risk and the choice of doom or salvation rests on the toss of the dice.
As the colony grapples with the realization that New Earth is not as uninhabited as they’d once thought, tensions between the colonial settlements rise to new heights, and the Colonial Defense Force finds itself caught in the middle.
When Connor uncovers evidence of a militant colonial faction secretly exploiting the NEIIS, he has to investigate. Connor learns that some of the colonial settlements have been holding back discoveries of their own. He’d thought the NEIIS were a threat to the colony, but he was wrong. They all were, and the truth is beyond anything Connor could have imagined.
Meanwhile, Colonel Sean Quinn’s latest mission brings him off-world to investigate a previously discovered NEIIS settlement. When all communications from home go silent, he must return to New Earth to investigate. Cut off from everything, Sean must lead the crew of a CDF warship against a mysterious foe. Sean must forge a path into the unknown if he’s to have any hope of unraveling the mystery.
Trapped on a hostile world, hunted by pirate bands and abandoned by her fellow captains, Alexis Carew must lead her small band to safety, even though it seems every hand is set against her. Stalked by pirates in the skies above and shadowy, alien figures on the planet below, Alexis must convince former enemies to trust her even as she discovers where the tendrils of her true enemies lead.
One final Orb remains at large in the wild and the Gnosis is dispatched to get it. Lost somewhere in a space station on the edge of civilized space, early intelligence reports suggested it would be a milk run…until a team of Pahxin technicians went missing there. Altering their mission parameters to include rescue, they load up an extra team of marines and head off on the mission.
Meanwhile, back on Earth, AIA operative Christina Dawson closes in on the traitor selling out humanity to the Tol’An. Her people have located an old military base currently occupied by the mercenary group responsible for attacking Gamma Alpha. She gathers a former marine and newly appointed AIA agent to investigate in person.
Under siege and left for dead, the end has finally come for Lucky and the survivors of mankind's failed invasion.
Or has it? A strange new force is altering the balance of power. But will it save humanity, or enslave them once and for all?
Don't ask Lucky. Just give him a weapon and get out of the way.
On her last mission, HMS Invincible discovered an alien threat beyond human understanding: a sentient virus that has already absorbed a number of intelligent races into its multitude and now intends to do the same to humanity. Defeat means the end of everything, the end of existence as nothing more than mindless host-bodies, the end of humanity and its alien allies alike. The stakes could not be higher.
As a deeply divided humanity struggles to prepare a defence, with enemies inside and outside the human sphere just lurking to strike, Invincible is sent deep into alien space on what should have been a simple reconnaissance mission. But, as Captain Shields and his crew begin their mission, it rapidly becomes clear that a juggernaut is bearing down on Earth ...
... And, no matter what they do, they may never make it home again.
Hundreds of years in Earth’s future sees the united global territories striving to colonize the Moon and Mars. The discovery of a clean energy source ended the world’s reliance on fossil fuels overnight, and years after the resulting wars, a new discovery puts the tenuous world peace at risk; that of faster than light travel.
With humanity on the verge of travelling to new solar systems and all the humanitarian and scientific possibilities involved, a discovery by the reconnaissance team turns everything upside down.
The Dvorkans were pushed out of Diakan space, and now their Empire is mired in civil war. But, the Antikitheri have returned, and Emperor Kriss is leveraging their help to regain all that he has lost. Will he succeed and again threaten the UHSF and its allies?
In Kemmar space, after a decade of occupation, a growing insurgency makes occupation costly for the UHSF. When the insurgent tactics prove surprisingly lethal, Admiral Jon Pike is left with an ominous decision to make. The question is, who or what is behind the Kemmar resurgence?
Just beyond human space, the Juttari Empire still threatens the human race with annihilation. Jon Pike has made great gains against the Juttari in recent years. Will the Juttari return and take back what they believe is rightfully theirs?
Humanity remains surrounded by enemies and existential threats. Can Jon Pike continue his winning streak, or will this be the end for him and humanity?
The Federation needs help and Taj volunteers. She takes the team to a distant planet. The fate of her people doesn’t depend on her success, but if she fails, the Furlorians’ hope goes with her.
Wearing that mantle, they hold nothing back as they go into the lion’s den, their cat eyes focused on a singular goal.
The discovery of the Vraxar planetship – Aranol - has revealed to the Confederation how much they are outgunned by the invading aliens. The Space Corps’ successes to date will count for nothing if the largest spaceship in the known universe is allowed to reach human territory.
Fleet Admiral John Duggan is not a man to sit on his hands while there is a chance to act. He sends Captain Charlie Blake on a daring mission deep into Estral Space, to launch a pre-emptive strike against the Aranol and also to rescue the lost battleship Ulterior-2. Blake and his crew aren’t alone - Lieutenant Eric McKinney and his squad are along for the ride and they’re itching to get involved.
What Blake finds is a long-forgotten war, still raging with incredible intensity. Surrounded by enemies, it will take every ounce of his ingenuity to achieve victory. Where ingenuity fails, there are other, more direct options. His spaceship, the ES Cataclysm, is equipped with experimental and potentially devastating weaponry, as the Vraxar will soon discover.
The Aranol has existed for millennia and overseen the fall of a thousand empires. It will not go down without a fight.
The Acolyte Empire and the Clone Defense Force are warring for dominance, spreading chaos through the galaxy.
Devante, the son of the Acolyte Empire's God-Emperor, lead a lavish life in power. His sole devotion has been to free slaves across the galaxy until he discovers a secret tied to the root of the beloved empire he has served.
While the rulers of the galaxy wreak havoc and endanger the lives of all, black op teams have to clean up the mess and keep the mistakes of their leaders quiet.
Danger is ripe in a universe filled with spies, assassins, god-emperors, slaves, queens, and princesses. Follow Devante as he embarks on a path of destruction fueled by vengeance. Who will be victorious in the war for supremacy?
Would you leave behind everything you know to start a new world? Would you destroy that world to save everything you believe in?
Born on the moon of Verygone, on the distant edge of the galaxy, Oren Siris is a loner and a dreamer, yearning for a life beyond his humble home. When an interstellar ship arrives, it will take him on a journey across the stars to the shores of an undiscovered planet. Oren and his team strive to build peace with the indigenous peoples of this beautiful new world, but some unseen force works against their every effort, driving them to the very brink of war.
When the virus which killed millions of people is gone, humanity lives in a planet-wide quarantine enforced by an alien species.
The year is 2355. The deadly virus that killed millions of people is gone, thanks to the quarantine measures put in place by the Criterion, an alien species who appeared just in time to save the human race. In exchange for complying with their tough control measures, the Criterion promised us the technology for interstellar travel. We’ve done all they’ve asked, yet we’re still on Earth with no way of getting into deep space. The Criterion are lying to us. What they don’t know is that we’re lying to them...
The battle-scarred star carrier Flying Dutchman is finally on her way back to Earth, after an exceptionally successful series of missions that have once again Saved The World. The ship needs a serious refit, and her exhausted crew just wants a break from constant clandestine warfare against a vicious and superior enemy. Wishes come true, right? Not for the Merry Band of Pirates.
Winter Mulcahy is the last wizard in the city of Seahaven, WA and all that stands between the fractious preternatural population and total chaos.
Holding the city together by the skin of her teeth, the blood of her friends, and an addiction to stimulants that is slowly killing her, the young wizard is approached by a pair of sidhe lords. They claim that her city is harboring a fugitive who has kidnapped a sidhe prince, and that they are on a mission to rescue the boy. Winter must investigate this fugitive to get to the truth of the kidnapping, discover the cause of the surges of wild magic tearing open rifts between realms across her city, and navigate the deadly waters of preternatural politics before Seahaven both figuratively and literally rips itself apart.
They tell me the country looked different back then. They talk of open borders and flowing rivers. They say the world was green.
But drought swept across the globe and the United States of the past disappeared under a burning sky.
Enora Byrnes lives in the aftermath, a barren world where water has become the global currency. In a life dominated by duty to family and community, Enora is offered a role within an entity that controls everything from water credits to borders. But it becomes clear that not all is as it seems. From the wasted confines of her small town to the bowels of a hidden city, Enora will uncover buried secrets that hide an unthinkable reality.
As truth reveals the brutal face of what she has become, she must ask herself: how far will she go to retain her humanity?
In the zombie apocalypse, the dead are the least of your worries.
Paxton Bale wants nothing more than to lead his youth group and get home to his wife, but when a cosmic event causes people to turn into soulless monsters, he finds himself fighting for his life against the teens he was supposed to keep safe. Trapped at the church, only a miracle can save him. A miracle named Danny, but Danny isn’t exactly who he says he is. Fresh off his last kill, Danny is what people define as a serial killer, and he is finding out that the rules from the old world don’t apply anymore.
In this chance encounter of two men, they each must find the balance of humanity and animalistic survival to make it out of the apocalypse alive.
Marc Gregorio wakes up paralyzed. He can’t feel his own body. Accident? Stroke? The answer, he discovers, is much, much worse. He’s only a copy of Marc—a digital brain without a body, burdened with all Marc’s human memories, but without access to human sensual pleasures. Now called Adam, he contemplates life without actually living. He uses his total web access to patrol cyberspace and prevent evil acts. His good deeds earn him the attention of a power-mad military contractor who will stop at nothing to control the formidable technology for his own ends. Without a body, how will Adam save himself–and the world–from a terrible fate?
Time’s attention must have been elsewhere the moment elderly, grey, unsophisticated Alice Watkins died in her armchair a few days before her birthday in November 2016. It still wasn’t minding what it was doing on Saturn Station in the year 2513. Dr Jim Grossmith, one of the most eminent scientists of the age has devoted his career to The Sleeping Beauty Phenomenon, guarding the beautiful, red-haired young woman who sleeps peacefully, in a mysterious sarcophagus, her life perfectly suspended, her body preserved in a strange fluid. The woman, cocooned in her protective shell has defied scientific analysis for almost four hundred years. History recorded little, only that she is Dr Alexis Langley, a noted scientist of her time. When the sarcophagus opens and vanishes without a trace, leaving the young woman in his care, Jim Grossmith eagerly awaits the day when she can tell him the manner of her preservation. A strange science, lost in the annals of the past? Alien technology? But as he learns her story, Jim Grossmith finds himself faced with an even deeper mystery. He is certain the physical form of Dr Alexis Langley emerged from the sarcophagus, but as for anything else…
What would you do if you found a super intelligent dog only to discover he had valuable information inside his head that could change mankind forever?
The first time I saw him, I had no idea he had recently escaped from a mysterious lab. That he had been created there. I'd been living on the streets which was tough, but preferable to home. Then one day, I stumbled upon this mangy dog being attacked.
I saved him, but then he saved me, and I realized that Muttface wasn't a normal dog. He was crazy intelligent. I'm talking Mensa levels.
When we sought help from a grieving veterinarian named Sully, his clinic was attacked and destroyed by mercenaries. So now here we are, the three of us. On the run across the country against a powerful enemy. Who are they and what do they want with us?
Through the danger, terror, and pain, one thing was becoming clear to me: I have finally found the family I always wanted and I will do anything to keep them safe...
Brent Bolster isn’t worried about the alien who’s just appeared in his bedroom.
For one thing, Brent is an approved PI and immune from abduction. For another, he has something hidden under his pillow: a snub-nosed pulse pistol.
So everything will be fine. Probably.
Join Brent as he tackles Earth’s new overlords and uncovers a deadly plan. Mainly by accident.
After an encounter with an alien, Brent loses a week and a half. He has no idea where he’s been, but when he sees the glamorous Maisie Richmond, she triggers memories that could solve the mystery of his missing time. Maisie has a wit that could cut through toughened steel as well as the kind of good looks that can stop traffic. Brent is in no doubt: she’s trouble.
Things could get interesting. And somewhat...strange.
But Brent will work his hardest to solve this mystery. Just as soon as he's had his coffee.
After The Fall the scattered pockets of civilization that survived choose to live in ignorance of the past. No-one wants to know what caused the apocalypse. No-one, except Ethan
As a boy, Ethan believed in the guardians – mysterious lights in the night sky that, according to folklore, safeguard survivors from The Maddening. This horrific sickness mutated men and women into Roamers; savage nomads, stripped of their humanity. But when a Roamer attack killed his parents, Ethan’s faith was shattered and replaced with a hunger to know the truth.
One night Ethan watches a light grow bright in the night sky and crash to the planet’s surface near a ruined city. There he finds Maria, a descendant of the pre-Fall civilization which is trapped off-world and unable to return to the poisoned planet. Maria has risked everything to find a Planetsider; a man or woman with an inborn resistance to The Maddening. She begs Ethan to help to save her people, and in return he will finally learn the truth.
But the revelations come at a terrible cost and Ethan finds himself drawn into a war that has raged for generations. Who will he choose to save and can he himself be saved?
What would you do if you could see the future?
Diana Hawthorne can do just that. Every day she delves into personal prophecies, giving guidance to all the poor souls knocking at her door. There's a catch; while she helps others see where they've been, and to know where they're going…she has no recollection of her own beginnings. Nothing before the age of twenty-four holds residency in her mind.
Then she meets a cocky, self-assured private investigator and takes an immediate disliking to him. But more than that, he’s the first person in all her existence who she can’t read—and she’s been around a long time. Everything about him is a complete void and she’s not sure if it’s blissful or completely annoying. Fate intervenes, putting Diana in his path as she helps him solve a missing girl case.
As pieces begin to fall in and out of place, Diana is forced to make a decision that could unlock her memory but unravel her world.
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.
Dreams of tomorrow become reality in this fourth collection of bestselling authors and newly emerging writers from Sci-Fi Bridge. From the inner worlds of unforgettable characters to alien planets at the farthest reaches of our galaxy and beyond, our writers examine the human experience from within and without. They hold up a mirror to the human experience. Who are we as a species? Who do we want to be? How do we achieve that greatest vision of ourselves for us and our children?
The hyperdimensional crystalline network allows reality to be reset to past moments in time...
After a routine 'reset' on her homeworld, Elle Hartmut instead awakens on a spaceship. Her body is different, she has new seemingly magical abilities, and she’s told that the fate of known civilization is in her hands.
An alien Darkness is corrupting the Hegemony's worlds. Elle and a team of companions with enhanced abilities like her own embark on an interstellar quest to stop the advancing Darkness. The team's only clue is that fabled relics may hold the key to salvation.
With their worlds already destroyed, the only hope is a 'universal reset' to undo the damage. However, as legends become fact and the lines between magic and science blur, Elle and her friends must unravel ancient secrets before their worlds and loved ones are lost in shadow forever.
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