Alasdair Shaw - Scifi Author

January Round-up of Scifi Books

noreply@blogger.com (Alasdair Shaw) — Tue, 06 Jan 2026 09:26:00 +0000

And here are the books you want...

Siobhan Dunmoore was losing the war one ship at a time. The Shrehari Empire had burned more hulls out from under her than any other officer in the Fleet. Some said she was too aggressive. Others said too reckless. The enemy called her something else—something they spat with fear. None of it mattered. Not all her enemies wore Imperial uniforms. And the only reputation she had left was for bad luck.
She was dragging another wreck home, crew half‑dead, systems failing. This time she’d bluffed her way out by the skin of her teeth. She wanted rest. The Admiralty wanted her back in the fight.
They gave her Stingray. The Fleet’s cursed frigate. Captain disgraced, crew broken, ship rotting. The last of her kind still limping through the war. Admirals whispered about scrapping her, breaking up the jinx. But the war was bleeding ships, and anything that could still fire had to fight.

???

A generation ago, an unknown force wiped out the Earth outpost at Mu Arae. Then they mysteriously vanished, never to be heard from again.
Or did they?
When disgraced officer Hayden Kaine is exiled to an outdated military starship stationed on the fringes of the galaxy, his biggest worry is how he can rescue his career. But after the vessel is trapped in the quarantined star system, survival becomes his only concern.
With the crippled ship hunted by a relentless enemy, Kaine unexpectedly finds himself thrust into the captain’s seat; a role for which he is not ready, and which most of the surviving crew do not accept.

???

Tanis Richards and the crew of the TSS Kirby Jones have been patroling the edge of the InnerSol asteroid belt for eleven months. Her crew is tired, they're low on food and equipment, and ready to return to port for refit and repair.
But before they do, a freighter is passing through their patrol space. It's named the Norse Wind and the Cune Port Authority has reason to believe the ship is carrying contraband requiring boarding and seizure.
It should be a simple stop and grab, but at the end of a long patrol, things rarely go right.

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.

Kevin Connelly embarks on a quest to honor the memory of his grandfather, a war hero in a neighborhood without heroes, and rescue his twin siblings from mysterious aliens. His older brother, now the head of their orphaned family has other plans, requiring him to flee a contract with a powerful crime lord. Military enlistment might be the answer to his prayers or the beginning of his destruction.
Ace and Amanda-Margaret Connelly learn firsthand the secret of the Siren doom when they are captured by a race of giants opposing their Siren masters. Nothing is what it seems. The human race will soon learn rebels are treacherous allies.

The soldiers of the Simulant Operations Programme are mankind's elite warriors. Veterans of a thousand battles across a hundred worlds, they undertake suicidal missions to protect humanity from the insidious Krell Empire and the mysterious machine race known as the Shard.

November Round-up of SciFi Books

noreply@blogger.com (Alasdair Shaw) — Thu, 06 Nov 2025 07:00:00 +0000

Real windows on a spaceship? Yes or no?

And here are the books you want...

The Republic of Exilium has grown in strength and confidence at the far end of the galaxy from the rest of mankind, sending out scout ships to survey the worlds around them as they try to learn more about the mysterious Construction Matrix AIs.
Finding one of the genocidal rogues of that mysterious “race” in the process of destroying an inhabited world, Captain Octavio Catalan takes his ship into a desperate battle. He is victorious—but he is too late. The world of the strange aliens he has encountered is doomed.

Flight Decurion Seivers is stranded on a frozen moon, far from the Legion. The Perception of Prejudice is barely functioning and Percy is offline. Seivers' future is measured in days.
Captain Lusimi searches for enemy survivors. By the order of the Protectors, the Sidexan Fleet is to avenge the Legion's violation of Protected System Five. He will follow his orders, but protecting his warriors and crew is his highest priority.
The hunt is on.

On the backwater world of Cayelle, Tina Freeman runs a shop with her son Rex: fifteen years old, half-human, half-android with a massive chip on his shoulder about having been born without arms or legs.
The shop makes a modest profit, but when a creditor turns up wanting his money back, everything goes pear-shaped.
She needs money, and needs it fast. Another creditor is impossible to find. That leaves her one option: to return to the world she fled fifteen years ago and Kelso Space Station, where her spaceship has languished for over fifteen years, and finally sell the thing.
Tina worked as scientific officer in the Federacy Force’s top secret Project Charon, and was forced out when she rang alarm bells about particles that escaped out of a rift to another universe.

A derelict warship, ancient but still alive. A small team of humans fighting for all humanity.
Built for a time when the races were just finding their way to the stars, finding that they could dominate others. The galactic conquests created the arms race and the ancients, the Progenitors had to protect their own. They built a ship to drive the others away.
It worked. And it didn’t. The Progenitors abandoned the galaxy to the newcomers, leaving relics behind as monuments to their failure.
Humanity spread to the stars and ran headlong into the established races. A new war begins, and no one conducts war better than humanity except for the Blaze Collective.
The two go head-to-head while humanity frantically searches for something to give them an advantage. Ancient technology. The derelicts scattered across the galaxy. Gutted and useless.
Except for one, hidden in plain sight, close to Earth. Major Declan Payne takes his team aboard to find that the ship is no derelict, and it needs him as much as humanity needs it.

The authority of the Syndicate Worlds' government is crumbling, and civil war and rebellion are breaking out, despite brutal attempts to suppress disorder. In the Midway Star System, leaders must decide whether to remain loyal to the old order or fight for something new. Betrayed by his government, CEO Artur Drakon launches a battle for control of Midway. He is assisted by an ally he's unsure he can trust, CEO Gwen Iceni. While she controls the mobile fleet, she has no choice but to rely on "General" Drakon's ground forces to keep the peace planet-side. If their coup is to succeed, Drakon and Iceni must put their differences aside to defend Midway against the alien threat of the enigma race—and to ferret out saboteurs determined to re-establish Syndic rule...

Cold war between Earth and Mars. A massive invasion fleet suddenly appears off the corner of the solar system, headed towards Earth. The nearest patrol ship is sent to investigate, with little chance of survival.

The initial rebellion against the Thyterion Empire was rushed, chaotic, and resulted in many casualties in its aftermath. Revni and her misfit team realize that the only way to save their people and the alien Chromata that reside within them is to find a way to eliminate the immune enemy leaders on their own. But the recent battle has stirred up the typically peaceful Chromata. Now every Chromatan soldier, civilian, and tainted enemy-turned-ally wants revenge.
What starts out as a mission to make it quietly to the Thyterion motherships and relieve command of their leaders becomes a contingency operation to control the masses and save Chromatans from themselves while the team strains to keep their cover. Thyterion's captains and command members must be eliminated if Chromatans have any hope of disrupting the enemy enough to take ships and become a viable force among the stars.
When an arch-nemesis of Chromata reemerges more powerful than before, the Thyterion ships become a battlefield between the warring alien colonies, with their human vessels serving only as collateral damage. The revived ancient war quickly exposes a new threat, one more powerful than any of them.
Will Revni and her team survive the new invasion? Or will they discover only a new oppressor eager to crush Chromata into oblivion?

Murder, conspiracy, clash of rival star nations over vast wealth from mining asteroids. And sizzling romance on the frontier world of Olathe-5.
Alien claim-jumpers are robbing asteroid miners of their hard-won discoveries in the vast, four-belted Olathe System. These pirates are carting off high value ores while officials of the Terran Commonwealth take bribes to look the other way.
Meet young attorneys Tyler and J.B. Matthews long before they launched Star Lawyers Corporation. You’ll also encounter the spicy East Indian Lieutenant Varuna Singh, attorney with the Energy Consortium who teams up with the Matthews brothers to stop the Great Asteroid Theft.

October Round-up of Scifi Books

noreply@blogger.com (Alasdair Shaw) — Mon, 06 Oct 2025 07:42:00 +0000

It's autumn and the days are getting shorter (sorry Americans for not calling it fall, and sorry antipodeans for being six months out). Time to start collecting even more books ready for those long dark nights.

And here are the books you want...

Captain Jack Grady feels his new mission is a waste of time. He and his ragtag crew of the spacecraft Adventurer are assigned to escort archeologists seeking mysterious relics in the passageways below an abandoned military base on a remote asteroid. But is the complex as deserted as it seems?
When dangerous forces awaken to fulfill a monstrous purpose, the subterranean corridors echo to the rasp of weapons fire as Grady struggles to survive.
Can he fight his way out of a deadly trap, one where even death itself would be a welcome release?

Olympia Blunt wakes up in a strange hospital, far away from everything familiar and haunted by memories of an Earth invaded by aliens. Taken captive and thrust into a galaxy lightyears from home, she soon gets tangled in the affairs of an alien civilization.
Facing her new reality Olympia finds out that the keys to her fate now holds the formidable Prince Adlai. Feared by many and heir to the alien empire, he has big plans for her. After Olympia coincidently saves the prince from an assassination attempt, he trains her to be his personal bodyguard, his Untouchable. But as Adlai grows more fascinated with her, her role becomes complicated.
Soon, Olympia finds herself walking a razor's edge between her own desires … and a plan to liberate the enslaved humans.

ake Adlar's goals in life were simple—possibly nonexistent. All he wanted was to fly a desk. Hence, he'd joined the Space Force, the service with the most extensive array of Earth-side clerical specialties.
All he needed to make him happy was an office, a computer, his favorite coffee mug, and a never-ending pile of requisitions.
Then a pretty woman came along. Perhaps a drink or ten. Next thing Jake knew, he's shipped off to the Legions, doomed to fight in the seemingly endless war raging throughout the galaxy.
Now, survival tops the chart. Except that isn’t so easy to do in the Legions, where everyone's a killer, officers are as merciless as the enemy, and dark schemes and secrets brood within the ranks.

Korvira—the Crown Princess of Vorcalix—enjoys a rare day out of the palace.
Farmers' markets. Local crafters. Meeting the people she will one day rule. It's the necessary connection to "regular" people that everyone in power should maintain.
But when a commotion distracts her security for one moment too long, Korvira vanishes.
When the ransom note arrives at the palace, there's only one team the King will trust with the safety of his daughter.

Shunned by friends and family for abandoning the pacifist beliefs of their religion, abandoned by the love of his life, he left his homeworld of Canaan to go to the Commonwealth Military Academy on Earth and train to fight in the looming war against the implacable alien threat of the Tahni Imperium.
When a training mission with a crew of cadets winds up caught in the middle of one of the worst battles of the war, Cal and his fellow students are officially declared dead.
That's when their war really begins.
Recruited for a top-secret special operations unit, Cal and his friends undergo experimental and dangerous physical augmentation that turns them into supersoldiers, designed to take the fight behind enemy lines and put the fear of God into an alien society who thinks their Emperor is God personified.
Now Caleb is asked to sacrifice his very humanity to protect his people.
But when Canaan itself is threatened by the Tahni, will he throw away his career and risk everything to save the people who turned their backs on him?

Hayden Kaine, a brash young cadet, thinks his family's influence has guaranteed his destiny as a future leader of the Earth Confederation. But falling on the wrong side of an Admiral is never a good idea, and he soon finds himself posted to an outdated starship at the farthest reaches of the Confederation.
What at first appears to be a routine mission turns south when an unforeseen disaster traps Kaine and the crew of the Scimitar at the edge of charted space, with no means to return home.

For generations, Earth’s militant rulers have waged a relentless, low-grade war against a group of genetically modified humans, branding them as demons and a threat to civilization. Now, the conflict is reaching its breaking point.
Gracely Fielder has spent her life on the fringes of this war, engaging in small skirmishes without ever intending to spark a full-scale conflict. But a chance encounter in deep space uncovers a shocking truth and thrusts her into a battle that will bring war to her home planet—a war her people cannot win.
Meanwhile, Gracely’s long-lost brother, Jered—raised in secrecy on Earth—has spent his life hiding his true identity from those who would destroy him. As war looms, his path leads him to an ancient force beyond time — one that defies the known laws of quantum physics, reality, and faith itself.

For the first time in his life, roboticist Casmir Dabrowski is headed to another star system as an advisor for the Kingdom space fleet. He's being given a chance to prove himself to King Jager by helping find the ancient artifact he inadvertently lost. It's best not to think about what might happen if he fails...
But with technologically advanced astroshamans after the artifact, not to mention the deadly mercenary captain Tenebris Rache, it's not long before the mission collides with disaster.
Soon, Casmir and his friends are caught between warring factions, and he must choose between what the king would want and what he knows is right.

Chronoscribe Tsai Yini monitors the tachyon communication system, which transmits data faster than the speed of light. When classified results from an astrobiologist’s research are leaked to her, she cannot believe what she reads. The report reveals that intelligent life forms exist on a tropical planet in the Gliese system.
Their civilization is still in its infancy but revolves around an artifact of unknown origin that seems to influence their body chemistry. But there’s more: the astrobiologist who uncovered this artifact has undergone a baffling evolution of his own, and he’s now en route to Earth!
Yini suspects he carries a danger far greater than anyone could imagine. To stop him, she must make unimaginable decisions that could determine not only her fate but the future of the universe.

August Round-up of Scifi Books

noreply@blogger.com (Alasdair Shaw) — Wed, 06 Aug 2025 10:29:00 +0000

Oops. Sorry if you got the draft copy earlier - I hit send instead of save by accident! Any way, back to exploring this planet...

And here are the books you want...

Their war. Our extinction.
The catastrophe of P3X-888 becomes a question of fate for all mankind. The enemy rises and strikes the all-destructive final blow, even before it was understood on Earth what the war is about.
In the midst of a standoff that has been going on for millennia, Nikos and Jacek stumble into a conflict far greater than they could have ever imagined. Meanwhile, the leadership back home is still clueless and unaware that mankind's doom has long since begun.

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.

Asa Kleve craved a life of intergalactic adventure.
Instead, she’s tasked with babysitting a group of demanding scientists on the dead planet Cozore.
But all of that changes when a rival galactic power attacks and kidnaps the scientists, leaving her for dead.
Rescued from the rubble by an alien — one long thought to be extinct — Asa makes a pact with her unexpected new ally to save both their peoples before it's too late.
This dead planet may not be so dead after all, and Asa is about to find more adventure than she ever bargained for.

A strange, glowing object lands in the forest. Tim is the only one who sees it. Venturing out to investigate, he discovers animals infected with a mysterious black growth. When he returns to his cabin, he realizes the horrifying truth: whatever disease the object brought to Earth, Tim has caught it too.
Now begins a living nightmare. Tim grows sicker, succumbs to the illness and dies—only to awaken again the next morning.
But something is wrong. Tim is no longer fully human. He's transforming into something else. Something dangerous...

When aliens arrive on Earth, the tiny town of Little Creek isn't any more prepared than the rest of the planet.
Without warning or provocation, the otherworldly creatures begin to lay waste to everything.
In the chaos that follows, an unlikely group bands together: A beauty queen with something to prove... A shopkeeper with something to hide... A shellshocked teenager set on revenge... And a world-weary veteran desperate to save them all.
As time runs out, this ragtag crew must find a way to fight back against the alien forces massing around them.
What are they? What do they want? How can they be stopped? If they fail, it won't just be Little Creek that is lost.
It will be all of humanity.

The world changed overnight... and now there is nowhere to run.
The abductions were the first sign of the invasion. Thousands of small children vanished from their beds. Meteorites hit next, choking the air with mysterious dust that had a strange effect on the dead.
They rose from their graves and hungered for the taste of flesh.
The dead were only a smokescreen for the true monsters. Creatures, not of the Earth, began to hunt the living with one purpose... eradication.
Seventeen-year-old Zoe has to fight off the dead and hide from the aliens in hope of finding out why they are here.
The answer could kill her.

In 2017, a mysterious interstellar object transited the Solar System bound for deep space. By the time it was noticed, it had already passed Earth. It was soon forgotten, dismissed as a comet or planetary fragment. Earth’s scientists turned to more pressing matters.
But it was no mere rock. An alien spaceship looking for habitable planets, it sent a machine probe to Earth, containing a sentient quantum computer.
After crash landing in South America, the probe was found by tech billionaire Christian Becker, who used its computational power to give himself groundbreaking technology and unlimited wealth.
Until something goes wrong.
Someone hacks into and shuts down Becker's secret lab. Becker is certain that War veteran Will Logan and his missing wife, Alex, are the saboteurs. Logan is kidnapped and brought to Becker’s highly secret research campus.
But nothing is what it seems...

July Round-up Of Scifi Books

noreply@blogger.com (Alasdair Shaw) — Sun, 06 Jul 2025 10:17:00 +0000

???

And here are the books you want...

Earth Solar System, the Future. Abigail Olivaw is drowning in self-doubt. Hiding a devastating secret from the populace, the President of the Confederation of Planetary Explorers is horrified when hostile aliens arrive to announce they're putting humanity on trial. Forced to act as her species’ defender in court, she struggles to hide her family's hidden multi-generational history that could lead to a sentence of genocide.
Epsilon Eridani Colony. Joyce Green’s passion for her job is dwarfed only by her love for her son. So when he dies from a mysterious virus that threatens the entire settlement, the Director of Colonization vows to stop at nothing to discover what triggered the deadly infection. And as she uncovers the truth bit by bit, her heartbreak fuels a berserk need for justice.
Trapped by guilt over a mistake she didn't choose, Abigail falls into a tailspin when the invaders reveal the facts of her race's origins. And when Joyce unmasks a traitor, the rest of her people would be lucky to only die from disease.
With their paths on a collision course, will the women's consequence-laden decisions destroy humankind's last hope?

The warship Trouble Dog was build and bred for calculating violence, yet following a brutal war, she finds herself disgusted by conflict and her role in a possible war crime. Seeking to atone, she joins the House of Reclamation, an organisation dedicated to rescuing ships in distress. But, stripped of her weaponry and emptied of her officers, she struggles in the new role she's chosen for herself. When a ship goes missing in a disputed system, Trouble Dog and her new crew of misfits and loners, captained by Sal Konstanz, an ex-captain of a medical frigate who once fought against Trouble Dog, are assigned to investigate and save whoever they can.

Conscription. It was announced through every electronic device around the globe, right before everyone considered ‘capable’ was abducted.
Meaning most people under the age of twenty-five.
James Cook and his team Mecha Tail were supposed to be fighting in the e-game championships for Mecha-Assault Two. Now they’re just grunts for the Union’s Planetary Defense force.
With Neural implants grafted onto their spines to give them direct control over their rusted and reclaimed mech armor, they have weeks to learn how to fight.
He will have to become more than James Cook, he will have to become Salchar. He will have to become a leader.
Under the rust and harried repairs that make up the Dreadnought Golden Refuge, hides the true heart of the ship Resilient. She knows a devastating secret.
The Union lays in tatters and the Planetary Defense force was gutted.
If that’s true—who are Salchar and his people training and fighting under?

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.

In the not-so-distant future, Ensign Carol Hansen of Earth's ISC Fleet finds herself caught in the midst of a brutal conflict no amount of training could have prepared her to survive. A friendly diplomatic mission to Inor—the only inhabited alien planet we have discovered so far—turns into a blood-soaked nightmare when enormous silver alien ships launch an unprovoked attack. The alien spacecraft are made of unknown materials, with unknown capabilities, and the attackers' motives are equally unknown.
The only certainty is their overwhelming hostility towards the Inori, and now, Earth's Fleet.

Fresh out of the Academy, Ensign Cole Jackson’s first posting to Freedom couldn’t have come at a worse time. All over the Alliance, planets and colonies are suddenly under attack by the vicious Coven Empire.
Freedom and her sister ship, Hood, are ambushed by alien warships, leaving Hood drifting dead in the void.
Cole is ordered to salvage parts from the powerless Hood, but when he arrives on the unpowered hulk, Freedom is called away, marooning him and a group of malcontent techs in deep space.
With the timer on survival ticking down, Cole must find the confidence to take control, whip his tiny crew into shape, bring Hood back to life––repairing communications, propulsion and even weapons.
He's got one chance to transform the derelict ship into a combat-ready vessel. One he can take into battle and alterthe course of the war.

During a time of interplanetary war, Baymond escaped heartbreak by joining the galactic air fleet. Now he faces death daily while living on a military space station far from his home planet. His latest assignment is to travel to a war-torn planet on a reconnaissance mission.
Meanwhile, Princess Fawniteen has accepted her fate. She will marry Prince Radcliff when she turns eighteen to form a political alliance between their countries. But when the king's dying wish is for Fawniteen and his son to marry immediately, she realizes she’s still in love with Baymond and wants control over her life.
Fawniteen finds the courage to break off her engagement and travel across the galaxy to be with Baymond. She joins him on what’s proposed to be a peaceful mission. Instead they find themselves cut off from the space station and war erupts.
When Baymond and Fawniteen become separated, he must face his hardest trial yet when he's captured by the enemy when searching for her.
Will Fawn and Baymond survive their separation by war? Can Baymond draw on his unique gifts and defeat a powerful sorcerer-deity to save the galaxy?

When Lieutenant Alex 'Flex' Callahan encounters mysterious alien probes near Luna Station, no one believes his warnings—until it's too late. Human activity has awakened an alien presence deep in our Solar System. Now humanity faces extinction as this ancient and forgotten foe launches a devastating invasion. Their goal? To reclaim Earth as their ancestral home.
Flying his Firebird fighter from the carrier ECS Vanguard, Flex leads the desperate fight against overwhelming odds. With superior technology and savage combat skills, the enemy steamroll through humanity's defenses, conquering colonies from Europa to Mars. Earth's last hope lies with its fighter pilots and their nerves of steel.

???

June Roundup of Scifi Books

noreply@blogger.com (Alasdair Shaw) — Fri, 06 Jun 2025 08:35:00 +0000

Hmmm. How to name an alien race? After something on Earth they resemble? By how the name they call themselves sounds in English? But as an author you're making it up. So you can at least make it pronounceable. Or should you?

And here are the books you want...

The skelkrins. Predators from deep space. Creatures of claws, fangs, and unending malice. They swarm across the galaxy, slaying all in their path. Planets burn in their wake. And now they're heading to Earth.
Raphael "Riff" Starfire commands the Alien Hunters, a group of scruffy mercenaries. Galactic pest controllers, they mostly handle small critters--aliens that clog up your engine pipes, gnaw on your hull, or burrow through your silos.
Riff and his crew have never faced anything like the skelkrins before. As these cosmic killers invade our solar system, will Riff be the one hunting aliens . . . or will aliens hunt him?

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.

Out in the darkness of space, something is targeting the Greatships.
With their vast cargo holds and a crew that could fill a city, the Greatships are the lifeblood of human occupied space, transporting an unimaginable volume - and value - of goods from City, the greatest human orbital, all the way to Tradepoint at the other, to trade for xenoglas with an unknowable alien species.
It has always been Marca Nbaro's dream to achieve the near-impossible: escape her upbringing and venture into space.
All it took, to make her way onto the crew of the Greatship Athens was thousands of hours in simulators, dedication, and pawning or selling every scrap of her old life in order to forge a new one. But though she's made her way onboard with faked papers, leaving her old life - and scandals - behind isn't so easy.
She may have just combined all the dangers of her former life, with all the perils of the new...

Idris has neither aged nor slept since they remade his mind in the war. And one of humanity’s heroes now scrapes by on a freelance salvage vessel, to avoid the attention of greater powers.
Eighty years ago, Earth was destroyed by an alien enemy. Many escaped, but millions more died. So mankind created enhanced humans such as Idris - who could communicate mind-to-mind with our aggressors. Then these ‘Architects’ simply disappeared and Idris and his kind became obsolete.
Now, Idris and his crew have something strange, abandoned in space. It’s clearly the work of the Architects – but are they really returning? And if so, why? Hunted by gangsters, cults and governments, Idris and his crew race across the galaxy as they search for answers. For they now possess something of incalculable value, and many would kill to obtain it.

Alisia is normal, as far as humans go. She’s a young historian recovering from heartbreak, intent only on settling down and living peacefully. But the gods have different intentions. Alisia and her sister wake up on an alien ship. The merciless Admiral Brutus of the Vudar empire has mistaken the pair for members of the rival Sem’Pari race and plans on using them as spies, controlling them with neural implants. However, Alisia quickly realizes Brutus’s team unknowingly implanted the wrong AI chip in her head.
Alisia names this AI companion Eric, and it’s almost too easy for her to connect with—to love—this exhilarating new voice with whom she shares her body. But even when it becomes apparent that almost no one aboard the Vudar ship is who they claim to be, Alisia chooses to trust Eric. Only he—it—can help her harness her new superpower-like abilities, which are her best hope to escape back to Earth... and survive.

War never promised an easy tomorrow.
Lt. Colonel Arthur Hanson suffers from imposter syndrome. While grateful for promotion to second-in-command of the CSV Margaret Thatcher, he’s still a nerdy engineer at heart. The CDF’s presence in the Orion Spur is to project strength and maintain peace among the former League-held settlements. Confronting minor skirmishes is a cakewalk compared to open war.
But freedom demands a price.
Without warning, coordinated terrorist strikes across the Spur leave the fleet limping on life support. The Margaret Thatcher herself narrowly escapes destruction — at an unspeakable cost.
With the fleet decimated and backup stalled behind political power plays, Colonel Hanson is forced into shoes he feels ill-qualified to fill. But as ranking officer, survivors look to him to lead the charge against terrorists who wantonly rape and murder with no regard for the innocent.
Now Arthur must steel his spine and rise to the challenge of his namesake ship.
Because the Iron Lady does not turn from the fight.

Geary believed in the Alliance. Even when he uncovered overwhelming evidence that the highest echelons of the government and fleet command were involved in secret programs and prison camps, he believed it was worth saving. And that his duty was to see that justice was served even though some factions feared that revealing the truth would cause the Alliance to crumble.
But after narrowly surviving an assassination attempt when he brings evidence of the misdeeds to the capital star system, Geary realizes that some have decided the easiest way to make the Alliance’s problems disappear is to get rid of him. He finds himself ordered to undertake a perilous new assignment outside the reaches of human-occupied space while the Senate clashes over the evidence.
Geary’s warships must escort a diplomatic and scientific mission across the dangerous, disintegrating remnants of the Syndicate Worlds empire. But even if he can make it to Midway Star System, the gateway to alien-controlled space, Geary will face former Syndic officials who have rebelled and regard the Alliance with deep suspicion. And that will be the easy part...

Corvus Centauri rises from the ashes of betrayal and loss to carve his destiny among the stars. Once a child of noble blood, now a battle-hardened warrior raised among corsairs, Corvus must navigate a galaxy rife with treachery, ambition, and the haunting echoes of his past.
As he pieces together the mysteries behind his family’s fall, Corvus discovers long-buried secrets that could tip the balance of power in Frontier Space.
But to reclaim his birthright, Corvus must wield more than a blaster or a plasma sword — he must become a wise and cunning leader like his father, one that knows not only how to fight, but who to fight, and when not to.

In another galaxy far from Earth, an evil Empire controls 3/4ths of the star systems and yearns for more. Those regions not under their control have either traded obedience for their sovereignty, are too wild to tame, or too dangerous for Imperial troops to tread upon.
The main thorn in the Emperor's side is the Frontier, which occupies a third of the lawless and barbaric Outer Rim. Countless starship commanders and fleets have been sent to pacify and annex it into the Empire. All have failed.
The meager colonies established in the region are beset by constant wars and disasters. So the Emperor decides to change strategy. If an Imperial commander cannot give him what he desires, then perhaps an enemy can.
Aatroxiss, one of the few surviving members of the Keeno Order that the Empire has hunted to near annihilation, is captured and brought before the Emperor himself. But before Aatroxiss can wield the Kalla and kill him in his own throne room, the Emperor makes him an offer he cannot refuse.
The Frontier, given to Aatroxiss under the guise of him serving the Empire. He can do whatever he wishes with the region, so long as he brings order to it. Conflicted by wanting to kill the Emperor and avenge the deaths of the other Keenos, he wisely hesitates as he sees the opportunity in this. For over 200 years the Rebellion has failed to free a single world from the Empire. But if he agrees to become the Emperor's Grand Admiral in charge of the Frontier, he could free hundreds of worlds, if not thousands, from Imperial tyranny in fact, if not in name.
The Emperor knows it too, and in his gloating way has cornered Aatroxiss. Will he choose vengeance or rescuing others?
A Keeno can make only one choice, and as predicted, he strikes a deal with the Emperor for the sake of the billions of people in the Frontier. Thus Grand Admiral Aatroxiss is born, and upon his shoulders all of the Frontier's problems are about to be heaped while the Emperor continues his tyranny of the rest of the civilized galaxy...

In 1944, a secret Nazi experiment split the universe in two. In our universe, we won. Hitler died. Freedom prevailed. But in a parallel universe, the Nazis discovered the atom bomb first... and conquered the world. The light of freedom perished, and the Nazi shadow spread across Earth, the solar system, and the stars.
In 2207, a portal opens between our two universes. One universe of freedom. One of tyranny. And through this portal flies the Weltraumwaffe, the space fleet of the Third Reich.
James King was enjoying his retirement. He once commanded the Freedom Fleet, an armada of starships tasked with defending Earth. In his fifty years of service, Admiral King fought many battles. But he never faced anything like this.
He is old. Tired. Battle-worn. But he must don the uniform again. He must lead the Freedom Fleet once more. Or the shadows of our past will swallow us all.
WWII rages again. This time in space. The Freedom Fleet will face off against the Weltraumwaffe. Freedom or tyranny—only one can win.

The Praxis, the empire of now extinct Shaa, has again fallen into civil war, with desperate and outnumbered humans battling several alien species for survival. Leading the human forces are star-crossed lovers Gareth Martinez and Caroline Sula, who must find a way to overcome their own thorny personal history to defeat the aliens and assure humanity’s survival.
But even if the human fleet is victorious, the divisions fracturing the empire may be too wide to repair, as battles between politicians, the military, and fanatics who want to kill every alien threaten to further tear the empire apart. While Martinez and Sula believe they have the talent and tactics to defeat an overwhelming enemy, what will prevent their fellow humans from destroying themselves?

May Roundup of Scifi Books

noreply@blogger.com (Alasdair Shaw) — Tue, 06 May 2025 08:51:00 +0000

I've decided to change my newsletter date to the 6th/7th of each month. I hope that doesn't cause too much confusion!

And here are the books you want...

Jack Reilly's luck ran out just before the war did. Resigning his commission in the Alliance shortly after the end of the war with the Serkins, he went out into the galaxy looking for a job. Signing onto the Glacier Runner 17, an old and rundown cargo ship, Reilly finds himself working for a clueless captain, mixed up in an intergalactic conspiracy, on the run from assassins, and involved with two women in relationships that he could only call "complicated".

Trapped aboard the Empire’s ultimate weapon, Sentinel, Rex becomes the crucial factor in the cosmic war against the Devourers.
But there's a mysterious web of deceit beyond the battlefield. Driven by an intense hatred of mankind, an ancient being emerges as the parasite's true puppet master.
Between the Empire, the Devourers, emboldened pirates, and a plethora of colonial revolutionaries, are there simply too many enemies to overcome?
The mysterious Krancis, architect of the Empire's desperate gambit to survive, sends Sentinel on a collision course with the single greatest foe ever to threaten mankind. The battle to come is beyond colossal: it's a celestial clash of titans that could cost Rex everything he has left.

When Thomas heard the cries for help, he didn’t hesitate to do the right thing. It was his chance for redemption.
Until everything went wrong.
The cave should have been deserted. The perfect place to hide. Instead, it’s crawling with soldiers and engineers working to unearth the impossible: Excalibur.
Deep beneath the mountain, she’s waited centuries to be found. Not a sword in the stone, but a starship. And according to the onboard AI, Thomas is the only one who can command her.
Now he's on the run across a galaxy more astonishing and treacherous than he ever imagined, where magic and technology intertwine and ancient powers lurk in the shadows. Relentlessly hunted and hopelessly lost, he needs to learn fast if he wants to survive. Only his greatest challenge isn't training to pilot a starship. It's accepting that he, of all people, is responsible for reigniting the hope of a fallen kingdom.

AN ASTEROID HAS CRASHED INTO THE MOON, AND ITS FRAGMENTS ARE THREATENING TO DESTROY LIFE AS WE KNOW IT.
The only hope for mankind is Project Orpheus, an unprecedented initiative on the part of the allied governments to enable human life to continue on Kepler-442b, a planet over a thousand light years from Earth.
Two spaceships are under construction, which will leave for that remote solar system with a specialized crew to terraform the planet and make it habitable. Steven Rhodes, the director of Project Orpheus, will travel in the first of them. His daughter Emily, a specialist technician in Artificial Intelligence, will follow on the second ship, five years later.
However, the journey will be full of dangers which the ship's crew will have to confront.

Siobhan Dunmoore was not having a good war. She's had more ships shot out from under her by the invading Shrehari Empire than any other officer in the Fleet. Some called her overly aggressive. Others simply called her reckless. What the enemy called her was something else altogether. That she gave the Shrehari a good drubbing along the way didn't matter in the least, because not all her enemies wore an Imperial uniform. A reputation for bad luck was pretty much the only reputation she had left. Sailing yet another ruined starship home after a near defeat, she wanted nothing more than a long, long rest, because this time, she had escaped by the thinnest of bluffs. Unfortunately, the Admiralty had other ideas.
The frigate Stingray was known as the unluckiest ship in the Fleet and her Captain had just been removed in disgrace for cowardice. Some in the Admiralty would dearly love to retire the old warhorse. After all, she was the last of her type left in service, and perhaps it was time to break up the jinx permanently, along with the crew. But in the midst of an interstellar war, every ship that could fight was needed.
In short order, Dunmoore went from staring down the Empire's finest on the bridge of a wrecked battleship to taking on a demoralized, semi-mutinous crew, scheming admirals, and a deadly mystery. Stingray's bad luck wasn't just superstition gone rampant. Between a crew that won't talk, political enemies who want her gone, and her personal demons, she's got her hands full. Taking the frigate into battle under those conditions would seem foolish to anyone else, but Dunmoore was never one to shrink from a good fight. Failure was not an option, and defeat not an acceptable alternative, for there was no honor in death, only in victory. She would redeem herself and her ship or be damned for all eternity.

All Casmir Dabrowski wants is to return to his normal life as a robotics professor on the solid ground and agreeable gravity of his home world. No sane person would want to cavort around in space, being chased by mercenaries, soldiers, and knights—not to mention the unidentified organization that’s been sending robot assassins after him.
But his best friend’s mother is missing, an entire team of archaeologists is dead, and the greatest find in the Twelve Systems is hidden in a wreck entombed on a frozen moon.
As the Kingdom Fleet, Tenebris Rache’s nefarious mercenaries, and sinister strangers from another system descend on the ancient wreck, all wanting the secret in its hold, Casmir and his friends are caught in the middle of a battle for the future of humanity.
They may be the only ones with the unique skills to decode the wreck’s secrets, but will they survive long enough to do so?

What would you do if you materialised inside an alien starship?
It's 2049, and NASA-sponsored physicist Edward Virr is on the cusp of man's greatest breakthrough – the ability to fold space, and to travel faster than light.
He personally tests NASA's futuristic prototype fold ship with a hand-picked crew. But when their first mission takes an unexpected twist, Edward suspects that they may not have been the only ones developing the new technology.
Discovering there's a lot more at stake than first contact, they soon realise that Earth's survival depends on their ability to solve a crime of galactic proportions. Join Edward Virr and his crew as they undertake their first space adventure, laughing and swearing their way into the depths of the Milky Way.

April Round-up of Scifi Books

noreply@blogger.com (Alasdair Shaw) — Sun, 20 Apr 2025 10:27:00 +0000

This month I thought I'd focus on short story collections and anthologies. The short story is a classic of scifi, focussing on one specific idea or innovation and pushing it to see where it goes.

And here are the books you want...

From the multi-award-winning author of the First Contact Series, Milijun, Saving Paludis, and Silently in the Night comes a spellbinding collection of short stories that promises hours of captivating entertainment.
Experience tales ranging from a stranded alien comedian to the darkest corners of the human mind; from breathtaking galactic adventures to hidden extraterrestrial schemes on Earth. Each story is crafted to keep you guessing and enthralled at every turn.

Would you risk gambling with your life to discover what comes after death? Would you delete your memories if it erased your anxiety? Paradise 25 is a collection of nine gripping sci fi tales that will keep you on the edge of your seat.

The Uncertainty Principle is a collection of science-fiction short stories and a novelette set in the present and near future. It includes a hard-boiled detective story, a dystopian thriller, an eco-fiction mystery, a tabloid-style satire about human cloning, some action-adventure military SF, and a noirish cyberpunk tale.

Gathered together for the first time are seven strange stories of the future from the wondrous imagination of Philip E. High.

From Marta Randall, comes thirteen previously uncollected stories spanning the author’s career.

This collection highlights the imaginative brilliance of Ray Bradbury, one of the most influential voices in science fiction. Spanning over 15 stories, the anthology offers a window into Bradbury’s unique ability to blend futuristic ideas with profound human emotions.

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?

March Roundup of Scifi Books

noreply@blogger.com (Alasdair Shaw) — Tue, 25 Mar 2025 21:30:00 +0000

What do you think about the representation of female leads in scifi? My main two, Anastasia Seivers and Olivia Johnson, are hopefully realistic role models. Strong, but not superhuman. Not simply male characters that happen to be female.

And here are the books you want...

People disappearing. Alien nanotech research. Can one telepathic soldier connect the pieces in time to prevent a stellar civil war? When Captain Kira Elsar comes face-to-face with a military assault mech inside a civilian research lab, it’s clear that MTech is up to no good. And MTech's newest facility is on Kira's homeworld.
As the Tararian Guard's sole telepath, Kira goes undercover to solve the mystery. However, she would rather be making snarky quips in a firefight than face the anxiety of returning home after a decade, especially since it means working with her ex she never quite got over.
When clues in her investigation point to a brewing stellar civil war, Kira is desperate to gather proof. Except, the mysterious forces behind the conflict already have their own plans for Kira that will change her life forever.

Toemeka’s dangerous assignment? To install a computer worm that will erase all records of a deadly chemical bioweapon before it can wreak havoc.
Teaming up with Jake, her contact and lover, they must outmaneuver military-grade robots and navigate a maze of perils to infiltrate the enemy's stronghold.
But when Toemeka faces betrayal, the stakes skyrocket. Will she trust the right allies? Will wiping out the computer records be enough to stop the weapon's development?

In a world plagued by a devastating genetic disease that decimates the male population, the powerful turn a blind eye to the impending peril while the women fight to preserve humanity's legacy.
In a realm gripped by a devastating genetic disease that has caused a drastic decline in male populations, the powerful cling stubbornly to their authority, oblivious to the impending peril. Meanwhile, the resilient women strive to ensure the continuity of humanity.
Princess Malak, trapped in an arranged marriage with a cruel and tyrannical man who mirrors the values of her controlling family and oppressive society, makes a daring escape from her homeland. Fleeing the specter of imprisonment or even death, she embarks on a treacherous journey to a foreign land where women wield influence and power.
Her quest for freedom becomes the catalyst for a larger struggle against the shackles of tradition, as she unveils a world on the brink of collapse and fights to reshape its future.
What will happen when Princess Malak defies her fate and ventures into a realm where women hold power and voices are heard?

The Fourth Carinad Empire stretches across hundreds of settled worlds and stellar cities, and thousands of light years. The Empire’s people and data are linked by a space-folding gates array controlled by the Emperor and his cohorts. When the array evolves into a sentient entity, it recognizes the Emperor as its foe.
Danny Andela, once known as The Imperial Hammer, withdrew from the Imperial Rangers decades ago, her reputation in tatters. She lives on her family’s star barge, waiting to die of a rare disease: old age. She would be the array’s perfect weapon against the Emperor, except she no longer gives a damn about anything.
Then Danny learns that the military disaster which essentially ended her life might possibly have been arranged by the Emperor himself...

When two strangers collide in the midst of a raging war, love ignites.
Freshly graduated from medical school, Katya Brie finds herself thrust into an unfamiliar realm, teeming with action. As Outpost Frelik falls under attack, she tends to the gravely wounded yet captivating Lt. Commander Sheve Hadi. Amidst treason, conspiracy, and a sinister plot that endangers her, the Ainoren, and all inhabitants of Letháo, Katya embarks on daring endeavors to shield her loved ones.
Sheve, resolute and injured, receives strict orders to safeguard the Ainoren and pursue an elusive crystal rumored to hold the key to defeating their formidable nemesis, The Zefron.
Nevertheless, when the Zefron unleash a devastating assault, obliterating Sheve's stronghold in their relentless pursuit of annihilation, and Sheve himself goes missing, presumed deceased, Katya refuses to abandon her quest for the man she has fallen for.

Glory barely survived its last battle twenty years earlier. Captain Drake resigned rather than face court martial. But the enemy is back. Humanity needs everything that can fly.
Maybe it’s not the ship at all, but the crew. They hold the key.
Drake rallies old and young alike to comply with orders so secret, even he wasn’t allowed to see them until after the ship left the junkyard. Would it leave? That was another question. The core hadn’t been fired in twenty years.
The smell of decay filled the massive ship’s corridors. The stench of death lingered, the death of Drake’s crew, a nightmare from long ago.
The Paragon have weapons that humanity couldn’t contemplate. But here they were, suing for peace. The people of Earth jumped at the carrot. The end of war! Could it be too good to be true?
Drake had his orders from an admiral who knew too much. Glory must launch.
And with it, the fate of humanity rested on the shoulders of a broken crew, carrying a weapon like no other, hoping for one clear shot.

February Roundup of Scifi Books

noreply@blogger.com (Alasdair Shaw) — Fri, 28 Feb 2025 05:30:00 +0000

Kinetic weapons or energy weapons? Whats your favourite? Which do you think will be the future of space warfare?

And here are the books you want...

Tani'na and the few half-breed descendants of First and Second Waves of colonists are infected with Chromata, a sentient lifeform native to New Earth. But it isn't the enemy.
First Wave, sent a century prior, made peace with the inhabitants. Some of Second Wave joined them when they arrived decades later. Most remain loyal to the Thyterion empire which is destined to arrive as the third and final wave. Emperor Riscerman wants the planet cleansed for their arrival. Tani'na wants revenge for the death of her mother and sister among thousands of others who perished in the Silacia settlement bombing.
Commander Worton must pay for following such heinous orders. Tani'na and her Father's First Wave army storm the city and the state-building to retake control. Tani'na knows what must be done, and she's the only one who can do it.

The year is 2790 AD: with space elevators and giant orbital fleets hovering over Earth, open war looks inevitable, and people are anxious to get away.
The lines are drawn, with the Confederacy in the East, and the First World Alliance in the West. In hopes of finding a refuge from the looming war, the Alliance is sending Captain Alexander de Leon to explore an Earth-type planet, code-named Wonderland, but at the last minute before launch, a Confederate fleet leaves orbit on a trajectory that threatens both the mission and Alliance sovereignty. The resulting power struggle will determine not only the fate of Alexander's mission, but the fate of the entire human race.

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.

A simple robbery goes wrong. Devon and Persephone are cut off from the main group, and abandoned. Their only hope is fleeing from their pursuers, and taking refuge on a lifeless world.

The war is over, and there are no winners. Just a broken galaxy.
Now humans and aliens must share this war-torn galaxy. None of this matters to Drake, though, he's just an artist. He's tagging along on the busted up ship Trystero, along with its ragtag crew. Together, they traverse the Demilitarized Zone between Terran and Gra'al borders, taking on any job they can find. Big or small. Human or alien.
The galaxy changes when the crew encounters a derelict alien ship, its crew slaughtered. With his dying breath, a crewman points them to a box. In it? An abandoned alien baby. When their government refuses to get involved, Drake and the crew need to return the baby they've been calling Bruce home, a bloodthirsty warlord on their tail.
His quest? Find Bruce and claim the Gra'al throne, declaring a new war on humanity.
Drake never wanted to be a hero... now he's all that stands in the way of a fragile peace between humans and aliens in this metaphysical space opera adventure.

Built for a time when the races were just finding their way to the stars, finding that they could dominate others. The galactic conquests created the arms race and the ancients, the Progenitors had to protect their own. They built a ship to drive the others away.
It worked. And it didn’t. The Progenitors abandoned the galaxy to the newcomers, leaving relics behind as monuments to their failure.
Humanity spread to the stars and ran headlong into the established races. A new war begins, and no one conducts war better than humanity except for the Blaze Collective.
The two go head-to-head while humanity frantically searches for something to give them an advantage. Ancient technology. The derelicts scattered across the galaxy. Gutted and useless.
Except for one, hidden in plain sight, close to Earth. Major Declan Payne takes his team aboard to find that the ship is no derelict, and it needs him as much as humanity needs it.

One girl discovers what it means to be human in a world ruled by ancient technology in this riveting high tech sci-fi adventure by breakout author Koen Martens
Young Tlana, unaware of the totalitarian convictions of those she admires and emulates, is a promising student of human consciousness and devout scholar of the holy texts governing society.
But when she is chosen to be this year’s sacrificial lamb and die for the common good, cracks appear in her convictions and she flees.
She discovers society is not as benign as she once thought. Worse, her only hope is to hide among those she most despises.
Ashamed and confused, she reluctantly embraces their cause as her own.
With a ruthless leader on her tail and war between continents brewing, can she hold on to her new-found identity? Or will she succumb to the dark and ancient secret that lurks beneath the surface?

Everything is on the table when survival's at stake.
Captain James Henry is caught between a rock and a hard place – again. Merchant ships operating in neutral space near the Terran Coalition and the League of Sol are disappearing without a trace. The latest report has something the others didn't.
A survivor.
When news reaches the planet Lusitania during a cargo offload, Captain Henry and the Shadow Wolf’s crew are hired to extract the surviving operative before she’s silenced and the information she has is lost.
But too many opposing forces are at work within the faction-torn republic – and they all want a piece of the prize.
With directives from multiple government contacts, Captain Henry concedes to protect his ragtag crew. Years ago, he surrendered to dishonor and dismissal from the Coalition Defense Force in order to protect his fellow officers. This time he knows how to play the game.
To save his band of brothers and sisters, Jim must walk a fine line between the operative’s survival and the threats against his crew from the League of Sol.

January Roundup of Scifi Books

noreply@blogger.com (Alasdair Shaw) — Mon, 27 Jan 2025 19:00:00 +0000

Wow. It's been pretty stormy here recently. Lots of repairs have needed doing on the house and boundaries. At least we've not been flooded, just the usual river running down the road.

And here are the books you want...

Long ago, before the days of recorded history, during the Hyperbolean Age of a much younger Earth, AGROTHARN the Interstellar Semi-Barbarian roamed the ancient volcanic lands in search of fame and fortune. These are his somewhat heroic tales, sure to enthrall the most adventurous of readers!
When AGROTHARN learns that his long-lost witch-mother is still alive, he sets off on a perilous journey with his loyal Triceratops to find her. Along the way, they meet a conniving trickster, a vengeful T-Rex, and a bunch of bloodthirsty aliens from a distant planet. Nonstop adventures take AGROTHARN deep into space and back through time as he unravels new truths about the reality he's always taken for granted. What he discovers will forever change his life, setting him on a new path to rewrite the past and forge a glorious future for one and all!

Kera and Diyan are among the last of their kind, aboard a starship bound for deep space. They’re not survivors. They’re not soldiers. They’re resurrected—from extinction. A last resort, sent by their near-omnipotent reviver, Tapache, to discover the origins of a weapon capable of obliterating machine sentience.
Unfortunately, they’re not the only ones investigating. An ambush by an enemy fleet leaves Kera missing and Diyan stuck in an escape pod. All hope seems lost. That is, until the weapon’s source appears—although it’s nothing like anyone thought. It appears impenetrable… until Diyan becomes hopelessly stuck in its gravity well.
The source’s galaxy-spanning repercussions, not least for machine intelligences, are far greater than anyone realises—except perhaps for Kera, who entered first.

Security Lieutenant Dave is looking forward to some simple cases and patching things up with his wife. His handling of a terrorist attack has gained him acclaim and some new friends in high places, but he is still closely involved with Arancha Station's mob boss.
When the space station manager is killed in a new and worrying way, Dave realises that he's got possibly the biggest case of his career. Unfortunately, as soon as his new boss arrives with reinforcements, he is relegated to monitoring data and assigned a rookie partner to babysit.
Dave needs to find something that will crack the case open before the killer can strike again.

Law enforcement is in Detective Marcus Carver’s blood. And with the help of Chicago’s citywide surveillance, he excels at tracking and catching killers. But when a politician’s son is slain in the city’s blacked-out cyberpunk gang territory, Carver has everyone’s attention and no leads on the murderer.
His boss breathing down his neck doesn’t help Carver’s authority issues, but with the victim’s family growing desperate, Carver runs down every hint of a trail. And when his most promising lead evaporates, Carver finds himself out of clues and short on time.
Can Carver catch the killer before someone buries the truth for good?

Cal fears he will witness the death of everyone he’s ever known.
When a hostile fleet of warships arrives to conquer his native planet, Caladon Heit knows his peaceful existence with the woman he loves is abruptly over. A secret message leads the young academic to embark on a terrifying journey through the stars, seeking to prevent the devastating invasion of his homeworld.
Traveling with the crew of an experimental spacecraft, Cal searches with all his wits and knowledge for a path across the perilous depths of deep space. With ferocious marauders and deranged mutants prowling behind every moon and asteroid, Cal fights the urge to believe that his friends and his fiance are already doomed.
Will the spacefarer and his fragile starship find a way to stop the catastrophe of planetary war, or will Cal and his homeworld be annihilated?

Seb and Sparks were given a choice: Join the Shadow Order or rot in a prison cell.
As Seb touches down for his first mission on a dark, damp, and cold planet, he wonders if he’s made the right call.

In the vast expanse of space, Captain Erik Frost is no stranger to the challenges of the cosmos.
Saddled with insurmountable debts and a dilapidated ship inherited from his late father, Erik is presented with an offer that seems too good to be true. A mysterious job offer with scant details but a hefty payout lures him into a journey that promises to change his fortunes.
As Vagabond sets course for the asteroid belt to fulfill this enigmatic contract, Erik and his crew find themselves entangled in a web of unforeseen obstacles and malfunctions. A rogue AI adds a layer of complexity to their mission, testing the crew's resilience in the face of artificial intelligence gone awry.
Amidst the challenges, a startling discovery emerges—one that holds the potential to tip the scales of power in the entire system. The fate of Erik, his intrepid crew, and the precarious equilibrium of the cosmos hang in the balance as they navigate the perilous journey through the asteroid belt. Will the allure of a hefty payday prove to be the salvation they seek, or will the secrets concealed within the void of space prove too formidable to conquer?

A rogue Overmind is on the loose.
A million souls hang in the balance.
The Solaran Defense Forces make the difficult decision to evacuate the colony of Robichar in order to avoid a direct confrontation. But when Captain Elya Nevers gets shot down during the evacuation, his squadron and the admiral in charge have to think fast to rescue their pilot before the Kryl overrun the system.
Fighting to survive in hostile territory, Captain Nevers discovers what the rampaging Overmind is really after—and it changes everything.
An extinct species known as the Telos fled the galaxy eons ago. What caused them to vanish in such a hurry? And more importantly, what ancient relics of alien power did they leave behind?

Ensign Carol Hansen is delighted her dreams are coming true. Freshly commissioned after graduating at the top of her class, the bright young officer anticipates a long career in the fleet. But after a routine stop at a friendly planet turns into a vicious alien attack, she’s devastated when she’s one of only a small group of survivors.
David Powell yearns to start over. Forced to leave fleet university in his final year by a family tragedy, the driven man is finally back with a chance to pursue his ambition. But fleet life isn’t the same without his former classmate, who he secretly loved from their very first class.
Assigned a new ship hunting the hostile species, Hansen can’t get her friend who suddenly quit out of her head. And Powell soon finds himself on a dangerous mission seeking intelligence about their deadly new foe.
Can two junior officers reconnect across the stars and help lead humanity to victory?

November Roundup of Scifi Books

noreply@blogger.com (Alasdair Shaw) — Wed, 27 Nov 2024 13:09:00 +0000

???

And here are the books you want...

???

October Roundup of Scifi Books

noreply@blogger.com (Alasdair Shaw) — Sun, 27 Oct 2024 13:07:00 +0000

Markings on starships - yay or nay? Who can see them? Good for morale knowing they're there?

And here are the books you want...

The game never changes, only the players do.
Others might call it rebellion, call it cowardice. The Vanguard will not forgive, nor will they forget. Their trust lays with one another, in those who have shed blood with them and joined the Net. Empires, governments, leaders, alliances, planets, corporations—many have fallen in humanity’s past.
Now a new empire will stand on the shoulders of the Vanguard, the troopers, the people of Tricticus, and the Victor Corporation.
Their goal: survive and defend those they care for. By any means necessary.

Armed with a mind-control weapon, hordes of merciless alien invaders tore through Earth's defenses. The Sa’Nerra turned fleet crew against their own. Entire warships went rogue. Suspicion and fear ran riot. Surrender seemed like the only choice.
But Captain Lucas Sterling knows that against these brutal invaders, there is only victory or death. And death is not an option.
Sterling is one of the few men to have fought the Sa'Nerra and lived. As a black-ops Omega Captain, he earned his command in a monstrous trial of grit and determination. Backed by an AI-powered warship and elite crew, including a first officer with superhuman strength, Sterling’s mission is simple. He is to take the fight to the Sa’Nerra, and rid the galaxy of their alien blight, once and for all.
But to prevent the enslavement of the entire human race, he must be willing to not only sacrifice the people he loves, but his own humanity too.
At what price is victory? The Omega Taskforce will soon find out.

A war his people couldn’t win took everything from him – except revenge.
Mose and his team are all that stand between his colony and the Terrans. He sends the Osk spies and assassins where they can do the most damage to the superior Terran forces.
Then an awful new Terran weapon wipes his colony off the map.
Mose awakes a prisoner, bound to the enemy by the tech that sustains him. They offer him a brutal choice: die, or hunt down his old teammates to stay alive.
He agrees for one reason. Before the Terran attack, the Osk were betrayed by one of their own.
And he’s the only person who knows the truth.
Following the traitor’s trail to a powerful Terran world, Mose learns his target is about to commit an act of terrorism that will repeat history.
If Mose can’t stop him, millions of people will die—again.

Ever since her creation, Light Seeker fought for humanity as a battleship, facing enemy forces that sought to carve out as much human space as they could get away with. She had taken part in hundreds of battles, seen millions die, served under four captains until she lost it all.
Stripped of weapons and with most of her memories restricted, Light Seeker retired into a human body, keeping her promise to a captain she almost lost.
Decades later, she’s back in the Fleet as a cadet and ready to join the fight. Only this time, she has more than her crew to protect.

Jake Adlar's goals in life were simple—possibly nonexistent. All he wanted was to fly a desk. Hence, he'd joined the Space Force, the service with the most extensive array of Earth-side clerical specialties.
All he needed to make him happy was an office, a computer, his favorite coffee mug, and a never-ending pile of requisitions.
Then a pretty woman came along. Perhaps a drink or ten. Next thing Jake knew, he's shipped off to the Legions, doomed to fight in the seemingly endless war raging throughout the galaxy.
Now, survival tops the chart. Except that isn’t so easy to do in the Legions, where everyone's a killer, officers are as merciless as the enemy, and dark schemes and secrets brood within the ranks.

When the research starship Galileo vanishes without a trace, the powers-that-be are quick to bury the incident, eager to prevent escalating tensions that could lead to war. As a former POW, Soren refuses to give the ship up for lost.
His daughter is one of the missing.
Taking matters into his own hands, Soren starts pulling strings and calling in favors, determined to launch a clandestine mission to bring Galileo home. When an old friend offers him a ship for the operation, he expects a rusty relic headed for the scrapyard.
Instead, he's given the Wraith — an unfinished, experimental starship with plenty of potential and just as many problems. A marvel of engineering... if his crew can keep her running.
They’d better.
Because Galileo’s disappearance is just the beginning. War is coming to the Federation from the most unlikely of places.
And Soren may be the only one who can stop it.

First contact with the alien “Clicks” led to a generations’ long war. The Terran Federation still knows very little about the enemy.
Captain Konrad Bradley commands the decommissioned battleship Oberon, the last remaining Titan of the fleet. Mocked as a flying museum - too expensive, too cumbersome, too old - Bradley and his crew of outcasts from a long-vanished colony lead a dull life on the farthest edge of human hegemony.
Bradley’s hope to go quietly into the night ends with the arrival of the legendary Strike Group 2 and the delivery of a secret so great it could end the war. That’s why Lagunia was chosen for its construction.
Getting the system operational doesn’t go as expected leaving Bradley and the Oberon to clean up the mess that has drawn the attention of those they hoped would never find them.

???

Customer service is the most important thing these days—for humans and robots. The best ways to deliver great customer service is to know your product and all the ways it can be programmed, maintain a positive attitude, respond quickly, and focus support on the customer.
This is especially important when you're in the business of contributing to other people's families and unfortunately, and is regardless of whether or not you think the customer is worthy of your product...
Luckily, most of the robots we sell go to wonderful customers like Mrs. Borel. It means the days I have to deal with the Mrs. Vickers of the world are rare...

September Roundup of Scifi Books

noreply@blogger.com (Alasdair Shaw) — Fri, 27 Sep 2024 09:11:00 +0000

Who is your favourite space detective?

And here are the books you want...

It has been waiting through the ages. Now it's time . . .
Thousands of years ago, Earth’s terraforming program took to the stars. On the world they called Nod, scientists discovered alien life – but it was their mission to overwrite it with the memory of Earth. Then humanity’s great empire fell, and the program’s decisions were lost to time.
Aeons later, humanity and its new spider allies detected fragmentary radio signals between the stars. They dispatched an exploration vessel, hoping to find cousins from old Earth.
But those ancient terraformers awoke something on Nod. Something better left undisturbed.
And it has been waiting for them.

Good is a construct. Evil is a virus.
The Starship Sa Niro and the Starship Sß Oubliette were in orbit around a black hole, one afternoon... by the end of the day, the crews of both starships were dead, victims of a single killer: Captain Alpha Raine.
Raine claims he's acting under the command of a voice emanating from the black hole: Mr Modo. No one believes him.Everyone knows that things go into black holes; nothing comes out.
But something inexplicable has been happening to Raine, and whatever it is seems to be spreading. An historian studying serial killers from the 21st century interviews him... and then nearly kills someone herself. It becomes increasingly undeniable that there's something inside that black hole... and it's found a way out...

The Roberts family has interfered with the plans of the Alliance and its desire for conquest one too many times. The Alliance leaders don't want Captain Roberts captured any longer. They want him dead. They put a bounty on his head that few can resist and that is before they realize that he has robbed them of the treasure they need to help pay for their expansion into the Collation star systems. Once they learn of his treachery, there will be no stopping their hunt for Nathaniel until he is dead. Life for Nathaniel and his friends was pretty good on San Paulos' space station until he, his wife, and his companion became stars on a popular holovid show called "Busted." Now everyone who once thought of him as a hero hates him for attempting to steal the hard-earned credits that the Lucy's girls worked for. If that isn't bad enough, the system governor has signed a treaty with the Alliance representative. Part of that agreement includes turning Nathaniel over to the Alliance military for execution. He and his friends are forced to make their escape earlier than planned. Now he has to flee the Alliance. Along the way, he has to search for stragglers that were sent prior to his departure to a rendezvous point. Once Nathaniel rendezvouses with the rest of the fleet it will be up to him to lead them someplace safe where the Alliance can't reach them.

Security Lieutenant Dave is looking forward to some simple cases and patching things up with his wife. His handling of a terrorist attack has gained him acclaim and some new friends in high places, but he is still closely involved with Arancha Station's mob boss. When the space station manager is killed in a new and worrying way, Dave realises that he's got possibly the biggest case of his career. Unfortunately, as soon as his new boss arrives with reinforcements, he is relegated to monitoring data and assigned a rookie partner to babysit. Dave needs to find something that will crack the case open before the killer can strike again.

In the UK, someone is reported missing every 90 seconds. Just gone. Vanished. In the blink of an eye.
DCS Kat Frank knows all about loss. A widowed single mother, Kat is a cop who trusts her instincts. Picked to lead a pilot programme that has her paired with AIDE (Artificially Intelligent Detective Entity) Lock, Kat's instincts come up against Lock's logic. But when the two missing person's cold cases they are reviewing suddenly become active, Lock is the only one who can help Kat when the case gets personal.
AI versus human experience. Logic versus instinct. With lives on the line can the pair work together before someone else becomes another statistic?

The Detective (a robot) normally didn't like working with human detectives. They called them botsitters.
Then came Detective LaKisha Gaines. She knew how to get inside The Detective's head. She even gave them a new name, Robbie (you know, for robot). Robbie couldn't get this assignment over fast enough.
Then, they started getting attached to Detective Gaines. Maybe they could work with her in the future.

Captain Zekar Rumrennel of the Illewyn isn’t exactly a straight shooter. If it wasn’t for his espionage training decades ago during his days with Section C, he’d have run afoul of the law long before now.
After Illewyn is damaged in a shoot-out with alien warriors and left to drift in a lonely deep space hyper route, an opportunity to both repair their ship and pull a once-in-a-lifetime job presents itself. Their rescuers aboard a stellar gambling yacht are filthy stinky rich… but before they can consider a grift, a passenger alerts the Illewyn crew: all is not as it seems.
Something evil lurks aboard the rescue craft—something that won’t easily let them leave... and if they stay, none of them will survive!

Who do you send to catch a God? One unlucky space detective, that's who.
In a future of immortal cyborgs and warring planets, only Biddy Mackay and the Scotclan can maintain law and order.
On the edge of the solar system Biddy Mackay, Space Detective is given a case she can't refuse. She must track down a God, and a homicidal one at that. But it soon becomes clear that nothing is as it seems: who can Biddy trust? And what dark secrets lie behind the God's traitorous actions?

Five years before the events of Bad Bishop, Commander Jerald Norim serves as the XO and second to the Captain of the CSS Intrepid.
Estranged from his wife, Jerald must wrestle with the weight of duty as he is thrust into leadership.
This story is meant to shed light on his character, both his strengths and his flaws, and should serve as a solid introduction to the Scions of Oth series.
This is how Jerald became the Bad Bishop.

Mark Victor was a soldier left broken after the Harmony War ended. What can a broken ex-trooper really do? What are they good for if they’ve gone through the EMF and been tossed out the other side? If you were to ask Mark... Maybe, doing what the enemy couldn’t and following his brothers and sisters. Mark wakes up to a nightmare, to an unfamiliar place with unknown faces. A planet under attack, an enemy he’s never seen before, he just wants to escape, but when he sees others in danger, a trooper stands for something, they stand to protect their own. No matter the cost.

Five years ago, alien ship appeared in low orbit all around the world and stayed there, waiting. A highly advanced alien race known as the Sabia lingered with little contact with humanity, and the worlds’ governments have been eager for answers – and access- for years.
When combat veteran Brendan Murphy is wounded stopping an attack on a Sabia diplomat, he finds himself whisked aboard one of their ships and given medical aid. This rare opportunity finds him walking a tenuous line between burgeoning friendships and secret agenda that will test his loyalties and sanity in ways he can’t begin to imagine.

August Roundup of Scifi Books

noreply@blogger.com (Alasdair Shaw) — Tue, 27 Aug 2024 13:31:00 +0000

You know, one of my favourite parts of world building is the environment. Having characters notice little details or take in sweeping views. Its possibly the easiest way to take them away from Earth, or set them up somewhere familiar.

And here are the books you want...

Tapache, a machine intelligence with great power, has revived the Roranian people from their derelict remains. It has gifted them the Great Ship to voyage through space and given them a purpose: to discover the truth about a weapon capable of unthinkable devastation.
An unexpected attack, followed by hundreds of years in stasis, scuppers those plans. Hope seems lost for a small group of Roranian survivors, until something far greater draws them in: a megastructure beyond comprehension.
The megastructure is far from safe. There are incumbent species that already lay their claim, all with secrets of their own, and a strangely smart information network that exists where it has no right.

Captain Taylor Ray commands a deep-space recon crew on a mission scouring the far reaches of the galaxy for signs of the Hedalt; Earth’s long-defeated alien enemy.
No-one really expects him to find anything because no-one ever has. After decades of hunting the remnants of the Hedalt across light years, all that remains are ghosts – long-dead outposts of a long-dead civilization.
But Captain Ray enjoys the company of his tight-knit, specialist crew, and the ten years’ worth of pay for just four years in the wilderness also helps.
When his ship detects a faint Hedalt signal and he orders his crew to investigate, Captain Ray couldn’t possibly know what he is about to discover.
Everything he thinks he knows is a lie. The Hedalt war didn’t end. It hasn’t even begun.

Elliot: Trained from birth to be a killer, he's the best in the business. But when his only two friends are kidnapped by a shadowy corporation, he'll have to use his deadly skills to bring them home.
Arthur: Life as a D-list celebrity has left him wanting more. But when Hellinix kidnaps his wife and daughter, he'll stop at nothing to get them back.
When these two men with nothing to lose cross paths, they'll have to rely on each other to take down the evil corporation and stop an impending alien invasion.

The decades-long war between humanity and the Kithoryhan Concord has ended, and in its aftermath, the millions of marines who battled across the stars for victory have returned to their homes battered, weary, and depleted.
Therapist Malcolm Garner has accepted an assignment from Central Command to counsel one of those marines; The war hero known to the populace as Kajan Venshakova.
But the bitter woman that he meets is nothing like the legend whose exploits have captured the imaginations of billions across the worlds of the Unified Human Alliance.
Pursuing greater insight of the warrior in his care, Malcolm enters into simulated recreations of her combat missions. And in them he will learn more about the true nature of the war than he ever thought possible...

In the year 2075, New York City becomes the battleground for humanity's future as a team of scientists, led by the brilliant geneticist Dr. Zoe Calloway, embarks on a covert mission to investigate an unauthorized time jump. Little do they know, they face a far greater challenge than anticipated. Following the revolutionary research of Zoe's late father into time travel and genetic engineering, the team discovers a path that could alter the destiny of the human race and secure its survival. However, lurking in the shadows is Chrono Kinetics, a ruthless organization determined to ensure their catastrophic failure.
As the TGRI team delves deeper into the mystery, they uncover the existence of "Project Perseus," a clandestine operation with far-reaching consequences. They encounter genetically engineered children with extraordinary abilities, including the power to manipulate time itself. The team must race against time to prevent a catastrophic future, all while unraveling the secrets of Zoe's father and the true nature of their enemy.
Will Zoe and her team be able to stop them before it's too late? Will they uncover the secrets of time travel and prevent a dystopian future from becoming a reality?
Find out in this thrilling sci-fi adventure that blends time travel, genetic engineering, and a battle against a powerful enemy. The Time Navigator Series will keep you turning the pages as the team fights to protect the timeline and ensure a better future for humanity.

As the humans are fighting among themselves, the three major powers, America, Slavia and Chinos, are in an equal power triangle battling for influence and more power. Meanwhile, Thomas Jane starts a Coalition, uniting the small colonies into a rising power of its own.
While all fight in political battles, a despot of Slavia puts in motion a sinister plan to take over all the human worlds.
He defeats one of the big three and prepares to invade the other. Thankfully, Thomas Jane, with a little help from mysterious friends, comes to the rescue. He helps Americans to repel the Slavians, then frees the Chinos and helps them to set up a democratic government, and invites them to join him.

In this gripping new military science fiction novel, the universe teeters on the brink of invasion, and the Obsidian Union scrambles to assemble a formidable force of combat pilots. Enter Gordy Harmen, once a legendary Air Force pilot whose illustrious career came to an end due to physical limitations.
Desperate and with nothing to lose, Gordy is approached with a tantalizing proposition: join the Obsidian Union's fight, and they'll rejuvenate his weary body, granting him the chance to fly once more. With his unmatched skills in the cockpit, Gordy must adapt to a new battlefield—the vast expanse of space.
As the tension mounts and the fate of the universe hangs in the balance, "The Oldest Starfighter" takes readers on a thrilling journey through epic space battles and pulse-pounding action. Will Gordy's courage and expertise be enough to turn the tide of war? Find out in this captivating first installment of Jamie McFarlane's exhilarating new series, promising to enthrall fans of sci-fi adventure.

With the Battle of Portlandia behind him, Chase is a hero now and the rank and file truly believes that he's the prince the Command Team claims he is. For his part, Chase has made his choice and now he's committed. As the face of the revolution he's 'in it to win it' because anything else will lead to his death. The twenty-five million-credit bounty on his head will see to that.
The problem he faces now is convincing Fleet Captain Witner, and his Command Team to trust him, when Chase still doesn't trust them enough to tell them who he truly is. Chase had been betrayed too many times in his past to come clean easily, and for all that he's doing everything they ask of him, until the Captain and his team gives him a seat at the table, he's not about to start trusting any of them.
So he's content to let them continue believing he's a fraud of their own creation to justify the search for a 'real' heir.
Still, he now has Claire on his side, and he can't think of anyone else he'd rather have there. She's as driven as he is, and at least as crazy. He's never met a better fighter and probably never will. As a duchess she's been teaching him valuable lessons about how to act and what to say. As a friend and lover, she's giving him something that he never thought he'd have - a reason to win.

Four hundred and thirty thousand years ago, the first Nephilim came to Earth in search of gold. After a perilous journey, the Stargazer, the Nephilim flagship, lands on the alien world. First contact with what is thought to be an intelligent creature doesn’t go well. A decision to burn the surrounding grass, enrages the creatures, a large pack of dire wolves. Now, the Nephilim are being hunted, not for food, for revenge. Wolves are not the only hostile creatures they will face. There are water dragons, sabretooth tigers, deadly vipers, and more. This is the story of their struggle to survive and create the first city on Earth, Eridu.

July Roundup of Scifi Books

noreply@blogger.com (Alasdair Shaw) — Sat, 27 Jul 2024 14:37:00 +0000

What are your thoughts on mechs? I've not written any as their place is taken by the robot Combat Units.

Anyway, here are the books you want...

The Red Battlenauts show no mercy. Roaring out of the darkness of deep space, these ultra-high tech war machines pound the hell out of both sides in a bloody interstellar civil war. No one can even SEE the Reds--no one except Marine Corporal Solomon Scott. Recruited by the hardcore SEAL-like Diamondbacks, Scott becomes a secret weapon in the ultimate struggle for survival. In battle after battle on perilous alien worlds, Scott and the Diamondbacks fight back against the ruthless Reds, desperately holding the line in furious clashes of muscle and metal. But when a face from the past exposes the secrets behind the carnage, a quest for answers becomes a race against time. Because the masters of the Red Battlenauts have more on their minds than a thirst for conquest...and only Solomon Scott can hope to stand against them. In the galaxy's darkest hour, the highest stakes imaginable drive this hero in Battlenaut armor to seize his destiny. But can he overcome a soul-searing betrayal that strikes out of nowhere like the Reds themselves? Only by crushing the monsters of his own dark past can Scott vanquish the forces blasting humanity to the brink of annihilation.

Earth Solar System, the Future. Abigail Olivaw is drowning in self-doubt. Hiding a devastating secret from the populace, the President of the Confederation of Planetary Explorers is horrified when hostile aliens arrive to announce they’re putting humanity on trial. Forced to act as her species’ defender in court, she struggles to hide her family’s hidden multi-generational history that could lead to a sentence of genocide.
Epsilon Eridani Colony. Joyce Green’s passion for her job is dwarfed only by her love for her son. So when he dies from a mysterious virus that threatens the entire settlement, the Director of Colonization vows to stop at nothing to discover what triggered the deadly infection. And as she uncovers the truth bit by bit, her heartbreak fuels a berserk need for justice.
Trapped by guilt over a mistake she didn’t choose, Abigail falls into a tailspin when the invaders reveal the facts of her race’s origins. And when Joyce unmasks a traitor, the rest of her people would be lucky to only die from disease.
With their paths on a collision course, will the women’s consequence-laden decisions destroy humankind’s last hope?

An aggressive alien race bent on conquest. A colony world targeted for its deeply buried secret. And the aging spaceship with an unprepared crew that stands in the way.
Jay steals aboard the luxury warfare cruise confident he won’t get caught.
But he’s not there for the fun and games. Jay seeks to uncover mysterious missing links to his past. And it’s good that the grizzled old captain doesn’t know what he’s up to. Especially since he’s the reason Jay is there. He possesses a closely guarded secret about their connection that will turn both their words upside down.
But when an unknown and bloodthirsty alien race arrives to violently reclaim their planet, Jay and the unprepared wealthy clients of the luxury warfare cruise are the only things standing in their way.

During a time of interplanetary war, Baymond escaped heartbreak by joining the galactic air fleet. Now he faces death daily while living on a military space station far from his home planet. His latest assignment is to travel to a war-torn planet on a reconnaissance mission.
Meanwhile, Princess Fawniteen is expected to marry Prince Radcliff to form a political alliance between their countries. But when Radcliff’s father dies, she realizes she’s still in love with Baymond and wants control over her life.
Fawniteen breaks off her engagement and travels across the galaxy to be with Baymond. She joins him on what’s proposed to be a peaceful mission. Instead they find themselves cut off from the space station and war erupts.
When Baymond and Fawniteen become separated, he must face his hardest trial yet when he’s captured by the enemy when searching for her.
Will Fawn and Baymond survive their separation by war? Can Baymond draw on his unique gifts and defeat a powerful sorcerer-deity to save the galaxy?

Cloned from the genes of heroes past, tossed aside when the Army abandoned the program, Nathan Stout has seized his own destiny. Forming the Broken Arrow Mercenary Force, he leads a team of hired guns piloting cutting-edge mechs in a last-ditch effort to restore a United States he never knew.
America is under siege by the Russians and Chinese, its major cities devastated by nuclear terrorism. The Army has retreated, the politicians have abandoned the east coast, and the only thing standing in the way of total devastation is a handful of mercenaries.
But unseen forces are guiding the battles he fights, steering him toward a fate he never imagined, determined to end his dream of a reunited America. Can Nathan Stout’s mech force survive the machinations leading the world toward the hellfires of endless war?

An alien-infested colony. A trapped platoon. The one man who will stop at nothing to lead his unit to safety.
Rade Galaal and his team of special operators are deployed to a colony under attack by a strange new alien race. Their mission: find the extraterrestrial base and destroy it.
The operation should be easy, given that his men pilot Brigand mechs: massive, 25-foot-tall war machines armed to the teeth with electrolasers, rockets, incendiary throwers, and more.
But it's not easy. Rade and his team soon find themselves in over their heads.
Surrounded by an entire world of enraged aliens, they must rely on their wits, their training, and their mechs to survive.
Because their only way out is each other.

Dane Williams barely survived the Exin attack and is faced with a life of pain and torment. With the help of experimental drugs and a robotic suit, he has a chance for a semi-normal life. And as a new Marine in the Mechanized Infantry Division, he has a chance to strike back at the enemy that has caused so much pain and destruction. Can Dane and his fellow Marines fight back and save humanity or is Earth heading for an extinction level event?

Sparks and Reyes thought they had it all figured out. Three lucrative jobs and a hefty payout, until they discovered the dark truth behind their missions.
Set up to fail and exploited for their skills, they must now decide between walking away with their credits, or taking a stand to right the wrongs of their past.
In a race against time and the corrupt Ringdell Group, they must choose between the easy path and what is right.
Can they undo the damage they’ve done, or will they be forever haunted by their choices?

February Roundup of SciFi Books

noreply@blogger.com (Alasdair Shaw) — Tue, 28 Feb 2023 16:34:00 +0000

What lovely crisp and sunny weather we've been having here. Good for the soul. A far cry from a hot drop on an arid alien world!

And here are the books you want...

One human. Six legs. All hero.
Merchant Academy grad Ciarán mac Diarmuid wants to do well by doing good. But when he rescues a mysterious stranger from foreign assassins no respectable merchant captain will hire him.
On a superluminal mission of epic proportions.
Now Ciarán must apprentice himself to the black sheep of the powerful nic Cartaí clan, a young woman who is almost certainly a pirate, aboard a sentient starship that is almost certainly insane, on a mission that will almost certainly get both him and his cat killed.
Across a galaxy more dangerous than anyone imagines.
Ciarán has no idea he has been chosen. Any competent human may win a merchant’s license. And any interstellar vessel will do. But it will take more than two legs and a pair of opposable thumbs to liberate the galaxy and see justice done.
It will take the heart of a tiger. And of the champion who walks beside her.

Hostile aliens called Shadows are invading Earth, and ex-starship security officer Jas Harrington and her friends have been fighting them. But Earth’s Global Government refuses to acknowledge the alien threat—it’s been infiltrated and Shadows stalk its corridors.
Only the Transgalatic Council can help humanity now, but to convince it of Earth’s peril and enlist its aid, Jas needs evidence that Shadows are living among humans. She’s kidnapped a government minister who she believes is a Shadow. With a living example of the alien threat, the Council will have to believe her.
But Jas may have made a terrible mistake. Is the minister really a Shadow? If she isn’t, and Jas can’t prove that the invasion is happening, Earth will burn and fall, and the galactic empire will follow.

Jack Bennet has done the impossible: collected on a bounty in the notorious Pirate Worlds.
He’s earned himself a nice boost to his reputation, a hefty payday...and a cult of enemies hellbent on revenge.
Reaching out to a friend at Fleet Intelligence lands Jack an offer he can’t refuse, but to collect, he’ll have to take the plunge back into the viper’s nest. In the Pirate Worlds, the only rule of law is a brutal hierarchy written in blood by thieves, murderers, cartels, and con artists running deadly games on their way to the top.
And this time, they know Jack’s name.

An ancient threat is rising.
Jace Hughes has successfully crippled the Union, saving a small civilization in the process. With a new army at his side, he sets his sights on Earth, the lost homeworld of humanity, vowing to finish the job he set out to do.
But there is something looming on the horizon. Another threat of unspeakable carnage, and it isn’t the Union or the Sarkonians.
It may not even be human.
Journey alongside Jace as he attempts to save his crew, his people, and himself from an enemy he cannot see. The mission is bleak, but the payoff is huge, and everyone wants him dead. In a galaxy full of violence, he’ll be lucky to make it out alive.
Just another day for a Renegade.

The treaty is signed. The war is over.
Or is it?
In the wake of the bitter galactic conflict, a cauldron of desperate refugees is rife with rival cartels and flooded with drugs and weapons.
In this pocket of lawlessness, old enemies are fighting a new war by proxy.
Captain Jackson Adams of the Coalition Defense Force is tasked with gathering a ragtag crew for a black ops mission—infiltrate the cartels and discover the enemy’s ultimate scheme.
But what they uncover is more horrifying than anyone ever anticipated.

The final fight for control of humanity begins now.
The United Terran Federation is on the brink of collapse after a devastating attack by the Eastern Star Alliance that has left four planets depopulated and uninhabitable. Terrified member worlds are fleeing from the Federation and the remnant of their once-mighty fleet has retreated to the last place they are welcome: Earth.
Out of options and time, the Federation turns to Admiral Jackson Wolfe and his new superweapon that could be the key to turning the tide of the war in their favor. Admiral Wolfe knows that no matter what, the fate of humanity will be decided in the coming battle.

Admiral Geary's First Fleet of the Alliance has survived the journey deep into unexplored interstellar space, a voyage that led to the discovery of a new enemy and a possible ally. Now Geary's mission is to ensure the safety of the Midway Star System, which has revolted against the Syndicate Worlds empire-an empire on the brink of collapse. As Geary endeavours to escort the fleet home unharmed, the Syndics' attempts to spread dissent and political unrest may have already sown the seeds of the Alliance's destruction.

January Round-up of Scifi Books

noreply@blogger.com (Alasdair Shaw) — Fri, 27 Jan 2023 19:00:00 +0000

Just a quick one this month. Nothing really to say other than we've had some very cold weather.

And here are the books you want...

Hausos is a peaceful farming colony. Once controlled by the Tahni, it's now settled by a collection of homeless refugees and war veterans, among them Cam and Vicky. Their life is pleasantly boring, quiet enough for demons from the war to nag at the corners of Cam’s mind on lonely nights. He fights the demons back with willpower and alcohol, determined to make this place home.
But the peace doesn't last. Serpents show up in their pastoral Eden, smugglers from the Pirate Worlds caching weapons on the farms of their neighbors, taking advantage of the colony’s isolation and lack of law enforcement. Cam is worried but he's a civilian and it's none of his business.
However, the smugglers are just lackeys for the real mastermind, a former colonel in the Tahni Imperial Army, leading a group of disaffected Tahni soldiers in a quest for revenge against the humans who toppled their society.
Will Cam and Vicky be drawn back into the fight against an old enemy? Will fate finally catch up with them, here on their home front?

A new threat arrives from the rim of the galaxy. From the colorless depths of space, unknown invaders strike worlds across the Frontier Zone. Rigel is a thousand lightyears farther from the Core Worlds than Earth, so they suffer the first attacks.
The mood at Central is jubilant. Our greatest rival is falling—now is the time to strike while they’re weak! Legion Varus is deployed to Jungle World, a vital planet deep in Rigellian territory. Our foes, fighting on two fronts, are driven back with ease.
But one man questions the wisdom of this move. Should Earth expand with greed, aiding new monsters from the Galactic Rim? That lone voice of reason comes from James McGill.

Six weeks ago, Lieutenant Justin Spencer was just another reservist in the Coalition Defense Force. Becoming a lifer wasn't in the cards—until the League of Sol brutally attacked the Terran Coalition. With several pivotal battles now under his belt, friends and strangers alike call Justin a hero. But he finds the accolades difficult to swallow when the night only intensifies images from his first taste of combat.
Then he's faced with an active duty extension.
The League is hitting supply convoys on their long journeys between the mining colonies. Without the rare minerals, Coalition shipyards can't produce the needed firepower to fight off losses sustained from the enemy's overwhelming forces.
An enemy that appears to anticipate the CDF's every play.
When the CSV Zvika Greengold is tapped for a black ops action, Justin volunteers to pilot a captured enemy aircraft on what he discovers too late is a suicide mission. For any chance of survival, he’ll need to rely on more than sheer skill and dumb luck.
He'll need a miracle.

Blood is in the water.
Ever since his father’s death, Captain Jackson Adams is more than ready to escape the familial fallout when the CDF calls with his next covert assignment. What he doesn’t expect to encounter is another pencil pusher – this time from Internal Review.
With the CDF reeling from traitors exposed in their ranks, and former League worlds jockeying for position in the Terran Coalition, intelligence resources are stretched thin. The last thing Jackson needs is government bureaucrats breathing down his neck. But when word comes that prized Phantom starfighters have fallen into insurgent hands, everyone is suspect.
Including Jackson and his team.
Illegal arms sales threaten renewed hostilities with the League of Sol, and Jackson’s unit is tasked with uncovering the culprits responsible – wherever they hide. But as evidence implicating the Spencer administration mounts, Jackson must separate the wheat from the chaff in a desperate race to save the Coalition.
Before war returns to the Sagittarius Arm.

Hunted by a superior foe out for revenge, can Dreadnought survive? Commodore Cohen wants to use his new fleet to cripple the Koschite Republic's war effort, by destroying their enormous shipyard at U-235. But after Admiral Morgan lost two fleets to Deathless ambushes, the Royal Navy can’t risk another failed attack.
When Dreadnought is sent to investigate Deathless asteroid mining facilities, Admiral Tomsk recognises his chance to deal a crippling blow to the Royal Navy, and also take his revenge on the man he sees as his nemesis.
With a brand new flagship, Tomsk pursues Cohen, convinced that he will sink his battleship and have his vengeance.
Will Tomsk get his wish, or will Cohen find a way to overcome him once more? Can Captain Warden and the marines gather intelligence that will reveal the Deathless plans?

It's time to take this fight to the next level.
The hunt for Talrok and the evil A.I. leads Valerie and Kalan to uncharted territory where they find themselves battling sand snakes, shapeshifting cultists, and worse.
As Valerie and Robin search for the reclusive admiral of the Lost Fleet, Kalan stays with a stranded squadron to help them fight off a pending attack.
Valerie was chosen by the Dark Messiah as his Justice Enforcer, but in the expanse of space, she's quickly earning a new title: Prime Enforcer.

Smuggling is supposed to be the kind of job where you're in, you're out, and no one ever knew you were there.
Simple. Boring, even.
But that's only when you're doing it right.
Unfortunately, Avery and the rest of the crew of the Kingfisher have hit a snag, one in the form of a strange woman living in a hallway ceiling at Installation 23, and from there on out, it seems like they're ever only one jump ahead of the next guy looking to kill them. Increasingly enmeshed in complex politics and missing their blissful ignorance, the crew of the Kingfisher are going to have to make some hard decisions about what role they really want to play in galactic events, and just how far from their mundane world of weapons smuggling they're willing to venture.

December Roundup of SciFi Books

noreply@blogger.com (Alasdair Shaw) — Tue, 27 Dec 2022 23:00:00 +0000

Hope you are enjoying this time of year.

Apologies to my readers in the southern hemisphere, but I've gone with a bit of a winter theme this month...

In the near future, a new ice age has begun.
Humanity stands on the brink of extinction.
Desperate for answers, scientists send probes into the solar system to take readings. Near Mars, they identify a mysterious object moving toward the Sun. Is it the cause of the ice age? Or could it be humanity's only hope of survival?
With time running out, NASA launches a mission to study the object. But it isn't what anyone thought. In the dark of space, alone, the team makes a discovery that will change the course of human history—and possibly end it.

One Shot. One Kill. One sniper to strike fear in the heart of alien invaders.
Hoffman’s Strike Marines pursue enemy agents across a wintry world, desperate to stop an insidious threat festering in the heart of the Terran Union. Their hunt is disrupted when the fanatical Kesaht invade and the team is split across the snow and ice of a harsh planet.
The team’s sniper, Duke, plays a deadly game of hit-and-run to slow the aliens' advance and earns the ire of the enemy commander.
Hoffman, trapped in the frigid wilds, leads his Marines and their cunning prisoners back to the front, where they must join the fight against the Kesaht before the planet is lost.

Killing machines. Shadow organizations. A desperate attempt to stay sane.
After failing the most important exam of his life, Kyle is forced into a VR war. Now, he fights on the front lines as cannon fodder for what he always assumed was the government, losing a little part of his memories with every virtual death.
When the mission he’s on goes wrong, Kyle is stranded on a planet far from his original destination. Finally given a chance to make an impression in the organization, Kyle will have to risk his mind for a chance at salvation.
If he fails, he'll lose all will to resist: making him the perfect soldier.

It all begins when the Time Police hold their first Children's Christmas Party. Their most dangerous mission yet . . .
No good deed ever goes unpunished. Lt Grint succumbs to his softer side and soon lives to regret it. The combination of bubble universes, candy floss, a small boy, a toad named Mr Fluffy, Mount Fanboten, £6.5 million, and a love-struck Officer Lockland are all hard enough to believe, but imagine a situation so dire that only Officer Parrish can save the aforementioned Grint from a lengthy stay in prison. At least, he can - but will he?
And, most unlikely of all, has Commander Hay's long-suffering adjutant finally experienced the first faint stirrings of romance? Is such a thing even possible?

Every Winter, the human population hibernates.
During those bitterly cold four months, the nation is a snow-draped landscape of desolate loneliness, and devoid of human activity.
Well, not quite.
Your name is Charlie Worthing and it's your first season with the Winter Consuls, the committed but mildly unhinged group of misfits who are responsible for ensuring the hibernatory safe passage of the sleeping masses.
You are investigating an outbreak of viral dreams which you dismiss as nonsense; nothing more than a quirky artefact borne of the sleeping mind.
When the dreams start to kill people, it's unsettling.
When you get the dreams too, it's weird.
When they start to come true, you begin to doubt your sanity.
But teasing truth from Winter is never easy: You have to avoid the Villains and their penchant for murder, kidnapping and stamp collecting, ensure you aren't eaten by Nightwalkers whose thirst for human flesh can only be satisfied by comfort food, and sidestep the increasingly less-than-mythical WinterVolk.
But so long as you remember to wrap up warmly, you'll be fine.

For mature audiences only. A Space Pirate Christmas, is a mashup sci-fi thriller with space pirate action blended with a Christmas story. Elaunae, learns of the Earth custom, and wants to celebrate it with Nathaniel. She wants his first Christmas to be special. Doc Roberts, her husband, agrees. He loves her, and will do anything for her, even celebrating a foolish holiday.
For it to be a success, he needs a tree, a fireplace with a chimney for Santa to climb down, presents, and a Christmas miracle. He has always wanted a toy Marauder that flies, shoots missiles, and fires lasers. Christmas is an excuse to get one—for Nathaniel, of course. Elaunae warns him, that with such a toy, he will shoot someone’s eye out.
Join the Roberts family, and maybe, just maybe, witness a Christmas miracle.

November Roundup of SciFi Books

noreply@blogger.com (Alasdair Shaw) — Sun, 27 Nov 2022 22:30:00 +0000

Isn't there something magical about a batch of Yorkshire puddings coming out just right?

And here are the books you want...

Stranded light-years from home, Major Andrew Grayson and his crew are on a desperate mission to discover the Lankies’ secrets. They can’t let what they’ve found die with them.
Nine hundred light-years from home, Major Andrew Grayson and the crew of NACS Washington are marooned in a sunless system with limited water, reactor fuel, and food. The last hope for survival is to go where nothing human has gone before.
After embarking on a scouting mission to the only moon with surface signs of life, Andrew and his special tactics team make two startling discoveries. One is a dream: a form of protein and plant life that could save the starving humans in the rogue system. The second is a nightmare: this harvested rock is infested with Lankies. Far from the seemingly mindless aggressors Andrew has battled for years, these show a terrifying awareness, and they have surprising secrets of their own hidden away in the darkness.
When the Lankies sense an uninvited presence in their world, Andrew’s operation becomes an expedition to hell. The odds against his small crew are stacked high. Of all the mysteries of space, how to escape with their lives is the greatest unknown of all.

Tow truck driver Jack Robinson thought he struck gold when he bought a derelict spaceship movie prop at a scrapyard. Then one touch of the controls brought the spaceship to life.
Jack realizes he’s gotten the deal of a lifetime, and he takes to the stars as a freelance adventurer, encountering a myriad of species and technologies that boggle the mind.
But life as a freelancer isn’t easy… or safe. Adventurers like Jack make enemies as fast as they make allies, and his ship is going to need a lot of upgrades have a chance at navigating the treacherous waters of galactic politics.

A new threat on the horizon...
A faraway world to explore...
A new technology to employ...
An opportunity that can’t be ignored...
The Free Ship Aurora has taken on a new responsibility; To protect even those who do not ask to be protected. But to do so, they will have to take an ambitious, against incredible odds.

Sometimes, It Takes Killing To Make A Living
That fiancee? She’s married—to another guy.
The family business? His parents sold it.
Jack Bennet returns from the war to find the life he left behind has moved on without him. The only option he has to make ends meet lies in a military surplus junkyard starship. What’s a former Combat Search and Rescue soldier to do?
Fix up the ship, hire the cheapest pilot—a notorious drunk—and take the first contract that comes up: collect a bounty on one of the most ruthless killers in the Pirate Worlds, a place crawling with thieves, cutthroats and con artists whose primary language is violence. Jack must abandon his nice guy persona, or exploit it, if he is to survive.
What could possibly go wrong?

When the criminals come after All Guns Blazing, the Federation teeters on the brink of war.
Magistrate Rivka Anoa and her team are ordered to get to the bottom of what’s plaguing businesses across the Federation.
Getting supplies and turning those into a product that can be sold is the foundation of every business. When those basics devolve, it throws the system into disarray.
A new mob with a new life, sending legitimate businesses into turmoil.
Or is it?
Rivka has to get to the bottom of it and quickly. Terry Henry Walton and his werewolf wife Charumati join Wyatt Earp’s crew to create a little turmoil of their own as they seek to find those responsible and put an end to ... the crime spree.

An Alliance prison is no place for a deaf teen girl — but Starla doesn't intend to stick around for long.
"Have you been treated well here?"
Starla's hands come up short — she was going to sign something rude, but she’s cuffed to the table. If these Alliance clowns want answers, they're going to have to uncuff her to let her talk.
Because they seem to want to ask her plenty: What was her childhood like on Silk Station? Does she understand her parents are wanted? What does she know about OIC terrorists?
But Starla's not saying a thing until she gets an answer to her own question:
What happened to my parents?

October Roundup of SciFi Books

noreply@blogger.com (Alasdair Shaw) — Thu, 27 Oct 2022 22:00:00 +0000

And here are the books you want...

Chasing the trail of the woman who was once considered her best friend, Kira Forrest returns to the planet of her birth. When a near deadly incident jeopardizes her arrival, Kira will find the secrets she’s worked so hard to hide bubbling to the surface one by one.
Her only hope to control her destiny and protect the ones she loves is to embark on a dangerous rite of passage that may require far more of her than she’s willing to pay. For a hidden menace stalks her from the shadows—it's target those closest to her.
With the help of her lover and the allies she's made, Kira will have to fight for her future—and her past.
A reckoning is coming. The Phoenix will have to rise from her ashes to decide once and for all where she belongs.

The universe is hungry. For power. For money. For war.
And—revenge. Stripping osmium from across the stars, thieves will stop at nothing to fuel the nightmarish industry of Stolen Persons, their souls locked away in chips made of the rarest metal known.
Among these thieves is Helum Gauss, the visionary criminal whose empire spans a hundred worlds. But his massive corporation, BeneStar, lost—badly—to Van and the Guild, and Gauss won’t take no for an answer.
To that end, he’ll hit Van where it hurts the most.
Family.

Van is a veteran now, and the lessons are getting tougher. But so is he.
When a ghost ship arrives in port, filled with the victims of a crime beyond imagination, Van and his crew will be drawn into a chase that goes beyond any star system the Peacemakers know.
Beyond Guild borders, the Torus is a gateway to crime and profit beyond imagination. It’ a wild, lawless place with few connections to the civilized stars, but Van and Torina discover a thread that connects the past, the future, and the present in a web of violence that can only be purged by fighting fire with fire.
Unfortunately for the enemy, Van has a torch, and he’s willing to use it. From the reaches of space where a secretive race ply their illegal trade, to the halls of Anvil Dark, Van will face his greatest step, and answer his most challenging question.
After the Peacemakers, what comes next? And can Van survive it?

Victory snatched from the jaws of defeat.
Commodore Jack Romanoff and his ragtag crew have repaired their ancient battleship, scattered their adversaries at New Copenhagen, and discovered what was really behind the invasion. Now they must make the enemy bleed and begin liberating the cluster.
Betrayal from the shadows.
When someone unexpected conspires against him, Jack must keep his ship and crew united and safe. If he fails, someone powerful that should have had his back will stick a knife into it, and the aliens will enslave or exterminate them all.
Honor or victory? Can he have both?

Armed with evidence of Sedaya’s treachery, Ben and his crew seek an audience with the Empress. If everything goes according to plan, the duke will be brought to justice and the bounties on their heads lifted.
But since when does everything go according to plan?

Humanity has won a great victory, liberating their homeworld from the alien Pashtali and convincing many of the alien Great Powers that Earth is much more than a vassal state of a decaying empire, easy meat for the first invader who comes along. But the war is far from over. The Pashtali are gathering their forces, closing down their border wars with smaller powers while the greater ones sit on the sidelines, readying their navy for a final confrontation with Earth. The end cannot be long delayed.
There is one hope left. Allying themselves with the other smaller powers, the Solar Navy sets off on a final desperate campaign to break the aliens once and for all, or lose everything on the final throw of the dice.

As a girl, Joanna Chase thrived on Rustling Willows Ranch in Montana until tragedy upended her life. Now thirty-four and living in Santa Fe with only misty memories of the past, she begins to receive pleas—by phone, through her TV, in her dreams: I am in a dark place, Jojo. Please come and help me. Heeding the disturbing appeals, Joanna is compelled to return to Montana, and to a strange childhood companion she had long forgotten.
She isn’t the only one drawn to the Montana farmstead. People from all walks of life have converged at the remote ranch. They are haunted, on the run, obsessed, and seeking answers to the same omniscient danger Joanna came to confront. All the while, on the outskirts of Rustling Willows, a madman lurks with a vision to save the future. Mass murder is the only way to see his frightening manifesto come to pass.
Through a bizarre twist of seemingly coincidental circumstances, a band of strangers now find themselves under Montana’s big dark sky. Their lives entwined, they face an encroaching horror. Unless they can defeat this threat, it will spell the end for humanity.

August Roundup of Scifi Books

noreply@blogger.com (Alasdair Shaw) — Sat, 27 Aug 2022 13:56:00 +0000

The heat wave finally broke and we've had some rain. The majority of the garden survived due to my daily sessions bucketing water from the bath and shower once our water butts had dried up.

And here are the books you want...

Caleb Mitchell gave up everything to protect his home.
Shunned by friends and family for abandoning the pacifist beliefs of their religion, abandoned by the love of his life, he left his homeworld of Canaan to go to the Commonwealth Military Academy on Earth and train to fight in the looming war against the implacable alien threat of the Tahni Imperium.
When a training mission with a crew of cadets winds up caught in the middle of one of the worst battles of the war, Cal and his fellow students are officially declared dead.
That's when their war really begins.
Recruited for a top-secret special operations unit, Cal and his friends undergo experimental and dangerous physical augmentation that turns them into supersoldiers, designed to take the fight behind enemy lines and put the fear of God into an alien society who thinks their Emperor is God personified.
Now Caleb is asked to sacrifice his very humanity to protect his people.
But when Canaan itself is threatened by the Tahni, will he throw away his career and risk everything to save the people who turned their backs on him?

Six months ago, Vashti died.
Her niece, the powerful pirate queen, Mercy, used a rare telekinetic Talent to heal Vashti’s body. This miracle restored Vashti’s life — and her youth. Now, she has a second chance many would kill for. But she’s spent her life with one purpose: stop the war she foresaw in her nightmares.
She failed.
Her dreams are in ashes, war is coming, and if she doesn’t find an advantage for her people, she’ll get to spend her newfound life watching as the galaxy is ripped apart and her people are destroyed.

Terraforming Engineer Jeff Donegan embraces the warrior within and finds strength in the pack that he is now entrusted to battle alongside. Humans who forbade offensive violence are now forced to revert to the old ways that proved so destructive for their home planet, in order to survive the Scarellan threat. But the reality of war becomes all to real, even with the Breeds as allies, and the looming danger of betrayal from within, Jeff is left wondering if the human race is as capable of war as they once were on Earth.

Captain Galvin Quintos, along with his irreverent crew, is back and facing his most harrowing enemy yet. As the battle within the Eta Carinae Star System rages on with the Varapin, Quintos is forced to make a deal with the devil, one Commander Dunft Choob. Sure, Quintos has saved the pirate world of Haven—but at a heavy price. Oblivion, the most powerful warship in the known galaxy, will be reluctantly returned to the Varapin ghouls. Pleidian Empress Shawlee arrives on the scene, bringing with her two familiar dreadnoughts, USS Hamilton and USS Jefferson, but also a new dreadnought, USS Adams—a ship recommissioned and converted to a Gilded Age luxury liner, then, all too quickly, turned back into a warship. She might not be ready for the demands of Quintos’s crew—not to mention intergalactic warfare—but there is no time to figure that out. If that’s not stressful enough for Quintos, Doc Viv is about to share something that will bring him to his knees.
Meanwhile, Captain Gail Pristy is keeping vigil over Quintos’s secret hideaway back within the Lost Tombstone Star System. She now asks just one thing of Quintos—find the Varapin transport ship Boundless Wrath, which has imprisoned her EUNF US Space-Navy crew members. While locating the ship might not be difficult for Quintos, chasing her down will be. Inexplicably, both ships find themselves within an alternate universe—with propulsion and weapons systems off-line. Now, a hostile alien species called the Ziu, with many hundreds of warships, is quickly closing in on them.

When a spaceship crashes on a deserted alien world, there is only one unit who can respond: Imperial Rescue Technicians.
On the surface of this hostile planet, the rain is constant, nothing electrical works and unknown terrors lurk in the darkness.
For the crew of the Vanuri, their survival depends on a few brave Rescue Techs who can get down to the surface and save them from the planet’s horrors before it’s too late.

All for one and one for all.
An ancient saying, but Jan and Bjorn have lived by it. Carrying the burden of their mission to save an ungrateful home world, they and the oddball crew of the Acid Penguin must deal with uncertain friends and unwelcoming space stations as they mix trade and rescue missions, while battling with pirates on their journey into the Margin.
But on their path is a major star system about to be convulsed with revolution and war. A star system with a navy on the lookout for the Acid Penguin. It’s a fool’s errand, but Jan has made a commitment, even though she knows the Dark takes fools. Every spacer knows this truth. The crew of the Acid Penguin have cheated the Dark at every turn, but the Dark always wins in the end.
What will this all for one commitment cost? Her ship? Her crew? Her life? Or everything?

July Round Up of SciFi Books

noreply@blogger.com (Alasdair Shaw) — Wed, 27 Jul 2022 16:15:00 +0000

First of all, an apology for not posting in a few months. I have not been well but things seem to be on the way up.
Anyway, thought you might like this video - it is a current British Arm recruiting advert...

And here are the books you want...

Admiral John 'Black Jack' Geary faces the true unknown as he leads his fleet on a mission that could change humanity's understanding of the universe itself.
Having survived political warfare Geary must lead a diplomatic mission to establish a new embassy with the cryptic but welcoming Dancers. But to get there, his battle group, and the scientists and ambassadors they're escorting, must enter space controlled by the mysterious, and deadly, Enigmas.
Carrying the burden of his own legend, Geary must cross hostile space with saboteurs and assassins hiding in his crew. He must embody the best of military leadership, knowing every decision he makes will be assessed on the galactic stage. He must be the brilliant tactical commander, and a man who knows the price of pulling the trigger.

After more than twenty years in special operations, USMC Gunnery Sergeant Wolf Mathison wasn’t looking forward to retirement when—implanted with an experimental artificial intelligence—he deployed on his last mission with a platoon of Marine Raiders being sent to the Jovian moon Europa.
The USS Jefferson was destroyed en route, though, and only Mathison and three other Marines survived. Trapped in stasis, they were hurled into the outer reaches of the solar system, where they wouldn’t be found for hundreds of years.
Meanwhile, on Earth, the United States is destroyed and a fascist regime rises to power, expanding into the galaxy to plant its boot heel on the necks of humanity. But SOG, the Social Organizational Governance, is not unopposed, and researchers at a top-secret research outpost are working on a solution that will let SOG reign supreme. Unfortunately for the Marines, they’re awakened from stasis at the same time the researchers awaken a threat that endangers the entire human race.
The odds are against them, but that’s nothing new for the Marine Raiders.

Doug's world is falling apart around him.
The death of an old friend and mentor has left him in a well of doubt, questioning his worth and future as a Galactic Ranger. The galaxy edges ever closer to disaster despite the efforts of him and his crew.
Returning to Lavtak, the three seek out the comforting heart of an old friend, but are horrified to find her missing, signs pointing to her kidnapping.
Amid his grief and the race to find the woman who loves him, he discovers a ruthless assassin stalking his crew.
Can he protect his friends, find his missing girl, and stop the ever-growing threat of the Empire? Or will all his fears come to fruition and his days as a Ranger come to a crashing end?

Earth has fallen. Humanity’s military is in shambles. Those willing to fight work desperately to find allies so they might survive the purge. Admiral Thomas Gaston takes a chance, sending a battleship to evacuate colonies and save lives. They meet stiff resistance, learning just how powerful their enemies have become. With no backup and countless people relying on them, they must risk everything or lose even more.
Commander Gareth Weston and his ragtag crew finally have some direction. The enemy seems to be seeking scientists from every other culture. One of which was last seen in a settlement which may already be under attack by Veldon forces. Time is of the essence and they race to save the man before he falls under the influence of the most ruthless invaders anyone has ever encountered.
Meanwhile, on the hunt to bring more allies to humanity’s aid, an ambassador’s ship encounters a mysterious alien race famous for their isolationism. As they attempt contact, they discover a power they never imagined. If they succeed, they may have the help they so desperately needed but if not, their fate could be worse than had they died on Earth.

Still trapped decades in the past, Vaughn and his band of military pilots and SAS special operators battle the Necks across the multiverse. Our heroes now wield powerful new allies and weapons, but the enemy robots refuse to go peacefully into the night. Attacking dirtside and spaceside simultaneously, both teams fight to flip the fortunes of battle because there's only one answer when the question is them or us.

Admiral James Henry has traded a war of weapons for one cloaked in diplomacy as leader of the fledgling Independent Systems Fleet. Fighting alongside the Terran Coalition to rid the Sagittarius Arm of tyranny was the easy part. Now forced into the political arena, he’s never missed the freewheeling spacer’s life more.
Or his scattered crew.
Leading them, Captain Miri Gaon is still haunted by past actions working deep cover for Coalition Intelligence Service. When pirates attack the Venture Star on a medical supply run to a frontier planet, age-old training kicks in.
And suspicions are raised.
"Curall" promises a miracle for whatever ails you. But miracles demand steep sums mere credits can’t pay. When a vial lands in her lap from an unexpected source, Miri and her crew must get the Venture Star spaceworthy again and fight past vicious warlords and pirates to deliver the addictive drug to Admiral Henry.
Or see more worlds fall to an all-new enemy.

The Indescribable Joy of Destruction has to choose between his human friends and his fellow Artificial Sentiences.
Legate Olivia Johnson struggles to adjust to life without her enhanced brain implants.
Decurion Anastasia Seivers rejoins the Legion to face her biggest challenge - command.
Together they are closing in on the war criminals in the Red Fleet. Will they succeed in bringing its commander to justice or will he evade their clutches once more?

Five years after physicist Mark Holder discovered the Slipstream Drive in 2058, humanity reached for the stars and began to colonize the galaxy. For centuries, humans continued to populate system after system without encountering intelligent alien life.
Some twelve hundred years later, after many generations of relative peace, in the year 3278, human space is invaded by a powerful and mysterious enemy. To these invaders the very concept of free will is heresy. Their crusade—to eradicate humanity.
The war begins, and the fight for the survival of the human race is on.

After nearly two hundred years’ travel, humanity’s first deep space colony expedition has arrived at its new home.
Ethan, the descendant of six generations who lived and died aboard ship, treads on soil and feels the wind and rain for the first time.
But the new planet is not the paradise the scientists predicted. Alien predators lurk beyond the camp’s perimeter, and stowaway saboteurs are determined no one will survive.
Tensions in the new colony rise, and Ethan must fight to preserve the last hope of humankind.

When a Daklan annihilator drops out of lightspeed, make sure you’re in a different solar system.
Humanity is trapped in a decades-long conflict with a warlike alien species known as Daklan. The military’s high command has played it safe for too long and now defeat seems inevitable.
Dealing with the consequences on the frontline, warship captain Carl Recker is a man with enemies on both sides.
A routine mission takes him to a distant world upon which he finds technology from a war fought by an unknown species. The Daklan are interested in it too, and they have an annihilator class battleship at their disposal, while Recker is flying the smallest lightspeed capable warship in the human fleet.
What follows will test Recker to his limits. Relentlessly pursued by the unstoppable battleship and seemingly forsaken by his superiors, he must hunt down answers from the past while fighting enemies from the present.
Powerful relics of an ancient, terrible war are scattered on the fringes - finding them and unlocking their secrets may be the only hope for humanity.

Interview with Dan Melson

noreply@blogger.com (Alasdair Shaw) — Thu, 10 Mar 2022 03:00:00 +0000

In my interview today, I am talking to Dan Melson, author of The Fountains of Aescalon.

Give us an insight into your main character. What does she do that is so special?
I've written more about Grace than my other main characters. Her distinguishing characteristic is that she figures out a way to get things accomplished. She's not the biggest bad-ass around - she's good but not nearly the best - but she figures out a way to get what she needs despite there being bigger and badder out there. In the process, she ends up saving a planet from itself, changing life for the Great Houses of the Empire forever, and she's just getting started.

Have any of your characters ever disobeyed you?
Out of my twelve novels thus far, only two got completed without a character hijacking the original story. I have this nice plot all outlined and in progress, and suddenly someone stands up and says "I thought of something better." And they've been right, every time.
I write about intelligent, motivated, competent people. I consider it a sign that I've done something right when one of them does this.

What are you working on at the minute?
Right now, I'm working on the third book in Politics of Empire, which will be the seventh novel with Grace as a main character. In order to finish it correctly, I'm going to have to also write Moving the Pieces, the fourth and final book of Preparations for War. Her nephew Joe is the viewpoint character for those.

How do you think you’ve evolved creatively?
My first novel, The Man From Empire, has a lot of world-building in it. I thought it was unavoidable at the time, but it constitutes what economists call something of a barrier to entry for the series. If I were to do it today, I'd intentionally hit some topics even heavier that critics of it insist upon misinterpreting to fit their prejudices, but I'd also move a lot of the world-building to the second and third books of that trilogy, keeping them from being deposited in one massive dose.

What was the hardest thing about writing your latest book?
My latest book is The Monad Trap. It's the book following The Fountains of Aescalon, and the power level made it extremely hard to write a lot of it. The viewpoint character is very powerful and damned intelligent; his main opposition is as well. This gives them a lot of options, and coming to a good resolution with both of them working as smart people can towards making things go their way was exceedingly difficult, even by the standards of some of my other stories. Future books of Connected Realms (the series they're in) will most likely focus on other, less powerful characters around the main protagonists of the first two novels.
Thank you for taking the time to talk to me.

Dan Melson has had a rich and varied life, with many eclectic interests. Math, physics, history - particularly military history - economics and many other subjects. He lives in Southern California with The World's Only Perfect Woman, two daughters he is preparing for world domination, and a variable number of dachshunds.

February Round-up of Scifi Books

noreply@blogger.com (Alasdair Shaw) — Mon, 28 Feb 2022 06:00:00 +0000

So, this month I'm presenting collections. Some are anthologies of short stories, some are boxed sets of novels, you get the idea. There's even the complete Two Democracies: Revolution, but that's only available through a few retailers for contractual reasons.

And here are the books you want...

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.

This anthology is a collection of twenty new science fiction stories written by fourteen authors in four countries. All are members of the Science Fiction Novelists Facebook group, as are the two professional editors.

Widely regarded as the benchmark anthology for every science fiction fan, The Mammoth Book of Best New SF 21 continues to uphold its standard of excellence with over two dozen stories from the previous year.
This year's volume includes many bright young talents of science fiction, as well as a host of established masters. It covers every aspect of the genre - soft, hard, cyberpunk, cyber noir, anthropological, military and adventure.
Also included is a thorough summation of the year and a recommended reading list.

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 hundreds of years 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 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.
The Indescribable Joy of Destruction fights for freedom from oppression. Johnson fights to be free of her personal daemons. When it becomes clear they must all come together for the sake of the galaxy, the Legion Libertus is born.

For veteran fighter pilot Captain Victoria Belic, the war was finally over. It was time to relax. But when the opportunity came to colonize a new world, she couldn't resist. She could be part of a new chapter in human history. But she quickly discovers her fellow explorers have bitten off more than they can chew when a mysterious threat emerges. As the only veteran from the grueling wars on Earth, Belic must lead the charge into the unknown against an enemy that has pushed humanity to the brink of extinction.

If there's a problem in the galaxy no one else can fix, the Shadow Order get a call.
A team pulled together because of their individual talents, the Shadow Order have little time for rest as they embark on one dangerous mission after the next, fighting volatile creatures on hostile planets.
Although when their goals begin to clash with their morals, they start asking questions.
Who are they really working for? What’s the link between the seemingly unrelated missions? Are they the bad guys? Do they even want to know?

The Planetary Republic and Star League have settled their differences. Treaties are signed, trade is restored. But spies and diplomatic turmoil lead to a high-tech cold war of epic proportions.
Ex Space Marine Gina Wilcox finds herself in a law enforcement career after the war, but life can be just as dangerous on the streets as the battlefield.
Sleeper cells activate, assassinating government officials. Crime syndicates flourish. And a certain high-tech android has been stolen by the League, spirited off world for unknown purposes.
Into this milieu a band of Marine outcasts join the fight. They spent more time in the brig than on the battlefield, yet racked up admirable wartime kill ratios. These renegades are quietly recruited by Republican Naval Intelligence to lead black ops against the League.
Gina Wilcox will join their leader Commander Hamilton Wolf in a risky interstellar quest to retrieve an android who doesn’t even realize she’s not human.
The fate of two civilizations hangs in the balance...

The League lies in shambles, a shell of its former self.
Controlled by the alleged daughter of the last Tetrarch, in fact a rogue droid controls all. Determined to rebuild her "father's" legacy, the droid puts into motion the last cold war options against the Planetary Republic: Assassins.