The United States of Europe is beset by enemies on all sides. The USE needs a reliable source of opiates for those wounded in action, as well as other goods not available in Europe. The prime minister of the USE, Mike Stearns, sends a mission to the Mughal Empire of India with the aim of securing a trade deal with the Mughal emperor. What they find is an empire embroiled in fractious politicking and teetering on the brink of war. But in the midst of these intrigues, the USE mission finds an ally: the brilliant and beautiful Jahanara Begum, the eldest daughter of the emperor.

Get 1636: Mission to the Mughals eARC here.

Andrej Koscuisko is a former Fleet Medical Officer for the enormous totalitarian star empire, the Jurisdiction. But when he served in the Fleet, Andrej’s real job was not medicine, but to act as a torturer. Years ago, he left that life behind. But now The Angel of Death, a savage terrorist organization, means to capture the system he calls home. The only way to bring down an organization that has slain whole systems of men, women, and children is for Andrej to embrace the savagery in his own heart and once again take on the role of Judicial torturer.

Get Blood Enemies eARC here.

All his life Dugan has seen things that weren’t there. Things like a monster that chased him through a moonlit cornfield and left claw marks on his arm. Things like wolves wandering around the campus of the University of Virginia. Things like a talking Kodiak bear in the woods of West Virginia, a bear who has an appetite for home baked sweets and an eye for photography. But Dugan’s not crazy, despite what everyone thinks—including himself—and that bear he ran into in the woods might be the friend in his corner he’s always needed. New short fiction set in the world of The Black Wolves of Boston.

Read “Does a Bear Shoot in the Woods” by Wen Spencer here.

Dr. Travis S. Taylor’s Tau Ceti Agenda series features larger-than-life characters, intricate plotting—and some of the best military action sequences in science fiction. But Taylor isn’t just a top-notch writer of SF, he’s also a scientist with some serious credentials. He’s used that expertise to craft one of the hardest of hard SF worlds in which to set his tales of epic space opera. In this month’s free nonfiction essay, Taylor discusses the scientific principles behind the Tau Ceti Agenda series.

Read “The Truly HARD Science in Kill Before Dying—and the Rest of the Tau Ceti Universe” here.

And check out the latest installment in the series, Kill Before Dying here.

Coming soon to the Baen Free Radio Hour: Robert Buettner discusses his near future thriller The Golden Gate, a novel set in San Francisco that deals with murder and mayhem surrounding a possible cure for aging. And Dr. Robert Hampson talks about the next step in human evolution, or perhaps the next cultural leap, Homo stellaris. Missed past episodes? No problem. We’ve got every episode archived for your listening pleasure.

Don’t forget to check out the Baen new book releases here. Enter the January Contest here. And for upcoming appearances by Baen authors and editors, check here.