Discounts on All Larry Correia’s Monster Hunter International Series Ebooks

Save over 28% on Monster Hunter Siege and Monster Hunter Guardian
(That's a savings of $2.00/Ebook)!

Plus, save $1 on all other Ebooks in the Monster Hunter International Series.

Learn more about the August promotion here

“The Hero Business” is set in the world of Knight Watch by Tim Akers, out from Baen Books in September. Tim Akers was born in North Carolina. He moved to Chicago for college, and stayed to pursue his lifelong obsession with apocalyptic winters. His website can be found here.

The Ren Faire was a maelstrom of mud and ale and slightly burned turkey legs, populated by an odd mix of mundanes and temporally displaced dreamers. Suburban dads in pleated khaki shorts rubbed elbows with knights-errant in full plate, and damsels in a distressed state of corsets and leather pants wove their way through packs of soccer moms. Bands of drunken bards wandered the crowds, singing a slightly bawdier version of Tub Thumper, while a constant parade of elven rangers, half-dressed barbarians, and the occasional Klingon strained all manner of credulity. The air was filled with boisterous laughter, even more boisterous song, and the smell of cooked meat, spilled beer, and period-authentic body odor.

Bethany stood at the entrance to the park, hands on hips, frown firmly plastered across her face. She was dressed for the event. Loose fitting pants were bolstered by leather armor at thigh and calf, and boots were subtly spiked along the soles, to aid in climbing and other tomfoolery. Her vest was snug but modest, and the bracers on her arms concealed a wide variety of sharp and mischievous tools, at least two of which were illegal in this state, and one that harkened from a mythical realm on the border of reality. Two black braids ran down her back, and a pair of shovel-tip daggers lay cross-holstered on her belt. She was short but deceptively strong; strong enough that most folks never made a second joke about her height.

A man in jeans and a faux-brass muscle cuirass with a PBR in one hand and a katana in the other shouldered past her. It was all Bethany could do to not leg sweep him into the mud. Instead, she took a long, impatient breath, then let it out in a longer and even less patient sigh.

“I hate this place,” she muttered.

“Humanslayer,” by G. Scott Huggins is the grand prize winner of the sixth annual Baen Fantasy Adventure Award. The award recognizes the best original adventure fantasy short story in the style of fantasy greats like Larry Correia, Mercedes Lackey, Elizabeth Moon, Andre Norton, J.R.R. Tolkien, and David Weber. Scott Huggins lives in the American Midwest. When he is not teaching or writing, he devotes himself to his wife, their three children, and cats. He loves bourbon, bacon, and pie. His website can be found here.

At the foot of the mountains at the cold edge of the world, a dragon lay dying.

Fresh snow fell on him. It was stained a deep and sticky red where he had clawed his way up from the pit. The stake driven through his thigh should have killed him already. Cutting through it and escaping the trap had taken all his strength, and now he could do no more than twitch feebly.

He drew in a breath half-muffled by the snow that enfolded him. He held it until he was forced to exhale through the red-hot pain of his broken jaw in a gargling groan. His broken jaw! That was the wound that had ultimately killed him. Even in this weak and useless human form, he could have called upon the Theurge. Stopped the bleeding in his leg. Healed the torn muscle and smashed bone in a matter of hours, and conjured flame to keep him warm.

He was going to die of irony, and bad luck. But mostly, came the thought that hurt more than his wounds and chilled him more than the snow, from his own stupidity.

It could not have been an hour ago that the young dragon had congratulated himself on his cleverness and observation: when he had found the human hunter’s body, lying so peacefully in the snow. The ritual that had enabled him to transform into the likeness of a human had taken a full day, but altering his face into one that the humans would know and trust had been the work of mere minutes

And then he had run from the body and plunged through the snow-covered trap not thirty paces away. And it had killed him. His body just hadn’t let him go yet. But it would, soon. The snow was beginning to feel warm, like the gentle breath of his mother. In the distance he heard shouts. The shouts of humans. To have come all this way and not even to have seen the enemy. Darkness pulled him down like poisoned gravity.

Mark Lardas, an engineer, freelance writer, amateur historian and model-maker, lives in League City, Texas. He graduated from the University of Michigan with a BS in Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering, and spent most of the next thirty years as a space navigator and a software engineer on the shuttle program. He is also the author of seventeen published books, all focusing on history, with ten related to maritime and naval history. Find his website at marklardas.com.

Piracy is one of mankind’s oldest activities. Outbreaks have been recorded since ancient times and occurred as late as this century. Piracy is also one of the oldest inspirations for storytellers. The Odyssey and Argonautica may not contain Treasure Island’s plotline, but both contain piracy, or at least piratical activity.

Not all forcible deprivation of property is robbery. Consider taxes you pay. When merchant captains have ships seized by someone under governmental authority, it is not piracy. It becomes piracy only when those seizing the ships—whether oceangoing, airborne or space-going—are individuals acting on their own behalf, not under color of law.

When Sir Francis Drake, John Paul Jones, and Rafael Semmes acted as government agents, they were not pirates, however piratical their actions seemed to their victims. But John Morgan, Edward Teach and Jean Lafitte acted on their own behalf. When they did, they were pirates.

This is a three-part series on the world-building behind the Tom Kratman’s Carerraverse, presented with Kratman’s inimitable, deadpan style. Days of Burning, Days of Wrath is now out from Baen Books and chronicles a climactic storyline finale within Kratman’s best-selling Carerra military science fiction series.

The Carreraverse actually began with a conversation between myself and an old friend, call him “Ken," while we were both assigned to the 96^th Civil Affairs Battalion. I can’t recall, at this late date, whether that was in Saudi Arabia or on Fort Bragg, though I think it was the former.

Though an infantry officer, like myself, Ken had been assigned as a civil affairs officer to the Rangers jumping into Rio Hato, in Panama, during our invasion before Christmas, 1989. Not everybody jumped, though, one plane—a C130, his—had to make what I gather was officially a crash landing on the airstrip after taking fairly heavy anti-aircraft fire right through the belly of the plane.

Unassing the plane, he accompanied a group of Rangers moving to establish a roadblock. This is where it gets icky. It seems that a young mother, in a car with her roughly eighteen-month-old baby, got confused by the fighting and the air support and, instead of driving away from it drove into it. Note, here, that there had been reports of drive by attacks already in the vicinity of Panama City and the Canal, so the Rangers were primed to expect that. Then, too, what kind of idiot who doesn’t intend mischief drives toward the fighting, right?

8/5: Robert Buettner – MY ENEMY'S ENEMY

8/29: Charles E. Gannon – AT THE END OF THE WORLD

Tune in here: https://www.facebook.com/BaenBooks

Baen Books announces the top ten finalists for the 2020 Baen Fantasy Adventure Award for best original fantasy short story.

Join David Weber, Eric Flint and More in Livestream Showcasing New and Upcoming Books

M.T. Reiten of Los Alamos, New Mexico, has won the grand prize in the 2020 Jim Baen Memorial Award competition for his short story “Bagala Devi Objective.”

Innovative Independent Publisher to Bring Author Readings, Q&As, and Convention-Style Programming to Facebook LIVE

A list of all novels, short stories, and nonfiction pieces published by Baen Books in 2019, which are thereby eligible for most major awards

Over 170 titles from Baen Books to be published as audiobooks over the next three years