A MODERN SCIENCE FICTION CLASSIC FROM WIL MCCARTHY

In the eighth decade of the Queendom of Sol, three commodities rule the day. The first is wellstone, a form of programmable matter capable of emulating almost any substance: natural, artificial, even hypothetical. The second is collapsium, a deadly crystal composed of miniature black holes, vital for the transmission of information and matter—including humans—throughout the solar system. The third is the bitter rivalry between Her Majesty's top scientists.

Bruno de Towaji, famed lover and statesman, dreams of building an arc de fin, an almost mythical device capable of probing the farthest reaches of spacetime. Marlon Sykes, de Towaji's rival in both love and science, is meanwhile hard at work on a vast telecommunications project whose first step is the construction of a ring of collapsium around the sun. But when a ruthless saboteur attacks the Ring Collapsiter and sends it falling into the sun, the two scientists must put aside personal animosity and combine their prodigious intellects to prevent the destruction of the solar system . . . and every living thing within it.

ORDER IN THE COURT! A new anthology of science fiction stories that explores what the future of jurisprudence might well be like, with thrilling, hilarious, and downright entertaining results! So much fun, it oughta be illegal! Stories by Robert A. Heinlein, Clifford D. Simak, Sarah A. Hoyt, and more.

Lawyers—pardon me, attorneys—may be portrayed in fiction as the good guys (and gals) or as greedy conniving shysters.

In mundane fiction, the former are represented ably by Earle Stanley Gardner’s Perry Mason and by Harper Lee’s Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird (we’ll pass over her other novel, Go Set a Watchman, with a less inspiring portrait—consider it obviously set in a parallel world). The less favorable view was expressed by Edgar Rice Burroughs in his SF classic, A Princess of Mars, in which his doubly immortal John Carter observes that the Martians are very fortunate in that, while they may behave with savage cruelty, and are constantly at war, at least they have no lawyers.

Both views of the legal profession have been explored in science fiction and fantasy since John Carter set foot on the Red Planet, as well as looking into possible ways that future punishment for crimes may change, not necessarily for the better. Some of science fiction’s greatest talents are included in this book, including classics by Robert A. Heinlein, Larry Niven, Clifford D. Simak, Robert Silverberg, and more, and newer stories by Sarah A. Hoyt, Alex Shvartsman, and Alvaro Zinos-Amaros, and still other stellar talents bringing down the judge’s gavel with a verdict of excellent entertainment.

ORIGINAL STORIES SET IN JOHN RINGO'S BEST-SELLING BLACK TIDE RISING SERIES. The zombie apocalypse is here in these all-new stories from John Ringo, Sarah A. Hoyt, Michael Z. Williamson, Jody Lynn Nye, Travis S. Taylor, and many more. Sequel to the best-selling anthology Black Tide Rising.

Civilization had fallen. Everyone who survived the plague lived through the Fall, that terrible autumn when life as they had known it ended in blood and chaos.

Nuclear attack submarines facing sudden and unimaginable crises. Paid hunters on a remote island suddenly cut off from any hope of support. Elite assassins. Never-made-it retirees. Bong-toting former soldiers. There were seven and a half billion stories of pain and suffering, courage, hope and struggle crying out from history: Remember us.

These are their stories. These are the Voices of the Fall.

Contributors:
John Ringo
John Birmingham
Sarah Hoyt
Travis S. Taylor
Michael Z. Williams
Jody Lynn Nye
Robert Buettner
Brendan DuBois
Dave Freer
Mike Massa
Griffin Barber
Rob Hampson
Michael Gants

REMARKABLE DEBUT NOVEL FROM CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED AUTHOR MARTIN L. SHOEMAKER. Shoemaker proves why he has consistently been praised as one of the best story writers in SF today with this touching, thoughtful, action-packed debut novel, based on his award-winning short story "Today I am Paul."

TODAY

Mildred has Alzheimer's. As memories fade, she acquires the aid of a full-time android to assist her in everyday life. Carey. Carey takes care of Mildred, but its true mission is to fill in the gaps in Mildred’s past. To bring yesterday into today by becoming a copy. But not merely a copy of a physical person. A copy from the inside out.

I AM

After Mildred passes, Carey must find a new purpose. For a time, that purpose is Mildred’s family. To keep them safe from harm. To be of service. There is Paul Owens, the overworked scientist and business leader. Susan Owens, the dedicated teacher. And Millie, a curious little girl who will grow up alongside her android best friend. And Carey will grow up with her. Carey cannot age. But Carey can change.

CAREY

Carey struggles. Carey seeks to understand life’s challenges. Carey makes its own path. Carey must learn to live. To grow. To care. To survive. To be.

Well over a millennia in the past, men and women fled Earth. Escaping Armageddon. What they found—lost in some forgotten corner of the Milky Way Galaxy—was the Waywork: an alien superhighway system between a closed sphere of stars. Now, the five Starstates—which rule all that’s left of humanity—are poised on the brink of another terrible war. And three unlikely people—the daring daughter of a royal family, the reluctant son of an interstellar shipping magnate, and a disgraced flag officer seeking redemption—must come together to race against the forces of their greatest foe. Because the Waywork may at last be ready to give up its secrets, and one woman—a merciless autocrat, from the Waywork’s most brutal regime—is determined to ensure that she controls it all. It’s a clash of civilizations, as the future of the human race hangs in the balance!

TALES OF A NEW HERO IN FANTASY FROM LOIS McMASTER BUJOLD, TOGETHER FOR THE FIRST TIME! Includes Penric’s Mission, Mira’s Last Dance, and The Prisoner of Limnos. He does it his way! FOLLOW-UP TO COLLECTION PENRIC'S PROGRESS.

Penric’s Mission

Learned Penric, a sorcerer and divine of the Bastard’s Order, has faced danger and intrigue many times before. Now, he finds himself on his first covert diplomatic mission. Penric must travel across the sea to Cedona in an attempt to secure the services of the Cedonia General Arisaydia for the Duke of Adria. But nothing is as it seems. No sooner than he has arrived, Penric finds himself tossed into a dungeon. If Penric is to survive, he’ll have to navigate treacherous politics—and his own feelings for the young widowed sister of the General.

Mira’s Last Dance

Penric, suffering from injuries attained while escaping from the Cedonian dungeon in which he was imprisoned, must now guide General Arisaydia and his widowed sister, Nikys, across the last hundred miles of hostile Cedonia to safety in the Duchy of Orbas. In the town of Sosie, the fugitive party encounters unexpected delays, and even more unexpected opportunities and hazards, as the courtesan Mira of Adria, one of the ten dead women whose imprints make up the personality of the chaos demon Desdemona, comes to the fore with her own special expertise.

The Prisoner of Limnos

Penric and Nikys have reached safety in the Duchy of Orbas when a secret letter from a friend brings frightening news: Nikys's mother has been taken hostage by her brother's enemies at the Cedonian imperial court and confined in a precarious island sanctuary.

Now, Nikys, Penric, and Desdemona must infiltrate the hostile country once more, finding along the way that family relationships can be as unexpectedly challenging as any rescue scheme.

NEW SPACE OPERA FROM MULTIPLE NEBULA- AND HUGO-WINNING AUTHOR NANCY KRESS

NEW STANDALONE NOVEL FROM NEW YORK TIMES BEST-SELLING AUTHOR OF THE HONOR HARRINGTON SERIES, DAVID WEBER

A Man of Two Worlds

Dr. Benjamin Schröder was far from a man of action. In fact, he was a history teacher—Chairman of the Castle Rock University history department—and if his life wasn't perfect, it was close. Until, that is the discussion of his star student Elzbietá Abramowski's dissertation on Operation Oz, the Pacific Allies' invasion of Vladivostok, staged through occupied Japan to meet their Imperial German allies, was brutally interrupted.

The psychotic episode that turned his entire world upside down struck with absolutely no warning, and it was more terrifying than anything he should have been able to imagine, leaving him with a complete, incredibly detailed set of false, nightmare "memories." Not just of his own life, but of an entire, ghastly world in which Operation Oz had never happened. In which millions of helpless civilians had been systematically slaughtered in "extermination camps" that were horrific beyond belief. In which there was still a Soviet Union. In which the Chinese Communists had succeeded, the Korean Peninsula had been permanently divided, thousands of nuclear warheads had spread their deadly threat across the entire Earth, and the Middle East was a festering sore of bloodshed, fanaticism, and terrorism.

The knowledge that those false memories had come from somewhere inside his own psyche was terrible, but with the help of Commander Abramowski, a highly decorated Navy fighter pilot who’d been forced to deal with her own PTSD after crippling combat wounds invalided her out of service, he’s put his life back together. With Elzbietá's support, he's learned to deal with the nightmares, to recognize that they are only nightmares that can't—and won't—be permitted to rule his life.

Until, that is, a lunatic named Raibert Kaminski knocks on his door one afternoon with an impossible and horrifying story about alternate realities, time travel, temporal knots, and more than a dozen doomed universes which must inevitably die if the temporal storm front rushing towards the distant future isn't stopped. He has to be lying, of course. Or completely insane. But what if he's not a madman after all? What if he's actually telling the truth?

That possibility is the most terrifying thing of all. Because if he is, the false memories aren't false after all, and that other world is just as real as the one Schröder has always known. And if that's true, Benjamin Schröder is about to become the greatest mass murderer in human history, because he has to choose. Whether he acts or refuses to act, Benjamin Schröder is the one man who will decide which universe lives and which dies, along with every star system, every galaxy—and every single human being—in it.

Including the woman he's discovered he loves more than life itself.

THE HALFLIFE CHRONICLES ARE BACK! Half-vampire Christopher Cséjthe must once again face down the forces of darkness in the return of Wm. Mark Simmon's Halflife Chronicles.

Years back, a blood transfusion with a member of the undead left Christopher Cséjthe a half-vampire. Since that time, he’s gone mano y monster with zombies, werewolves, master vampires, and creatures from the Cthulhu Lagoon—not to mention an immortal Nazi, an ancient Babylonian demon, a six-thousand-year-old necromancer, voodoo queen Marie Laveau, the mad monk Rasputin, and a couple of the Great Old Ones.

As founder of After Dark Investigations, he’s seen his fair share of the seedy side of the supernatural world. He’s saved New Orleans from total destruction in the past. And lost his family to another temporal realm.

To add insult to injury, someone cut the gas line of his SUV and then ran over him with a semi-truck while he tried to get a tow. But this is the third time Chris has died.

It’s old hat at this point for him. Now, awakened in a world he doesn’t quite recognize, he’ll have to use his wits to once again keep the supernatural world at bay. INTERPOL is interested in some of his associations with Vlad Drakul’s grandson—better known as Dracula—and a trio of witches from Greek myth want him dead—and for good this time.

Bad enough. But what’s worse is that the IRS is looking into his tax returns and not at all liking what they find. Now that’s really terrifying.

New Entry in the Kencyrath Series.

SOMETHING IS PREYING ON THE GODS OF TAI-TASTIGON

A crucial moment draws nigh leading to the ultimate showdown between Jame Knorth and Perimal Darkling, the supernatural entity that has pursued Jame’s people, the Kencyr, across multiple universes, destroying all in its wake. Can the Kencyr finally make an effective stand, or will another world fall into shadow?

But now news arrives from Tai-tastigon, the vast city that formed Jame into the master thief, wily fighter, and godling-in-the-making that she has become.

It seems something is preying on the gods of Tai-tastigon. The new Pantheon is falling, and the ancient city is in turmoil. The self-serving, beguiling demi-god leader of the Thieves Guild has coerced Jame into finding the soul of his missing brother by holding hostage people she loves. She reluctantly returns to find a Tai-tastigon in turmoil, with citizen pitted against citizen, and day and night-time folk at one another’s throats. It seems many in the vast Lower Town have lost their shadows—not so funny when you realize that a shadow is cast by a soul.

DISAPPEARING SOULS

Some of the affected have gone mad. Some wander like ravening wraiths, attacking even family members by tooth and nail. Which means something is taking—or destroying—souls in the city.

What’s more, in the city’s Temple District fearful gods are finding their very beings drained. Some have become so diminished they hide in the robes of their priests like mewling babes. Across the city, murder and mayhem have erupted. But whatever demon-wrought madness is afoot in Tai-tastigon will have to face the ultimate avatar of the god That-Which-Destroys. That would be one Jame Knorth.

WHERE JAME KNORTH GOES, CHAOS WILL FOLLOW!

BOOK THREE IN THE ARCANE AMERICA SERIES

When Halley’s Comet blazed across the sky in 1759, onlookers saw a sight far more spectacular—and disastrous—than they ever could have imagined. Destroyed in a magical battle, the comet is rent in two and appears to strike Earth. The event is known as The Sundering, the moment in which the Old World is separated from the New, perhaps permanently isolating the Americas. What’s more, The Sundering has brought magic into the world—creatures from folklore and fairy tales come to life, along with wizardry and magework unlike anything seen outside of legend. The New World is now far stranger than before, and the Europeans, Africans, and Indigenous peoples on the American continent must forge new bonds if they are to survive.

So, when magic returns to the world of the 1700s, who does the world turn to for help? None other than the father of electricity himself: Benjamin Franklin! But Franklin is in for a shock if he thinks his knowledge of science will prepare him for the world of magic. The master once more becomes the apprentice. But Franklin must learn his spells fast, for he is far from the only one studying magic.

In point of fact, he’s late to the race and almost out of time . . .

BEST-SELLING AND AWARD-WINNING AUTHORS WRITE FOR A GOOD CAUSE: All-new anthology from top names in science fiction and fantasy. A portion of the sales will fund a scholarship set up in the name of superfan, TVA engineer, and LibertyCon founder Timothy "Uncle Timmy" Bolgeo.

Join David Weber, Larry Correia, David Drake, and twelve other best-selling authors as they pay their respects to some of their devoted fans and to a lost friend. Fifteen stories from the authors' own worlds will showcase some of the names of their greatest fans in original works, written for a charity in honor of Timothy Bolgeo, the founder of LibertyCon.

Contributors:

David Weber
David Drake
David B. Coe
Larry Correia
Sarah A. Hoyt
Timothy Zahn
Mike Massa
Charles E Gannon
Jody Lynn Nye
Bill Fawcett
Chris Kennedy
Kacey Ezell
Les Johnson
John Hartness
Christopher Woods

NEW ENTRY IN DAVID DRAKE'S LANDMARK RCN SERIES

ADVENTURES BEYOND THE EDGE OF THE KNOWN UNIVERSE

The truce between Cinnabar and the Alliance is holding, and the Republic of Cinnabar Navy is able to explore regions of the galaxy without the explorers being swept up in great power conflict.

The Far Traveller is probing sponge space to open routes for Cinnabar traders—and for RCN warships if war breaks out again. But besides astrogation, the Far Traveller is to survey and catalog life forms on the worlds it touches.

Harry Harper has just been posted to the Traveller. He's an RCN officer by convention, a scientist by training—and a member of one of the leading aristocratic families on Cinnabar by birth.

Lieutenant Rick Grenville would rather serve on a warship in the heart of battle, but peace and the whim of the Navy Board have put him on an exploration vessel instead. He finds that the dangers on the fringes of civilization are just as great as those from missiles and gunfire that he expected to face.

As internal struggles cause the Alliance to relax its iron grip, regional forces are attempting to increase their own power—and they're not fussy about the means they use.

Besides the biological answers that officials on Cinnabar expect the Far Traveller to find, the ship's Director of Science, Dr. Veil, has her own agenda: to learn more about the Archaic Spacefarers who roamed the universe tens of thousands of years before humans reached the stars.

The crew of the Far Traveller is poised to clear more of the shadows away from the deep past than ever before in human history—if they survive.

DRAGON AWARD NOMINATED SERIES. Both previous entries in the Witchy War series, Witchy Eye and Witchy Winter, were nominated for best alternate history novel at the Dragon Awards.

An encounter with her father’s goddess has not turned out to be the end for Sarah Elytharias Penn. Now, with the Imperial fist tightened around her city of Cahokia and the beastkind of the Heron King ravaging across the river, she must find a way to access the power of the Serpent Throne itself—a feat, she has learned, that her father never accomplished. To complicate her efforts, Cahokia’s Metropolitan, a beloved and charismatic priest who despises the goddess as a demon, returns from a long pilgrimage and attempts to finalize the Wisdom-eradicating reform that dogged Sarah’s father when he was king.

Meanwhile, Sarah’s brother Nathaniel and her brilliant but erratic servant Jacob Hop find their steps dogged by the Emperor’s Machiavel, Temple Franklin, as they hunt in New Amsterdam for the third Elytharias sibling. Isaiah Wilkes, having failed to awaken the Emperor by reminding him of his esoteric obligations, now travels north in disguise to seek other allies to stand against the destroying storm of the reign of Simon Sword. Chigozie Ukwu, the Shepherd of the Still Waters, finds his peaceful flock threatened and pressed into a dangerous mission in the service of Cahokia’s wild sister city Zomas, while his brother, the Vodun houngan Etienne Ukwu, pushes toward a final showdown with the mameluke assassins of the Chevalier of New Orleans.

Book 5 in the critically acclaimed Caine Riordan science fiction series by three-time Nebula nominee Charles E. Gannon. Science fiction on a grand scale. Prequels Raising Caine, Trial by Fire and Fire with Fire were all Nebula Award finalists. Charles E. Gannon is also the winner of the Compton Crook Award and a Dragon Award nominee.

It’s been two years since Caine Riordan was relieved of his command for following both his orders and his conscience. Now he’s finally received the message he’s been waiting for: a summons to visit the ancient and enigmatic Dornaani. And this time, making direct contact is not just professional, but personal: the Dornaani still have his mortally-wounded love, Elena Corcoran, in their unthinkably advanced medical facilities.

But instead of arranging a swift reunion, Riordan’s new Dornaani hosts are not only disinterested in human affairs, but are in such social disarray that they have lost track of Elena’s surgical cryocell. Riordan must blaze his own trail through dying and dangerous worlds to find the mother of his child, her fate as uncertain as the true agenda of the Dornaani leaders.

However, as new clues and new threats push Caine’s quest beyond the edge of known space, he discovers that the Dornaani empire is not merely decaying; there are subtle signs that its decline is being accelerated from without. Which means that rescuing Elena is just half the mission: Riordan must report that the Dornaani collapse is not only being engineered, but that it is the prelude to a far more malign scheme:

To clear a path for a foe bent on destroying Earth.

A NEW NOVEL IN JOHN RINGO'S BEST-SELLING BLACK TIDE RISING SERIES BY NEBULA- AND DRAGON AWARD–NOMINATED AUTHOR CHARLES E. GANNON

CASTAWAYS IN A ZOMBIE PLAGUE

Six kids ranging from suburban geeks to street-smart pariahs. A British captain who rarely talks and never smiles. All on the 70-foot pilot house ketch Crosscurrent Voyager, bound on a senior summer cruise to adventure and serious fun.

Except most of the kids don’t get along. And they’ll be gone all summer. And none of them have sailed before. And worst of all—because they booked at the last minute—they got the destination nobody else wanted: the frigid and remote South Georgia Islands.

But there’s one other hitch: They’ll never see their families or friends again. Because just days after they leave, a plague starts spreading like wildfire, turning most of its survivors into shrieking, cannibalistic rage-monsters. So with their past dying as fast as the world that shaped it, the kids’ hated destination becomes their one hope for survival.

But it’s an uncertain hope. Not only are other hostile survivors headed there, but South Georgia Island is unable to support permanent habitation. So if the strange crew of the Voyager doesn’t come up with a further plan, they are—in every sense—heading straight toward the end of the world.

NEW FAR-FUTURE PLANETARY ADVENTURE

"BARD DESPERATE FOR APPRENTICE AND ROGUE WITH SIDELINE IN INSURANCE SEEK WORK. PREFERABLY AS GOOD GUYS."

Indrajit Twang is the four hundred twenty-seventh epic poet of his people, the only person alive to carry their entire epic history and mythology in his head. His people are dwindling in number, and if he can’t find a successor in the great city of Kish, their story will disappear with them.

Fix grew up a foundling on the ancient streets of Kish and is making his living as a mercenary. The woman he loves married someone else, and Fix has turned to buying and selling risk on the black market—but is he trying to impress her, or prove something to himself?

Indrajit and Fix have been hired by a powerful risk-merchant to protect the life of opera star Ilsa without Peer for the duration of a risk contract he’s taken on. When an attempt is made on Ilsa’s life, Indrajit and Fix find themselves hunted by multiple mercenary squads and targeted by some of the most powerful men in Kish. Will they be able to save themselves, not to mention protect Ilsa, in the Palace of Shadow and Joy?

MAJOR BHAAJAN RETURNS. Book three in the Skolian Empire Major Bhaajan series by Catherine Asaro.

SURVIVE THE CITY OF CRIES

Bhaajan grew up in the Undercity, a community hidden in the ruins buried beneath the glittering City of Cries. Caught between the astonishing beauty and crushing poverty of that life, and caught by wanderlust, she enlisted in the military. Now retired, Major Bhaajan is a private investigator who solves cases for the House of Majda, a powerful royal family centered in Cries. The powerful elite of the City of Cries are disappearing, and only Bhaajan, who grew up in the Undercity, can find them—if she isn’t murdered first.

NEW SOLO NOVEL BY ERIC FLINT IN THE BEST-SELLING RING OF FIRE SERIES!

The Ottoman Empire has captured Vienna and is now laying siege to the Austrian government-in-exile established in the city of Linz. Both the United States of Europe and the Kingdom of Bohemia have come to Austria’s assistance, but everyone knows this is going to be a long and brutal struggle.

In order to relieve the pressure on the Austrians, General Mike Stearns proposes to open a second front in the Levant. The USE’s emperor Gustavus Adolphus gives his approval to the plan, and Mike sets it in motion, with the very capable assistance of his wife Rebecca Abrabanel, now the USE’s Secretary of State.

Meanwhile, Poland is coming to a boil. Gretchen Richter, the newly elected chancellor of Saxony, has seized control of Lower Silesia. Her small army is now approached to form an alliance with the Polish revolutionaries who have seized power in the Ruthenian province of Galicia—which, in the universe the time-displaced Americans of Grantville came from, would have constituted the western Ukraine.

Now, the Bohemians send an army led by Morris Roth into Poland, ostensibly to aid the revolutionaries but also with the goal of expanding King Albrecht Wallenstein’s growing empire in eastern Europe. And—the icing on the cake—Mike Stearns sends the Hangman Regiment of his Third Division under the command of Jeff Higgins to reinforce Jeff’s wife Gretchen in Silesia.

The maelstrom in Poland grows . . . and grows . . . and grows . . .

Will it drag all its displaced Americans and their allies down with it?

NEW SCIENCE FICTION, URBAN FANTASY, AND MYSTERY STORIES WITH A NOIR THEME FROM BEST-SELLING AUTHORS LAURELL K. HAMILTON delivering an Anita Blake series story, LARRY CORREIA, penning a Grimnoir series adventure, an original Honor Harrington series tale from DAVID WEBER, AND MORE.

The silky note of a saxophone. The echoes of a woman’s high heels down a deserted asphalt street. Steam rising from city vents to cloud the street-lit air. A man with a gun. A dame with a problem . . .

NOIR.

From the pulpy pages of Black Mask Magazine in the 1920s and '30s, through the film noir era of the 1940s, to today, noir fiction has lured many a reader and movie-goer away from the light and into the dark underbelly of society. Names such as Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, and James M. Cain; titles like The Big Sleep, The Maltese Falcon, The Postman Always Rings Twice . . . these have inhabited our collective consciousness for decades. Humanity, it seems, loves the dark. And within the dark, one figure stands out: that of the femme fatale.

Here then, Noir Fatale an anthology containing the full spectrum of noir fiction, each incorporating the compelling femme fatale character archetype. From straightforward hardboiled detective story to dark urban fantasy to the dirty secrets of futuristic science fiction—all with a hard, gritty feel.

As Raymond Chandler said, “Down these mean streets, a man must walk who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid.” Because, as these stories prove, doing the right thing doesn’t necessarily mean you get the big bucks or the girl. But you do the right thing anyway.

All new stories by

Larry Correia
Kacey Ezell
Laurell K. Hamilton
David Weber
Sarah A. Hoyt
Robert Buettner
Alistair Kimble
Griffin Barber
Michael Massa
Christopher L. Smith and Michael Ferguson
Hinkley Correia
Patrick Tracy
Steve Diamond

New stories set in Tom Kratman's hard-hitting Carrera military SF series

"Send us your tired, your poor," says the inscription at the base of the great statue, "your huddled masses yearning to be free."

But the future of the colony planet, Terra Nova, and its relations with Old Earth is far more a case of "boot out your tired, your poor, your dissidents and troublemakers. Use us for a dumping ground for all your problems. Go ahead and abandon these here." This may have been fine, too, but for the UN and its corrupt bureaucracy insisting on maintaining control and milking the new world and its settlers, willing and unwilling both, bone dry.

Contained herein are tales of the history of Mankind's future first colony, from the first failed attempt at colonization, to the rise in crime, to the rise in terrorism, to its descent into widespread civil war and rebellion . . . and ultimately liberation. As with most of human history, this history is messy, with good men and women turning bad, bad men and women inadvertently doing good, and blood flowing in the streets.

Stories set in Tom Kratman’s Carrera series by
Kacey Ezell
Mike Massa
Rob Hampson
Chris Smith
Peter Grant
Chris Nutall
Justin Watson
Monalisa Foster
Alex Macris
Lawrence Railey
and Tom Kratman

A NEW NOVEL IN TOM KRATMAN'S HARD-HITTING MILITARY SF CARRERA SERIES

When Patricio Carrera’s family was murdered by Salafist terrorists aided and abetted by the fleet of alien Earth, the only restraint on his ruthlessness and ambition was also removed. Now, after decades of war and preparation for war in his adopted homeland of Balboa, the last of the Tauran Union Expeditionary Force collapses and is herded into prison camps and ships, where their re-education commences.

An Islamic rebellion explodes inside the Tauran Union, bringing the governments and the bureaucracies to their knees . . . except when they’re hauled up by their necks on lampposts. In neighboring Santa Josefina, the Taurans’ Task Force Jesuit is pinned into one small corner of the country, helplessly awaiting destruction. At sea, the Balboan classis and the remaining fleet of the Zhong Hegemony battle for the supply lines that keep the invading Zhong Army in Balboa alive, while the legions, now rid of the Taurans, redeploy against the Zhong, vengeance and massacre in their hearts and minds. And finally, Hamilcar Carrera, Patricio’s young son, stands poised on the bridge of a clandestine assault transport, ready to obliterate the last enemy base on his planet, even as a small ship is poised to remove the alien interstellar fleet overhead.

A CLASSIC OF HARD SF FROM WIL MCCARTHY. Back in print and just as relevant as ever! Exploring what the economics of abundance will really look like.

Humanity has conquered the Solar System. What’s more, death itself has been vanquished. Wellstone—programmable matter—insures that no one need every die, or indeed, age past adulthood. But for the children of immortal parents, life remains a constant state of arrested development. And a prince shall remain a prince forever, never inheriting the throne. So what is a minor royal to do?

Bascal Edward de Towaji Lutui is tired of his parents—the Queen of Sol and her consort—treating his complaints as so much teenage whining. Exiled to a “summer camp” on a planette, where he will be out of his royal mother’s hair, he decides to do something about his lot in life. Along with his fellow malcontents, he manages to make an improbable spaceship and set out for the far reaches of the colonized space. With hijacked weapons and programmable matter at their disposal, Bascal Edward de Towaji Lutui and his companions are set to prove themselves a force to be reckoned with.

NEW FICTION AND CLASSICS OF THE GENRE COLLECTED BY THE EDITORIAL TEAM BEHIND SPACE PIONEERS AND OVERRULED!

SPACE PIRATES!

Words that conjure up rousing tales of adventure, derring-do, brave heroes battling the scurvy vermin of the galaxy. Those vermin have taken to pillaging cargo ships and, even worse, space liners, relieving the helpless passengers of their valuables, and worse with the comely women passengers, then spacing the lot—unless one or more of the aforementioned brave heroes arrive in the nick of time, and turn the tables, making the spaceways safe again for the innocent and helpless. On the other hand, perhaps the pirate captain is a woman, and it’s the comely male passengers who need rescuing. And on the third hand (we’re talking space pirates here, possibly aliens with four or more arms), perhaps those ships traversing the interstellar void are not so innocent, and the pirates, fighting an evil despotic star empire and defending the freedom of the space lanes, are the good guys and gals. The possibilities are many, and the daring exploits set the blood racing in the veins of any reader with even a trace of buccaneering spirit in their hidden self.

So board a battered but spaceworthy fighting starship with such star-spanning and award-winning crewmates as Robert Silverberg, Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette, Larry Niven, Fritz Leiber, and Sarah A. Hoyt, plus James H. Schmitz, Leigh Brackett, Stanley G. Weinbaum, and more, and set sail—er, thrusters—for a universe of freebooting adventure!

A NEW NOVEL IN JOHN RINGO'S BEST-SELLING BLACK TIDE RISING SERIES. Sequel to The Valley of Shadows.

Tom Smith used to be somebody. Now he's just another refugee, fleeing the smoking ruins of civilization.

Well, maybe not just another refugee.

Late of the Bank of the Americas where he used to be the global managing director for Security, Tom and his fellow survivors watched New York City burn. His plan to the save New York long enough to find a cure for the zombie virus hadn't survived the bloody scrimmage between angry cops, cunning gangsters, and rapacious City officials.

Now only millions of infected humans, driven mad by the high infectious tailored rabies virus, inhabited the city.

But Tom and some trusted allies were able to stay one step ahead and escaped offshore. Now they're holed up in a safe house in coastal Virginia and it's time to break out.

Between him and his objective, one of the bank's prepared evacuation camps in the Cumberland Valley, are hundreds of miles of clogged roads, burnt-out towns and howling mobs of infected humans who know only hunger. He must corral his motley team, complete with middle-schoolers, to navigate the treacherous landscape.

And yet he feels his odds are good.

But there's always someone smarter. And they like things just the way they are.

Without a fat checkbook and the team of hired spec-ops mercenaries it used to bring, how will Tom Smith fend off entrepreneurial marauders, a brilliant sociopath or two and a kill-count hungry member of the E-4 mafia?

And if he pulls it off, no one is sure how they will they re-start civilization.

But Tom Smith has the spark of an idea.

NEW MILITARY SF. Humanity had just begun its first tentative steps towards conquering the Solar System when the aliens came and took it all away. Then they disappeared, leaving only wreckage in their wake. They have given us 100 years to get ready for the next phase of their invasion. They expect us to fight fair. But if one man can learn to control his combat implants, humanity might just have a hope for a free future . . .

Maung is used to being hunted. As the last "dream warrior," a Burmese military unit whose brains are more machine than grey matter, everyone wants him dead—punished for the multiple atrocities his unit committed during war.

But when an alien race makes its presence known on Earth and threatens to annihilate mankind, it gives Maung a chance to escape. Maung abandons his family on Earth to hide in the farthest reaches of the Solar System. There he finds love, his fellow Burmese countrymen exiled to labor on a prison asteroid, and the horrors of a war long since finished.

Maung also discovers a secret weapon system—one lost for almost a generation and which may help his people redeem themselves while at the same time saving the human race. War will come. But with Maung's discoveries and 100 years to prepare, maybe the Earth can be ready . . .

ORIGINAL TRADE PAPERBACK

STOP THE NAZI A-BOMB

In September 1939, Nazi Holocaust mastermind Heinrich Himmler conscripts brilliant physicist Peter Winter to devise a secret weapon of supreme power, and to create a revolutionary aircraft to deliver it. Peter, and his Jewish wife, Rachel, know they may only be able to slow Himmler down, and not stop him from developing the ultimate weapon.

NAZI MADNESS AND TERRORIST EVIL COMBINE

In modern-day Pakistan, the elite terrorist known as the Asp survives a U.S. drone strike, then undertakes a solo mission to penetrate America’s heartland to wreak destruction. Meanwhile, ambitious aircraft historian Cassidy Gooding and irascible Colorado cowboy Frank Luck unlock an aviation relic’s secret and discover the terrible truth the Asp may be closing in on.

THE TARGET: AMERICA

Now high atop North America’s backbone, old secrets collide with new, and Cass and Frank must prevent the possible massive devastation of an American city—or die trying. If they fail?

MILLIONS MAY PERISH