A futuristic Los Angelese skyscraper implodes, the Four Horsemen return, and the Salamander of Manticore unleashes her fury in this week’s roundup of the newest releases in science fiction.

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Dust & Iron (The Adventures of the Starship Satori #9) – Kevin McLaughlin

Charline Foster was marooned on a desert planet during an alien attack.

Taking command of the handful of people stranded with her, she struggles to survive a desolate and hostile world. But the predators stalking them are the least of their worries. The aliens who forced the Satori to flee return, seeking the survivors.

Charline must forge her small band into an effective fighting force and engage the enemy. Together, they must strive to do the impossible if they want to ever see Earth again.

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Forerunner – Isaac Hooke

Jain was the lieutenant commander of an elite SEAL team. He was accustomed to order and discipline, which he used to give the men under his command that particular brand of killer instinct his unit was known for.

But one day that semi-comfortable, ordered life ended when he opened his eyes to find his body replaced by a starship. His mind had become its AI core. He is somewhere in deep space. Most of his systems are badly damaged. He has no memory of how he got here, or what his mission is. Evidence points to an attack by an unknown entity. He finds other damaged vessels in the vicinity and reactivates them. They, too, have no memory of the events leading up to their current situation.

Jain, thrust into a leadership role, soon learns that commanding a fleet of starships isn’t all that different from leading a platoon of SEALs. It helps that his database is chock-full of tactics and military strategies gleaned from every space battle humanity has ever fought.

As he and his fleet explore their surroundings and slowly piece together what happened to them, they realize their attacker is not from any human system. And that any misstep means not only the loss of his fleet, but potentially the destruction of humanity itself.

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Losing Mars – Peter Cawdron

Disaster strikes in orbit around Mars.

A Chinese spacecraft is disabled, stranded near Phobos. Well over a hundred million miles from Earth, their only hope for rescue comes from the American base on the edge of the Vallis Marineris on the surface of Mars.

The Americans need to decide, do they lose Mars or their humanity?

Peter Cawdron sees hard science fiction as simply plausible science fiction, fiction that is written in such a way as it conforms to the known laws of science, and that makes it more interesting, as there’s no magic wand the protagonist can wave to get out of trouble.

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The Singularity Trap – Dennis E. Taylor

The number one best-selling author of the Bobiverse trilogy returns with a space thriller that poses a provocative question: Does our true destiny lie in ourselves — or in the stars?

If it were up to one man and one man alone to protect the entire human race – would you want it to be a down-on-his luck asteroid miner?

When Ivan Pritchard signs on as a newbie aboard the Mad Astra, it’s his final, desperate stab at giving his wife and children the life they deserve. He can survive the hazing of his crewmates, and how many times, really, can near-zero g make you vomit? But there’s another challenge looming out there, in the farthest reaches of human exploration, that will test every man, woman and AI on the ship – and will force Ivan to confront the very essence of what makes him human.

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Sting of the Mustard Mines (Space Team #10) – Barry J. Hutchison

Having journeyed through time in order to restore peace to the galaxy, Cal Carver and Space Team are a little dismayed to find out they may have inadvertently made things even worse.

Whoops.

Captured by an unfamiliar alien species, the crew is banished to a life of slavery in the Mustard Mines of Moktar, where they come face to face with the sinister Manacle – a terrifying new enemy whose diabolical agenda is worse than any they have encountered before.

With the clock ticking and thousands of lives at stake, Space Team must race across the galaxy, stop Manacle’s evil scheme, and save the day once more.

But first, they have to escape…

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Street Freaks – Terry Brooks

It begins with a dire call-right before his father disappears and his skyscraper home’s doors explode inward. It is the kind of thrilling futuristic story only Terry Brooks can tell.

“Go into the Red Zone. Go to Street Freaks.” his father directs Ashton Collins before the vid feed goes suddenly silent. The Red Zone is the dangerous heart of the mega-city of Los Angeles; it is a world Ash is forbidden from and one he knows little about. But if he can find Street Freaks, the strangest of aid awaits-human and barely human alike. As Ash is hunted, he must unravel the mystery left behind by his father and discover his role in this new world.

Brooks has long been the grandmaster of fantasy. Now he turns his hand to science fiction filled with what his readers love best: complex characters, extraordinary settings, exciting action, and a page-turning story. Through it, Brooks reimagines his bestselling career yet again.

 

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Tales from the Lyon’s Den (Four Horsemen Tales #4) – Edited by Mark Wandrey and Chris Kennedy

Do you have what it takes to enter the Lyon’s Den?

Welcome back to the Four Horsemen universe, where only a willingness to fight and die for money separates Humans from the majority of the other races. Edited by bestselling authors and universe creators Mark Wandrey and Chris Kennedy, “Tales from the Lyon’s Den” includes eighteen all-new stories in the Four Horsemen universe by a variety of bestselling authors—and some you may not have heard of…yet. Want to know what it’s like to do search and rescue while a battle is going on or what to do with that new manufactory you just won in a card game? Better learn the rules to the Lyon’s Den…and then step inside!

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Uncompromising Honor (Honor Harrington #19)- David Weber

Honor Harrington has worn the Star Kingdom’s uniform for half a century and served her monarch and her people well. In the course of those years, the woman the newsies call the Salamander has grown from a tactically brilliant but politically naïve junior officer to supreme fleet command and a seat on the highest military and political councils of the Grand Alliance.

Very few people know war the way Honor Harrington does. Very few have lost as many men and women, as many friends, as much family, as she has. Yet despite that, hers has been a voice of caution. She knows the Mandarins and the Solarian League Navy are growing increasingly desperate as the truth of their technological inferiority sinks home, but she also knows the sheer size of the League. And she knows how its citizens will react if the Grand Alliance takes the war to the League, attacks its star systems, destroys its infrastructure . . . kills its civilians. Today’s victory, bought on those terms, can only guarantee a future war of revenge against a resurgent Solarian League and its navy.

But the Mandarins have embraced a desperate new strategy, and in pursuit of that strategy, the SLN has committed atrocities such as the galaxy has not known in a thousand years. The League have violated its own Eridani Edict against mass civilian casualties, violated the Deneb Accords prohibition on war crimes.

And they have finally killed too many of the people Honor Harrington loves.

The Salamander is coming for the Solarian League, and Hell is coming in her wake.