Every week, the Castalia House Blog spotlights some of the many new releases in independent, pulp, and web novel-influenced science fiction and fantasy.

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Cirsova #17/Winter 2023 – edited by P. Alexander

Tales of heroic adventure and daring suspense that include:

Nick’s crew were a solid heist team, but their successes have caught the attention of the Czar! Now they’re being taken out one-by-one by the Czar’s unstoppable goon!

Rab is running out of time! His Financial Seconds are ticking away until his body is reclaimed! Can his high-powered Brain OS and cybernetic personal assistant Alice get him through the day, or will high costs and rising prices cost Rab his life?!

On the verge of victory over Rhygir, Kat’s army has been destroyed by Fedai reinforcements! Rhygir has barely enough troops to hold Alness, but Kat is missing! The saga of the Mongoose and Meerkat concludes in this final chapter!

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The Engineer (The Last Horizon #2) – Will Wight

“I can’t juggle starships. I make the ones who can.”

The battle with the Iron Legion has left The Last Horizon battered and broken, drifting in space. Varic needs an exceptional Engineer to fix his ship, and there’s only one person for the job: Mell, the master Aether Technician.

But first, they have to break her out of prison.

Mell has been captured by the Advocates, a group of super-powered vigilantes who dominate their corner of the galaxy. They are led by Starhammer, an invincible champion with a personal obsession with Mell.

The Last Horizon may be crewed by the greatest heroes in the galaxy, but even they have to be careful with Starhammer. Every time he survives a battle, he grows stronger.

In another life, Varic saw the end of that road. If he lets Starhammer become too powerful, the galaxy is doomed.

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Galaxy’s Most Wanted – Michael LaVoice

A smuggler in the wrong place. An ancient alien technology. Now, everyone is after him.

Kai Fletcher thought he could go straight, until he couldn’t. And when his last “last” job goes wrong, he finds himself stowed away in a starship belonging to an alien crime syndicate.

Forced into servitude to pay the debt for passage off world, Kai bargains with the syndicate. All he has to do is help them rob the Vakness Empire, the most powerful alien empire in known space, and he gets to go home.

Easy Peasy. Until it isn’t.

Planning the heist, Kai discovers that the Vakness Empire has stolen ancient alien technology that will allow them to achieve their dream of ruling over all other sentient species. He’s never been a good guy, but even he has limits.

Hunted by both the Empire, and the syndicate, he manages to get on the wrong side of everyone in the galaxy who wants the discovery for themselves.

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Hell Divers XI: Renegades – Nicholas Sansbury-Smith

The secret location of the Vanguard Islands is no longer a secret . . .

Tired from years of fighting, Xavier passes the crown to a younger Hell Diver, Kade Long, and then sets off on the Sea Wolf with Magnolia to find Michael and his family. But the journey will push them both to their limit.

On the damaged airship Vanguard, Michael and crew are running out of water and must dive to a new location before attempting the perilous voyage across the Atlantic to a new home.

Back at the Vanguard Islands, King Kade hurries to prepare the rigs’ defenses against the Forerunner and his Knights of the Coral Castle. Fearing that X won’t return with the airship in time, Kade sends the elite Barracudas on a mission to find an aircraft that will give the Islands a fighting chance against the knights.

In the penultimate Hell Diver book, the survivors travel skewed and far-flung paths, but soon those paths will converge. The journey is almost over, so strap in for the last dives.

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Hero of Metalhaven (Metal and Blood #1) – G. J. Ogden

Finn Brasa liked to make trouble. Now trouble will make him a hero.

A worker in the scrapyards of Metalhaven in Earth’s last city, Finn Brasa is a good man with big heart and an even bigger mouth.

Whether he’s annoying a-hole robot foremen or standing up to the city’s troopers, Finn has a talent for trouble. Then his talent attracts the attention of the Authority, a tyrannical empire governed from a space citadel called Nimbus.

Without warning, Finn is thrown into a fight for his life in a gladiatorial spectacle that fewer than one in two thousand have ever survived.

But Finn has been beating the odds all his life.

Far beyond the electrified walls of the city, a secret rebellion is forming. All they need is a leader, someone who can stand against the Authority and inspire the workers to fight.

Finn’s big mouth has always gotten him in trouble, but now it could be the key to his freedom, and the freedom of every man and woman in the last city on Earth.

But only if he can survive.

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Legionnaire Eternal (Galaxy’s Edge: Dark Operator #6) – Doc Spears

Who stands as the model of the ideal legionnaire?

Who in the storied history of the greatest fighting force the galaxy’s ever known shines as their brightest beacon? Who is the template for legionnaire virtue, the person that every leej who ever wore the bucket strives to be?

Only one legionnaire qualifies. General Rex.

The general has become more myth than man. More fable than real. The Legion he led to victory in the Savage Wars followed his example of warrior perfection and absolute duty unto death to save humanity while painting glory across the stars. The Legion was his legacy; it cemented the legend of Tyrus Rex.

Rex was the perfect legionnaire. But in a galaxy missing its savior, there’s one dark operator worthy of inheriting the title of deadliest weapon in the Legion arsenal.

And his name is Kel Turner.

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Tentacles of the Dominion (The Sergey Chronicles #3) – D. T. Read

Sometimes, it’s all in your head.

Admiral Lujan Sergey is Commander-in-Chief of the Unified World’s special forces, the Spherzah. When the new government of a former enemy world, Issel, requests assistance from the UW to repel an invasion by masuk slavers, the negotiations become contentious. An assassin strikes during the treaty signing, and Lujan is critically injured. The damage to his central nervous system leaves him with little but his keen mind.

While Lujan tried to find a way to communicate with the world and struggles to regain all he’s lost, he’s removed from command. Issel’s new chief cabinet minister aspires to restore the old Dominion and bring the UW under its subjugation, and only Lujan knows the full extent of Isselan corruption in his own government. He must rely on his wife, Captain Darcie Dartmuth, and his son, Tristan, to help gather the evidence he needs to thwart the Isselan minister’s plan while fighting the most difficult battle of his life.

But when Lujan learns that one of the conspirators is onto him, his mission becomes a race. Can he reveal the plot in time, or will another assassin finally finish the job?

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Wasteland Warlords 2 – James Hunter and eden Hudson

“Out here, power is key. Getting it, using it, keeping it. Without power, you’re nothing but fertilizer.”

Two months ago, Clay Jaeger, his wife Alex, and his chainsaw-toting brother Joe came to the Infested Zone on a mission: kill a Dungeon Lord. What they found along the way was a land of opportunity. Gold-dropping monsters, magical weapons, and best of all, freedom—all there for the taking.

If they can live long enough to grab it.

Surviving in the wasteland has been a constant fight, but thriving in it, that will take something more. Not just power, but the brains to use it in ways nobody’s seen before.

When a deposed Dungeon Lord sends them on a once-in-a-lifetime quest, Clay sees the chance to turn that power to his family’s advantage. But what on the surface looks like the Jaeger clan’s ultimate opportunity might actually be the meat grinder that gets them all killed. Especially if the overpowered Incant who’s been chasing them has anything to say about it.