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

---

Cyclones of Chaos (LAND&SEA #7) – Blaine L. Pardoe

The mysterious underwater aliens dubbed the Fish, continue their brutal war with humanity around the globe. ASHUR’s and Tridents; powerful armored Mecha suits, are holding the line, but the war escalates to new levels of carnage as the aliens are determined to press inland.

Adam Cain and Natalia Falto are back in the war, exploring new weapons and tactics to tip the scales into mankind’s advantage. Manhattan is a devastated warzone that a grizzled NYPD detective still fights to protect. A gifted ASHUR pilot’s luck runs out in the most heinous way imaginable while a Ukrainian war survivor takes the war to the alien’s doorstep.

Humankind struggles to grapple with the complexities of a new war. Old national rivalries still give the aliens the upper hand. Warriors like Colonel Ashton Slade learn that the aliens are nothing compared with the evil that fellow men possess. As the war rages around all of them, they learn that the hardest course to plot is through a cyclone of chaos.

---

Mongol Mayhem (Raging Spirits #4) – Thor Bernard

Under the eternal blue sky, things are about to change… Forever.

It’s been a year since the summer that pulled Johnny Kanai into a whirlwind of unimaginable events. But lately, his life has grown stale, and he longs for adventure. Fulfilling a childhood dream, he departs for Mongolia for some well-deserved time off.

However, as Johnny travels deeper into the Mongolian wilderness, hidden dangers and ancient secrets reveal themselves, facing him with challenges he’d never thought he would ever experience.

In Japan, gangster Seiji Tanaka has lost it all. Now, he wants it back. But can he simply take what he once considered his? Seiji hasn’t let his internal warrior die just yet, and revenge looks more tempting than ever.

---

The Primal Hunter #10 – Zogarth

It’s finally Nevermore time, as Jake and friends dive into the greatest mega-dungeon of the multiverse…

Having evolved to C-grade successfully, Jake is ready to enter the most well-known World Wonder in the entire multiverse to get some sweet levels under his belt. However, Nevermore is far more than just an immense dungeon to power up in.

It’s a competition where newly evolved C-grades compete on Leaderboards to prove themselves in front of the entire multiverse. Genuises from every universe and faction appear, all of them vying for the top spot and to prove themselves the very best, like no one ever was.

Faced with tough competition, Jake gleefully takes on the challenge. With four competent comrades at his side, they face floor after floor as he dives deeper and deeper into the depths of Nevermore, encountering new situations, horrible water levels, powerful monsters, Challenge Dungeons, and perhaps even the occasional labyrinth with an overly invested creator.

---

Salvage Race (Salvage Title: Coalition #21) – David Alan Jones

After escaping forced conscription in a solar civil war not their own, former slave Symeon Brashniev and his former owner, Princess Kavya Rurikid, want nothing more than to escape their adopted home, the Cooper Star System. Over the course of many hard-fought victories and devastating losses, the two have forged a bond of love neither of them ever expected, but one that makes their shared life whole. Unfortunately, the couple are privy to a burgeoning secret war that threatens to rip the Cooper System, and even the known galaxy, asunder.

Unbeknownst to the system at large, a mechanized army, known as the fabricants, has secretly usurped one of Cooper’s most powerful governments. For months, the fabricants have been systematically replacing unsuspecting citizens, government officials, and even military members, with replicants of their own design, thereby turning the tide of their solar war.

Knowing the truth, Symeon and Kavya must decide if they’re willing to risk their lives, and their newfound love, to stop the fabricant uprising, or if they will choose the easy path and run.

---

Spheres of Influence (Edge of Imperium #1) – Peter Nealen

A “Peacekeeping” Mission That Might Be Anything But

Lieutenant Bannon and his phalanx of Corvanite warriors have already seen some of the worst that the irregular war between the reptilian otuchans and the human latecomers can offer.

Or so they think.

First Sergeant Draven, trying to hold his company of Zolarian citizen soldiers together, has been on the desolate planet of Zhogalgan longer than Bannon. He’s seen even more.

Yet while they are both there as peacekeepers, they are not there to help each other.

Spheres of influence and empires clash, on a dry, harsh world that might become the flashpoint in an interstellar war!

---

365 Infantry: The Ride for 2025 – a Kickstarter campaign by Jacob Calta

In the city of Haven, the only law that counts is the law of A.C.E.S., the all-powerful sentient computer network running her city into the ground. In the Wastelands, the only law is that of leather, lead, and chrome.

Fighting against the electric tyranny of a neon goddess are the many hounds enlisted in the 365th Infantry, a resistance force armed with hot rods, chopped bikes, and a belief in the American Dream. With allies across the desert and inside the city, these brave wolves face an all-day, everyday fight to rid the once-shining utopia and the desert’s sprawling settlements of its decadent, decaying overlord…

This Kickstarter campaign will close on September 4, 2024.

---

The Hidden Emperor: An Ayla Rin Sci-Fi Graphic Novel – a Kickstarter campaign by Jon Del Arroz

Ayla Rin, Agent Of The Terran Imperium, returns to face a new sinister plot against the Imperium!

Something is amiss with the Emperor of Mankind. Ayla Rin discovers he’s been replaced by a clone who’s intentionally sabotaging the Imperium on behalf of the evil Scorpio Alliance! 

But worse, the Scorpio Alliance knows she knows. And that means blackmail. Ayla is forced to find a secret superweapon that could unleash devastation on the Imperium.

This Kickstarter campaign will close on September 16, 2024.

---

The Venus Spectacular – a Kickstarter campaign by Rawle Nyanzi

Natsuru Machida, the Chief Witch of Venus, went to visit Akane Isesaki, an old friend she hadn’t seen in a decade. She had been overjoyed to receive a letter, so she went out right away, hoping to catch up.

But nothing prepared Machida for what she would find upon arrival.

A dock expanded well beyond its original purpose. A cavalry armed with arrows that blow apart everything in their path. The burnt skull of an infant, presented with pride by the very friend Machida went to see.

Isesaki had embraced child sacrifice, and she left Machida with one warning: if you try to stop us, you will face destruction. Childhood friend or no, Machida could never let grave evil go unpunished.

But how does one fight a war without an army?

This Kickstarter campaign will close on September 6, 2024.