Arena mech combat, alien ugly ducklings, deep space salvage, and genetic manipulation feature in this week’s roundup of the newest releases in science fiction.
BattleTech: Not the Way The Smart Money Bets (Kell Hounds Trilogy #1) – Michael A. Stackpole
Brothers Morgan and Patrick Kell have just landed on Galatea, the mercenary planet known for its brutal arena ’Mech combat games. They intend to found their own merc unit, building it from the ground up, but there are a few obstacles in their way. The first is a corrupt general fronting for the second, a local crime lord named Haskell Blizzard who crushes anyone he sees as a threat. And the Kell boys offering lucrative contracts for the best ’Mechwarriors and techs on the planet is a definite threat to his illegal empire.
But what Blizzard doesn’t know is that the Kell brothers have faced long odds before, and come out on top every single time. And with the help of some old and new friends, they’re going to take this crime lord down using his own tactics against him.
When the chips are down, the smart money is always on the brothers Kell.
Cannon Publishing Military Sci-Fi / Fantasy Anthology: Spring 2019 – Presented by Cannon Publishing
The military experience is timeless, and echoes down from our past and into our future. Along the way, not everything is as it seems. Thirteen stories from established and new writers in the field of Military Science Fiction and Military Fantasy bring you tales of the terrors of combat and the even greater fear of the unknown in Cannon Publishing’s first Bi-Annual Military Anthology. Includes works by:
Alex Piasecki ~ During the Iraq War, a United States Marine Corps fire team goes to the rescue of a young boy and encounters an ancient evil. It will take massive firepower and violent action to get out alive, if they can. A Joint Task Force 13 story.
Lucas Marcum ~ Trapped in the hull of a badly damaged starship, a young sailor must make difficult decisions to save her ship and her crewmates. A story set in the best selling Valkyrie universe.
Jason Cordova ~ Out of time, the war for Earth rages as scientists struggle to stop two cataclysmic events from happening simultaneously, and possibly save the world while they’re at it.
Yakov Merkin ~ . Another day at the most boring, dead-end job in the Galactic Alliance’s Legion Navy turns out to be the day that you might get killed.
Do No Harm (Four Horsemen Universe: The Omega War #9) – by Robert E. Hampson , Chris Kennedy , and Sandra L. Medlock
When Todd’s critically damaged ship dropped out of hyperspace near the Human colony world of Azure, he had no memory of his past. He didn’t know who he was, or even what he was, and the Humans didn’t either. That didn’t stop the colonists of Azure—they took him in, anyway…even though they didn’t understand how he could do some of the things he could do.
Todd and his descendants consider themselves Human—eight armed and water-breathing—but Human, nonetheless. After seventy years living among Humans, Todd’s descendants are going back out into the Union to make their mark—from fifteen-year-old Verne, who’s a little short to be a mercenary, to Harryhausen, who wants to be the most famous PI in the galaxy. Eventually they learn that the rest of the Galactic Union knows them as Wrogul, intelligent octopus-like beings known for science and the ability to perform surgery like no other race can.
These Wrogul do more than just practice medicine, but they still intend to do no harm. Unfortunately, the Humans, whether they have two arms or eight, have powerful enemies… and the Wrogul may have no choice.
Don’t Call Me Ishmael (The Fallen World # 2) – Chris Kennedy
Don’t call him Ishmael. Or do; he really doesn’t care. Just don’t call him Fred.
No matter what you call him, though, he has a problem. Well, several of them. Ishmael—for want of a better name—woke up in a world that had changed. The Corporations—the wielders of power in a society not long from now—brought about the end of civilization as we know it, nuking each other to the point where it collapsed.
Ishmael doesn’t know any of this, though; in fact, he doesn’t know anything about himself when he wakes up in this shattered world. All of his autobiographical and episodic memories are gone, and along with them, any knowledge of who he was or anything in his past.
Worse, he has made enemies of some very important people, and they are after him. They are armed and he is alone and in…well, he doesn’t know where he is, either.
Can Ishmael stay alive long enough to recover his memories—to find out who he is and how he fits—or will he be just another casualty of This Fallen World?
Maledictions – Edited by Black Library
Eleven stories from the worlds of Warhammer explore the darker side of the 41st Millennium and the Mortal Realms, with tales of psychological torment, visceral horror and the supernatural from Black Library authors old and new.
Horror is no stranger to the dark worlds of Warhammer. Its very fabric is infested with the arcane, the strange and the downright terrifying. From the cold vastness of the 41st Millennium to the creeping evil at large in the Mortal Realms, this anthology of short stories explores the sinister side of Warhammer in a way it never has been before. Psychological torment, visceral horrors, harrowing tales of the supernatural and the nightmares buried within, this collection brings together a grim host of tales to chill the very blood…
READ IT BECAUSE: It’s a spine-chilling look into the dark places of the Warhammer universes, from some incredible talent, including a host of new-to-Black Library authors such as Cassandra Khaw and Lora Gray.
ReEvolution: a CRISPR Novel – Alex Grant
John Ordell, a young scientist, moves to Washington, DC and wants to work in biotechnology using the cutting-edge gene editing innovation called CRISPR. He is drawn into a money making scheme driven by greed, corporate espionage and international intrigue, all while harnessing the incredible power of CRISPR . The science is real, frightening and easily misapplied. This book scrutinizes what could go wrong when people and governments toy with CRISPR, a technology which makes Darwinian evolution obsolete and can change the nature of what it is to be human. John, his co-conspirators and other foreign actors use artificial intelligence and supercomputers, and combine it with CRISPR to great effect – but is humanity ready for this new era of ReEvolution?
This novel explores human nature and its ability to deal with this explosive technology. It examines how CRISPR works, its unlimited potential and how advances in computer technology can combine to make this period a turning point in human history. It is a must read in this day and age when the birth of healthy genetically engineered twins is announced on U-tube by a Chinese scientist instead of in respected journals. It is an exploration of the perils facing humanity at this precipitous time.
Strong and Courageous (Echoes of War # 2) – Daniel Gibbs
Colonel David Cohen has one goal: drive out the League of Sol. After a string of successful engagements, the warship Lion of Judah is ordered on a goodwill mission to assist neutral border planets long caught between both sides of the galactic conflict.
What David finds on Monrovia sends shockwaves of horror through the Terran Coalition.
Monrovian citizens of all faiths are being rounded up and sent to reeducation camps, while others are exterminated to cleanse the population as the planet seeks to join the communist League. Mass graves containing thousands of murdered men, women and children dot the landscape.
David vows to use whatever means necessary to stop the holocaust.
To face down the overwhelming brutality of the League, David will need more than the prayers of the faithful.
He’ll need a miracle.
Super-Sync – Kevin Ikenberry
Lew Armistead Holmes’ life was about to get better…much better. Part of the crew of the salvage ship Remnant, she just got a contract to go further into space than she’s ever been before, to retrieve a satellite that is so big it will take two ships to bring it back. The payday is equally large, and her share is big enough to get her off Remnant and away from her peculiar captain and his secrets.
Unfortunately, the captain of the other ship tasked to the job harbors a grudge against Remnant’s commanding officer from the last time the two worked together on a project. Separately, they are each like dynamite—ready to go off at any time. When they’re together, it’s like lighting the fuse.
But the payoff on the unknown satellite is huge, leading both crews to wonder what the satellite holds, and what they aren’t being told about it.
Both crews must work together to bring the satellite back to Earth, but there are plans within plans, and no one is exactly who the others think they are. Who will come back with the satellite at the end of the mission…and who won’t come back at all?
Tiamat’s Wrath (The Expanse #8) – James S. A. Corey
Thirteen hundred gates have opened to solar systems around the galaxy. But as humanity builds its interstellar empire in the alien ruins, the mysteries and threats grow deeper.
In the dead systems where gates lead to stranger things than alien planets, Elvi Okoye begins a desperate search to discover the nature of a genocide that happened before the first human beings existed, and to find weapons to fight a war against forces at the edge of the imaginable. But the price of that knowledge may be higher than she can pay.
At the heart of the empire, Teresa Duarte prepares to take on the burden of her father’s godlike ambition. The sociopathic scientist Paolo Cortázar and the Mephistophelian prisoner James Holden are only two of the dangers in a palace thick with intrigue, but Teresa has a mind of her own and secrets even her father the emperor doesn’t guess.
And throughout the wide human empire, the scattered crew of the Rocinante fights a brave rear-guard action against Duarte’s authoritarian regime. Memory of the old order falls away, and a future under Laconia’s eternal rule — and with it, a battle that humanity can only lose — seems more and more certain. Because against the terrors that lie between worlds, courage and ambition will not be enough…
Time Storm – Gordon R. Dickson
The time storm had devastated the Earth, and all but a small fraction of humankind has vanished. In the rubble of the world, three survivors had formed an unlikely trio: Marc Despard, determined to find a way to stop the time storm; a leopard, dazed by the storm and following after Despard like a kitten; and a young woman with an unbreakable bond to the leopard.
Now, Marc searches relentlessly for a clue to the nature of the storm, not guessing that the time storm threatens not just the Earth but the entire universe—and that his two companions were the only hope of reversing the distortions in the fabric of the cosmos that were about to bring an end to all of space and time . . .
A classic of post-apocalyptic science fiction from Grand Master Gordon R. Dickson.
The Ark – J. Swift
New Amerland was designed and built by survivors of the Incident.
Those were the people who, by some miracle, managed to get underground before the bombs fell; managed to lock away themselves and their families, and to survive the worst nuclear attack in history.
A lucky few would be selected by lottery and handed a ticket for free.
At least fifty per cent failed the test and were fated to die on their desolate and degraded planet…
Please give us your valuable comment