After an alien force attacks Earth’s massive orbital shipyard dubbed the Forge, a few Interplanetary Security Alliance (ISA) officers and other survivors escape aboard the test ship Cosmic Explorer. A senior crew member promotes Ryan Anders, a newly commissioned ISA officer, to captain and places...

Hunting Armed Men by J. M. Erickson begins with an explosive orbital crisis when First Officer Robert Lee VI spearheads a violent mutiny aboard a heavy cruiser. His main target is Captain Taylor, an egalitarian commander whose elimination of strict class privileges has fueled the...

Lisa Cram begins Two-Fer by pulling us straight onto Flores Island with an unusual operative named Sand Reap. Operating as an agent for a cosmic administration known as the Galactic Order of Demons and Saints, Sand usually spends his days collecting specific souls. Things spiral...

S A Melia’s Heirs of Empire (Dodecahedral) follows the boy-king Teodor, thought dead after being lost in the wilds of Sas Darona; he returns riding the Charliki, the black Queen of Spiders. He finds out his cousin Tomas Storm has seized command of the Dome...

Unlike some stories that begin with a bang, The Fleet Answers: Astraea's First Signal by Ultra Lumen Studios begins with a heartbeat as a mother must choose between her daughter and her world. Generations after conductor Arien Solara closed the rescue corridor, holding her daughter...

In Jerry Bloom’s End of Everything, it’s the end of the world. It all began when everyone’s phone suddenly blared a warning of a ballistic missile threat inbound for California. Anyone caught outside when the bombs fell and toxic clouds drifted across the state never...

Phantom’s Revenge: The Adventures of Air Angel by John Witcher tells the story of Angela Carter, who suddenly becomes a superhero overnight. One stormy night at the Wilmont University lab, Angela is deep in researching a strange artifact covered in odd markings. Suddenly, lightning hits...

Letters to La Nuit by Juan Zamora follows Olem Jazz as he dances through his life. A lifelong dancer who works as a mail courier at a maximum-security prison in Kingston, Ontario, Olem never stops moving to music even on the job. When five inmate...

Scott Shinberg’s A Promise of Lies and Violence follows Michelle Reagan, a CIA Ground Branch operative whose Paris rendition pulls her into a counterintelligence hunt reaching back into the Agency. Rookie case officer Todd Whitaker has spent months in France under non-official cover, yet someone...

The Secret-Keeper’s Shipwreck: Mayhem in Gold Rush San Francisco by Jess Wells is a delightful historical romance set in the Wild West early days of San Francisco. Before gold was discovered, San Francisco was nothing more than a tiny, poor village by the bay without...