In 1975, young John Wesley Zooma witnessed the public and violent execution of a well-known member of his community by the police. The incident left him with a deep hatred for the government. More than two decades later, Zooma joined a secret Zulu paramilitary group,...

Nature Against by Delenda Carthago starts in a sterile dome city where a computer system controls every human decision. We follow Ziyue, a woman who is done with this forced perfection and just wants an exit from the system, but the rulers won’t even let...

In S.D. Rhodes’s What Hears You, Tara Venn pilots Scout Four into Ilyr before the colony ships and crashes into a marsh world where sound can kill. Alone with injuries she cannot afford and a transponder that only flickers amber, Tara first thinks the local...

Eliza Sky's attempt to create a new life for herself away from the orphanage she once called home looks to be yielding fruit. She has joined an odd group, young girls of different races with a zest for life she has never experienced and a...

In Kurt Burke's Rebels & Filibusters, Doc Carlile, a former Confederate naval surgeon turned mining claim owner, accepts a paid assignment from Salt Lake City businessman Frederick Butterfield to inspect a massive saltpeter cargo in Panama. The job should place Carlile in charge of moving...

In A Wave of Breath by Tess Collins, Brooklyn's and Martin's lives are abruptly disrupted when the water turns red while they shower together. This marks the beginning of the catastrophic Water Event, a disaster that affects only the United States. Before disappearing, Martin promises...

“Over generations, the original idealism has been perverted and evolved into what we have now.” Idealism and lofty goals often become twisted, and Dystopian Paradise, a novella by Marvin Cook, is a perfect example of utopianism corrupted. The story begins simply enough, with 12-year-old Pilar...

In Tony Perez’s The Dragon and The Eagle, former Delta operator James Chase now serves as the personal security officer for Secretary of Defense Michael Andrews. When China fires on the USS John S. McCain during a naval patrol in the South China Sea, surviving...

A forty-five-year-old gambler named Joey Mumbai gets into big trouble with a sectid mobster, Fat Okko. Joey owes him one million Determinations of Official Worth, or dows. Fat Okko finds out that Joey inherited Space Station Halcyon from his billionaire father. The sectid sees an...

In Shadowsprite and Lightfoot by C. S. Wachter, Prince Keagan Shadowsprite Stormdweller is the heir to Noras Del’sham, a northern kingdom ruled by his father, King Nettlespore. When Nettlespore sends him into Gwenhwyfar Haven to free Lord Shadespawn Fenwright, a captive shadow shifter lord, Keagan...