Now Available: Rocket's Red Glare

The trade paperback edition of the new Rough Edges Press anthology ROCKET'S RED GLARE is now available on Amazon, and ebook editions for all platforms are available at the various on-line retailers.

I just want to say how proud I am of this book and all the authors involved, and how grateful I am to them and to Brad R. Torgersen and Livia J. Washburn for their work on the cover. There are some great stories in ROCKET'S RED GLARE: a major new novella from Brad R. Torgersen, a USAian story by Sarah A. Hoyt, gritty military SF from Nathan E. Meyer, an interstellar epic by Keith West, a superb first contact yarn from Robert E. Vardeman, suspenseful tales set in our solar system by Christopher Chupik and David Hardy, a poignant look at the future on Mars by Lou Antonelli, and stories set on Earth but involving galactic conflict from Martin L. Shoemaker and myself. Classic SF from top-notch authors. You can't go wrong with that.

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Now Available for Pre-Order: Rocket's Red Glare, A New Anthology from Rough Edges Press

From distant galaxies to the mean streets of Hollywood . . . from the war-torn skies of France in 1918 to the far side of the moon . . . The stories in Rocket's Red Glare exemplify the adventure, courage, and sense of discovery so vital to the American spirit. Whether daring to cross interstellar space or battling alien conquerors when they come right to our own back yard, the characters in these tales never give up, never stop fighting for their country, their lives, their honor. Featuring all-new stories by Sarah A. Hoyt (part of her USAian series), Brad R. Torgersen, Martin L. Shoemaker, Lou Antonelli, James Reasoner, Robert E. Vardeman, Nathan E. Meyer, Keith West, Christopher Chupik, and David Hardy, Rocket's Red Glare is packed with space opera excitement, dazzling scientific speculation, gritty action, and compelling characters.

I'm really proud of this book. This is the kind of SF I love to read. The ebook is available for pre-order through Amazon and Smashwords and will go live on Thursday, and the print edition should be available then, too.

Darkship Thieves - Sarah A. Hoyt

There's a lot of back-story in DARKSHIP THIEVES, the first novel in Sarah A. Hoyt's Darkship series. In the future, genetically engineered and bio-inhanced individuals known as Mules take over the earth, a development that results in a bloody upheaval in which all the Mules are wiped out or forced to flee from the planet. Earth winds up being ruled by a consortium of billionaire aristocrats known as the Good Men. There are rumors that the surviving Mules have set up a colony somewhere out in the Solar System, but nobody knows for sure if that's true. But there are powertrees growing in space, some sort of bio-construct created by Mule scientists. They grow pods that are harvested to produce power back on Earth. Got all that? Because it's in place before the plot in this novel even gets started.

The narrator/protagonist of DARKSHIP THIEVES is Athena Hera Sinistra, the wild, spoiled daughter of one of the Good Men who rule Earth. An apparent mutiny aboard the space cruiser owned by her father forces her to flee into the powertrees in a lifepod. I say apparent because this is one of those books where almost nothing is what it seems to be at first and the plot twists and revelations come at an almost constant clip all the way through. Athena is rescued by a darkship from that semi-legendary Mule colony and taken back there. The darkships, hard to detect as you might imagine from the name, are piloted by genetically enchanced former humans who steal the power pods for the colony. Athena winds up in all sorts of intrigue and danger, as well as a romance with her rescuer, who's been genetically modified to have cat-like vision and reflexes.

It's all even more complicated than I've made it sound, but Hoyt makes it work, largely because her two main characters are so likable. Athena isn't exactly an unreliable narrator, but she is on the eccentric side. The plot moves along briskly, the world-building is excellent, and this novel comes to a satisfactory conclusion while still leaving the impression that there's a lot more tale to be told. There are three more books in the series, and I suspect I'll be reading them all. Recommended.

Shattered Shields - Jennifer Brozek and Bryan Thomas Schmidt, eds.

A lot of heroic fantasy uses armies and wars as a backdrop, as the editors of this new anthology point out in their introduction, and since I like both fantasy and military fiction, SHATTERED SHIELDS has a built-in appeal for readers like me. That said, it's kind of a mixed bag, as anthologies often are. A number of the stories feel more like excerpts from novels rather than actual short stories, and some come across as introductions or prequels to larger works and seem a little incomplete. But there are some real stand-out stories, too, and my favorites include:

"Keeper of Names" by Larry Correia, which suffers a little from that "intro to a new series" feeling I mentioned above, but Correia's fast-paced writing and interesting characters 'way more than compensate for that. I'll definitely be interested in the novel that follows this story.

"Rising Above" by Sarah A. Hoyt is a great alternate World War I flying ace story that involves dragons. Some of the humor is groan-inducing in a good way, but there are also some poignant moments and some nice action. It works as a stand-alone, too, and I really enjoyed it. Probably my favorite story in the book because it's so much fun.

"A Cup of Wisdom" by Joseph Zieja is a much grittier story about the nature of war, very well written and effective. I don't know what else Zieja has written, but I'm going to have to look into that.

"Vengeance" by Robin Wayne Bailey is a straight-ahead sword and sorcery story about a warror and the demon-possessed dagger she carries. Plenty of action in this one, and a likable protagonist.

Nancy Fulda's "Deadfall" features an intriguing concept: airborne floating island kingdoms powered by wood with anti-gravity properties and filled with barbarians. This story does a good job of being self-contained, yet making me want to read more about the setting.

"Yael of the Strings" by John R. Fultz features an unusual protagonist, a minstrel whose job is to inspire the soldiers in a battle with his songs. It won't come as any surprise that before this one is over, he has to do more than sing.

Glen Cook's The Black Company is a series I've been meaning to read for years. I already own quite a few of the novels. But "Bone Candy", his Black Company story in this anthology, is actually the first one I've read. It's told in a very distinctive, hardboiled style, and I really enjoyed it despite the fact that it ended too abruptly for my taste, leaving me feeling like it was part of something intended to be bigger.

Elizabeth Moon is another author I've meant to read. "First Blood", her story that wraps up SHATTERED SHIELDS, makes me more convinced than ever that I should. Good characters, excellent action scenes, and an interesting enough setting that I want to read more.

All the other stories in SHATTERED SHIELDS are good except for a couple I didn't care for, but that's a pretty good percentage for an anthology. And it introduced me to several fine writers whose work is new to me, also a good thing. If you're a fan of heroic fantasy that's on the gritty side, this one is well worth reading.