Cirsova #13: Winter 2022 – edited by P. Alexander

On a cold night, Martin is confronted by a strange aetherial being calling itself Sister Winter! There are dangerous men looking for her, and she needs Martin’s help!

The ashes in Alness still smoulder under Rhygir and his mercenaries… Mangos must go alone to the north to deliver a message to an Alnessi resistance leader!

Vran and his new companion, Grenvette, a living statue, pursue the vile Foad Misjak to yet another world! Vran finds that he has arrived too late, however, for the evil wizard has forged an unholy alliance with a race of strange plant monsters!

Though Eirlik is defeated and Strazis holds the title of Worldlord, another threat remains: the mysterious Gaebel and his Black Assassins! What sinister plans does this renegade Moon God have for the Isle of View? The fate of the world is at stake!

…and more!!

Death Mask (Nightvale #2) – Razorfist

KARA’ZIN

Empire of perfidy.

With Menuvia little more than a funeral pyre, Xerdes flees to the Traitor’s Kingdom of Nazgan. Where larceny is legal, honor is fatal, and it pays to keep a low profile.

For the deserts of Nazgan are not empty.

A lethal legend now haunts the badlands, thirsty for sinful blood. A hooded horror none dare name.

Even as the masked wraith carves its way through the underworld of two separate countries, it has only ever uttered a single word:

“…Xerdes.”

Dungeon Heart: Tremors – David Sanchez-Ponton

When the Earth Roars, the Heavens Will Be Shaken

Smit thought slaying a demon would be enough to buy him a moment’s peace, but the gods themselves have taken an interest in his dungeon. The new divines and their minions scour the surface, coveting the power and ability of Smit, but they’ll soon find out they should have stayed where they belong.

Drawing on the knowledge, artifacts, and alliances he’s made until now, Smit starts gathering energy beneath the ground. When he unleashes his plans, it won’t just be common adventurers in the line of fire as before.

People always aspire to reach the heavens, but they forget that heaven rests on the shoulders of mountains.

Exile – Glynn Stewart

A shackled Earth, ruled by an unstoppable tyrant
An exiled son, and a one-way trip across the galaxy
A perfect world, their last hope for survival

Vice Admiral Isaac Gallant is the heir apparent to the First Admiral, the dictator of the Confederacy of Humanity. Unwilling to let his mother’s tyranny stand, he joins the rebellion and leads his ships into war against the might of his own nation.

Betrayal and failure, however, see Isaac Gallant and his allies captured. Rather than execute her only son, the First Admiral instead decides to exile them, flinging four million dissidents and rebels through a one-shot wormhole to the other end of the galaxy.

There, Isaac finds himself forced to keep order and peace as they seek out a new home without becoming the very dictator he fought against and when that new home turns out to be too perfect to be true, he and his fellow exiles must decide how hard they are prepared to fight for paradise…against the very people who built it. Read More

When aliens and a technoplague speed up the breakdown of technological civilization, the U. S. Government sends its best and brightest warriors into the future via portal technology. Once there, these warriors are to rally what remains of humanity and reform the United States.

Army Special Forces sergeant Benjamin Colt’s team never arrive at the future. Instead, his Green Berets find themselves on a dying red planet, surrounded by fierce green natives, white apes, and red humans, all vying for survival.

Welcome to Mars.

Soon, Colt’s team is no longer his own, as half of it strips Colt of leadership and join with the barbarian hordes to set themselves up as the new kings of Mars. And grenades, machine guns, and missiles make for mighty force multipliers. Anyone who objects, like Colt, gets stranded in the Martian wastelands.

Now, to get his revenge–and save the humans of Mars–Colt must rally the remaining humans and their allies. He must become the Warlord of Mars.

Doc Spears tries his hand at uniting the military science fiction genre with Burroughsian sword and planet in Warlord: A Green Beret Conquers Mars. And once Spears gets to the Barsoom pastiche, the brakes are off.

Getting to Mars, however, is slow. Whereas the Martian adventure takes cues from A Princess of Mars, the Earthside preshow takes influences from John Ringo’s logistics science fiction books and Richard Marcinko’s Rogue Warrior. It is a blend of heavy worldbuilding, bragging, and confessional that is out of place for a pulp pastiche, but the bedrock of current military science fiction.

To be fair, some things need to be explained before Colt’s doomed flight into the future. This is a Wargate book, after all, one of a series of similar military fantasies with a common setup. Some malady is destroying civilization and so unreliable technology is used to send warriors escorting a miraculous molecular forge into the future to restart civilization. Disaster ensues, and the fight is on in the new world, whether that new world is patterned off of Norse mythology, Dungeons and Dragons, or Barsoom. Read More

The Accidental Summoning – Kos Play

Melvin Murphy is your average everyday teen… until he finds the System.

Melvin has normal problems. High School. Tests. Trying to find a girlfriend (and failing… miserably). But one day he awakens with access to a System that governs all magic.

In his attempt to summon a teacher to show him the ropes, he botches the ritual and accidentally summons a magic-wielding girl named Kalliphae. Sure, she’s powerful and deadly. A femme fatale who’s more intimidating than even the most popular girls at school.

But she’s FAR from a teacher. She’s the same age as him and clueless about Earth. Can you say perfect team?

Into the Untamed Lands (The Last Eternal #3) – Jacob Peppers

The flames danced like madness in the wanderer’s eyes. He’d faced the monster posing as Soldier in combat, and he had won. But at what cost?

Forty-seven villagers of Alhs dead. So many that they could not bury them all and so they had looked to the old ways. They had looked to the flames.

Forty-seven.

They had been people yesterday. Today, they were nothing but memory. Nothing but ash drifting away on the wind, disappearing into the night.

The creature who had taken Soldier’s place was dead, but there were others of its kind, and they knew where the wanderer was now. They knew…

And they were coming.

With the ashes of the dead still settling upon the ground, the wanderer does the only thing he can do. He leads the villagers further into the wilderness, to a place where monsters roam and magical creatures out of nightmare lurk in the shadows.

He leads them into the Untamed Lands.

Mercia’s Hammer (Tears of Perseus #3) – William Alan Webb and Kevin J. Anderson

Leave no man behind.

The rebellion is underway. Governor Mercia thought his new militia armory would pave the way to independence. Instead, Federal security forces dragged him and dozens of other secessionists to an undisclosed black site to rot. Worse, the corporation running the prison is experimenting on the inmates. But the Feds weren’t counting on the governor’s daughter.

It’s a race against time. Liana Mercia has assembled a team of the best operatives of a dozen worlds. She knows where her father was taken, and the prison break is underway. If they can reach her father in time, it could be the beginning of Perseid independence. If they fail, the warden’s experiments may spell the end of dissent for all of humanity.

Periapsis Christmas – edited by Katie Room

Christmas sci-fi and fantasy!

Sometimes you need a little holiday from all the holiday stress.

Even if you love Christmas, you can find yourself feeling smothered and looking for an escape.

Enjoy Christmas “away” in this festive anthology of five science fiction and fantasy short stories.

Packed full of action, adventure, mystery, suspense, and of course, Christmas! Read More

An Act of Aggression (The Terran Space Project #3) – Alex Rath

Trying to make a new life among the stars…

Captain Maxwell Reeves of the Terran Space Project’s Wormhole Traversal Project has overcome deadly plants and aggressive griffins, and he has begun to hope that the settlement on Mythos can now begin to grow and thrive.

Until his artificial intelligence decides to take over the settlement and Mythos is contacted by an unknown alien civilization. With the aliens approaching the planet and no way of contacting Earth, Max knows vital information has been kept from him, but has no way to find out what that information is.

On Earth, the Terran Space Project’s director, Annica Reeves, also continues to unravel the mysteries left behind by former director Gustav Malmkvist. As Annica’s team grows, though, so does the risk. And when Gustav returns after being killed, Annica finds out that things are even more complicated than they already seemed.

Who’s coming to Mythos? What was Gustav’s motivation for his actions on Earth? And what does it all mean for the future of humanity? Max and Annica will have to find out the answers, and soon, or that future is very dark, indeed!

Aegeon Science Fiction Illustrated #4 – edited by Brendan Heard

The Bizarchives #4 – edited by Dave Martel

On the abysmal fringes of sanity itself lies a repository of tales from realms untold. The Bizarchives holds secrets of far flung galaxies, haunted dimensions and fantastical heroes. Inspired by the works of HP Lovecraft and Robert E Howard, this compilation of short stories takes a reader through all things strange and exhilarating.

The Bizarchives RETURNS with another array of eerie pulp tales from authors old and new. Tragic futures, supernatural evils and bloodthirsty fiends await you in this thrilling collection of eldritch wonder tales.

The weirdest pulp compilation in the WORLD is back yet again with another odd array of strange stories for your peculiar pleasure. A. Cuthbertson, M.S. Jones, Dave Martel, Robert C. Booth, Emre Tan and many returning writers as well as first appearances in 13 different weird tales! Be prepared for possibly our best release yet with THE BIZARCHIVES ISSUE# 4.

Crossways – Michael J. Allen

The Fate of Eleven Universes Rest in the Hands of a Hapless Trucker who Can’t Read a Map…

Eleventh World is widely considered the largest waste of magic and technology ever perpetrated by a governing body.

We call it Earth.

Humanity?

We’re a bad joke told only in posh backrooms by the raunchiest politicians.

Even so, when villainous forces threaten to destroy our universe, the beings profiting off Eleventh World take notice. They summon their best cybernetic dwarf problem solver to find the bomb and save the day.

Unfortunately for us, the villain insists Crossways Transportation’s very worst, Sam Bridger, deliver the ransom. Can the best triumph before our worst dooms us?

Will Sam be the death of everybody you know? Read More