Winter


Rod Rees - 2011
    Created to prepare soldiers for the nightmarish reality of urban warfare, it is a virtual world locked in eternal civil war. Its thirty million digital inhabitants are ruled by duplicates of some of history's cruellest tyrants: Reinhard Heydrich, the architect of the Holocaust; Beria, Stalin's arch executioner; Torquemada, the pitiless Inquisitor General; Robespierre, the face of the Reign of Terror. But something has gone badly wrong inside the Demi-Monde, and the US President's daughter has become trapped in this terrible world. It falls to eighteen-year-old Ella Thomas to rescue her, yet once Ella has entered the Demi-Monde she finds that everything is not as it seems, that its cyber-walls are struggling to contain the evil within and that the Real World is in more danger than anyone realises.

Blue Remembered Earth


Alastair Reynolds - 2012
    But Geoffrey's family, the vast Akinya business empire, has other plans. After the death of Eunice, Geoffrey's grandmother, erstwhile space explorer and entrepreneur, something awkward has come to light on the Moon, and Geoffrey is tasked - well, blackmailed, really - to go up there and make sure the family's name stays suitably unblemished. But little does Geoffrey realise - or anyone else in the family, for that matter - what he's about to unravel.Eunice's ashes have already have been scattered in sight of Kilimanjaro. But the secrets she died with are about to come back out into the open, and they could change everything.Or shatter this near-utopia into shards...

Invisible


DelSheree Gladden - 2013
    He’s not a ghost, either. And she’s pretty sure he’s not a hallucination. He’s just Mason. He is, however, invisible. When Olivia spotted the crying little boy on her front porch at five years old, she had no idea she was the only one who could see him. Twelve years later when new-girl Robin bumps into the both of them and introduces herself to Mason, they are both stunned. Mason couldn’t be more pleased that someone else can see him. Olivia, on the other hand, isn’t jumping at the chance to welcome Robin into their circle. Jealousy may have something to do with that, but honest fear that Robin’s presence will put Mason in danger is soon validated when a strange black car shows up outside Olivia’s house. The race to find out what Robin knows in time to protect Mason from whatever threats are coming becomes Olivia’s only focus.

Demons of the Void


David Adams - 2011
    It is told primarily from the perspective of one Captain Melissa Liao of the People's Navy, who is given command of one of three great warships built to fight the "demons", the TFR Beijing.

Fractured Persona


Harry Krebs - 2013
    A glimpse in a mirror and the evidence of a driver's license prove that Fornek is trapped in the body of warehouse worker Daniel Curtis. Terrified, he insists that he's Richard Fornek, but when faced with the prospect of admittance to a psychiatric hospital, he is forced to assume a new role to buy time to figure out what’s going on. Alone and confused, things go from bad to worse as he struggles to regain control of his life. A little romance, a little murder, and a whole lot of hair-raising suspense unfold as he scrambles to stay one step ahead of the mayhem.

Firemancer Collection


Rachel M. Humphrey-D'aigle - 2014
     Summer fun is coming! And other than turning thirteen, twins, Meghan and Colin Jacoby, are looking forward to a typical summer... well, typical for them. Which means their uncle (and guardian) will pull into the Cobbscott Campground and park his travel trailer for three full months. Normally, they’d never spend more than a couple weeks in any one place, their uncle preferring to move around. But only until summer when they’d be Cobbscott bound. Why did he do this every summer? Why did he prefer to move around? The twins have never thought to ask. Their only concern being that their friend Sebastien would be in Cobbscott as well... the one person who also happens to know their secret- that they can read each other’s minds. Arrival at the campground goes as expected and within hours, Meghan and Colin are already making plans to meet up with Sebastien. But before they do, the campground gets some unexpected visitors. Visitors with reserved campsites. Sites that have been reserved, but unused, for years. The twins always wondered who reserved and never used these campsites and now that they have seen the owners, the twins can’t help but get an ominous feeling. These visitors dress strange and act strange, taking hikes into the woods wearing winged tipped shoes and overcoats, disappearing into things clearly too small to fit so many people, and they never stop peering into the sky as if expecting to see something terrible. And when unexplainable and frightening events follow their arrival, the twins start to realize that this summer, will be their least typical of all...

Beyond the Wall, Books One and Two


Lucas Bale - 2015
     Centuries have passed since life ended on the blue planet. Humanity's survivors are now dispersed among distant colonies, thousands of light years from the barren, frozen rock that was once their home. At a time when power means everything, the ultimate power, the imperium, rests with the Consulate Magistratus. In return for its protection, citizens must concede their rights absolutely. The Magistratus controls interstellar travel, access to technology, even procreation. Every citizen is implanted with a device to monitor their location, health and emotions. Freedom, religion and self-determination are anachronisms. Humanity's true history survives only in whispers of a secret archive. Yet there are those who preach a new religion and who want to be free. A revolution is coming… The Heretic In the cold of a winter's night, a small village is the subject of a brutal attack. A fourteen-year-old boy, Jordi, sees armed men approaching and manages to wake his family. He and a handful of survivors flee into the frozen, snow-covered forest to wait for the preacher who told them their way of life was based on lies. Shepherd, a freighter-tramp and smuggler, is commissioned to deliver illicit medical supplies to a hostile border planet near the Wall. He is dragged into a fight he does not believe in and a desperate struggle to protect his ship, his way of life and the lives of the persecuted few who seek only freedom. Defiance The murder of a man in the lowest caste is seen as inconsequential, but Weaver, one of the few Caesteri lawmen who still believes in justice, refuses to ignore it. Fighting his own indoctrination, and the voice inside his mind that forces him to ignore his conscience, he follows the trail of evidence all the while struggling to hang on to the thin thread of his humanity. The killer he hunts is violent and unstable, and haunted by her own callous ghosts. A woman who sells her body to fuel her drug addiction. She possesses an almost supernatural ability navigate the wormholes which connect humanity's distant colonies - an ability the Magistratus fears and must eradicate. Weaver will follow her to a planet the Magistratus has abandoned, where the only law is that of criminals. And then to the furthest reaches of space, where the truth that awaits them leads to the corrupt heart of the Republic - a truth the Magistratus will do anything to conceal. The Heretic and Defiance are the bestselling first two books in a longer tale spanning four volumes. The award-winning Beyond the Wall series is gripping, epic space opera, written as hard science-fiction. It is the story of humanity's future and the discovery of the truth of its past.

MetaGame


Sam Landstrom - 2009
    Winners earn immortality, while losers are condemned to aging and death. D_Light, a gifted player, knows this all too well and he’s willing to do anything to win—even kill. It is no wonder then that when given the chance to enter a MetaGame—an exclusive, high-stakes, anything goes contest—he’s quick to jump at the opportunity. The MetaGame starts out well enough for D_Light, the first quest being to hunt down a dangerous fugitive, but through his own ambition, the tables turn and D_Light finds himself the renegade. Now, D_Light pits himself against his world to find the truth behind “The Game” and must decide between winning it and saving what’s left of his humanity. This book blends emerging political and cultural trends, such as gaming culture, globalization, and the ever-increasing hegemony of corporations, with technological trends, such as genetic engineering, artificial intelligence, and virtual reality. Oh, and if that is not enough, there's even some romance!

Haven


Justin Kemppainen - 2009
    They have ascended. A new layer has been placed upon the city, sealing anyone they deem unfit down below. In the dark slums beneath the city, something has been set in motion that will usher in a change. Something that will rattle the city of Haven to its core and forever alter the lives of everyone within.

Alien Hunters


Daniel Arenson - 2014
    A group of scruffy mercenaries, the Alien Hunters travel the galaxy in their starship, a mechanical dragon that spits out plasma like dragonfire. If an alien has invaded your space station, asteroid mine, or lunar colony, the Alien Hunters will remove the pest for you. Low rates. No questions asked. Raphael "Riff" Starfire, a guitarist-turned-gunslinger, and Nova, a warrior-princess with an electric whip and a bad attitude, lead the Alien Hunters. They’re the solar system’s best pest controllers. Yet now they face a threat all their guns and grit might be unable to stop. The skelkrins, a race of apex predators from deep space, are swarming across the galaxy. Planets burn in their wake. As the skelkrins draw closer to Earth, will Riff and Nova be the ones hunting aliens... or will aliens hunt them?

The Light of Eidon


Karen Hancock - 2003
    But on the eve of taking the vows that will irrevocably separate him from the life he was born to--as Abramm Kalladorne, fifth son of the king of Kiriath--he is betrayed by his spiritual mentor and sold into slavery by his brothers.Swept along by the winds of a new destiny, Abramm is forced to compete as a gladiator. When the oppressed masses rally around his success, he discovers his suffering has molded him into something greater than he ever though possible--to serve a purpose he never imagined.Set in a world of swords and cloaks, of glittering palaces and mystical temples, of galley ships and ancient mist-bound cities, The Light of Eidon is the first volume of an epic series, LEGENDS OF THE GUARDIAN-KING.