Like sands through the hourglass, so are the SFF Book Releases This Week. If you are an indie or small press author and would like your book included in this list, email us at adventuresinscifipublishing [at] gmail [dot] com. If you love free books, reviews and podcasts, sign up to our AISFP Wormhole newsletter.
The End of All Things
by John Scalzi
Humans expanded into space…only to find a universe populated with multiple alien species bent on their destruction. Thus was the Colonial Union formed, to help protect us from a hostile universe. The Colonial Union used the Earth and its excess population for colonists and soldiers. It was a good arrangement…for the Colonial Union. Then the Earth said: no more.
Now the Colonial Union is living on borrowed time-a couple of decades at most, before the ranks of the Colonial Defense Forces are depleted and the struggling human colonies are vulnerable to the alien species who have been waiting for the first sign of weakness, to drive humanity to ruin. And there’s another problem: A group, lurking in the darkness of space, playing human and alien against each other-and against their own kind -for their own unknown reasons.
In this collapsing universe, CDF Lieutenant Harry Wilson and the Colonial Union diplomats he works with race against the clock to discover who is behind attacks on the Union and on alien races, to seek peace with a suspicious, angry Earth, and keep humanity’s union intact…or else risk oblivion, and extinction-and the end of all things.
This is a continuation of Scalzi’s Old Man’s War series and a direct sequel to The Human Division.
August 11
The Lightning Stones
by Jack Du Brul
Sinking thousands of feet below the surface of the earth in the Leister Deep copper mine in Minnesota, Philip Mercer rides a series of heavy-duty elevators to visit his old friend and mentor, Abraham Jacobs. Jacobs has led a research team to the deepest section of the mine for a groundbreaking study into climate change and cosmic rays. But as Mercer approaches the bottom, he is stunned to hear the unmistakable report of automatic gunfire in the massive underground chambers. He can’t stop the inevitable: by the time Mercer finds his way to them, his dear friend, and the entire research team, have been efficiently executed. Mercer is left seeking answers . . . and revenge.
This sets in motion a propulsive thriller intertwined with intrigue, vengeance, and cutting-edge science. Mercer is thrust into an international hunt for the murderers—and the frightening secret of what they were looking for.
August 11
The Dark Forest
by Cixin Liu, translated by Joel Martinsen
Earth is reeling from the revelation of a coming alien invasion-in just four centuries’ time. The aliens’ human collaborators may have been defeated, but the presence of the sophons, the subatomic particles that allow Trisolaris instant access to all human information, means that Earth’s defense plans are totally exposed to the enemy. Only the human mind remains a secret. This is the motivation for the Wallfacer Project, a daring plan that grants four men enormous resources to design secret strategies, hidden through deceit and misdirection from Earth and Trisolaris alike. Three of the Wallfacers are influential statesmen and scientists, but the fourth is a total unknown. Luo Ji, an unambitious Chinese astronomer and sociologist, is baffled by his new status. All he knows is that he’s the one Wallfacer that Trisolaris wants dead.
August 11
Chasing the Phoenix
by Michael Swanwick
In the distant future, Surplus arrives in China dressed as a Mongolian shaman, leading a yak which carries the corpse of his friend, Darger. The old high-tech world has long since collapsed, and the artificial intelligences that ran it are outlawed and destroyed. Or so it seems.
Darger and Surplus, a human and a genetically engineered dog with human intelligence who walks upright, are a pair of con men and the heroes of a series of prior Swanwick stories. They travel to what was once China and invent a scam to become rich and powerful. Pretending to have limited super-powers, they aid an ambitious local warlord who dreams of conquest and once again reuniting China under one ruler. And, against all odds, it begins to work, but it seems as if there are other forces at work behind the scenes.
August 11
Power Surge
by Ben Bova
Dr. Jake Ross came to Washington, D.C., to make a difference. As the science advisor to a newly-elected freshman senator, Jake has crafted a comprehensive energy plan that employs innovative new technologies to make America the world’s leader in energy production while simultaneously boosting the economy and protecting the environment. The facts–and the science–are on Jake’s side, but his plan soon runs afoul of entrenched special interests, well-funded lobbies, cynical bureaucrats, pork-barrel politics, and one very powerful U.S. Senator.
To keep his plan alive and secure a sustainable future for America, Jake needs a crash course in the way Washington really works. Everyone keeps telling him that his plan has no hope of succeeding, but Jake is determined to prove them wrong even if it kills him . . . something that certain hostile parties may be all too happy to arrange.
August 11
The Rise of the Automated Aristocrats
by Mark Hodder
Sir Richard Francis Burton’s expedition has returned from the future, bringing with it knowledge of technologies that must remain secret if history is to proceed as it should. However, when one of his colleagues turns rogue, the secret falls into the hands of the very people most likely to misuse it.
Betrayed, Burton and Swinburne watch in horror as the Empire’s elite employ the technology to secure their positions of privilege. When London’s parks are transformed into concentration camps, artists and philosophers are declared enemies of the State, and propaganda proliferates, the king’s agent finds himself on the wrong side of—the king!
Can Burton and his band of hunted revolutionaries overthrow an apparently indestructible and immortal autocrat … and if so, at what personal cost?
This is the finale of the Spring-Heeled Jack saga
August 11
Fearless
by Elliott James
Someone, somewhere, has declared war on Kevin Kichida, and that someone has a long list of magical predators on their rolodex. The good news is that Kevin lives in a town where Ted Cahill is the new sheriff and old ally of John Charming.
The attacks on Kevin seem to be a pattern, and the more John and his new team follow that thread, the deeper they find themselves in a maze of supernatural threats, family secrets, and age-old betrayals. The more John learns, the more convinced he becomes that Kevin Kichida isn’t just a victim, he’s a sacrifice waiting to happen. And that thread John’s following? It’s really a fuse…
This is the third book in James’s Pax Arcana series. It begins with Charming.
August 11
Byron Dunn is an AISFP Contributor, a friend to werewolves, and someone who’s running out of jokes for this biography section. He knows why the chicken crossed the road but the other side had nothing to do with it.
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