Adventures in Science Fiction Publishing would like to extend it’s heartfelt sympathies to those of you whose romantic partners neglected to give you books for Valentine’s Day this year. With that, we advise you to follow the advice of many a talk show audience member: Dump that zero and get yourself a hero!
Or you can settle for someone who reads.
And speaking of readings, here’s something you read every 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, chimichangas, and podcasts, sign up to our AISFP Wormhole newsletter.
After Oil
by Kristan Cannon
We thought we had nothing to worry about… we were wrong.
The residents of the small town of Whitefish are no strangers to snow. Used to being forgotten and digging their own way out, no one thought anything of it during one of the coldest winters on record when help just never came. But, as fuel runs out and raiders press in on all sides, it’s not just the snow they need to dig their way out of…
Betrayed by his own
Garrett is left stranded on site with limited resources and a team desperate to survive.. a little too desperate to survive when his own assistant leads a mutiny and Garrett finds himself left out in the cold.
From doctor to queen.
Working in a busy ER, Sheridan saw the best and worst of humanity–but now she finds herself leading the last bastion of civilization–with Derek as her Master Ranger.
From salesman to Master Ranger
Derek, a salesman nearing retirement, and his wife find themselves far from home with little more than the clothes on their back–and lucky to find themselves at least among friends on Sheridan’s ranch just outside of Whitefish.
Driven to find answers—and his own place in a new world—Derek forms “Rangers” of similarly displaced travelers and citizens and leads them to find Garrett and bring back one, tiny, bright spark of hope to a fledgling nation… in the form of the solar field on Sheridan’s farm.
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Age of Blight: Stories
by Kristine Ong Muslim
What if the end of man is not caused by some cataclysmic event, but by the nature of humans themselves? In Age of Blight, a young scientist’s harsh and unnecessary experiments on monkeys are recorded for posterity; children are replaced by their doppelgangers, which emerge like flowers in their backyards; and two men standing on opposing cliff faces bear witness to each other’s terrifying ends.
Age of Blight explores a kind of post-future, in which the human race is finally abandoned to the end of its history. Muslim’s poetic vignettes explore the nature of dystopia itself, often to darkly humorous effect, as when the spirit of Laika (the Russian space dog that perished on Sputnik 2) tries to befriend a satellite, or when Beth, the narrator’s older sister, returns from the dead. The collection is illustrated throughout by the charcoal drawings of RISD artist Alessandra Hogan.
In haunting and precise prose, Kristine Ong Muslim posits that humanity’s downfall will be both easily preventable and terrifyingly inevitable, for it depends on only one thing: human nature.
The Ballad of Black Tom
by Victor LaValle
People move to New York looking for magic and nothing will convince them it isn’t there.
Charles Thomas Tester hustles to put food on the table, keep the roof over his father’s head, from Harlem to Flushing Meadows to Red Hook. He knows what magic a suit can cast, the invisibility a guitar case can provide, and the curse written on his skin that attracts the eye of wealthy white folks and their cops. But when he delivers an occult tome to a reclusive sorceress in the heart of Queens, Tom opens a door to a deeper realm of magic, and earns the attention of things best left sleeping.
A storm that might swallow the world is building in Brooklyn. Will Black Tom live to see it break?
Bigfootloose and Finn Fancy Free (Finn Fancy 2)
by Randy Henderson
Finn Gramaraye is settling back into the real world after his twenty-five-year-long imprisonment in the otherworld of the Fey. He’s fallen in love with a woman from his past, though he worries she may love a version of him that no longer exists. He’s proved his innocence of the original crime of Dark Necromancy, and he’s finding a place in the family business–operating a mortuary for the Arcane, managing the magical energies left behind when an Arcane being dies to prevent it from harming the mundane world.
But Finn wants more. Or different. Or something. He’s figured out how to use the Kinfinder device created by his half-mad father to find people’s True Love, and he’d like to convert that into an Arcane Dating Service. It’s a great idea. Everyone wants True Love! Unfortunately, trouble always seems to find Finn, and when he agrees to help his friend, the Bigfoot named Sal, they walk right into a Feyblood rebellion against the Arcane Ruling Council, a rebellion being fomented by unknown forces and fueled by the drug created by Finn’s own grandfather.
Chains of the Heretic (Bloodsounder’s Arc 3)
by Jeff Salyards
Emperor Cynead has usurped command of the Memoridons—Tower-controlled memory witches—and consolidated his reign over the Syldoonian Empire. After escaping the capital city of Sunwrack, Captain Braylar Killcoin and his Jackal company evade pursuit across Urglovia, tasked with reaching deposed emperor Thumaar and helping him recapture the throne. Braylar’s sister, Soffjian, rejoins the Jackals and reveals that Commander Darzaak promised her freedom if she agreed to aid them in breaking Cynead’s grip on the other Memoridons and ousting him.
Imperial forces attempt to intercept Braylar’s company before they can reach Thumaar. The Jackals fight through Cynead’s battalions but find themselves trapped along the Godveil. Outmaneuvered and outnumbered, Braylar gambles on some obscure passages that Arki has translated and uses his cursed flail, Bloodsounder, to part the Godveil, leading the Jackals to the other side. There, they encounter the ruins of human civilization, but they also learn that the Deserters who abandoned humanity a millennium ago and created the Veil in their wake are still very much alive. But are they gods? Demons? Monsters?
What Braylar, Soffjian, Arki, and the Jackals discover beyond the Godveil will shake an empire, reshape a map, and irrevocably alter the course of history.
Dark Matters (Dark Matters 1)
by Michael Dow
Rudolph “Rudy” Dersch is the newly minted CEO of the world’s largest, multi-trillion-dollar corporate conglomerate. But the job comes with an unexpected twist–an invitation to join the Consortium, a small, secretive group of global elites who effectively decide what’s best for the rest of humanity. How does Rudy’s struggle to reconcile business and family impact the world’s future? And who, if anyone, can break the Consortium’s iron grip on the status quo?
The answer may lie with a renegade physicist, close to unraveling one of the universe’s greatest mysteries. And a headstrong art curator, driven to find the meaning behind her increasingly compelling visions. From a life-changing moment in a crowded Singapore marketplace, to the business end of an assassin’s gun, they face a power beyond any the world has ever seen. To survive, they’ll have to decipher the truth about dark matter–before the Consortium can achieve its ruinous end game.
Fusion (Razia 4)
by S. Usher Evans
Lyssa Peate has everything she thought she ever wanted. She’s finally earned the respect of her fellow pirates, she’s got a finger on the pulse on her scientist life, and she’s got a core set of friends (and more-than-friends) that have her back. But deep down, she knows none of this goodness will last. And when she finds out a life-changing secret, she wonders if this is the end of her good life.
Piracy is a game. How do you win?
Fusion is the fourth book in S. Usher Evans’ Razia series. Grab the first three books – Double Life, Alliances, and Conviction – and “get sucked” into this fun space opera series.
His Master’s Summons (Azgath’s Chosen 1)
by Cassie Sweet
At the chasm between life and death lurks the art of reanimation.
When world-famous violinist Andres Valentine is pushed from a window to his death by Herr Maestro Wilhelm Kering, he is snatched back from the abyss by a doctor well-versed in reanimation. Contrary to popular belief, Andres’s life up to this point has not been filled with opulent soirees and adoring fans, but is controlled by a hellish force, a being of the dark fae―Azgarth.
When Valentine confides to Henri that he wants to be rid of Azgarth’s bonds, Henri vows to find a way to free him, never expecting to get caught in the snare of the fae master.
The Immortals (Olympus Bound 1)
by Jordanna Max Brodsky
Manhattan has many secrets. Some are older than the city itself.
The city sleeps. Selene DiSilva walks her dog along the banks of the Hudson. She is alone — just the way she likes it. She doesn’t believe in friends, and she doesn’t speak to her family. Most of them are simply too dangerous.
In the predawn calm, Selene finds the body of a young woman washed ashore, gruesomely mutilated and wreathed in laurel. Her ancient rage returns. And so does the memory of a promise she made long ago — when her name was Artemis.
Lovecraft Country
by Matt Ruff
Chicago, 1954. When his father Montrose goes missing, 22-year-old Army veteran Atticus Turner embarks on a road trip to New England to find him, accompanied by his Uncle George—publisher of The Safe Negro Travel Guide—and his childhood friend Letitia. On their journey to the manor of Mr. Braithwhite—heir to the estate that owned one of Atticus’s ancestors—they encounter both mundane terrors of white America and malevolent spirits that seem straight out of the weird tales George devours.
At the manor, Atticus discovers his father in chains, held prisoner by a secret cabal named the Order of the Ancient Dawn—led by Samuel Braithwhite and his son Caleb—which has gathered to orchestrate a ritual that shockingly centers on Atticus. And his one hope of salvation may be the seed of his—and the whole Turner clan’s—destruction.
A chimerical blend of magic, power, hope, and freedom that stretches across time, touching diverse members of two black families, Lovecraft Country is a devastating kaleidoscopic portrait of racism—the terrifying specter that continues to haunt us today.
The Orion Plan
by Mark Alpert
Scientists thought that Earth was safe from invasion. The distance between stars is so great that it seemed impossible for even the most advanced civilizations to send a large spaceship from one star system to another.
But now an alien species―from a planet hundreds of light-years from Earth―has found a way.
A small spherical probe lands in an empty corner of New York City. It soon drills into the ground underneath, drawing electricity from the power lines to jump-start its automated expansion and prepare for alien colonization.
When the government proves slow to react, NASA scientist Dr. Sarah Pooley realizes she must lead the effort to stop the probe before it becomes too powerful. Meanwhile, the first people who encounter the alien device are discovering just how insidious this interstellar intruder can be.
Predator, Prey (Warhammer 40,000: The Beast Arises)
by Rob Sanders
After centuries of peace, the Imperium is thrown into panic as human worlds everywhere are menaced by orks. In a relentless tide of slaughter, ork attack moons destroy planet after planet with gravity weapons of unstoppable power. On Terra, the High Lords are paralysed by the scale of the threat, and fail to take any effective action. With entire Space Marine Chapters missing, or known to have been wiped out, does anyone have the will and the power to rise to the Imperium’s defence?
Toru: Wayfarer Returns (Sakura Steam Series Book 1)
by Stephanie R. Sorensen
In Japan of 1852, the peace imposed by the Tokugawa Shoguns has lasted 250 years. Peace has turned to stagnation, however, as the commoners grow impoverished and their lords restless. Swords rust. Martial values decay. Foreign barbarians circle the island nation’s closed borders like vultures, growing ever more demanding.
Tōru, a shipwrecked young fisherman rescued by American traders and taken to America, defies the Shogun’s ban on returning to Japan, determined to save his homeland from foreign invasion. Can he rouse his countrymen in time? Or will the cruel Shogun carry out his vow to execute all who set foot in Japan after traveling abroad? Armed only with his will, a few books, dirigible plans and dangerous ideas, Tōru must transform the Emperor’s realm before the Black Ships come.
Tracker and the Spy: Dragon Horse War
by D. Jackson Leigh
The prickly and complex Capt. Tanisha is reluctantly paired with Kyle, a powerful untried pyro, to track The Prophet to his new headquarters and infiltrate The Natural Order cult. When their mission is complicated by a lovesick dragon horse, Kyle’s relationship to the leader of the dangerous cult, and the discovery of a new, more dangerous threat to The Collective, their choices suddenly aren’t as simple as black or white, good or evil, trust or betrayal. Even the dragon horse warriors must learn to embrace the mantra they are defending—stronger together.
Byron Dunn is an AISFP Contributor, a friend to werewolves, and a devourer of french fries. However, he sometimes chooses onion rings instead. Variety is important.
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