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Void Contract by Scott Rhine

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A veteran of the Gigaparsec War, Dr. Max Culp catches alien war criminals with his skills as a !Kung tribal hunter. Suddenly, his only surviving teammate is kidnapped. To free his friend, Max is forced to take a mob contract on a Saurian fugitive hiding at the borders of Human space. But Max is tired of wet work and alien conspiracies. Can he find a path back to civilian life without losing what’s left of his soul or those closest to him? This is the first book in a new series, but it takes place in the same universe as Jezebel's Ladder , just 400 years later. While several books followed Jezebel's Ladder , they are not required reading for this book. However, if you enjoy this book and want to know how Earth got to this point, then you should consider picking them up. The book starts off with a fair amount of action. Rhine does a good job introducing us to Max and the universe he lives in without drowning us in background. Once Max is forced to accept the job from the alien mo...

Author News - July

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July 14th - Mike Reeves-McMillan released The Well-Presented Manuscript , a guide for authors looking to improve their chances of getting published by avoiding the most common issues. July 20th - Horror maven Michaelbrent Collings released The Deep . July 24th - Cold Fusion Media, the folks who published the Shared Nightmares anthology, offers Christmas in July. Sort of. The Last Christmas Gift: A Heartwarming Holiday Tale of the Living Dead written by Nathan Shumate is released today. Special book launch party on Facebook ! August 3rd - John Vorhaus will release How to Live Life , his philosophy on—you guessed it—how to live life.

No Dogs in Philly by Andy Futuro

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Philadelphia. Elzi on every corner, cops just itching to crack a skull, and the Gaespora lordin' it up in their high towers while the rest of the filth dribbled down the sewer. Saru had a way out. All she had to do was find the girl, one skinny stray with blue, blue eyes—bluer than anyone had ever seen—and ten million fat bucks were hers. Except someone was killing blue-eyed girls, and they were A-list, major-league, cold-sweat effective. And something about the end of all existence if she failed. Don't let the doe-eyed woman on the cover fool you. That's Saru. She'll use that cattle prod on you if you mess with her. While not evident from the cover, she's enhanced with all the doodads that cyberpunk fans would expect of a near future sci-fi heroine. She's connected to the Net 24/7; has a pistol named "Betty" up her sleeve ready to go when adrenaline, pulse rate, and subconscious thought reach a critical threshold; and everything's subdermal. But j...

Interview with Rob Steiner

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Today we have the pleasure of interviewing Rob Steiner , the author of The Last Key , Aspect of Pale Night , Zervakan , and the Codex Antonius trilogy. His short stories have appeared in Bastion and Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show . As has been posted here previously, Steiner has just concluded the Codex Antonius trilogy with the publication of Muses of the Republic. Now, he's here to talk to us about...everything. New Podler: Thanks for being here with us today, Rob! Rob Steiner: I appreciate you having me. NP: Anyone familiar with your recent work, both in novel and short story form, will notice a certain Roman element to it. Is it safe to say you're a Romanophile? RS: Am I that obvious, lol? Yes, I’m huge Romanophile. I mean, the Western civilization we know today came right out of Rome, from its languages to its religious customs (the Christian/pagan mashups), to its roads (still used throughout Europe), and even its lawyers (Romans sued the beje...

Author News - June

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Anne Charnock announced the title of her next book and how it came about. Mike Reeves-McMillan announced that a story of his has been selected for the Terry Pratchett In Memory anthology. Proceeds go to benefit research into finding a cure for Alzheimer's. Rob Steiner has been busy lately. Two of his stories have recently appeared in Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show : " The Oath Breaker's Daemon " and " The Cloaca Maxima ". He also published the third story in his Codex Antonius series, Muses of the Republic . Michael J. Sullivan started a Kickstarter campaign to fund a third Riyria Chronicles novel entitled The Death of Dulgath . The campaign was successfully funded in just under 48 hours . I find it interesting that after signing a major book deal , he still feels the need to self-publish.

Interview with Michael John Grist

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Today we have the pleasure of interviewing Michael John Grist , the author of Mr. Ruins and the Ruins War trilogy. He's also the author of the Ignifer Cycle, two anthologies, and Into the Ruins, an account of his travels through the modern ruins of Japan. His latest work is The Last, the story of a comic book artist in the zombie apocalypse. New Podler: Thanks for being here with us today, Michael! Michael John Grist: Happy to be here, thanks for having me! NP: I found out about you by accident. I was searching for something, and I was directed to the ruins exploration portion of your website. While there are some photos collected from around the internet, the photos from Japan are all yours. Can you tell us how that came about? MJG: Sure, and it’s sort of by accident too. First off though, I was always into ruins. As a kid I’d explored some of the big abandoned factories near Manchester where I grew up—they were probably cotton mills—as well as taking adventures into w...

Cover Reveal: Muses of the Republic by Rob Steiner

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Rob Steiner has revealed the third cover in the Codex Antonius series , Muses of the Republic . In case you haven't been following it (and why the hell not!), it's a sci-fi/alt history series about a Roman Empire that didn't fall. Instead it thrived, conquered the world, and spawned an interstellar civilization. Rob hired Tom Edwards to create the cover. Edwards also created the covers for M. Terry Green's Chronicles of White World . The ebook is out now . The paperback is scheduled to be released later this month. There's a compendium containing all three ebooks. You can get that here .