sci fi – cyberpunk

Word Count: Click here to reveal62000 (Click here to hide)

Summary: AI lacks consciousness, until it borrows self-awareness from a human host. Dustin “Dusty” Gordon is a man without a world. The son of a rocket scientist mother, and the commander of the first mission to Mars, he possesses the talents of neither. Instead, he likes to tinker. Born on Mars, he returned to Earth with his parents, but struggled under Earth’s oppressive gravity, and the weight of his famous parents’ expectations. After graduation he returned to Mars but finds fitting in with the blue-collar guilds difficult. Unrest is afoot. The guilds chafe at COO Randall Skinner’s plans to upgrade their brain implants and train their own AI-controlled replacements. Sent to repair a faulty train switch, Dusty’s exoskeleton suit shorts out, exposing him to the icy cold of Mars miles from help. Retrieved severely hypothermic and hypoxic, Dusty is saved by the very neurosurgeon who upgrades the brain implants. Using a higher concentration of nanite electrodes, he replaces Dusty’s brain function lost in the accident. The solar system’s first cybernetic mind must now navigate the guilds, who accuse him of collaboration with the COO, and Randall Skinner himself, who perceives Dusty as his greatest obstacle to his own control and wealth.

Word Count: Information not available

Summary: ALIENS VENMOED ME A TRILLION DOLLARS "The truth is out there... and paying very well." Doug Dawkins lives to debunk conspiracy theories, especially crackpot claims of aliens. So when his dead dad FaceTimes him (giving him crazy money and orders to cover up the truth of extraterrestrial existence), Doug is sure this is a hacker's scam and reports it to the NSA. Then government security servers melt down. NSA agents become convinced Doug and his wife are dangerous spies. But Doug is sure he'd never kill anyone or believe aliens exist. Could he be half right? One problem is that an astronomer just discovered the background static of the universe is actually unfathomably complex, interstellar communications, definitive proof of alien life, and that professor is... Doug's wife, Lena Fierro. Why would he want to turn down a trillion-dollar cosmic bribe, yet still conceal the truth from the world? Book Comparisons: THE THREE-BODY PROBLEM meets THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY. Movie Comparisons: DON'T LOOK UP meets CONTACT and GALAXY QUEST. "Spacetime is money."   Reviews: LITERARY TITAN: 5 Stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ "Aliens Venmoed Me a Trillion Dollars is a wild, brainy, satirical sci-fi romp... It felt like Black Mirror collided with The X-Files and got notes from Arrested Development."   READERS' FAVORITE: 5 Stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ "sharply written, inventive, and fantastic story"

Word Count: Click here to reveal98000 (Click here to hide)

Summary: Johnny Mnemonic meets John Wick in The Price of Everything, a heart-racing near-future cyberpunk thriller about climate change and corruption. In a world where cyberwarfare has resulted in an all-cash economy, a private courier of high-denomination currency finds himself on the run from his own guild’s assassins while navigating a dense network of money launderers, shell corporations, drugs dealers, privatized police forces, and climate activists when his client’s payload vanishes. ​When Armand Pierce first became a courier a decade earlier, he agreed to have a titanium cuff grafted onto the bones of his wrist and chained to an attaché case. He also took an oath: the delivery is everything. He can run, fight—kill, if he needs to—but the package gets where it’s going. Otherwise, he dies. It’s the Guild’s guarantee, and all business—legitimate or otherwise—depends on it. So Pierce knows he’s in deep trouble when he arrives at his latest destination to find his payload missing, his case mysteriously empty. Something strange is going on—something that’s already cost three couriers their lives and now threatens to upend the global order—and Pierce needs to get to the bottom of it before the Guild catches up to him.

Word Count: Click here to reveal91550 (Click here to hide)

Summary: “IMMORTALITY BYTES: Digital Minds Don’t Get Hungry” — Genre: Science Fiction/Humor/Heist-Thriller Tagline: “Living forever... it's almost worth dying for.” One-line Story Pitch: “When an idealistic hacker’s ex-girlfriend nears inventing digital immortality, an indicted tycoon compels him to steal it.” Accolades: • Winner “Best Sci-Fi: Cyberpunk” — 7th Annual American Fiction Awards (2024) • Winner “Best Science Fiction” & "Best Political Fiction" — American Writing Awards (2024) • Winner “Best Humor/Satire” — Storytrade Awards (2024) • Semifinalist — Chanticleer's Cygnus Award for Best Science Fiction • Triple Finalist: Best Sci-Fi, Best Humor/Satire, & Best First Novel — IAN Book of the Year Awards (2024) Back Cover Blurb: In a not-so-distant future dominated by AI, universal basic income, and “subtirees” living pod-bound lives of leisure, idealistic, semi-slacker hacker Stu Reigns dreams of more. When Stu’s brilliant ex, Roxy Zhang, develops digital immortality, the world’s powerful elite scramble to secure their eternal existence. Enter Chuck Rosti, a merciless, terminally ill tycoon made more dangerous since he’s on the brink of conviction for massive fraud. His plan? Coerce Stu into helping get Roxy’s groundbreaking invention so “Feds can incarcerate my corpse.” Caught between a sick billionaire, a Russian mob, digital mind clones, and a shrewd, devout Southern matriarch, Stu gets tangled in a twisted, high-stakes, ‘inverted heist.’ But as betrayals mount and revenge includes murder, Stu and new allies must race to save lives and seek justice in humanity’s digital immortality. Fans of smart cyberpunk, like Neal Stephenson’s Snowcrash, or sci-fi with humor, as in Andy Weir’s The Martian or John Scalzi’s Redshirts, will love Immortality Bytes. Book Trailer:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ul3KA2zT0aw Reviews: 1)  “Feels like an American Douglas Adams” — San Francisco Book Review 2) “A supercharged, high-stakes cyberpunk thriller.” — VERDICT:✓GET IT — Kirkus Reviews 3) “Perfect for anyone looking for a fun, easy read that combines sci-fi elements with a bit of social satire. Abrams’ sharp, witty prose and inventive world make it well worth the ride, especially for fans of snappy, humorous sci-fi." — 5-Stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ — Manhattan Book Review 4) “Dark humor and crisp dialogue drive the twisty storytelling” — ✓EDITOR'S PICK — Publishers Weekly's Booklife Reviews https://linktr.ee/immortalitybytes

Word Count: Click here to reveal101000 (Click here to hide)

Summary: With a click, the bread fell into the toaster. One circuit fired the heating coils. Others monitored bread temperature and color. Yet another circuit was quite unlike all the rest— as exotic as it was sinister; when it activated, 368 people would die. In the 22nd century, the justice system is airtight in the domed city of Arcadia. Human error has been removed. Yet somehow, a well-intentioned young kleptomaniac named Rainville falls through the cracks and is wrongfully convicted of mass murder. He is exiled to Wychwood Prison, a crumbling necropolis beyond the dome where the dead outnumber the living, where the inmates are also the guards. News of the crime follows him, and he becomes a marked man. Rainville’s only hope for survival is becoming the first inmate in history to escape Wychwood. Can he do it? The fate of Arcadia depends on it.

Word Count: Information not available

Summary: This horror collection graphic novel contains the following stories: “And They Lived Long Enough to Bury Their Dead” is a dark fantasy comic zine about a group of Gen X goth/punk folks growing older and processing the deaths of loved ones. A paranormal urban fantasy, it centers around Billie, a nonbinary African-American alternative rocker from Oakland who develops the psychic ability to see and communicate with ghosts. Their nesting partner, Davis, a formerly homeless African-American transgender man, their twin brother Sean, a ghostcat, and the ghost of their mother are other central characters. In the story Billie, Davis, and their Gen X circle of friends are coming to terms with aging, the declining health (and loss) of their parents, and adjusting to a new post-pandemic world. It is an urban fantasy taking place in Oakland and the San Francisco Bay Area “Agrippa” is a dystopic near-future tale that takes place in an unnamed industrialized nation very much like the United States. When foreign creditors demand that the nation repay its considerable international debt or face war it enacts the Dulcetta Reforms, ultra-restrictive laws establishing debtor’s prison, and causing a large number of people – many of them seniors – to go to jail or even face execution if not continuously working to pay off their personal debts to the government. Dr. Tine, an expert in geriatric medicine, is desperately searching for employment at the beginning of our tale, having lost her useful functioning in society as the elders she once treated were rounded up and hauled off to the prison camps. Things were so bad she didn't think they could possibly get any worse. How very wrong she was. Dreamworlds: Beyond Somnalia - the author is plagued by a series of increasing demands from their fictional characters who come to take over the writer's life.

Word Count: Click here to reveal38000 (Click here to hide)

Summary: RISE (noun / verb) Eight definitions to inspire writers around the world, and an unlimited number of possible stories to tell: 1) An upward slope or movement 2) A beginning or origin 3) An increase in amount or number 4) An angry reaction 5) To take up arms 6) To return from death 7) To become heartened or elated 8) To exert oneself to meet a challenge Rise features 300-word speculative flash fiction stories from across the rainbow spectrum, from the minds of the writers of Queer Sci Fi.

Word Count: Click here to reveal30000 (Click here to hide)

Summary: "But what if she doesn't want to be found?" Aided by their cybernetic eyes, private investigator Ryn Casler makes a living busting cheating spouses. While they’ll occasionally dabble in fraud and other typical cases, they don’t deal with the missing. Until the persistent Shae Winters, a police detective, approaches them about the disappearance of a young Black woman. Friction flies between detective and PI, as Shae insists on tagging along during the investigation. But as their search deepens and spills into the world of fantastical body mods, it becomes clear there’s more to this case than meets the eye.

Word Count: Click here to reveal119000 (Click here to hide)

Summary: A single father fights to retain control as he shares his body and mind with an evolving AI. It’s been nine years since the government banned all technology. So, when Joel Lodowick, a young transgender father struggling to support his five-year-old daughter, has an old bionic upload itself into his head, he is faced with a decision: Go to the cops and risk prosecution? Or use the robot’s skills to turn his life around? Scared of losing his daughter, Joel chooses the latter. Heightened intelligence and physical enhancements quickly land him a better job and a brighter future. But things take a sinister turn when Joel realizes his uninvited companion has an agenda of its own, which may or may not include leaving him in control. Unable to approach the government who covered up the truth about AI sentience, Joel finds himself on the run. With his daughter’s life on the line and his own body turning against him, he must find a way to convince the bionic in his head to value his human life before he loses the chance forever. Find out what happens in My Heart is Human by Reese Hogan!

Word Count: Click here to reveal117000 (Click here to hide)

Summary: You can choose your friends, but you can’t choose your family… Quirk and Moth have avoided killing each other long enough to solve another case. They decide on a local job next, and take up the search for a missing scientist. How could Quirk know this new mystery put them on a headlong collision course with his troubled past, a plethora of personal issues, and a hoard of genetic hybrid creatures with an appetite for anything that moves? When their client dies in mysterious circumstances, law enforcement pursues the dysfunctional duo all the way to a research lab in frozen Yellowknife. Can Quirk and Moth find the scientist before they are banged up for murder, or has she already been eaten? Is it coincidence Quirk’s father-in-law bought the company? Can they expose the shadow from Quirk’s past and clear their names? Quirk and Moth need time, but it’s fast running out, and the bodies are piling up. Find out what happens in The Carborundum Conundrum!

Word Count: Click here to reveal100000 (Click here to hide)

Summary: They say, “Never work with androids or children.” Quirk had one job to do, deliver papers to a Milan mafia boss, before leaving Earth for his home in the asteroids. But that was before being tailed, poisoned—oh, yes—and hijacked into raising foulmouthed fourteen-year-old convent girl Angelika Moratti, aka Moth, who'd rather see him asphyxiate in space. Fleeing assassins, Quirk, Moth and her syRen® android S-0778 ride the space elevator to the Moon, where Quirk hires on to hunt an ex-terra-former who somehow used an android to murder his doctor. But which android of the two hundred under Lunaville’s dome? The trail of bodies grows, time is running out; the only way they can save the dome and the two thousand souls beneath it is to solve The Mandroid Murders. Genres: Science Fiction / Thriller / Mystery / Adventure / LGBT and Non Binary Market: Adult

Word Count: Information not available

Summary: In the dystopian future where the rich have turned two dimensional and gobbled up the world’s resources, leaving the enslaved poor to remain three dimensional, can a disgraced detective help his rebellious daughter save the world? The sci-fi paranoia of Philip K. Dick meets the hardboiled sleuthing of Raymond Chandler. Prior Futures is a fast-paced and enigmatic trip through a nightmare world lost to its own decadent affair with nanotechnology and two-dimensional beings. Atmospheric and thought-provoking, this book will have you looking over your shoulder for nanos. It won’t help, though. You can’t see them. – David E. Sharp, author of Lost on a Page Winner of a 2022 Independent Press Award for Science Fiction Distinguished Favorite! Finalist, The Best Thriller Book Awards on BestThrillers.com

Word Count: Click here to reveal45000 (Click here to hide)

Summary: Tangents & Tachyons is Scott's second anthology - six sci fi and sci-fantasy shorts that run the gamut from time travel to hopepunk and retro spec fic: Eventide: Tanner Black awakes to find himself in his own study, staring out the window at the end of the Universe. But who brought him there, and why? Chinatown: Deryn lives in an old San Francisco department store with his girlfriend Gracie, and scrapes by with his talent as a dreamcaster for the Chinese overlords. But what if a dream could change the world? Across the Transom: What if someone or something took over your body on an urgent mission to save your world? Pareidolia: Simon's not like other college kids. His mind can rearrange random patterns to reveal the images lurking inside. But where did his strange gift come from? And what if there are others like him out there too? Lamplighter: Fen has a crush on his friend Lewin, who's in a competing guild. But when the world goes dark, only a little illumination can save it. And only Fen, Lewin and their friend Alissa can light the spark. A Liminal Sky short. Prolepsis: Sean is the closeted twenty-five-year-old editor of an 80's sci-fi 'zine called Prolepsis. When an unabashedly queer story arrives from a mysterious writer, it blows open Sean's closet door, and offers him the chance to change the world - and the future. Plus two flash fiction stories – The System and The Frog Prince, never before published. This is the first time all of these stories have all been collected in one place.

Word Count: Click here to reveal99000 (Click here to hide)

Summary: It’s kill or be killed for the crew of the Ungovernable. With the mafia after their heads, ex-smuggler pilot Jez and the crew have two choices—run, or fight back. Problem is, there’s nowhere in the System to run. So instead, they’re going to take the entire crime syndicate down. But pulling a sting on the mafia—and living to tell the tale—is going to take a hell of a lot more than just good intentions. And when you can’t even trust the people you’re working with—well, let’s just say they’ll have to master the art of subterfuge, or die trying. Trojan Horse is the sixth book in R.M. Olson’s science fiction space opera series The Ungovernable. With a crazy, close-knit crew, plenty of humour, and loads of action, Firefly meets Ocean’s Eleven in this fast-paced, kick-ass, wickedly fun series.

Word Count: Click here to reveal120,000 (Click here to hide)

Summary: In Zero-Day Rising, the third book of the BetterWorld trilogy, Kiyoko resolves to free her sister and bring down President Rand and MediaCorp. However, MediaCorp unleashes its ultimate plan: direct mind control with cerebral implants. Can Kiyoko and Waylee’s team stop them? Can they penetrate MediaCorp’s networks and end the company’s grip over humanity? All while eluding the biggest manhunt in history, in a country where everyone and everything is under surveillance?

Word Count: Click here to reveal12000 (Click here to hide)

Summary: Fifteen years ago, the Cyborg uprising fractured the Jovian Empire beyond repair when their freedom fighter leader detonated a devastating biological bomb on Callisto. Now, a chance encounter with a dying human while escaping the decrepit Io Station will force Veracity Veran to question everything believes in – if her human saviour doesn’t kill her first. A tale from the Jovian Empire.

Word Count: Click here to reveal84000 (Click here to hide)

Summary: Someone’s hunting the Ungovernable. And they’re not going to stop until every one of the crew is dead. When an enemy from ex-smuggler pilot Jez’s past reappears, determined to extract revenge, the crew of the Ungovernable have two options: fight, or run. But when a hyperjump gone wrong leaves the Ungovernable crippled, her weapons down and her cloaking disabled, their options become scarce indeed. As they scramble to repair the ship with rapidly-dwindling supplies and even more rapidly-dwindling oxygen, their pursuers are inexorably closing in. And if they’re going to survive, each of the crew will have to confront dangerous secrets from their past, before those secrets come back to destroy them. Time Bomb is the third book in R.M. Olson’s science fiction space opera series The Ungovernable. With a crazy, close-knit crew, plenty of humour, and loads of action, Firefly meets Ocean’s Eleven in this fast-paced, kick-ass, wickedly fun series.

Word Count: Click here to reveal78000 (Click here to hide)

Summary: She’s lost her ship, lost her job, lost her reputation, and is on the run from the law. Jez is a damn good pilot, and she’s always worked alone. Until she got picked up for smuggling, that is. Now she’s an ex-con and ex-employed, and there are plenty of people with old scores to settle. So when a mysterious stranger in a battered pilot's coat comes to her with an offer that sounds too good to be true, she reluctantly agrees to listen. All she has to do is fly one little job. Four ex-convicts. One charismatic mastermind. And the most dangerous heist the System has ever seen. Firefly meets Ocean’s Eleven in R.M. Olson’s fast-paced, kick-ass, wickedly fun space opera series, The Ungovernable. Grab a copy and join the crew.

Word Count: Click here to reveal52,500 (Click here to hide)

Summary: The cerebral interface has revolutionised society. Need a ride? With a thought, the cab is on its way. Want an adventure? Enter a VR 5 computer game nearly indistinguishable from reality. Amanda arranges for her Big Sisters Program little sister, Rachel, to spend a day gaming as a fourteenth birthday present. Amanda never suspects that her insane ex-boyfriend, Jim, will use a computer virus to trap her and her companions in the game. A pleasant diversion becomes a life and death struggle as her party seek a way to come back to the real world without triggering a program that will cause nanobots to rip their brains to shreds. To complicate matters, in the game scenario the adventurers have been transformed into cats. Will the party survive? Will Amanda admit that Rachel’s older brother, Tyrell, might just be her future? Will the computer virus Jim used to trap them become a cyber plague that could kill thousands?

Word Count: Click here to reveal100,000 (Click here to hide)

Summary: In The Wrath of Leviathan, the second book of the BetterWorld trilogy, Waylee faces life in prison for daring to expose MediaCorp's schemes to control the world. Exiled in São Paulo, her sister Kiyoko and their hacker friends continue the fight, seeking to end the conglomerate's stranglehold on virtual reality, information, and politics. But MediaCorp and their government allies may quash the rebellion before it takes off. And unknown to Kiyoko and her friends, a team of ruthless mercenaries is after them, and is closing in fast.