Sci fi stories that embody worldbuilding in the truest sense, showing a new world as it is built from the ground up. Return to general Sci Fi
Note: these books are currently sorted by release date, with newest first.
Word Count: 161800
Summary: Following the dramatic events in The Starchild Compact, the starship Starchild departs on a 185-year interstellar journey. Meanwhile, the Iapetus Federation in cooperation with the Founders, descendants of the people who originally constructed Iapetus, expands to include the Mirs Complex at L-4, the Lunar Complex, a new habitat being constructed at L-5, the growing Mars settlements, and several asteroids including Daphne and Ceres. On Earth, America turns away from its world leadership position to focus on internal matters and the idea of an all-inclusive, multicultural society. Saeed Esmail, the stowaway Jihadist who played a significant role in The Starchild Compact, becomes the guiding prophet of a new form of Islam that quickly dominates the vanquished Persian Caliphate territories, and threatens the rest of the planet. Aided by Founder Asshur, the besieged Israelis reluctantly forge a new homeland on Mars, while the United States balkanizes into a half-dozen smaller units dominated by the Lone Star Conservancy under the leadership of Texan Sam Houston, who had earlier established the Lone Star Settlement on Mars. Science does not stand still. Founder researchers develop a longevity treatment that has the potential to extend human life indefinitely. The Starchild Institute, headed by former U.S. President Marc Bowles, develops advanced spacecraft, and a new form of transportation based on artificial wormholes. As the global Jihad on Earth heats up, most of the planet falls under the domination of Saeed Esmail, with only the Lone Star Conservancy, Columbia Freehold, Australia, and New Zealand left as independent territories. The Institute opens evacuation portals between Earth and Iapetus to rescue as many people as possible. While Earth sinks into medieval barbarism, the focus of human activity shifts from Earth to the Iapetus Federation as humans settle virtually every potentially habitable spot in the Solar System and begin planning for expansion into the rest of the Galaxy.
Word Count: 144000
Summary: Risa Black will decide the fate of an entire planet. After all, an angel told her so. Orphaned young, she grows up among the resistance, fighting to give the people of Mars command of their own destiny. Two governments from Earth vie for control of the Red Planet. She wants them gone, regardless of how many explosives it takes. To the outside world, she’s an emotionless, broken marionette. Inside, her father’s fiery end haunts her every waking moment. She never cared for destiny or politics, until the angel Raziel focused her anger. Both friend and foe alike believe her grip on sanity tenuous, but she knows he is real, and pities those who will never feel his divine presence. Whenever her adrenaline wears off, guilt at what her bombs did cuts deep, as does the apathy of the citizens she fights to liberate. The pain worsens after unexpected love cracks open her armored heart, causing her to question the role she plays in the bloody conflict. Torn between duty and desire, she learns change never comes without loss. Even to the Hand of Raziel.
Word Count: 131000
Summary: Are we the children of starchildren? The Starchild Compact is an adventure of heroic proportions, commencing on a planet 500 lightyears distant, arriving here just a few years from now, and ending up in the far distant expanses of the Universe. Is Saturn’s moon Iapetus an artifact? To find out, Jon Stock takes his international exploration team on a 1.4 billion km journey to Saturn, but will Jihadist stowaway Saeed Ismail succeed in sabotaging the mission? On Iapetus, Jon Stock and his team meet the Founders. Where are they from? How did they get here? How will they impact Earth and the Solar System? Will the Founder’s presence signal the end of humanity, or will it pave the way for a joint push to the distant reaches of the Galaxy? The Starchild Compact is hard SciFi reminiscent of Arthur C. Clarke or James P. Hogan, with a geopolitical twist worthy of Tom Clancy or Clive Cussler.
Word Count: 87,200
Summary: Childhood ends the night the sky explodes. Six teenagers from different backgrounds are thrown together when an unknown species seizes their world. Will they be able to put their differences aside long enough to survive?
Word Count: 416800
Summary: Colonists struggle to build their lives, but first they have to survive. Read the complete series through generations.
- Glory on Mars - Emma joins the first settlers amid death and betrayal. She must learn the truth before Mars kills them all.
- Born on Mars - Jake didn't ask to be born into a failing habitat, but new arrivals bring hope and peril. Can he save his friends and family?
- Hermit on Mars - Sig will rescue the ungrateful Martian prospectors, even if it kills him.
- Water on Mars - Scoundrels on Mars and Earth drag Bliss into their lethal schemes.
- Storm on Mars - An AI may be a psychopath's only friend. Zeker's always close by when something weird happens.
Word Count: 180000
Summary: Steampunk meets Science Fiction adventure on the Wild Western Frontier of Mars. The Dandelion Farmer is a Victorian style Science Fiction novel set in the Martian colonies twenty-five years after they threw off the rule of the old Imperial powers. Edwin Ransom is a young, idealistic botanical fuel grower, the eponymous Dandelion Farmer, who is barely scratching a living out of the red earth. Edwin’s quiet life is intruded upon by the henchmen of Eleuthère Du Maurier, a ruthless fuel industrialist who wants to drive Edwin off his lands. As tensions mount, Edwin encounters Adam Franklin, a wandering amnesiac with a terrible secret. Intrigued by Adam’s mechanical hand and the mystery surrounding his lost memory, Edwin decides to try to help his new friend. But unknown to Edwin there is far more to Du Maurier’s desire for his land than just his craving for real estate and dandelions. As events spiral out of control, Edwin and Adam find themselves on a race across Mars for the very survival of mankind.
Word Count: 20,900
Summary: One day, someday soon, Jeeze Madrid was going to wake up and realize just what he'd been passing up; he'd see what Cal Paxton was offering him so faithfully—"Faithfully, Jeeze! Even you can't deny that!"—and grab it. And they'd finally have what Cal wanted. Cal Paxton and Jeeze Madrid are the top scouting team on the Pathfinder-class starship, the Carson, on the very outer edge of Earth's expansion across the galaxy. Cal and Jeeze find the uninhabited planets, the Carson evaluates them for colonization. Cal and Jeeze are wingmen, best friends... and lovers. Cal wants more than a casual relationship but Jeeze, recently divorced, is wary of commitment. When Jeeze’s scout ship is shot down over a planet inhabited by a race Earth has never before encountered, what will Cal find when the Carson can finally mount a rescue mission? Will he ever succeed in persuading Jeeze to take up his offer of hand and heart?
Word Count: 29,400
Summary: Li Liang has found a berth to suit her: chief pilot and first officer of the all-female crew of an old space freighter, the Sappho. Then one ordinary, unremarkable morning, Liang retunes the Sappho’s communications systems just in time to catch the breathless, terrible accounts from Mars of the total destruction of Earth. Earth’s a cinder. The unknown alien race that destroyed it has left Mars, too, in flames and is ravening outward from the solar system, devouring every human colony on the way. Liang’s one of the few survivors, racing ahead of the Devourers, rescuing as many frightened, shocked people as she can. Will Liang and the pitiful remnants of humanity find a new haven, somewhere to start again? Or will she, too, echo the dreadful last message coming out of their dead home? They’re coming. Oh God, they’re coming.
Word Count: 94,500
Summary: Returning to duty following his long recovery from the injuries he sustained during the events recounted in Heart Scarab, Shield Captain Bennet accepts a tour of duty in Fleet as flight captain on a dreadnought. The one saving grace is that it isn’t his father’s ship—bad enough that he can’t yet return to the Shield Regiment, at least he doesn’t have the added stress of commanding former lover, Fleet Lieutenant Flynn and knowing the fraternisation regulations will keep them apart. Bennet’s new mission takes him behind the lines to Makepeace, once a human colony but under Maess control for more than a century. The mission goes belly up, costing Albion one of her precious, irreplaceable dreadnoughts and bringing political upheaval, acrimony and the threat of public unrest in its wake. But for Bennet, the real nightmare is discovering what the Maess have in store for humanity. It’s not good. It’s not good at all
Word Count: 93,900
Summary: Shield Captain Bennet is on Telnos, a unpleasant little planet inhabited by religious fanatics and unregistered miners running illegal solactinium mines. It’s about to be about to be overrun by the Maess. Bennet’s job is to get out as many civilians as he can, but the enemy arrives before the evacuation is complete. Caught in a vicious fire fight, Bennet is left behind, presumed dead. His family is grieving. Joss, his long-term partner, grieves with them; lost, unhappy, remorseful. First Lieutenant Flynn has no official ‘rights’ here. He isn’t family. He isn’t partner or lover. All he is, is broken.
Word Count: 95,100
Summary: Earth’s last known colony, Albion, is fighting an alien enemy. In the first of the Taking Shield serial, Shield Captain Bennet is dropped behind the lines to steal priceless intelligence. A dangerous job, and Bennet doesn’t need the distractions of changing relationships with his long-term partner, Joss, or with his father—and with Flynn, the new lover who will turn his world upside-down. He expects to risk his life. He expects the data will alter the course of the war. What he doesn’t expect is that it will change his life or that Flynn will be impossible to forget.
Word Count: 79700
Summary:
First settlers on Mars may be the last.
Emma Winters wants to explore with her robotic walkabouts.
When the tiny colony's psychologist walks out an airlock, she takes the one-way journey to Mars despite misgivings. As more deaths and illness plague humanity's tiny foothold, Emma must discover the truth before the Red Planet kills them all.
Word Count: 101000
Summary:
Word Count: 102000
Summary: Ancient voices reveal a terrible secret: human scientists created the kresnas, devourers of life and sanity. Not only created, but also used in terrible, torturous experiments, turning them against their creators. Romenel's dilemmas pile up until he's lost in them. How can he destroy all the hordes of kresnas at once and is it morally defensible to do so? What other solution is there if humans are to survive? What should he do about the beautiful warrior, Kyliki, since he has no place in her world and she has none in his? And, hang it all, if he can resolve these things, what in blazes is he going to do about the mess of a succession war raging back home?
