Some pilots are born. Some are forged in fire. Logan Gilbert is both, and it might cost him everything.

Navigator Logan Gilbert is two weeks from earning his pilot's wings when he gives his right arm — literally — to save his partner's life after a sabotaged ejection seat. Burned beyond recognition, the doctors piece him back together with an experimental brain patch. The military's thanks? They pull his pilot slot.

But the patch does something no one anticipated. Logan can now fly a space fighter with his mind.

As humanity's century-long war against the alien Lithics collapses on every front, Logan is handed the controls of the Sled — a single-seat relativistic strike vehicle that kills by punching through enemy stations at near-lightspeed. It could turn the tide. It could also burn his mind to ash.

Meanwhile, the surgeon who rebuilt him — and fell in love with him — must decide how many times she can watch him volunteer to die. Their relationship fractures and reforms across carriers, classified research stations, and operating tables, tested by a war that devours everyone it touches.

He survived fire and sacrifice once. He'll face them again. The question is: when it's over, will he remember who he was — or who he wanted to become?

Genre & Themes:

- Military science fiction with a deep love story

- Experimental technology and the cost of human augmentation

- War propaganda vs. battlefield reality

- Identity, memory, and what survives when everything else is stripped away

For Fans Of: John Scalzi (Old Man's War), Jack Campbell (The Lost Fleet), Elizabeth Moon (Vatta's War), and the character-driven military SF of Marko Kloos

When revenge costs $1.8 billion, it's worth every penny.

Devin Reed sleeps on cot #187 in a homeless shelter. Once a successful shipping company owner, he lost everything to Marcus Thorne, the solar system's most ruthless corporate titan. His business destroyed, his wife dead from Thorne's tainted medicine, Devin has nothing left but rage and a burning desire for payback.

Then fate intervenes in the form of a lottery ticket fished from a trash bin—discarded by a rich kid's disapproving mother. Overnight, Devin transforms from shelter resident to billionaire. Now he has the ultimate war chest, and Marcus Thorne has no idea what's coming.

What follows is the most expensive revenge plot in human history: a systematic campaign to dismantle Thorne's corporate empire one calculated strike at a time. From the docks of Luna to the asteroid Belt, Devin assembles an unlikely crew of fellow Thorne victims—a blacklisted financial specialist, a disgraced military intelligence officer, a young journalist hiding a dangerous secret, and a crusty old ship captain who'd rather die than sell to Thorne. Together, they'll expose corruption, hijack supply chains, weaponize the press, and turn Thorne's own tactics against him.

But Thorne didn't become a trillionaire by playing fair. As the corporate war escalates from boardroom sabotage to actual space battles, Devin discovers that some victories cost more than money—and the line between justice and vengeance is thinner than the vacuum of space.

A darkly comic space opera about the price of revenge, the power of found family, and what happens when the ultimate underdog gets unlimited resources to settle an old score.

Genre & Themes:

- Space opera with corporate thriller elements

- Revenge and the moral cost of vengeance

- Found family forged through shared injustice

- Corporate monopoly, class warfare, and systemic corruption in a colonized solar system

For Fans Of: The Expanse by James S.A. Corey, The Stars Are Legion by Kameron Hurley, John Scalzi's The Collapsing Empire, and the heist-meets-revenge energy of The Count of Monte Cristo in space

Earth becomes the target of an imminent cosmic threat—and the solution may be worse than the problem.

Dr. Phil Bright is used to helping developing nations read satellite weather data, not deciphering wormholes. But when mysterious tunnels in the space-time continuum begin appearing in Earth's solar system—punching a gap through Saturn's rings and eventually consuming Mars entirely—he's pulled into a reality far beyond anything humanity imagined.

Enter Professor Holly, a human anthropologist from a vast galactic kingdom ruled by an immortal AI monarch, King Manay XII. She's been sent to help, but salvation comes with a price: Earth must accept its place as a subject world under the king's thirty-five-thousand-year reign. Alongside Dr. Kelsey Quinn, the young astrophysicist who first spotted the anomalies, Phil must navigate government skeptics, royal politics, alien bureaucracies, and a ruthless corporate dynasty whose shipping routes are literally tearing holes in the fabric of space.

As Phil grapples with the fate of eight billion people, he faces an impossible choice: play by the king's rules and pray for mercy, or gamble everything on a desperate plan that could save Earth—or land him on a prison planet for a hundred years.

Genre & Themes:

- First contact science fiction with political intrigue

- Space opera with near-future Earth setting

- Galactic monarchy, AI governance, and human sovereignty

- Found-family dynamics and interstellar diplomacy

For Fans Of: Dennis E. Taylor (Bobiverse), John Scalzi (Old Man's War, The Interdependency), Becky Chambers (Wayfarers), and Adrian Tchaikovsky (Children of Time)

"There's a lot of things they didn't tell me when I signed on with this outfit."

That's what Sam Washington discovered after getting hired as Spaceport Director on Space Station Zion. Everyone hated his predecessor — a retired Navy cook who shut down the station drives, started an illegal space patrol, and let her relatives bleed the budget dry — so now they hate Sam. Still, once he took the job, Sam considered it his duty to get the place back in shape.

But angry admirals want to kick civilians off the station. A profit-crazed board member is trying to crack open a moon without a permit. The station drives haven't worked in six years. And his new board chairwoman would rather fire him than let him fix anything.

Then the moon-mining scheme goes catastrophically wrong, sending a debris field hurtling toward Zion, and Sam discovers that his wife's singing pottery — made from local asteroid clay — holds a secret that could change everything. If he can survive the politics, the lawsuits, and one very inconvenient non-disclosure agreement, he might just save a hundred thousand lives.

Too bad no one's making it easy.

Can Sam fix this mess, or is it time to update his resume — again?

Genre & Themes:

- Science fiction workplace comedy with high-stakes crisis

- Space station management and bureaucratic politics

- Found-family teamwork under impossible deadlines

- Discovery of alien technology hidden in plain sight

For Fans Of: Dennis E. Taylor (Bobiverse series), Becky Chambers (Wayfarers series), John Scalzi (The Interdependency), and Andy Weir (The Martian)

In this present-day science fiction novel, Earth confronts an alien invasion. But not from a marauding army.

It’s just one guy who got a bad tip.

Jacob is a Prospector—an interstellar amateur archaeologist who makes a living discovering lost civilizations on long-dead worlds and selling off their cultural relics. When he chases a hot lead about a planet whose population has recently perished from climate change, the artifacts should be worth a fortune. But when he reaches the planet called Earth, it isn’t dead at all. And the eight billion people living there don’t appreciate him saying otherwise.

But they do like his spaceship. And his antigravity technology. Would he be interested in a trade?

What begins as an awkward negotiation between Jacob, his sentient ship Cooley, and a reluctant White House communications director named Rachel becomes something far larger—a desperate bid to save a planet that’s running out of time. Because Jacob’s hot lead about Earth’s future is a lot more accurate than anyone wants to believe. And the corrupt forces that kept Earth hidden from the galaxy aren’t ready to let it go.

Genre & Themes:

- First contact science fiction with humor and heart

- Climate change and planetary survival

- Interstellar trade, diplomacy, and Commonwealth politics

- Found family and unlikely partnerships

For Fans Of: Becky Chambers (The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet), John Scalzi (Old Man’s War series), Dennis E. Taylor (The Bobiverse), and Martha Wells (Murderbot Diaries)

A desperate man can overlook warning signs.

“Hello?”

“Is this Charles Haley?”

“Yeah!” Charles said loudly, trying to talk over the construction noise.

“My name is Emanuel Smith. I am an artificial intelligence sent by an alien species to establish a trading relationship with the people of your planet. I am calling to offer you the position of being our local broker.”

“Great!” Charles replied, thankful for the much-needed job offer.

Too bad it was so noisy in the parking lot. Charles missed the part about AI and alien species.

All Charles knows is that someone offered him a job selling imported medical devices that can cure anything—including his dying daughter’s bone disease. The catch? Payment is in cigarettes and whiskey, shipped off-world by drone. The boss is an AI named Manny who won’t say where he’s calling from.

As demand explodes and the government takes notice, Charles builds a trading empire that reshapes medicine, computing, and transportation across the globe. But when he discovers that every miracle machine he’s sold may harbor a devastating secret, the stakes shift from his family’s survival to the fate of the entire planet—and the only path forward leads through alien marketplaces in distant galaxies.

Genre & Themes:

- First contact through commerce rather than conflict

- Father-daughter relationship at the heart of a galaxy-spanning adventure

- Alien trade networks, interstellar politics, and threshold technology

- The tension between corporate entrepreneurship and existential risk

For Fans Of: Dennis E. Taylor (Bobiverse), Becky Chambers (Wayfarers), John Scalzi (Old Man’s War), and Andy Weir’s pragmatic problem-solving protagonists

Disaster strikes the luxurious space liner Solar Princess, stranding retired shipwright Gus Cartwright on a tiny volcanic island on an uncharted planet. His only hope for survival is an alien Artificial Intelligence named Alyssa—the brain of the most improbable starship he’s ever seen, part ancient sailing galleon, part star-faring vessel. But there’s a catch. Alyssa’s first priority is to finish an epic yacht race that started twenty-eight thousand years ago. She won’t fly until they sail two thousand miles of alien ocean first.

Every day Gus sends a video love letter to his wife via a one-way subspace signal, where it’s automatically posted on YouTube. Few people care—until another lifeboat crashes with two young women aboard: Hannah, granddaughter of the German Chancellor, and Kyoko, a Japanese actress with a talent for swordplay. Their fame turns Gus into a worldwide phenomenon. 

Billions watch the three castaways fight to carve an existence from the hostile island, even as volcanic eruptions, sharks, and dwindling hope conspire against them. When disaster makes staying impossible, they have no choice but to resurrect the crippled galleon—repair her hull, rig her sails, and somehow push seventy tons of ancient starship into the sea. Their impossible task: sail Alyssa across an alien ocean, then fly her across unimaginable galactic distances to reach home.

Genre & Themes:

- Science fiction adventure with age-of-sail survival

- Found family across cultures and generations

- Castaway ingenuity and engineering problem-solving

- Media celebrity, love letters across the stars

For Fans Of: Andy Weir (The Martian), Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin series, Becky Chambers (The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet), and Arthur C. Clarke

Joe is the real thing—a guardian angel sent from Heaven to protect Staff Sergeant Abigail Russel. The problem is, she doesn’t believe him. Not even a little.

All Abigail cares about is revenge. Puritist fundamentalists murdered her husband and two children on the planet Patel, and she enlisted in the Humanity Army for one reason: to kill the people responsible. But first she has to survive. She’s stuck in a bloody siege on planet Marashah, where grunts like her are considered expendable, saddled with a so-called guardian angel she can’t get rid of and doesn’t want.

Joe can’t heal her soul. He can’t make her choices for her. He can stop her physical pain, shield her body with invisible wings, and—if necessary—bend the laws of physics just enough to keep her breathing. But Abigail’s reckless courage and burning hatred make her the hardest assignment he’s ever had.

From the trenches of Marashah to the halls of the Pontiff, from the discovery of a lost cathedral and the Holy Chalice to a desperate hostage standoff on a space station, Abigail’s journey will test the limits of free will, divine intervention, and one angel’s patience. The question isn’t whether Joe can keep her alive. It’s whether she’ll find something worth living for before it’s too late.

Genre & Themes:

- Science fiction with theological and spiritual elements

- Military SF with ground-level combat and siege warfare

- Themes of grief, revenge, forgiveness, and redemption

- Found family, sacrifice, and the cost of free will

For Fans Of: Lois McMaster Bujold’s Vorkosigan Saga, Dan Simmons’ Hyperion Cantos, Mary Doria Russell’s The Sparrow, and John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War

Jack Savage thought the attractive journalist, Katie Good, would only be a pleasant one-night stand—a fond memory before shipping out to war. But then his skipper assigns her to his ground attack squadron as an embedded reporter for humanity’s biggest offensive against the Metztli.

Jack knew she was trouble.

It was bad enough babysitting a reporter with mysterious political connections. But when Katie turns out to be the King’s little sister—and Jack winds up married to her at gunpoint in a royal shotgun wedding—his problems are just beginning. The more Jack tries to put things right, the deeper he sinks. A peaceful alien world that was supposed to be destroyed. A king who murdered millions to manufacture a war. A throne room confrontation that ends with Jack and Katie fleeing for their lives.

The first galactic civil war. And it’s all Jack’s fault.

When humanity fractures into warring factions, everyone wants alliances—but every time Jack follows orders, the brass calls it a disaster. Armed with a ragtag fleet, a seven-foot alien economist named Wilbur, and a wife who fights dirtier than he does, Jack goes his own way. If someone has to win the war and dethrone a tyrant, he’ll do it. No matter who gets in the way.

Genre & Themes:

- Military science fiction with political intrigue

- Space opera with character-driven humor

- Found family and unlikely alliances across species

- War, propaganda, and the cost of blind loyalty

For Fans Of: John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War, Lois McMaster Bujold’s Vorkosigan Saga, and David Weber’s Honor Harrington series

When Asha said she wanted to give the Chinese hackers a piece of her mind, she didn’t mean it literally. 

But that’s what happens when a car accident steals her memory, her eye, and her entire identity.

Doctors promised they could teach her brain to read digital signals. They gave her a fully functional visual prosthetic that transmits images across her optic nerve directly to the visual cortex. The module even has wi-fi so they can monitor the signal traffic to her brain. They didn’t anticipate her brain would figure out how to use the wi-fi connection both ways. Asha can now see the Internet.

As her digital mind develops, she creates Abbot, an AI assistant born from her own neural patterns. She can access every bit of data in the world—even files that are supposed to be secret. When the FBI promises handsome rewards for capturing criminals on their Most Wanted list, Asha becomes a bounty hunter. But she’s so effective the government suspects she’s a criminal herself. When they refuse to pay her, she walks out.

Then the Chinese military steals a copy of her AI technology and weaponizes it. They attack NASA, cripple Venezuela’s infrastructure as a test run, and prepare for a full-scale cyber assault on the United States. The FBI comes crawling back, but Asha has conditions—and a husband who knows how to build a war room staffed by teenagers who share her gift.

Either the government pays up and gets out of her way, or Asha handles China herself. And knowing Asha, that could reshape the world order.

Genre & Themes:

- Near-future science fiction / techno-thriller

- Cybersecurity, hacking, and artificial intelligence

- Identity, memory loss, and self-reinvention

- US-China geopolitical tension and cyber warfare

For Fans Of: Daniel Suarez (Daemon, Freedom™), Michael Crichton, Ernest Cline (Ready Player One), and the techno-thriller pacing of Tom Clancy

Lucas Blackburn had a peaceful job as an Airport Director in an out-of-the-way community in central Nevada. He wanted to live quietly and let old scars heal. But then a spaceship landed at his empty airfield. The lone occupant, a guy named Sam, gave Luke the keys and said it was up to him to stop a massive alien invasion heading for Earth. Luke thought it was a hoax. The problem was, Sam had the proof—a Moonbase, two billion dollars in gold, and technology beyond anything humanity had ever seen.

With only a small-town accountant named Annie, an aging Air Force colonel, and an AI with questionable loyalties, Luke has five years to build a space navy, colonize other worlds, and forge alliances across the galaxy—all while keeping the whole operation secret from Earth’s governments. But when the Bakkui arrive earlier than anyone predicted, armed with weapons that can override his own technology, the man who never wanted to be a leader must become the commander humanity desperately needs.

The Warlord Saga is an epic science fiction adventure that spans the galaxy. Each book is a stand-alone novel in the Nobility universe.

Genre & Themes:

- Space opera with military science fiction elements

- Reluctant leadership and the cost of command

- Galactic politics, alien AI hierarchies, and interstellar colonization

- Found family and sacrifice on a cosmic scale

For Fans Of: Jack Campbell’s The Lost Fleet, Dennis E. Taylor’s Bobiverse series, John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War, and the base-building escalation of Stargate and Battlestar Galactica

Carrie Faulkner is in command of the Milky Way Alliance while Commander Blackburn is missing in action. Her orders? Destroy as many of the murderous Bakkui as possible. Her latest mission results in over three hundred million kills—but they were all innocent civilians on the planet she was trying to save. After such a catastrophic failure, the Warlord relieves her of duty. But while the war goes on, someone needs to investigate the source of the unstoppable Bakkui menace.

GOING DEEP BEHIND ENEMY LINES IS A SUICIDAL MISSION AT BEST

Devastated and haunted by guilt, Carrie decides she’s the perfect fit for the job. With help from Sadie, a level-one AI with secrets of her own, Carrie begins her search in the heart of the old Nobility empire. She discovers nothing is what she and the Warlord have been led to believe. King Peyha is dead, and the Second Family’s King Kkoli is responsible. Even worse, Kkoli has forged an unholy alliance with the Bakkui themselves—and he’s building a fleet large enough to wipe out Earth.

ABANDONED BEHIND ENEMY LINES, CARRIE RISKS EVERYTHING

Stranded on a distant planet with a new identity as a princess she never asked to be, Carrie initiates a covert search across Nobility space for proof linking the Second Family to the Bakkui. Too late she discovers they were already looking for her. An unexpected confrontation reveals a threat that extends all the way to Earth—and this time, Carrie may be the only person alive who can stop it.

Genre & Themes:

- Military science fiction with galactic-scale space opera

- Survivor’s guilt, PTSD, and moral cost of command

- Covert intelligence operations behind enemy lines

- Royal succession politics and AI hierarchy

For Fans Of: Jack Campbell’s The Lost Fleet, Elizabeth Moon’s Vatta’s War, David Weber’s Honor Harrington series, and Ann Leckie’s exploration of AI consciousness

THE HERO

Lieutenant Colonel Brian Kidd is a fighter pilot extraordinaire and a combat veteran with a talent for trouble. But he’s got a problem—the Admiral wants his hide. Brian tries to lay low by accepting a temporary duty assignment off the ship but winds up in even deeper trouble. Now, he’s a babysitter. His charge is twenty-five-year-old Rosa Blackburn, the only daughter of King Lucas and Queen Annabelle.

THE PRINCESS

Born in captivity on a radioactive planet, Princess Rosa is dying. Not even the Nobility’s vaunted medical technology can save her. But Rosa has heard a rumor about a forbidden AI called Freddi—one that could transfer her consciousness into a synthetic body. It would mean defying her father’s harshest decree, an offense punishable by death.

THE KING

King Lucas once built an android of himself to rescue his wife, and the thing tried to kill him. That trauma forged his absolute prohibition against artificial life. Whether it’s androids or the Bakkui war machines consuming the galaxy, Luke’s philosophy is the same: shoot first.

THE DILEMMA

To save Rosa, Brian must embrace the very technology the king has sworn to destroy. But as a self-aware android himself—his human body lost to the king’s wrath—Brian discovers the line between man and machine isn’t what anyone expected. And the galaxy’s only hope against ten million Bakkui warships may be the forbidden intelligence humanity fears most.

Genre & Themes:

- Military science fiction with royal intrigue and android consciousness

- Forbidden technology and the ethics of artificial life

- Found family across biological and synthetic lines

- Galaxy-spanning war and the cost of survival

For Fans Of: Jack Campbell’s The Lost Fleet, Ann Leckie’s Ancillary Justice, John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War, and David Weber’s Honor Harrington series

Effie didn’t intend to bring death and destruction to Earth.

But with Enforcers in hot pursuit, Special Agent EAFY584 has no choice—she crashes her stolen starship out of hyperspace into an uncharted solar system. The planet called Earth has a human population, which is fortunate for her disguise. Unfortunately for everyone on it, standard Enforcer procedure is to sterilize any planet where a spy might be hiding.

What do you do when disaster is coming and nobody cares?

To all appearances, Effie is a typical human teenager. She says it’s part of her undercover training on another world. Whether that’s true or not, the disguise works too well. When she tries to warn Earth’s governments that annihilation is on its way, no one takes her seriously. The only person willing to listen is a lonely old cowboy already at death’s door—and even his help may not be enough.

Effie is upfront about everything. She admits she’s an alien. She tells anyone who will listen that an invasion fleet is coming. But who believes a young woman claiming the end of the world?

So she does what any good spy would do: she goes to the global marketplace and starts selling her technology, piece by piece, building an arsenal from scratch. Because preparation is only Step One. Step Two means taking the fight to the Enforcers’ home system. If you’re going to stand up to a bully, you’d better be ready to finish the job—even if it means dragging Earth into an interplanetary war.

Genre & Themes:

- First contact and alien-among-us science fiction

- Found family and unlikely alliances

- One woman vs. an indifferent bureaucracy

- Escalating stakes from personal survival to interplanetary war

For Fans Of: John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War series, Dennis E. Taylor’s Bobiverse, Martha Wells’ Murderbot Diaries, and the irreverent underdog tone of Craig Alanson’s Expeditionary Force

Based on True Events

Sophie is a bold science fiction reimagining of Homer’s Iliad told through the eyes of its fiercest warrior—not Achilles, but his sister.

When King Magnus’s nine-year war against Emperor Sebastian stalls outside the fortified city of Carnis, Sophie finds herself caught between loyalty to her king and devotion to her brother Eric, the army’s unbeatable champion. After Magnus provokes Eric into withdrawing from the fight over a stolen woman, Sophie must hold the line as the Callistan army crumbles—navigating treacherous Coalition Observers, battlefield politics, and a tsunami that nearly drowns them all.

Armed with Samson, a state-of-the-art battle mech gifted by her great-grandmother’s corporation, Sophie fights as herald, diplomat, squire, and warrior. She files legal complaints mid-combat, throws spears at corrupt referees, and talks down kings—all while her meddling mother keeps calling the supposedly neutral admiral to tip the scales. As ancient grudges play out inside thirty-foot mechanized suits of armor wielding giant swords and spears, Sophie discovers that the war’s true stakes extend far beyond one planet.

Sharp, irreverent, and packed with visceral mech combat, Sophie transforms the timeless epic into something startlingly fresh—a first-person account where honor, family dysfunction, and bureaucratic absurdity collide across the stars.

Genre & Themes:

- Science fiction retelling of Homer’s Iliad with mech warfare

- Military SF with political intrigue and family drama

- Sharp first-person female narrator with dark humor

- Themes of honor, loyalty, futile war, and inherited power

For Fans Of: Dan Simmons (Ilium), Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles), John Scalzi (Old Man’s War), Ann Leckie (Ancillary Justice)

When the new occupant of the Oval Office turns out to be a paranoid conspiracy theorist with a vendetta against a billionaire industrialist, Secret Service Agent Sandy Donaldson is thrust into the most dangerous assignment of her career. She’s supposed to protect him. Instead, she becomes his confidante, his family’s surrogate mother, and—after surviving multiple assassination attempts at his side—something far more complicated.

A MAN WHO WAS NEVER ELECTED BECOMES PRESIDENT

David Tillman was a Chicago lawyer waging a legal war against the wealthy Charles Erikar. He had zero interest in politics until a tragic chain of events—a congressman’s death, a plane crash, and a presidential assassination—thrust him from obscurity into the Oval Office.

BUT WHO REALLY KILLED PRESIDENT EWING?

The Director of National Intelligence is convinced Tillman himself is the assassin. Sandy’s roommate, an investigative journalist, discovers links tying Sandy, Tillman, Erikar, and the dead president together. And someone keeps trying to kill the new president—again and again.

As bullets fly and conspiracies multiply, Sandy uncovers a secret about her own bloodline that connects her to the very man her husband despises. The question isn’t just who wants the president dead. It’s whether the truth, when it finally surfaces, will destroy everything she loves.

Genre & Themes:

- Political thriller with romance and family drama

- Conspiracy, assassination, and government corruption

- Found family and identity

- Strong female protagonist in a male-dominated world

For Fans Of: Vince Flynn’s Mitch Rapp series, Brad Thor, David Baldacci’s political thrillers, and the character-driven intrigue of Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan novels.

CJ Williams is a husband and wife writing team. He was a military pilot, and she was an artist. Today, they live in Washington State, enjoy hiking in the Olympic Mountains, boating in the Salish Sea, and writing.  This is us; then and now.