Format: 208 pages, Paperback Published: July 31, 2025 by Penguin ISBN: 9781804950647
A dying universe.
When the Home worlds finally achieved the technology to venture out into the stars, they found a graveyard of dead civilizations, a sea of lifeless gray planets and their ruins. What befell them is unknown. All Home knows is that they are the last civilization left in the universe, and whatever came for the others will come for them next.
A search for answers.
Scout is an Archivist tasked with scouring the dead worlds of the cosmos for their last gifts: interesting technology, cultural rituals—anything left behind that might be useful to the Home worlds and their survival. During an excavation on a lifeless planet, Scout unearths something unbelievable: a surviving message from an alien who witnessed the world-ending entity thousands of years ago.
A past unraveled.
Blyreena was once a friend, a soul mate, and a respected leader of her people, the Stelhari. At the end of her world, she was the last one left. She survived to give one last message, one final hope to the future: instructions on how to save the universe.
An adventure at the end of a trillion lifetimes.
With the fate of everything at stake, Scout must overcome the dangers of the Stelhari’s ruined civilization while following Blyreena’s leads to collect its artifacts. If Scout can’t deliver these ground-breaking discoveries back to the Archivists, Home might not only be the last civilization to exist, but the last to finally fall.
Format: 464 pages, Paperback Published: December 3, 2024 by Orbit ISBN: 9780316430609
In this new wide-screen space opera, humanity has met its match. An alien race of enormous robotic AI have destroyed most of humanity’s outposts. But, on the eve of the Earth’s destruction, a musician made one last desperate attempt to reach out and convince one of humanity’s enemies to switch sides. Now, earth just might have a chance to survive…
A ragtag band of misfits is all that stands in the way between an army of giant mechas and humanity’s total destruction in the second book of this big-hearted, technicolor space opera trilogy by one of the most exciting voices in science fiction, Alex White.
Ultra-glam enby pop star Ardent Violet thought they could catch a break and enjoy some time with their new boyfriend August Kitko after defeating the giant mechas hellbent on humanity’s destruction. However, Ardent didn’t count on their mecha allies summoning a host of extraterrestrials to defend Earth.
Between the diplomatic entanglements of the newly-arrived alien Coalition, and a mysterious all-powerful AI establishing a base within their solar system, there’s no rest for the wicked.
When August makes a discovery that could turn the tide of the war, Ardent Violet finds they are back in the spotlight for an encore!
My Review
I read the first book in this series August Kitko and the Mechas from Space in 2022, so I’ve been waiting a while for this book. I hope I don’t have to wait another two years for book three, because I need to know what happens to everyone!
This book is mainly written from Ardent’s perspective, although we sometimes get Gus’. Having survived the Mechas from Space, Ardent, Gus, Nisha and Hjalmar, and their Vanguards are still looking to save Earth, and humans generally, from Infinite, the A.I. that is causing all the trouble. Gus discovers that there is a way to do it, about the same time as a Coalition of alien species arrives to ‘help’. They’re all in a similar situation, having developed A.I.s that took over their species. It’s a bit complicated, but they all have Vanguards, and the Conduits all have to meet each other to work together. This happens in a great space city and it goes as well as can be expected, given that the alien civilisations are somewhat more advanced than humans. One species, a giant crab-like creature with shells encrusted with electronics, weapons, and a bad attitude, take an instant dislike to humans.
In an attempt to remove Infinite from the solar system, human and Coalition Conduits and Vanguards attack Titan. But things get a bit messy when the supposedly non-sentient Ghosts start fighting back, running away and screaming. Gus realises that something is going on and changes the mission. Which upsets the crab-alien Conduit, Scent of Rot. Their fight causes all sorts of fallout and Gus spends the rest of the novel under a death sentence for heresy against the A.I./god King.
Lots of things happen in the fight against Infinite. There are some fantastic space battles, a rescue mission that gets Dahlia a pardon and a probable suicide mission in return, people die, Vanguards are destroyed, Gus, Ardent and Nisha play a concert in DeepSync. I cried. And enemies become friends.
I want to know who picked up Gus and Scent of Rot’s escape craft! I want to know how Ardent handles the possible death and escape of Gus. I want to return to this world as soon as possible, it’s so much fun! I loved the characters, especially the development of Nisha as a character, and the complex negotiations that come with inter-species cooperation. The alien species were based on Earth animals, mostly, but changed in a way that would be strange, and logical. Except the octopus-like species; octopuses are alien enough as it is. Them running around in giant bubbles of water in non-marine environments is relatively expected. They would if they could.
Seriously, Alex White, hurry up and write book three!
Release Date 2024-08-13 Formats Ebook, Paperback EBook ISBN 13th August 2024 | 9781915998132 | epub & mobi | £4.99/$7.99/$8.99 Paperback ISBN 13th August 2024 | 9781915998125 | Paperback | £9.99/$17.99/$23.99
Blurb
An alien invasion hits the town of Muddy Gap, but a disgruntled pie aficionado is the only one who seems to remember it…
Denver Bryant’s passion for pie has sent him across Wyoming in search of the best slices. Though he dutifully posts reviews on his blog, he’s never been able to recreate his brief moment of viral popularity, and its trickling income isn’t enough to pay his rent next month.
Driving home from a roadside diner, Denver witnesses a UFO explode directly over his tiny town of Muddy Gap. When he questions his neighbors, it appears that Denver is the only person to have seen anything – or to care that the residents’ strange behavior, as well as a shower of seashell hail, might be evidence of something extraterrestrial. Being both non-binary and autistic, he’s convinced his reputation as the town eccentric is impeding his quest for answers. Frustrated, he documents the bizarre incidents on his failing pie blog, and his online popularity skyrockets. His readers want the truth, spurring him to get to the bottom of things.
The only person in town who takes him seriously is handsome bartender, Ezra. As the two investigate over pie and the possibility of romance, the alien presence does more than change the weather. People start disappearing. When Denver and Ezra make a run for it, the town refuses to let them leave. Reality is folding in on itself. It’s suddenly a race against time to find the extraterrestrial source and destroy it before it consumes not only Muddy Gap but everything beyond. Denver’s always been more outsider than hero, but he’s determined to ensure that a world with Ezra – and with pie – still exists tomorrow.
Key Lime Sky is the second book from AL Hess at Angry Robot – check out his previous work, World Running Down.
Alright! We’re back with Lah-Shar and Maria’s adventures. This time we get some insight into Lah-Shar’s life and thoughts.
Chapter two – Lah-Shar
Lah-Shar felt the air change as they came closer to the base. He’d seen planets with ice sheets miles deep that extended almost to the equator. He’d seen planets that were tidally locked, one side burning the other freezing. His own planet, Ran-Nang, the one he was an egg and youngster on, had a warm damp climate except for the desert for 20 degrees either side of the equator. Ascend was chilly by Ran-Nang standards, but humans found it comfortably warm.
I’ve been thinking about this for a while. I don’t like to make people pay for my work, but at the same time, I’m disabled, I can only work a few hours a week and the exhaustion is interfering with my ability to write. I want to give myself an incentive to write when I feel well enough. If I have paying subscribers, I have to write!
I may have mentioned the Space Dragon story I’ve been working on for a couple of years. The plan is to share a chapter a month for paying subscribers until I’ve written it all. You won’t be getting the first draft, since I write that by hand, but you’ll get the edited version. There will probably be further edits in future before I release it as a book. I might also share some of my short stories as paid subscriber posts.
What do you think?
Let me share a few paragraphs with you and if you want the rest, please feel free to join the paid subscription.
Update 22/03/2025
No one wanted paid subscriptions, so I’ve unlocked this chapter and any others that I’ve posted.
Everything Is Better With Dragons 