Former cop Daniel Bennett has survived a brutal jail sentence only to find himself stranded on a backwater colony planet. Outcast, homeless, and desperate, his survival depends on becoming a host for parasitic juvenile aliens.The juveniles look like spiders – an arachnophobe's worst nightmare.And when he discovers that his only friend on the planet stands accused of a grisly double murder, Daniel must unravel the truth before his friend is shipped back to the hellish penal ...

This prequel story to Survival Instincts finds Daniel Bennett serving hard time on the Holt penal station. Outed as a former cop, he doesn't stand a chance. His survival requires that he give up who he is - a good cop and honorable man - and become even more ruthless than the dregs of humanity that surround him. Instead, he attempts a precarious balancing act between Bennett the cop and Bennett the convict. But when an asteroid mining accident leaves him and two convicts adrift and short o...

Old, poorly maintained, and sliding into decrepitude, Zion Station orbits a gas giant planet in a backwater of human space. Originally purposed for scientific research, its scientists are long gone, leaving dusty closed-off sections of the station behind. These days it supports the methane mining industry for the planet below.But Zion has secrets. Big secrets. The type of secrets that may just topple an oppressive, genocidal empire.Police Chief Pilar Jones y Garcia knows th...

Captain Skip Thompson, cargo specialist without a ship. It's been stolen right out of Davadas Station's space dock. His ship, its cargo, its other cargo, in order of increasing importance.And heading fast for the nearest Jump point. If it goes through, it's gone for good. The ship and cargo can be replaced, but the losing the other cargo will get Skip killed.With his crew in the brig and the Davadas sheriff refusing to help, his only assistance comes from ...

Four peaceful alien dirigibles, living in the upper atmosphere of the gas giant Galtus, find themselves sucked into a flying metal behemoth and left to starve.Max, stripped-down copy of Zion Station's rogue AI, temporarily installed in the ghost ship Suyash, discovers the two surviving aliens in the ship's gas pod. Given command of the ship by Police Chief Jones, he's tasked with returning the dirigibles home without detection and then forging a partnership with their cult...

This third volume of Zion Station stories brings us old friends and new, human and not. The newly born and the unfathomably ancient.Alien cultures found, lost, and saved. Engineering wonders big and small.Ships and stations, pirates and sabotage, danger and bloodshed. Life-changing decisions against a backdrop of uncertainty.Relationships rekindled, new, and fraying.And secrets. From the highly personal to the far-reaching secrets that could take down a geno...

Zion Station. Decrepit, nearly forgotten on the edge of human space, and harboring a secret that could shift the course of humanity.Eight months ago, the Earth-based Consortium committed genocide against the AIs, destroying thousands of sentient beings, along with hundreds of thousands with the potential.Only six humans know that Zion Station's sentient AI, Max, survived the purge.Even as they rush to complete Max's move from the Consortium-built neural network to Z...

Non Plus Ultra is the first story in M.E Owen's exciting new Zion Station series.Old, poorly maintained, and sliding into decrepitude, Zion Station orbits a gas giant in a backwater of human space. Originally purposed for scientific research, and then as support for the methane mining industry, its scientists are long gone, and its transfer pods have been decommissioned.Police Chief Pilar Jones y Garcia has enough on her plate dealing with rowdy gas miners on shore...

Zion Station. Slowly decaying in a backwater of human space, now only useful as support for the methane mining industry that operates in the atmosphere of the gas giant planet below.But Zion harbors secrets that could topple the Consortium, Earth's oppressive, genocidal empire.Zion's saga continues, as Police Chief Pilar Jones y Garcia and her friends continue to protect those secrets with their lives and work toward bringing down the Consortium.The stories within b...

Solarpunk is a movement in speculative fiction, art, fashion and activism that seeks to answer and embody the question ‘what does a sustainable civilization look like, and how can we get there? That was the challenge put to the writers, to show #13 me a happier future than the one that grim-dark, post-apocapytic that is so popular today.Here, the gritty present gives way to the hopeful future, whether your future lies in Seattle, Venus, or some distance colony hidden from the dark ...

Science fiction does not have to be about alien planets, galactic exploration, and huge space battles.Instead, science fiction can cover the future that lurks just around the corner. Science fiction that exists after Dieselpunk and before Cyberpunk, where the Makers and the Hackers dwell, modern rebels and punks, hiding just out of sight.Eleven authors peer into that short distance into the future to see what lies ahead.This is Boundary Shock Quarterly, Issue 002: T...

For many of us, those opening words “Captain’s Log…” were our introduction to our science fiction dreams. Voyage to explore strange, new worlds, seek out new life, and boldly go. What will we find there when we go? What dangers will we confront? Who will survive? And who will not?Twelve authors explore what these words mean to them in stories ranging from the silly to the sublime.Join us for the first exciting issue in a new quarterly speculative fiction magazine.We...