New Releases by Joel Shepherd

The UFS Phoenix returns to Homeworld, after more than three years of searching the galaxy for a way to save humanity from the looming AI threat. Many Fleet captains are unhappy with their own command, following the massive casualties of Nia''s first strike. Some say that Captain Erik Debogande is the war leader humanity truly needs. Others warn of civil war. But on Homeworld lurks an even older threat, a secret kept by Fleet Command since Homeworld''s first conquest by humans. A secret that could tear Fleet, and Erik''s powerful family, apart.

Cattle Die. Kinsfolk Die. Only the Deeds of Heroes Live On. Tales from Stolki''s Hall is an anthology of short stories set in Norrøngard, the Norse-inspired land of the Thrones & Bones roleplaying game and the novel Frostborn by Lou Anders. The stories from Tales from Stolki''s Hall range from the humorous to the horrifying, from epic sagas of bold adventure to poignant accounts of quiet desperation. These ten tales from acclaimed writers of the fantastic greatly expand the land of Norrøngard in a book guaranteed to appeal to fans of the Thrones & Bones novels and games, Norse mythology, Scandinavian culture, and well-crafted adult fantasy fiction in general. Grab your axe, take up your shield, and prepare for adventure! Stories by Joel Shepherd * Ed Greenwood * K.V. Johansen * Sarah L. Miles * Jon Sprunk * Clay & Susan Griffith * Rachael Smith * J. Dianne Dotson * Jonathan Anders * Chris Willrich

In a world of magic and modernity, fates are about to collide. Angelina Donati has come to New York to kill a man. She holds the magician Eli Leventhal responsible for killing her friend, and as the gifted problem child of a House of magical assassins, she does not expect that Leventhal''s vast age, wealth and power will save him. But Eli Leventhal is gathering great forces to fight a far larger war against his long-time magician foe -- Riley, the recently elected Mayor of New York. On opposing ends of Manhattan Island, the world''s two last remaining Grand Magisters are preparing for an epic showdown, with the Earth, and its possible destruction, as their prize. In the middle, deciding the balance, is Angelina. In a world where the magical classes draw power from one of twelve Realms, Angelina''s powers are wild and strange. Most Realms are living, while one lies dormant. But it is prophecised that from the Dead Realm, old horrors shall rise...

Deep within hostile Reeh Empire space, the UFS Phoenix is hunting another AI queen. This one is named Chion, and she has been installed at the heart of Reeh Empire power, enslaved against her will, for the past 8,000 years. Within her vast knowledge lies the most intimate data on Nia, the deepynine queen now threatening humanity''s very existence. Freeing Chion could be the key to beating Nia, and saving humanity. But Phoenix''s allied drysine queen Styx, and Chion''s AI former sidekick Shali, both want Chion for their own purposes. And Chion, of course, will be defended by the full might of the Reeh Empire. To free her, Phoenix and Styx must win control of an AI fleet known as Raka, derived from Nia''s deepynine technology long ago, and used by the Reeh Empire for special missions. But this will mean placing the most powerful AI war fleet in known space into the hands of Styx. Shali insists it''s suicide, and every bit the existential threat to humanity that Nia is. But do Captain Debogande and Major Thakur have any other choice?

Upon the ancient drysine moon/city of Defiance, the UFS Phoenix is being rebuilt, but her crew cannot do so in peace. Parren factions jostle for control of not only Defiance, but of the drysine data-core that Phoenix won at such an awful price. But the parren do not lay sole claim to that ancient knowledge, and within the bowels of the machine-city, something long-dead is awakening.While aliens battle, Captain Debogande struggles to decide his next step. Human emissaries beckon him home, while a terrible new threat drives him toward the far edge of Spiral space. There live the croma, locked in a titanic struggle against the reeh, a species more terrifying than any yet faced by humanity. And holding perhaps the key to humanity''s salvation are a small force of freedom fighters, waging a hopeless battle against impossible odds, having waited a thousand years for just such a saviour as the UFS Phoenix...

The UFS Phoenix is on a mission to find a lost data-core that may contain the secret to defeating the alo-deepynine alliance. But the means to find the data-core is hidden deep in tavalai space, in a highest-security vault where the tavalai''s manipulative State Department keep all their most treacherous secrets. To recover it, Phoenix must pull off the most daring heist the Spiral has ever seen. But Phoenix will need help -- in the form of a rebellious faction of the tavalai Fleet; a fanatical parren mystic who lusts mostly for power; a cynical old tavalai marine who''s spent much of his life fighting humans; and a super-intelligent AI queen who will sacrifice anything to rescue her race from extinction. None of them can be trusted, and neither Captain Erik Debogande nor Major Trace Thakur are experienced in this kind of work. But each must gather their ingenuity and courage, and learn as they go, as the scale of the threat confronting humanity looms larger, and the clock is ticking...

The legendary battle-carrier UFS Phoenix is on the run in Outer Neutral Space. Lieutenant Commander Erik Debogande and Major Trace Thakur are determined to use neutral territory to broker a peace between humanity''s warring factions, away from Fleet''s strong arm. But as machinations in Fleet Command send a legendary warrior from Trace''s past on a sworn path to kill her, there arises in the territory of an insectoid foe an ancient enemy from the nightmares of Spiral history, bent on Phoenix''s destruction....

Hope for the future in the hands of an enemy from the past . . . Cassandra Kresnov must find the answers that could free her people—or doom her family. A quarter of a million people die in the destruction of the moon Cresta. The League civil war is accelerating out of control, but projections indicate that as their technologically induced sociological dysfunction continues, all of humanity may face a similar fate. In the aftermath of Cresta''s destruction, Sandy Kresnov discovers the alien Talee operative Cai in Tanusha, there to learn just how far the technologically-induced insanity has gone. The Talee have seen this before, and they are terrified of anything threatening a recurrence. Meanwhile, Sandy''s old nemesis Renaldo Takewashi, the self-proclaimed “father” of synthetic intelligence, comes to the Federation seeking asylum. Talewashi may even have a cure—previously unknown Talee technology implanted into a human child subject—Sandy''s little boy, Kiril. But it is exactly this technology that the Talee fear, and they will exterminate anyone caught using it. Now, Sandy must fight to save her family from a terrible new threat, but doing so may plunge humanity into another destructive war between humans, or worse, against the massively-advanced Talee. And what final secret are the Talee protecting about the origins of synthetic humans like Sandy that could either liberate Sandy’s fellow synthetics from bondage or spell disaster for all humanity?

Part military SF, part cyberpunk, part grand-scale space opera, and part techno-psychological thriller, the Cassandra Kresnov novels transcend the recently narrow segmentation of the science fiction genre. In 23 Years on Fire, Cassandra discovered that the technology that created her has been misused in her former home and now threatens all humanity with catastrophe. Returning home to Callay, she finds that Federation member worlds, exhausted by the previous thirty-year-war against the League, are unwilling to risk the confrontation that a solution may require. Some of these forces will go to any lengths to avoid a new conflict, including taking a sledgehammer to the Federation Constitution and threatening the removal by force of Cassandra''s own branch of the Federal Security Agency. More frighteningly for Sandy, she has brought back to Callay three young children, whom she met on the mean streets of Droze, discovering maternal feelings she had not known she possessed. Can she reconcile her duty as a soldier, including what she must do as a tactician, with the dangers that those decisions will place upon her family--the one thing that has come to mean more to her than any cause she now believes in?

Cassandra Kresnov--a highly advanced hunter-killer android--returns to face down a rogue government''s plot to eliminate free will. Commander Cassandra Kresnov has her hands full. She must lead an assault against the Federation world of Pyeongwha, where a terrible sociological phenomenon has unleashed hell against the civilian population. Then she faces the threat from a portion of League space known as New Torah, in which a ruthless regime of surviving corporations are building new synthetic soldiers but taking the technology in alarming directions. On the Torahn world of Pantala, Sandy encounters betrayal, crisis, and conspiracy on a scale previously unimaginable. Most challenging of all, she also meets three young street kids who stir emotions in her she didn''t think she was capable of. Can the Federation''s most lethal killer afford unexpected sentiment? What will be the cost if she is forced to choose between them and her mission, not only to her cause, but to her soul?

The page-turning conclusion and final instalment of the Trial of Blood & Steel Quartet. The Army of the Regent Arrosh advances on the forces loyal to Saalshen, homeland of the serrin people, as the serrin''s friends are in full retreat. Their only hope is to reach the city of Jahnd - the serrin word for Haven - across the River Ipshaal, the only human city in Saalshen itself.

the second Cassandra Kresnov novel. Fantastic sci-fi in the tradition of Blade Runner...?very dangerous girl?''96 the Advertiser. Cassandra Kresnov is a highly advanced hunter-killer android. She has escaped the League and fled to Callay, a member of the Federation. Because of her fighting skills she was able to save the President?life and is now a trusted member of the security forces. However, not all tanushans are happy to have her on their turf and Cassandra has to tread carefully. As Callay moves towards a vote on whether to break away from the Federation, confusion reigns and terrorist groups plot their own agendas. Cassandra becomes involved with two young troubleshooters for the secret service and finds out more than she ever wanted to know about the tanushan underground and those on the fringes. Furthermore, there is a delegation from the League in tanusha, and Cassandra is not sure that they won?try to take her back. A great story with a cracking plot and strong characters. At its heart is the enigma of Cassandra: Is she more human than human, or is she totally untrustworthy?

Petrodor is a city of alleys and shadows, where life is cheap and the only respected currency is blood. Sasha, the wilful yet talented heroine of Sasha, returns to battle in Joel Shepherd''s stunning second volume of A Trial of Blood & Steel.Away from the hills of her Lenayin homeland, she is fighting a new battle in the dark alleys and wealthy houses of Petrodor. An influential trading centre, Petrodor holds the key to preventing the coming war between Lenayin and the mighty Bacosh. Together with her mentor Kessligh, Sasha attempts to navigate the political intrigues of the port city and find a way to stop the war.It is the serrin, the beautiful but dangerous people from beyond the Bacosh, who will be the pivot in this struggle. How much can Sasha trust her old serrin friend Errollyn? And how much can she trust herself?

the third instalment of this gripping trilogy from an exciting new sci-fi author. two years after the unhatching of Callayan President Neiland''s plot to make the capital city of tanusha the centre of the Federation, Callay is under siege. A powerful faction of conservative Fleet captains have surrounded Callay, at Earth''s behest, and are threatening a blockade - or worse. A fearful Earth does not wish to lose direct control of its precious war machine, and there are fears of civil war.All that Callay has to oppose the warships of the Fleet is the CDF, or Callayan Defence Force - a newly formed group of raw recruits led by a politically hamstrung general, but largely trained and organised by Major Vanessa Rice and her best friend, Callay''s very own tame combat-android Commander Cassandra Kresnov. But when Cassandra''s lover, Special Agent Ari Ruben, discovers a plot to kill her using a killswitch that her old masters in the League built into her brainstem, Sandy is forced to go underground to stay alive ...

Spurning her royal heritage to be raised by the great warrior, Kessligh, her exquisite swordplay astonishes all who witness it. But Sasha is still young, untested in battle and often led by her rash temper. In the complex world of Lenayin loyalties, her defiant wilfulness is attracting the wrong kind of attention. Lenayin is a land almost divided by its two faiths: the Verenthane of the ruling classes and the pagan Goeren-yai, amongst whom Sasha now lives. The Goeren-yai worship swordplay and honour and begin to see Sasha as the great spirit—the Synnich—who will unite them. But Sasha is still searching for what she believes and must choose her side carefully. When the Udalyn people—the symbol of Goeren-yai pride and courage—are attacked, Sasha will face her moment of testing. How will she act? Is she ready to lead? Can she be the saviour they need her to be?

Crossover is the first novel in a series which follows the adventures of Cassandra Kresnov, an artificial person, or android, created by the League, one side of an interstellar war against the more powerful, conservative Federation. Cassandra is an experimental design — more intelligent, more creative, and far more dangerous than any that have preceded her. But with her intellect come questions, and a moral awakening. She deserts the League and heads incognito into the space of her former enemy, the Federation, in search of a new life. Her chosen world is Callay, and its enormous, decadent capital metropolis of Tanusha, where the concerns of the war are literally and figuratively so many light years away. But the war between the League and the Federation was ideological as much as political, with much of that ideological dispute regarding the very existence of artificial sentience and the rules that govern its creation. Cassandra discovers that even in Tanusha, the powerful entities of this bloody conflict have wound their tentacles. Many in the League and the Federation have cause to want her dead, and Cassandra’s history, inevitably, catches up with her. Cassandra finds herself at the mercy of a society whose values preclude her own right even to exist. But her presence in Tanusha reveals other fault lines, and when Federal agents attempt to assassinate the Callayan president, she finds herself thrust into the service of her former enemies, using her lethal skills to attempt to protect her former enemies from forces beyond their ability to control. As she struggles for her place and survival in a new world, Cassandra must forge new friendships with old enemies, while attempting to confront the most disturbing and deadly realities of her own existence.

For two hundred years Tracato has been the center of enlightenment, as the serrin have occupied human lands and sought to remake humanity anew. But the serrin have not destroyed Rhodaan’s feudal families entirely, and as Tracato faces the greatest threat to its survival in two centuries, old rivalries are stirring. Sasha must assist her mentor Kessligh to strengthen the Tracato Nasi-Keth, yet with one royal sister siding with the feudalists and another soon to be married to Tracato’s most powerful foe, her loyalties are agonizingly divided. Worse still, from Sasha’s homeland the Army of Lenayin are marching to make war upon Tracato. Can she fight her own people? Or must she join them, and fight not only her lover Errollyn, but to extinguish the brightest light of hope in all the land—serrin civilization itself? From the Trade Paperback edition.