The Travels of Scout Shannon: Books 4-6


Book Description

This box set collects Against Impassable Barriers, Over Freezing Altitudes and At Galactic Central, the fourth, fifth and sixth books in the Travels of Scout Shannon series. Stranded on the far side of the moon with her friends, Scout Shannon waits for rescue from galactic central. Hunted by two sets of enemies, surrounded by an impenetrable barrier maintained by an almost alien class of humans, time runs short. Caught between two factions of a powerful trade dynasty, Scout fights to remain free and to protect her friends. But the people trying to make her their pawn barely seem human to her eyes. Fight them? She can barely understand them. With friends on both sides of the planetary blockade, Scout just needs to find a way to get her friends stuck on the inside to those waiting for them on the outside. But foes also lurk on both sides. And they hide among her friends. How to tell friend from foe? Scout better learn before the enemies close in around her. "Against Impassable Barriers" the fourth book in "The Travels of Scout Shannon" series, a young adult science fiction novel for fans of resourceful heroines, political intrigue, and loyal dog sidekicks. Having escaped yet another closing trap, Scout Shannon finds herself on a snowbound mountaintop far from civilization. With assassins eager to kill her, laying low on an alien world is the smartest play. But wherever Scout goes, trouble follows. And a hamlet in the mountains gets far more remote when girl assassins destroy the only means back to civilization. Now Scout and her dogs face a long, cold climb back to the frozen star port city, her only guide, a girl whose sister Scout killed when fighting for her life. Can she get to safety before the girl learns the truth about Scout? And what secrets of her own is this strange girl keeping? "Over Freezing Altitudes" the fifth book in "The Travels of Scout Shannon" series, a young adult science fiction novel for fans of resourceful heroines, survival in extreme environments, girl assassins and loyal dog sidekicks. Galactic Central, a collection of floating cities in a vast, manmade, planetless cloud. Scout Shannon longed to see it since she first heard of it. This place long represented her shining future. But in her less shiny present, she reaches it by smuggling herself aboard a cargo ship and hides in the lower sewer-like levels of the most opulent of the floating cities. Teams of girl assassins still hunt her. Worse, her friends are in danger and don't even know. Scout has to save her friends, because saving her friends means saving her entire planet from enslavement to the Tajaki trade dynasty. Caught between two sides of that dynasty, with a mysterious third party desperate to remove her from the galaxy, Scout is in way over her head. But with her friends, she just might see a path to victory for all of them. "At Galactic Central" the sixth and final book in "The Travels of Scout Shannon" series, a young adult science fiction novel for fans of plucky heroines, girl assassins, political intrigue, and loyal dog sidekicks.




The Travels of Scout Shannon Books 1-6


Book Description

This box set collects the entire six book series The Travels of Scout Shannon. Under Falling Skies Scout's whole family died the day the Space Farers dropped an asteroid on their domed city. Now she lives alone, out in the wild with only her dogs for company. She prefers it that way. But Scout finds herself at a crossroads. One road leads back to a quiet life snug under the protective dome of a city. The other road leads to a life in the rebellion, a life of adventure and excitement but also danger. Dare she try to find the rebels hiding in the hills? Then a chance encounter with a stranger from the other side of the galaxy threatens to derail what remains of Scout's life. The entire galaxy awaits her, if she survives the next four days. In Quaking Hills Scout just wants to find the man who conned her mentor and leave her home world for good. Alas, the long-threatened war draws nearer and Scout finds herself caught in the middle, surrounded by rebels and bandits. Worse, she carries a pocketful of dangerous secrets with no one to entrust them to. And the hills keep shaking. Something lurks deep underground. Something massive. Something world-destroying. Scout leaves in three days. If she lives that long. Among Treacherous Stars Scout wants nothing more than to leave her home. She makes it as far as her own planet's orbit before the snares of bureaucracy close around her, trapping her on a space station populated by her people's oldest foe. Then her rescuer, her only friend in the galaxy, disappears, abducted by a group of strangers the moment he steps off his ship. Alone in a strange place, surrounded by the old enemies she knows and new enemies just making themselves known, Scout faces a challenge like none before. But with her dogs at her side, Scout stands prepared for anything. Against Impassable Barriers Caught between two factions of a powerful trade dynasty, Scout fights to remain free and to protect her friends. But the people trying to make her their pawn barely seem human to her eyes. Fight them? She can barely understand them. With friends on both sides of the planetary blockade, Scout just needs to find a way to get her friends stuck on the inside to those waiting for them on the outside. But foes also lurk on both sides. And they hide among her friends. How to tell friend from foe? Scout better learn before the enemies close in around her. Over Freezing Altitudes Having escaped yet another closing trap, Scout finds herself on a snowbound mountaintop far from civilization. With assassins eager to kill her, laying low on an alien world is the smartest play. But wherever Scout goes, trouble follows. And a hamlet in the mountains gets far more remote when girl assassins destroy the only means back to civilization. Now Scout and her dogs face a long, cold climb back to the frozen star port city, her only guide, a girl whose sister Scout killed when fighting for her life. Can she get to safety before the girl learns the truth about Scout? And what secrets of her own is this strange girl keeping? At Galactic Central Galactic Central, a collection of floating cities in a vast, manmade, planetless cloud. Scout longed to see it since she first heard of it. This place long represented her shining future. But in her less shiny present, she reaches it by smuggling herself aboard a cargo ship and hides in the lower sewer-like levels of the most opulent of the floating cities. Teams of girl assassins still hunt her. Worse, her friends are in danger and don't even know. Scout has to save her friends, because saving her friends means saving her entire planet from enslavement to the Tajaki trade dynasty. Caught between two sides of that dynasty, with a mysterious third party desperate to remove her from the galaxy, Scout is in way over her head. But with her friends, she just might see a path to victory for all of them.




Prisoners and Rebels: Episode 4


Book Description

The Chai Makhani Trio survived a night and a day in the jungle of a thousand easy deaths. They even evaded capture at the hands of Koltn Ward and the rest of the enforcers. But night falls again. And the best Commonwealth medicines that Alextra keeps pulling from her seemingly bottomless belt pouches only slows the spread of venom up her leg. But not as fast as the venom slows her steps. And somewhere out there they know Koltn Ward is regrouping. Their only hope lies in the last place Keani ever wanted to see again: home. "Prisoners and Rebels" is the fourth episode in the ongoing monthly science fiction adventure serial TALES OF THE CHAI MAKHANI TRIO.




The Story for the Letters


Book Description

Sheshkala, far too young for such things, left her parents and her mountain home behind to secretly follow her big brother Irarra to his apprenticeship in the city. Then the siege began. Murderous barbarians surround the city, pounding at its ancient walls day and night. They want the king. They want the king's wealth. But more than that, they want to destroy the king's library. The library where she now hides and waits and watches her brother. "The Story for the Letters", a short story set in a bronze age city full of secret dangers. Dangers with no qualms about harming little girls. But resourceful little girls know no fear.




The Whole World for Each


Book Description

After humankind fled Earth for space they discovered one inescapable truth. People die in space. And lots of dead people means lots of ghosts. April Nguyen earns a nice living getting rid of those ghosts. People all over the Solar System clamor for her aid. April's only problem? Never actually seeing a ghost. She pretends, she feigns, she completely convinces her clients, but she fears her inevitable exposure as a fraud. And then comes Hakim, the ultimate suspicious sceptic watching her every move. And yet April feels herself drawn to him. He knows a whole other world. "The Whole World for Each", a story about belief and disbelief and how we jump between the two. Humankind escaped Earth, but not death and what comes after.




The Slums of the Solar System Books 1-3


Book Description

This box set collects the three novels in the Slums of the Solar System shared world: MITWA, THE MARS OF MALCONTENTS, and A WHOLE WORLD FOR EACH. MITWA: When a deadly plague ravaged the Earth refugees fled into space, crowding into any space station or lunar colony that would take them. Decades passed and the descendants of the survivors struggle to live in anything remotely spaceworthy. Omesh, banished from his Earthly home, finds himself in Barnacle Town. A collection of salvage clinging to the hull of a space station in lunar orbit. Thousands of lives cling precariously to the hull, at the whim of the corporation that owns the station. The station manager welcomes everyone. But then the CEO arrives, intent on scraping the hull of his craft clean. Omesh and his family, friends and neighbors? Not the corporation’s problem. With nowhere else to go, Omesh vows to fight for his new home. But physics? More merciless than any CEO. THE MARS OF MALCONTENTS: Valentina knows how to live in the community spread throughout the old mining caves under the Martian ice cap. A violent place in a forbidding climate, but home for her and her brother. Until she wakes from a coma to find her brother gone. Her father thinks her incapable of following them back to the equatorial cities. He underestimates her – her stubbornness, her courage and her inventiveness. But she underestimates the cold, airless surface of Mars. A journey from the polar ice cap to the Martian equator? Not enough to stop Valentina. Not with her brother on the line. THE WHOLE WORLD FOR EACH: After humankind fled Earth for space they discovered one inescapable truth. People die in space. And lots of dead people means lots of ghosts. April Nguyen earns a nice living getting rid of those ghosts. People all over the Solar System clamor for her aid. April's only problem? Never actually seeing a ghost. She pretends, she feigns, she completely convinces her clients, but she fears her inevitable exposure as a fraud. And then comes Hakim, the ultimate suspicious sceptic watching her every move. And yet April feels herself drawn to him. He knows a whole other world. "The Whole World for Each", a story about belief and disbelief and how we jump between the two. Humankind escaped Earth, but not death and what comes after.




The Ritchie & Fitz Sci-Fi Murder Mysteries Books 1-3


Book Description

This bundle contains the first three books in the Ritchie & Fitz Sci-Fi Murder Mysteries. Murder on the Intergalactic Railway For Murdina Ritchie, acceptance at the Oymyakon Foreign Service Academy means one last chance at her dream of becoming a diplomat for the Union of Free Worlds. For Shackleton Fitz IV, it represents his last chance not to fail out of military service entirely. Strange that fate should throw them together now, among the last group of students admitted after the start of the semester. They had once shared the strongest of friendships. But that all ended a long time ago. But when an insufferable but politically important woman turns up murdered, the two agree to put their differences aside and work together to solve the case. Because the murderer might strike again. But more importantly, solving a murder would just have to impress the dour colonel who clearly thinks neither of them belong at his academy. Murder in the Skies Murdina Ritchie put everything on the line to earn one chance to prove herself at the Oymyakon Foreign Service Academy. Just one chance. Despite the bad reputation that comes with her family name, despite the bullies desperate to see her fail, she refuses to back down from any opportunity to show her worth. Everyone at the academy knows her skill, knows her inability to compromise in the pursuit of excellence, and knows her drive for success at all costs that borders on desperation. But all of that common knowledge works against her when a bullying upper class cadet dies in a freak training accident that looks a lot like murder. Because now everyone knows that Murdina Ritchie tops any possible list of suspects. Suddenly she finds a goal beyond proving her worth: proving her own innocence. The Body in the Catacombs Murdina Ritchie and Shackleton Fitz IV start their junior year at the Oymyakon Foreign Service Academy finally feeling like they belong in that world. They stand as equals among the other cadets. And the crushing load of schoolwork? Surprisingly manageable when you're not trying to solve a murder at the same time. But the rumors of big changes in the political universe reach even the depths of the Academy. Distrust and secretiveness invade the minds of all of the cadets. Something dark and tumultuous hangs over all of them, and not just the ever-present storms of Oymyakon. Then someone finds a body in the lower levels, and the accusations fly. A murder, but committed decades before. Long before the time of any of the cadets. But not before the time of the instructors. In fact, exactly at the time Colonel Hansen was Cadet Hansen. Can Ritchie and Fitz solve the coldest of cases and prove the colonel innocent? Or worse, guilty?




Raiding the Forgotten Derelict


Book Description

History sleeps beneath them all, but only she sees it. Lafayette Eloi always knew her parents thought differently from others. They kept their books buried beneath her mother’s house. They spoke an old language in the dead of night, whispering behind closed doors and bolted shutters. She grew up in a village where no one was related to her, and she never knew why. Then, after her mother died, her father came to fetch her. Now she and her mother’s dog assist her father in his work. The work discussed in whispers in the dark. The work that had cost Lafayette so much all her young life. But now she learns just how much her father’s work means to their entire world. Only no one knows anything about it. Only her father. And only Lafayette. Because the work that consumed her father’s entire life and her mother’s too now nibbles at the fringe’s of Lafayette’s own life. And she cannot refuse its call.




Being Neighborly


Book Description

When Pa left Pete in charge of his sisters on the farm overnight he stated only one rule: no talking to the Greens.No need to spell that out, Pete thinks. Every child knows never to speak to the Greens. An easy rule to follow. The Greens keep to themselves.Then a Green turns up in the yard with a strange object. The Green wants something. They refuse to leave until Pete figures it out. And Pete always strives to be neighborly."Beingly Neighborly", a science fiction short story originally published in Analog magazine.




The Mars of Malcontents


Book Description

Valentina knows how to live in the community spread throughout old mining caves under the Martian ice cap. A violent place in a forbidding climate but home for her and her brother. Until she wakes from a coma to find her brother gone. A journey from the polar ice cap to the Martian equator? Not enough to stop Valentina. Not with her brother on the line. Valentina wakes from a coma to find her brother gone. A journey across Mars from the polar ice cap to the equator? Not enough to stop Valentina. Not with her brother on the line.




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