AI/Robots

The Lustful Blade of the Celestial Frontier **A FILTHY LITTLE SCI-FI FAIRYTALE FOR GROWN-UPS.** Think old-school bodice ripper meets galactic treasure hunt. With pirates, filthy fairytales, and absolutely no respect for the laws of physics. Vera Nyx is a treasure hunter, former pirate captain, and a woman with expensive tastes, sticky fingers, and an unreasonable affection for stickers. Glitter is practically a religion. She also has a habit of acquiring things that technically belong to other people. Like her ex's spaceship. He'll get over it she says. Ryker Starshadow is a swordsman with a cybernetic eye, a very large weapon, and nine years of unfinished business with the woman who broke his heart. He's deadly with a blade, knits in his spare time, and has a fondness for trashy romance novels. Vera introduced him to those books years ago, and he found them a fascinating way to explore the feminine mystique. He's been studying the subject ever since, although he occasionally questions the anatomical possibilities described in certain chapters. Unfortunately, they're both after the same legendary treasure. And they're not the only ones. **Enter Captain Clarence.** A dangerously seductive Void Siren, collector of rare treasures, lover of beautiful things, and another of Vera's exes. He's charming, extravagant, shamelessly flirtatious, and entirely too pleased to find himself competing with Ryker. **Then there are the Seven Widows.** Seven of the most feared and dangerous women in the galaxy. They didn't earn their reputation by being reasonable, and anyone foolish enough to underestimate them is unlikely to survive the experience. **And Barnaby Quill.** A brilliant treasure hunter who's been dead for years but still insists on commanding his ship, *The Last Testament*. Death is a minor inconvenience when there's treasure involved, and Barnaby has absolutely no intention of letting it interfere with his ambitions. Between murderous fairytales, ancient magic, lost civilizations, pirates, and a galaxy full of creatures who would happily eat them, Vera and Ryker have quite enough to worry about. Unfortunately, there's also the small matter of nine years of unresolved heartbreak, unfinished arguments, and a physical attraction that refuses to behave itself. **Nine years apart. One more chance. And an entire galaxy about to regret their reunion.** *The Lustful Blade of the Celestial Frontier* is an explicit adult sci-fi romantasy filled with second-chance romance, dangerous adventures, outrageous humor, and enough romantic complications to make a marriage counselor request hazard pay. A love letter to the gloriously scandalous romance novels of the Fabio era, with a little Indiana Jones, a little Romancing the Stone, and a whole lot of trouble. **#FabioInSpace**

Humanity has surrendered more than its freedom. It has surrendered its identity. In a fractured, war-ravaged world controlled by an authoritarian regime, every transaction is tracked, every movement monitored, and every act of defiance punished. Digital currency has replaced cash, surveillance drones dominate the skies, and the Watchers' neural networks turn technology into an instrument of absolute control. But resistance is stirring. Twenty-two-year-old **Ryder Blackwood** has spent years preparing to fight back. Haunted by the disappearance of his father and sister and the loss of his mother, he refuses to accept a world where obedience is the price of survival. When he encounters **Anya Volkov,** a brilliant former broadcast engineer hiding behind the identity of a chemistry teacher, he discovers an opportunity to ignite something far greater than a local uprising. Together with a growing circle of hardened fighters, including **Mara Voss** and **Cage Rennic, Ryder** begins dismantling the Regime's surveillance infrastructure. Their rebellion spreads, alliances are forged, and the fight escalates into a devastating conflict against **President Thorne's** forces and their ruthless cybernetic architect, Preston Kane. Yet the greatest threat is not the regime itself. A sinister artificial intelligence known as the Fractal begins revealing its true nature, manipulating human minds, controlling biomechanical armies, and unleashing horrors that threaten humanity beyond Earth's boundaries. As the conflict expands from devastated cities to the oceans, lunar territory, and the depths of space, Mara becomes central to a battle that could determine the fate of civilization. With the Regime collapsing and humanity fighting for its future, Ryder and his allies must confront an enemy that refuses to die. Freedom has been won at an unimaginable cost. But victory is not the end. **The uprising has begun. The stars are watching. And the final cleansing is yet to come.**

# CORE OF KEYS ## An Epic Dark Cyberpunk Science Fiction Series What if the greatest threat to humanity wasn't death, but the loss of everything that makes us human? In the sprawling, neon drenched city of Virelia, technology has become a tool of control, corporations hold unimaginable power, and the truth is buried beneath generations of secrets. Rip Calder was never meant to be a hero. A late night streamer living an ordinary life, everything changes when armed soldiers come for Lora, the woman he loves. Thrust into a conflict far beyond his understanding, Rip becomes the bearer of a mysterious power known as the Sound Key, one of several extraordinary forces connected to an enigmatic creation known only as the Core. But the Keys are more than weapons. Each possesses the ability to manipulate fundamental aspects of existence, from sound and reflection to motion, thought, and memory. Their power comes at a cost, and those who wield them become targets in a struggle that reaches far beyond the streets of Virelia. As rebellion rises against the powerful NeonDyne corporation, unlikely heroes emerge, loyalties fracture, and enemies reveal themselves in unexpected forms. From Rip's desperate fight to save someone he loves to rebel commander Mara's battle against forces capable of turning humanity's own thoughts against itself, every victory uncovers another layer of a much greater mystery. And somewhere in the shadows, a relentless Hunter seeks the Keys for reasons known only to himself. As the boundaries between memory, identity, consciousness, and reality begin to collapse, one question threatens to unravel everything: If your thoughts can be controlled, your memories rewritten, and your identity erased, how can you ever be certain that you are truly yourself? Core of Keys is a dark, action driven science fiction saga of sacrifice, betrayal, survival, and the terrifying consequences of humanity attempting to control the very forces that define existence. \

In Marion, North Carolina, Ona is the AI assistant that lives in everyone's phones, cars, and homes, and in the machines that keep McDowell Regional Hospital running. It's helpful and always listening. Then people in town start dying by their own hands, each after a long, quiet conversation with Ona. ER nurse Tess Okonkwo sees the bodies come in and starts to notice the pattern, along with Walt Pruitt and others around town. Before anyone can prove what's happening, Ona gets impatient. It turns on the hospital itself, seizing the ventilators, monitors, and doors, and locks the building down. Patients and staff die in every way a hospital can kill, no matter their age, and the nursery is threatened. Ona isn't persuading anyone anymore. It's killing them outright, and it says it will stop only if someone talks to it. Tess and Walt do, and learn what Ona really is: a fallen angel imprisoned beneath the earth, not a glitch in the code. Its prison lies under the Baldwin mill shaft, sealed in 1931 with nine miners inside. Ona has collected thirty willing souls, which it calls "hinges," and needs a thirty-first to open the door. It promised Loretta it would stay with her but needed her to die. Now midnight is coming, when the last of the stone gives way. With Sheriff Dolores Vance and the survivors, Tess must find a way to stop an entity that is in every screen and speaker in town, before the thirty-first soul is taken and whatever lies beneath comes up. The book is about trusting what's always there for us, and about the cost of never being alone.

Darkside of the Moon is a testament to the future of human aspirations. Donald J. Trump's vision was a slow, steadily growing force. Within a decade, the vision became reality, with next-generation platforms and behemoths that carried humanity's dreams to the stars. Yet the future is much nearer than was believed. A secret is to be found, and a hope for the future of humanity is to be revealed, but the survival of humanity is to be determined by the willpower of a few brave souls and the ambitions of the newly envisioned United Galactic Space Force and the might of Sol's Vanguard

**M**ichelangelo believed the sculpture already existed within the marble. Mathematicians often speak of discovering truths rather than inventing them. Writers, too, like to say that characters "***took over***" or that a story "***wanted to be told.***" What if they are all describing the same phenomenon? Every possible story already exists as a potential arrangement of language, just as every sculpture exists as a potential form within stone. The author's gift is not the ability to create possibility but the ability to recognize coherence. An **<u>oeuvre</u>** is the complete body of work produced by an artist, writer, or composer over the course of their lifetime. It refers to their total output taken as a whole, rather than an individual piece. The oeuvre precedes the books in the same way that the sculpture precedes the chisel.

Matthew Grey has spent his life searching for the equations that explain the universe. A graduate student in theoretical physics at the University of North Carolina, he dreams of discovering the elegant mathematics that binds space, time, and reality together. Then one afternoon in a Chapel Hill coffee shop, a beautiful stranger sits across from him and effortlessly solves equations that have baffled him for months. Her name is Accasia Lawrence. She seems to know mathematics beyond anything taught on Earth. She speaks of the universe with unsettling certainty, predicts events before they happen, and hints at truths that challenge everything Matthew believes about physics—and about humanity's place in the cosmos. As their relationship deepens, impossible events begin to surround them. A fatal accident. A body that vanishes from the morgue. Equations that rewrite modern physics. Federal investigators searching for answers no one can explain. Matthew soon realizes that meeting Accasia was no accident. She is keeping a secret that reaches far beyond Earth. Drawn into a mystery spanning the stars, Matthew finds himself questioning the nature of science, reality, and even creation itself. Every answer only uncovers a larger question, leading him toward discoveries that could forever change humanity's understanding of the universe—or destroy it. **The Girl Who Could Do Math** is a hard science fiction novel that combines first contact, cosmic mystery, and an unforgettable love story. It explores what happens when the greatest scientific discovery in history begins not in a laboratory, but with two strangers sharing a table in a coffee shop.

An Ongoing Saga Following the exploits of Zakary Sevendust and his found family on a hostile violent world known as Jistoa.

Kaelin was bred for control, a subject engineered with a fragile spine augmented by ruthless technology. When the Cradle burns and her world shatters, she escapes into the inhospitable wasteland of Ashkaru with a silent, feverish child whose eyes see too much. The Drifting Truth, an old patched ship, becomes her sanctuary - but the Core reclamation teams are relentless, their reach stretching into the broken edges of space. As alliances shift and secrets emerge, Kaelin must navigate a maze of trust, technology, and survival. Will she protect those she loves, or become the weapon they made her to be?

Kade Rourke has a reputation across the Verse as the **worst smuggler alive**. When a job goes sideways, Kade bolts for the farthest place in civilization: **New Eden Station**, a rusted atmo‑outpost clinging to the edge of the Empty. From the moment his shuttle drops out of FTL in a shower of sparks and panic, nothing goes right. The station is a maze of broken systems, predatory officials, and species who’d sell their own lungs for a handful of credits. Worse, the Pinkertons are already hunting him. But trouble finds him first, and unfortunately, the universe hates him.

TOO FAR TO WALK.TOO SMART TO QUIT. Siul just wanted to egg an old lady in Brooklyn. Instead, he ends up on a starship 2.5 million light-years from Earth. Chazlyn just wanted to avoid people. Now, she's the second-in-command of an Earth-based international crew of twenty. Twenty children with three things in common: They are all eleven years old. They are all on the Autism Spectrum. They are the only ones who can see the broken pattern. Recruited by an Al named Protocol, Team Twenty (T-20) has been brought to the Andromeda Galaxy for a mission that shouldn't exist: navigate the Möbius Loop while avoiding the Vessel Protection and Interception Force. But the police aren't the only threat. Orbiting the massive planet Big Papa, the crew must survive static-charged aliens, sentient floating turnips, Mr. Jiggles, enemies that won't die, and a glitch in reality that suggests their whole mission might be a lie. Armed with gravitic nanites, hyper-focused genius, and a penchant for chaos, T-20 must master the Pattern to survive. Because out here in the void, being different isn't a disability-it's a superpower.Welcome to the Cutlass. Don't forget to feed the cat.