C Gockel Writes

Featured Sci-fi: Lawless (Lawless Saga Book 1) by Tarah Benner

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Featured Sci-fi: Lawless (Lawless Saga Book 1) by Tarah Benner

FREE as of July 8, 2026
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From the author of The Fringe comes an addictive new dystopian saga.
When Lark was sentenced to twenty-five years behind bars, she thought San Judas was her lucky break. The primitive 16,000-acre community in rural New Mexico isn’t like any other prison. There are no cells, there is no warden, and Mother Mercy is the law.

She didn’t realize she’d be fighting for survival on a daily basis — battling hunger, violent inmates, and Mother Mercy’s iron fist. Lark’s only friend is Bernie — an off-the-rails environmental activist doing time for arson — and a mysterious stranger who’s been sending her illicit messages from the men’s colony.

Lark never thought escaping San Judas was possible until a message in a bottle changes everything: The guards outside the walls are disappearing, and the world as they know it is coming to an end.

Featured Fantasy: The Stormborne Vine (Leaf and Scale Book 1) by Tilly Wallace

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Determined spinster vs carnivorous wallflower…

In a corner of rural England, Fern Oakby makes a living through her knowledge of botany. An unusual case erupts during a storm when a Boston ivy turns monstrous and…carnivorous.

However, the solution is not as simple as hacking down the exceedingly rare and hungry plant. The storm also gave life to an origami dragon and bound it to the vine. When a lonely woman pleads with Fern to save the tiny dragon, she is forced to confront a profound question—what defines the value of a life?

In a world where ancient magic lingers, every life—no matter how small or strange—holds immeasurable worth. As Fern races against time to unravel dark secrets at the estate, the vine continues to grow. She must find a way to destroy it before it spreads or snatches more lives. Nor, as she discovers, is the little dragon the only life in need of saving…

Featured Sci-fi: Machine A White Space Novel by Elizabeth Bear

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Featured Sci-fi: Machine A White Space Novel by Elizabeth Bear

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A “spectacularly smart space opera” that follows Ancestral Night in the Hugo Award–winning author’s White Space duology (Publishers Weekly, starred review).

Meet Doctor Jens.

She hasn’t had a decent cup of coffee in fifteen years. Her workday begins when she jumps out of perfectly good space ships and continues with developing treatments for sick alien species she’s never seen before. She loves her life. Even without the coffee.

But Dr. Jens is about to discover an astonishing mystery: two ships, one ancient and one new, locked in a deadly embrace. The crew is suffering from an unknown ailment and the shipmind is trapped in an inadequate body, much of her memory pared away.

Unfortunately, Dr. Jens can’t resist a mystery and she begins doing some digging. She has no idea that she’s about to discover horrifying and life-changing truths.

Written in Elizabeth Bear’s signature “rollicking, suspenseful, and sentimental” (Publishers Weekly) style, Machine is a fresh and electrifying space opera that you won’t be able to put down.

[Read more…]

Featured Fantasy: Beyond the Grave (Book 1 of the Ghost Detective Series) by R.W. Wallace

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Featured Fantasy: Beyond the Grave (Book 1 of the Ghost Detective Series) by R.W. Wallace

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The forever rebellious Clothilde’s gravestone only mentions her first name and date of death. A small bump in the ground next to her grave marks former police officer Robert’s last resting place.

And in thirty years, no visitors for either of them.

Confined within the cemetery borders and yearning for closure to move on, the two ghosts can’t go after the people who killed them.

Until Clothilde receives her first visitor in thirty years — and along with it, the means to escape the cemetery.

Beyond the Grave is the first novel in the Ghost Detective series, following Robert and Clothilde in their search for justice.

Featured Sci-fi: Eifelheim by Michael Flynn

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Featured Sci-fi: Eifelheim by Michael Flynn

$1.99 as of December 27, 2024
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“Carl Sagan meets Umberto Eco. . . . Bursting with pungent historical detail . . . this dense, provocative novel offers big rewards to patient readers.” —Entertainment Weekly

The alien world of medieval Europe lives again, transformed by the physics of the future, by a winner of the Heinlein Award.

Over the centuries, one small town in Germany has disappeared and never been resettled. Tom, a historian, and his theoretical physicist girlfriend Sharon, become interested. By all logic, the town should have survived. What’s so special about Eifelheim?

Father Dietrich is the village priest of Eifelheim, in the year 1348, when the Black Death is gathering strength but is still not nearby. Dietrich is an educated man, and to his astonishment becomes the first contact person between humanity and an alien race from a distant star, when their ship crashes in the nearby forest.

It is a time of wonders, in the shadow of the plague. Tom and Sharon, and Father Deitrich have a strange destiny of tragedy and triumph in Eifelheim, the brilliant science fiction novel by Michael Flynn.

“Heartbreaking. . . . Flynn masterfully achieves an intricate panorama of medieval life, full of fascinatingly realized human and [alien] characters whose fates interconnect with poignant irony.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review

“Meticulously researched, intense, mesmerizing novel . . . for readers seeking thoughtful science fiction of the highest order.” —Kirkus Reviews, starred review

“Eifelheim may turn out to be the best science fiction novel this year.” —Orson Scott Card, Hugo Award–winning author of Ender’s Game

Featured Sci-Fi: Starship Waking by C. Gockel

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On an icy, barren world, a starship dreams of doom…


Throughout the galaxy, the reclusive alien race known as The One are incapacitated by terror.


On planet Luddeccea, wolf-human hybrid Volka harbors a terrible secret…a secret that must explain her nightmares.


Trapped on a luxurious asteroid, pleasure ‘bot 6T9 struggles to find purpose–until he receives a message from an Unidentified Caller.


The worlds of The One, Volka, and 6T9 are about to collide.

The galaxy will be shaken to its core.

The starship is waking.