The Bride's Task

Written with my wife, Gail Sanders. Keth' and Nerea, from The Groom's Price, must sort out their allegiances and diverging future, but can they remain betrothed?

Starman Jones (Robert A. Heinlein)

I'm not sure what value I can add to a Heinlein novel. However, this story was one of my early forays into SF way back in the 1970s, and it's still great today. It was a privilege to write the afterword.

Rogue

Kenneth Chinran commanded the elite unit assigned to take out an entire planet in a terrible war. Millions died; billions more perished in the aftermath. One doesn't send a sociopath on such a mission. A sociopath might not stop. Chinran did stop – but in the process nearly lost his sanity and his soul.

But one of Chinran’s men was a sociopath going in. Now he’s a trained sociopath with the knowledge and firepower to take out entire tactical teams, evaporate through security cordons and change identity at will. Who do you send after a killer like that? There’s only one answer: the man who trained him. The man who made him.

Release date for the paperback edition is June 26th.

The Brute Force Approach

Heads You Lose

Imagine a military unit of lawyers including such notables as Sergeant Strom Thurmond, Captain Joseph McCarthy and General Stephen Vincent Benet (the grandfather of the poet), in hell.

The Coordinating Legal Airborne Platoon (The CLAP) must parachute into Ashcanistan and search the wastelands in and around Kabum for the most honest man in hell.

Battle's Tide

If the dinosaur killer never impacted, and theropods and mammals co-evolved, what would a Bronze Age look like around the filling of the Mediterranean Basin? Alternate pre-history, with several great writers, and me too.

The Groom's Price

Written with my wife, Gail Sanders, about a Shin'a'in mindspeaker who must decide where his future lies.

Do Unto Others

The Prescot family were miners. At one time, they were contracted to develop technology for a mineral rich but uninhabitable system. Gradually, all the investors shied away. Then the Prescots broke through with the technology needed to exploit entire planets, and incidentally develop domed playgrounds for the perversely rich, including indoor ski slopes and cable cars over megavolcanos, casinos and rides. This created the economic problem of being the richest people in the universe, having more money than most governments and effectively unlimited resources.

Money is a small blessing when enemies are quite willing to spend billions for the chance at trillions. Bryan Prescot and his daughter might as well have targets painted on their backs for the thugs, kidnappers and assassins their competitors would throw at them. Bodyguards were necessary—Highly trained bodyguards who could be bought once and be utterly loyal no matter the circumstances.

The altercation comes to a head inside the domes and mines of Govannon, with their enemy desperate to do anything to save their own lives, now that the gloves are off. Caron Prescot has only six bodyguards against an army, but she has two aces in the hole: The miners are on her side, and Elke, Ripple Creek’s psychotic demolition expert, has a nuke.

The problem with Elke having a nuke is that Elke WILL use it.

The Price

Every author in "Citizens" is a veteran who has served in their nation's military.

My story, "The Price," is about a small ship's crew asked to take on a pivotal mission, and how they deal with the emotional impact.

Wounded Bird

Another story about Riga, the Sword Dancer, who must find a way to save someone without fighting.

Contact with Chaos

When an exploration ship from the Freehold discovered a planet with intelligent lifeforms-the first which humans had ever encountered-it should have been the most important event in history. And it might be-for all the wrong reasons.

Freehold corporations were eager to sell high-tech toys to the Ishkul, as the inhabitants called themselves, which had the potential to disrupt their society. Then there was the U.N., which controlled the planet Earth. Earth and Freehold were not on good terms, to put it mildly, and the U.N. immediately sent its own ship to make contact with the Ishkul. If the authoritarians from Earth started throwing their weight around, the Freehold might have to push back, causing anything from a diplomatic incident to outright war. And then another ship arrived, full of idealistic do-gooders determined to keep the Ishkul in their unspoiled state of nature . . .

The whole thing was turning into a cross between a Marx Brothers farce and a Kafkaesque nightmare, with a potential for Greek tragedy. Contact with a more advance civilization might pose a danger to the Ishkul, but it definitely was becoming more dangerous to the human factions, and the situation was a powder keg just waiting for a spark to cause a very deadly explosion, especially as the Ishkul are not quite as primitive as they might appear...

The Sword Dancer

A short story about a young woman who must be a scout and a warrior before she's done being a child. Set in Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar.

Better to Beg Forgiveness

Celadon. A pest-hole of a planet infested with pirates, terrorists, and soul-sucking bureaucrats determined to maintain the bloody status quo. But after an inside job nearly eliminates reformist President Bishwanath, it’s time for the elite mercs of Ripple Creek Security to toss out the restrictive rulebook forced on them by Earth’s state department, reach for the Composition G, and show the locals how the big boys make war. Short answer: they blow things up. They blow them up in detail.

Now available from the Baen Free Library here.

The Humans Called It Duty

What happens when you kill a military working animal's handler, and the animal is a specially bred leopard? Vengeance.

Naught But Duty

A short story about a mercenary who despises his employer and can't break his oath, set in Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar universe.

Confirmed Kill

Army Rangers Kyle Monroe and Wade Curtis are the best at what they do: eliminating their nations' enemies from a distance with one well-placed bullet to the head. When Intelligence catches wind of a terrorist plot unfolding in the jungles of Indonesia, Monroe and Curtis are the snipers assigned to take the killers out. Failure is not an option, since al Qaeda-linked fanatics plan to blow an oil-rich province sky high, taking hundreds of innocents lives, many of them American.

But the military brass is saddling their operatives with unnecessary and potentially lethal baggage-an overweight, under trained colonel whose ineptitude could prove disastrous. And when their mission goes all to hell, two crack snipers are suddenly transformed into targets caught out in the open...facing an army of terrorists murders pouring out of the trees and with nowhere to run.

The Weapon

Set in the Freehold universe, told from the point of view of Captain Chinran, who led the covert attack on Earth.

Targets of Opportunity

"Targets of Opportunity" is the sequel to The Scope of Justice. It is set in Romania, with Kyle and Wade stalking a terror cell that is smuggling explosives across the Black Sea into Europe.

The Scope of Justice

You can order from me for the same price and I'll autograph and personalize your copy for free. For details, email me.

The Hero

Set in the Legacy of the Aldenata Universe (Posleen Universe)

The alien artifact is worth billions, and could affect the destiny of the galaxy. One human is crippled. One is a sociopath. The alien Darhel is unable to kill. Who will decide the fate of the future?

Freehold

Cover artwork by David B. Mattingly.

FREEHOLD was my first novel. It's not my best written; I've improved a lot in a decade. But, it struck a chord with a lot of people, and still sells quite well. A young soldier is framed for embezzlement and must flee a monolithic tyranny for a laissez-faire frontier.

"Freehold" is now available online or as a free download through Baen's Free Library. Help yourself, and decide if you like my stuff enough to pay for it.

First They Came For

I provided a large variety of military gear and weapons and technical advice for this powerful short feature, as well as appearing as one of the jack booted thugs (Red Star Police). My daughter also appears in two scenes.

The Best Defense

I was a guest on 5 episodes of The Best Defense, discussing disaster preparedness--food, water, communication and economics.

Contact with Chaos

This is a paperbound, glossy covered trade-sized format of The Weapon, and was the final draft turned in for publication. Some minor typesetting and author errors are in there, which were corrected before printing. It has the final cover art but is brighter and printed in a few less colors. These are what are sent out to reviewers and critics before the book is released. Only a couple of hundred were printed. I'll inscribe and sign it to you or whoever you like.

$78, shipped in the US.

The Hero

The Hero had a continuity error and several noticeable timeframe errors in final draft. They're in here, and were corrected before final printing. This is your chance to see What Went Wrong, and How Authors Fix It On Three Days Notice. I will sign and inscribe, telling you how it's John's Fault, and you can look him up at a convention where he will probably sign it and tell you it's Mike's Fault.

$78, shipped in the US.

Confirmed Kill

Printed 8.5" X 11" pages with cover letter and proposed layout. Marked up extensively by copy editor and myself. There are minor differences throughout. It's been beaten about the office and the front and back pages are a bit worn. Of course, I'll sign it. I'm also blacking out the editor's phone number.

I will only include this with a copy of Confirmed Kill to maintain proper copyright standards.

$50 shipped.