Sci fi tales that take place just a few years from now, often examining the social consequences of today’s world. Return to general Sci Fi
Note: these books are currently sorted by release date, with newest first.
Word Count: 115,674
Summary: Oil reserves depleted. Society collapsed. A few places cling to modern technology. For everywhere else, there are the Tinkers. In southern Ontario, Novo Gaia uses sustainable energy to support its citizens in comfort. From there, Novo Gaia sends Doctors of Applied General Technology, tinkers, into the Dark Lands to install everything from solar stills to televisions—and make a profit. After twenty years as an E.R. nurse, Tabitha “Tabby” Drivensky’s failing marriage sent her into the tinker program and the open waters of the Great Lakes. While fulfilling her Coast Guard service obligation, she rescues a boy named Andy Camble from a sinking ship. Andy turns out to have vital information on Packer, a pirate captain who has been plaguing the Great Lakes for generations in an ancient, nuclear-powered submarine. Using Andy’s intelligence, Tabby sets out ostensibly to scout out a new aquatic tinker route along Lake Huron but secretly assigned by Novo Gaia to find and put an end to Packer once and for all.
Word Count: 99,000
Summary: Oil reserves depleted. Society collapsed. A few places cling to modern technology. For everywhere else, there are the Tinkers. In southern Ontario, Novo Gaia uses sustainable energy to support its citizens in comfort. From there, Novo Gaia sends Doctors of Applied General Technology, tinkers, into the Dark Lands to install everything from solar stills to televisions—and make a profit. Brad Cooper is a tinker on his route in Guelph when he finds himself at the epicentre of a plague outbreak. Stranded without support in a tenuously-held quarantine zone, he must use his limited medical training in a desperate search for a treatment against an insidious relic from an age of excess. Meanwhile, fuelled by panic, other townspeople caught within the quarantine zone conspire to sabotage relief efforts. Distrusted by the people he's trying to help, hampered by political rivals, under-supplied, over-worked, and with his own risk of infection increasing, Brad seems to be fighting a losing battle as the casualties mount...
Word Count: 84000
Summary: When high school teacher Chris Franzia comes home on the last day of school, he finds two FBI agents waiting for him. A string of seemingly unrelated murders has left them baffled, and they can find only one commonality. All five victims shared a college class with Chris thirty years earlier... and now he may be next. Struggling with the sheer impossibility of the situation, Chris’s skepticism fades after a series of failed attempts on his life makes things deadly clear. Thus begins a harrowing cross-country race, forcing Chris to put together the pieces of his past while staying one step ahead of his mysterious assailants. Can he make the connection in time? And will the deadly picture of reconstructed memory be worth the price of knowing?
Word Count: 89180
Summary: Lenth grew up in a lie. Apparently there's more than five people in the world. Savage Citizens, orderly Providers, keepers of ignorance, and a damaged killer stand in the way of the world's simple truths. Four Brothers live their lives in an enclosed habitat as directed by the silent Rubberman above them. When they disobey, they get shocked. This is normal. It always has been. When a Brother dies, they learn of death. When he is replaced by someone new, they learn they are replaceable. When the ceiling above the ceiling cracks open, Lenth plans a journey beyond the known universe: A third floor. Up.
Word Count: 86000
Summary: Regan has her ups and downs. -Dumping her girlfriend: Down. -Moving in with her loving brother: Up. -Waking up to a plague of undead: REALLY down. After the undead began roaming the neighborhood, Regan lost track of her brother. She’s spent the last two years searching for him. In the meantime, she’s fallen in love, only to be told, “Sorry, I’m straight. And you’re a lunatic.” There’s a psycho out there somewhere who caused the outbreak, using nanotechnology, just for the fun of it, and Regan intends to hunt him down. Oh, and the crush she still has on the straight gal? Dangerously distracting, when there’s a zombie around every corner.
Word Count: 109700
Summary: Cassidy needed a fresh start, and the offer of a guard posting for a historic temple in the middle of the desert sounded like a good way to clear her head. She didn't expect to find a new girlfriend- maybe even a soul mate. She didn't expect to be in the crossfire of a terrorist, a cowardly scientist, and a fleet of microscopic invaders. She didn't expect to lose. In the years after Lifehack and the Erebus incident, the world settles into relative quiet under strict nanite bans, but underground activity keeps dangerous nano-tech alive and well. (Although Watching Yute is a complete tale within the Lifehack series, it chronologically takes place between Lifehack and Echoes of Erebus.)
Word Count: 99837
Summary: Race, an ex-cop private eye in a world where most people are conditioned so that they cannot commit an act of violence, must release a savage artificial personality, Ralf, that was implanted in him when he did a deep-cover mission as a police officer, to rescue Astra, the woman he secretly loves, from the crime syndicates who have used a drug to turn her into a sex slave. Race succeeds at the cost of the crime syndicates discovering that Ralph is still alive. The syndicates want their assassin back and think nothing of toppling Race’s sanity to achieve their ends. Can Race maintain control of his body? Freed of the drug’s effect, will Astra return his affections? And what of Ralph, can a sociopath learn to love and what changes might that bring?
Word Count: 75000
Summary: In the groove. In the zone. A period of intense focus and high performance that feels effortless. Flow. When Kel invents a device to produce the mysterious state of ‘flow’ on demand, she hopes to unleash humanity's creative potential. But the prototype can also be used to record other mind-body states. Her device is stolen and used for a range of causes, some good... and some very bad. As Kel struggles to regain control of her device, it threatens to destroy her legacy and shatter lives around the world... until all uses of the tech converge on the most unexpected and unintended consequence of all.
