Eggplant.place

231d

Chapter 3 of Princess of Kurg is available to read on #RoyalRoad: https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/108234/jigsaw-city

Looking back and forth to make sure he wasn't followed, Kazic enters the back of a building, from a dirty alley.

He worries about being caught and questioned about his activities, which he does not want to explain to anyone...

@bookstodon
#author #indieauthor #writing #fantasy #scifi #sciencefiction #sff #actionadventure #fiction #fairies #webseries

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231d

A Review of What Do We Afford: https://lydiaschoch.com/a-review-of-what-do-we-afford/

#BookReview #Books #ScienceFiction #IndieBooks

@bookstodon

Book cover for What Do We Afford by Eyal Avissar. Image on cover is possibly AI-generated and shows a nondescript blue drawing of a male human body with various parts of it labelled. There is also a sketch of a cow behind the human. The text reads: “system diagram - Volume 1” and then has the following words and phrases written clockwise around figures: Afford data relay, Affords reverie, (deprecated), Affords calm gaze, Affords systematic rhymthm (which seems to be purposefully misspelled), Affords yield, Affords grounding, Affords noise detection, Affords extraction, Affords compliance, Affords gripping, Affords recognition, and Affords extraction.

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ARKADY (1985) Acrylic on Canvas - 32" x 20"

Having passed through terrible destruction, the former hub of the Galaxy in Isaac Asimov's classic opus is now a pastoral world. 1/4

#sciencefiction #scifi #scifiart #illustration #isaacasimov #foundation

With a leather bag over her shoulder, a young woman with red hair stands on a metal platform set against a pastoral backdrop and blue skies. She wears an olive green jacket and striped shorts with yellow tights. Caught mid-step, she turns her head toward the audience. The angle of her legs are a mirror of the twisted metal of decaying towers that collapse into each other.

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231d

Ebook and paperback: https://books2read.com/TheInvertedGlass

After encountering the worst life has to offer, including the death of his wife and child, destruction of his home world, an addiction forced on him by the one responsible and a third of the galaxy falling under the heel of that tyrant, Levi Jacobs, a wizard, seeks to unravel the secrets of time and fate.

@bookstodon
#author #indieauthor #writing #fantasy #scifi #sciencefiction #sff #sciencefantasy #scifi #actionadventure #fiction #books

(Left) The cover of The Inverted Glass, by Owen Tyme.

The Background is a pink and purple nebula in space.

The foreground is largely line art, in white, with a black shadow outline.

At the center is an hourglass. The bottom has black sand, with a white figure standing in it. The top has is an inverted mirror image of the bottom, with a black figure in white sand.

The hourglass serves as the balance point for a set of scales, which hold a heart and a feather. The heart is on the left and the feather on the right. The heart is lower than the feather.

(Right) Lying in blue sand is a heart made of the same sand, full of cracks. It glows from the inside in a warm, yellow color. Over that is the following quote:

Nicole felt an extreme kind of loss, realizing she’d been stolen away from the afterlife, just before finding out if she deserved punishment or not!

“How dare you do this to me? Why?”

“I’m always in need of strong spirits and I’ve seen none stronger. You have unique talents I refuse to see go to waste.”

(Bottom) https://books2read.com/TheInvertedGlass

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230d

📚 Operation Bounce House by: Matt Dinniman

To be released February 10, 2026.

All colonist Oliver Lewis ever wanted to do was run the family ranch with his sister, maybe play a gig or two with his band, and keep his family's aging fleet of intelligent agriculture bots ticking as long as possible. He figures it will be a...

https://bookblabla.com/book/operation-bounce-house

@bookstodon

#books #reading #libraries #fiction #fantasy #epicfiction #sciencefiction #thrillers

To be released February 10, 2026.

All colonist Oliver Lewis ever wanted to do was run the family ranch with his sister, maybe play a gig or two with his band, and keep his family's aging fleet of intelligent agriculture bots ticking as long as possible. He figures it will be a good thing when the transfer gate finally opens all the way and restores instant travel and full communication between Earth and his planet, New Sonora. But there's a complication.

Even though the settlers were promised they'd be left in peace, Earth's government now has other plans. The colossal Apex Industries is hired to commence an eviction action. But maximizing profits will always be Apex's number one priority. Why spend money printing and deploying AI soldiers when they can turn it into a game? Why not charge bored Earthers for the opportunity to design their own war machines and remotely pilot them from the comfort of their homes?

The game is called Operation Bounce House.

Oliver and his friends soon find themselves fighting for their lives against machines piloted by gamers who've paid a premium for the privilege. With the help of an old book from his grandfather and a bucket of rusty parts, Oliver is determined to defend the only home he's ever known.

A man must fight for his planet against impossible odds when gamers from Earth attempt to remotely annihilate it in this epic, fast-paced novel from the New York Times bestselling author of the smash-hit Dungeon Crawler Carl.

To

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229d

Chapter 4 of Princess of Kurg is available to read on #RoyalRoad: https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/108234/jigsaw-city

Minerva and Thistle face an impossible choice: give up the enchanter working on their escape plan and delay their escape by ten years, or make substitutions in violation of the rules set by The Void?

They choose to lie, but will it work? Will The Void be fooled?

@bookstodon
#author #indieauthor #writing #fantasy #scifi #sciencefiction #sff #actionadventure #fiction #fairies #webseries

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229d

Ebook: https://books2read.com/TheWizardsScion

Levi Jacobs always dreamed of being like his father, the greatest wizard in the world, but had no understanding what it would be like. Follow Levi’s journey from bumbling teen to a great hero, while the young wizard learns to master magical powers that are initially completely beyond him and barely under control.

@bookstodon
#author #indieauthor #writing #fantasy #scifi #sciencefiction #sff #sciencefantasy #scifi #actionadventure #fiction #books

The cover for the omnibus edition of The Wizard's Scion.

The background is a symbolic representation of a wormhole, hinting at the time-travel elements of the series.

The foreground consists of four figures, in silhouette, each filled with a different texture and behind them is a black octopus with red eyes and a menacing, red aura.

The central figure is a wizard in the midst of casting a spell, with his arms and robe outstretched. The texture used is black, with patches of mottled gold, overlaid with eight pointed stars. He's surrounded by a golden aura.

To the immediate left of the wizard is a girl. The texture used has a black background, overlaid with symbols for music, in green, cyan and white. She's surrounded by a green aura.

Standing just ahead of the wizard, but also slightly to the left is a woman wielding a pair of short swords in a combat-ready pose. The texture used is of blood spatter on a black background. She's surrounded by a dark red aura.

Ahead and to the right of the wizard is another woman with short swords, in a more relaxed stance than the other dual-wielder. The two woman are very similar in appearance, hinting at the fact that the one is a clone of the other. The texture used for this figure is a combination of a golden sunrise and translucent parts of clocks, hinting that the clone was made by time travelers. She's surrounded by a dark golden aura.

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196d

Chapter 18 of Princess of Kurg is available to read on #RoyalRoad: https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/108234/jigsaw-city

Nicole attends a city council meeting and eventually tells a little lie about why she's not sleeping very well. Irkith reacts badly to that, ordering her to tell the truth.

The piece of Kurg lodged in her mind tries to take over and Kazic levels a blaster on the Ulkun King...

@bookstodon
#author #indieauthor #writing #fantasy #scifi #sciencefiction #sff #actionadventure #fiction #fairies #webseries

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222d

📚 The Mountain in the Sea by: Ray Nayler

The transnational tech corporation DIANIMA has sealed off the remote Con Dao Archipelago, where a species of octopus has been discovered that may have developed its own language and culture. The marine biologist Dr. Ha Nguyen, who has spent her life researching c...

https://bookblabla.com/book/the-mountain-in-the-sea

@bookstodon

#books #reading #libraries #fiction #sciencefiction #generalfiction #thrillers #technologicalfiction

The transnational tech corporation DIANIMA has sealed off the remote Con Dao Archipelago, where a species of octopus has been discovered that may have developed its own language and culture. The marine biologist Dr. Ha Nguyen, who has spent her life researching cephalopod intelligence, will do anything for the chance to study them. She travels to the islands to join DIANIMA's team: a battle-scarred securityagent and the world’s first (and possibly last) android.

The octopuses hold the key to unprecedented breakthroughs in extrahuman intelligence. As Dr. Nguyen struggles to communicate with the newly discovered species, forces larger than DIANIMA close in to seize the octopuses for themselves.

But no one has yet asked the octopuses what they think. Or what they might do about it.

A near-future thriller, a meditation on the nature of consciousness, and an eco-logical call to arms, Ray Nayler's dazzling literary debut The Mountain in the Sea is a mind-blowing dive into the treasure and wreckage of humankind’s legacy.

*WINNER OF 2023 LOCUS AWARD FOR BEST FIRST NOVEL . FINALIST FOR THE NEBULA AWARD, and THE LOS ANGELES TIMES RAY BRADBURY PRIZE

The Mountain in the Sea is a wildly original, gorgeously written, unputdownable gem of a novel. Ray Nayler is one of the most exciting new voices I’ve read in years.
-Blake Crouch, author of Upgrade and Dark Matter

Humankind discovers intelligent life in an octopus species with its own language and culture, and sets

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131d

Chapter 46 of Princess of Kurg is available to read on #RoyalRoad: https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/108234/jigsaw-city

Nicole refuses to attend her mother's funeral, because she's convinced she'll find a way to raise the woman from the dead, even though none of her research panned out.

Deep down, she knows it isn't possible and sinks into the darkest depths of depression...

@bookstodon
#author #indieauthor #writing #fantasy #scifi #sciencefiction #sff #actionadventure #fiction #fairies #webseries

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222d

📚 Snow Crash by: Neal Stephenson

Hiro lives in a Los Angeles where franchises line the freeway as far as the eye can see. The only relief from the sea of logos is within the autonomous city-states, where law-abiding citizens don’t dare leave their mansions.

Hiro delivers pizza to the mansions for a living, defe...

https://bookblabla.com/book/snow-crash

@bookstodon

#books #reading #libraries #fiction #sciencefiction #generalfiction #cyberpunkfiction #actionadventure

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230d

Fresh newsletter incoming in one week! Want a taste of what you're missing? Check out my archive and sign up for a free ebook!

https://xaurielzwaan.ca/NewsletterArchive

#ScienceFiction #SciFi #AmWriting

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185d

Ebook and paperback: https://books2read.com/JigsawCity

Nicole’s brain is slowly being taken over by an ancient, magical artifact, a small fragment of a magic city. She seeks a cure, before the city can destroy her sanity and then eventually, take her life by replacing her mind. Racing against time, she gathers pieces of the city, hoping to find an answer among them.

@bookstodon
#author #indieauthor #writing #fantasy #scifi #sciencefiction #sff #sciencefantasy #scifi #actionadventure #fiction #books

(Left) The cover of Jigsaw City, by Owen Tyme.

The background is a futuristic city of sky scrapers covered in greenery, with water ways in place of some streets. The background has been divided by dark lines that cut it up, into a jigsaw puzzle.

The foreground is a hexagonal coin with an indentation in the center that follows the same shape, with raised lines forming a hexagram in the center, which has a smaller one turned at a ninety-degree angle inside the hexagon at the center of it. The smaller hexagram has another inside it, a pattern that repeats until the lines become so fine and indistinct, they blend together.

(Right) There's a pool of lava at the base of a rocky slope, with some sharp rocks sticking upward out of it and the following text over the top:

“I’m immune to heat and fire. I can easily carry and protect one of you…”

“Ye’d need to deliver an army to make a difference, not one person!”

“I *am* an army.”

(Bottom) https://books2read.com/JigsawCity

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148d

Take a chance on one of my otherworldly novels about people who risk everything for the friendship, trust, & love. You also get heaps of humor, whimsy, sarcasm, & optimism. Sometimes gritty but never grim.

Paperbacks & DRM-free ebooks via my website:
https://kmherkes.com/the-bookshop1

kindle: https://www.amazon.com/stores/K.M.-Herkes/author/B00GRLYEL2

Nook, Kobo etc here: https://
books2read.com/kmherkes

(DRM-free where possible)

#bookstodon #BookPromo #books #SciFi #ScienceFiction #fantasy #hopepunk #reading

The covers of seven books by K. M. Herkes shown against a green background with blossoming cherry branches.
The book titles are: Rough Passages, The Sharp Edge Of Yesterday, Relics From A Traveling Show, Controlled Descent, Flight Plan, Weaving In The Ends, and Novices.
Various included tropes are shown as if falling down around the book covers:
chosen family
heists
hopepunk
science fiction
fantasy
short stories
romance
novels
disability rep
feisty heroines
superpowers
suspense

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226d

Chapter 5 of Princess of Kurg is available to read on #RoyalRoad: https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/108234/jigsaw-city

Nicole speaks face to face with the Empress of the Northwestern Empire, to seek permission to travel and collect pieces of Kurg.

However, she's uncomfortable with her bargaining position, for once, because the Empress could ask for almost anything...

@bookstodon
#author #indieauthor #writing #fantasy #scifi #sciencefiction #sff #actionadventure #fiction #fairies #webseries

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226d

📚 The Day of the Triffids by: John Wyndham

When a freak cosmic event renders most of the Earth’s population blind, Bill Masen one of the lucky few to wake up with his sight—finds himself trapped in a London packed with sightless mobs who prey on those who can still see. With civilization in chaos, the tr...

https://bookblabla.com/book/the-day-of-the-triffids

@bookstodon

#books #reading #libraries #fiction #sciencefiction #generalfiction #apocalypticpostapocalyptic

When a freak cosmic event renders most of the Earth’s population blind, Bill Masen one of the lucky few to wake up with his sight—finds himself trapped in a London packed with sightless mobs who prey on those who can still see. With civilization in chaos, the triffids huge, venomous, large-rooted plants able to walk are rising up as humanity falls.

John Wyndham's 1951 classic post-apocalypse novel introduced the world to triffids, walking man-eating plants, preying on humanity in a world struck blind by a cosmic disaster. Only a few sighted people remain, and it is up to them to rebuild civilization and keep the triffids at bay if they can learn to survive in this new world!

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147d

I'm helping to launch Andy Southall's new science fiction novel "Perfect World" - the third book in his science fiction trilogy - at 3pm on Sunday 17th May at Johnsonville Community Centre, Wellington.

Check out more about the book and the trilogy on Andy's website, https://andy-southall.com/

Hope you'll come along to the launch!

@bookstodon #Johnsonville #Waitohi #Wellington #books #booklaunch #nzbooks #ScienceFiction

Poster giving details of Andy Southall's launch of his novel "Perfect World", as described in the text of the post. "Perfect World" is the third volume of a trilogy – the poster also shows the covers of all three books in the trilogy against a yellow background.

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220d

📚 The Universe Box by: Michael Swanwick

Discover the vast worlds and pocket universes of Michael Swanwick (Stations of the Tide), the only author to win science fiction's most prestigious award five times in six years.

In his dazzling new collection, the master of speculative short stories returns with tales in which magic and science improbably c...

https://bookblabla.com/book/the-universe-box

@bookstodon

#books #reading #libraries #fiction #sciencefiction #general

Discover the vast worlds and pocket universes of Michael Swanwick (Stations of the Tide), the only author to win science fiction's most prestigious award five times in six years.

In his dazzling new collection, the master of speculative short stories returns with tales in which magic and science improbably coexist with myth and legend. With two stories original to this collection, Swanwick aptly demonstrates with poignant humor why he is widely respected as a master of imaginative storytelling.

In engaging stories, Mischling the thief races through time to defeat three trolls before the sun rises for the first time and turns the inhabitants of her city into stone. A scientist is on the run from assassins, because her research in merging human intelligence with sentient AI is too dangerous. An aging veteran obtains a military weapon from his past: a VR robotic leopard in which he rediscovers the consequences of the hunt. In the biggest heist in the history of the universe, a loser Trickster (and the girlfriend who is better than he deserves), sets out to violate every trope and expectation of fiction possible.

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225d

Books I Wish I Could Read Again for the First Time: https://lydiaschoch.com/wednesday-weekly-blogging-challenge-books-i-wish-i-could-read-again-for-the-first-time/

#Books #Bookstodon #Nonfiction #ScienceFiction #WednesdayWeeklyBloggingChallenge

@bookstodon

Book cover for A Short History of the World According to Sheep by Sally Coulthard. Image on cover is a photo of a shepherd herding his sheep while they stand on a mountain. There are much larger, snowier mountains in the background.

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225d

Ebook and paperback: https://books2read.com/JigsawCity

Nicole’s brain is slowly being taken over by an ancient, magical artifact, a small fragment of a magic city. She seeks a cure, before the city can destroy her sanity and then eventually, take her life by replacing her mind. Racing against time, she gathers pieces of the city, hoping to find an answer among them.

@bookstodon
#author #indieauthor #writing #fantasy #scifi #sciencefiction #sff #sciencefantasy #scifi #actionadventure #fiction #books

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225d

📚 Carl's Doomsday Scenario by: Matt Dinniman

The aliens have come, and they've transformed Earth into a multilevel, video game–like dungeon. It's the newest season of the galaxy's most watched game show, Dungeon Crawler World. Now on the third floor, Carl and Donut have to fight harder than ever. They've already proven that a Coast Guard ve...

https://bookblabla.com/book/carls-doomsday-scenario

@bookstodon

#books #reading #libraries #fiction #sciencefiction #fantasy

The aliens have come, and they've transformed Earth into a multilevel, video game–like dungeon. It's the newest season of the galaxy's most watched game show, Dungeon Crawler World. Now on the third floor, Carl and Donut have to fight harder than ever. They've already proven that a Coast Guard vet and once-and-forever feline royalty are an almost unstoppable team. Their ratings are off the charts. Viewers can't get enough. But the dungeon gets more dangerous each day, and now there’s a whole new problem to deal with: Quests.

They call it the Over City. A sprawling, once-thriving metropolis devastated by a mysterious calamity. But these streets are far from abandoned. An undead circus trawls the ruins. Murdered women rain from the sky. An ancient spell is finally ready to reveal its dark purpose. Can Carl and Donut solve the mystery in time?

And can Carl finally find some pants?

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER, Join Carl and his ex-girlfriend’s cat, Princess Donut, as they fight fantastical creatures and deadly mobs to make it to the next level and build the kind of fan following the dungeon masters can’t ignore in the second book in the smash-hit Dungeon Crawler Carl series—now with bonus material exclusive to this print edition.

"Greetings, Crawlers! The training levels have concluded. Now the games may truly begin".

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227d

My first Patreon audio reading is now available! I'm experimenting with selling these a la carte, so if you're interested but don't want the commitment of a full membership, it's available to purchase for only $3USD!

https://www.patreon.com/posts/reprotech-user-149214618

#SciFi #ScienceFiction

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221d

My novelette All Rights Reserved is now available IN PRINT! Order direct from your favourite online storefront, request it from your local bookstore or library, or get a signed copy when you join the Patreon at the Posthuman tier or above!

https://www.amazon.com/All-Rights-Reserved-Xauriel-Zwaan/dp/B0GKBMZXPP/

#SciFi #ScienceFiction

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219d

Chapter 8 of Princess of Kurg is available to read on #RoyalRoad: https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/108234/jigsaw-city

Minerva enacts her terrible plan, offering up first her husband, then her daughter and finally, her son. She's overcome by grief and disgust with herself, vowing that when next they face the Void, she'll offer up herself...

@bookstodon
#author #indieauthor #writing #fantasy #scifi #sciencefiction #sff #actionadventure #fiction #fairies #webseries

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219d

Ken MacLeod: Imagined Futures

Ken MacLeod joins the Plutopia News Network to discuss his work’s political themes: failed modern systems, rising nationalism, & the struggle to find common interest in a fragmented world. He also reflects candidly on the craft of writing, which he says still hinges on the hardest part: plotting & bringing a story to a satisfying, coherent conclusion.

https://plutopia.io/ken-macleod-imagined-futures/amp/

#Scottish #literature #ScienceFiction #scifi #writing #podcast

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