The Hundred Worlds is an ambitious new project combining the talents of thirteen old hands and new writers to tell the tales of a common universe. It can be bought in Amazon.US here, and in Amazon.UK here. It already has nine reviews at Amazon.US, and a five star average (I’ll let you do the math).

A couple of years ago at Liberty Con in Chattanooga I was on a veteran’s panel with John Holmes (JF Holmes to those who follow his work). He is a retired Army Sergeant First Class (E7) who served in artillery. As a former grunt I won’t hold that against him. I was asked if I wanted to contribute to an anthology. It would include some well-known indie writers as well as some who were just starting out and needed the exposure. Which is how I found myself involved in this anthology. Together, though most of the work was from our philosophically minded retired platoon sergeant, we developed a dystopian world of the future. The United Nations has gone from bad to worse, and controls the food supply of all the outworld colonies. They have controlled and restricted weapons, and deny the existence of aliens other than the one species that is common knowledge. Obviously invested in the status quo and not wanting anyone to change it. They use brutal methods, up to and including murder, to get rid of dissenters. Of course this has bred the dissent they wanted to avoid, but outright revolt is impossible when all the crops planted are incapable of producing viable seeds, which have to be distributed by the UN on a yearly basis. Toe the line or starve.

I was interested, and decided on a story where an ex-UN Marines decides to get back at the Citizens, those who enforce the draconian laws of the United Nations. To do so they use the leverage they gain by having control of many of the families of people who might be rebellious. So the story was titled leverage, as the rebel uses this system to lead some Citizens into a trap on the Terraforming Mars. If you like my other work, I’m sure you will like this one, and the anthology is the only place you will get it. Add to that a bunch of short tales of many other authors, and this is one you don’t want to miss. Fifteen stories for $2.99 on Amazon, a can’t beat it deal.

John actually started a publishing company, Cannon Publishing (what else would an old artillery sergeant call it), with the plan of using established authors to help new comers get some traction. I’m all for it, and wish someone had been doing this when I started out.

Okay, now to the Author List: Myself (Doug Dandridge), JF Holmes, Jon Del Arroz, James Schardt, Lucas Marcum, James Peters, Sean McCune, Daniel Humphreys, Bart Kemper, J.K. Robinson, T. Allen Diaz, and John M. Olsen. Some you may have heard of, some not, but all are writers you will want to sample and follow on down the road.

Next up: I will be discussing my soon to be released novel in the Machine War saga, and will be embarking on a new blog genre, video games. What I like about some of them, what they could have down better. See you then.