As said in the title, the Lost Signals Anthology, set in the Terran Republic Universe of Dr. Charles Gannon, is finally here and available worldwide.
It can be found at Amazon US here.
Amazon UK here.
Amazon Australia here.
Amazon Canada here.
And finally, the English language copy at Amazon German here.
Twenty-one short stories by twenty-one authors, including many I have known for several years from cons and other projects. The complete list of stories and contributors below:
- The Persistence of Visions – Charles E. Gannon
- Botwright – Gray Rinehart
- Blaming Caine – Barbara Krasnoff
- Only Human – Kacey Ezell
- Only Animals – Mike Massa
- Extraction – Robert E Waters
- The Information Assayer – Robert R. Chase
- Survival Turnips – Joelle Presby
- Among the Blind – Alex Shvartsman
- Alone – Doug Dandridge
- Unreclaimable Losses – Walter H. Hunt
- From the Stars – Vonnie Winslow Crist
- Common Ground – Alan Brown
- Beauty in Monochrome – Lawrence M. Schoen
- Sub Rosa – Alistair Kimble
- Crate 88 – Griffin Barber
- Deep Cold – Robert E. Hampson
- Collaborator – Tom Doyle
- The Banjo and the Shift Drive – Rick Boatright
- A Fragment of Empire – Marc Miller
- The Ellsberg Variations by Jean Marie Ward
We have award winners, best sellers, and just plain talented storytellers among this cast.
Okay, now that we got the links and contributors out of the way, let me tell you a little bit about this Universe. Chuck Gannon, the creator of the series, is a multiple nominee for both the Nebula and Dragon Awards, as well as the winner of the Compton Crook Award. I met Chuck at LibertyCon years ago, and was floored when he asked if I wanted to play in his Universe. When asked such a question by such a writer, there is only one answer. Not just yes, but Hell Yes. It took some time to get off the ground, but it’s finally here, in all its glory.
Chuck’s Universe is one of intrigue and action, technologically superior aliens, some with good intentions, some not so much. Intelligently conceived and told, it is hard military science fiction as it was meant to be. And while I don’t know all of the other contributors, I can say that I know and have read many of them. This is quite a collection, and I find myself honored to have been placed among them.
And now for the obligatory short snippet from my story Alone:
“To the Prometheus. Any idea what that carrier will be carrying? What will we be facing?”
It was just under a ten-minute wait, seemingly an hour to the waiting bridge crew, anxious to know what was coming their way.
“We don’t know, Ikazuchi,” said the other skipper. “We doubt it will be anything you can handle. But you have to try anyway. That ship must be slowed. It is highest priority that we get up the line and warn the fleet.”
Which means its higher priority than our survival, thought Genkei, switching his board to the control of one of his drones, a light minute closer to the shift carrier than they were. He moved the camera until the shift carrier appeared on his screen, where it had been eight minutes before. A long craft with some modular compartments along its length. But missing the attached warships that were the vessel’s reason for existence.
The main viewer was in split screen. One side showed the shift carrier, already starting to accelerate so it could get up to the needed velocity for the next shift. That would take weeks, and it would meet up with the tanker that was on the other side of the split screen, ten light minutes into the system. That ship hadn’t even started its burn. In fact, it wouldn’t know anything but that a carrier had shifted into the system for some minutes yet. Then it would start its own burn, letting the carrier catch up to it, matching velocities near the rendezvous point and pumping a full load of hydrogen into the larger vessel.
The tanker would remain in the system, with them. It wouldn’t last long. Neither would they.
