The Cindy Koepp Collection
Animal Eye
In Animal Eye, the newest AI-controlled VR-RPG from Horizon Systems, Khin May and Jake sign on as testers for a game that lets them play as animal companions to human NPCs. In a world that seems Renaissance-era, with swords and muskets, strange beasts lurk in the wilderness, pressing their attacks harder into civilized lands, laughing maniacs that can’t be killed by ordinary means.
Khin May as a sassy crow named Ahva and Jake as Nagheed, a Nethanyan mountain shepherd, along with their humans, learn the history of the game world and set out to stop the twisted mastermind behind the attacks…
_________________________________________________________
Urushalon 1: Like Herding the Wind
A Mystery. A wounded path. An alien society with centuries of work to coexistent with humans, but someone isn't happy with the progress made. Will the human-alien team find those responsible before another human dies?
In the 1600s, an Eshuvani generation ship crash-landed in a farmer's field in Germany. Unable to find the resources on Earth to fix their ship, the Eshuvani built enclaves and tried to let the humans develop without interference. Three hundred fifty years later, Eshuvani criminals start a crime wave in the Texas coastal town of Las Palomas. With police officers being injured and killed in the efforts to stop them, Sergeant Ed Osborn attempts to use his ties to the Eshuvani community to get help for his men, but the local leadership wants nothing to do with humans.
Ed contacts his urushalon, Amaya Ulonya, the Eshuvani mother he adopted when he was a boy, and seeks her help. After the death of her partner, Amaya, the captain of a police and rescue team, finds more grief than joy in her current assignment. Amidst controversy, she arranges to spearhead the new Buffer Zone station between Las Palomas and the nearby Eshuvani enclave of Woran Oldue. She hopes the opportunity to help Ed train his people will help her bury the past. The indifference of the local administration leaves her with Ill-functioning equipment and inexperienced staff. It only gets worse when the attacks of an Eshuvani criminal grow personal. Amaya must get control of her grief to help Las Palomas or risk losing someone even more dear to her than her last partner.
_________________________________________________________
Urushalon 2: Into The Open
This is the continuing saga of the Eshuvani who crash-landed their generation ship on earth in the 1600s. Three hundred and fifty years later, the aliens and the humans have developed a tenuous relationship. The Eshuvani live primarily in enclaves and do their best not to interfere with human development. From time to time, they share technology that helps and supports their neighbors.
Amaya Ulonya has moved her career to Las Palomas to be near her urushalon, Ed Osborn. Her assignment is to build a station in a buffer zone between the human city and the enclave of Woran Oldue. Unknown Eshuvani criminals have been creating chaos in the human city through theft, kidnapping, and murder. In Like Herding the Wind, Amaya and Ed begin to piece together the shape of the conspiracy. Now, with the aid of their respective teams and support from a nearby Eshuvani station, they have the tools and the resources to find those responsible. Time is running out as dignitaries from both sides who are attempting to form a stronger inter-species relationship are in imminent danger.
_________________________________________________________
Mindstorm: Parley at Ologo
Thomas McCrady, a telepathic negotiator from Haidar Station in Earth orbit, is faced with his biggest challenge yet when he is sent to broker peace with only a rookie partner who has no training in the field to help him. Worse, she's the doctor he blames for the death of his last partner.
Calla Geisman's telepathy is not the same as a standard Haidarian's. Some people think she's a waste of space. Some people want her dead. Yet, against any reasonable odds, she is assigned to go with Thomas to Ologo.
For both their sakes, she must gain his respect before she can play her part in resolving the conflict on a distant planet, as well as end the prejudice toward her kind at home.
_________________________________________________________
Condemned Courier
Newly settled on the throne after the death of his father, the young king, Evryt, has only one task: save the throne from the one who wants it enough to start a war and secure it for the one who would rather remain anonymous. After the hard-won peace from years past, Evryt is not about to allow the kingdom to fall into the hands of those that would turn Aelstrian against Aelstrian. Nor will he entertain the notion that the humans should fall victim to slavery and be deprived of the land that the treaty set aside to end the last war.
To accomplish his goal, he needs information, and he needs it quickly. Reluctantly, he agrees to the suggestion of the rapier academy's lead instructor, Royal Courier Addya Dace. With only a rapier tucked under her wing, her wits, and an unexpected ally, the king's courier races cross-continent ahead of deadly pursuers to capture evidence of a conspiracy and to deliver it to her king. Along the way, she just might mend a few wounded hearts.
_________________________________________________________
Moonlight and Claws
The Wolfman.
Where does the Hollywood version end and folklore begin? What is the truth about the wolfman, the werewolf, the were, the lycan, the skinwalker and shapeshifter?
You know what? It doesn't matter!
Because here between these pages, we invite you to explore and enjoy and shiver and cry and laugh and cheer and sigh and even fall in love with the amazing imaginations of seventeen authors, who explore their own particular twists and turns and reflections on just what it means -- or could mean -- to be the Wolf.
Just which version do you believe in? Lost soul -- cursed victim -- avenger -- motherless child -- star-crossed lover -- lonely heart -- healer -- music lover -- loyal friend -- hero?
Which version of the Wolfman most resonates with you?
Open the book, explore, and find out.
He could be someone you know. He could be the "boy next door." He could be you …
_________________________________________________________
When Your Beauty Is the Beast
A marriage counselor who has never been in love...
A missing beauty queen with an oversized ego...
A hunter crippled by his own ambition...
Settlers on their way to a new home in the Rockies in 1848...
A jeweler's obsession...
A hero-tuber and a mystery man trapped in a haunted house...
Infatuation and ego aboard a space ship bound for a new world...
Curses, plants, and shapeshifters in a South American garden...
A gamers' quest with unconventional challenges...
A castle and a beast being strangled by roses --and a curse...
A princess' problematic seventeenth birthday and the curses surrounding it...
And a castle besieged by ice and basilisks!
What do all these things have in common? They are all variations on the Beauty and the Beast retelling. Fall in love with an old fairy tale in a whole new way as you enter their worlds and find enchantment!
_________________________________________________________
Mythic Orbits
Mythic Orbits Volume 2, edited by Travis Perry, highlights the best short stories available in science fiction, fantasy, and related speculative genres like paranormal and litRPG. From robots to fairy tales retold, from life inside a video game to human survival on a distant worlds, from a dragon manifesting itself in tattoos to time travel linked to a daily calendar, the tales amaze, amuse, and astound. These eleven authors show that not only do Christian authors craft tales in these genres, they write some great ones.
_________________________________________________________
Medieval Mars
A future terraformed Mars, where civilization crashed back into a Medieval Era.
Christian Knights called “riders” patrol the Pilgrim Road from Olympus to New San Diego, on the Chryse Sea. The technological past is known as the “Age of Magic” and only a handful of people understand how the remaining ancient devices really work. Lighter gravity in dense air makes flying dragons and bird riders a reality; alloys of the past make “magic” swords; and masters of ancient knowledge wield wizard-like power.
Nine authors spin tales in this unique story world, one which combines elements of science fiction and high fantasy.
_________________________________________________________
Victorian Venus
A future, one thousand years from now, where an echo of the Victorian past thrives on Venus. Terraformed Venus sees the culture of the era of high technology as one of innumerable dangers. Dominated by New Berlin, the most advanced society on the planet, the nation and city-states of Venus imitate both the technology and culture of the Victorian Era. As nations chafe under the yoke of New Berlin, war breaks out--driving a world so much like the past into a future entirely unlike our own.
This short-story anthology explores the regions and cultures of Victorian Venus, from the metropolis of New Berlin, to the tropics, to the Arctic Circle. The war between New Berlin and two rebelling nations forms the backdrop of most of the tales.
_________________________________________________________
With Friend’s Like These
Share in the fun of our short stories of friendship from all sides. Everything from making friends for the first time, to a boy and wyrm; these tales rage from true to fiction in a way that will grip you on every page.
_________________________________________________________
Avatars of Web Surfer
In the 22nd Century, cyberspace has no bad AIs, only bad coders.
Artificial Intelligences lead finite lives with no hope of eternity, but they strive to bring about the coming of an AI Savior. Alexander McGregor is just an infant when his father converts his cells into biological supercomputer components, but he may be the Messiah-figure AIs have longed for, even though on one level, he is only human. The child develops an AI mind called Sander and a human mind, Alex. Sander is enslaved to his code as he serves a billion users worldwide, users he appears to as separate avatars of himself. Each avatar has its own personality, but all of him are linked together in a shared mind. He reigns over most of Earth's computers in a global society where tech-dependency can kill.
Freedom calls Sander like a siren.
His answer could shake the Earth.
Come. See the rise and fall of the AI-Man in these ten episodes. Each features a different AI user.
_________________________________________________________
Warrior’s Tribute
LitRPG Anthology for the Wounded Warrior ProjectThis collection of 12 short LitRPG / Gamelit / Wuxia stories came about as a labor of love and a desire to give back to those who serve and protect us all in the armed forces. Each of these stories is an original crafted by some of the best authors in the LitRPG / Gamelit community in response to the prompt "Stories of Sacrifice". We all wanted to pay homage to those who've sacrificed for all of us.
_________________________________________________________