sci fi – dystopian & post apocalyptic

Word Count: Click here to reveal52000 (Click here to hide)

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Summary: River Carteret is a diplomat, known for crafting solutions between disparate groups. Growing up on Earth under the control of the Guardians, he’d never experienced hardships, such as war, plague, or famine. Urged by his Guardian supervisor, River volunteers to go to the planet Drakonis to broker an agreement between the Drakos, and the Draas. He is determined to bring equality to the Draas, wresting it from their ruling class, the Drakos, if necessary. There is only one, small problem. The Drakos are a sanguinary race, needing blood to survive, and River, with his rare hemoglobin, constitutes a banquet to the Drakos, a lethal hazard for him. Mix in an angelically handsome vampire Prince, low oxygen levels, and food he can’t eat, and River has set himself up for a task that will cause him to use every skill he has to survive. Will River become prey to the Drakos? Or will he succeed, losing his heart along the way?

Word Count: Click here to reveal59000 (Click here to hide)

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Summary: Dare Munro possesses empathic abilities, a mutation that emerged in humans during the past climate crisis. Some people interpret these mutations as Mother Nature’s way of seeking revenge or finding solace for what has been lost. When his ‘gift’ became evident, his parents abandoned him, but now he’s a counselor of high repute with a Mindset Three rating. Only Dare knows that he is not what he appears to be. Dare’s true abilities came to light when he assisted a client dealing with the loss of his family. It was only a matter of time before the Service came for him to lock him away and use his talents for their own gain. Determined to escape Earth, he secures passage on the colony ship, Gambit. On the ship, he’ll find Jason Stravetta, the ship owner’s son, who is famous for his strong aversion to Mindsets. Despite the other man’s dislike, Dare is drawn to Stravetta, hoping for a friend rather than an enemy.

Word Count: Click here to reveal25000 (Click here to hide)

Character Identities: Click here to revealGay (Click here to hide)

Summary: Malcolm Barclay Bain is an Archivist with the Department of Possible Futures. He spends his day conducting research, managing the Department's physical collections…and retrieving dangerous objects carelessly misplaced along the waves of time. When he is instructed to retrieve an item that his handlers refer to simply as the tech, he travels back in time to Kansas City, 1927. He hunts through the vibrant city to find his treasure–but he's not the only one, and soon Mal finds himself clashing with--and drawn toward--a handsome adversary. The Archivist is the first novella in the Department of Possible Futures series, a collection of queer cyberpunk stories following Malcolm and Archie with an eventual HEA.

Word Count: Click here to reveal38000 (Click here to hide)

Character Identities: Click here to revealAce, Aromantic, Bisexual, Demigender, Demisexual (Click here to hide)

Summary: RISE (noun / verb) Eight definitions to inspire writers around the world, and an unlimited number of possible stories to tell: 1) An upward slope or movement 2) A beginning or origin 3) An increase in amount or number 4) An angry reaction 5) To take up arms 6) To return from death 7) To become heartened or elated 8) To exert oneself to meet a challenge Rise features 300-word speculative flash fiction stories from across the rainbow spectrum, from the minds of the writers of Queer Sci Fi.

Word Count: Click here to reveal34000 (Click here to hide)

Character Identities: Click here to revealGay (Click here to hide)

Summary: Dwyn is a young man in the small, isolated northern town of Manicouga, son of the Minstor, and betrothed to marry the beautiful Kessa in a few weeks. Mael is shepherding the remains of his own people from Land’s End, a village farther north, chased out by a terrible storm that destroyed the town. Both are trying to find their way in a post-apocalyptic world. When they meet, their love may change the course of history.

Word Count: Click here to reveal14500 (Click here to hide)

Character Identities: Click here to revealGay (Click here to hide)

Summary: After Doomsday, there wasn’t much left—a world that had fallen apart. It hadn’t been enough to boil the oceans and raze the surface with fire. With that scorched earth had come a final solution, the contagion. In a world where every breath was ash and disease, few survived. The Imperium hunted them, extracting healthy flesh to extend the life of the powerful. All the while, soaring unseen, the tools of an old order search. Hidden far from the sight of the ruthless Imperium, deep beneath the earth, the DIRE stations offer renewal—an exit from the destruction of the world. Those ships, like a phoenix, rise with the last refugees to bring them to DIRE, hoping that a keeper yet lives to hold open the only chance of escape.

Word Count: Click here to reveal55880 (Click here to hide)

Character Identities: Click here to revealBisexual, Gay (Click here to hide)

Summary: An M/M Science Fiction Romance Disaster novel with a happy ending! As children, Mick and Adrian forged a promise as they looked up at the stars. Time and money pulled them apart with harsh words and bitter regrets, and their wish was cast aside. Now, space is a haven for the wealthy, who flaunt their riches aboard the opulent Empyrean Station, dining on crab with a spectacular view of Earth and enjoying a permanent vacation in one of Empyrean's many temperate biospheres. The stars are a long-forgotten dream to starship mechanic Mick, who lives in the Old New York shanty town swallowing his remorse as he struggles to meet his basic needs. Until Adrian returns to him with heart-rending news—he's terminally ill with Miasma, a pollutant-driven, degenerative illness. With Adrian only having months to live, Mick realizes nothing matters except loving him and reaching for their dream together. Stealing a spaceship, they launch into space to see the stars with their own eyes. Mick and Adrian end up embroiled in miracles and tragedies as they fathom Empyrean's true nature and face down those who would do anything to survive the coming apocalypse—except solve the problem.

Word Count: Click here to reveal15000 (Click here to hide)

Character Identities: Click here to revealBisexual, Demisexual, Gay, Pansexual (Click here to hide)

Summary: Can a retired assassin be the savior his people need? How does a former assassin save his fellow humans from extinction? By allying them with mrrogs of course! But that’s easier said than done as humans are understandably distrustful and suspicious of sescurei, the official species of the InterGalactic community. Leopold must convince them that Mastrodai’s offer of alliance isn’t a trick, which means diplomacy, patience, and tenacity. Times like this make him grateful that he has two strong mates to lean on. And when it comes to understanding his own people, he’d be wise to follow Alex’s lead. Alex has been too long away from her family and is thrilled to see them again. But with reunions come old pressures, old doubts, and old wounds. She must negotiate who she was with who she is, while helping her mates and her colony come together with the shared goal of freedom. Mastrodai, meanwhile, finds himself in the minority for the first time in his life, and the constant hostility has him doubting the wisdom of their choices. But he’s devoted to his human mates and determined to see things through no matter the discomfort… or danger. Not everyone wants what Leopold and his mates have to give, and he needs to break through the resistance humans have built up after generations of degradation, humiliation, and fear. He must win his people’s trust, solve the riddle of his parents’ rings, and navigate the new complexities of his love life. Being an assassin was so much easier. Reader Discretion advised: PTSD, abusive family, a cult, MMF romance, dystopian.

Word Count: Click here to reveal33000 (Click here to hide)

Character Identities: Click here to revealAce, Aromantic, Bisexual, Demigender, Demisexual, Gay, Genderfluid, Genderqueer, Intersex, Lesbian, Non Binary, Questioning, Pansexual, Polyamorous, Straight, Transgender (Click here to hide)

Summary: Clarity (noun) Four definitions to inspire writers around the world and an unlimited number of possible stories to tell: 1) Coherent and intelligible 2) Transparent or pure 3) Attaining certainty about something 4) Easy to see or hear Clarity features 300-word speculative flash fiction stories from across the rainbow spectrum, from the minds of the writers of Queer Sci Fi.

Word Count: Click here to reveal119000 (Click here to hide)

Character Identities: Click here to revealGay (Click here to hide)

Summary: All Ilya knows about the world Before is from pictures old books: of glittering cities made of glass: of creatures like bears and wolves that used to haunt not only the forests. He knows little of the wars that forced people to flee the cities. The wars were over a long time ago. One dusk, when Ilya and his sister are hunting rabbits, a bear, a creature that they were told no longer exists, comes into their forest glade, and everything Ilya thought he knew about his world begins to disintegrate. Especially everything he thought he knew about Caleb, the mysterious boy none of the villagers can understand. Getting to know Caleb feels secret. But Ilya has too many secrets of his own—he can feel heartbeats, sense the forest, the warmth of all life within it. And Ilya has not always lived in the village…though where he comes from, he does not know…

Word Count: Click here to reveal45000 (Click here to hide)

Character Identities: Click here to revealBisexual, Gay (Click here to hide)

Summary: Tangents & Tachyons is Scott's second anthology - six sci fi and sci-fantasy shorts that run the gamut from time travel to hopepunk and retro spec fic: Eventide: Tanner Black awakes to find himself in his own study, staring out the window at the end of the Universe. But who brought him there, and why? Chinatown: Deryn lives in an old San Francisco department store with his girlfriend Gracie, and scrapes by with his talent as a dreamcaster for the Chinese overlords. But what if a dream could change the world? Across the Transom: What if someone or something took over your body on an urgent mission to save your world? Pareidolia: Simon's not like other college kids. His mind can rearrange random patterns to reveal the images lurking inside. But where did his strange gift come from? And what if there are others like him out there too? Lamplighter: Fen has a crush on his friend Lewin, who's in a competing guild. But when the world goes dark, only a little illumination can save it. And only Fen, Lewin and their friend Alissa can light the spark. A Liminal Sky short. Prolepsis: Sean is the closeted twenty-five-year-old editor of an 80's sci-fi 'zine called Prolepsis. When an unabashedly queer story arrives from a mysterious writer, it blows open Sean's closet door, and offers him the chance to change the world - and the future. Plus two flash fiction stories – The System and The Frog Prince, never before published. This is the first time all of these stories have all been collected in one place.

Word Count: Click here to reveal36000 (Click here to hide)

Character Identities: Click here to revealAce, Aromantic, Bisexual, Demigender, Demisexual, Gay, Genderfluid, Genderqueer, Intersex, Lesbian, Non Binary, Questioning, Pansexual, Polyamorous, Straight, Transgender (Click here to hide)

Summary: INK (NOUN) Five definitions to inspire writers around the world and an unlimited number of possible stories to tell: 1) A colored fluid used for writing 2) The action of signing a deal 3) A black liquid ejected by squid 4) Publicity in the written media 5) A slang word for tattoos Ink features 300-word speculative flash fiction stories from across the rainbow spectrum, from the minds of the writers of Queer Sci Fi.

Word Count: Click here to reveal47016 (Click here to hide)

Character Identities: Click here to revealBisexual, Gay (Click here to hide)

Summary: Enhanced humans were supposed to help explore the stars. But their existence threatened a fragile world, and so they were hunted on Terra, Luna, and Mars. Before the purge of all enhs on Terra, Sartre is sent to Luna, where he falls in love and fathers twins. When his existence and his children’s existence is endangered, he flees with other clones to a distant moon. When Madsen meets Sartre on a distant city-station, little does he know that their paths would intertwine. Although they share a mutual distrust of each other, they soon find out each other’s survival is dependent on the other, and their escape to a distant moon of Neptune may be the only chance to save their lives, and the lives of their loved ones. When feelings between Madsen and Sartre surface, can they learn to trust each other to see where things might lead?

Word Count: Click here to reveal130000 (Click here to hide)

Character Identities: Click here to revealAce, Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian, Straight, Transgender (Click here to hide)

Summary: Life after the Crash. Over a century after the end of the Earth, life goes on in Redemption, the sole remaining Lunar colony, and possibly the last outpost of humankind in the Solar System. But with an existential threat burrowing its way into the Moon's core, humanity must recolonize the homeworld. Twenty brave dropnauts set off on a mission to explore the empty planet. Four of them—Rai, Hera, Ghost and Tien—have trained for two-and-a-half years for the Return. They're bound for Martinez Base, just outside the Old Earth city of San Francisco. But what awaits them there will turn their assumptions upside down—and in the process, either save or destroy what's left of humanity.

Word Count: Click here to reveal23800 (Click here to hide)

Character Identities: Click here to revealGay, Transgender (Click here to hide)

Summary: Colton is a trans man living in a climate-changed world. He plies the canals that used to be city streets, earning a living taking tourists on illicit journeys through San Francisco's flooded edges beneath the imposing bulk of the Wall. Tris is an elf who comes through the veil to the City by the Bay - the Caille - on a coming of age pilgrimage called the Cailleadhama. He is searching for his brother Laris, who went missing after crossing through the Caille years before. The two men find they have common cause, and together they set off to find Laris in a world transformed by the twin forces of greed and climate change. And in the end, they find out more than they ever expected, both about the warming world and their own selves.

Word Count: Click here to reveal20000 (Click here to hide)

Character Identities: Click here to revealGay (Click here to hide)

Summary: Zeke is a hermit in his late forties who lives a quiet life in a small cabin in the Western Montana mountains, a few miles outside of Thompson Falls. He’s gotten used to being alone since the end of the world, and has everything he needs. Everything but someone to talk to. Nathan is a younger man on a cross-country trek, searching the country for someone... anyone still alive. Saddled with a ghost from his old life and a case of OCD, he stumbles upon Thompson Falls and a pack of rabid dogs. Rescued by Zeke, he has to figure out how to be human again. And with Christmas just a week away, both men have to figure out if there’s something left to be hopeful for, and if they might have a future together.

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Summary:

An ancient craving. A dead world. Can one near-immortal save his heart as the planet descends into ruin?

Buy Soul Survivor to feed the beast today!

Word Count: Click here to reveal35000 (Click here to hide)

Character Identities: Click here to revealBisexual, Lesbian (Click here to hide)

Summary: Jane always thought she'd live a fairly ordinary life. Then the world broke and changed everything. Jane never expected to be the one running the local unofficial orphanage. But while it wasn't what she had planned, she wouldn't trade it for anything. She loves her kids and the life they've all built. She's happy just trying to stay under the radar while keeping them all fed and out of the clutches of the local militia. Things are going well until her kids surprise her with an unconscious woman on the kitchen table, not even an hour after the militia was in the front yard looking for the same woman. Jane has no issue hiding someone from the militia as long as they aren't an actual criminal, so together the household nurses Livy back to health. It doesn't take long for Livy's bright smile to start chipping away at Jane's short but sturdy walls. Can Jane let down her guard enough for Livy to slip through? And what will Livy do if she does? She wasn't ready for her world to change again…but love has a mind of its own.

Word Count: Click here to reveal101000 (Click here to hide)

Character Identities: Click here to revealGay (Click here to hide)

Summary: Brey would rate himself least likely to survive a zombie apocalypse. Yet here he is. True, it was a viral apocalypse not zombies, but still… Gone from spoiled rich kid to convict in sixty seconds flat. Stuck in prison with his family three thousand miles away. But not for long. Soon everyone is on the run from the virus. When guards set the convicts loose, Brey vows to reunite with his family no matter what it takes. So what if he sucks at keeping promises? He’s damned if he’s breaking this one. Getting home is his only goal. Too bad there’s somebody who won’t make that easy for him… Hank is a cop. He enforces the law. Even the toxic ones. Waterfall, a small city that made it through the apocalypse, survives on the sale of human beings. Nobody’s getting in the way of Hank’s plans to stop them. Nobody but the rich kid he once arrested for murder. Now the guy’s up for sale, and Hank’s plans go south in a hurry. On the spot to make a quick decision, he buys him. What else can he do?… Dark with snark and crazy romantic. Want to tag along with Brey and Hank while they figure out how to reconcile the irreconcilable? For heart-stopping drama, heart-breaking scenes, swoon-worthy love, and a happy-ever-after to last a lifetime, read now or buy On the Eve of Forever and enjoy! NOTE: On the Eve of Forever was previously published as Backbone by Pride Publishing. It has been rewritten and expanded by approximately 25,000 words.

Word Count: Click here to reveal131000 (Click here to hide)

Character Identities: Click here to revealAce, Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian, Non Binary, Straight, Transgender (Click here to hide)

Summary: As the epic trilogy hurtles toward its conclusion, the fight for the future isn’t over yet. It could lead to a new beginning, or it might spell the end for the last vestiges of humankind. The generation ship Forever has left Earth behind, but a piece of the old civilization lives on in the Inthworld—a virtual realm that retains memories of Earth's technological wonders and vices. A being named Lilith leads the uprising, and if she succeeds in setting its inhabitants free, they could destroy Forever. But during the generation ship's decades-long voyage, humanity has evolved. Liminals with the ability to connect with the world mind and the Inthworld provide a glimmer of hope. They'll have to face not only Lilith’s minions, but also the mistrust of their own kind and persecution from a new government as homotypicals continue to fear what they can't understand. The invasion must be stopped, the Inthworld must be healed, and the people of Forever must let go of their past and embrace what they’re meant to become.