In school, we learned about the world before the End. People didn't have to think about whether or not they would live to tomorrow. There was time for fun, for entertainment. There were even things called amusement parks. Life during then seems like a fantasy to us, too ideal for the conditions now. People during the Golden Times had it easy. Now, it's no longer easy. Those people hadn't thought about the future generations, about how we would live. It never occurred to them that resources on Earth would soon be reduced dramatically, or that the air would soon be so contaminated that if one breathed in it for too long, they'd die. Now, we have to clean up the messes that they left behind. Because they were so irresponsible, we have to pay the price. Can we really do this? Is it possible for us to fix the environment? Or will Earth soon recover on its own, only to find itself uninhabited? I don't know. Quite frankly, I don't think we can do this. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1/22/2016: #350 in Science Fiction 1/23/2016: #245 in Science Fiction 1/24/2016: #233 in Science Fiction 6/15/2016: #366 in Science Fiction

For 17 year old Benna Denman, it's hard enough being the president's daughter. And when she develops a telepathic Link, life gets even worse. Her father isn't impressed with this new evolutionary ability. It means he could lose control over people's communications - in a world without cell phones, publicly accessible internet, or a postal service, it's difficult for dissent to spread and uprising to organize. That's just the way he likes it. So when the government starts offering cash in exchange for these telepaths, and Benna is under suspicion by both her boyfriend and her powerful father, she knows she's in trouble. Upon discovering that the cold Dr. Frenchwood plans to use her as a lab rat to develop a cure for telepathy, Benna and her Link, a boy named Corin, decide to try to run... First place for best fantasy/sci fi in @Gossamersilverglow's Best Fiction Competition 2016 Best Female Character @Gossamersilverglow's Best Fiction Competition 2016 Made to it the Elite Eight of @Fantasci's The Chosen One Competition 2016/17

[Book 1 of the ARC10 Trilogy] **Winner of the 2017 Watty Storysmith award** The President created an underground safe-haven for the survivors of the alien invasion. He built it to save them all from total annihilation. He protects them, feeds them, keeps them under his ever-watchful gaze so they can live. All he asks is that they obey. Captain Janika Lorn doesn't want to obey. Not if it means spreading her legs and contributing to the President's precious eugenics program. As a perfect candidate for the Human Hope Project, she is obligated by law to make more citizens for the dying society. But all she wants is her freedom to fight the Invaders and protect the people who already exist. If the mandated program wasn't bad enough, the worst part is trying to fulfill it with Captain Dean Freyer, her scientifically matched partner and best friend of sixteen years. Just as Captain Lorn is about to succumb to her fate, another opportunity arises. A mysterious commanding officer asks her to lead a human refugee ship--to save humanity by evacuating the destroyed Earth and shuttling the remaining population to a new habitable exoplanet 400 light years away. The mission is perilous. Especially because now, standing between her and her freedom is the hostile alien hosts of her ship, the ARC10, a sister returned from the dead, an array of impossibly confusing alien tech, a rekindled heat between her and Dean, and a sexy militia chief she can't seem to keep her hands off of. ARC10 is a romance-heavy sci-fi with the speculative horror of Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale and the military action of Battle: Los Angeles. Cover art by @FayLane Copyright © 2016 by LL Montez

Freedom is a gift. Gifts aren't given freely. Unless you're one of them. Kaylin Renoz dreads Assortment Day. Just like everyone else. People sold to the wealthy, escaping from poverty, only to be branded with a number. May 5. The day of her 17th birthday. The day she's chosen. The day she become 2309. The day Kaylin disappears forever. (Credit to @suganthii for the amazing cover)

***The Corner Booth Contest Runner-Up*** WARNING: contains one blue-eyed stranger, one fast-talking heroine, and a couple of scenes steamier than a mirage at noon. Throw in gigantic dust storms, lawmen out for blood, plus a wasteland to be traversed and you are in for an adventure sultrier than the desert sun! You would think May was living in paradise. After all, a gorgeous man just showed up on her porch willing to do anything she asks of him. But this is no paradise. May lives in a world settled by technology-rejecting idealists wishing to live in harmony with the land. That land, however, has not been very cooperative. The desert in the heart of the planet is spreading outward at an alarming pace, swallowing anything that gets in its way. And May? She's in its way, all right! Alone on her parents' dying farm, May has two goats, a shotgun, and a whole lot of dust. That's about all she has, until the day Ro shows up. Ro brings with him a secret most of their world isn't ready to face. The lawmen on his tail will do whatever it takes, including murder, to keep that secret buried in the desert sand. If they don't succeed in killing May and Ro, no matter: the desert might just do the job for them.