Space-colony Stories

Zaid Al-Zaher sees numbers as colors. He has spent twenty years turning that gift into a career - and into a wall between himself and everything he lost at nine. Then, at midnight, a file appears in his computer. No sender. No timestamp. Inside: his own voice, age seven, reciting prime numbers. What follows is a trail his father built before disappearing - five puzzles, each one requiring exactly the mind Zaid has. Each one opening a door he didn't know was closed. His father isn't dead. His mother isn't dead. And the number 66, which has followed Zaid his entire life without explanation - is a thread. Between everything that is real. A literary science fiction novel set on a colony planet, about a man who built his life on beautiful illusions - and must now decide what to do with the truth.

Abused wife. Hitman. Space station. Lies. Love story.

24 years of interstellar travel, check. Consequences incoming. After a great mistake leaves a planetary colony in jeopardy, Dr. Talia Ernst contemplates a life-altering decision about her future and struggles with the repercussions of the decision that brought her to Anima. Cover created by The Unity Awards and *** The Unity Awards - 1st Place - Science Fiction (September 30, 2017) *** *** The Freedom Awards - 1st Place - Science Fiction (September, 2017) *** *** Elimination Awards - 1st Place - Science Fiction (September 11, 2017) *** *** The Discourse Awards - 1st Place - Science Fiction (November 2017) *** *** The Blue Rose Awards - 3rd Place - Rookie Award (October 2017) *** *** Highest Rating - #534 in Science-Fiction (August 24, 2017) ***

It is 2094 and life is difficult for Caz on the extra-solar colony of New Hope. There are too many people in the colony, and not enough work, and Earth is pushing more migrants to leave for the colonies every year, making those problems worse. Caz’s family has been on New Hope since before she was born. All that time they have lived in camps, surrounded by fences, and the only work for people like them is out in the arid dusty deserts, running the mining machines, stripping the crust of the planet back and sucking the minerals out its insides. As well, Caz has a rough family. Probably partly because they have little to do. They fight and drink and go off to detention centres a lot. Caz looks after herself as much as she can, and hides from her creepy stepfather, and mostly, she makes do. Life it was it is, and for people like them, without skills or money or friends, out on the colonies at the edge of space, the middle of the twenty-first century is not a very nice place to be. Caz never forgets the promise she made her father, the last time they spoke. To never be hit. To stay off the drink. To keep herself from becoming trapped the way her mum was trapped, and the way all her friends are starting to get trapped too. Trapped and pregnant and with bad men and stuck there in the camps forever. Mostly, to stay away from men like her dad and run if she ever ends up with one. She remembers, and then she meets Jo, one of the peace officers who keeps people like Caz penned up in the camp and away from the nice people with jobs. And Jo is an ex-girlfriend of Caz’s brother Lachie, and has got away from the camp herself, and now she seems to want to help Caz. It might be the chance Caz needs. It might be the only chance she ever gets.