Kate Sheeran Swed

Mary O'Sullivan makes her own rules now. Her first self-assigned mission? Track down the league retirees who helped kill her family, and bring them to justice. But Mary's crusade thrusts her deep into the shadows of vigilantism, where good and evil blur to gray. When her enemies turn the tables and start hunting her, Mary must face the darker side of heroism--or risk becoming their next victim. With the Pearl Knife increasingly disobedient, Eloise Reyna fights to maintain control over her powers--and the fractured remains of the league. But Eloise's search leaves her struggling through the Knife's web of mysteries, and if she can't get a handle on it, the fate of the world could be at stake. As control slips through their fingers, Mary and Eloise seek allies in an increasingly dangerous power struggle that could shatter the league, and their lives, forever.

Seventeen-year-old Frankie Hartiger can reroute any elevator, steal the data from any ID chip, and scramble the facial recognition software on any security bot. The only thing she can’t hack? Her parents. They won’t trust her with a coffee order, never mind a position in their interworld exploration company. When their inaugural inter-universal tour goes wrong, Frankie sets out to rescue her parents—accompanied by Earth’s first (and most annoying) interworld immigrant, Jord Mathison. But a transport malfunction hurtles them into the wrong world, where a deposed prince wears Jord’s face. To the prince, Frankie’s last name is equivalent to a curse: his world is dying, and Frankie’s family is at fault. As a breadcrumb trail of conspiracies leads Frankie toward her parents, she’s sure Jord knows more than he’s willing to admit. If she can’t forge a truce with him to root out the truth, she’ll be stuck forever—and if the inhabitants get their way, she’ll burn with their world.

Lesson #1 in intergalactic mixology: VIPs take it floated, not stirred. Explore the farthest reaches of the galaxy in Kate Sheeran Swed's newest collection of science fiction stories. In "Chosen," an intergenerational spaceship returns to Earth after disaster strikes; in "Ugly Earthling," an ambitious chef attempts to fry her way across the universe; and in "It's All Fun and Games Until Someone Usurps the Galaxy," a Supreme Galactic Emperor takes on an ambitious building project under dubious circumstances. Absurdity and tragedy commingle in tales where space travel is run-of-the-mill, time can be recovered, and second chances hold the key to survival.

Welcome to Crooked, the first volume of a new anthology series from Bad Intentions Press. You'll find Teppo's retrieval job gone very, very wrong (or has it?). You'll find Eric Warren's gunrunner getting a second chance and Greg Dragon's smuggler surviving on the edge. Jessie Kwak's bodyguard dealing with a simple job that got quite complicated, Kate Sheeran Swed's unlikely bounty hunter getting her feet underneath her, and Wade Peterson's fighting bot showing its fiercely loyal heart. The law is represented in this collection, too — you'll find Benjamin Gorman's take on an interspecies police investigation and Mark Niemann-Ross's story of near-future intellectual property noir. The goal of the Crooked anthology series is to introduce you as the reader to authors who are currently writing sci-fi crime stories, and give you a glimpse into their worlds.

Mary O'Sullivan no longer trusts her instincts. Her secret identity is blown, the league is under official scrutiny, and LIO's retirees are now their sworn enemies--all because of her reckless decisions. When mysterious strangers steal the league's most powerful asset, Mary adds one more defeat to her roster by failing to prevent their escape. Afraid of making another devastating mistake, she refuses to join the mission to track down the thieves, instead sticking to the relative safety of HQ. If that means occasionally encountering her ex in the halls, well, she's punched Nathan Pearce before. She's not afraid to do it again. But the mission goes awry when LIO's government liaison turns against them, and only Mary and Nathan remain free. With her friends in dire need and a powerful new foe lurking just out of sight, Mary must face her own demons before she can hope to defeat her enemies--and save the people she loves.

The fifth novel in Cherryh’s Foreigner space opera series, a groundbreaking tale of first contact and its consequences… Nearly ten years after the unexpected return of the starship Phoenix, the alien atevi have three functioning space shuttles, and teams of atevi engineers labor in orbit to renovate the space station. But these monumental advances not only add a dangerously powerful third party to an already precarious diplomatic situation, but rouse pro- and anti-space factions in atevi society to incendiary levels. To help negotiate these treacherous diplomatic waters, Tabini-aiji, the powerful head of the atevi’s Western Association, has sent the only human he fully trusts into space: his own paidhi, Bren Cameron. However, the threat of possible invasion by hostile aliens who attacked Phoenix’s station in a far-off sector of space hangs over them all. And when one of the senior captains of the Phoenix confesses that this station was not completely destroyed, as had been previously thought, the crew mutinies. How can Bren hope to mediate on a station overcome by a rebellious crew intent on taking the Phoenix on a rescue mission back into hostile alien territory?

What's it like to live in a world where humor is banned or to work on a deep-space lighthouse? If you're lucky, you might even discover how to escape the Yawning Men! Curl up in your favorite rocket ship and set your coordinates for adventure in Volume Five of the Young Explorer's Adventure Guide! Don't miss this stellar anthology of 24 science fiction short stories for girls, boys and robots of all ages!

Two weeks ago, the AI that raised LJ forced her to murder the man she loved. But Conor survived. He wants nothing to do with the woman who tried to kill him, and yet LJ's got the only crew brash enough to chase after his father--who's a step away from twisting every AI in the Toccata System to serve his greed. Conor's desperate, and he's got a scheme of his own: shut down Toccata's AIs, permanently. If the price is a voyage with LJ and her crew of ex-assassins, he'll pay. LJ wants to leave the past behind. But she's not just another AI-trained killer: she's the worst of them all, and the proof of her cruelty stands before her. As mutiny and betrayal chase them across the sea, LJ and Conor must work together to survive--and if LJ can't face the sins of her past, she'll doom everyone she loves to a future that's made of chains.

Space travel isn't really Sloane Tarnish's thing. She's a med student, not a planet jumper – though to be honest, nano healing and gene therapy aren't exactly her thing, either. And she's definitely not leadership material. Unfortunately, her outlaw of an uncle didn't take her lack of skill into consideration when he disappeared. Instead, he decided to saddle Sloane with his questionable crew – a cranky pilot and a mad scientist – plus a ship that only answers to Sloane. Sloane just needs to raise enough cash to find her uncle and get back to her life. Desperate, she accepts a bounty job in a system where a recent power vacuum has left crime festering in every corner. No one else wants to go there, but how bad could it really be? When the Commander of the Galactic Fleet himself shows up in pursuit of the same bounty, Sloane refuses to be intimidated – even if it means tiptoeing across a political minefield. The reward is just too big to give up. But as dangers close in on all sides, she can't help wondering if she'll live to claim it…