Simon is a kitchen scullion in castle Hayholt, where he spends most of his time trying to avoid doing any real work. Of course his foster mother, Rachel, doesn't approve, so he is delighted when he has the opportunity to become the apprentice of Doctor Morgenes, the castle's healer and wizard. Unfortunately for Simon, that just means more drudgery, sweeping the doctor's floor instead of the kitchen, and learning to read and write. It does, however, put Simon into a position to be involved in a series of events that will change the kingdom of Osten Ard forever. After the death of King John, his son Elias takes the throne and quickly falls under the spell of his advisor, Pyrates, who advises him to seek arcane power from questionable sources. Then, the new King's brother, Josua, mysteriously disappears, and that's when Simon discovers him imprisoned in the castle. Simon reports this to Morgenes, and the seeds of a rebellion are born

Mara of the Acoma is taking her final vows as a priestess when she learns that her father and brother have died in the Riftwar. As the only surviving member of the Acoma, she is now the Ruling Lady and must prepare to defend her estates and the people sworn to her service while dodging assassins. Honor also demands that she avenge her father and brother because they were betrayed on the battlefield by a commander belonging to the more powerful Minwanabi family. As a noble daughter, she wasn't educated to lead the house in politics and battle, but Mara quickly proves that she is intelligent, bold, and willing to bend tradition to her advantage. Only fools underestimate a woman determined to have her revenge.

Mal and crew decide to take on a job on the remote moon of Abel, where a rich young woman seeks justice for the killing of her father. She hires the crew of Serenity to track down the man who killed her father in broad daylight in front of many witnesses, yet remains unpunished. Local law enforcement claims to be stretched too thin to bring the killer to justice, but as one would expect with a Firefly story, there is more to the situation than meets the eye. Mal's gut tells him to walk away from the job and he decides to do just that, but of course that would make for a short book, so things don't go according to plan and we are taken on yet another adventure with our favorite crew in the Verse.

As the sun advances into it's next stage the Earth has grown hotter. Plants and animals are evolving rapidly to survive, and as far as the the city of Shadripar knows, it's the last vestige of human civilization surrounded by a hostile jungle. Stefan Advani is an academic turned rebel against the corrupt government of a dying civilization. We meet Stefan as he's being transported to a prison in the jungle where it's expected he will spend a short miserable life, but thanks to his education and tentative friendship with a new guard, he has the opportunity to translate the last work of a famous scholar who died in the prison. Everyone knows there's no point attempting to escape because the jungle outside is deadlier than inside, but Stefan is determined to turn his new knowledge into not just an opportunity to live, but to live a better life.

I really enjoyed the Frontlines military sci-fi series and I was a bit sad when it came to a close. I commented in my review of the series finale that I hoped that the main story arc would be picked back up with a new generation of characters, since it was not resolved to my satisfaction. This book doesn't exactly extend the main story arc, but it does take place in the same universe and perhaps it sets the stage for exactly that. This is a story about Alex Archer, a dog handler on the planet Scorpio, which was taken over by the Lankies 8 years ago. Since then, the few remaining humans have lived underground, venturing out of their bunker only for scavenging runs to pick up supplies. These runs are extremely dangerous and their numbers continue to dwindle. Alex, and her dog Ash, accompany the military patrols on these runs because Ash is an early warning system capable of detecting Lankies before they can be seen. This book tells the tale of what might be the final scavenging run ever after it all goes catastrophically wrong...

This one is a compilation of original short stories about everyone's favorite ex-cop, Joe Ledger, written by some of Jonathan Maberry’s "friends in the industry." Anthologies like this are never a good place to start a series and are mostly for fans that just want to spend more time with their favorite characters, and that certainly applies to me and Joe Ledger. This collection of authors is extensive and a few of them offer up crossover stories with Joe interacting with characters from their own series, which is extra fun if you already know those other characters. These authors are all clearly fans of Joe Ledger, but as expected, some of them bring Joe to life better than others. While each story is not a winner, overall I feel this was a good pick up and certainly worth a read, or a listen, while we wait on the next official story from Jonathan Maberry.

Rae's sister is obsessed with a fantasy series involving a Cinderella style heroine loved by all. In this series, both the spoiled king and his loyal best friend fall for her, creating an angst ridden love triangle before she's assassinated. With his queen dead, the king takes up his prophesied role as Emperor with vicious ruthlessness. Rae and her sister argue over which of the two guys are ultimately the better character, but her sister always gets annoyed with Rae because even though she is only 20 years old, she is dying of cancer and often doesn't remember the character names and plot points. No one else visits Rae anymore though, until a stranger offers her the chance to enter the fantasy world in the series to get the Flower of Life and Death to save herself. She doesn't really believe it, until she wakes up pain free in a character's body. Too bad the body belongs to the heroine's evil step-sister, scheduled to be executed in horrible fairy-tale style the next day. There are so many directions this plot could go, but it skips over most of the obvious to create a bazaar and oddly serious look at literary tropes and real human emotions.

I picked up Jespa The Space Trader because it is a stand alone story about a small crew on a trading vessel trying to make ends meet. Now that I am done, I am hoping it is the start of a series because I enjoyed it enough to want more. There isn't anything new here to fans of the genre, but it is an excellent blend of world building, slice of life, and character development, with your standard fare of sci-fi mixed in for good measure. The main character is Captain Albert Mead, a retired banker who liquidated his assets to buy the trading vessel, Jespa, because he wanted to turn it into a home in space for him and his 3 kids. Unfortunately, only one of those kids remains with him, Monica, who has reached womanhood aboard the ship and now wants to be a captain herself. Join Captain Mead, Monica, and a handful of others as they do their best to prosper in a solar system that is preparing for war.

Zac is camping with some friends when Earth gets inducted by the Multiverse System. Since Earth doesn't meet the Multiverse standard, it is fused with three other worlds to create one larger planet composed of random pieces of terrain from all four worlds to create a D-grade world. This is theoretically a great opportunity for potential Cultivators, since most worlds are inducted as F-grade. The first thing that happens is that one third of the populations are deemed potential Cultivators, i.e. they can naturally absorb enough cosmic energy to efficiently improve themselves, and are teleported to Tutorial Villages. Sadly for Zac, he's in the other 66%. All he got was the message about the induction and then a message that he's in the exact spot where something else is supposed to materialize and the System can't merge them. Since two beings can't occupy the same spot they have to roll for it, with Zac rolling 1-100 and the "Herald" rolling 1-100,000 because of its level. Who said the Apocalypse would be fair?

Demir Grappo is a powerful glassdancer and a successful military leader, even at his young age. Despite these innate talents and abilities, he has a solid moral compass and he shows unusual compassion to the rebellious factions that he is sent to put down. Such talent and promise breeds jealousy, and when a political rival maneuvers to turn his greatest military victory into a bloody massacre caused by his own troops, he mentally breaks. The emotional toll of what happened under his command is just too much to bear and Demir walks away from everything, including his eventual inheritance, to live out his life as a grifter. That is until his mother, a powerful political figure and head of his family, is murdered on the city streets. Demir returns from exile to use the resources of his family to uncover the truth about his mother's murder, and of course things get complicated very quickly.