C Gockel Writes

Featured Sci-fi: First Wave the Complete Series by Daniel Young

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Featured Sci-fi: First Wave the Complete Series by Daniel Young

99¢ as of October 4, 2025
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EXCLUSIVE: READ THE FINAL TWO BOOKS IN THE SERIES BEFORE THEY ARE RELEASED!

Ancient tech. Lost history. A mission buried in silence.

“A really great story that you can’t put down.” -Goodreads reviewer

The Massey brothers have seen plenty of strange things salvaging in deep space… but nothing like the massive, silent vessel drifting near the edge of known territory. No heat. No life signs. Just a relic from a war no one’s ever heard of.

Then the ship powers on.

Trapped inside a labyrinth of deadly alien technology with a crew on edge and systems that seem to have a mind of their own, they must figure out what the ship wants… and what it will destroy.

It’s not abandoned. It’s hunting.

But the brothers and crew aren’t alone for long. Others are interested in the ship. Raiders are closing in. A cold war is heating up. And something terrifying is waking in the dark.

Welcome aboard the Vanguard. Pray it doesn’t remember what it was built to do.

Note: The First Wave series is an homage to thrilling pulp sci-fi of yesteryear. If you’re interested in hard science fiction look elsewhere. But if you’re looking for action-packed adventures on strange worlds with even stranger aliens, this series is for you!

Includes all 9 books in the First Wave series:

  • Derelict
  • Raiders
  • Powerless
  • Control
  • On the Run
  • Defense
  • Infected
  • Corrupted
  • Aliens

Book Review: The Dispossessed by Ursula LeGuinn

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The Dispossessed by Ursula LeGuinn

$1.99 in the US—as of October 4, 2025
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The setup: A bleak moon settled by utopian anarchists, Anarres has long been isolated from other worlds, including its mother planet, Urras—a civilization of warring nations, great poverty, and immense wealth. Now Shevek, a brilliant physicist, is determined to reunite the two planets, which have been divided by centuries of distrust. He will seek answers, question the unquestionable, and attempt to tear down the walls of hatred that have kept them apart.

To visit Urras—to learn, to teach, to share—will require great sacrifice and risks, which Shevek willingly accepts. But the ambitious scientist’s gift is soon seen as a threat, and in the profound conflict that ensues, he must reexamine his beliefs even as he ignites the fires of change.

My take: “There was a wall.” That is the first sentence of this book. I have not read it in years, but I still remember the opening line because the book is so wonderful. This was the first book I read in the loosely interconnected Hainish Cycle and it propelled me on to read all the others. Highly recommend. I’d love someone to talk about this book with. Hint, hint.

“One of the greats….Not just a science fiction writer; a literary icon.” – Stephen King

From the brilliant and award-winning author Ursula K. Le Guin comes a classic tale of two planets torn apart by conflict and mistrust — and the man who risks everything to reunite them.

Featured Fantasy: Shifter Origins by Aimee Easterling

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Shifter Origins II (Series-Starter Shifter Variety Packs Book 2) Kindle Edition by Aimee Easterling (Author)

START THRE SERIES FREE
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Four wolf shifters. Four swashbuckling adventures. Four journeys of fantasy and romance.

Wolf’s Bane: Mai Fairchild will do anything to protect her sister—even if it means accepting a dangerous job with a werewolf who would kill her if he knew her true form….

Wolf Dreams: Olivia has hidden her darker side ever since biting through the lip of her first date. Fourteen years later, her dream of being an archaeologist is unlocked…but her darker side wants out.

Moon Stalked: Honor wraps herself in her pelt to shift to wolf form. But when her cousin’s pelt is stolen, she must team up with her greatest enemy to get it back.

Paradigm Shift: While scouting his new territory, a fifteen-year-old alpha discovers strange scents wafting up out of a hole in the ground. Are there vampires lurking beneath his turf? An exclusive Wolfie short story.

Dive into four tales of bestselling urban fantasy in this series-starter variety pack!

Featured Sci-fi: Liminal Space (Shadows & Light Book One | Amaranthe 23) by G.S. Jennsen

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Featured Sci-fi: Liminal Space (Shadows & Light Book One | Amaranthe 23) by G.S. Jennsen

NEW RELEASE
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** The thrilling finale trilogy to the 25-book Amaranthe saga begins **

A war has raged for endless aeons. Our greatest champions have fought it again and again in a tireless endeavor to save not merely innumerable lives, but existence itself.

It is a war that has never been won. But there has never been a timeline like this one before.

When Alex Solovy deactivated the Piega Strai to save two billion Elakri from annihilation, she never imagined the consequences would ripple across the universe. Now the Dzhvar, ancient devourers of the cosmic manifold, have returned from their million-year exile. And the weapon that once repelled them, diati, is nowhere to be found.

Though haunted by guilt, loss, and the weight of a relentless cycle of sacrifice, Alex and her allies—warriors, scientists, sentient planets and primordial beings—must step up to confront an impossible enemy. While Miriam marshals fleets to battle a foe no armament can touch and Alex probes scars in the cosmic fabric to solve a puzzle that spans time and space, Nika’s quest to unlock new kyoseil abilities pushes her ever closer to discovering the devastating truth about her past and future.

Secrets a million years in the making are about to come into the light.

In this epic opening to the Amaranthe saga’s final trilogy, destinies long foretold collide with shocking new revelations. Every alliance created, every technological marvel invented and every hero forged will be brought to bear against an enemy that threatens to unravel the very threads of the universe.

If Alex Solovy has anything to say about it, for the last time.

Featured Science Fiction: Exin Ex Machina (Amaranthe 11) by G. S. Jennsen

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Featured Science Fiction: Exin Ex Machina (Amaranthe 11) by G. S. Jennsen

FREE as of October 1, 2025
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Cyberpunk and space opera collide in a thrilling new trilogy from the author of the acclaimed Aurora Rhapsody saga. When man and machine are one and the same, there are many crimes but only one sin: psyche-wipe. The secrets it has buried could lead to a civilization’s salvation, or to its doom.

The Asterion Dominion is at peace with its neighbors and itself. Its citizens enjoy great freedoms and all the luxuries their biosynthetic minds can imagine, design and create. But beneath the idyllic veneer, something is going wrong. People are going wrong, driven to commit inexplicable crimes without motive or purpose. And once imprisoned for those crimes, they simply vanish.

Psyche-wiped and dumped in an alley 5 years ago, awakened into a culture where ancestral memories stretch back for millennia, Nika Tescarav’s past is a blank canvas. But if whoever erased her did so in the hope of silencing her, they should have tried harder.

Someone must speak for the lost.

Someone must uncover how and why they became lost.

Someone must find the lost.

Nika is that someone.

Featured Fantasy: Of Songs and Seashells (Magically Ever After Book 2) by T.M. Franklin

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Featured Fantasy: Of Songs and Seashells (Magically Ever After Book 2) by T.M. Franklin

99¢ as of September 30, 2025
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An immortal woman.
An ancient curse.
A deadly pact.

Lily has roamed the earth for centuries, unable to die but also unable to truly live, lest her secret be discovered.

Unfortunately, saving a young boy from an almost-deadly accident attracts a handsome stranger’s rapt attention.

He sees her in a way few others have before, putting them both at risk and awakening an ancient curse.

After years of searching and nearly losing all hope, Lily’s finally found something—and someone—to live for. But will that be enough to save them from what is coming?

Equal parts puzzle and page-turner, Of Songs and Seashells is a modern continuation of the classic fairy tale The Little Mermaid. We promise you’ve never read anything quite like it before.