C Gockel Writes

Featured Sci-fi: Metal Legion by GH Gideon, Caleb Wachter, and Craig Martelle

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Featured Sci-fi: Metal Legion by GH Gideon, Caleb Wachter, and Craig Martelle

START THE SERIES FREE—Books 2 & 3 only 99¢ Each in US & UK
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Five foot nothing and no fear because she drives a sixty-ton mech. Enter Lieutenant Xi Bao…

Does humanity deserve to survive?

The Metal Legion, aging mechs with a lot of fight left in them. They lead the way, find the enemy’s weaknesses and exploit the hell out of them. Then they call in suborbital artillery to finish the job, even while the battle rages.

Never fight fair when fighting for your life. This is the motto of the Metal Legion.

They fight to win.

The mechs stand tall, or crawl, or run, or scamper. A dozen different designs, held together by rough welds and sheer willpower. But the bodies within, like Xi Bao, refuse to give up, refuse to give in.

Taking her Scorpion-class mech underground, she finds the enemy, in numbers far greater than she was told. Knee deep in the war, her crew gives their old mech new vigor for one last chance at glory.

Victory or death! Fight to survive.

Fire the mains and enjoy the company of the crew as they live for each other, as they fight for all humanity. Unleash the Scorpion’s fury. Join the Metal Legion today.

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)

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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 Fantasy: Fairy World MD Series by Tamara Grantham

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Featured Fantasy: Dreamthief (Fairy World MD Book 1) by Tamara Grantham

START THE SERIES FREE—Book 2 only 99¢
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DREAMTHIEF received the INDIEFAB Book of the Year Award from Foreword Reviews for fantasy and also won a RONE award for Best New Adult Romance.

Forget the fairies and unicorns, most people return from fairy world with lost memories and mental problems. Olive Kennedy knows. She’s the therapist who treats patients suffering from Faythander’s side effects.

Traveling back to the fairy realm wasn’t on Olive’s to-do list. But she has no choice. The fate of both Earth and Fairy depends on her ability to stop an ancient being called the Dreamthief. To complicate matters, she may be losing her heart to someone who can’t love her in return. Saving the world, she can handle. Falling in love—not so much.

Dreamthief is the Amazon #1 bestseller in both Mythology and Fairy Tales. With over 150 five-star reviews on Amazon and Goodreads, Dreamthief is an imaginative, romantic fantasy for fans of The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher. Morgan Stamm of InD’tale magazine says, “[Dreamthief] springs to life from the very first sentence.”

This imaginative read has been nominated for both the Foreword Reviews’ INDIEFAB book of the year award, as well as InD’tale’s prestigious RONE award.

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.