C Gockel Writes

Featured Sci-fi: A Fire Upon the Deep (Zones of Thought Series Book 1) by Vernor Vinge

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Featured Sci-fi: A Fire Upon the Deep (Zones of Thought Series Book 1) by Vernor Vinge

$2.99 as of July 11, 2026
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A Hugo Award-winning Novel!

“Vinge is one of the best visionary writers of SF today.”-David Brin

Thousands of years in the future, humanity is no longer alone in a universe where a mind’s potential is determined by its location in space, from superintelligent entities in the Transcend, to the limited minds of the Unthinking Depths, where only simple creatures, and technology, can function. Nobody knows what strange force partitioned space into these “regions of thought,” but when the warring Straumli realm use an ancient Transcendent artifact as a weapon, they unwittingly unleash an awesome power that destroys thousands of worlds and enslaves all natural and artificial intelligence.

Fleeing this galactic threat, Ravna crash lands on a strange world with a ship-hold full of cryogenically frozen children, the only survivors from a destroyed space-lab. They are taken captive by the Tines, an alien race with a harsh medieval culture, and used as pawns in a ruthless power struggle.

Featured Sci-fi: A Hero (Corporation Wars Book 1) Stephen Arseneault

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Featured Sci-fi: A Hero (Corporation Wars Book 1) Stephen Arseneault

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Humanity’s survival is under siege. After centuries of peace, our dominion among the stars is shattered by a devastating alien invasion. Our once-proud military, now more political than capable, is powerless to stop the carnage. As the death toll rises and entire worlds fall, defeat seems inevitable.

Rayford Tyvos Jackson dreamed of nothing more than a stable life for his family. But when the invaders destroy everything he loves, grief turns to vengeance. Determined to fight back, he joins the Marines—only to see the government collapse and power handed to a ruthless cabal of corporations. Will their rule turn the tide of war? Or has humanity just traded one enemy for another?

Fans of The Expanse and Old Man’s War will love this gritty, action-packed epic of survival, vengeance, and hope. The fight for humanity’s survival—and its soul—begins now.

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Featured Sci-fi: Lawless (Lawless Saga Book 1) by Tarah Benner

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Featured Sci-fi: Lawless (Lawless Saga Book 1) by Tarah Benner

FREE as of July 8, 2026
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From the author of The Fringe comes an addictive new dystopian saga.
When Lark was sentenced to twenty-five years behind bars, she thought San Judas was her lucky break. The primitive 16,000-acre community in rural New Mexico isn’t like any other prison. There are no cells, there is no warden, and Mother Mercy is the law.

She didn’t realize she’d be fighting for survival on a daily basis — battling hunger, violent inmates, and Mother Mercy’s iron fist. Lark’s only friend is Bernie — an off-the-rails environmental activist doing time for arson — and a mysterious stranger who’s been sending her illicit messages from the men’s colony.

Lark never thought escaping San Judas was possible until a message in a bottle changes everything: The guards outside the walls are disappearing, and the world as they know it is coming to an end.

Featured Sci-fi: Machine A White Space Novel by Elizabeth Bear

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Featured Sci-fi: Machine A White Space Novel by Elizabeth Bear

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A “spectacularly smart space opera” that follows Ancestral Night in the Hugo Award–winning author’s White Space duology (Publishers Weekly, starred review).

Meet Doctor Jens.

She hasn’t had a decent cup of coffee in fifteen years. Her workday begins when she jumps out of perfectly good space ships and continues with developing treatments for sick alien species she’s never seen before. She loves her life. Even without the coffee.

But Dr. Jens is about to discover an astonishing mystery: two ships, one ancient and one new, locked in a deadly embrace. The crew is suffering from an unknown ailment and the shipmind is trapped in an inadequate body, much of her memory pared away.

Unfortunately, Dr. Jens can’t resist a mystery and she begins doing some digging. She has no idea that she’s about to discover horrifying and life-changing truths.

Written in Elizabeth Bear’s signature “rollicking, suspenseful, and sentimental” (Publishers Weekly) style, Machine is a fresh and electrifying space opera that you won’t be able to put down.

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Featured Sci-fi: Eifelheim by Michael Flynn

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Featured Sci-fi: Eifelheim by Michael Flynn

$1.99 as of December 27, 2024
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“Carl Sagan meets Umberto Eco. . . . Bursting with pungent historical detail . . . this dense, provocative novel offers big rewards to patient readers.” —Entertainment Weekly

The alien world of medieval Europe lives again, transformed by the physics of the future, by a winner of the Heinlein Award.

Over the centuries, one small town in Germany has disappeared and never been resettled. Tom, a historian, and his theoretical physicist girlfriend Sharon, become interested. By all logic, the town should have survived. What’s so special about Eifelheim?

Father Dietrich is the village priest of Eifelheim, in the year 1348, when the Black Death is gathering strength but is still not nearby. Dietrich is an educated man, and to his astonishment becomes the first contact person between humanity and an alien race from a distant star, when their ship crashes in the nearby forest.

It is a time of wonders, in the shadow of the plague. Tom and Sharon, and Father Deitrich have a strange destiny of tragedy and triumph in Eifelheim, the brilliant science fiction novel by Michael Flynn.

“Heartbreaking. . . . Flynn masterfully achieves an intricate panorama of medieval life, full of fascinatingly realized human and [alien] characters whose fates interconnect with poignant irony.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review

“Meticulously researched, intense, mesmerizing novel . . . for readers seeking thoughtful science fiction of the highest order.” —Kirkus Reviews, starred review

“Eifelheim may turn out to be the best science fiction novel this year.” —Orson Scott Card, Hugo Award–winning author of Ender’s Game

Featured Sci-Fi: Starship Waking by C. Gockel

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On an icy, barren world, a starship dreams of doom…


Throughout the galaxy, the reclusive alien race known as The One are incapacitated by terror.


On planet Luddeccea, wolf-human hybrid Volka harbors a terrible secret…a secret that must explain her nightmares.


Trapped on a luxurious asteroid, pleasure ‘bot 6T9 struggles to find purpose–until he receives a message from an Unidentified Caller.


The worlds of The One, Volka, and 6T9 are about to collide.

The galaxy will be shaken to its core.

The starship is waking.