C Gockel Writes

Featured Sci-fi & Fantasy: The Dragonback Series Book 1 – 3 by Timothy Zahn

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Featured Sci-fi: The Dragonback Series Book 1 - 3 by Timothy Zahn

$2.99 as of October 16, 2025
Click for current price: Amazon US, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia (Full price: Germany)

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The first three adventures in the Dragonback science fiction fantasy series from the #1 New York Times–bestselling author of the Thrawn series.

Dragon and Thief: Young thief and con artist Jack Morgan is hiding out on an uninhabited planet after he’s falsely accused of a crime. But his solitude is interrupted when Draycos, a warrior whose reptilian race is being targeted for extinction, makes an emergency landing. The two will be able to survive, but only if they literally bond together . . .

Dragon and Soldier: When all is well, Draycos looks like nothing more than a tattoo on Jack Morgan’s back. But when Jack’s threatened, the K’da warrior appears in his true, dragonlike form. Together they go undercover to investigate a mercenary outfit connected to the extermination of Draycos’s people, and it turns out Jack isn’t the only new recruit with a secret . . .

Dragon and Slave: Following a lead, Jack becomes a slave on a Brummga alien estate where he must find out all he can while under the cruel watch of a vicious slave master who has no problem killing the help. Fortunately, Draycos always has his back.

Featured Sci-fi: Off Midway Station (Guardians of the Dark Book 1) by Marc Alan Edelheit

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Featured Sci-fi: Off Midway Station (Guardians of the Dark Book 1) by Marc Alan Edelheit

99¢ as of October 16, 2025
Click for current price: Amazon US, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia (Full-price: Germany)

“I realized that I wasn’t going to get any sleep (Just one more page… Just one more page…) I’m not just reading words on a page, I’m there… A hell of a ride.” NetGalley reviewer ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Humanity is on the brink of annihilation. Only one man can turn the tide.

For centuries, we explored the stars and settled new worlds. But a mysterious alien threat emerged, launching devastating attacks and seizing entire star systems. Every fifty years they come, silent and relentless, before disappearing again into the dark. And as they close in on humanity’s home worlds, one more defeat could mean total extinction.

Captain Jim Garrett joined the navy to fight back. But when a delicate mission ends in madness and mutiny, Garrett takes the blame and his career is left in ruins.

Now, the only thing he commands is a construction site. The CNS Surprise is an experimental warship, half built in the dockyards of Midway Station. Garrett knows the ship inside out, but the navy brass would never let him take the helm, let alone lead her in battle.

But when the aliens strike early, with unexpected ferocity, it’s clear that every ship in the fleet will be needed. And the Surprise could be the only hope of slowing the enemy onslaught.

Garrett is thrust into command for the first time, launching straight into combat. He must unite a maverick crew and master new technologies, as he leads a desperate counterstrike that will decide mankind’s future.

Off Midway Station is a military SF adventure of high-stakes space warfare, nail-biting action, and characters you would gladly follow into battle. A monumental journey of courage, innovation, and the relentless pursuit of survival, it’s perfect for fans of Jack Campbell, David Weber, and Marko Kloos.

[Read more…]

Featured Sci-fi: Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul (Dirk Gently Book 2) by Douglas Adams

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Featured Sci-fi: Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul (Dirk Gently Book 2) by Douglas Adams

$1.99 as of October 16, 2025
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Beloved, bumbling Detective Dirk Gently returns in this standalone novel from Douglas Adams, the legendary author of one of the most beloved science fiction novels of all time, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

When a check-in desk at London’s Heathrow Airport disappears in a ball of orange flame, the event is said to be an act of God. But which god? wonders holistic detective Dirk Gently. And how is this connected to Dirk’s battle with his cleaning lady over his filthy refrigerator…or to the murder of his latest client? Or are these events just another stretch of coincidences in the life of the world’s most off-kilter private investigator?

Douglas Adams, “one of England’s top exporters of irreverence” (Chicago Tribune), continues the implausible adventures of supersleuth Dirk Gently in his quest to solve the mysteries of the universe.

Featured Sci-fi: Points of Origin by E.S. Fein

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Featured Sci-fi: Points of Origin by E.S. Fein

FREE as of October 16, 2025
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Embark on a cosmic mystery spanning all of spacetime and beyond and delve into the nature of the cosmos, time travel, quantum physics, religion, deep time, transhumanism, metaphysics, and more.
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Amero wakes from an eerily familiar dream in an unfamiliar bed.

Within hours, he is forced onto an experimental craft and jettisoned across the galaxy alongside a mysterious, potentially homicidal man named Hann.

Finding themselves in a strange yet familiar spacetime, the men are told by suspicious entities to hunt for Points, strange objects no larger than one’s thumb, which are spread across the cosmos by unknown means.

The purpose of the hunt is unknown. The purpose of the Points is unknown.

All Amero wants is to return to his dead-end life. All Hann wants is to hunt down and destroy those responsible for his predicament.

It will take a journey to the end of time itself and beyond the boundaries of every universe to know the truth–to witness the light behind the veil…for better or worse.
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“E.S. Fein is raising the bar for quality as it’s a very well-written and thought-provoking book…There are points and themes in the story that could be discussed for eons as people will have their own idea on where it leads. It’s a book I would highly recommend.” – Andy Whitaker, SFCrowsnest

Featured Fantasy: The Blade Mage by Phillip Drayer Duncan

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Featured Fantasy: The Blade Mage by Phillip Drayer Duncan

$1.99 as of October 16, 2025
Click for current price: Amazon US (Full-price: United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, Australia)

The sword chooses its wielder.

I never asked to be Blade Mage. My fellow wizards weren’t thrilled, either. Unfortunately, those weird old druids have a strict no returns policy.

So I left, and for the past few years, I’ve hidden from my responsibilities. But I always knew one day the Cabal would come looking for its precious sword.

And so they have, but only because a heinous crime has occurred…

A sorcerer has used forbidden magic to slay a fellow wizard. It’s an open and shut case. The killer admitted it. He also stands accused of kidnapping a child, who is still missing, but they say that isn’t my problem. No, as Blade Mage, I’m not supposed to play paranormal detective. The Cabal only expects one thing of me—they want me to play executioner.

Problem is…

The accused is my best friend.

And before I chop off his head, I want to know the truth. But the path is filled with shifty wizards, fearsome witches, insidious demons, and supernatural conspirators at every turn.

It ain’t easy being the Blade Mage.

Featured Fantasy: The Prince of Ravens (The Exile Trilogy Book 1) by Hal Emerson

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Featured Fantasy: The Prince of Ravens (The Exile Trilogy Book 1) by Hal Emerson

FREE as of October 13, 2025
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The Prince of Ravens has vanished.

Word spreads quickly from the Fortress of the Empress, through the dark streets of Lucien, and to the far corners of the Empire of Ages. The Children are summoned to the Fortress, and the people talk in muffled whispers, if they dare to talk at all, of secret plots and ancient prophecies. Some say the Prince was murdered, others that he was kidnapped; but underneath it all runs a darker word, one full of terrifying possibility:

Exile.

Rumor begets rumor, and soon the whisper of truth is lost in the swirling winds of growing fear.

For the Prince of Ravens is the prophesied Lord of Death, and on his shoulders rests the fate of the Empire.