C Gockel Writes

  • Sponsored Links
  • Blog
  • About
  • Newsletter
  • I Bring the Fire
  • Archangel Project
  • Urban Magick & Folklore
  • Collections

Featured Sci-Fantasy: First Contact (Eclipsed Evolution Phase I) by Kim Harrison

July 4, 2025 by Carolynn

Featured Sci-Fantasy: First Contact (Eclipsed Evolution Phase I) by Kim Harrison

$1.99 as of July 4, 2025
Click for current price: Amazon US, United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, Australia

Apple, Nook, Kobo, GooglePlay

In the wake of the solar eclipse, a portal between our world and a paranormal realm opens—and a scientist’s life will never be the same, in this thrilling serialized adventure from the New York Times bestselling author of The Hollows.

Dr. Renee Caisson knows there are worse things than an attractive man in uniform drafting her into a secret government project—especially when Major Jackson makes it clear that he isn’t bothered by her questionable past. But when her labs come back with decidedly odd results, the Major is forced to come clean over who the government is actually studying. Renee is shocked to learn her subjects are demonic-looking beings who call themselves “Neighbors”—refugees from a dying world, who arrived during the nation-wide solar eclipse.

The Neighbors’ technology is unlike anything Renee’s ever encountered. At first, she dismisses an injury that inexplicably heals as “just one of those things”. And surely August, the most gregarious Neighbor, begins to speak English overnight because of the team linguist’s skills?

Not until August begins evolving in real time to withstand Earth’s brighter, dryer atmosphere does she admit that the Neighbors’ “tech” feels less like science and more like magic—the same magic that brought them here in the first place, and the same they’re trying to rekindle with a mysterious labyrinth in order to return home and save their world.

At least, that’s what August claims they came for…

Filed Under: Box Set Featured Fantasy, Box Set List Featured Sci-Fi, The Box Set List Features Tagged With: Eclipsed Evolution, First Contact, Kim Harrison

Featured Sci-fi: First Contact (In Her Name Book One) by Michael R. Hicks

April 20, 2024 by Carolynn

First Contact (In Her Name, Book 1) Kindle Edition
by Michael R. Hicks  (Author)

FREE as of August 20, 2024
Click for current price: Amazon US, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Germany

Kobo, iBooks, Nook, GooglePlay

With over 1,000 Reviews on Amazon!

Young Midshipman Ichiro Sato joined the Terran Navy to escape a tyrannical father and find freedom among the stars. He had no idea when he boarded the survey starship Aurora for his first assignment that he and his crew would make humanity’s first contact with a sentient alien species.

Little did he know that this fateful encounter would trigger a catastrophic galactic war…

See all the Box Set List Featured Fantasy | See All Featured Sci-Fi

Filed Under: Box Set List Featured Sci-Fi, The Box Set List Features Tagged With: First Contact, In Her Name, Michael R. Hicks

Featured Sci-fi: Ghosts (First Contact) by Peter Cawdron

October 19, 2023 by Carolynn

Featured Sci-fi: Ghosts (First Contact) by Peter Cawdron

New Release
Click for current price: Amazon US, United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, Australia

When an alien spacecraft four times the size of a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier enters the solar system, tensions run hot within the UN, but the alien vessel doesn’t approach Earth. Instead, it sits off at L4, over a hundred million miles from Earth, baffling scientists from around the world. Chris ‘Crash’ Williams leads an international crew to investigate the appearance of this ghost ship, but he quickly learns that the spacecraft isn’t as dead as it seems.

Ghosts was inspired by Arthur C. Clarke’s 1973 novel Rendezvous with Rama, which went on to win the Nebula Award for Best Novel, the Hugo Award for Best Novel, and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award. Rendezvous with Rama is a classic. It examined a plausible, realistic alien encounter, considering not only the physics involved but also the inevitable politics and religious implications.

FIRST CONTACT is a series of stand-alone novels that explore humanity’s first interaction with extraterrestrial life. This series is similar to BLACK MIRROR or THE TWILIGHT ZONE in that the series is based on a common theme rather than common characters. This allows these books to be read in any order. Technically, they’re all first as they all deal with how we might initially respond to contact with aliens, exploring the social, political, religious, and scientific aspects of First Contact.

Filed Under: Box Set List Featured Sci-Fi, The Box Set List Features Tagged With: First Contact, Ghosts, Peter Cawdron

Featured Science Fiction: The Art of War (First Contact) by Peter Cawdron

August 8, 2023 by M Gockel

Featured Science Fiction: The Art of War (First Contact) by Peter Cawdron

New Release
Click for current price: Amazon US, United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, Australia

Commander Lisa Chao works in the US Navy’s Strategic Planning Center in Pearl Harbor. When tensions rise with China over Taiwan, she has to unravel exactly what’s happening in the Pacific and why. What she uncovers leads America to war, but not with China.

Bullets and bombs are no match for an extraterrestrial warship that can fly between stars, but perhaps the answer to the coming war lies not in the present but in the past. Could Sun Tzu’s The Art of War provide humanity with a fighting chance against a technologically superior alien enemy?

FIRST CONTACT is a series of stand-alone novels that explore humanity’s first interaction with extraterrestrial life. This series is similar to BLACK MIRROR or THE TWILIGHT ZONE in that the series is based on a common theme rather than common characters. This allows these books to be read in any order. Technically, they’re all first as they all deal with how we might initially respond to contact with aliens, exploring the social, political, religious, and scientific aspects of First Contact.

Filed Under: Box Set List Featured Sci-Fi, The Box Set List Features Tagged With: First Contact, Peter Cawdron, The Art of War

Featured Science Fiction: The Tempest (First Contact) by Peter Cawdron

November 8, 2022 by Carolynn

Featured Science Fiction: The Tempest (First Contact) by Peter Cawdron

New Release
Click for current price: Amazon US, United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, Australia

Marc and Emma are on the graveyard shift onboard the Sycorax, an interstellar spacecraft bound for New Haven, a colony world fifty light years from Earth. Eighteen thousand colonists lie in suspended animation, awaiting a new life around another star. For the crew of the Sycorax, interstellar flight is boring—that is until they run into a tempest. Before long, they find themselves on a crippled spacecraft falling in toward a black hole, but that’s the least of their problems…

The Tempest is a tribute to Shakespeare’s final play The Tempest and explores similar themes while weaving some of his dialogue into the narrative. It includes references to the 1950s classic sci-fi film Forbidden Planet and Michael Crichton’s Sphere, both of which were influenced by Shakespeare’s work.

FIRST CONTACT is a series of stand-alone novels that explore humanity’s first interaction with extraterrestrial life. This series is similar to BLACK MIRROR or THE TWILIGHT ZONE in that the series is based on a common theme rather than common characters. This allows these books to be read in any order. Technically, they’re all first as they all deal with how we might initially respond to contact with aliens, exploring the social, political, religious, and scientific aspects of First Contact.

Filed Under: Box Set List Featured Sci-Fi, The Box Set List Features Tagged With: First Contact, Peter Cawdron, The Tempest

Featured Science Fiction: Cold Eyes Audiobook (First Contact Series) by Peter Cawdron

April 18, 2022 by Carolynn

Featured Science Fiction: Cold Eyes Audiobook (First Contact Series) by Peter Cawdron

New Release
Click for current price: Amazon US, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia

Cold Eyes is an original First Contact novel, written as a tribute to the 1974 science fiction classic, The Mote in God’s Eye, by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle.

The UN warship Magellan is twelve light-years from Earth, exploring a cold eye, a tidally locked super-Earth called Bee. At least two advanced intelligent species evolved on the planet, but the crew’s attempts at radio communication result in garbled replies. No one is waiting for them in orbit. The crew has to figure out why. Any misunderstandings could lead to war.

The FIRST CONTACT series is similar to BLACK MIRROR or THE TWILIGHT ZONE in that this collection is based on a common theme rather than common characters. This allows these books to be read in any order. Technically, they’re all first as they all deal with how we might initially respond to contact with aliens, exploring the social, political, religious, and scientific aspects of First Contact. Some of the other highly acclaimed novels in this series include Jury Duty, Anomaly, 3zekiel, Losing Mars, Xenophobia, Wherever Seeds May Fall, and Welcome to the Occupied States of America.

Not a fan of Audio? The whole series is on sale!

Filed Under: Box Set List Featured Sci-Fi, The Box Set List Features Tagged With: Audio, Cold Eyes, First Contact, Peter Cawdron

  • 1
  • 2
  • Next Page »

Follow Me

  • Facebook
  • Tumblr
  • Twitter

Copyright © 2025 C. Gockel · Privacy Policy