After reading hundreds of stories and days of painful deliberating, I can cheerfully announce the Table of Contents for Volume Two of the Mirror Shards anthology.  Congratulations to all who made it.

Mirror Shards: Volume Two

I’m more than pleased to announce my Kindle best-selling novelette The Cageless Zoo is now available in audiobook.  The ultra-talented Arielle DeLisle was the narrator and audio producer.  If you enjoy easy-to-access science fiction with a twist of light horror, then give this story a listen.

Visiting the galaxy’s only Cageless Zoo should be a special treat for Melandre and her children. Except she’s still trying to reckon with her husband’s recent death and how she’s going to raise two highly independent children on her own. As their visit quickly falls to chaos, Melandre learns that family is the only thing left she has to rely on.

The Cageless Zoo audiobook can be found at Amazon, iTunes, and Audible for $6.95.  Free copies are available with a trial subscription to Audible.

The final book in the Gamers trilogy – CODERS – is now available in all formats.  I’m proud to be releasing the last book in the trilogy, and also a little bit sad.  I won’t be spending any more time with Gabby or her friends, and it was time I truly enjoyed.  I hope you readers have enjoyed it as much, and more, than I have.

When Gabby infiltrates the Southlands, reality becomes a dangerous game.

Desperate to reach Zaela before war erupts, Gabby takes a chance that puts her life in peril. She asks the Coders to send her into the Southlands as a spy, a request she quickly regrets. Now she faces a new enemy, one that knows everything about her and exposes her weaknesses in a game for her life. But before she can win, Gabby must wrestle with old wounds and finally come to grips with the person she was meant to be.

The novel can be purchased by e-book at Amazon, B&N, and Smashwords for $6.99, or as a paperback for $16.99.

A fan of the Gamers trilogy sent me her drawing of Gabriella DeCorte, reality-hacker extraordinaire.  She’s looks a bit younger than she exists in the novels, but the budding young artist hits the essence of Gabby with her drawing.  Well done and thank you for sharing!

For me, the Charlie Brown Christmas is how I picture the holidays.  It doesn’t matter if your tree is a twig with a few ornaments or if your holiday dinner is toast and candy.  All that matters is that you’re spending time with your friends and family.

So in honor of the Charlie Brown Christmas tree, I’m offering a couple of my novels, Gamers and The Digital Sea, for peanuts!  Have a wonderful holiday season!

The Digital Sea ($0.99) – Amazon / Barnes & Noble

Gamers ($0.99) – Amazon / Barnes & Noble

The second book in the Gamers trilogy — Frags — is now available just in time for the holidays.  If you haven’t read the first book in the Gamers trilogy, go pick up a copy now at your favorite retailer.  The trilogy has been compared to a cross between the Hunger Games and the Uglies trilogy by many reviewers and readers.

When the Frags escape to the Freelands, they find freedom has its own challenges.

Without the familiar rules of LifeGame, Gabby and the Frags stumble from one dangerous Freeland to the next, while conflict in the group threatens to split them up. As the trail to Zaela becomes confused by the looming war, Gabby must reinvent herself or never see her best friend again.

The novel can be purchased by e-book at Amazon, B&N and Smashwords for $4.99, or as a paperback for $13.99.

I’m please to announce the second book in The Digital Sea trilogy — The Godhead Machine.  This one takes up a couple of years after the first book, when life has seemingly settled down for our favorite heroine Zel Aurora.  Here’s the back cover blurb:

When religions spread like computer viruses, even atheists have to take notice.

An old enemy seizes control of the newly expanded Wiki-religion to create a new world order.  To stop him, Zel must join forces with a mega-celebrity doing penance and an orphan girl out for revenge.  However, mired on a thawing city in Greenland, she cannot just use her considerable powers to bend reality and fix the problem.  Instead, she must turn her greatest weakness – understanding people – into a strength or doom the planet to endless religious war.

The novel can be purchased by e-book at Amazon, B&N and Smashwords for $4.99, or as a paperback for $14.95.

Mirror Shards author Louise Herring-Jones recently attended the World Fantasy Convention.  She brought along copies of Mirror Shards to sell and even gave a copy to award winning Science Fiction author, David Brin.  He was gracious enough to take a picture with the book.  Doesn’t that cover look gorgeous!  And thanks David and Louise!  I couldn’t make the convention, but having the book there taking glamour shots was the next best thing.

I’ve had strong feelings about this story since the moment I conceived it.  Seeing readers enjoy what I so lovingly crafted makes my heart soar.  In the last few days sales of The Cageless Zoo have really taken off.  It’s a science fiction novella for $0.99 that one reader said: “I am not much of a fan of sci-fi but this would make one cool movie.”

There’s a host of other quotes and I really appreciate the readers that stopped by to express their feelings about the story.  It helps remind me why I’m doing this in the first place–the readers.

And readers must be enjoying it because right now it’s #5 (or was this morning) on the sci-fi short story list and climbing on a few others.  It’s only a buck and worth the thirty minutes of your time for an enjoyable read.  And for those fans that hope that it will someday be a full-length novel, I intend to do that after I finish a few of my trilogies.  Stay tuned and pick up one of my novels while you wait.

Putting together an anthology around the concept of augmented reality has been one of my goals since I first heard about the technology.  After many years of trying to make it happen, I was finally able to pull it off this year.  I’m extremely excited to announce that the Mirror Shards Anthology (Volume One) is now available in paperback and electronic formats.

EXPLORE the edge of augmented reality in thirteen tales from thirteen fantastic authors.  When the digital world collides with our real one, bringing all its problems and benefits, mankind will have to relearn what it means to be human. 

In this glimpse of possible futures, you will go on the hunt to track down a fugitive on the other side of the known Universe.  Learn the price of ubiquitous knowledge, or find peace and understanding in the absence of it.  Dive deep into the ocean to avert a kidnapping using only the tools at hand.  Experience new realities underwritten by an alien love of entertainment.  Find hidden truths contained within our smallest gestures.   Hide something so valuable, it would drive a man to crime.  Or find that sometimes, what it doesn’t hide is what endangers us most.

The Table of Contents:

“El Mirador” by Alex J. Kane

“Music of the Spheres” by Ken Liu

“These Delicate Creatures” by Melissa Yuan-Innes

“Below the Bollocks Line” by T D Edge

“The Sun is Real” by George Page

“A Book By Its Cover” by Colleen Anderson

“Of Bone and Steel and Other Soft Materials” by Annie Bellet

“Witness Protection” by Louise Herring-Jones

“Stage Presence, Baby” by E.M. Schadegg

“Gift Horses” by K.E. Abel

“The Cageless Zoo” by Thomas K. Carpenter

“More Real Than Flesh” by Grayson Bray Morris

“The Watcher” by George Walker

Mirror Shards: Volume One can be purchased electronically for $4.99 at Amazon, B&N or Smashwords, or in paperback for $11.99 at Amazon.