From the author of Gunpowder Moon—a Library Journal Best Debut Novel—comes The Never Wars, a mind-bending mix of Interstellar and The Expanse in which a group of disgraced Special Forces are given one chance to redeem themselves. The question is whether they’ll survive long enough for it to matter.
Special Forces are accustomed to crazy ops, but orbiting a black hole to slow down time and fight Earth’s dirty wars in the future? That’s new, even for them. But that’s the mission for Owen Quarry, Anaya Pretorius, and the rest of COG, a company of elite, disgraced, soldiers from around the globe.
They join a defrocked company commander, an AI warship with self-confidence issues, and a crew of misfit troopers on a dizzying time-quest: prove the concept of stationing armies in space-time.
If they complete ten missions, they’ll be redeemed as citizens in good standing.
But the cost will be heavy—in time and in souls. And as one of their own hunts them down and another rises from the past with a key to freedom, Quarry and Pretorius find that redemption and survival are two very different things.
Wo lauert der wahre Feind? Vor dieser Frage steht Caden Dechert, Leiter der amerikanischen Mondmission zum Abbau des Energielieferanten Helium-3. Im Jahre 2072 streiten fünf Großmächte um die Vorherrschaft auf dem Erdtrabanten. In der lebensfeindlichen Umgebung war die Sicherheit der Crews trotzdem stets oberstes Gebot. Doch als eine Bombe ein US-Teammitglied tötet, muss Dechert nicht nur einen Saboteur und Mörder jagen. Er muss auch einen offenen Krieg zwischen den USA und China verhindern, wenn sein Team überleben will...
A realistic and chilling vision of life on the Moon, where dust kills as easily as the vacuum of space...but murder is even quicker-a fast-paced, cinematic science fiction thriller, this debut novel combines the inventiveness of The Martian, the intrigue of The Expanse, and the thrills of Red Rising.
The Moon smells like gunpowder. Every lunar walker since Apollo 11 has noticed it: a burnt-metal scent that reminds them of war. Caden Dechert, the chief of the U.S. mining operation on the edge of the Sea of Serenity, thinks the smell is just a trick of the mind-a reminder of his harrowing days as a Marine in the war-torn Middle East back on Earth.
It's 2072, and lunar helium-3 mining is powering the fusion reactors that are bringing Earth back from environmental disaster. But competing for the richest prize in the history of the world has destroyed the oldest rule in space: Safety for All. When a bomb kills one of Dechert's diggers on Mare Serenitatis, the haunted veteran goes on the hunt to expose the culprit before more blood is spilled.
But as Dechert races to solve the first murder in the history of the Moon, he gets caught in the crosshairs of two global powers spoiling for a fight. Reluctant to be the match that lights this powder-keg, Dechert knows his life and those of his crew are meaningless to the politicians. Even worse, he knows the killer is still out there, hunting.
In his desperate attempts to save his crew and prevent the catastrophe he sees coming, the former Marine uncovers a dangerous conspiracy that, with one spark, can ignite a full lunar war, wipe out his team . . . and perhaps plunge the Earth back into darkness.
