Today has been rather a frustrating day. I was all set for a major crack at getting the rewrite done on Fraternity. I got a lot done in Snowdonia earlier in the month and finally got the big problem sorted out. But I've been without power in the house most of the day. The RCCD kept tripping. I tried switching everything off and it still tripped within seconds of being flipped back up. After a lot of moving furniture to get at sockets to unplug things, the problem was eventually spotted. One of the kittens had widdled on an extension and the wee was shorting the circuit.
Now, I mentioned Snowdonia. I spent almost a week living in the Idwal Cottage Hostel. It's a wonderfully remote place, even though it is on a major road route. Each day I spent the morning doing something outddors, like running or scrambling or climbing, and the afternoon I was able to sit an write without interruption.

I've also got into collecting Munzees with my family. This is a sort of geocaching where the locations have a tiny QR code hidden on something. Its a lot of fun! Take a look and download the app here if you want to give it a go.
And here are the books you want...

Forcefully retired from a top-secret military project. Can she save humanity from itself?
On the backwater world of Cayelle, Tina Freeman runs a shop with her son Rex: fifteen years old, half-human, half-android with a massive chip on his shoulder about having been born without arms or legs.
The shop makes a modest profit, but when a creditor turns up wanting his money back, everything goes pear-shaped.
She needs money, and needs it fast. Another creditor is impossible to find. That leaves her one option: to return to the world she fled fifteen years ago and Kelso Space Station, where her spaceship has languished for over fifteen years, and finally sell the thing.
Tina worked as scientific officer in the Federacy Force’s top secret Project Charon, and was forced out when she rang alarm bells about particles that escaped out of a rift to another universe.
As it turns out, the alien dust has been infecting people in her absence, causing profound changes in human behaviour.
When Tina re-surfaces at Kelso, her presence is a threat to those who still defend the project, including her ex-husband, and they want to shut her up, but her continued silence may well mean the end of civilisation.

What if being a hero was encoded in your genes?
And nobody told you?
Casmir Dabrowski would laugh if someone asked him that. After all, he had to build a robot to protect himself from bullies when he was in school.
Fortunately, life is a little better these days. He’s an accomplished robotics engineer, a respected professor, and he almost never gets picked on in the lunchroom. But he’s positive heroics are for other people.
Until robot assassins stride onto campus and try to kill him.
Forced to flee the work he loves and the only home he’s ever known, Casmir catches the first ship into space, where he hopes to buy time to figure out who wants him dead and why. If he can’t, he’ll never be able to return home.
But he soon finds himself entangled with bounty hunters, mercenaries, and pirates, including the most feared criminal in the Star Kingdom: Captain Tenebris Rache.
Rache could snap his spine with one cybernetically enhanced finger, but he may be the only person with the answer Casmir desperately needs:
What in his genes is worth killing for?

An ancient mystery has returned.
Everyone wants to survive. Everyone wants answers.
The Outer Layer is an enigma to its residents. Representatives from countless races and civilisations wander the many territories, hoping to unlock the secrets and progress further into its depths.

After the events at Camp David, the Terran Alliance faces a crossroads—act upon this tragedy and start a war, or refrain and change the course of history. The choice is not easy since the incident leaves a young captain, Lucy Grimes, in full control of the Alliance, thrust against her will into leadership of the most powerful organization known to man.
As the Terran Alliance grows in size and strength, there are those both on Earth and off who see this as a direct threat. But they soon find that this fledgling organization isn’t going down without a fight as the Alliance endeavors to defend its home world from all enemies, foreign and domestic.
An alien civilization known as the Korvil has captured two humans and are torturing them to learn more about this new enemy. But things suddenly shift when the Shiravi—dubbed the Builders—mount a daring attack on a Korvil ship that results in their rescue. The events this sets into motion will change the frontier of the galaxy for generations to come.

For self-taught engineer Ben Griminski, life is perilous and hard. Living on the junk world of Torrent Four, Ben scours the vast fields of trash, wreckage, and derelict ships in search of anything of value while avoiding the Salvage Scalpers, a gang that takes whatever it wants and enslaves anyone with a knack for finding valuables in the endless mounds of trash. For many people in his position, life is unbearable, but Ben has a secret. Buried deep in the salvage fields, hidden by mounds of rubbish, lies a Kestrel class starship. And after a decade of tireless work, she’s almost ready to fly.
The Royal Imperium rules the galaxy with an iron fist. Freedom is just a dream on the hundreds of worlds under their domain. But in space, a person with a fast ship, an able crew, and the right connections can enjoy the last vestiges of liberty, as long as they stay under the radar. Ben Griminski has a ship, but he’ll need a crew and plenty of Zexum to fuel her if they hope to escape their dreary lives on Torrent Four. It’s a challenge worth taking on, and if his luck holds, he might just discover what life is like among the stars.

Brilliant physicist Zeke Travers is on the brink of a scientific breakthrough… and a nervous breakdown. So after the beta test of his interdimensional drive goes off without a hitch, he breathes a sigh of relief. But when an alien warship materializes out of nowhere with guns blazing, Zeke and his team must risk using their invention to jump to a parallel universe.
Uncertain how to return to their native continuum, Zeke’s nerd squad must blind-hop across the omniverse from high-tech galaxies to magic-powered medieval planets. Hunted by ridiculously persistent and savage attackers, Zeke fears the pursuers are only puppets of a far more shadowy evil. And with every roll of the interstellar dice, he’s terrified they’re falling deeper into its sinister clutches.
Can Zeke uncover the dark force behind the attacks in time to save his crew and possibly the galaxy?

At only eighteen, Helga Ate has lived a full life. After losing her parents and joining the Alliance Navy, Helga has proven to be special—special enough to be chosen for the prestigious Nighthawks.
But sometimes being chosen is too much for anyone...
Helga, having experienced war, is determined to bury her survivor's guilt and the memory of her first mission. With the pressure mounting, Helga will stop at nothing to keep it all together. But rest and recovery are not within her reach after a satellite is attacked and human lives are lost. Helga must once again join forces with the Alliance to embark upon yet another dangerous mission of death and destruction.
Will Helga be able to survive the mission and rescue those in need—or will she succumb to the war inside her mind?

For decades radio telescopes have scoured the skies for signs of extraterrestrial intelligence but have found none. Why? Could it be we really are alone in the universe? Or is it that the truth has been withheld from us by a global conspiracy of silence?
When radio telescope operators Lauren Stelleck, a woman with a special gift enabling her to literally see certain sounds, and Steve Andrews, a diehard sci-fi geek, detect a signal like no other at Jodrell Bank in England, a chain of events is unleashed that propels Earth towards all-out nuclear war. Can Lauren and Steve unlock the secret of the signal before our species tears itself apart?

Thirty years from now, in a dystopian future, the Earth is under strain due to natural disasters and accelerating pollution. On the coast of Madagascar, a ruthless corporate leader creates his own vision of the future in the shape of Tabula Rasa, a mega-complex inhabited by over a million people.
Jonathan Jarl, a rookie agent for the Amber group, is on his first assignment and is assigned to retrieve the famous Nebra Sky disc that has been stolen. During the mission, he is faced with some of Tabula Rasas darkest secrets.
Meanwhile, in orbit around the moon, a discovery is made that has potential implications for the entire human race but Tabula Rasa is doing everything in its powers to keep the discovery secret. In a lab within Tabula Rasa, an idealistic scientist decides to share the discovery with the world. She takes a fateful decision that puts her life on the line.

Fix the past. Save the present. Stop the future. Master of science fiction Alastair Reynolds unfolds a time-traveling climate fiction adventure in Permafrost.
2080: at a remote site on the edge of the Arctic Circle, a group of scientists, engineers and physicians gather to gamble humanity’s future on one last-ditch experiment. Their goal: to make a tiny alteration to the past, averting a global catastrophe while at the same time leaving recorded history intact. To make the experiment work, they just need one last recruit: an ageing schoolteacher whose late mother was the foremost expert on the mathematics of paradox.
2028: a young woman goes into surgery for routine brain surgery. In the days following her operation, she begins to hear another voice in her head... an unwanted presence which seems to have a will, and a purpose, all of its own – one that will disrupt her life entirely. The only choice left to her is a simple one.
Does she resist ... or become a collaborator?

Good and Evil do not exist.
Men and women are completely different species.
God and Satan are brother and sister, and the Big Bang was a giant cockup.
Now, over 13 billion years later, the most important item in all of creation is Simon Debovar's living room carpet. And someone just stole it.
Can Simon overcome his anti-social nature and recover his carpet before it costs him his life?
And, more importantly, should he?
Brace yourself for a witty, sexy, sweary romp through a world of angels, demons, witches, immortals and talking deer. Join Simon and his alcoholic, foul-mouthed Great Aunt Harriet as they stumble their way from one near disaster to the next, with the fate of the world at stake.

Bacchus Than wants nothing more than to return home after what felt like a lifetime in space. His plans are de-railed when he crosses paths with an old rival determined to throw a wrench in his plan.With his ship damaged and his body bruised one question remains. Will Bacchus ever make it home?

The skies have gone rogue. Space can't be tamed. And magic is a law unto itself.
Transport yourself to new worlds where dark magic clashes with witty witches, diabolic demons, feisty fae, and sexy shifters. Or travel through time and space with cosmic spies, space thieves, and telepathic pirates. Add in a dash of Victorian heroes and inhuman soldiers, and you have a one-of-a-kind science fiction and fantasy collection of intoxicating proportions.

Life was more simple as a servant.
I’m destined to work under the boot of the Gold Standard for the rest of my life, to pay the debt of my dead father’s addiction to the most violent competition in the galaxy.
The competition I’m participating in right now. Everyone in my crew are servants. My best friend Devin and I obeyed the Totalitarian Corporation all of our lives. The balls on him! He got us in the tournament and picked up a sleek ship to command! The other teams have more training, credits and are armed to the teeth with the most advanced tech the black markets have.
One contestant in the other team caught my interest. Galia. No man has ever made me feel the way she has. But she’s such a reckless, gorgeous, pompous woman!
Even so, perhaps she can help us...

Peace negotiations are easy right?
Not when you're learning a language composed of hisses, growls and other guttural sounds. And that's not even the tough part for recently-divorced diplomat, Viktor Jacobs. No, that would be matching wits with the fiercely intelligent daughter of the opposing side.
Between dodging her claws, avoiding a myriad of cultural taboos, and not accidentally getting married or killed, Viktor has to somehow show the Lyrissians that joining the Alliance of Worlds is the best choice for all of their futures.

No matter the century, being a teenage vampire is hard when there’s no one around to teach you how to be cool, date and lift a car out of the way without getting caught.
Vickie has grown into a rockstar vampire with her powers, but she can still cause harm. Not a good way to stay hidden when everyone has the number to TMZ and a camera in their pocket. Selfie with the teenage vampire anyone?
Social media can bite worse than a vampire’s fangs.
That’s not her only problem. The Circle may be gone, but a government agency is looking into supernatural activity and everything points at Vickie. Big brother is not happy.
To make matters worse, Alexis and Vickie clash over misunderstandings and Vickie’s desire for more independence. Can the girls get past their disagreements and work together as a family?
Vicki’s danger meter is going off and she can sense a threat to her new family.
Can Vicki right some wrongs and make up with Alexis before she finds herself in an even worse situation?