Hello! I hope you're having a good festive season.

If you are anything like me, at this time of year you prefer short story collections and funny things, so that's what most of my selection this month are...

Growing up as a Martian on Earth has left Jas Harrington solitary, quick-tempered, and with zero tolerance for fools. All plus points when working as chief security officer aboard prospecting starships.
Jas' latest berth is aboard the Galathea, which trawls the reaches of the galaxy seeking precious minerals and rare resources. She thinks it's a routine trip. She's wrong.
An inspection of a far-flung planet leaves Jas suspicious that there's more to the place than meets the eye. If only she could convince the captain of the need for caution, but she might as well wish for a tasty meal in the ship's canteen.
When the captain disciplines Jas for insubordination, she has only two allies: a timid navigator and the second pilot, who has the hots for her. Not that Jas notices.
All hell breaks loose, and Jas' skills are put to the ultimate test. Can she enlist the help of the only two friends she has? She's in a race against time to prevent the aliens from achieving their goal: Generation.
If she fails, the ship's crew, the galactic empire, and humanity itself are at risk.

Humanity has seized its destiny among the stars. But space remains vast and untamed, and nothing has prepared us to face the dangers rising from the deep shadows of the void.
Fourteen years after The Displacement flung humanity into a universe teeming with alien life, a tenuous alliance has taken root among humans, Anadens, and numerous other species. The wounds of war and revolution have begun to heal, peace and prosperity are within reach, and the architects of The Displacement, Alex Solovy and Caleb Marano, are enjoying an idyllic existence on the living planet of Akeso.
But growing troubles fester beneath the surface of this alliance. An upstart species offers allegiance with one hand but readies weapons of mass destruction with the other, while the Anadens, leaderless and adrift for years, increasingly refuse to play by humanity’s rules.
As tensions simmer, Nika Kirumase, leader of the Asterions—a splinter group of former Anadens thought aeons dead—arrives bearing a warning of a terrifying enemy advancing across the void. Known as the Rasu, the powerful race of shapeshifting metal has already killed tens of thousands of Asterions in its quest to control all of known space.
Nika’s people have struck a blow against the Rasu, and now they race against time to prepare for the coming reprisal. An alliance with humanity stands to give them a fighting chance against their enemy. But for humanity, such an alliance may cost them everything, pushing the fragile peace they fought so hard to achieve to the breaking point and beyond.
In Amaranthe, where exotic alien life, AIs, wormholes, indestructible starships and the promise of immortality rule the day, no feat seems out of reach for humanity. But when the worlds of Aurora Rhapsody and Asterion Noir collide and the Rasu horde descends upon them both, more will be asked of heroes past and future. More will be given and more taken, and when the dust settles the very fabric of Amaranthe will be changed forever.

When a radical experiment into the nature of time is sabotaged, the scientific team finds themselves in an alternate universe, where humans never became the dominant life force. Instead, dinosaurs evolved into intelligent bipeds, developing language and societal structures.
The scientists have to learn to communicate with this alien species, who view them as unusual pets, and figure out how to recreate the original experiment in a non-industrialized world, so they can go back home—assuming there’s a home, or even a universe, to return to.
But the scientist who sabotaged them is trapped in this new world with them. And he’s looking to rise to power, even if his quest means the death of his traveling companions.

Captain Siobhan Dunmoore no longer enjoys the freedom to fight the Shrehari Empire on her own terms aboard the Q-ship Iolanthe. Special Operations Command has assigned her to Task Force Luckner, whose mission is replicating Iolanthe’s success on a larger scale. Unfortunately, neither her new superior, Rear Admiral Kell Petras, nor any other captain in the task force understands successful commerce raiding requires a different mindset. Instead of sheepdogs, they must become wolves in sheep’s clothing, and Dunmoore is just the right officer to teach them. Yet Petras and his flag captain are not interested.
But when an unauthorized raid on a Shrehari forward operations base produces surprising results, Dunmoore triggers a cascade of events which could forever change the course of the war. As the old saying goes, fortune favors the bold. Will Dunmoore prove once again that she and Iolanthe’s crew are the most daring of them all?

Being an officer means balancing many conflicting demands. Making the wrong decision can have serious consequences. It takes a special kind of person to cope with the responsibility.
The Officer is an anthology of eleven science fiction short stories by writers from across the globe. It is part of the Newcomer series of scifi anthologies.

What kind of life will we find in the depths of Europa’s oceans? What kind of life will we allow an AI with human level intelligence? The ten stories in Sapience: A Collection of Science Fiction Short Stories explore these questions and many more.
In the near future, humanity builds a colony on Europa, one of the moons of Jupiter. They tunnel into the ice to explore the dark oceans beneath the moon's surface, searching for signs of extraterrestrial life. What they find will change them forever, setting humanity on a path to the stars. But the old conflicts and hatreds of Earth are not so easily escaped. Will human colonists on distant planets and moons create a paradise or a horrifying dystopia?

Conflict across the cosmos. New frontiers discovered. What it means to be human reimagined.
Dreams of tomorrow become reality in this fourth collection of bestselling authors and newly emerging writers from Sci-Fi Bridge. From the inner worlds of unforgettable characters to alien planets at the farthest reaches of our galaxy and beyond, our writers examine the human experience from within and without. They hold up a mirror to the human experience. Who are we as a species? Who do we want to be? How do we achieve that greatest vision of ourselves for us and our children?
You'll wonder at the possibilities of what we can accomplish together. You might even come to believe that a better tomorrow can be more than a dream...

A sampler of the work of the best new writers of science fiction out there? A sci-fi selection box with a mix of hard (science) and soft (science) centres covering the spectrum of sub-genres? A brilliant anthology you’ll find hard to put down? A must read for every sci-fi fan?
All these things? We like to think so, and certainly with The Corona Book of Science Fiction we’ve tried to create something special – a multi-author sci-fi collection where each contribution embodies both great imagination and great storytelling, and which collectively covers a mix of themes from the fantastic to the topical, from AI to Z, all topped off with a last story so touching it has been proved to reduce grown men to tears.

When her maintenance bot found a body, Triana lost her lunch.
Then she lost the body.
How did she lose her memory?
When a highly connected security agent interrupts her routine with stories of murder and missing bodies, Triana can’t ignore him; it’s cooperate or find a new job. A girl has to pay the rent, even on a crappy studio compartment.
Since working with a shiny detective beats a shuttle dirt-side, Triana lends her programming skills to Agent O’Neill’s investigation. Together, they find more victims and evidence of a major cover-up.
It will take all Triana’s technical talents, most of O’Neill’s connections, and some really excellent croissants to stop the murders, save her job, and ultimately, her life.

The future may not be bright but it’s hilarious.
In tales that criss cross the Atlantic, Tomorrow’s World transports the reader into the future where even dreams can be controlled - but it seems that the future’s not all it’s cracked up to be. In England, Terrence finds himself disillusioned in a world of drudgery, compensation claim drones and a relentlessly rising retirement age. Across the pond, Walter has harnessed the power of age-defying medication in a bid to prosper indefinitely - at any expense. What could possibly go wrong?
With its dark humour and gripping narrative, Tomorrow’s World paints a vivid picture of a future that’s a little too close for comfort.