The Drop: Season Three

The Drop #3

by Randy Brown

The alien planet Oz appears to be a glittering stage for Season Three of The Drop—a survival contest where twelve contestants are scattered across the surface and race five hundred kilometers to a distant flag to win a fortune. Contestants are thrown into wildly different environments—stormy seas, shattered timberlands, endless canals, and strange, watchful wilds—where the rules are keep moving or lose.

As the days and weeks turn brutal, Oz reveals it isn’t just hostile—it’s intelligent, uncanny, and inhabited. Players feel the pressure as mysterious creatures stalk campsites, steal supplies, kidnap the unwary, and sometimes…help. Back on Earth, the stakes rise for both Tanaka and Keiko with prosecutors circling, enemies closing in, and a financial conspiracy that may be far deadlier than anything on Oz. Between survival and sabotage, loyalty and betrayal, The Season Three hurtles toward one when the whole galaxy is watching, who’s really playing the game—and who’s being hunted?

288 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 25, 2026

About the author

Randy Brown writes stories in multiple genres, including the binge-worthy SF survival contest series THE DROP; the near-future virtual reality adventure ASSIGNMENT DAY; and FIRST STEP, the follow-up to the award-winning novel FIRST and rated as a must-read by Reedsy Discovery. He's authored NEXT TIME, a winner of multiple awards in the time-travel romance genre, and the Desert Sun Series of thrillers (SUNSET, SUNDOWN, and SUNBURST). He'd love it if you'd leave a review.

NEXT TIME is the winner of the Literary Titan Gold Book Award for Fiction, 1st Place in the 8th Annual PenCraft Book Awards for Romance-Fantasy/Sci-Fi, and a Must-Read Book of 2024 as selected by Independent Book Review, saying "Of the many time-travel novels I’ve read, this is undeniably among my favorites."

FIRST is the Winner of the 18th Annual National Indie Excellence Award for Best Science Fiction Novel, 1st Place in the 8th Annual PenCraft Book Awards for Science Fiction, as well as the 2023-24 Reader Views Literary Awards Silver Medal Winner for Best Science Fiction novel and Gold Medal Winner for Best Book set in the US Mountain West Region.