As you know we at EPIC Indie are participating in this year’s SPSFC and have been assigned over 20 books to read and judge. Our team of seven has divided the books between them and will be busy over the next few months reading them all. To that end here are the first 6 books that are in our pile.

The Books

Icebreaker by Steven William Hannah

Inside their walls, the people are safe from exposure to the unnamed horror that broke the world long ago; but now Bear, the last scientist in Forgehead, takes a case that threatens to throw that safety into question. Someone has been terminally exposed to the phenomenon, despite never having ventured outside the walls. This has only happened once before - to Bear's father.

With the safety of Forgehead in question, and an opportunity to finally discover what happened to his father, Bear must leave the safety of the walls to unravel the mysteries left behind by the pre-cataclysm world; a task that will require him to join the Interloper Initiative, the team who crew the gigantic Crawler landships, the only vehicles that can roam the world outside the walls in relative safety. "Icebreaker" is the first entry in the Interloper Trilogy, a tale of horror and science charting the last days of a dying world, and humanity's endeavour to survive.

Three Grams of Elsewhere by Andy Gieslar

A reclusive empath confronts his role in the war that fractured the United States.

Fifty years ago, a new civil war fractured the United States into a mosaic of polarized nations. Ever since, Harmony “Bibi” Cain has isolated himself: from society, from technology, from family. A powerful empath weary from the constant intrusion of others’ emotions, he’s finally cloistered in his rural Wisconsin retirement community. He hopes to find, if not peace, then at least a little quiet.

But when four impossible-seeming killings shake North America, Bibi is drawn into an investigation he wants nothing to do with. The victims were killed by unstoppable drones only an empath can control—and decades ago, Bibi was an unwitting subject in the wartime program that created them: the program that weaponized empathy.

With his few remaining friends at risk, and tensions between countries of the former United States reawakening, everything may depend on Bibi's lifelong struggle with his own extraordinary ability.

The Art of War by Peter Cawdron

Commander Lisa Chao works in the US Navy’s Strategic Planning Center in Pearl Harbor. When tensions rise with China over Taiwan, she has to unravel exactly what's happening in the Pacific and why. What she uncovers leads America to war, but not with China.

Bullets and bombs are no match for an extraterrestrial warship that can fly between stars, but perhaps the answer to the coming war lies not in the present but in the past. Could Sun Tzu’s The Art of War provide humanity with a fighting chance against a technologically superior alien enemy?

H2LiftShips - Beyond Luna by Bob Freeman

H2LiftShips, a tech manual for a future. Imagine a world, exactly like ours, but different. Part Road-Trip, part solar sailing, always with food, gambling, jail, and pirates, not necessarily in that order. No: Aliens, Monsters, blasters, pyrotechnic computers, or Anti-Grav powered rockets. Yes: Lasers, Primates, Canines, Octopus, Space Travel via Solar Sails, and the rare Rocket Ship. No violence, except for the spinning meat bolas and asteroid pebbles coming to the defense of their home rock.

Eclipse (Fractured Orbit Book 1) by Herman Steuernagel

When lies crumble, two lives and an entire civilization teeter on the brink of destruction...

Django had everything he ever wanted... now he’s lost it all.

When Django uncovered an unexpected truth, he didn’t know it would end the lives of nearly everyone he cares about. Left only with his sister, his best friend and an uncle who has some unhinged ideas about what might exist outside of the space station Eclipse, he must follow the truth where it leads – even if it leaves him with nothing.

Mikka can’t escape her dubious past… and now must answer for past sins.

Mikka thought she had left her life as a notorious space pirate behind to care for her ailing mother, but the past comes knocking after her ship, the Redemption, answers a cryptic distress call.

Three Rivers Plague (Continuum Book 1) by Zachary Forbes

After a return concert in his hometown, famous rockstar Thomas Wylde witnesses the unleashing of a biological weapon, which forces the nation into anarchy. His band is soon plunged into the post-apocalyptic city of Pittsburgh, now plagued by infection, cults, cocaine junkies, and even the mafia. A member of his band falls victim to the deadly new virus, sending the group spiraling into the mystery of this supposedly Soviet-made bioweapon. But not everyone is convinced of its origins--like Boston police detective Dick Kennedy.

In the following days, it's up to Thomas and his band to discover the truth, not only about this new world, but about his government, his friends, and himself, all the while trying to carve out a slab of survival for everyone and everything he cares about.

Harbinger in the Night (The Humanity Blueprint Book 1) by John Warner and Bill Woods

In the near future a new space race is in full swing to be the first to colonize Mars. The United States and allied European governments working alongside private industry are competing against the RSAC, a new Russian-Chinese alliance, to build working spacecraft to make the long journey.

In preparations for the mission, an engineering team from an aerospace/tech conglomerate is building out the interplanetary communications network, when a mysterious object emerges from the depths of interstellar space. As the nations of Earth scramble to investigate this strange comet, they must overcome plots from within and the machinations of a malignant AI in order to be the first to meet the menace, or the promise, that the intruder foretells.

Major Koda Cheveyo, a special operations soldier is tasked to lead his team to face this possible threat while Michael Thompson, a quantum computer engineer, works with his homebrewed AI to counter the emerging peril from within. Together with the help of a billionaire tech tycoon and a government security agent, their mission could reshape the future of humanity.

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EPIC Indie’s SPSFC 3 Book Batch Part 1