In the near future, the only thing growing faster than the criminal population is the Electric Church, a new religion founded by a mysterious man named Dennis Squalor. The Church preaches that life is too brief to contemplate the mysteries of the uni...
Avery Cates is a very rich man. He's probably the richest criminal in New York City. But right now, Avery Cates is pissed. Because everyone around him has just started to die - in a particularly gruesome way.With every moment bringing the human race ...
I KNEW THE MECHANICS OF DEATH -- AND I WAS CAUGHT IN ITS GEARS Avery Cates is a wanted man. After surviving the worst bioengineered disaster in history, Cates finds himself incarcerated - in Chengara Penitentiary. As Chengara has a survival rate of ...
An all-new mystery anthology edited and featuring a new story by #1 New York Times bestselling author Charlaine Harris Nighttime is the perfect time for the perfect crime. #1 New York Times bestselling author Charlaine Harris edits and contributes...
Avery Cates is an army man. Between the army's new dental plan and a set of first class augments, he's been given a second chance - albeit a quick one. When a corrupt officer decides to make some money on the side by selling new recruits, Cates fi...
The world is dying. With avatars replacing humans and the birth rate non-existent, the human race is almost extinct. In the end, it comes down to Canny Orel; Avery's long sought after nemesis -- transformed now into something other than human. Ore...
Jeff Somers' novels Lifers (2001, Creative Arts Book Co.) and Chum (2013, Tyrus Books; www.chumthenovel.com) share a universe and characters. This story is a deleted chapter from Lifers that offers some background into the world of the horrible, awfu...
THE INNER SWINE Volume 19, Issue 1/2 (Summer 2013) IN THIS ISSUE: Sic transit gloria mundi and all that jazz: Nothing’s forever. Except this zine, which no one reads any more, and yet here it is!EDITORIAL: Good RiddanceCOMMENTARY: All These Places ...
Every Wedding Has a Ruiner. Thomas Massery has always had a way...with the ladies, with a good bottle of booze, and with a sarcastic quip. Attending a wedding along with three ex-wives is bad enough. Being seated with them gets his dander up. When he...
A gritty supernatural thriller featuring a pair of unlikely heroes caught up in the underground world of blood magic. The ethics in a world of blood are gray -- and an underground strata of blood magicians has been engineering disasters for centur...
Avery Cates is a bad man. Wandering the ruins of The System, he thinks he's done fighting, done killing -- but the world hasn't quite ended yet. When Cates is trapped in an old System prison, he encounters evidence that he's still a person of interes...
Continuing Avery Cates' story from "The Shattered Gears," "The Walled City" sees the aging Gunner tangle with a psionic who has set himself up as a City Lord in the crumbling remnants of civilization. Coming to Kindle, Kobo, Google Play, and Nook Jun...
The fourth episode of the exciting new Avery Cates adventure finds Avery en route to the mysterious Iron Island, where he will finally learn why he's on everybody's To Do List, and forge some surprising new alliances....
Learn the Words. Get the blood. Rule the world. A stand-alone short story in the Ustari Cycle.Most people never learn what a Stringer is -- and their lives are better for it. Lem, however, gets to learn about them and possession by alien intelligence...
The second in a trilogy of three shorts from the “exhilarating…powerful and entertaining” (The Guardian) contemporary fantasy writer Jeff Somers, featuring the blood magician duo from the inventive and darkly comic We Are Not Good People.Buddie...
Learn the Words. Get the blood. Rule the world. A stand-alone short story in the Ustari Cycle -- the gritty supernatural series that includes We Are Not Good People from the "exhilarating, powerful, and entertaining" (Guardian) storyteller of the Ave...
In this thrilling prequel to The Electric Church, a young Avery Cates finds himself trying desperately to survive in the newly-established System of Federated Nations. When a hit on a Joint Council Undersecretary falls into his lap, Cates determines ...
In this sequel to THE SHATTERED GEARS, Avery Cates is finding life as a City Lord not what it's cracked up to be, and is almost relieved when the woman he stole the city from, Lucinda Barowel, returns with a proposal. Partnering with a former Joint C...
Avery Cates has a problem.In a shrinking, sterile world, the Archangel is marching his army to Castelvecchio, and Cates has the information he needs to access the last remnants of the awesome technology of the despise System. He's made his Devil's Ba...
Avery Cates is a City Lord, but the world's still ending. When he comes across a key piece of information, he hatches a bold plan to reboot the world - but the Archangel's army is camped outside, and they're coming in one way or another. Part Three o...
In the world of blood magic, Bleeders are often treated as livestock -- as sources for sacrificial blood. When he makes the desperate decision to join a risky magical heist, Lem Vonnegan's refusal to bleed anyone but himself for his spells causes ten...
If you enjoyed WE ARE NOT GOOD PEOPLE, THE STRINGER, THE BOOM BANDS, or LAST BEST DAY, here are three short stories set in the USTARI CYCLE universe!In IDOLATOR, Lem Vonnegan and Pitr Mags chase after a dangerous artifact that could do irreparable da...
Lem Vonnegan and Pitr Mags try to help a desperate Bleeder and Lem is pushed to the limits of his magical ethics. For the first time in his life, he considers crossing his red line against casting spells off of other people's blood....
Avery Cates is heading back to The Iron Island to steal what might be the last operational hover in what was once The System, but his rag-tag army is starting to fray -- and there are more System leftovers out there than he knows. And most of them ar...
A crashing hover, a team of people he can't trust, another group of people who want him dead -- a typical post-apocalyptic day for Avery Cates. Recovering from disaster, Cates finds himself marooned on a tiny island. Cochtopa is no closer, but ere's ...
Avery Cates and his shrinking number of allies have made it to Cochtopa, the secret installation crammed with enough high-tech murder to trade blows with the ArchAngel -- but Cochtopa's AI security is a digital imprint of none other than Dick Marin, ...
Contains four previously published novellas: The Black Wave, The Last Mile, The Ghost Fleet, and The Salted Earth.Having fled Castelvecchio and the Archangel's forces, Avery Cates and crew have only one move left: To somehow locate and gain access to...
Avery Cates is in charge of Cochtopa, the last bastion of System technology and military might left in the world. But with his allies down to three people and a ghostly voice in his head, it may not be enough to stop the Archangel from forcing suicid...
The sequel to THE SHATTERED GEARS containing the previously published novellas THE NEW WORLD, THE DEVIL'S BARGAIN, THE LONG SIEGE, and THE DARK HUNT.Avery Cates has his city, but being a City Lord isn't what he thought it would be. Beset by problems,...
A free Avery Cates short story set after the events of The Shattered Gears Omnibus. Cates is in control of the walled city of Castelvecchio, but that doesn't mean he's safe. Alone in his new office, pondering this latest unexpected twist in his life,...