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Travis S. Taylor


Moon Beam

Bright Sparks: Book 1

Jody Lynn Nye
Travis S. Taylor

What happens when you get the one thing you wanted most in life? Lonely 16-year-old farm girl Barbara Winton has been following one reality show for years. Then in an instant she goes from fangirl to participant when the call comes from Dr. Keegan Bright: She's been selected out of a horde of applicants to join him on the Moon.

She'll be one of his Bright Sparks, six students with expertise in STEM and plenty of their own ingenuity chosen to work with Dr. Bright and given big responsibilities to undertake new projects important to the growth of the colony. Her first task? Build a radar telescope using an entire crater on the far side of the Moon.

But Barbara soon learns that life on a burgeoning frontier outpost like the Moon is a far cry from safe, civilized Earth. The loner from farm country must find a way to weld a functional team out of fiercely independent thinkers. Not only are they a bit trickier to work with than farm robots, not only is the working environment incredibly dangerous - she also has to perform this miracle in front of millions of fans.

Moon Tracks

Bright Sparks: Book 2

Jody Lynn Nye
Travis S. Taylor

Barbara Winton and the rest of the Bright Sparks, Dr. Keegan Bright's team of young scientists, find themselves facing a challenge that will test all of their scientific skills and personal courage. They are competing in the first ever race to completely circle the Moon. The Sparks, and twenty-five other teams, have to count on one another as they face thousands of kilometers of unknown dangers, where even a simple accident can have fatal consequences. They form close friendships with racers from all over Earth, but also have to deal with former Spark, Pam, a mysterious and threatening figure whose departure from the Sparks program is shrouded in mystery.

While the Sparks compete in the race, Dr. Bright himself is part of a groundbreaking project to seek out rare minerals underneath a crater. On the far side of the Moon, in the airless, frozen depths beneath the lunar surface, disaster strikes. On the thinly settled Moon only the Bright Sparks may be close enough help him. The young scientist find themselves not only racing for victory, but to save their beloved mentor.

Vorpal Blade

Looking Glass Series: Book 2

John Ringo
Travis S. Taylor

The sequel to Into the Looking Glass.

William Weaver, PhD. and SEAL Chief Miller are back and Bill got himself a ship! The former SSBN Nebraska has been converted, using mostly garage mechanics and baling wire, into a warp ship ready to go "out there." But as everyone knows, the people who really are going to bear the brunt are the poor Security guys, Force Recon Marines who are kept in the dark and fed manure all day. That is until they land on an alien planet, get partially wiped out and then load back up again.

Ranging in topics from the best gun to kill armored space monsters to particle physics to cosmology to health and beauty tips, Vorpal Blade is a return to the "good old days" of SF when the science problems were intractable and the beasts were ugly. The monkeys are out in the space lanes and ready to rock. As soon as they get another roll of duct tape.

Manxome Foe

Looking Glass Series: Book 3

John Ringo
Travis S. Taylor

In the midst of recovering from their successful if casualty prone first mission, the crew of the Alliance Space Ship Vorpal Blade are suddenly scrambled back into action. All other priorities take second place as word arrives on earth of a gate colony which has fallen to an unidentified alien assault. As the only space ship currently available to the Human-Adar Alliance, the Vorpal Blade is dispatched to find out what happened to the colony, rescue any survivors and learn the identity of the attackers.

With new complexities added to the universe started in the novel Into the Looking Glass and continued in Vorpal Blade, Manxome Foe continues the tradition of non-stop action, valorous if quirky characters and rigorous science drawn from the frontiers of current theory. The odd-ball crew of the Vorpal Blade is an unlikely savior of earth, but none dare say they quail at engaging the Manxome Foe.

Claws that Catch

Looking Glass Series: Book 4

John Ringo
Travis S. Taylor

It's Not Over Til The Skinny Lady Sings . . .

Working off of a piece of intelligence from our alien allies, the Vorpal Blade is dispatched to investigate rumors of an ancient and powerful civilization that may have been the creators of the “black box” that drives humanity's only space ship. Any remnant technology would be nice but what the Blade finds is much more than they bargained for. Worse, the ship is infested by an alien species of scorpion-like arachnoids that has the potential to wipe out a world. Worst of all, instead of being Astrogator, Captain William Weaver is now the XO and he is not getting along with the new commander. And the new commander does not get along with Weaver, the ship's female savant-linguist or most of the rest of the original crew. And what is that weird noise the ship makes every time it's in hard maneuvers?

Leave it to the oddball geniuses of the Blade to sort it all out. And the Dreen are not going to like the answers.

Back to the Moon

Space Excursions: Book 1

Travis S. Taylor
Les Johnson

THE SECOND TIME AROUND--IS HARDER...

Decades after the last footprints were left on the Moon, the U.S. was preparing to return to the Lunar surface in a new class of rockets, when the mission suddenly became much more urgent. It would have to be a rescue mission.

Unbeknownst to the rest of the world China had sent its own Lunar expedition. A manned expedition. Until a distress call was received, no human outside of China even knew that the mission was manned--or that their ship had crash-landed and couldn't take off again.

Time was running out, and if the four Chinese astronauts were to be rescued, the American lunar mission would have to launch immediately, with only a skeleton crew. Once the heroic U.S. astronauts were underway the army of engineers and scientists back home had the daunting task of deciding what equipment could be left on the Moon to permit the Lunar lander vehicle vehicle to lift safely from the Moon with the two U.S. astronauts and the four stranded Chinese taikonauts! Could the U.S. mount such a mission successfully--and would thousands of years of instilled honor "allow" the Chinese astronauts to accept a rescue?

On to the Asteroid

Space Excursions: Book 2

Les Johnson
Travis S. Taylor

It's the beginning of a new golden age of space exploration. Finally, humanity is taking the commercialization of space to the next level--mining asteroids. The new gold rush of the commercial space era has begun.

Another commercial venture, an attempt to put a hotel on the Moon, is seeking the space tourism gold of the ultra wealthy. And it seems as if the dream of finally sending people to Mars is finally going to happen using a ship propelled by a powerful nuclear rocket.

But space travel isn't cut and dry, and there is nothing routine about it. In order to mine an asteroid the goal is to bring it closer to Earth, but orbital mechanics are tricky and close to Earth proves to be far too close for comfort--with looming destruction from space about to become a grim reality. Now astronauts, scientists, engineers, and people in all the burgeoning space businesses must team together to stop the asteroid before it is too late for humanity and the planet it calls home.

One Day on Mars

The Tau Ceti Agenda: Book 1

Travis S. Taylor

TWENTY-FOUR HOURS: A DAY THAT WOULD EITHER FREE AN ENTIRE PLANET-OR UTTERLY DEVASTATE IT

A nonstop futuristic thrill-ride, through the critical events which were the breaking point for the underclass of Martian citizens and precipitated a revolution to break the Martian colonists free from the formidable Sol System government. The formerly red planet--now in danger of again becoming red, blood red--would never be the same, nor would the human race.

It was one day that changed the course of history for the Solar System, raging from hand-to-hand combat to piloted armored mecha suits clashing to an enormous space battle, with dedicated heroes on both sides of the conflict wondering if they were doing the right thing--and if they would live to see another day. And wondering, as well, if the spark of this new war, that would eventually reach across whole star systems, would bring them peace.

The Tau Ceti Agenda

The Tau Ceti Agenda: Book 2

Travis S. Taylor

Protect, Defend--and Blow to Smithereens!

Humanity's Separatist movement prepares the biggest sucker punch ever against Earth governments. The plan Kill the U.S. President at Disney World and drive a quantum-teleported kamikaze starship into a heavily-populated city. One thing the fanatical Separatists haven't figured on: an America military unleashed by a fighting president -- an ex-Marine determined that terrorists won't have the final word on humanity's future!

One Good Soldier

The Tau Ceti Agenda: Book 3

Travis S. Taylor

One Good Soldier is the third book in the rapid-fire hard science military SF series of One Day on Mars and The Tau Ceti Agenda. In another 24-like narrative set six years after the events in The Tau Ceti Agenda, this exciting action story unfolds in a single critical day in the history of the United States of the Sol System, the extra-solar colonies, the Separatist Revolutionaries of the Tau Ceti system, and all of mankind.

As another of Earth's colonies, Ross 128, secedes from the union, the President of the United States, former marine major Alexander Moore, takes swift action to prevent a second American Civil War, this time on an interstellar scale. He sends the flagship of the U.S. Naval fleet through the Quantum Membrane Teleporter based in the Oort Cloud to the seceding colony. But the Tau Ceti Separatists have stationed their own teleporter there and the flagship will be met with heavy resistance from the Separatist Navy.

And, unknown to the president and first lady, their eighteen year old military school cadet daughter has been kidnapped and whisked away to the Separatist leader's house on Tau Ceti.

Only the heroics and sacrifices of one good soldier after another can save the flagship, the Union, and the first daughter in an all-out winner-take-all showdown that reaches its final climax with frenzied hand-to-hand combat in the Oval Office itself.

Trail of Evil

The Tau Ceti Agenda: Book 4

Travis S. Taylor

A century and a half after the Martian Separatist Wars, and the final defeat of insane terrorist leader El Ahmi, Alexander Moore returns to the stars with the Sienna Madira, a United States Navy supercarrier spacecraft outfitted with advanced FTL and endlessly strange, extremely effective, quantum-based weapons and remote sensing technology. And, of course, he's brought Marines, and lots of them. These are troops superbly trained for space battle, and equipped with advanced powered armor and artificial intelligence backup.

Moore's task: hunt down remnant weaponry platforms left by the brilliant, mad artificial intelligence known as Copernicus, the being ultimately responsible for the Solar System wide civil war. Yet Moore is about to uncover something far more sinister: before his destruction, Copernicus had established multiple mecha-warrior defended bases with the intent of resuming the destruction of humanity. Worse, an a.i. presence even more dangerous, evil, and clever than Copernicus may have formed an alliance with something else out there with a similar goal: wipe humanity from the galaxy forever.

But those enemies will have to face a fully armed and equipped military task force led by a resolute general and his soldiers who know they are all that stand between human life, freedom, and progress--and the total annihilation of mankind.

Kill Before Dying

The Tau Ceti Agenda: Book 5

Travis S. Taylor

Humanity takes to interstellar space to face conflict and an extermination threat from an evil artificial intelligence, and an alien menace from beyond.

A century and a half after the Martian Separatist Wars, Alexander Moore returns to the stars with the Sienna Madira, a United States Navy supercarrier spacecraft outfitted with advanced FTL and endlessly strange, extremely effective, quantum-based weapons and remote sensing technology. And, of course, he's brought Marines, and lots of them. These are troops superbly trained for space battle, and equipped with advanced powered armor and artificial intelligence backup.

Moore's task: hunt down remnant weaponry platforms left by the brilliant, mad artificial intelligence known as Copernicus, the being ultimately responsible for the Solar System-wide civil war. Now Copernicus has formed an alliance with something else out there with a similar goal: wipe humanity from the galaxy forever.

Bringers of Hell

The Tau Ceti Agenda: Book 6

Travis S. Taylor

HELL BREAKS LOOSE

Despite unprecedented victories on the part of humanity, the war with the alien Chiata Horde drags on. The Chiata may be bewildered by the cunning tenacity of General Alexander Moore and the men and women who fight at his side, but they have no intention of beating a hasty retreat. In fact, intelligence suggests that the Chiata Invasion is at hand, and with numbers sure to overwhelm humankind. But hope has come from an unlikely source: the Thgreet, long-dead inhabitants of a world ground under the heels of the Chiata millennia ago. In the crumbled ruins of their homeworld is a map--and it may lead to victory.

Meanwhile, Alexander Moore's daughter, Deanna Moore, now known by the callsign "Phoenix," wages a personal war on the Chiata. Grievously wounded in the battle for Thgreet and rebuilt with state-of-the-art cybernetics, she leads a group of mecha-suited Marines known as "The Bringers of Hell." Once a tough-as-nails Marine, she has been reborn as an implacable scourge to the Chiata. And nothing will stand in the way of her mission: to make the aliens pay.

Warp Speed

Warp Speed Series: Book 1

Travis S. Taylor

Tomorrow the Stars--Today, World War III!

Dr. Neil Anson Clemons was born at the very moment that men first landed on the moon and always strived to become an astronaut and reach the stars. Becoming an astronaut and traveling to the stars are not easy tasks. Neil devoted his life to staying physically fit as any astronaut should be through martial arts and mentally fit by studying and becoming one of the world's foremost experts in quantum physics and gravitational theory. Now he and his team have achieved a breakthrough, both in building a warp drive, and finding a new energy source powerful enough to make the drive more than an interesting theoretical concept.

With the help of attractive and outspoken southern astronaut, US Air Force Colonel Tabitha Ames, the US Government is convinced to fund the Top Secret warp project, including assembly in orbit of the first faster-than-light probe. Unfortunately, forces working behind the scenes have much darker dreams, and have infiltrated the Top Secret program. They do not hesitate to blow up a space shuttle, attempt to kill Neil and Tabitha, and use the stolen warp technology to start what they expect to be a short, devastating, and victorious war with the United States.

But Dr. Clemons has ideas for using his warp drive technology completely unsuspected by America's enemies, and repelling the all-out attack is only the beginning of a titanic struggle to reach the stars.

Warp Speed is lightning-paced science fiction adventure built upon authentic science in the grand tradition of Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, and E. E. "Doc" Smith.

The Quantum Connection

Warp Speed Series: Book 2

Travis S. Taylor

Steven Montana, computer whiz and hacker extraordinaire, was attending college in Ohio when his world fell apart. A swarm of huge meteors fell all over the world, on Europe, on the United States, and in particular on Steven's home town in California. In an instant, his family and all his friends were gone.

Suffering fits of deep depression, he dropped out of college and ended up working as a repairman in a video games store, where he did a brilliant job of repairing a 30-year-old video game. That caught the attention of the game's owner, who happened to be in a position to get Steven a government job, cracking computer codes, and reverse engineering unusual hardware.

When he was given a tiny piece of hardware to examine as a "test," he worked out its functions so well that he and his boss were called to Washington for a Top Secret meeting. They asked him countless questions, yet declined to answer his; but he would soon learn all the answers.

The "meteor" onslaught that had orphaned him had actually been a brief and still secret war between the U.S and its enemies (as told in Warp Speed) using a new warp drive technology that was more secret than top secret. Another secret was that U.S. had been sending faster-than-light ships to other star systems. Most secret of all was that unfriendly aliens were observing the Earth, and while U.S. spaceships were not quite in a war with the unknown aliens, they were shooting at the intruders.

Whether any of these answers would do Steven any good was an open question because he learned them only after he was abducted by those very same aliens and was held prisoner on one of their ships orbiting Saturn. At first, he was one of three human prisoners, but he had just seen the aliens completely dissect one of the three, and it looked like either Steven, or the Russian girl who was his fellow prisoner, were scheduled to be the next alien lab experiment....

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