Authors Jacob & H.P. Holo
Y’AAAAAALLLLL! 😀 H.P. Here!
… To tell you that Barnes & Noble‘s back with its holiest of sales (at least, for authors who have pre-orders up), which is to say:
1) Premium and Reward members get 25% off pre-orders with code PREORDER25 through July 17th
2) Jacob has a pre-order up, and
3) Our readers are BRILLIANT. You can put two and two together. 
If 25% off deals are your thing, hop on over to BN.com and pre that order! 😄
Hey, y’all! H.P. here! 😄 If you like cats, noir, and short stories, you’re in for a treat, because Raconteur Press just dropped Moggie Noir (complete with a new story from yours truly)!
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The question remains whether you should tuck into this volume in a comfy chair for a bit of adventure. Well, if you like cats, there’s more than a little of something you love in the pages or pixels herein because, instead of a bland all-two-legger cast, these stories feature felines as central or pivotal characters. If you are a fan of noir fiction, you’ll enjoy how these authors have explored this genre and maybe stretched the bounds of what you find familiar. Some are set in the 1930s, some are present day, and some are who-knows-when.
After all, who better than a cat might convey the contradictions of a ruthless killer enrobed in the most exquisite package of sumptuous fur with glittering emerald eyes? No one, see? Cats are the ultimate expression of the noir aesthetic, and we hope you will agree, but fasten your seatbelts: it’s going to be a bumpy read.
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This particular anthology marks a REALLY COOL POINT in my author career. 😀
Last year, Raconteur Press invited me to be an anchor author for a project themed around noir and cats.
Had I ever written in the noir genre? NOPE. Had I even read a noir novel? NOPE. The closest I’d come was watching Who Framed Roger Rabbit? It’s my favorite movie of all time, granted … but it’s not exactly a standard noir.
Sure, I’d written about cats, but noir’s a very distinct genre with very distinct tropes.
And yet RacPress had such faith in my writing, they were confident I’d produce an anchor-worthy story in a genre I’d never touched. 😮
I have since touched the genre A LOT, and much like Jacob with police procedurals and the File novels … found a new genre I love to write in. 😄
All this to say, I’m excited for you to meet the two newest tenants of my head in “Logan Decker, P.I. and the Bodies Agatha Definitely Didn’t Put There.” 😄 One’s a gruff, jaded PI; the other’s the ghost of a cat who spent all nine lives. Together they’ll solve crimes (or do them, Agatha’s cool with either). 😸
I had a lot of fun writing it, and I hope you have just as much fun reading it!
Ever wished you could read a new book before it releases? 😀 Well, you’re in luck, as Baen Books just released the Early Access eARC for Freelancers of Neptune (Sol Blazers #1) – i.e. Jacob’s first solo series since the Seraphim Revival! 😮
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All he wanted was a simple job to make ends meet. What he got was a mysterious cat girl, a shot at a hoard of treasure, and a whole lot of trouble.
The Solar System ain’t what it used to be!
In the far distant future, Saturn’s rings are gone, Mercury is a gas giant, and Earth is remembered only as a unit of measure. Nearly godlike AIs reshaped the Solar System in eons past, but they too are now nothing more than a fading memory.
Captain Nathaniel Kade cares for none of that. He’s but a simple freelancer from the orbital ring of Neptune, struggling to make ends meet and to keep his understaffed spaceship from falling apart. All he wants is a decent, uneventful job to help put his finances back in order.
What he receives instead is Vessani S’Kaari, a mysterious and beautiful cat girl who tried—and failed—to steal a ship belonging to a band of space pirates. Vessani’s in over her head and is clearly more trouble than she’s worth, but she also has a lead on what may be the greatest treasure trove of lost technology the Solar System has ever seen.
Nathan pulls her butt out of the fire, and together they begin to assemble a team to seek out this long-lost bounty. But other interested parties have their eyes on the same prize; the Jovian Everlife has dispatched a fleet of warships with one of their elite, many-bodied agents in command, and he’d like a few words with Nathan and his new crewmember.
What’s an eARC? It’s the semi-final version of the book; it’ll have a few typos (and, in fact, is the version H.P.’s editing right now), but other than that, it’s pretty close to the final version that will release in June.
But, of course, if you’d rather wait for the finished version, it’s also up for pre-order wherever you like to buy books (and in Baen’s October Monthly Bundle). 😁
However you choose to experience it, we’re looking forward to sharing it with you, and we hope you enjoy it. 😊
Curious to hear more about The Thermopylae Protocol? Join us for our Virtual Launch Party Saturday, June 15th DATE CHANGE! June 29th @ 8pm as we chat with David Weber … and give away some signed copies!
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by David Weber & Jacob Holo
Published by Baen Books
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NEW NOVEL IN THE BEST-SELLING GORDIAN DIVISION SERIES FROM NYT BEST-SELLING AUTHOR DAVID WEBER AND JACOB HOLO
After an industrial ship carrying advanced self-replicating machines explodes on its way to Mercury, analysis of the wreckage reveals it to be forty years too old. Raibert Kaminski, the Gordian Division’s top agent, and his crew on the TransTemporal Vehicle Kleio soon discover the ship was transported to an uncharted universe, one with temporarily accelerated time. Forty years passed for the ship’s industrial machines while everyone else experienced only a few short days. Raibert is certain a powerful weapon of some nature has been built out in the unexplored reaches of the multiverse, but where and by whom remains unknown.
The search is on, and the Gordian Division musters its fleet of time machines at Providence, a massive transdimensional station under construction. They call upon their allies from the militaristic Admin for aid in their search—but before plans can be formalized, the leader of the Admin’s Department of Temporal Investigation is murdered while visiting Providence, and the joint operation is thrown into chaos.
Accusations fly and tensions mount between the two organizations. Detectives Isaac Cho and Susan Cantrell—both fast becoming experts in transdimensional crime—are dispatched to Providence. But the clock is ticking for the detectives and Raibert’s crew. A vast, powerful conspiracy has shuddered into motion, and the two teams may be all that stand between it and destruction on a universal scale.
by David Weber & Jacob Holo
Published by Baen Books
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NEW NOVEL IN THE BEST-SELLING GORDIAN DIVISION SERIES FROM NYT BEST-SELLING AUTHOR DAVID WEBER AND JACOB HOLO
After an industrial ship carrying advanced self-replicating machines explodes on its way to Mercury, analysis of the wreckage reveals it to be forty years too old. Raibert Kaminski, the Gordian Division’s top agent, and his crew on the TransTemporal Vehicle Kleio soon discover the ship was transported to an uncharted universe, one with temporarily accelerated time. Forty years passed for the ship’s industrial machines while everyone else experienced only a few short days. Raibert is certain a powerful weapon of some nature has been built out in the unexplored reaches of the multiverse, but where and by whom remains unknown.
The search is on, and the Gordian Division musters its fleet of time machines at Providence, a massive transdimensional station under construction. They call upon their allies from the militaristic Admin for aid in their search—but before plans can be formalized, the leader of the Admin’s Department of Temporal Investigation is murdered while visiting Providence, and the joint operation is thrown into chaos.
Accusations fly and tensions mount between the two organizations. Detectives Isaac Cho and Susan Cantrell—both fast becoming experts in transdimensional crime—are dispatched to Providence. But the clock is ticking for the detectives and Raibert’s crew. A vast, powerful conspiracy has shuddered into motion, and the two teams may be all that stand between it and destruction on a universal scale.
***
Curious to hear more about the book? Join us for our Virtual Launch Party Satruday, June 15th DATE CHANGE! June 29th @ 8pm as we chat with David Weber … and give away some signed copies!
Hey, y’all! 😄 These days, it’s not often that I write under my H.P. Holo pen name, largely buried in writing as the surprise best-seller my spicy Edie Skye pen name became.
However, as I was writing Titan Mage, my first series under that name, a funny thing happened: Readers started asking for a monster girl series.
Now, monster girls hadn’t been established as a part of Titan Mage lore, and I didn’t want to retcon something so potentially complex into that world.
However, on my H.P. Holo pen name, I’d already written Monster Punk Horizon—and, in fact, I’d already planned to write a monster girl harem parody in that series (albeit a chaste one in the style of early-2000s harem anime like Tenchi Muyo and Love Hina). Moreover, Monster Punk fans have been asking me for a continuation of that series for years.
And I do love giving my readers what they ask for! 😉
Since the basic groundwork was already in place, it wasn’t hard to re-work my original Monster Punk harem concept into a sexy monster girl series. As much as I love Pix and Jaz, they don’t fit the archetypes of the harem genre all that well, so I ended up creating a new cast for readers to follow. (The old favorites still end up making significant cameos, though. After all, I love them too much to stop writing them! 😊)
Our MC in Monster Girl Tamer, then, is the heroic Axel Hunter Radcliffe. He’s from a family of Chosen Ones, destined to be his generation’s Chosen One … but he doesn’t know what he’s been Chosen to do. All he knows is that he’s fated to assemble a group of skilled women to do it—a “tactical harem.”
Things get even more complicated when he falls through a portal into the Dazzling Skies.
And even more complicated when monsters start turning into hot monster girl versions of themselves—Thicc Variants—and wreaking havoc across the Monstrous Continent. Are they the problem he’s been Chosen to stop? Or are they the essential pieces of the harem that will help him save the world?
He doesn’t know, but either way, these monster girls need to be tamed! 🤣
Obviously, a series of that nature would be written under my Edie Skye pen name, since that’s basically my shorthand for “This is smut.” (If spiciness isn’t your thing, be warned: It’s a lot spicier than Monster Punk Horizon was.) However, I also wanted to be clear that it’s set in a world I created as H.P. Holo.
Thus, we have this odd little situation where I’m co-authoring a book … with myself. 😂
Spice level differences aside, this series continues the same redonkulous monster-hunting hijinks you know and love from Monster Punk Horizon (and the spicy scenes are largely skippable, for those who don’t enjoy that kind of content 😊).
Whatever your taste, I hope you enjoy it! 😄
Signed book collectors, rejoice! 😄 We’ve teamed up with one of our local booksellers, Fiction Addiction in Greenville, SC, to offer signed copies of David Weber and Jacob’s next title, The Thermopylae Protocol.
If signed books are your jam, hop on over to their website to order yours – but go fast, because the promo ends May 28th! 😃
Hey, y’all! 😄 Jacob’s next Baen Books title, Freelancers of Neptune, releases this October – but if you’d like a little taste of what’s to come, check out his short story “Release the Cyber-Kraken!” in Raconteur Press’ latest anthology!
Edited by LawDog
Published by Raconteur Press
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When every inch of our planet has been explored, from the depths of the sea to the top of every mountain, Space and her untamed frontiers will still be beckoning us, calling us to go beyond the farthest star and see what there is to see.
Old Sam Clemens once said that History don’t repeat itself, but it do rhyme. In Space, we got a vast, unexplored, mysterious, and dangerous frontier. We’ll have herds of some kind to watch over and to drive to market. Most times we’ll be far and beyond the reach of “civilization,” with their myriad of laws, lawyers, and politicians. Those tough enough to carve out a living will need the independent, rugged spirit of the cowboy to survive. There will be leeches and villains, for sure, heroes and anti-heroes, and some folks just trying to eke out a living. If we choose to tell their tales draped in the lingo and trappings of the cowboy, that’s just another rhyme, with form following the function.
If you’re new to the Space Cowboy series, you’re in for a treat. These ten stories, from ten different authors, are where you’ll find Explorers charting new frontiers in space, Trailhands and Drovers watching over their cattle on alien plains, and Lawdogs of every stripe meting out frontier justice, and doing their best to make sure scallywags with evil intent don’t win in the end. These cowboys and cowgirls don’t back down from a challenge. It’s not in their nature.
(From the Introduction written by Rick Cutler)
by Jacob Holo
Published by Baen Books
***
All he wanted was a simple job to make ends meet. What he got was a mysterious cat girl, a shot at a hoard of treasure, and a whole lot of trouble.
The Solar System ain’t what it used to be!
In the far distant future, Saturn’s rings are gone, Mercury is a gas giant, and Earth is remembered only as a unit of measure. Nearly godlike AIs reshaped the Solar System in eons past, but they too are now nothing more than a fading memory.
Captain Nathaniel Kade cares for none of that. He’s but a simple freelancer from the orbital ring of Neptune, struggling to make ends meet and to keep his understaffed spaceship from falling apart. All he wants is a decent, uneventful job to help put his finances back in order.
What he receives instead is Vessani S’Kaari, a mysterious and beautiful cat girl who tried—and failed—to steal a ship belonging to a band of space pirates. Vessani’s in over her head and is clearly more trouble than she’s worth, but she also has a lead on what may be the greatest treasure trove of lost technology the Solar System has ever seen.
Nathan pulls her butt out of the fire, and together they begin to assemble a team to seek out this long-lost bounty. But other interested parties have their eyes on the same prize; the Jovian Everlife has dispatched a fleet of warships with one of their elite, many-bodied agents in command, and he’d like a few words with Nathan and his new crewmember.
Ever wished you could read a new book before it releases? 😀 Well, you’re in luck, as Baen Books just released the Early Access eARC for Gordian Division #6 – The Thermopylae Protocol.
What’s an eARC? It’s the semi-final version of the book; it’ll have a few typos (and, in fact, is the version H.P.’s editing right now), but other than that, it’s pretty close to the final version that will release in June.
But, of course, if you’d rather wait for the finished version, it’s also up for pre-order wherever you like to buy books (and in Baen’s June Monthly Bundle). 😁
However you choose to experience it, we’re looking forward to sharing it with you, and we hope you enjoy it. ️️😊
It’s amazing to think we’re already on Book 6 of the Gordian Division series, but here we are. 😮
The Thermopylae Protocol marks an interesting departure for the series.
David and I wrote previous books to fit within their own separate branches, with the “Protocol” branch leaning toward alternate history and hard sci-fi with the risk of exploding universes, and the “File” branch being sci-fi police procedurals with lower-stakes but still thrilling adventures.
This novel starts with an exploding spaceship, which is fun for readers 😃 … but not so much for the Gordian Division, when it finds the wreckage is inexplicably 40 years older than it should be – not to mention carrying advanced self-replicating machines that, in the wrong hands, could be put to multiverse-destroying ends. 😨
Gordian Division’s no stranger to multiverse-threatening challenges, but time is of the essence, and when you’ve got a multiverse-spanning time-travel mystery, who better to call than a pair of time cops from two different universes? 😉
They’ll all have to work together to get to the bottom of this, and fast, because if they don’t, the fate of multiple universes could be at stake. (Again.)
by Jacob Holo
• • •
NEW GORDIAN DIVISION NOVEL: When a top engineer on Saturn commits suicide, Detective Isaac Cho and Special Agent Susan Cantrell are called in to review the case. But what seems like an open-and-shut case spirals into the strange. And if Cho and Cantrell don’t solve the mystery soon, they may be the next ones to wind up dead.
The Atlas Corporation was all set to tear apart the planet Mercury—converting its resources into a swarm of solar-collecting megastructures—when Esteban Velasco, lead Atlas engineer, is found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.
Detective Isaac Cho and Special Agent Susan Cantrell, both eager to return to active duty despite close calls on their last case, are sent in to assess the situation. Their superiors expect a simple declaration of suicide, but Velasco’s death proves anything but typical.
The detectives soon find themselves embroiled in a mystery far more complex—and strange—than anyone expected, leading them to a church for Mercury-loving weirdos, a “nudist” colony open to Saturn’s unbreathable atmosphere, an exclusive park for hunting dinosaurs, and a ghost town where forgotten machines wage war over condo floorplans.
What was meant to be an easy return to duty for the detectives takes a sudden dark turn when ruthless mind-hackers ambush and nearly kill them, making one fact crystal clear:
If they don’t solve this case soon, it’ll be their corpses that turn up next.
Curious to hear more about the book? Join us for our Virtual Launch Party THIS SATURDAY, November 11th @ 8pm as we chat … and give away some signed copies!