Kathleen S. McFall

THE ONLY PERSON LEFT ALIVE WHO CAN SAVE MARS AND EARTH HAS VANISHED The year is (still) 2188 and Crucial Larsen is officially done with Mars. Just as he's set to head back to his beloved Earth, meteors crash into the orbital platforms, ravage the luxury domes and knock Halo--the powerful AI running both Mars and Earth offline. And this is no random cosmic event. A mysterious invading force can redirect space rocks at will and intends to level the Five Families. The invaders' first act? Put a bounty on missing Staff Scientist Melinda Hopwire, Crucial's ex-lover--the only person who can find the back-up servers and introduce the empathy hack, the endgame of the beleaguered Resistance. Crucial has to fight and claw his way across the deadly Choke on the red planet armed with only a glue gun, some expired maple rum and Sanders, a malfunctioning cybanism, to find Mel and her synthetic perma-kitten Wisp. If he fails, it's the end for both planets. Blending science-fiction with a classic hard-boiled detective story, Mars Adrift is the final book in The Halo Trilogy, an inter-planetary mystery and a searing critique of the contemporary billionaire quest for Mars. This is the tenth book by Clark Hays and Kathleen McFall.

A MURDER ON MARS LEADS TO HELL ON EARTHThe year is 2188 and the Earth-long-ago abandoned for Mars by the plutocrats-is scorched by poverty, disease and environmental collapse. Meanwhile, the red planet is a flourishing playground for the Five Families who, thanks to Halo-an advanced AI-control everything and everyone on Earth, including Crucial Larsen, a disillusioned labor cop. The wealthy elite of Mars don't know that on his last trip up-universe, Crucial stumbled onto a secret that could destroy them. Yet, despite fervent pleas from his sister (a leader in the resistance), Crucial believes fighting back against the Five Families is a fool's game destined for failure-or worse. Plus, he never wants to set foot on that damn planet again. Then Melinda, his long-lost love and a staff scientist on Mars, begs for his help clearing her fianc e of a murder charge. Crucial jumps on the next quantum rocket, hoping maybe this time he can patch things up with Mel. His investigation ultimately leads back to Earth's radiation-blasted sunbelt, where cannibal lizard-people-a climate change mitigation genetic experiment gone terribly wrong-hold the key to a different future, if only Crucial can stay alive long enough to unlock it. Blending science-fiction with a classic, hard-boiled detective story, Scorched Earth is the second book in The Halo Trilogy, an irreverent series set on post-colonial Mars, and the ninth novel by Clark Hays and Kathleen McFall.