Swords and Spaceships for June 29

Godolia warlords are tightening their tyrannical rule on the Badlands using mechanized weapons called Windups. Eris is a gearbreaker who specializes in destroying Windups, but she ends up in a Godolia prison when a misson goes awry. There she meets Sona, a Windup pilot. While at first they seem to be enemies, they soon learn they’re fighting the same enemy… and maybe falling in love.

Agent South works just hard enough to make no enemies in the Caspian Republic, the last bastion of humanity that’s run by an artificial intelligence that allows no deviation. Then a Party official is killed and discovered to be a “machine” and South is given the task of chaperoning his widow–also a “machine,” and someone who bears a strange resemblance to South’s deceased wife.

Yalxi was the Supreme Mistress of the Guild of Sorcerers until her love took both her throne and the diamond heart, which gave Yalxi her magical powers. Now Yalxi is on a mission to get her power and her place back, but making allies isn’t easy; she forged her path to power in blood, and the consequences are coming home to her now as well.

In the desert of the American Southwest, a cult prays that the “Visitors” will return, vigilant for signs of the “Duad” that will stand in their way. A woman named Daley wakes to find an alien consciousness in her mind that gives her the gift of healing–and won’t shut up. Daley tries to hide her new power, but when the cult discovers her, they decide that she must be the Duad they have to defeat.

Briseis has an unusual gift: she can grow plants from tiny seeds to maturity with just a touch of her hand. Which sounds like a great power… if she could control it. When her aunt in rural New York dies, Bri and her parents head to the woman’s dilapidated estate for the summer to get a little breathing room. What they find there is a mystery that centers on a walled garden filled with deadly plants, a place only Bri can enter. Soon strangers are arriving, asking for medicines and potions, and Bri discovers she has a talent for making those, too. But the community has its own dark secrets, and there are those who would harness Bri’s power to make an elixir for mortality, whether she’s willing or not.

A massive beast is devouring stars one by one as war rages through the galaxy. An exiled prince must face the consequences of his mistakes while a princess has vanished without a trace… and a sleeping god stirs on a hidden planet.