"... it's VERY good ... and of course people use their freight mechs to fight!"
- BookTok influencer @bloodfirejeff

"I enjoyed this read so much I’ve immediately bought the next two books!"
- Callum Dunlop, Amazon UK

"It's thoughtful, a little ridiculous in the best way, and has me looking forward to book 2."
- BookTok influencer @X_DG

"I gave 'Belly of Salt' a try in hopes it would scratch the itch 'The Expanse' series left since its conclusion. I got much more than I bargained for ... cannot recommend it enough."
- Cristina Roman, Amazon USA

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War is coming - what would you risk to finally belong?

Episode 1 of the Belly of Salt series.

On the cusp of adulthood, Eva finally finds kinship in the orbital cavalry, where her penchant for violence and her relentless composure are not just accepted, but respected. Nonetheless, she can smell rot in the ranks. She is being ordered to kill people – a lot of people – and she can either ask why, or keep her new and fragile belonging intact, raising toast after toast to victory in the warmth of her barracks.

Meanwhile, Iskander earns a wage by hauling cargo in his robotic freight mech, a two-legged pile of rust and greasy steel that cost every penny he had. Employment, however, is not the same as belonging. Knowing that “real” mech pilots fight in dangerous, glitzy combat tournaments, he must either risk death by fighting in his decrepit mech, or stand aside and hope a steady paycheck overwhelms the immediacy of being alone.

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Belly of Salt is a science fiction series that explores the absurd price of belonging. Eva and Iskander each struggle to shield their small, brittle pieces of happiness from dangers that are far beyond their control – dangers that may include each other.

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Excerpts:
She had thought such fortitude belonged only to history’s strongest, hairiest warriors, whereas Eva had once injured her lower back via a particularly enthusiastic sneeze.
- Book 1, Belly of Salt

She was quiet as Iskander talked, silent in the way glass is silent as it lays on the floor after shattering.
- Book 2, Thread Cutter

Eva’s fingernails bent and then snapped in a fraction of a second, some ripping cleanly off, overwhelmed by the enormity of the deceleration. Her arm was laced through the straps of his gear, and she felt, rather than heard, a wet popping like a bubble in thick syrup, as the joint of one shoulder was torn from its fitted socket.
- Book 3, Barefoot Among Snakes
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One Operator. One Kid. One Mission.

They said it would be a simple job: collect the daughter of a high-profile dignitary and return her to the capital.

But Val Standish knows that no mission survives first contact.

Alone, without support, Standish finds herself up against multiple adversaries, with only her wits and skills to keep her cargo and herself alive.

Winner of the 2020 Hugo Award for Best Novelette.

What will become of our self-destructed planet? The answer shatters all expectations in this subversive speculation from the Hugo Award–winning author of the Broken Earth trilogy.

An explorer returns to gather information from a climate-ravaged Earth that his ancestors, and others among the planet’s finest, fled centuries ago. The mission comes with a warning: a graveyard world awaits him. But so do those left behind—hopeless and unbeautiful wastes of humanity who should have died out ages ago. After all this time, there’s no telling how they’ve devolved. Steel yourself, soldier. Get in. Get out. And try not to stare.

N. K. Jemisin’s Emergency Skin is part of Forward, a collection of six stories of the near and far future from out-of-this-world authors. Each piece can be read or listened to in a single thought-provoking sitting.

Audible narration by Jason Isaacs (Star Trek: Discovery)

Nature or nurture? Neither. Discover a bold new way to raise a child in this unsettling story of the near future by the New York Times bestselling author of A Gentleman in Moscow.

When Sam’s wife first tells him about Vitek, a twenty-first-century fertility lab, he sees it as the natural next step in trying to help their future child get a “leg up” in a competitive world. But the more Sam considers the lives that his child could lead, the more he begins to question his own relationships and the choices he has made in his life.

Amor Towles’s You Have Arrived at Your Destination is part of Forward, a collection of six stories of the near and far future from out-of-this-world authors. Each piece can be read or listened to in a single thought-provoking sitting.

Audible narration by David Harbour (Stranger Things)

On the eve of Earth’s destruction, a young scientist discovers something too precious to lose, in a story of cataclysm and hope by the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Divergent trilogy.

It’s only two weeks before an asteroid turns home to dust. Though most of Earth has already been evacuated, it’s Samantha’s job to catalog plant samples for the survivors’ unknowable journey beyond. Preparing to stay behind and watch the world end, she makes a final human connection.

As certain doom hurtles nearer, the unexpected and beautiful potential for the future begins to flower.

Veronica Roth’s Ark is part of Forward, a collection of six stories of the near and far future from out-of-this-world authors. Each piece can be read or listened to in a single thought-provoking sitting.

Audible narration by Evan Rachel Wood (Westworld)

A captain on the run from the horrors of his past
A girl on the run from the trap of her present
A ship that will bring them together

Captain Evridiki “EB” Bardacki was once a nova fighter pilot for a nation he truly believed in. Betrayal and failure sent him into exile and flight. Now owner-operator of the freelance star freighter Evasion, he treks the edge of human space, taking cargos that lead him ever onward—but there are lines he will not cross.

When those lines are challenged, EB makes enemies of the most powerful crime syndicate for a hundred light-years. When one of their victims stows away on his ship, he finds himself pursued by an enemy with assets everywhere he turns.

Caught between the devil and the deep dark void, EB has run out of places to run—but in a child looking to him for salvation, he may have found something to fight for!

CONTENT WARNING: This novel deals with themes and details of human trafficking and sexual exploitation.

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