THE SANDS OF MARS by @ThingyInBrainy (Trade Paperback) – Sequel to THE MOON AND THE DESERT! Saving the Marsbase One mission made Glenn A. “Shep” Shepard a hero. Commanding Marsbase itself might get him killed. Colonel Shepard—Earth’s first fully bionic augmentee and the man who once crossed interplanetary space to pull off an impossible rescue (The Moon and the Desert)—finally reaches Mars. His new command sits under the Eumenides Dorsum ridge on Amazonis Planitia, a city hewn into caverns where life is math and margin: closed-loop ecosystems, strictly rationed propellant, and minutes-long lightspeed comms lag. While Shepard grapples with distance from his wife and newborn daughter on Earth, whispers of sabotage, industrial espionage, and anti-bionics prejudice begin to erode trust inside the base. Then a rival coalition’s colony ship goes off course and slams into the canyons of Noctis Labyrinthus, far across the Tharsis highlands. There’s no shuttle landing, no cavalry—only engineering, endurance, and a commander whose augmented body can go where others can’t. To pull survivors out of the crash before Mars itself finishes them, Shepard must design a rescue that physics barely permits and politics would rather avoid. Scientifically rigorous yet deeply human, The Sands of Mars is the high-stakes sequel to The Moon and the Desert—a novel about leadership under pressure, and the price of keeping a frontier alive. baen.com/the-sands-of-mars.h… /4

What were we doing a week ago? We'd had no sleep, and we were at LibertyCon in Chattanooga, TN! One of our favorite experiences (man, there were so many) was getting to see one of our newest Baen family members give a PhD level lecture to one of our PhD authors. I dare you to tell which is which! Thanks to @ThingyInBrainy (Speaker to Lab Animals), @LesAuthor and, of course, @JoellePresby and Andy Presby for participating in this important Baen meeting! #BaenBooks #ConventionAppearances #LibertyCon

This week for #WeReadWednesday, we're reading with a theme - "The Ship Who ..." and delving into the world of the Brainships! The Ship Who Searched by Anne McCaffrey and @mercedeslackey A young woman becomes paralyzed and must become a brainship—and find her Brawn, her human soul mate, so that she can discover a cure for her illness. Tia Cade is a headstrong, smart, and very normal girl until she contracts a terrible illness that leaves her with the bare semblance of life. Tia's only hope: to become the oldest person ever to train to be one of the legendary star travelers, the brainships. But now that Tia is free of her ravaged body, there still remains the task of finding the right partner to be her Brawn, the human element every brainship requires. And when the disease that debilitated Tia threatens thousands more, selecting a Brawn who is her true soul mate may allow Tia to find the origin of the terrible plague—and perhaps even a cure. To learn more, go to: simonandschuster.com/books/S… To get the ebook, go to: baen.com/the-ship-who-search… #BaenBooks #WeReadWednesday

For this week's #WeReadWednesday, we're looking at an anthology edited by @ThingyInBrainy (Robert E. Hampson) & Sandra Medlock, "THE FOUNDER EFFECT." It is 2185 CE. Humans now live throughout the Solar System, but their most ambitious adventure is about to begin. The starship Victoria will carry over 10,000 colonists to a new world outside the solar system. The larger-than-life exploits of those colonists will become legendary. The colonists will build a new civilization, and the actions of a few individuals will become famous—and infamous—forever marking their new colony with the Founder Effect. Featuring stories from Larry Correia, Mark H. Wandrey, Les Johnson, Christopher L. Smith, David Weber, Daniel M. Hoyt, Brad R. Torgersen, Monalisa Foster, Sarah A. Hoyt, Chris Kennedy, Vivienne Raper, Jody Lynn Nye, Brent M. Roeder, Catherine L. Smith, Philip Wohlrab, & D.J. Butler. baen.com/the-founder-effect.… Be sure to look for Rob Hampson's next novel, "ACROSS AN OCEAN OF STARS," coming in April from Baen Books! baen.com/across-an-ocean-of-…