A very busy cross-genre author

Michael Martinez is a busy author. This summer, he wrapped up his Daedalus Incident series with Enceladus Crisis in May and Venusian Gambit in July. In September, he will launch a new series, MJ-12. The first novel in the MJ-12 series is Inception; and he is working on a sequel. In August, along with Mary Robinette Kowal, K.B. Spangler, and others, he has a story in Geeky Giving, a SFF charity anthology to benefit the Barrow Neurological Institute.

Check out his tour of The Last Bookstore:

Pilgrimage: The Last Bookstore in Los Angeles

MJ-12: Inception (September 6):

It is a new world, stunned by the horrors that linger in the aftermath of total war. The United States and the Soviet Union are squaring off in a different kind of conflict, one that’s fought in the shadows, where there are whispers of strange and mysterious developments. . .

Normal people across the United States have inexplicably gained paranormal abilities. A factory worker can heal the sick and injured. A schoolteacher bends emotions to her will. A car salesman alters matter with a simple touch. A former soldier speaks to the dying and gains their memories as they pass on.

They are the Variants, controlled by a secret government program called MAJESTIC-12 to open a new front in the Cold War.

From the deserts of Nevada to the palaces of Istanbul, the halls of power in Washington to the dark, oppressive streets of Prague, the Variants are thrown into a deadly game of shifting alliances. Amidst the seedy underbelly of nations, these once-ordinary Americans dropped in extraordinary circumstances will struggle to come to terms with their abilities as they fight to carve out a place for themselves in a world that may ultimately turn against them.

And as the MAJESTIC-12 program will soon discover, there are others out there like them, some with far more malevolent goals.

The Daedalus Incident #1

Mars is supposed to be dead… a fact Lt. Shaila Jain of the Joint Space Command is beginning to doubt in a bad way. Freak quakes are rumbling over the long-dormant tectonic plates of the planet, disrupting its trillion-dollar mining operations and driving scientists beyond theory and reason.

When rocks shake off their ancient dust and begin to roll — seemingly of their own volition — carving canals as they converge to form a towering structure amid the ruddy terrain, Lt. Jain and her JSC team realize that their routine geological survey of a Martian cave system is anything but. The only clues they have stem from the emissions of a mysterious blue radiation and a 300-year-old journal that is writing itself.

Lt. Thomas Weatherby of His Majesty’s Royal Navy is an honest 18th-century man of modest beginnings, doing his part for King and Country aboard the HMS Daedalus, a frigate sailing the high seas between continents…and the immense Void between the Known Worlds. Across the Solar System and among its colonies — rife with plunder and alien slave trade — through dire battles fraught with strange alchemy, nothing much can shake his resolve. But events are transpiring to change all that. With the aid of his fierce captain, a drug-addled alchemist, and a servant girl with a remarkable past, Weatherby must track a great and powerful mystic, who has embarked upon a sinister quest to upset the balance of the planets — the consequences of which may reach far beyond the Solar System, threatening the very fabric of space itself.

Set sail among the stars with this uncanny tale, where adventure awaits, and dimensions collide!

The Daedalus Incident #2: The Enceladus Crisis (May 2016)

Lieutenant Commander Shaila Jain has been given the assignment of her dreams: the first manned mission to Saturn. But there’s competition and complication when she arrives aboard the survey ship, Armstrong. The Chinese are vying for control of the critical moon Titan, and the moon Enceladus may harbor secrets deep under its icy crust. Back on Earth, Project DAEDALUS now seeks to defend against other dimensional incursions, but there are other players interested in opening the door between worlds…and they’re getting impatient.

It’s been nineteen years since Thomas Weatherby was second lieutenant aboard the HMS Daedalus. Now captain of the seventy-four-gun Fortitude, Weatherby helps destroy the French fleet at the Nile and must chase an escaped French ship from Egypt to Saturn, home of the enigmatic and increasingly unstable aliens who call themselves the Xan. Meanwhile, in Egypt, alchemist Andrew Finch has ingratiated himself with Napoleon’s forces…and finds the true, horrible reason why the French invaded Egypt in the first place.

The thrilling follow-up to The Daedalus Incident, The Enceladus Crisis continues Martinez’s Daedalus series with a combination of mystery, intrigue, and high adventure spanning two amazing dimensions.

The Daedalus Incident #3: The Venusian Gambit (July 2016)

In the year 2135, dangerous alien life-forms freed in the destruction of Saturn’s moon Enceladus are making their way toward Earth. A task force spearheaded by Lieutenant Commander Shaila Jain is scrambling to beat them there while simultaneously trying to save crewmember Stephane Durand, who was infected during the mission to Saturn and is now controlled by a form of life intent on reopening a transdimensional rift and destroying the human race. But Jain doesn’t realize that the possessed Stephane has bigger plans: beaming critical data to other conspirators suspiciously heading not for Earth, but for Venus . . .

In 1809 — a Napoleonic era far different from our own — the French have occupied England with their Corps Eternélle, undead soldiers risen through the darkest Alchemy. Only the actions of Lord Admiral Thomas Weatherby and the Royal Navy have kept the French contained to Earth. But the machinations of old enemies point to a bold and daring gambit: an ancient weapon presumed lost in the jungles of Venus.

Now Weatherby must choose whether to stay and fight to retake his homeland, or pursue the French to the green planet. And Shaila must decide if it’s possible to save the man she loves, or if he must be sacrificed for the good of two dimensions. In the dark alien jungles of Venus, humanity’s fate in both dimensions hangs in the balance — forcing past and present to once again join forces against an ancient terror.

The Daedalus Incident: “The Gravity of the Affair”

“The Gravity of the Affair” is a novella set in the Known Worlds of The Daedalus Incident, with events that tie into the novel (though both works may be enjoyed independently of one another).

Before his victory at the Nile.

Before his scandalous personal life made headlines.

Before he crushed the French and Spanish fleets at Trafalgar.

Before he died a martyr.

Horatio Nelson, England’s greatest naval hero, assumed his first command, the 12-gun brig HMS Badger, at the tender age of 20. History tells us his first voyages as captain were unremarkable. Yet in the Known Worlds, where sailing ships ply the Void and the mystic science of alchemy works wonders, Nelson’s first command goes quite differently. With his brashness and emotions untempered by experience, Nelson’s rash actions as captain of the Badger threaten his heroic destiny.