Lance Erlick writes science fiction thrillers for adult and young adult readers. In 2018, he launched his Android Chronicles series with Reborn and continued it with Unbound and Emergent. This series follows the challenges of Synthia Cross, wrestling with the download of a human mind and emergent behavior while confronted by humans who seek to control her. Xenogeneic: First Contact is about alien pilgrims who lost their civil war and come to our solar system. They kidnap aerospace engineer Elena Pyetrov to prevent her from discovering them. As their prisoner, she’s the only one who can uncover their plot and stop them from decimating Earth. The Regina Shen series takes place after abrupt climate change leads to collapse and a new World Federation. As an outcast, Regina must fight to stay alive and help her family while she avoids being captured. In the Rebel series, Annabelle Scott faces a crisis of conscience after she’s drafted into the military to enforce laws she believes are wrong. Find out more about the author and his work at LanceErlick.com.
Abrupt climate change melted ice caps, flooded coasts, and expanded deserts. The World Federation’s notorious Department of Antiquities polices barrier walls and suppresses knowledge from the past. Three-hundred-plus-year-old Grand Old Dames rule using a caste system.
Regina Shen is an outcast condemned to live on the seaward side of barrier walls. She survives by her wits on swampy islands and thrives on salvage from sunken cities, including illegal print books from before the Federation. With her photographic (eidetic) memory, she defies Antiquities by reading books not available in the Federation. The Federation claims she has unique DNA that could reverse the extinction of humankind. It's too bad she doesn't trust them enough to barter fairly, let alone with her life.
A second American Civil War leaves the nation divided under a shaky peace. The Federal Union, which controls most of the country, pursues a utopian society of Harmony without men. They exile, quarantine and force males to fight to the death to train their military elite. The Appalachian Outland promotes rugged individualism, but is controlled by a warlord who has a monopoly of power, church, and the economy, which he enforces with Rangers.
Annabelle Scott is a tough yet fragile tomboy who was orphaned at age three when the Federal Union took her biological parents. Adopted by a state senator in the opposition, she rebels against her society, hunts for her biological mother, is curious about boys she’s prohibited from meeting, and is over-protective of her younger sister.
Before Synthia is “Reborn” as a highly advanced android, creator Jeremiah Machten makes her steal to help him improve her. He sets her goals to obey orders to steal a sophisticated empathy chip to enhance her social skills. A growing moral sense causes her to fight back. Can she stop him and escape his control over her? Find out where the adventure begins…
Outcast Regina Shen is coerced by rival Federation inspectors to use her ability to uncover hidden ancient treasures. Stretched to her limits by this Federation power struggle, her new journey tests her endurance and her ability to recognize opportunities and avoid getting captured. Tragedy will also shake her to her core.
Elena Pyetrov’s spaceship crashes and she is kidnapped to a closed cave system on an alien world where she finds other human prisoners. The alien Knoonk execute their plan to genetically adapt to Earth and displace humans. With time running out, Elena must dig deep to uncover the alien plan and stop them before humans face extinction.
Hercules considered himself an ordinary anonymous geek with a special reason to remain in his mom’s basement. Ignoring warnings from his best friend and his girlfriend, he pursues the hack of a lifetime into a top secret security system. What could possibly go wrong when he meets his match?
Collection of science fiction adventures: two prequels to Regina Shen series (Salvage & Into the Storm), prequel to Rebel series (Unintended Rebel), space opera thriller (Maiden Voyage), story inspired by Lord of the Flies (She-Devil Rocks), big brother watching and man who can’t resist (Watching You)
Outcast Regina Shen has DNA the World Federation believes can stop human extinction. Unable to trust them, she has to flee rival agents from Virginia through desert and wilderness to Alaska to hunt a treasure big enough to barter for freedom for her and her sister. Can she find allies and avoid capture long enough to discover something to trade?
Outcast Regina Shen is pursued by the World Federation for unique DNA they believe can stop human extinction. Not trusting them, she jumps the barrier wall into the Federation to find her kidnapped sister. Two rival inspectors close in. With time running out, can she escape and rescue her sister from an obvious trap?
Forced to live on the seaward side of barrier walls, outcast Regina Shen faces a hurricane while pursued by the notorious Department of Antiquities that believes her DNA can save the World Federation from extinction.
This is a prequel novelette to The Rebel Within yet reads as a standalone story. In a world where males and females are forcibly segregated, Annabelle Scott fancies a boy she spies in a nearby prison. When she attempts to make contact, she runs afoul of the law. She tumbles into situations that challenge her beliefs and just may turn her into an unintended rebel.
Living on the seaward side of barrier walls built to protect against rising seas, the only means of survival for Regina Shen is underwater salvage, which is banned by the World Federation. After a storm takes her friend’s family and home, Regina is determined to help by defying the Federation.
Inspired by Lord of the Flies.
Bullied as the smallest of thirteen boys in his class, Bradley is on plane that crashes on a remote island with a bully who is out of control. Bradley meets a mysterious tomboy who shouldn’t be there and has to learn to survive on the hostile island, deal with her, and come to terms with the bully.
Despite being a military recruit, sixteen-year-old Annabelle Scott rebels against her restrictive régime by refusing to kill a handsome boy she fancies and helping him escape. Auditory implants and cameras allow her commander to watch her 24-7. Can she help the boy free his brother from a heavily guarded geek institute without destroying her family or getting killed?
Security Chief Nina Rekovic keeps the peace on the all-female Maiden’s Ark that left Earth five years before. Distress signal says Earth is lost, stranding lunar colonists. Someone sabotages the vital fertility lab. While balancing Returners she sympathizes with, a dictatorial captain, and an estranged lover who betrays her, can Rekovic solve the conspiracy before she’s imprisoned or worse?
Chilling story of government surveillance.
We have the ability and some say the obligation to know everything about everyone. Can privacy survive? Can the individual endure?
Harold is a second-class citizen and a cog in a government surveillance system charged with reviewing “criminal activity.” He has private thoughts about a woman he’s forbidden from approaching, and he will not be deterred.
The first time Geo sees Annabelle, they meet as enemies and she doesn't kill him, which mystifies them both. Hunted by military on both sides, can they overcome mutual distrust and work together to rescue her sister and gain justice for the murder of his father?
Annabelle Scott lives under the iron rule of a régime that forces males to fight to the death to train the military elite. When pressed into service as a mechanized warrior to capture escaped boys, Annabelle tries to stay true to herself by helping some escape. Her defiance endangers everyone she loves and thrusts her to a place of impossible life and death decisions.