Janine A. Southard writes and edits speculative fiction in between working on videogame projects. She's attended more than the average number of universities, which she claims is a FEATURE not a bug. ("Oxford educated, but Californian at heart.") She's also lived and traveled in Europe, the United States, and Japan.
Currently, she lives in Seattle with a husband and a cat. The cat pretends to care about this.
20 stories of magic and technology! We don’t tend to think of our smartphones as magical. We like to think we understand them, but could anyone prove they don’t run on magic? These speculative fiction stories will twist reality and call into question the mundanity we carry in our pockets. Enjoy works by 21 authors, including award-winners and bold new voices.
The Hive Queen Saga's Thrilling Conclusion!
Rhiannon and her Hive have mastered space travel. They've outsmarted kidnappers, survived severe oxygen deprivation, and heisted back their own ship engine from would-be thieves. Now they’re going home, but home isn't exactly as they left it, and a hostile space fleet stands between Rhiannon’s aging ship and her new/old life.
What do you get when you mix mystery and speculative fiction, then toss in the holidays for good measure? A mobster Santa, genetic hanky-panky, Victorian villages, time-travelling detectives, Krampus, eerie bell spirits, and more–this collection of short cross-genre fiction is the perfect counterpoint to traditional holiday reading!
This is the story of a girl and her iPhone. No, that’s not quite right. It’s the story of a statistician who’d rather play story games than look for love. Between gaming with her best friend and using her mysterious new phone, she learns that friendship trumps romance. Award-winning author Janine A. Southard shows you how the geeks of Seattle live!
Before she became an American Space Ranger. Before she joined Queen-Commander Rhiannon on the Ceridwen’s Cauldron. Before she was sentient, M3L-15-A was a nanny. In this science fiction short story, Melissa turns her child-rearing programming on herself and climbs to sentience. In her 40 years of existence, Melissa has come to sentience many times. This is the first.
A space station caper! Sequel to the award-winning Queen & Commander. Exhausted and broke, Rhiannon’s Hive limps into John Wayne Station on the Ceridwen’s Cauldron. This stop-over looks bright until authorities steal the ship’s engine. The solution: steal it back!
No one notices when a shapeshifter isn’t herself. A novella of mistaken identity.
Half the time, Maya looks like a mountain lion. On a space station over the planet Elsajh, she’s mistaken for a local shapeshifter, and she chooses to impersonate her alien look-alike. She stops an invasion and becomes a populist hero. That seems great, but her true identity stirs trouble for and her doppelganger.
On a world where high school test scores determine your future, six students rebel.
Rhiannon doesn’t technically cheat the Test. She’s just smarter than the computers that administer it. With her friends and her post-Test status, she takes command of a questionably-obtained spaceship.
Spaceships. Blackmail. Anywhere but here.