Showing results by author "CJ Williams" in All Categories

Luke Blackburn had a peaceful job as an Airport Director in an out-of-the-way community in central Nevada. He wanted to live quietly and let old scars heal. But then a spaceship landed. The lone occupant, a guy named Sam, gave Luke the keys and said it was up to him to stop a massive alien invasion that was on the way. At first, Luke thought it was a hoax. The problem was, Sam had the proof. Luke has to try, but the job is too big to go it alone. WHO VOLUNTEERS FOR A HIGH-PAYING JOB? Lots of people if you don’t tell them it’s on the Moon. Luke begins building a hidden community ...

When revenge costs $1.8 billion, it’s worth every penny. Devin Reed has hit rock bottom – literally – he sleeps on cot #187 in a homeless shelter. Once a successful shipping company owner, he lost everything to Marcus Thorne, the solar system’s most ruthless corporate titan. With his business destroyed and his wife dead from tainted medicine, Devin has nothing left but rage and a burning desire for payback. Then fate intervenes in the form of a discarded lottery ticket pulled from a trash bin. One impulsive rescue of someone else’s “worthless” paper. Overnight, Devin is ...

For fans of John Scalzi’s The Interdependency and Dennis E. Taylor’s Bobiverse comes a first contact story where the real threat isn’t the aliens—it’s the politics of survival. Earth faces annihilation. A tear in spacetime. An impossible choice. Dr. Phil Bright's specialty was weather patterns, not existential threats. But when mysterious wormholes begin to appear near Saturn, carving massive, inexplicable gaps in the planet's rings, the impossible becomes terrifyingly real. Humanity is unprepared, grappling with a phenomenon that defies all known science. Salvation arrives from ...

For fans of John Scalzi’s wry humor and Becky Chambers’ warmth, The Prospector is a first contact story where the alien isn’t here to conquer—he’s here to loot the gift shop. In this present-day science fiction novel, Earth confronts an alien invasion. But not from a marauding army. It’s just one guy who got a bad tip. Jacob is a Prospector. He makes a living discovering lost civilizations on long dead-worlds and selling off their cultural relics. And now he’s chasing a hot lead about a world where the population has only recently perished due to climate change. The artifacts ...

When the space liner Solar Princess tears itself apart, retired shipwright Gus Cartwright escapes in a lifeboat—alone, without a working beacon, and hurtling toward an uncharted ocean world. His only link to his wife Carol is a one-way video channel that posts directly to YouTube. His only ally on the ground is Alyssa, an alien AI embedded in the most extraordinary ship he’s ever seen: a full-rigged galleon that is also, impossibly, a starship. But Alyssa refuses to fly. First, they must finish a yacht race that began twenty-eight thousand years ago—by sailing two thousand miles ...

“There’s a lot of things they didn’t tell me when I signed on with this outfit.” That’s what Sam Washington discovered after getting hired as Spaceport Director on Space Station Zion. Everyone hated his predecessor — a retired Navy cook who shut down the station drives, started an illegal space patrol, and let her relatives bleed the budget dry — so now everyone hates Sam. Still, since he took the job, Sam considers it his duty to get the place back in shape. But angry admirals want to kick civilians off the station. A profit-crazed board member is trying to crack open a moon ...

For fans of Jack Campbell, Ann Leckie, and John Scalzi, a galaxy-spanning military SF epic where the line between human and machine becomes the key to saving civilization. Lieutenant Colonel Brian Kidd is a decorated fighter pilot who just wants to lay low after a career-threatening embarrassment. Instead, he catches a dying princess as she tumbles off a stage during an assassination attempt, and his life is never the same. Princess Rosa Blackburn was born in captivity on a radioactive world, and her body is failing. The Nobility’s best physicians have given up. But Rosa knows about a ...

Carrie Faulkner is now in command of the Milky Way Alliance while Luke Blackburn is absent. Her orders? Destroy as many of the murderous Bakkui as possible! Her latest mission results in over three hundred million kills! Unfortunately, they were all friendly. After such a spectacular failure, the Warlord relieves her of duty. But still, the war goes on, and someone needs to investigate the source of the unstoppable Bakkui menace. GOING DEEP BEHIND ENEMY LINES IS A SUICIDAL MISSION AT BEST. Devastated by her failure, Carrie decides she’s the perfect fit for the job. With help from Sadie, ...

Effie didn’t intend to bring death and destruction to Earth. But when Enforcers close in, Special Agent EAFY584 crashes her stolen starship into an uncharted solar system, and the only habitable planet is one its inhabitants call Earth. Good news: she can pass for a human teenager. Bad news: standard Enforcer protocol is to sterilize any world where a fugitive might be hiding. Now Effie has to warn an entire civilization that extinction is coming. There’s just one problem, nobody believes her. She tells the government she’s an alien. She tells them an invasion fleet is on its way. All...

When Asha said she wanted to give the Chinese hackers a piece of her mind, she didn’t mean it literally. But that’s what happens when medical technology goes awry. Doctors said they could train her brain to interpret digital signals from the camera in her artificial eye. The module even has Wi-Fi so they can monitor signal traffic across her optic nerve. What they didn’t anticipate was that her brain would figure out how to use the Wi-Fi connection both ways. Asha can now see the internet.

For fans of Dennis E. Taylor, John Scalzi, and Andy Weir—a first contact story where the aliens don’t want our planet. They want our cigarettes. Charles Haley is unemployed, nearly broke, and desperate enough to accept a job offer he can barely hear over construction noise. He misses the part about artificial intelligence and alien species. All he catches is that someone wants him to run an import/export business. The product? Medical devices from beyond the stars that can cure any disease—including his fourteen-year-old daughter Suzy’s fatal bone condition. The price? Marlboros and...

For fans of Jack Campbell, David Weber, and John Scalzi, a galaxy-spanning space opera where one man’s fight to save his wife becomes a war for the future of humanity. Luke Blackburn only needed to cast one vote. As Commander of the Milky Way Alliance, his final duty was to travel to a distant planet and vote for the next king of the First Family. Instead, through a political ambush orchestrated by his own royal siblings, Luke is crowned monarch of the entire galaxy, a title he never wanted and has no intention of keeping. Then Annie, his pregnant bride, is kidnapped by forces wielding ...

Joe is a guardian angel. Not a metaphor, not a hallucination—the real thing. Sent from Heaven with invisible wings and a notecard of mandatory rules, Joe’s new assignment is Staff Sergeant Abigail Russel, a combat squad leader who lost her husband and two children to a terrorist massacre. She enlisted in the Humanity Army for one purpose: to get revenge. She doesn’t believe Joe is an angel. She doesn’t want him and refuses to stop swearing. The problem is she’s stuck in a brutal siege on planet Marashah, where Abigail is considered expendable by her commanders. Joe’s task is to ...

Jack Savage thought the reporter, Katie Good, was only a one-night stand; a fond memory before the war. But then his boss assigned her to his squadron as an embedded reporter right before the big attack. JACK KNEW SHE WAS BAD LUCK. Babysitting was bad enough because of her political connections. But it’s an entirely different story when she gets him crossways with the King. The more Jack tries to put things right, the deeper in he gets. Finally, Jack and Katie team up to save the peace – and fail miserably. THE FIRST GALACTIC CIVIL WAR And it’s all Jack’s fault! When humanity splits...

Sophie, a young woman burdened by oaths and family ties, finds herself caught in the crossfire of a brutal interplanetary war. When her brother, a renowned general, defies their king over a captured noblewoman, Sophie must navigate a treacherous path between loyalty and rebellion. As the conflict escalates, Sophie's unique bond with the Jupiter Coalition, an enigmatic peacekeeping force, becomes her only hope for survival. But with hidden agendas and betrayals at every turn, she must forge her own destiny amidst the chaos of war. In a world where technology reigns supreme and honor is a ...

For fans of Anne McCaffrey’s dragon-rider bonds and Naomi Novik’s Temeraire, Deep Kiss is a science fantasy adventure where mermaids, dragons, and cutting-edge medicine collide. Emma Jean Holmes is an eighteen-year-old biology major who doesn’t believe in magic, not even after a freak accident on her Oklahoma ranch transforms her into a mermaid. To her, the change is science that simply needs more study. Then she discovers her kiss can heal the dying. The mermaids of Echo Island are terrified. If the world learns what a mermaid’s kiss can do, their fragile community will be torn ...

For fans of Ilona Andrews and Sarah J. Maas, a modern mermaid story with teeth. Real-life mermaids don’t live in a fairy tale. They are terrified young women, scared to death of being found out. They learn from harsh experiences that people who are different get treated like prey. To survive, mermaids have to grow up tough or die. Bobbi Watson has spent years hiding the most dangerous secret imaginable: she’s a mermaid. So are her two best friends, Chloe and Ruby. Living in Brisbane, they’ve built careful human lives, a chain of pubs, a pop music career, a university research position...

Join us as we spotlight some of the hottest realtors in one of America's hottest real estate markets, Charlotte, North Carolina.

Lettuce Pray is a podcast with a balance of faith, relationships, and entrepreneurship. CJ and Emely Williams use humor and honesty to make sense of it all.

Welcome to "Show Up Better," a podcast about content. Our host, and podcast producer, CJ Williams, brings on guests to dive into their online tactics for attracting clients and customers to grow their brands. In each episode, we bring you captivating interviews with industry-leading entrepreneurs, marketers, and creative minds who have harnessed the true potential of content to drive their businesses forward. Our guests are trailblazers in their respective fields, and they generously share their insights, experiences, and practical tips to inspire and guide you on your own content journey. ...