Chanticleer Book Reviews

Tag: Cygnus Awards

A Spotlight on the Chanticleer Int’l CYGNUS Book Awards for Science Fiction
The CYGNUS Book Awards

for Science Fiction and Speculative Fiction

and is a division of

the Chanticleer International Book Awards

The Future is Here. Are You Ready?

The 2024 CIBAs are well underway with submissions and the 2024 Cygnus Awards submission close at the end of June!

The Cygnus Awards are one of the first of the Chanticleer Int’l Book Awards ever! The quality and quantity grows annually, and we are so excited to see what 2024 brings! These are the categories:
- Alternate History
- Apocalyptic/Dystopian
- Hard Science Fiction
- Space Opera
- Soft Sci-Fi/Young Adult
- Speculative Fiction
- Cli-Fi (Climate Fiction)
And even in within those, there is what one might call “Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations” when it comes to genre.

Ethan Peck as Spock of Strange New Worlds now gets to offer the conventional Vulcan Wisdom

With plenty of exciting genres to choose from, it’s always fun to see new trends. For us Climate Fiction or Cli-Fi is one of the most exciting genres in SciFi today!

Cli-Fi often focuses on modern technologies and their impact on the environment, for good or ill.

This can be anything from a thriller looking at shadow governments fighting against progress meant to stem climate change, or it could even look at a dystopian world far in the future. The focus in Climate Fiction is closer to that of Hard Science Fiction and a cousin of Lab Lit, which you can see in the Global Thriller Awards rather than delving into Space Opera.

We’re delighted that the most recent Grand Prize Winner for the 2023 Cygnus Awards, Timothy S. Johnston, has won the Division Grand Prize coming from the Cli-Fi category!

The Shadow of War

By Timothy S. Johnston

The Blurb for it gives us chills:

In the world’s undersea realms, the superpowers are pressing. Climate change is ravaging the surface nations, and their militaries are surging into the oceans to seek out new resources to sustain their exploding populations. Now Truman McClusky, mayor of the underwater city, Trieste, must gather a team of operatives and travel the world to steal the most unique and deadly weapon ever invented for use underwater. War is looming, and to win a war, one must do whatever it takes, even if it means embracing your darker side.

The Shadow of War is book 5 in The Rise of Oceania series! We recommend adding it all to your TBR for a look at what The Expanse would be like if it took place underwater.
- See it locally at Village Books
- See it on Amazon
While the full review for An Island of Light is still forthcoming, we do have three reviews for Johnston’s series the Tanner Sequence you can see below:

You can see our reviews for all 3 books here!

Past Cygnus Book Awards Winners have been published by Titan, U.K. (of Dr. Who fame), Harper Collins Voyager, Vesuvian Media Group, Atheon Books, and others have gone on to be USA Today Bestsellers and Nebula nominated.

Thank you to everyone who submitted to the 2023 Cygnus Awards! We can’t believe that the whole adventure starts again when the first Chanticleer Int’l Book Awards close on June 30, 2024.

This is the journey from beginning to end for the CIBAs Levels of Achievement is so worthwhile! Every list you make means more promotion for you and your work as each list is posted right here on our website, on our social media, and also out in our newsletter! Your book deserves to be discovered.

Submit to the Cygnus Awards today!
May 29, 2024
2023 Winners CYGNUS Book Awards for Science Fiction
The Cygnus Book Awards recognize emerging new talent and outstanding works in the genre of Science Fiction, Steampunk, Alternative History, and Speculative Fiction. The Cygnus Awards is a genre division of Chanticleer International Book Awards and Novel Competitions (The CIBAs).

Chanticleer International Book Awards is looking for the best books featuring space, time travel, life on other planets, parallel universes, alternate reality, and all the science, technology, major social or environmental changes of the future that author imaginations can dream up for the CYGNUS Book Awards division.

1st Place Category winners and Grand Prize Division Winners were announced at the CIBAs Banquet and Ceremony by Robert Phillips on Saturday, April 20th, 2024 at the Four Points by Sheraton in beautiful Bellingham, Wash. sponsored by the 2024 Chanticleer Authors Conference.

This is the OFFICIAL 2023 LIST of the CYGNUS BOOK AWARDS First Place Category Winners and the CYGNUS Grand Prize Winner.

Join us in celebrating our First Place Category Winners in the 2023 CYGNUS Book Awards, a division of the CIBAs!
- Alexandra Almeida – Unanimity
- N. John Williams – In the Shadow of Humanity: A Novel
- Gareth Worthington – Dark Dweller
- Timothy S. Johnston – The Shadow of War
- Dylan McFadyen – Oblivion’s Cloak
- Sarena Straus – ReInception
The Grand Prize Winner for the CIBA 2023 CYGNUS Awards for Science Fiction is:

The Shadow of War

By Timothy S. Johnston

Here is the link to the 2023 CYGNUS FINALISTS for Speculative Fiction:

The 2023 FINALIST CYGNUS Book Awards for Science Fiction

We want to CONGRATULATE ALL CYGNUS FINALISTS!

And here is a link to the CIBA’s Levels of Achievement:

The 2023 Chanticleer Int’l Book Award Finalists for Fiction!

PROMOTING OUR AUTHORS!

Attn CIBA Winners: More goodies and prizes will be coming your way along with promotion in our magazine, website, and advertisements in Chanticleer Int’l Book Awards long-tail marketing strategy. Welcome to the CIBA Hall of Fame for Award Winners!

This post has been posted on the Chanticleer Facebook Page. We try to tag all authors listed here in the Facebook post. However, for Facebook to allow us to tag an author, that author must LIKE our page and Follow Chanticleer Reviews.

Please click here to visit our page to LIKE, COMMENT, and SHARE on Facebook.

Additionally, we also post on Twitter. Chanticleer Facebook and Twitter handle is @ChantiReviews

Or click here to go directly to Chanticleer’s Twitter feed.

A Note to ALL the WINNERS: You will receive an OFFICIAL EMAIL NOTIFICATION with Digital Badges and more information.

The coveted CIBA Blue Ribbons will be mailed out starting in June. We will contact you with an email to verify and confirm your mailing address and other items. We thank you for participating in the 2023 Chanticleer International Book Awards!

NOTE: We will post at least two 2023 CIBA Divisions’ OFFICIAL Winners per business day starting April 24, 2024. We do a final sweep and reconciliation prior to making the Official CIBA Posts for the 2023 First Place and Grand Prize Winners. We thank you in advance for your patience and understanding. There are many moving parts involved with the Chanticleer International Book Awards Program.

Thank you for participating in the 2023 CIBAs! We are looking forward to reading your future entries.
April 24, 2024
THE LAST LUMENIAN by S.G. Blaise – Science Fiction, Space Opera, Romance

Nineteen-year-old Lilla could have an idyllic life, but in The Last Lumenian by S.G. Blaise, she comes face to face with a rebellion and their just cause.

Lilla’s father leads the Pax Septum Coalition, a nineteen-planet confederation. As a princess in her own right, she should be enjoying the status and wealth that comes from living on Uhna, the richest planet in the coalition due to the diamond mines found by her pirate ancestors centuries ago. She most definitely shouldn’t be worried about the rebellion brewing right under her father’s nose. However, when Lilla meets rebels in a refugee camp, she thinks she has found her destiny, a true purpose.

Wanting to fight against the injustice and horrific treatment of the refugees, Lilla tries desperately to prove herself, especially after a disastrous first mission where she not only crashes her ship but also ends up in the hands of General Callum, leader of the Teryn Praelium.

With sparks of humor, the story grips the reader as the stakes are ever-rising with the demands on Lilla building relentlessly.

Known as the “brutes of the Seven Galaxies,” the Teryn army seems hellbent on destroying every world they encounter, but the more Lilla learns about Callum, the less she believes that to be true. When she discovers both she and Callum are concerned about recent murders on Uhna, she realizes their agendas may not be that different. The bodies pile up, and Lilla suspects there will soon be an Era War between the Archgod of Chaos and Destruction and the Archgoddess of the Eternal Light and Order, putting her planet in the middle of two terrifying conflicts.

Eventually, she learns of her identity as the last Lumenian, a creation of the archgoddess to fight the archgod. Lilla must decide which path will take to ensure her people’s survival, but as the rebellion, the Era War, and her love for the dangerous general escalate, she only grows more uncertain of her place amongst any of them. With the clock ticking down, she will have to choose, and the decision may cost her everything.

Lilla’s character is the star of this novel that will pull in readers who want to celebrate her as she proves her worth – to herself as much as anyone else.

Though Lilla’s mother died when she was only five, Lilla still remembers the fierce, beautiful woman who so valiantly fought to keep her only child safe and happy. When she discovers her mother’s secret heritage as a creation of the archgoddess, made to be a perpetual guardian of the light, Lilla fears she may never live up to such a standard. Constantly plagued by doubts in her abilities, Lilla fights like only youth and sheer bravado can to rise above the menial expectations of a contract marriage and a pretty showpiece of the palace.

She fearlessly confronts the archgoddess, telling her that she must earn Lilla’s respect despite the power pouring from the deity. After being tasked with hunting and killing the dark archgod and his minions of destruction, Lilla is rightly terrified, but she refuses to let that stop her. She risks treason, death, and the corruption of her very soul.

However, as much as her passionate fire of youth drives her forward, that passion draws ever more danger towards her.

She plunges into the rebellion after seeing firsthand the cruelty of the overseers and soldiers when one of her friends, a young servant, is taken to the camp and badly beaten for simply being a refugee. Once “inside” the rebellion, she discovers that her mother supported the cause, which cements her resolve.

Lilla doesn’t take the time to investigate whether she truly shares this group’s values. Xor, the leader, uses Lilla’s guilt and self-doubt over her position as the king’s daughter to bully her into deadly situations. And Lilla nearly misses out on an amazing partner in General Callum, as she initially shuns him for his bloody reputation. She even steals from him to aid the rebellion – all the while, Callum has her back, literally and figuratively.

The world of Uhna will entirely transport the reader.

A mixture of magic and science, this place creates an unbelievable environment, where fanged warhorses exist alongside floating elevators and transmitter necklaces that will put the newest smartphone to shame. The magical elements of earth, air, fire, water, and animal will feel both familiar and novel. The past and the future seem to collide here and coalesce into a unique spin on the space opera genre.

The Last Lumenian by S.G. Blaise won Grand Prize in the 2022 CIBA Cygnus Awards for Science Fiction.

November 26, 2023
A WAR In TOO MANY WORLDS: The Time Traveler Professor, Book Three by Elizabeth Crowens – Time Travel, Science Fiction, Action & Adventure

Musician-turned-time-traveler John Patrick Scott adds spy and saboteur to his resume while undercover in Germany in the final months of World War I, in A War in Too Many Worlds, the third installment of Elizabeth Crowen’s thrilling sci-fi series, The Time Traveler Professor.

Meanwhile, Scott’s once and future collaborator in psychic experiments, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, is back in Britain sharing real time-travel adventures with the inventor of the fictional time machine, H.G. Wells.

Scott, after being wounded in the trenches, has finally been given an assignment in the Intelligence services. His extensive pre-war experience as a professor at the Conservancy of Music in Stuttgart, Germany, will do him good.

His assignment is to sabotage the waning German war effort through numerous false identities, while simultaneously mixing with high society to learn who is passing secrets from the Allies to the Central Powers.

Although frustrated by his sudden inability to travel through time, Scott has not lost any of his remaining powers. He is assisted in his secret work by many of the spirits haunting wartorn Berlin.

In Britain, Doyle and Wells undertake time travels of their own, to a past that seems to be more of a literary creation than a jaunt through time. They find the Island of Doctor Morbideux, a dangerous place filled with genetic experiments merging men with beasts, just as in Wells’ novel, The Island of Doctor Moreau. Morbideux appears to be a time-traveling Harry Houdini, unaware of his present life or his adversarial but friendly relationship with Doyle. The situation becomes increasingly perilous as it becomes clear that Doyle and Wells will be Morbideux’s next experimental subjects.

As the story slips between Scott’s undercover operations in Germany, and Doyle’s and Wells’ clandestine journey, this third book in the Time Traveler Professor series proves itself more complex than either of its predecessors.

Since the first two books, the war has changed Scott, leaving him older, sadder, more experienced, and more frustrated in equal measure. He takes greater and greater risks, and slips easily between chemically induced ecstasy and all too frequent despair, as danger mounts and loss surrounds him. Doyle’s and Wells’ adventures and misadventures, at least until they plumb the full depths of the island of Doctor Morbideaux, provide a bit of leavening to set against Scott’s increasing despond.

The overall story of the series continues to gain depth with a compelling pace, and the author recommends that readers enter this sprawling saga at its beginning in Silent Meridian. This book’s opening recap serves as an excellent refresher for readers who know the previous stories, but The Time Traveler Professor is a series like Outlander, where seemingly minor past – and future! – events and chance meetings may have vast implications for the ultimate fate of the protagonists and their world.

Ultimately, the adventure of The Time Traveler Professor, even if he cannot currently travel through time himself, still jumps in time and place, racing towards what is sure to be a wild ride of an ending in the projected final book in the series, The Story Beyond Time.

A War in Too Many Worlds by Elizabeth Crowens won Grand Prize in the 2021 CIBA Cygnus Awards for Science Fiction.

June 9, 2023
The CYGNUS 2022 CIBA WINNERS for Science Fiction
The Cygnus Book Awards recognize emerging new talent and outstanding works in the genre of Science Fiction, Steampunk, Alternative History, and Speculative Fiction. The Cygnus Awards is a genre division of Chanticleer International Book Awards and Novel Competitions (The CIBAs).

Chanticleer International Book Awards is looking for the best books featuring space, time travel, life on other planets, parallel universes, alternate reality, and all the science, technology, major social or environmental changes of the future that author imaginations can dream up for the CYGNUS Book Awards division.

1st Place Category winners and Grand Prize Division Winners were announced at the CIBAs Banquet and Ceremony by Sandy Lawrence on Saturday, April 29th, 2023 at the luxurious Hotel Bellwether in Bellingham, Wash. sponsored by the 2023 Chanticleer Authors Conference.

This is the OFFICIAL 2022 LIST of the CYGNUS BOOK AWARDS First Place Category Winners and the CYGNUS Grand Prize Winner.

Join us in celebrating our First Place Category Winners in the 2022 CYGNUS Book Awards, a division of the CIBAs!
- S.G. Blaise – The Last Lumenian
- Isaac Petrov – The Advent of Dreamtech
- Nik Frank-Lehrer – Future Show
- Dana Dargos & Said Al Bizri – Einstein in the Attic
- Lou Dischler – Mona’s Odyssey
- D.H. Ford – Rogue Reborn
The Grand Prize Winner for the CIBA 2022 CYGNUS Awards for Science Fiction is:

The Last Lumenian

By S. G. Blaise

Thank you to all of the participants in the 2022 CYGNUS Book Awards program for Science Fiction and Speculative Fiction!

PROMOTING OUR AUTHORS!

Attn CIBA Winners: More goodies and prizes will be coming your way along with promotion in our magazine, website, and advertisements in Chanticleer Int’l Book Awards long-tail marketing strategy. Welcome to the CIBA Hall of Fame for Award Winners!

This post has been posted on the Chanticleer Facebook Page. We try to tag all authors listed here in the Facebook post. However, for Facebook to allow us to tag an author, that author must LIKE our page and Follow Chanticleer Reviews.

Please click here to visit our page to LIKE, COMMENT, and SHARE on Facebook.

Additionally, we also post on Twitter. Chanticleer Facebook and Twitter handle is @ChantiReviews

Or click here to go directly to Chanticleer’s Twitter feed.

A Note to ALL the WINNERS: You will receive an OFFICIAL EMAIL NOTIFICATION with Digital Badges and more information.

Grand Prize Division Winners will receive a customized digital badge. When we receive it from our graphic artist, we will also post here and in the Grand Prize Division Winners Official Posting.

The coveted CIBA Blue Ribbons will be mailed out starting in June. We will contact you with an email to verify your mailing address and other items. We thank you for participating in the 2022 Chanticleer International Book Awards!

Thank you for participating in the 2022 CIBAs! We are looking forward to reading your future entries.
May 3, 2023
FUTURE’S DARK PAST: Time Forward Trilogy, Book 1 by J.L. Yarrow – Sci-Fi, Time Travel, Action & Adventure

A time travel epic, Future’s Dark Past is the creative endeavor of J.L Yarrow, husband and wife duo of John and Leanne Yarrow. The time-hopping action begins in the year 2355, in a world virtually uninhabitable outside a few city pods where food is scarce and violence a certainty.

Caught sneaking into a city pod with nowhere else to go, Kristen Winters agrees to join the Time Forward Project, a group from which no volunteers have ever returned. Kristin’s new superiors send her to fight a deadly battle for the fate of humanity. In 2025, Hunter Coburn becomes an important piece of the puzzle after he gets accidentally connected to Kristen’s time jumps. Initially on opposite sides, they must figure out how to work together as the plan to save the future becomes increasingly unstable.

John and Leanne do an excellent job of creating an immersive world from the beginning, with many characters who develop and grow with the story as it unfolds.

This book’s brief chapters make for easy binge-reading as the feeling of “just one more chapter” hits after each ending hook. This fictional world starts off strong, with well-established details, and the central characters join the story with compelling introductions. The Future’s Dark Past delivers a complex and winding time-travel plot, although sometimes the story loses focus on its main characters in that complexity, and sudden plot developments leave some other characters underdeveloped. Despite its chaotic sense of direction, Future’s Dark Past has a lot to love, and the following books in this series have many questions left to answer, and intriguing characters to pursue them.

Future’s Dark Past offers exciting action as its characters struggle to change the past, and in doing, change their future.

Kirsten and Hunter travel back in time both to prevent events set in history and to put plans in motion to help save the future. Their mission to stop the JFK assassination in 1963 will in particular will have readers swimming in suspense. As timelines branch and change, the characters try to parse which parts of their memory are even true anymore, creating fascinating dynamics between them.

The concluding arc of Future’s Dark Past will surprise readers, with an unexpected antagonist. This intense ending leaves the characters with a complex and dangerous job ahead of them. Humanity’s survival depends on it.

Future’s Dark Past by J.L. Yarrow won Grand Prize in the 2017 CIBA Cygnus Book Awards for Science Fiction. Available now!

March 3, 2023
DAWN Of GENESIS: Titan Code Book 1 by Rey Clark – Sci-Fi, Post-Apocalypse, Young Adult

Dawn of Genesis: Titan Code Book 1 by Rey Clark portrays a near future Earth that is dying by inches, feet, and yards.

Specifically, yards and acres of crops are choked to death by a constant dust-bowl. Only a small human population has so far managed to survive the collapse of both the environment and the economy of the entire world.

The desperate circumstances of most of humanity are exacerbated by the rise of mutated super-humans with powers to rival those of typical superheroes. But the “Evos,” evolved humans, are missing the moral compass that directs those comic book superheroes, and the government that has arisen to “protect” the remaining non-Evo population isn’t much better.

The reader’s perspective on that boiling stew is teen Tessa Jones, still in school and trying to pretend that her combat and engineering skills aren’t nearly as excellent as she knows they are.

If she shows what she’s really capable of, she’ll be whisked away from her family’s farm by a government that uses – and uses up – every available person in order to defeat the Evos.

But Tessa’s dreams of remaining with her family explode when she manifests her own Evo powers to save her little sister’s life. Unable to hide what she really is, Tessa becomes a pawn, caught between forces that plan to use her for their own ends, either as a warrior for the Evos or a lab rat for a government planning to make more super-soldiers just like Tessa.

Because Tessa is still learning about the world and her place in it, she provides an eye-opening perspective on this post-apocalyptic world, as well as giving the story crossover appeal to readers of young adult and new adult fiction.

Tessa is on the cusp of adulthood, facing decisions that will set the course of her life. She is still facing all the issues of being in school: boredom, bullying, trying to fit in and desperate not to stand out too much. Even in the post-apocalypse, these issues are easy for readers to identify with.

She also tries to find her truth, to find a way of coping with the dying world she has been born into. She’s aware that what she hears about the larger world is all propaganda, and she doesn’t know which way to turn or what to believe because she has no idea where to find the truth.

She’s naive, she’s uncertain, and she’s desperate because she’s trapped in terrible circumstances facing equally terrible choices, none of them of her making. But she is the one person who might be able to fix at least some of her world, if she is willing to take the reins of the future into her own hands.

Dawn of Genesis is a post-apocalyptic survival story. And it’s a story about one young woman making a place for herself on a dying Earth. But it’s also a story about training and learning to be the most that one can be, and it’s a kick-ass adventure story about grabbing a better future.

Dawn of Genesis by Rey Clark won 1st Place in the 2019 CIBA Cygnus Book Awards for Science Fiction.

July 11, 2022
The CYGNUS 2021 CIBA WINNERS for Science Fiction
The Cygnus Book Awards recognize emerging new talent and outstanding works in the genre of Science Fiction, Steampunk, Alternative History, and Speculative Fiction. The Cygnus Awards is a genre division of Chanticleer International Book Awards and Novel Competitions (The CIBAs).

Chanticleer International Book Awards is looking for the best books featuring space, time travel, life on other planets, parallel universes, alternate reality, and all the science, technology, major social or environmental changes of the future that author imaginations can dream up for the CYGNUS Book Awards division. Hard Science Fiction, Soft Science Fiction, Apocalyptic Fiction, Cyberpunk, Time Travel, Genetic Modification, Aliens, Super Humans, Interplanetary Travel, Climate-Fiction, and Settlers on the Galactic Frontier, Dystopian, our judges from across North America and the U.K. will put them to the test and choose the best among them.

The 2021 CYGNUS Book Awards First Place Category Winners and the CYGNUS Grand Prize Winner were announced by Wendy Kendall on Saturday, June 25, 2022 at the Hotel Bellwether and broadcast via ZOOM webinar.

This is the OFFICIAL 2021 LIST of the CYGNUS BOOK AWARDS First Place Category Winners and the CYGNUS Grand Prize Winner.
- J.W. Zarek – The Devil Pulls the Strings
- Sarah Lahey – Nostalgia Is Heartless, Book Two
- Akosua Sankofa – Monmouth Deep
- Rhett C. Bruno – Vicarious
- Elizabeth Crowens – A War in Too Many Worlds
- Steven Seril – The Destroyer of Worlds: ‘An Answer to Every Question’
- Charlene Newcomb – Echoes of the Storm
The Grand Prize Winner for the CIBA 2021 CYGNUS Awards is:

A War in Too Many Worlds

By Elizabeth Crowens

PROMOTING OUR AUTHORS!

Attn CIBA Winners! More goodies and prizes will be coming your way along with promotion in our magazine, website, and advertisements in Chanticleer Int’l Book Awards long-tail marketing strategy. Welcome to the CIBA Hall of Fame for Award Winners.

This post has been posted on the Chanticleer Facebook Page. We try to tag all authors listed here in the FB post. However, for FB to allow us to tag an author, that author must LIKE our page and Follow Chanticleer Reviews. FB rules — not ours.

Please click here to visit our page to LIKE, COMMENT, and SHARE on Facebook.

Additionally, we also post on Twitter. Chanticleer Twitter’s handle is @ChantiReviews

Or click here to go directly to Chanticleer’s Twitter feed.

The 2022 CYGNUS Book Awards winners will be announced at CAC23 on April 29, 2023. Save the date for CAC23, scheduled April 27-30, 2023, our 10 year Conference Anniversary!

Submissions for the 2022 CYGNUS Book Awards are open until the end of June. Enter here!

Don’t delay! Enter today!

A Note to ALL the WINNERS: The coveted CIBA Blue Ribbons will be mailed out starting in August. We will contact you with an email to verify your mailing address and other items. We thank you for your patience and understanding.
June 29, 2022
The 2021 Finalists for the CYGNUS Book Awards for Science Fiction – a Division of the 2021 CIBAs
The Cygnus Book Awards recognize emerging new talent and outstanding works in the genre of Science Fiction, Steampunk, Alternative History, and Speculative Fiction. The Cygnus Awards is a genre division of Chanticleer International Book Awards and Novel Competitions (The CIBAs).

Chanticleer International Book Awards is looking for the best books featuring space, time travel, life on other planets, parallel universes, alternate reality, and all the science, technology, major social or environmental changes of the future that author imaginations can dream up for the CYGNUS Book Awards division. Hard Science Fiction, Soft Science Fiction, Apocalyptic Fiction, Cyberpunk, Time Travel, Genetic Modification, Aliens, Super Humans, Interplanetary Travel, Climate -Fiction, and Settlers on the Galactic Frontier, Dystopian, our judges from across North America and the U.K. will put them to the test and choose the best among them.

These titles have moved forward in the judging rounds from all 2021 CYGNUS Science Fiction Semi-Finalists to the 2021 Cygnus Book Awards FINALISTS. All FINALISTS will be recognized at the Chanticleer Authors Conference. First Place and Grand Prize Winners will be chosen from the 24 Division Categories.

Congratulations to the 2021 CYGNUS Book Awards for Science Fiction Semi-Finalists!
- J.W. Zarek – The Devil Pulls the Strings
- Sarah Lahey – Nostalgia Is Heartless, Book Two
- Spaulding Taylor – Last Star Standing
- Akosua Sankofa – Monmouth Deep
- Rhett C. Bruno – Vicarious
- Peter Greene – Light of Ganymede
- Kristie Clark – Dragon Gold
- Charlene Newcomb – Echoes of the Storm
- D.H. Ford – Cosmic Swap
- William M. Hayes – Save Him
- William X. Adams – Alien Dream Machine
- PA Vasey – Trinity Evolution
- Daniel C. McWhorter – Revival: The Gaia Origin, Book Two
- Jenn Lees – Restoring Time: Community Chronicles Book 4
- William X. Adams – Alien Panic
- Elizabeth Crowens – A War in Too Many Worlds
- Sandra J. Jackson – Catching Butterflies
- Dana Claire – The Connection
- Gina Detwiler – Forgiven
- Sam Stea – The Edge of Elsewhere
- Steven Seril – The Destroyer of Worlds: ‘An Answer to Every Question’
We will announce the 1st Place Category winners and Grand Prize Division Winners at the CIBAs Banquet and Ceremony on Saturday, June 25th, 2022 at the luxurious Hotel Bellwether in Bellingham, Wash. sponsored by the 2022 Chanticleer Authors Conference.

These titles are in the running for the FIRST PLACE WINNERS positions of the 2021 Cygnus Book Awards novel competition for Science Fiction!

Good luck to all as your works compete on the next rounds of judging.

The next round of judging will decide which books move on to the Finalist positions for the 2021 CYGNUS Book Awards for Science Fiction novels.

PROMOTING OUR AUTHORS!

This post has been posted on the Chanticleer Facebook Page. We try to tag all authors listed here in the FB post. However, for FB to allow us to tag an author, that author must LIKE our page and Follow Chanticleer Reviews. FB rules — not ours.

Please click here to visit our page to LIKE, COMMENT, and SHARE on Facebook.

Additionally, we also post on Twitter. Chanticleer Twitter’s handle is @ChantiReviews

Or click here to go directly to Chanticleer’s Twitter feed.

The Grand Prize Winner for the CIBA 2020 CYGNUS Awards is Rhett C. Bruno & Jaime Castle for The Luna Missile Crisis

Click here to see the 2020 CYGNUS Book Award Winners for Science Fiction.

We are now accepting submissions into the 2022 CYGNUS Awards writing competition.

Please click here for more information.

Winners will be announced at the 2021 CIBA Awards Ceremony that is sponsored by the 2022 Chanticleer Authors Conference.

VIRTUAL and IN-Person – June 23 – 26, 2022! Register Today!

FLEXIBLE REGISTRATIONS ARE AVAILABLE for these challenging times.

Seating is Limited. The esteemed WRITER Magazine (founded in 1887) has repeatedly recognized the Chanticleer Authors Conference as one of the best conferences to attend and participate in for North America.

Join us for our 10th annual conference and discover why!

Featuring: International Best Selling Author Cathy Ace along with A+ list film producer Scott Steindorff.
April 19, 2022
The LUNA MISSILE CRISIS by Rhett C. Bruno and Jaime Castle – Alternate History Sci-fi, Action & Adventure, Alien Technology

Authors Rhett C. Bruno and Jaime Castle come together to tell the tale of alien first contact gone awry in their epic science fiction release, The Luna Missile Crisis.

The year is 1961, and cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin is set to become the first man in space. But when Yuri, snug inside the Vostok 1, is launched from the cosmodrome and into the coming night, he’s met with a collision that changes the course of history. The Vostok 1 crashes into an oncoming alien starship. Assuming the collision was actually a missile fired from Russia’s space race opponent, the United States, the soviet nation quickly launches an arsenal of nuclear warheads in response. But those warheads never make it to their target. Instead, they detonate against the hidden starship, sending a wave of nuclear destruction over eastern Europe.

In the coming weeks after contact day, military troops from both sides of the cold war are sent into the ruins of eastern Europe – into an area now called the Dead Curtain – to search for useful alien technology. During a skirmish between the Russians, the Americans, and the Vulbathi (the toad-like alien race aboard the damaged starship), a combat medic name Kyle McCoy stumbles into the chaos and sparks a ceasefire. His actions create a domino effect, bringing about relative peace between all three parties. Three years pass, and in exchange for aid in repairing their damaged ship, the Vulbathi agree to offer some of their exceptional technology to mankind. And Kyle McCoy, once foot soldier turned head of the Department of Alien Relations, is given a desk job with a title that suits his place in history.

But not everything is going as planned.

Kyle’s twin brother, Conner McCoy, is a dead-beat with a past steeped in drugs and crime. His latest venture is selling knockoff alien weaponry to mob bosses and gangsters. Conner and his crew work the circuit, living under the radar as they travel from city to city, peddling their fake Vulbathi tech with enthusiasm to boot. And it’s all fun and games and a little extra cash until one of the knock offs isn’t a knock off at all and the gun in Connor’s hand turns a man into a pile of dust and goo. Kyle is called in to investigate the case, and when the two estranged brothers reunite, the stakes become higher than either of them could have ever foreseen. Stolen identity, sabotage, explosive battles, and a myriad of historical figures all spill across the pages as the story of humans and Vulbathi unravels.

Bruno and Castle have expertly crafted an alternate history 1960’s that feels real enough to touch.

The use of historical figures as supporting cast adds to the detailed world building, and even the Vulbathi tech, which is everywhere in The Luna Missile Crisis, is most believable when the reader sees it integrated into the everyday lives of working people. A prime example is Kyle’s holotube that he regards as a “faulty prototype” taking the place of his real television. All of these stunning details are brought to life by writing that is engaging, active, and perfectly descriptive. The dialogue is witty and sharp, well fitted to the cast and their gamut of personalities, and as the chapters alternate between the two McCoy brothers, the syntax shifts ever so slightly, giving the subtle notion of a true perspective change.

Not only is the writing engaging, but Bruno and Castle have taken a well-worn Sci-fi plot – the pulpy notion of the Cold War era interrupted by an alien invasion – and breathed fresh life into it.

The narrative is strong, propelling the reader forward through an increasingly wild ride. Many will recognize familiar character archetypes of the do-good FBI agent; the grifter counterfeiter; the over-the-top gangster; the misunderstood monster and will be pleasantly surprised to find themselves growing more and more entrenched in a plot that is everything but familiar.

The Luna Missile Crisis is filled with action, adventure, and enough laser blasts to satisfy any science fiction fan, but its true strength lies in the cohesive world building and rock-solid storytelling that only two authors like Rhett C. Bruno and Jaime Castle can provide. In other words, here’s one sci-fi we can happily recommend!

The Luna Missile Crisis by Rhett C. Bruno and Jaime Castle won Grand Prize in the 2020 CIBA Cygnus Awards for Science & Speculative Fiction.

April 1, 2022