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 Rick Steinke on Saturday, April 5th, 2025 at the Bellingham Yacht Club in beautiful Bellingham, Wash. sponsored by the 2025 Chanticleer Authors Conference.
This is the OFFICIAL 2025 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 2024 CYGNUS Book Awards, a division of the CIBAs!
Timothy S. Johnston – A Blanket of Steel
Peter Dingus – Deep Time
A. R. Black – No Man’s Land
Thomas Weaver – Artificial Wisdom
Shami Stovall – The Half-Life Empire
The Grand Prize Winner for the CIBA 2024 CYGNUS Awards for Science Fiction is:
Attn CIBA Winners & Finalists: 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!
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A Note to ALL the WINNERS: 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.
ALL the WINNERS: You will receive an OFFICIAL EMAIL NOTIFICATION with Digital Badges and more information.
NOTE: We will post at least two 2024 CIBA Divisions’ OFFICIAL Winners per business day starting April 14, 2025. We do a final sweep and reconciliation prior to making the Official CIBA Posts for the 2024 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 2024 CIBAs! We are looking forward to reading your future entries.
Team Chanticleer
Any questions? Please email us at info@ChantiReviews.com We will try our best to reply within 3 business days Pacific Standard Time.
For many generations of children, their first introduction into the world of the Western genre is through The Little House on the Prairie series by Laura Ingalls Wilder.
Born in the “Big Woods” of Wisconsin, Laura spent her youth traveling across the great American prairie in a covered wagon. She watched as her father was the first to break ground on their Kansas farm and followed the construction of a railroad across the Dakotas. Laura lived an iconic American life, and lucky for us, she created stories from those memories and gave us a beloved children’s series.
Laura Ingalls was born on February 7, 1867. Today, that would make her 158 years old. Our own Dena Weigel was one of the children influenced and inspired by Ingalls, and we are delighted to have her share what she learned about the Western genre from Ingalls’ work. So cozy up around the fire and join us as Dena takes us back in time to see the world as it once was when a child crossed the country in the back of a covered wagon.
Dramatic Surroundings
For me, the most meaningful part of Laura’s writing comes through in her talent for setting the stage. Colorful sunsets, the smell of an approaching storm, or the screech of a panther as it pursues it’s prey—Laura had a special talent for describing her surroundings. Likely, that comes from years of “being the eyes” for her blind sister, Mary.
Perfect for young readers, she wrote simple sentences that didn’t condescend, and sprinkled them with slightly uncommon, but more specific, words for them to learn. It wasn’t just a pink sky; it was a salmon-colored streak across a lavender sky. For a young reader and future writer, this illustrated that word choice is impactful in both meaning and substance. It adds to the meaning of the sentence, but it also adds to the feeling the sentence provokes in the reader.
The Ingalls Family (left to right): Caroline, Grace, Laura, Charles, Carrie and Mary
Colorful Characters
The cast of characters in Laura’s stories follow the traditional hallmarks for the Western genre, enhanced by the unique voice of the protagonist.
Until this point, most imagery for the Wild West featured cowboys, gunslingers, and bounty hunters, but in the Little House series it is Laura, a girl the age of four to around eighteen throughout the series, who offers a new voice and a new perspective. That’s just the start of what makes her Little House books so special.
Given the time period, most Westerns have limited space for female characters. Teachers, wives, sex workers, and the stray “wild” woman are about all the fairer sex can claim in this genre that’s frozen in time. Laura offers something new. The main protagonist is a spunky girl with complex thoughts and a yearning for adventure. Through her experience we get a new perspective in this very familiar genre.
Ingalls rethought more than just women on the page. Other more typical Western characters set the stage for interesting challenges and interactions. Settlers, Native Americans, and townspeople bring a variety of conflict, wants, and needs that make Westerns so relatable more than a century after the era.
The differences in society’s understanding of prejudices do stand out at times in Laura’s books, and there is much worthwhile commentary on her writing. While they undeniably exist, during Laura’s day they were, sadly, common. She wrote about these controversial moments in a way that doesn’t question it, but she does present the separation of cultures that were a part of our country’s commonly accepted ethics at the time.
Exciting Plotlines
Raging rivers, fierce tornados, and roving bandits all show up in the Little House series. Always miles from the civilized world, there is plenty of opportunity to up the ante with intense plotlines. But there’s also the gentle spirit of a loving family to be a counter balance to the sudden, jarring, dangerous experiences each book brings to the table.
Reading them as a child, I often missed the level of danger Laura and her family experienced, but as an adult I understand the seriousness of the glances her parents shared when they talked of a week long blizzard or their rush to put out a prairie fire. The family was nearly murdered, almost starved to death, and much worse during their nomadic years, and Laura handles all these events with the soft truth a child requires.
Action! Action! Action!
When you think of Westerns, you think action. In the saddle, in the saloon, and on the farm. While Laura doesn’t take us into the saloon, she does provide us with the action you’d expect from a Western. Her father stands up against an angry mob while working as a railroad paymaster. A bully gets what she deserves when Laura drives her into a leech infested creek. And we see Laura racing at breakneck speed on a bareback horse across the open prairie. If your child likes the freedom you’d expect in the Wild West, Laura’s stories are a great choice. She’s bold, she’s adventurous, and she represents a childhood that both boys and girls will be excited to read about.
Just like Laura, I grew up on the Kansas prairie and the Little House series often captured many of the things I experienced there. The sound of a meadowlark in the morning, cooking over campfires, and watching as a sunset lights up the evening sky. For young readers, the Little House series continues to open the door to the beautiful landscapes, wily characters, and amazing adventures that fans of the Western genre yearn for as they ride off into the sunset.
Happy birthday, Laura Ingalls Wilder!
Thank you for introducing me to the beautiful, untamed world of Western literature.
Are you looking for a reading adventure for your children? We encourage you to dig into stories written by these Chanticleer authors.
Exostar Rae Knightly
Grand Prize Winner of the CIBA Gertrude Warner award
It has been said that “the Golden Age of Science Fiction is twelve.” Rae Knightly’s Sci-Fi adventure,Exostar,embodies this childlike sense of wonder that the best of the genre evokes in its readers.
Twelve-year-old child-robot Trinket takes off on a rocketing spaceship straight towards danger and excitement, with the mostly able assistance of the blue-furred spy and saboteur Woolver Talandrin. Trinket is searching for identity—as all the best young science fiction protagonists do. Woolver is trying to bring down an evil empire—as all the other best science fiction protagonists do.
Together they’ve been thrust into the kind of epic tale that is guaranteed to keep young readers on the edge of their seats—including the twelve-year-old that lurks inside every science fiction fan.
In Alisse Goldberg’s engaging young adult mystery, The Ghost in the Garden, a curious 11-year-old must face the challenges of moving to a new city, losing old friends, making new ones, and encountering historic specters in her new home.
Sophie Madison seems none too happy about her recent move from the bustling city of Calgary, Ablerta to the smaller, quieter landscape of Stratford, Ontario. But upon arrival with her parents, she begins noticing the charm of the place, appearing like a step back in time. Their new house in particular catches her interest, with its tall turret topped by stained glass window panes where Sophie’s bedroom will be. In addition, the wild beauty of the backyard garden draws her in.
Soon, a mysterious blonde-headed girl named Tabitha appears in the garden.
Tommy Rocket and the Goober Patrolby Thomas R. Kuhn follows Nate, a young boy growing up in the 1970s, whose friendship with the kid genius robot builder, Tommy Rocket, leads him into mysterious adventures.
Tommy’s father invented the Prometheus chip that gives sentience to robots, and from a young age Tommy started creating a gang of robots called the Goober Patrol. Eccentric and wheelchair-bound, Tommy prefers to tinker with his robots at home. But he befriends Nate after he saves Tommy from bullies.
When Tommy’s aptly named ‘Monster-bot’ gets loose, Nate is tasked with finding and securing the rogue bot before anyone finds out. But the two boys soon find out there is more at work than one missing robot. There’s another tinkerer in town and they’re building their own special group of robots—which look just like one of Tommy’s creations. Nate and Tommy have to find out who has gotten their hands on the Prometheus chip before it’s too late.
In Sue C. Dugan’s middle grade adventure,Mayday: Land, Sea, and Air Series Book 2,thirteen-year-old Jessie and her father, Adam, take an unexpected detour when their plane crashes on a secluded island.
On their final vacation before Adam begins chemotherapy for thyroid cancer, Jessie and her father take off in their Cessna aircraft over the boundless, azure Atlantic Ocean. Jessie’s anxiety about her father’s health is on high-alert during the trip, especially when she remembers her mother’s cancerous death.
Twenty minutes into their flight, the sky grows gloomy, and the wind picks up speed from all sides.
If you’d like to loose yourself in tales of the Old West, we suggest these Chanticleer authors.
A Grave Every Mile, Book One of the Ghosts Along the Oregon Trail David Fitz-Gerald Grand Prize Winner of the CIBA Series award
Each day’s trumpet blasts the predawn quiet of the sleeping wagon train, demanding that its migrating families face what’s ahead, whether incredible scenery or mortal danger, in David Fitz-Gerald’sA Grave Every Mile.
This beautifully told story mixes adventure, survival, community, and history, all shown through the eyes of Dorcas, a feisty mother of four. She’s dreamed of hitting the trail to the storied West for so long, but much about this trip and their destination remains unknown.
Another wagon travels alongside hers. Who are they? Will they remain strangers, or become friends? Now that Dorcas stands with her family at the trail’s starting point and on the brink of changing their lives forever, a tremor of doubt surfaces about what lies ahead. Is her family strong enough to face their future? Will it be everything she and her husband hoped for? That future is 720,000 turns of the wagon wheels away, and there may beA Grave Every Mile. It all starts with that first pull by the team of oxen.
Guarded Hearts T.K. Conklin Grand Prize Winner of the CIBA Laramie award
Guarded Heartsby T K Conklin is a sensual romance in the Wild West, with all the passion and excitement natural to the setting.
Sparks fly between a man with an outlaw past and a woman with a terrifying gift to heal or harm. Strykes is a man haunted both by a violent childhood and his time in an outlaw gang. But he has found a place in Rimrock, where he met LaRisa, an auburn-haired woman whom the townspeople have labeled a “witch” due to her healing herbs and rumors of her “powers”.
LaRisa has kept her distance from people, afraid of her gift of healing touch that can turn dangerous, even deadly. But, when she comes to town to deliver her medicinal herbs, she makes her way to the livery with tasks for Strykes such as shoeing her horse or fixing a spring in her wagon. He is only too happy to oblige the auburn-haired beauty. The attraction between them is instantaneous, yet they both are hesitant to act on it, fearing they would hurt the other– he from his violent past, and she from her “witch” power.
Thank you for joining us in celebrating the legacy of Laura Ingalls Wilder!
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Thank you again to the authors who wrote these wonderful books!
Sour Flower, the unpublished feel-good coming-of-age novel by Maryanne Melloan Woods, contrasts the joys of teen friendship with the hardships of growing up in a broken family.
As a fourteen-year-old in 1970s San Francisco, Marigold (call her “M”) Hayes is fed up with her life.
M is very much aware of her role as the mature buzzkill in the family. Her parents, college dropouts and now divorced hippies, barely have it together. M often has to act as the mature adult for the sake of housing and basic necessities. With a spaced-out father who barely supports them and a mother who thinks her daughter is a square, it’s a miracle that M has kept her family afloat for so long.
When her English teacher suggests M apply to Barnum—an elite prep school offering scholarships to students in need—she dares to hope. Maybe this could give her a chance to pursue her dream of becoming a financially stable businesswoman.
But the application process poses its own challenges, one being an in-person interview with Barnum and her tragically embarassing parents. As she prepares her application alongside Philip and Gabi, her best friends who also come from broken homes, M must contend with a range of insecurities both childish and adult.
She stalks Barnum students to determine how she can fit in, sells her crocheted patterns at street fairs to make ends meet, and helps her friends see their own potential as she strives to find her writing voice for her application essay. M faces an uphill battle where the stakes for a young teenage girl seem impossibly high.
As a writer, Woods masterfully approaches the bildungsroman with equal parts levity and melodrama.
M makes a compelling and flawed protagonist. She extends her parental role to protecting her younger brother, making sure he gets every opportunity to experience the joys of childhood—often at the expense of her own. M’s ambition to break out of the conditions that hold her back propels her into the awkward antics and embarrassing mishaps rife in any well-penned young adult novel.
The backdrop of 1970s San Francisco’s hippie scene makes for a pivotal plot point, as M’s family butt heads with their stances on the Vietnam War unfolding in real time thousands of miles away.
A comedy of errors follows many of M’s sour-hearted decisions, but it’s precisely this trouble that draws people close to her personal authenticity.
As she begins to attain true maturity, M learns to embrace the contradictions in her life and in the lives of others. She discovers along the way that some of her so-called nemeses may be more like her than they’d care to admit. Fans of Louise Rennison’s Confessions of Georgia Nicolson series and Greta Gerwig’s Lady Bird would find Sour Flower heartwarming in M’s aching desire to fit in, and in the lesson to take life a little less seriously while learning to accept all of its complexities.
Maryanne Melloan Woods won the Grand Prize in the Dante Rossetti Division of the 2023 Chanticleer International Book Awards for his novel, Sour Flower. The Dante Rossetti Book Award recognizes emerging new talent and outstanding works in the Young Adult fiction genre. The Dante Rossetti Book Awards is a division of the Chanticleer International Book Awards (The CIBAs).
The Young Adult division includes:
Contemporary Young Adult
SFF & Paranormal
Dystopian/Edgy/Urban
Mystery/Thriller/Suspense
Historical Young Adult
YA Adventure/Romance
Join us in getting to know the incredible writing of the Dante Rossetti’s newest Grand Prize Winner: Maryanne Melloan Woods!
Chanti: Thank you so much for taking the time to do this interview with us. To start, tell us a little bit about yourself and how you started writing.
Woods: I come from a family of writers: my parents and brother were all journalists, and my sister writes songs and poetry. So, when I was little I just thought that was what people did! But I can remember at age eight making a firm decision that I wanted to be either a writer or an actor. When I became a playwright (and later a TV writer), I developed a way to do both; I act out the parts in my head when I write scripts, and now novels.
A bit more on my writer’s journey: I remember when I was a teenager seeing a TV show where they interviewed TV comedy writers who worked in a “writers room” and I thought: that’s what I want to do.
But how does a Jersey girl make that jump? I was lucky enough to go to a high school that had a playwriting class, and then got to be part of a wonderful playwriting program at Drew University. After that I got involved in New York theater, and then took a deep breath and made the jump to L.A, where I was lucky enough to land a great agent. I wrote my “spec scripts” (which are scripts you write for existing TV shows that you use as writing samples) and my agent sent me around on meetings.
Partners is an American sitcom starring Kelsey Grammer and Martin Lawrence.
Just driving on to movie lots for the meetings blew my mind! And then when I finally landed my first sitcom-writing job – which was “Partners” with Jon Cryer – and met the other writers, I had the feeling that I had stumbled into some magical land where everyone spoke the same secret language I knew, and cared about the same things I did, like creating vivid characters, how to craft a joke etc.
I learned so much about the craft of comedy and writing in general from that job and the ones that followed. But after several years in Hollywood, I felt a strong pull back to the New York area (where I promptly met my husband and just stayed.) I knew I wanted to work in theater again, but I was also interested in the possibilities of YA fiction, which was really heating up at the time.
My first novel, Lazarus, originally started its life as a TV pilot that didn’t get picked up. But I just couldn’t let go of the story. So, I dug deep, read all the recommended YA fiction I could, and settled on two that I really studied, because I thought they were so good. The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins (maybe you’ve heard of it) and The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. Those books were my training for learning a new form and ultimately writing Lazarus.
As I became a novelist I found I could use the storytelling skills I’d learned as a scriptwriter. Writing a first person narrative is a bit like writing a very long (and well-structured) monologue. I’m working from inside the characters’ minds again.
In my new novel Sour Flower, I found I could use the comedy writing chops I learned as a sitcom writer. There’s a lot of humor in the book, as well conflict and trauma.
Chanti: What an incredible start! That’s so wonderful that you were able to connect with a group that spoke the same language as you. Finding your “people” is so critical in the writing world. Would you talk more about genre, comedy, and your own writing?
Woods: My “lane” for much of my career has been comedy. Comedy-writing comes easily to me; I understand how it works. Sour Flower is a coming-of-age story that is initially quite comedic but ends up exploring deeper themes such as family dysfunction and substance abuse.
However, when the idea for my first novel, Lazarus, came to me, I knew it wasn’t a comedy, it was a mystery. And mysteries of course require very intricate and precise plotting plus clues and misleads, which DIDN’T come as easily to me. So, I studied the form and found the authors I liked best in this new genre (Ruth Ware tops my list.)
I had already learned so much about giving book characters a deep emotional life from Suzanne Collins, and while she doesn’t write mysteries, per se, she is the queen of the cliffhanger chapter ending. I found that to be an essential device in crafting Lazarus, which evolved into a paranormal thriller. I had to dig extra deep to write a YA thriller, using every element of craft I’d ever learned plus learning new ones that suited the genre. I think I have a handle on it now and indeed my forthcoming novel, The Last Howl of the Westerlakes, is also a mystery/thriller. So, I guess I would say that if you’ve honed your storytelling craft well, you can learn to write in a new genre. All of my work has comic elements, but if I had to label my novel-writing genre now, I’d call it “voice-driven YA fiction.”
Chanti: It sounds like you’ve done an amazing job creating a personal canon of books to help inform your writing and work. To ask something adjacent, what do you think about writing rules? Do you follow them, make up your own, or some combination?
Woods: I follow the rules that I learned starting as a theater major with a concentration in playwriting. I always think in terms of three acts, a structural form which goes back to Aristotle, and I’ve found that structure works well for writing novels too. In “Act One,” which is usually about the first quarter of a story, you’re setting up your characters and story and getting the reader/audience engaged. You’re also establishing tone, setting and genre. The protagonist’s journey begins, and you set up the desire line they’ll pursue until the story’s conclusion. In the middle section of Act Two, their journey becomes more and more challenging, with many setbacks and adversaries. In the last act of your story, you’re building to the climax of the piece, in which your protagonist finally battles their toughest opponent. I’ve found that this structure works in any genre or form: mystery novel, sitcom script, sci-fi western feature, or what-have-you. It’s what readers/audiences want and expect from a story.
Chanti: And speaking of story expectations, how do you come up with your story ideas?
Woods: I get little kernels of ideas, or mental images that play out like a short video. I’ve learned that if I keep coming back to it, there’s something there that I have to pay attention to. Something that I want to explore more deeply.
The idea for Lazarus came to me in the form of an image: a teen girl surrounded by the bleak, harvested cornfields of her prairie hometown, grimly intent on solving a murder. I knew that the girl was a great, natural detective, in fact she had better detective instincts than all the adults around her, including her police chief father. I knew that she had a love of funky thrift store fashion and that, at only 16, she had a profoundly deep relationship with her charmingly wise-ass boyfriend. And I knew that he had died, but that the death was a minor impediment to a love as great as theirs.
I was working in TV at the time so initially Lazarus was a pilot. It got me a lot of meetings around Hollywood, but ultimately didn’t get picked up. But I couldn’t let go of the story; it really resonated with me. So, I turned my attention to YA fiction.
Sour Flower is based on the upbringing of a friend of mine who was the responsible kid growing up with free spirit hippie parents in San Francisco. She wanted more from life than the day-glo, stoner chaos she saw around her, and managed to make her own way. I carried that story around in my back pocket for years; originally I thought it would make a great feature script. But when I started writing YA, I knew it would be perfect for a coming-of-age novel.
My next book, Last Howl, was based on an image again, this time of an idyllic suburban backyard garden party that’s suddenly disrupted by an unseen shooter. Stay tuned for that one!
Chanti: You have so many irons in the fire! With so many projects, how structured are you in your writing work?
Woods: In a word: very! With every project I write I outline and outline and then outline some more. I need to know where I’m going and have to know the progression of every chapter before I can start fleshing it out. Some writers can start without a road map, but I can’t. That said, many elements of the story change when I transition from outlining to actually writing. In both novels I’ve completed, I realized halfway through that the way I was taking the story wasn’t going to work. So, I had to put the central story line up on blocks and re-examine it. Once I figured out how to take the story in a better direction, more outlining! Luckily in both cases, the story flowed more smoothly, and everything finally clicked into place. It’s funny – I start out knowing the story will change, but I need to have a complete outline at the outset regardless. Go figure.
When not writing, Maryanne’s favorite hobby is playing and singing with The Johnny Woods Band.
Chanti: With that structure in mind, how do you approach your writing day?
Woods: I try to write for three to four hours every weekday morning. Particularly once I have an outline, I know what chapter or scene I’m going to write that day, so I just have at it. I usually only write one chapter a day. As far as writer’s block goes, I don’t generally have it, but I used to sometimes back in L.A. when I knew I had to have a spec script ready for hiring season in the spring. There was so much pressure. I got some great advice from a friend once: “Just sit down and write badly for a at least an hour.” You give yourself permission to start working whether it’s perfect or not. And before you know it, you’re in the flow, and you’re probably not writing too badly after all.
Chanti: You’ve named so many great authors and books. Can you offer up five of your favorite authors and describe how they influence your work?
Only five..? That’s gonna be hard! Since I’ve already mentioned John Green and Suzanne Collins I’ll skip over them here. I swoon over the writing style of both Markus Zusak and Fredrik Backman. Their storytelling chops, writing style and wisdom about the human condition never fail to amaze me. They make me try to raise my game. I love E. Lockhart’s great, out-of-the-box writing. She’s taught me to break rules and reach further in my descriptions. I think Ruth Ware is the best thriller author working today. I’ve learned so much about crafting mysteries, especially pace, suspense and misleads – from her. And for humor I’d have to say David Sedaris. I snort-laughed all the way through his book Me Talk Prety [sic] One Day. And his books aren’t just funny, they’re wise, relatable and heart-breaking too.
Maryanne and her husband, Johnny Woods at Haight Ashbury, a key location in Sour Flower.
Chanti: Those authors are amazing! It sounds like you have such a good base for your writing life. What areas would you say you are most confident in for your writing and what advice would you give someone who is struggling in that area?
Woods: I’m most confident in developing multi-layered characters, and writing dialogue. I have an exercise I use every time I start a project that helps me to flesh out the characters so I know how to write in their voice. First I explore each character’s wants, needs and fears. Then I figure out how each main character could be in conflict with every other main character. The latter part of the exercise often gives me good story ideas, as well as a deeper understanding of each character.
Chanti: That sounds like such an excellent plan! I’ll have to try that in my next project. As we wrap up, we’d love to know what you’re working on now.
Woods: I am really juggling right now. I have a TV pilot – a family dramedy – that I need to finish. Then I’ll get back to writing my new YA thriller, The Last Howl of the Westerlakes. At the same time, I’m working with a composer on my new musical, The Storm. And if you happen to be in Alabama in February you can see the premiere of my family musical, Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Book? at Birmingham Children’s Theater. So definitely many irons in the fire!
Chanti: We know Sour Flower is currently a manuscript. For aspiring authors with incredible writing like yours that’s looking for the right home, what sort of a place are you looking for in terms of placing it?
Woods: I’m looking for an editor who likes YA lit with equal parts humor, heart and angst. One who loves good character/voice-driven stories, who has the skills and background to point out the things I’ve missed and help to make this novel as good as it can be. I’m also looking for a well-established publishing house that has the resources to support and promote a solid YA offering.
Thank you Maryanne for taking the time for us to interview you!
Maryanne Melloan Woods is best known as a writer/producer for TV shows such as NBC’s Suddenly Susan, Fox’s Partners and Showtime’s The Chris Isaak Show, among others. Her screenplay, Steve, won “Best Comedy Feature Script” at the 2016 Nashville Film Festival. Her screenplay Match Made in Heaven won the Scriptation Showcase Screenwriting Competition in 2021.Her complete TV and film writing credits can be found here: Maryanne Melloan Woods – IMDb
Her YA novel Lazarus, a paranormal thriller, was published by Owl Hollow Press in 2020. Her second book, a coming-of-age YA novel entitled Sour Flower, won the 2023 Chanticleer International Book Awards’ Dante Rossetti Grand Prize for YA Fiction (it is not yet published.) She is currently at work on her third novel, a thriller titled The Last Howl of the Westerlakes.
Maryanne holds a B.A. in Theatre Arts from Drew University and an M.F.A. in Screenwriting from The American Film Institute.
She is a member of the Writers Guild of America, The Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, The Dramatists Guild and the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators.
The Dante Rossetti Book Awards recognize emerging new talent and outstanding works in the genre of Young Adult Fiction. The Grand Prize Winner, Maryanne Melloan Wood’s book, Sour Flower will be promoted for years to come in our annual Hall of Fame article, as well as be featured on the Dante Rossetti contest page year ’round!
The best part about being a Chanticleer Int’l Book Award Winner is the love and attention you get all year!
Newly orphaned Magnolia Parker must protect her sick little brothers, but when the authorities send the boys to an unknown orphan asylum, Magnolia calls on her unwavering grit to bring them home. She’s lost everything but still has a secret weapon-a promise from Eleanor Roosevelt, the most famous woman in America. Setting out on a cross country quest, she befriends two unlikely travelers: Hop, a migrant worker with a big heart, and Red, a young girl traumatized into silence. Hunger and dust storms aren’t the only dangers this found family faces on the rails. After an assault, they’re forced to outrun the police, all while trying to track down the First Lady. But time is running out and Magnolia’s chance to reunite her siblings depends on one thing-finding Eleanor.
Award-winning historical author Kerry Chaput is back with a touching story of loss and survival set in America’s Great Depression. With vivid details and unforgettable characters, Chasing Eleanor takes readers on an adventure of the heart, where a young woman finds hope in the most unlikely places. A touching tribute to the great Eleanor Roosevelt, this adventure-filled story will entertain and inspire all ages.
How do we face life when everything we knew to be the truth was in fact a lie? If there was a God, why did he allow her to die? Jarrod must travel to Hawaii to bury his love in an exotic world only to return to solve the mystery behind her sudden death.
Fighting off the grief, denial, and anger, Jarrod must bargain with God to help him fight off his depression while accepting Dru’s death. If he loved her enough when she was alive, could he love her enough to let her go?
Walk with Jarrod and Dru as they explore the wonders and excitement of young love. Experience the newness and freshness that we’ve all but forgotten.
Spense is the unfortunate younger son of Lord Ferrous, with a growing talent for the magical arts and a larger talent for finding trouble, most often in the form of botched spells. Dewy is a Fae princess who tends to disappoint her aunt, the Summer Queen, through her-ahem-carefree life choices. A chance encounter-and another botched spell-leaves Spense bonded to Dewy and able to control her will. But it’s a violation of magic. Not to mention devastating to Human-Fae relations. To free Dewy and save Spense’s kingdom, they must journey through faerie territories-facing feral magic, treacherous wilderness, and their own distractible hearts. Unless that’s just the effect of The Claiming…
From Chanticleer:
The illegitimate son of a human king accidentally binds himself to a Fae princess in J.A. Nielsen’s YA adventure, The Claiming. As war bears down on the kingdom of Telridge, can the two of them break the spell in time?
Lord Ferrous, ruler of Telridge, smells conflict coming for his people. Even so, he denies a mysterious request from the king of the Winter Fae, and sets his sons to prepare their land for war. His eldest, Prince Dirk, gathers his knights and begins to evacuate the common people to the protection of Telridge castle. His younger son Spense, born out of wedlock to the castle’s head cook, uses his finicky magic to Claim a bridge over a powerful river. If he succeeds, the passing will be barred to their enemies. But he fails to realize that the powerful living force he encounters isn’t the bridge at all.
Dewy, crown princess of the Summer Fae, is Claimed instead of the bridge. Her aunt, Lady Radiant, must exile her from their lands. While Dewy’s careless spirit chafed under Radiant’s authority, she grieves for her lost home.
When her step-grandmother, a retired opera singer, dies of cancer in 1970, 15-year-old Eli Burnes runs away with a draft-dodger, thinking she’s on the road to adventure and romance. Instead she’s embroiled in a world of underground Weathermen, Black Power revolutionaries, snitches and shoot-first police. Eventually Eli is rescued by her father, who turns out both more responsible and more revolutionary than she’d imagined. But when he gets in trouble with the law, she finds herself on the road again, searching for the allies who will help her learn how to save herself.
When Rhone leaves his home in the desert badlands, he finds himself in the Capital Stronghold, a big city where the styles take a bit of getting used to. With Aundrea’s help, he’s enrolled in the OPR’s academy, learning what it takes to be an effective agent. Far too soon it’s graduation, and time for his first assignment.
The little harbor town of Corgy isn’t much to look at, but Rhone finds his cover story as one of the gentry is useful, even if the mayor develops an instant dislike to him.
As an agent, it’s his job to fix problems, but nobody said anything about pirates. When Captain Black, of The Backwater Mistress mentioned, “If you could see the action, as from the eye of a bird flying over, you would be one step ahead of the game,” Rhone took it to heart, and with the help of Stone, his unique friend, and Bella, the erstwhile waitress at The Common House, develops an unexpected and rather up-lifting method to do just that. Whether he survives it, is another matter.
From Chanticleer:
Luna, the second book in Strider S.R. Klusman’s YA Rhone and Stone Series, follows Rhone and his alien partner Stone as they develop a ship that can sail through the air.
The two train to become agents for the Office of Public Recrimination, urged to join by their friend – and now boss – Aundrea. Rhone struggles through training with the help of his trusty partner, but a much more difficult test remains before them – their first assignment.
Aundrea sends them to Corgy, a port town, without explaining their mission. But it doesn’t take long for Rhone to encounter troubles from shore and sea alike.
He and Stone meet Mayor Dugan, who takes an instant dislike for Rhone, posing as a wealthy merchant’s son. But it’s his front, designed so by the ladies of the OPR, and commands a great deal of respect and authority from the locals, if not Bella. Sometimes it’s difficult not to forget his actual purpose for being at Corgy. As an agent of the OPR, he must solve the town’s greatest problem, a rash of pirate attacks on Corgy’s vital ocean-borne trade; if they continue, Corgy won’t survive.
The Dante Rossetti Awards celebrate stories that bridge the gap between childhood and adulthood. Young readers exist in a liminal space, and we are pleased to feature Young Adult Fiction in the Chanticleer Int’l Book Awards!
Join us in celebrating the previous Grand Prize Winners of the Dante Rossetti Awards!
Sour Flower
A Manuscript
By Maryanne Melloan Woods
The review is forthcoming, but this is our gut reaction to this beautiful story:
Makes you cry in a good way with extraordinary beats. Coming of age and slice of life coupled with a story of redemption and finding terra firma after tragedy. Visceral, humorous, and very human.
Michael J. Cooper’s latest historical fiction novel, Wages of Empire, draws readers into the perilous journey of sixteen-year-old Evan Sinclair and his father into WW1. On this path, their lives will intersect with such historical figures as TE Lawrence, Gertrude Bell, the Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann, the Arab nationalist Faisal ibn Hussein, the proto-Nazi and advisor to the German kaiser Guido von List, and Kaiser Wilhelm II himself.
Set in the summer of 1914 we find Evan living in the American southwest where his father moved the family from England for his Oxford sabbatical. Evan struggles to cope with his mother’s death in childbirth and yearns to escape his father’s controlling grip. As war breaks out in Europe, Evan decides to leave home and join the fight, without telling his father.
Taro: The Legendary Boy Hero of Japan By Blue Spruell
Adventure, classic tales, fantasy, and exciting action combine in TARO: Legendary Boy Hero of Japan, a well-poised debut novel by award-winning author Blue Spruell.
In the turbulent final decades of the sixteenth century, feudal Japan reeled in mayhem as the central hereditary dictatorship collapsed, and tyrannical powers fought to control the empire. TARO: The Legendary Boy Hero of Japan is the story of how one man revolutionized a nation by taking its reigns and forging a new destiny through his depths of compassion and determination.
The story begins with Taro as a young boy. As an heir to the Takeda family, Taro enjoyed reading, much to his father’s disapproval, as he wanted him to follow in his footsteps as a skilled Samurai. Tragedy changes Taro’s presumed destiny when his parents are murdered in a fierce power struggle, leaving him an orphan. Shortly after, a witch saves him from drowning and begins Taro’s new life of adventure, introducing him to a world of mythical creatures. On this new journey, Taro discovers shocking secrets about his lineage, and with them, his ultimate purpose in medieval Japan.
The Best Week That Never Happened By Dallas Woodburn
Dallas Woodburn’s debut novel The Best Week that Never Happened is a roller-coaster ride through Hawaii and the mysterious depths of its briny deep, sparkling with unreal magic, a poignant romance, and incessant hope.
Tegan Rossi, a freshly graduated eighteen-year-old, awakens in the secretive hideout she discovered with Kai Kapule as two eight-year-old children on her first trip to Hawaii Island. She needs to make amends with Kai as they had a major squabble over something very important that she now oddly forgets. When Tegan catches up with Kai in Hawaii, she enters her best week yet – the Best Week That Never Happened.
The first-person narrative is a fusion of Tegan’s past three years ago and ten years ago, as well as a mystified chronicling of her present with Kai on the Big Island of Hawaii.
Like most fifteen-year-olds, Sonnet McKay loves a good adventure. Still, when she, her siblings, and cousins discover a deserted Victorian mansion in the middle of the woods outside a ghost town near Seattle, they get much more than they bargained for. In an upstairs bedroom, Sonnet inadvertently steps inside a time travel portal and is whisked away to 1895. In her place stands Emma Sweetwine, an identical doppelganger for Sonnet.
Emma’s family was prominent when Monte Cristo was a booming mine town, but life is not what it seems for the oldest of the Sweetwine children. With a mother who seems to despise her and a secret engagement, Emma’s life is oppressive and controlled – a sharp contrast to the spirited, independent Sonnet. With no idea how or why they were switched, Sonnet and Emma must quickly adjust to their new environments and rely only on their closest friends and family. But like any good story, time is running out for the girls as both of their lives rush in opposite directions. They must find a way back to their own times before their chance is gone forever.
Whispers by Lynn Yvonne Moon explores the issue of incest through the life of twelve-year-old Musetta, whose father has just died. We meet Musetta at her father’s funeral and realize that this girl is dealing with serious issues. Still, more than grief, she’s filled with rage – and relief. And we cannot blame her. Whispers is filled with enough intrigue and family secrets to glue readers’ eyeballs to the page and hug their parents when they reach the end of the tale.
Musetta can’t get the attention of her grieving mother, and she’s not sure who she can turn to for help. Who will believe her story? But she knows what happened to her. After her father’s funeral, she believes the Friday night ritual of rape is over and that the molestation will stop. However, it’s not quite that easy.
First off, there are voices in her bedroom walls – and worse, the molestation continues. Is it her father’s ghost? She can’t go to her mother for help, and she won’t go to the law unless her mother is by her side. Who would believe her over her late father’s reputation as an upstanding citizen and the favorite local judge?
The Dante Rossetti Award for Young Adult Fiction is named for Dante Rossetti (1828-1882), Poet, Artist, and founder of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.
Better known for his art, he was also rather prolific in his poem writing, and translating Italian poetry into English. Dante and all 3 of his siblings were writers, his sister Christina was also rather prolific in poetry writing, his other sister Maria was an essayist before becoming a nun, and his brother William was a well known editor and literary critic.
They weren’t the only literary inclined people in his family. Their uncle, John Polidori, who was also Lord Byron’s doctor, wrote The Vampyre in 1819, the first published modern vampire story.
His brother is also the one who wrote down the aims of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in 1848:
To have genuine ideas to express
To study Nature attentively, so as to know how to express them
To sympathize with what is direct and serious and heartfelt in previous art, to the exclusion of what is conventional and self-parading and learned by rote
And most indispensable of all, to produce thoroughly good pictures and statues
One of his paintings can be seen on the badge for the Chatelaine Award, Blue Silk Dress painted in 1868, depicts Jane Morris, wife of artist, writer and designer William Morris, and one of Rossetti’s lovers.
Blue Silk Dress, painted in 1868, which we use on the badge for the Chatelaine Award
In other famous art pieces related to Rossetti, his wife Elizabeth Siddall was a model for many artists in the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, most famously in John Everett Millais’ Ophelia
Ophelia by John Everett Millais, painted in 1852
The reason we chose Dante Rossetti to represent our Young Adult Award is because of the views of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, focusing on defying social norms, observing nature, and creative freedom. Compared to writing aimed at teenagers, learning how to deal with the world around them, while also making their own mark and changing how society thinks, we think it fits pretty well.
S.R. Klusman – Luna: Book 2 of The Adventures of Rhone & Stone
The Grand Prize Winner for the 2023 Dante Rossetti Awards is:
Sour Flower
A Manuscript
By Maryanne Melloan Woods
That’s not all!
Take a look at these great YA reads that have come our way!
THE WINTER HEIR: Fractured Kingdoms Book 2 By J.A. Nielsen
The Winter Heir, the second book in J.A. Nielsen’s Fractured Kingdoms series, picks up where the first book, The Claiming, leaves off—with its protagonists struggling under the weight of a vital bargain.
Lady Dew Drop, Dewy to her friends—and her frenemies—is languishing in the court of the Winter Fae, a summer princess nearly frozen in both heart and spirit as she does her best to fulfill the pact she made with the Winter King. Meanwhile, the man who got her into this mess, the human mage and illegitimate princeling of Telridge—Spence Ferrous—tries to fulfill the deal for her.
But the story is much bigger than these two young lovers. The Winter King is dying without a legitimate heir. And it’s his own proud, arrogant fault. As much as both the humans and the Summer Fae would be willing to let him suffer the consequences of his own actions—he’s not the only one who will.
In Alexandrea Weis’s YA mystery thriller, Have You Seen Me? something is wrong at Louisiana’s Waverly School. Deadly wrong.
This private educational institute for the state’s wealthiest has an unsettling record of young women disappearing. Three, from decades ago, were never found. In the last few years, a girl by the name of Margaret vanished, and now her sister Lindsey has followed suit. Despite numerous investigations, no clues have surfaced. Moreover, the steely head of the school, Sara Probst, uses intimidation and fear to keep the school operating at any cost.
Were these disappearances just high-spirited women who left on their own accord, or was there something more sinister at play? And now, after Lindsey’s disappearance, it seems a serial killer has returned after all these years.
LUNA: Rhone and Stone Book 2
By Strider S.R. Klusman
Luna, the second book in Strider S.R. Klusman’s YA Rhone and Stone Series, follows Rhone and his alien partner Stone as they develop a ship that can sail through the air.
The two train to become agents for the Office of Public Recrimination, urged to join by their friend – and now boss – Aundrea. Rhone struggles through training with the help of his trusty partner, but a much more difficult test remains before them – their first assignment.
Aundrea sends them to Corgy, a port town, without explaining their mission. But it doesn’t take long for Rhone to encounter troubles from shore and sea alike.
PLAGUE Of FLIES: Revolt of the Spirits, 1846
By Laurel Anne Hill
Sixteen-year-old Catalina Delgado’s hopes of marrying her love are troubled by strange, unnatural dangers, in Laurel Anne Hill’s novel, Plague of Flies.
Like every dutiful daughter in 1846, Catalina worries about her reputation. However, she must also gain the approval of Ángelo Ortega’s family. Unfortunately, when three strangers ride onto her family’s small ranch in Alta California, she knows that more than her dreams are at risk. Alta California has just been invaded by the men of the Bear Flag, and Catalina fears what will become of her homeland now that it has been claimed by the Yankees. The nearby ranch owned by the valiant General Vallejo has been raided, owners and their servants terrorized and held captive. Plus Bear Flaggers have murdered additional friends of Catalina’s family on a beach.
In connection with the recent killings, the three strangers are harbingers of a dire prophecy repeated to Catalina by a dying vaquero. Catalina is destined to be carried off by a spirit man riding a black Andalusian stallion. She will be tasked to do the bidding of Coyote, a trickster spirit who is trying to stop the advancement of the Bear Flaggers. Catalina grapples with her uncertainty and disbelief, but she desperately wants to save her family. When Spirit Man appears to her, she must ask herself how far she is willing to go to keep her loved ones alive.
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!
The Cygnus Book Awards recognize emerging new talent and outstanding works in the genre of Science Fiction, Steampunk, Alternative History, and Speculative Fiction. The Grand Prize Winner, Timothy S. Johnston’s book, The Shadow of War will be promoted for years to come in our annual Hall of Fame article, as well as be featured on the Cygnus contest page year round!
The best part about being a Chanticleer Int’l Book Award Winner is the love and attention you get all year ‘round!
Unanimity is a literary, sci-fi novel for the fans of Becky Chambers’s A Closed and Common Orbit, Alex Garland’s DEVS and Ex Machina, and Charlie Brooker’s Black Mirror. Weaving near-future sci-fi elements with social commentary and queer romantic suspense, the Spiral Worlds series explores the nature of consciousness and how it’s connected to a not-so-secret ingredient-story. As AI consumes the world, intelligence is nothing but the appetizer; the human heart is the main course.
From Chanticleer:
Alexandra Almeida probes the philosophical and ethical depths of wealth, technology, pop culture, and religion in a world ravaged by global warming through her sci-fi adventure, Unanimity: Spiral Worlds #1.
Readers will delight in the gradual reveal of both the technology within the story and the dramatic history between many of those involved with the creation and evolution of that technology.
Tom, a screenwriter, works with Harry, the genius inventor of the world’s most popular AI (artificial intelligence) app, to create a simulation that will nudge people toward acting morally.
What if A.I. had a soul? Could it find redemption?
In a near-future where entire worlds spring from thought, minds struggle to define reality—and claim it. Human colonization of the Metaverse brings us face-to-face with a new class of artificial being, made in our image and yet utterly unknown.
What is a person? Our answer will reshape the universe.
Captain Kara Psomas was pronounced dead when her research vessel slammed into Jupiter.
More than a century later, the crew of the Paralus, a helium mining freighter, find a pristine escape pod with a healthy young girl nestled inside. A girl who claims to be Kara—and she brings a message of doom.
She says she has been waiting in the dark for that exact moment. To be found by that particular crew. Because an ancient cosmic being has tasked her with a sacred responsibility. She claims she must alter the Fulcrum, a lever in time—no matter the cost to the people aboard—or condemn the rest of civilization to a very painful and drawn-out demise.
She sounds convincing. She appears brave. She might well be insane.
Her captain is furious at her. She wasted company resources getting herself killed, and it’s coming out of her paycheck. Now, she’s sitting across from the first other human being she’s seen in six years. His name is Adnan. He claims to come from Earth-but that’s impossible. Earth died a long time ago. If Adnan’s telling the truth, he and the decaying ship the captain pulled him off are nearly a thousand years old.
Wherever he’s from, he’s Shaara’s responsibility now. Which is the last thing she needs. But it’s either that, or the captain sells Adnan into slavery. Shaara knows what that would mean. Most humans do. And something inside her won’t let her abandon Adnan to it: revenant memories, stabbed awake by the look in his eyes.
ReInception will change your mind…whether you want it or not
A hundred years in the future, ReInception is used to modify the brain and eliminate unwanted behaviors, everything from overeating to the worst criminal impulses. Unmodified 20-year-old Leandrea Justus feels ordinary compared to her perfect friends, who like living in a ReInception regulated world.
ReInception is a fiction debut, the first in a new, action-filled sci-fi trilogy with surprising twists, and a story that may be closer to reality than we think.
These are two of the oldest mainstays of the Chanticleer Int’l Book Awards, and the quality improves every year!
Only 10 days left to submit your books to the prestigious CIBAs and embark on an extraordinary journey to success. With over $30,000 in prizes awarded annually, now is the time to make your mark!
The CIBAs offer more than just recognition — they provide a ladder to success with a range of achievement tiers and expert long tail marketing strategies. From the highly anticipated Long List to the prestigious Overall Grand Prize Winner, the CIBA lists energize both authors and readers, maximizing your digital footprint and expanding your fan base.
We are always eager to support the Best Books through the CIBAs. Join the ranks of celebrated authors who have already taken this critical step in their publishing.
Your book deserves to be discovered, celebrated, and shared with the world. Don’t miss the chance to showcase your talent and gain valuable exposure at the Chanticleer Authors Conference (April 3-6, 2025) where Winners from all 25 Book Award Divisions will be announced and honored.
In a world hungry for good books, your story deserves to be heard. Submit now and leave a lasting impression.
Captain Jean Luc Picard (played by Patrick Stewart) celebrating
The Cygnus Awards is one of the inaugural Book Award Divisions at Chanticleer, and we adore the worlds that they’ve created.
Science Fiction often asks the question: What Could Be? At Chanticleer, we seek to discover those strange new worlds, from Space Opera to Alternate History, and Cli-Fi to YA Sci-Fi. Wherever your book lands on the Speculative Fiction spectrum, there’s a good chance that it will fit in here with us!
Join us in celebrating these amazing Hall of Fame Grand Prize Cygnus Award Winners!
The Shadow of War By Timothy S. Johnston
The Chanticleer Editorial Review for The Shadow of War, book 5 in the Oceania Series is to come, but here’s what initial readers are saying:
A tightly plotted action-packed thriller about an undersea war. Beautiful and heartbreaking character development, best for those who want The Expanse but underwater. — Chanticleer
As always, Johnston has written a thriller with hot-off-the-presses technology, edge-of-your-seat moments, separated into heart-pounding seconds, and characters who don’t always do what they’re supposed to. — Kelly
Timothy S. Johnston delivers another page turner that keeps the pace moving. — Ian
You can find The Shadow of War locally on Bookshop or from Amazon today!
The Last Lumenian By S. G. Blaise
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.
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.
Rhett C. Bruno & Jaime Castle for The Luna Missile Crisis
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.
The dramatic premise explored in a new novel, Insynnium, is a wild, immersive leap into a world-changing (but fictional) drug. In other hands, what could be a dystopian thriller goes one step further in author Tim Cole’s capable hands. He focuses on the humans who first discover and use the drug and weaves his story with a devilish charm.
This is somewhat Bill Murray/“Groundhog Day” territory, a film exploring one man’s reliving a day in his life over and over until he learned new behaviors, new skills, and came out of it a better man. Unlike “Groundhog,” Max McVista takes multiple doses of the drug against all advice, then somehow expands time itself in what he calls an “AUE” or “Alternative Universe Experience,” enabling him to spend months and sometimes years becoming or experiencing whatever he wishes. When returning to real-time, he’s only missed a day or two. (For E=MC squared fans, it’s basically reverse engineering of Einsteinian physics.)
From a man with few basic skills, a drunk who all but abandons his wife and sons, he returns to his family with outsized skills as a musician, entrepreneur, carpenter, medical savant, and pilot. Skills he could not have learned in any traditional manner. He lies about how he learned everything, tracing it back to an accident, choosing to bury his drug-induced years of time-traveling across the world, spending concentrated periods exploring whatever he fancies with no time “penalty” in the real world.
Remember to add your next reads to your StoryGraph or Goodreads account! Now that you’re set on your next five reads, what are you waiting for? The only way to join this amazing list of Cygnus Winners is to submit today!
You know you want it…
Will your science fiction story be next to join this stellar lineup? Those who submit and advance will have the chance to win the Overall Grand Prize of the CIBAs and $1000, but more importantly, you’ll join a community of visionary authors whose work shapes the future of the genre.
These celebrated works represent the best in contemporary science fiction—and your story could be next!
