It's the ORBITAL CLOUD Giveaway contest!

By Nick Mamatas March 13, 2017

We haven't done one of these in a while, but it is that time once again—we're giving away four copies of Taiyo Fujii's latest book, Orbital Cloud!

If you read Fujii's previous novel, Gene Mapper, you already know what Fujii is all about: near-future settings, hard science fiction, a positive outlook on humanity, and intriguing thriller plots. Orbital Cloud is all that and more:

In the year 2020, Kazumi Kimura, proprietor of shooting star forecast website Meteor News, notices some suspicious orbiting space debris. Rumors spread online that the debris is actually an orbital weapon targeting the International Space Station. Halfway across the world, at NORAD, Staff Sergeant Daryl Freeman begins his own investigation of the threat. At the same time, billionaire entrepreneur Ronnie Smark and his journalist daughter prepare to check in to an orbital hotel as part of a stunt promoting private space tourism. Then Kazumi receives highly sensitive, and potentially explosive, information from a genius Iranian scientist. And so begins an unprecedented international battle against space-based terror that will soon involve the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, NORAD, and the CIA.

Check out a sample excerpt on The Verge and also in the ebook version of March's Lightspeed Magazine.

Convinced you want a copy yet?

Yeeeeeah, you're convinced! So here is our contest:

In a comment to this post, tell us about your favorite work of hard science fiction—that is, SF that mooooostly holds true to the laws of physics as they were known at the time of the story's writing. You can write a little hundred-word essay, or poem (we like villanelles) or fannish rant or whatever you like. Friday afternoon, we'll pick four winners. We ship anywhere, and you can submit in English, Japanese, Spanish, Greek, or German.

So let's play!