The Safe Place, book two of my Valiant Frontiers series, came out last week, and the trilogy’s third and final volume is on track to follow before summer ends. That puts a full three-book arc in readers’ hands inside a few months, a pace closer to serialized web fiction than the multi-year gaps traditional science fiction publishing usually forces on a series.
That’s part of the point. Traditional publishers and Hollywood have mostly stepped back from crew-driven, planet-of-the-week space opera, the kind of story that built the genre’s mainstream audience in the first place. The stuff of Star Trek, Babylon 5, Doctor Who, and more doesn’t exist anymore. I aim to fill that gap, setting out to prove that real science fiction with a sense of wonder still works.
The Safe Place picks up the crew of the AES Valiant shortly after the events of The Soul Catcher, book one in the series. Captain Christopher Conley vanishes from the ship without warning, followed by a string of other crew members, each disappearance marked by an energy spike traced back to the surface of a planet the Valiant’s sensors had read as dead. Dr. Elaine Morgana and the science team determine that whatever hit the ship came from below, not from anywhere in orbit.
The missing crew don’t stay lost for long, but where they end up raises more questions than it answers: a hidden pocket of reality guarded by a species called the Onathi, who call it their “safe place” for reasons that become clear fast. What they’re hiding from left its mark on the Onathi themselves, and Security Chief Verelan has to decide how far she’s willing to push before that same threat notices the Valiant crew too.
Getting everyone out falls partly to Engineer Kelim, whose bond with a dead crewman’s soul (a thread that started in The Soul Catcher) turns out to be more useful here than anyone expected. He’s not just fixing engines this time. Whatever he pulls off with the Onathi’s own technology is one of the book’s better payoffs for readers who’ve been with the series since book one.
The full trilogy, starting with The Soul Catcher and closing with Time Bomb, will be out before summer ends. New readers can start the series and finish it inside a single season instead of waiting years between installments the way most trilogies require.
Have you started reading yet?
Catch up on the series:
The Soul Catcher (Book 1): where Kelim’s bond with the soul catcher begins
The Safe Place (Book 2): out now
All three land before summer’s end. Start with The Soul Catcher now to be caught up before the trilogy closes. If you have read the first book — please leave a rating or review on Amazon! It’s so helpful!
These books are fantastic