Colonial Contest: Mars Series

Colonial Contest: Mars Series

Colonial Contest: Mars is a series of novels and short stories that are part space opera and part action/adventure with a dash of hard science fiction.

Jane Eyre Silver’s lifelong goal is to colonize Mars with humans before Earth becomes uninhabitable. As spaceship captain and CEO of Mars Now, Ltd., she has the right stuff to succeed. Such a noble mission can’t go unnoticed, so Jane has detractors and competitors on Earth and in space who would thwart her efforts or race her to the finish. Follow Captain Silver and her dedicated but mischievous crew as they begin to terraform Mars and face unexpected opposition and unintended consequences.

Since the Colonial Contest: Mars setting is near future, the plot includes some loose handling of the recent past and present. Just don’t stress over it. None of us know what’s actually going on, anyway.

Like the progenitor of most Martian stories, Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles (1950), Colonial Contest: Mars conceptually began as a miniseries of short stories I intended to integrate into a longer, overarching plot. Since I had the benefit of planning this structure before the first story was published, I expanded the main plots into novels with integrated short stories as preludes and interludes. Like Bradbury, I took advantage of the structure to vary the point-of-view characters and tone between stories. Every story in the Colonial Contest: Mars series should satisfy a sci-fi fan, but each has its own feel.

Titles in the series:

Red Sky Morning: Mars at Dawn, series prologue short story (Q4 2026)

Mars Now! Ltd.: Evidence of Life, Book 1 (Q1 2027)

Hunting Ice: Collecting Dust, Book 2 (Q1 2027)

Red Sky Day: Moon at Noon, book 3 prologue short story (Q1 2027)

Areforming Earth: Storm of Stones, Book 3 (Q3 2027)

Red Sky Evening: Earth at Dusk, book 4 prologue short story (Q1 2028)

Gathering Stones: Castaway, Book 4 (Q1 2028)

Red Sky Night: Milky Way at Midnight, series epilogue short story (Q1 2028)

Red Sky Morning: Mars at Dawn

Red Sky Morning: Mars at Dawn is the prologue short story to the Colonial Contest, Mars series and the prologue to book 1, Mars Now! Ltd. This origin story of a spaceship captain is available Nov 5, 2026 and will be available in eBook and audiobook (Q1 2027).

(Cover design by Ross Flaven. Cover images by NASA Images and 3000ad/shutterstock.com).

Read more about Red Sky Morning. here and sign up for the newsletter to get a sneak peek at the story.

Coming

Q1 2027

Watch the newsletter for the cover reveal.

Mars Now! Ltd.: Evidence of Life

Mars Now! Ltd.: Evidence of Life is the first novel in the Colonial Contest, Mars series. This space opera adventure is coming in Q1 2027 and will be available in eBook, paperback, hardback, large print, and audiobook.

Read more about Mars Now! Ltd. here and sign up for the newsletter to get a sneak peek at the story.

Coming

Q1 2027

Watch the newsletter for the cover reveal.

Hunting Ice: Collecting Dust

Hunting Ice: Collecting Dust is the second novel in the Colonial Contest, Mars series. This space opera adventure is coming in Q1 2027 and will be available in eBook, paperback, hardback, large print, and audiobook.

Read more about Hunting Ice: Collecting Dust here and sign up for the newsletter to get a sneak peek at the story.

(Cover design by Ross Flaven. Cover images by NASA Images and 3000ad/shutterstock.com).

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