Ark Press to Release Travis Corcoran’s Red State Mars
Author Shares Back Catalog in the Based Book Sale
In the latest overnight numbers, Sarah Hoyt has surged into the lead with her Prometheus-Award Nominated No Man’s Land: Volume 1 (Chronicles of Lost Elly), and the other two volumes in the trilogy are close behind. While we’re waiting for those numbers to settle out in Amazon’s database, we have another success story to share.
Independent publisher Ark Press will release Red State Mars next week on May 26 bringing renewed attention to one of the most outspoken and recognizable voices in contemporary independent science fiction: Travis Corcoran.
Red State Mars is a large-scale frontier epic set on a colonized Mars where fiercely independent clan families, many descended from Texans who survived Earth’s collapse after World War III, have built a rugged, freedom-oriented civilization through hard work, trade, and stubborn self-reliance. When expanding Chinese power transforms commerce into military domination, Mars erupts into a brutal war of independence fought across domed cities, barren plains, and orbital space. As invasions, sieges, political infighting, and old family rivalries threaten to tear the Martians apart, the clans are forced into an uneasy alliance to resist imperial control and forge a new nation on the red frontier. Combining hard-science warfare, political intrigue, family dynasties, and revolutionary struggle, the novel presents Mars as both a battleground and a proving ground for civilization itself.
Travis Corcoran’s Back Catalog - All $0.99!
A longtime veteran of the Based Book Sale and one of its earliest recurring participants, Corcoran has announced that he is placing almost his entire back catalog into this season’s sale, giving readers a rare opportunity to pick up nearly all of his major works at discount pricing simultaneously. Already Thirty Pieces of Silver, his alternative history cyber-Byzantine thriller, cowritten with Lawrence Railey, is a top ten seller in the sale.
Thirty Pieces of Silver (Spirits in the Silicon): Venture into the neon lit world of Byzantium in the futuristic year of 1754 Anno Domini, when cybernetically augmented monks chant as they swing incense burning thuribles, surgically enhanced hookers flirt with hackers in underground bars, Viking mercenaries sell their guns to the highest bidder, and Aztec traders offer chocolate, gold, and illegal cocaina.
The Aristillus Saga
Offerings include his back-to-back award Prometheus-award-wining Aristillus saga.
The Powers of the Earth (Aristillus Book 1): The Prometheus-award-winning saga of anarchocapitalism, economics, open source software, corporate finance, social media, antigravity, lunar colonization, genetically modified dogs, strong AI… and really, really big guns.
Causes of Separation (Aristillus Book 2): The first US / UN invasion of the renegade lunar colony of Aristillus has failed - but the powers-that-be in Washington and elsewhere can’t give up. What can a small population of 1 million Lunar settlers do against the combined might of billions on Earth? Open source software, markets, big guns, combat robots and uplifted dogs let the rebels punch far above their weight - but is it enough to even the odds? Find out why Causes of Separation earned a second Prometheus Award in a row.
Check out his novellas set in the Aristillus universe:
The Team (Aristillus): In 2055, nine years before the events of The Powers of the Earth, US Special Forces soldier John Hayes discovers a secret research project that’s being shut down by the Bureau of Sustainable Research. Are the reports of uplifted dogs – creatures genetically engineered to have human intelligence – true? Can John sit by while bureaucrats end the project – and incinerate all the inconvenient evidence?
Staking a Claim (Aristillus): In the early days of the Aristillus moon colony a lone geologist uses a small inheritance to do what the universities and government won’t — fund basic research. But in an anarcho-capitalist border town on the moon with no police and no courts, who enforces property rights when the geologist finds the motherlode?
Other Action-Packed Novellas:
Firefly Season 2: When you’re a time trader — someone with a ship that can hop sideways across the millions of alternate timelines — the big money isn’t in technology or science, it’s in entertainment. There are some universes where George Lucas didn’t die on the set of American Graffiti but instead went on to make a space fantasy classic. In other universes there’s a guy named Tolkien who wrote a sequel to “The Hobbit”. Ask any timetrader and he’ll tell you: put three things together — buyer, seller, and product — and that’s where the magic happens.
Caterpillar: A zombie apocalypse is bad enough if you’re far out in the country – but what happens when you’re trapped in a two story brick building in the dense suburbs of Boston, and the streets around you are a sea of biters? Most people would give up and accept their fate…but Chris, Todd, Stacy and David aren’t most people. They’ve got unique skills … but also unique handicaps.
Glomar Extractor: The end of the world is here, but that won’t stop three deep sea saturation divers and old oil rig veterans from trying to survive and thrive amid the chaos and destruction.
Finally, Escape the City, The Ultimate Homesteaders Guide
Escape the City: A How-To Homesteading Guide (Vol 1 and Vol 2) is the perfect guide for people who live in the city or suburbs and want to move to the country. This is the bestselling “missing manual” that tells you absolutely everything you need to know on thousands of topics that you never even realized existed.
Thanks, Ark Press, for Working with Indie Authors
Ark Press represents an increasingly important hybrid model in modern publishing: combining the entrepreneurial energy and creative independence of the indie world with the production quality, distribution reach, and bookstore presence traditionally associated with legacy publishing houses. Rather than demanding that authors abandon the direct reader relationships and audience-building strategies that made them successful, Ark Press has been working with established independent creators as partners, amplifying authors that have already proven themselves in the marketplace while preserving the distinctive voices and unconventional ideas that often struggle to survive inside corporate publishing structures. The result is a model that captures much of the agility, authenticity, and reader loyalty of independent publishing while restoring some of the visibility, permanence, and physical retail reach long associated with traditional print publishing.
About the Based Book Sale
The Based Book Sale is a grassroots collaboration of independent authors, small presses, and readers built around the idea that great books do not need institutional gatekeepers to find an audience. For one week, hundreds of titles across science fiction, fantasy, literature, and nonfiction are offered at steep discounts — many for just $0.99 or free — as participating authors cross-promote one another’s work and introduce readers to new voices, hidden gems, and unconventional ideas. You can learn more from a recent interview with Based Book Sale Founder, Hans G. Schantz.
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