One week, readers. One. Week!

We are one week away from the release of my biggest book ever, and the sequel to Colony. It’s almost here. All you readers are about to get your hands on Jungle. Are you ready?

You should be. Jungle sees the return of Jake, Anna, and Sweets after their mission to Pisces. You know, the one where everything went crazy? Well, certain folks back on Earth aren’t too happy with how the trio handled things. Not happy at all.

You can pre-order Jungle now to make sure you’ve got your copy right as they start releasing next Tuesday. Just click that cover! But if you’ve already secured your copy, hit the jump past the cover and synopsis for another early preview!

Jake, Anna, and Sweets are back in the long-awaited sequel to Colony!

Fresh off their mission to Pisces, the trio is looking forward to a well-deserved rest, and better yet, a fat paycheck after everything that occurred on the alien world. But all that comes to a crashing halt when they’re waylaid above Earth by their employer and find themselves with an extended contract, sending them right back out into space.

Worse yet, their trio has been split to best handle their new assignments. Jake and Anna find themselves attached to a scientific expedition, tasked as security escorts keeping the expedition safe as they investigate a new potential colony world thriving with a vast, vibrant jungle. Meanwhile, Sweets has been assigned aboard an UNSEC military vessel, tracking down the source of a pervasive cyberattack against their hardware.

But as both teams get to work, it’s clear that there may be more to their respective missions than they were led to believe. The cyberattacks are brazen and powerful, but simplistic and utterly untraceable. The alien world’s ecology defies logic and sense, puzzling the expedition team.

And above it all, the ripples of events on Pisces continue to spread through the galaxy …

Hit the jump for a third and final preview!

Well, Anna thought as she looked at the green orb hanging over the table. It certainly doesn’t look like much.

The description “green orb” fit the planet almost perfectly. Save the massive swaths of white cloud moving across its surface, K-247-2 appeared completely coated in the color. She could see hints of white on the northern hemisphere—probably snow from a seasonal weather system in effect—and faintly frosted poles, but other than that, the entire planet was nothing more than one multi-colored green carpet.

“What in the stars …?” one of the scientists said. It was Johan, the short, excitable one. “Is that the soil?”

“No,” Ikeda replied, shaking her head. “It’s not. What you are looking at, ladies and gentlemen, is why this mission came together so quickly: A single biome planet. K-247-2.”

“Impossible.” The reply had come from Silva, the botanist who’d seemed so relaxed. He was leaning forward in his seat now, waving at the lazily-spinning image of the planet with one had. “Life doesn’t work that way.” He looked to Johan, as if looking for reinforcement.

“I’d have to agree,” Johan said, nodding in Silva’s direction before turning back to Ikeda. “Life is incredibly complex. Even on planets that are early into their developmental state there’s a surprising variety of life. A single biome is … well …” His eyes snapped to the holographic representation of the planet.

“Impossible?” Ikeda prompted.

“Well … no,” Johan admitted. “I suppose not impossible.”

Well, at least he’s flexible, Anna thought, eyeing the planet.

“But … are we sure it’s not an equipment malfunction?”

Anna felt her pulse spike at the phrase “equipment malfunction.” Had more than enough of that to deal with on Pisces, she thought as she recalled all the redacted and edited documents she’d pored over during her stay on the watery planet. All the “irregularities” that had been explained away as repeated breakdowns or poorly-designed probes, to hide the planet’s biggest secret.

“No,” the commander replied, and Anna relaxed slightly. “A subsequent check of the initial probe showed no irregularities in its systems, and repeated flybys of the planet—yes, repeated, this discovery caught UNSEC’s eye enough that they doubled the usual number of probes both in orbit and on the surface—showed that the initial pass was correct.”

“That said,” the commander continued before anyone could say otherwise. “Whether or not it is actually one biome is up to us to decide. After all …” She tapped at her datapad, images popping up around the floating sphere. Shots of large, thick tree trunks of some kind stretching toward the sky. Numbers popped up too, though after a glance Anna ignored them. They likely meant something to someone who could interpret them, but at the moment that wasn’t her, not from some of the acronyms she was seeing. “We have jungle rainforests on Ibis in a variety of places that would look quite similar to someone inexperienced with them,” Ikeda continued.

Johan nodded. “So … similar biomes, not singular?”

“We don’t know,” Ikeda said, tapping at her datapad again. Several of the pictures swelled, each showing darkened images of towering tree trunks. “From the images the peewees collected, these trees certainly look similar …”

“But then so do most trees on Mirkshir until you start looking at the leaves,” Johan said with a nod. “What about oceans? I’m seeing plenty of clouds in that orbital picture, but no sources of standing water, is that just the resolution, or …?”

Ikeda tapped her datapad in response, and a new image popped up on the screen. The image was even darker than the earlier ones, and was at a strange angle. Long, thin, whiplike tendrils were stretching down towards the camera, and it took Anna a moment to realize what they were.

Those are roots … she realized. She peered a little more closely at the image. And that right there …

“My word …” Silva said, rising from his seat. “Is that tree floating?”

“Your guess is as good as mine,” Ikeda said. “But it would appear that, yes, it is. Couple of the peewees punched through the canopy to hit what they thought was solid ground, only to end up taking a swim. A couple of ‘em popped floats and got marginally back towards the surface but …” Another image popped up, and it took Anna a moment to realize that it was a shot looking almost the opposite direction of the first, root tendrils draping past it rather than toward it. “None of them popped them in enough time to make it back to whatever hole they punched on the way in.”

“That’s incredible.” Johan leaned in close to the images. “You’re telling us that the forest has grown over the water sources?”

“It has, as near as we can tell, grown over oceans,” Ikeda said, and Anna saw the ecologists jaw drop.

You can pre-order Jungle now for $7.99 and be ready for its release November 19th!