SETH W. JAMES

Launch day!  For the first time in 25 years of writing novels, I am publishing 2 books in the same year.  The Fall, book 4 in The Cain Series, by Seth W. James, went live today and is available in ebook, paperback, and hardcover formats.  Like all Cain Series novels, The Fall is an episodic, near-future, cyberpunk science fiction novel.

In The Fall, Cain and Francesca are called out to a small, perpetually hovering city—called a Worker Village—on station near the partially constructed seawall north of Bremen, Germany, to investigate a series of sabotaged construction drones.  Angry exoskeleton drivers are only the beginning of the seawall’s problems, however, as their investigation soon uncovers a massive conspiracy threatening an unthinkable atrocity.

Link: https://a.co/d/52tUe0Y

Cover and copy:

“As global food-scarcity spiraled out of control, the European Seawall Project finally began constructing the massive edifice that would reclaim lands lost to rising sea levels—and upon them build the farms that would avert famine.  The workers laboring to raise the seawall were provided with the very best: fusion-powered exoskeletons, excellent pay, and a perpetually hovering artificial island, where they could enjoy their off-hours near the seawall amid every pleasure and vice money could buy.  Despite the urgency of their work and the joys of life on the island, not everyone was satisfied—and someone had begun sabotaging construction drones.

Francesca Pieralisi, the former prosecutor turned seawall-project director, was then sent in to identify the saboteur and his grievances.  She was not given a free hand to investigate, however, nor authorized to solve whatever problems she discovered, not since Paul Devouard, ESF Chief and her boss, had lost faith in her judgement after the near-disaster of the Bolivian affair.  Barred from official resources, Francesca could only rely upon herself—and Cain.  Calling upon his expertise as an elite soldat de fortune, Cain enlisted the aid of his old criminal network, to cut through the misdirection and outright lies, and to uncover the truth.

Cain and Francesca soon discovered the many forces exploiting the island, from an avaricious drone corp, to corrupt private cops, to a criminal syndicate and its burgeoning underground.  It was not until they began covertly neutralizing these threats, however, that they uncovered the massive conspiracy behind it all—and the atrocity central to its scheme.  To save the seawall and any hope of averting famine, they must now excise the threat with a surgical strike.  But will their desperate action be enough—or too much?”

With The Fall, cycle 1 of The Cain Series nears its conclusion—and alters the course of all future Cain novels to come.  I talked about how The Cain Series employs classic dramatic structure at several levels, including the grouping of novels into cycles, here: https://www.sethwjames.com/stories-within-stories-the-episodic-form-and-novel-cycles-in-the-cain-series/.  Book 5 is already underway and I hope to have it published by next spring or early summer.  In all likelihood, book 5 will be the only book I publish in 2026, as I will take the rest of the year to plot cycle 2.  We may again see, from time to time, though, 2 books published in the same year; perhaps 2027 will be a two-book year.

The Fall was a satisfying but difficult novel to write, in part because of the razor’s-edge morality at play and in part because of the stakes, both within the novel and outside of it, with the awful resurgence of fascism in the real world.  Journalism and art of all kinds are under threat, with many voices having been silenced by the illegally installed and foreign-supported regime.  It is, therefore, more important than ever for working artists at every level to shout the truth all the louder.

That said, and though The Fall covers topics and tactics sadly relevant to the world’s current troubles, the novel is, as are all Cain Series novels, a kick’em-in-the-teeth cyberpunk action adventure, first and foremost.  From the fast-paced action to the depth of the world-building, The Fall is a wild ride of plot twists and unflinching consequences—with an end you may not anticipate.  Either way, I hope you’ll enjoy it.