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About Marko Kloos
Marko writes primarily science fiction and fantasy, his first genre love ever since his youth when he spent his allowance mostly on German SF pulp serials. He's the author of the bestselling Frontlines series of military science fiction as well as the upcoming Palladium Wars. He likes bookstores, kind people, October in New England, fountain pens, and wristwatches.
Marko lives in New Hampshire with his wife, two children, and roving pack of voracious dachshunds.
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Blog postI used to have a lot of those silly old things. Now I only have this one because I could not bear to get rid of it when I cleaned house.
It’s a 1935 Royal DeLuxe that was owned by a dear old friend of mine who passed away in 2007 at the age of 73. He was a low-key downeast Maine teacher and scholar, and without him I probably wouldn’t have ended up in the United States.
From what I know, his mother bought the typewriter new in the 1930s and passed it down to him. After he died2 days ago Read more -
Blog post
The official Love Death + Robots anthology for Season 1 is up for preorder. It contains all the stories that were used as source material for the episodes, including my own “Shape-Shifters” (Episode 10) and “Lucky 13” (Episode 13).
The anthology is available on May 21 from these sources:
Amazon US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0923HJQ5G
Amazon AU: https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B0923HJQ5G
Amazon UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0923HJQ5G
Amazon CA:1 week ago Read more -
Blog postA lot of my writer friends basically live on coffee. I like it every now and then, but it’s not a daily thing for me. It’s what I get when I am grabbing breakfast while out and about, not what I make every morning to get going.
At Castle Frostbite, we drink tea instead, and a lot of it.
This is our morning fuel. It’s Ostfriesentee, a German tea blend from East Frisia (where they drink more tea per capita than anyone else in the world.) It’s a pretty strong Assam/Ceylon blend.3 weeks ago Read more -
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Blog postI did one of those ancestry DNA tests a little while ago, and the results come as an absolute…lack of surprise.
German father (the green area), Croatian mother (the blue one), and my paternal grandmother was from East Prussia (the very top of the western part of the pink area.) No idea where or when the 2% Norwegian component came into the family tree, but I suspect that the 2% Baltic bit came from someone in my grandmother’s ancestry because East Prussia is adjacent to that area.1 month ago Read more -
Blog postOut of idle curiosity this morning, here’s a question for those of you who have served in the military:
How many of you are still using 24-hour and DDMMYYYY calendar format on your digital devices?
I turned in my kit 28 years ago this month and I still do it. My digital watches are all set to military time, and so are all my computers. Of course, it comes easier to someone who grew up in Europe because of the far more common use of 24-hour time over there, so everyone’s fluid1 month ago Read more -
Blog postRobin’s iMac started giving her the Beachball of Death, hanging up on almost everything she tried to do with it. I used to be a hardware tech support guy and systems administrator, so I am the official Castle Frostbite IT department. In that function, I diagnosed the iMac and suspected that the hard drive was failing.
$90 for a repair kit and two hours later, the iMac has been rejuvenated with an SSD. I also gave it a thorough interior cleaning while I had the screen off. It’s not a t1 month ago Read more -
Blog postYesterday, I took Girl Child out to the slopes here in town for what was probably the last good skiing day of the season. Later this week we’re supposed to get a few days of 60-degree weather, which is going to melt most of the remaining snow and kick-start my least favorite season in New Hampshire…mud season. (The four seasons here are Winter, Mud, Bugs, and Fall.)
The wife got her appointment invitation for the COVID vaccine because the 50+ age group is next in line. I’ll be 50 in O1 month ago Read more -
Blog postThe Internet connection at Castle Frostbite as of last night:
Not bad for a rural setting on a dirt road, right?
Ah, BUT.
The Internet connection at Castle Frostbite as of today:
Those are legit 2021-level Internet speeds. The kicker is that the new provider is supplying ten times the previous speed on the download, and forty times on the upload…at $20 less per month.
Gigabit fiber will keep this place swimming along for the next decade or so, I think.2 months ago Read more -
Blog postSomeone asked about the rest of the collection in comments, so here you go.
It’s a modest collection of nice-but-not-outrageous watches as far as price goes. The whole case is worth less than a single basic Omega or Rolex. Not that I would mind owning a Seamaster or a Submariner, but I don’t think I’ll ever be able to bring myself to spend five or ten grand on a watch. (My answer may change if someone ever gives me a truck full of cash for movie rights or something.)
Top row,2 months ago Read more -
Blog postEight years ago, when Terms of Enlistment started selling a lot of copies, this $45 Casio Duro was the first “extravagant” purchase I made with some of the first windfall royalties.
Fast-forward to 2021, eight years and ten novels later, and I own a lot more watches, but I still wear this one a lot. It’s a reminder that I don’t need to spend a bunch of money to take pleasure in something, and that once upon a time, spending $45 on something I didn’t strictly need was a frivolous luxur2 months ago Read more
The battle against the Lankies has been won. Earth seems safe. Peacetime military? Not on your life.
It’s been four years since Earth threw its full military prowess against the Lanky incursion. Humanity has been yanked back from the abyss of extinction. The solar system is at peace. For now.
The future for Major Andrew Grayson of the Commonwealth Defense Corps and his wife, Halley? Flying desk duty on the front. No more nightmares of monstrous things. No more traumas to the mind and body. But when an offer comes down from above, Andrew has to make a choice: continue pushing papers into retirement, or jump right back into the fight? What’s a podhead to do?
The remaining Lankies may have retreated in fear, but the threat isn’t over. They need to be wiped out for good before they strike again. That’ll take a new offensive deployment. Aboard an Avenger warship, Andrew and the special tactics team under his command embark on the ultimate search-and-destroy mission. This time, it’ll be on Lanky turf.
No big heroics. No unnecessary risks. Just a swift hit-and-run raid in the hostile Capella system. Blow the alien seed ships into oblivion and get the hell back to Earth. At least, that’s the objective. But when does anything in war go according to plan?
An interplanetary battle is renewed in an epic novel of a warring solar system by the author of Ballistic.
The war should have been over. But it’s not for a group of nationalists grabbing for control.
It’s been two weeks since a missile with a nuclear warhead tore through the planetary defenses in the most blistering large-scale attack ever committed in the history of the Gaia system. Commander Dunstan Park of the Rhodian navy has been handpicked to command an experimental cruiser that could dictate the course of the escalating conflict. All he has to do is keep the ship from falling into the wrong hands.
On Gretia, the powder keg is beyond control. A terrorist attack against civilians draws Idina Chaudhary into a costly battle. It also forces a cautious Aden Jansen back into the fray. Now dedicated to a just cause, he’s still keeping his past hidden. The risk of exposing his former alliance could twist not only his fate but also that of his sister, Solveig, heir to the family empire.
With no time to waste, Dunstan hits the ground running. But as insurgents threaten the unstable peace, what’s ahead for both sides could change the destiny of the Gaia system forever.
“There is nobody who does [military SF] better than Marko Kloos. His Frontlines series is a worthy successor to such classics as Starship Troopers, The Forever War, and We All Died at Breakaway Station.” —George R. R. Martin
The year is 2108, and the North American Commonwealth is bursting at the seams. For welfare rats like Andrew Grayson, there are only two ways out of the crime-ridden and filthy welfare tenements: You can hope to win the lottery and draw a ticket on a colony ship settling off-world . . . or you can join the service.
With the colony lottery a pipe dream, Andrew chooses to enlist in the armed forces for a shot at real food, a retirement bonus, and maybe a ticket off Earth. But as he starts a career of supposed privilege, he soon learns that the good food and decent health care come at a steep price . . . and that the settled galaxy holds far greater dangers than military bureaucrats or the gangs that rule the slums.
The debut novel from Marko Kloos, Terms of Enlistment is an addition to the great military sci-fi tradition of Robert Heinlein, Joe Haldeman, and John Scalzi.
Revised edition: This edition of Terms of Enlistment includes editorial revisions.
Vicious interstellar conflict with an indestructible alien species. Bloody civil war over the last habitable zones of the cosmos. Political unrest, militaristic police forces, dire threats to the Solar System…
Humanity is on the ropes, and after years of fighting a two-front war with losing odds, so is North American Defense Corps officer Andrew Grayson. He dreams of dropping out of the service one day, alongside his pilot girlfriend, but as warfare consumes entire planets and conditions on Earth deteriorate, he wonders if there will be anywhere left for them to go.
After surviving a disastrous space-borne assault, Grayson is reassigned to a ship bound for a distant colony—and packed with malcontents and troublemakers. His most dangerous battle has just begun.
In this sequel to the bestselling Terms of Enlistment, a weary soldier must fight to prevent the downfall of his species…or bear witness to humanity’s last, fleeting breaths.
Humankind may have won the battle, but a new threat looms larger than ever before…
Earth’s armed forces have stopped the Lanky advance and chased their ships out of the solar system, but for CDC officer Andrew Grayson, the war feels anything but won. On Mars, the grinding duty of flushing out the twenty-meter-tall alien invaders from their burrows underground is wearing down troops and equipment at an alarming rate. And for the remaining extrasolar colonies, the threat of a Lanky attack is ever present.
Earth’s game changer? New advanced ships and weapons, designed to hunt and kill Lankies and place humanity’s militaries on equal footing with their formidable foes. Andrew and his wife, Halley, both now burdened with command responsibilities and in charge of more lives than just their own, are once again in humanity’s vanguard as they prepare for this new phase in the war. But the Lankies have their own agenda…and in war, the enemy doesn’t usually wait until you are prepared. As Andrew is once again plunged into the chaos and violence of war with an unyielding species, he is forced to confront the toll this endless conflict is taking on them all, and the high price of survival…at any cost.
The alien forces known as the Lankies are gathering on the solar system’s edge, consolidating their conquest of Mars and setting their sights on Earth. The far-off colony of New Svalbard, cut off from the rest of the galaxy by the Lanky blockade, teeters on the verge of starvation and collapse. The forces of the two Earth alliances have won minor skirmishes but are in danger of losing the war. For battle-weary staff sergeant Andrew Grayson and the ragged forces of the North American Commonwealth, the fight for survival is entering a catastrophic new phase.
Forging an uneasy alliance with their Sino-Russian enemies, the NAC launches a hybrid task force on a long shot: a stealth mission to breach the Lanky blockade and reestablish supply lines with Earth. Plunging into combat against a merciless alien species that outguns, outmaneuvers, and outfights them at every turn, Andrew and his fellow troopers could end up cornered on their home turf, with no way out and no hope for reinforcement. And this time, the struggle for humanity’s future can only end in either victory or annihilation.
The time has come to take the fight to the Lankies.
Mars has been under Lanky control for more than a year. Since then, the depleted forces of Earth’s alliances have rebuilt their fleets, staffing old warships with freshly trained troops. Torn between the need to beat the Lankies to the punch and taking enough time to put together an effective fighting force, command has decided to strike now.
Once again, seasoned veterans Andrew and Halley find themselves in charge of green troops and at the sharp tip of the spear as the combined military might of Earth goes up against the Lankies. But if there’s one constant in war, it’s that no battle plan survives first contact with the enemy…and the Lankies want to hold on to Mars as badly as humanity wants to reclaim it.
The assault on Earth was thwarted by the destruction of the aliens’ seed ship, but with Mars still under Lanky control, survivors work frantically to rebuild fighting capacity and shore up planetary defenses. Platoon sergeant Andrew Grayson must crash-course train new volunteers—all while dulling his searing memories of battle with alcohol and meds.
Knowing Earth’s uneasy respite won’t last, the North American Commonwealth and its Sino-Russian allies hurtle toward two dangerous options: hit the Lanky forces on Mars or go after deserters who stole a fleet of invaluable warships critical to winning the war. Assigned to a small special ops recon mission to scout out the renegades’ stronghold on a distant moon, Grayson and his wife, dropship pilot Halley, again find themselves headed for the crucible of combat—and a shattering new campaign in the war for humanity’s future.
“I gulped down Ballistic in one long read, staying awake half the night, and now I want the next one!” —George R. R. Martin
There is a personal price to pay for having aligned with the wrong side in a reckless war. For Aden Jansen it’s the need to adopt a new identity while keeping his past hidden. Now he’s integrated himself aboard the Zephyr, a merchant ship smuggling critical goods through dangerous space. But danger is imminent on planet Gretia, as well. Under occupation, torn between postwar reformers and loyalists, it’s a polestar for civil unrest.
Meanwhile an occupation forces officer is pulled right back into the fray when the battle alarm is raised, an ambitious heiress is entangled in a subversive political conspiracy, and an Allied captain is about to meet the enemy head-on.
As Aden discovers, the insurgents on Gretia—and in space—are connected, organized, and ready to break into full-scale rebellion. History is threatening to repeat itself. It’s time that Aden rediscovers who he is, whom he can trust, and what he must fight for now.
“A new series that promises to be just as engrossing [as Frontlines]…the action just as exciting, the science just as solid, the tension just as high. I gulped down the first book in a day, and I am already eager for the next one.” —George R. R. Martin
Across the six-planet expanse of the Gaia system, the Earthlike Gretia struggles to stabilize in the wake of an interplanetary war. Amid an uneasy alliance to maintain economies, resources, and populations, Aden Robertson reemerges. After devoting twelve years of his life to the reviled losing side, with the blood of half a million casualties on his hands, Aden is looking for a way to move on. He’s not the only one.
A naval officer has borne witness to inconceivable attacks on a salvaged fleet. A sergeant with the occupation forces is treading increasingly hostile ground. And a young woman, thrust into responsibility as vice president of her family’s raw materials empire, faces a threat she never anticipated.
Now, on the cusp of an explosive and wide-reaching insurrection, Aden plunges once again into the brutal life he longed to forget. He’s been on the wrong side of war before. But this time, the new enemy has yet to reveal themselves…or their dangerous endgame.
A novella in the Terms of Enlistment universe. (63 pages/20,500 words)
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