The Comm Guild Maelstrom's Edge

When creating the Maelstrom's Edge game, we wanted a universe that felt real and 'lived in', and that people would want to revisit and build in their games. With that in mind, we set about creating a wealth of background material to guide the creation of the game, and then expanded on that by approaching various authors to flesh out the Maelstrom's Edge setting. The end result of that is a slowly growing collection of fiction that we're extremely proud of.

Our first releases were our novels, 'Faith' and 'Sacrifice', which tell the story of two of the factions battling it out for control of Zycanthus, a planet a few tens of lightyears from the Maelstrom's Edge. The corporate Epirian Foundation owners of the world are trying to extract what resources they can in the last few decades before Zycanthus is destroyed by the Maelstrom. The secretive religious extremists of the Karist Enclave however, have identified Zycanthus as a key world for conversion to their beliefs - that the Maelstrom is not the end of everything, but the beginning of a new age for mankind - that if they prepare their souls for the Maelstrom's embrace, they will ascend to a new plane of existence.

In the first novel, 'Faith', Epirian Sheriff Kyle Wynn is ambushed in the desert by a Karist landing party and left for dead. He begins to uncover just how deep and wide the Karist infiltration of Zycanthus goes - and how dangerous it might be. Meanwhile Karist priestess Zafah has travelled to the world to try and teach people of the salvation that Ascension can bring - but the reaction of the Epirian security forces to her missionary work forces her to consider more direct methods of teaching the people the Karist Way. With both sides adamant that their way is best, the stakes are raised for a cataclysmic battle for control of the Zycanthus star system in the second book, 'Sacrifice'.



Our short story compilations, 'Tales from the Edge: Emergence' and 'Tales from the Edge: Escalation' take a closer look at an assortment of different settings along the Edge.

'Emergence' includes eight short stories stories by Tomas Martin, Stephen Gaskell and Andrew Everett, which explore the conflict and intrigue amongst the stars near the Maelstrom's Edge.

Stephen Gaskell's novelette 'Transit' tells of a young boy discovering the Maelstrom is coming to his world, whilst 'The Kaddar Nova' depicts the devotion and fanaticism of the most dedicated of the Karist Enclave's apocalyptic priesthood.

Tomas L. Martin's stories 'The Shipyard', 'The Scarecrow' and 'The Hunter' delve into the background of the corporate Epirian Foundation and their robotic guardians.

'Scraps' by Andrew Everett, 'Crisis Point' by Stephen Gaskell and 'Static Prevails' by Thomas L.Martin explore the conflict and intrigue amongst the stars near the Maelstrom's Edge.

*

'Escalation' is the second short story collection, and goes even deeper into the chaos of the Edge with stories by Alastair Reynolds, Aliette de Bodard, Liz Williams, and other accomplished scif-fi authors.

'Remainers', by Alastair Reynolds follows the return of a starship captain to a world doomed by the Maelstrom on the behest of a mysterious client.

In Rob Ziegler's 'Little Bots', a group of orphans scheme and sneak their way into a plot to escape their dying world, whilst Jeff Carlson's 'The Spaces Between Us' looks at the challenge of the Maelstrom's approach from another direction - if a world is lost, do we have a duty to save what makes it unique?

Jaine Fenn's 'Over You' and Tomas L. Martin's 'Fleet Champion' explore the honour-bound existence of the Remnant Fleet's Champions. The Remnant is all that's left of the Artarian civilisation fleeing the destruction of their homeworlds by the Maelstrom, and rely on their exo-suited Champions to secure the resources they need to survive - by force if necessary.

Nebula, Locus and SFWA award-winning author Aliette de Bodard tells a tale of the aftermath of an attack by the Karist Enclave on an Epirian Foundation world in 'Losses We Bear'. The topic of the Karist Enclave is also explored in Stephen Gaskell's 'A Keeper's Duty', where a young apprentice must learn to control the power of the unpredictable aliens known as the Angels.

Jonathan Cooper's 'The Daughter of Arin' presents a challenge when a Comm Guild courier arrives with an unexpected package, whilst stories from Philip K. Dick Award nominated authors Karin Lowachee and Liz Williams explore the ragtag rebels of the Broken and the challenges confronted by those who have nothing but the clothes on their backs in 'The Flesh of the World' and 'Moon Desert'.

The stories within this volume explore the tangled and desperate politics of the civilisations on the Maelstrom's Edge, from passionate revolutionaries to devout missionaries. The array of bestselling and award-winning writing talent will take you on journeys to planets where every decision can be the difference between survival and destruction.

*

These four books are all available in print through the Maelstrom's Edge webstore here, or you can find eBook versions on Amazon here.

The Maelstrom's Edge webstore also has available Audiobook versions of a selection of the short stories from 'Tales from the Edge: Emergence', with two more chapters in the story started in 'Transit' to come in the near future.

With so much more of the Edge still to explore, we hope you enjoy diving into our galaxy as much as we did creating it!