Of This and Other Worlds: Science Fiction and Fantasy Reading Group

Starting off 2026 with a bang, we’ll be continuing our Fantasy and Science Fiction reading group, exploring worlds both fantastical and horrific, monstrous and utopian. Whether your interests lie in exploring the ruins of a lost civilization, challenging fiends to save the world from ruin or delicately navigating the politics of a corporate interstellar McEmpire™ (Ask about our franchising options and get a free McNuke™!), I do hope you’ll join us.

For the first reading group of 2026, we head to a galaxy far, far away but not distant in the future. Mankind reaches for the stars, but finds that they are not alone in grasping for a place in the cosmos.

John Perry did two things on his 75th birthday. First he visited his wife's grave. Then he joined the army.

The good news is that humanity finally made it into interstellar space. The bad news is that planets fit to live on are scarce—and alien races willing to fight us for them are common. So: we fight. To defend Earth, and to stake our own claim to planetary real estate. Far from Earth, the war has been going on for decades: brutal, bloody, unyielding.

Earth itself is a backwater. The bulk of humanity's resources are in the hands of the Colonial Defense Force. Everybody knows that when you reach retirement age, you can join the CDF. They don't want young people; they want people who carry the knowledge and skills of decades of living. You'll be taken off Earth and never allowed to return. You'll serve two years at the front. And if you survive, you'll be given a generous homestead stake of your own, on one of our hard-won colony planets.

John Perry is taking that deal. He has only the vaguest idea what to expect. Because the actual fight, light-years from home, is far, far harder than he can imagine—and what he will become is far stranger.