The Cull of Lions

by Mark Iles

Peter Wilhelmsen – Beta Reader

  Robert Harkess – Beta Reader

  Mark Rutley - Photographer

  About the Author…

  As a child Mark was bought up in Slough and used to read up to three paperbacks a day. At the age of 17 he joined the Royal Navy as a radio operator and says he’s so lucky to have seen so much of the world. While always interested in writing he began to do so more seriously following his experiences during the Falklands War, in which he served aboard HMS Invincible. His short stories have been published in a wide variety of media and he has also written prolifically about the martial arts for magazines such as Combat and Martial Arts Illustrated.

  Passing his MA in Professional Writing with Falmouth University he also holds Diplomas in Creative Writing, Copywriting and Proofreading. As well as working full time for Southampton University Mark works part time as a Copywriter, Author and Editor. His writing includes copy, features and fiction. While he writes in all genres his fiction is primarily SF, fantasy and horror.

  Appearing in several anthologies, including Auguries, Escape Velocity, Write to Fight and Monk Punk, Marks first novel ‘A Pride of Lions’ hit number 1 in the kindle scifi/colonisation charts. This novel, ‘The Cull of Lions’, is the second instalment in The Darkening Stars series.

  Other Solstice titles you might enjoy…

  A Pride of Lions

  By: Mark Iles

  When Selena Dillon is caught in an assassination attempt on her planet’s ruler, she finds herself sentenced to twenty-five years servitude in the most feared military force, the Penal Regiments. Much to her surprise she enjoys the harsh military life and is quickly selected for officer training.

  But something’s wrong, worlds are falling silent. There’s no cry for help and no warning, just a sudden eerie silence. When a flotilla of ships is despatched to investigate they exit hyperspace to find themselves facing a massive alien armada. Outnumbered and outgunned the flotilla fight a rearguard action, allowing one of their number to slip away and warn mankind.

  As worlds fall in battle, and mankind’s fleets are decimated, Selena is selected to lead a team of the Penal Regiment’s most battle-hardened veterans, in a last ditch attempt to destroy the aliens’ home world. If she fails mankind is doomed. Little does Selena know that one of her crew is a psychopathic killer and another is the husband of his victim.

  Can she hold her team together, get them to their target and succeed in the attack? Selena knows that if she fails then there will be nothing at all left to go home to.

  A Conniseur of the Bizarre

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  A carful of police officers swerves in the rain to avoid a shadowy figure. Detective Chets Owen and his two companions immediately recognise the local lunatic, O’Neal, but they’re shocked to see a gun in his hand. Then O’Neal mentions that he knows where a missing child is. Does he, or doesn’t he, and is O’Neal really who he seems?

  RobotPlanet: A Story For James W.

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  Boltolomew lives the peaceful life of a cleaning robot on the distant, long forgotten planet of Greta, until the day he finds an old music box in his garage. He doesn't know what it is, but he can't take his CPU off it for a moment. When he shows it to his friends, they're just as puzzled.

  The mysterious box is just the beginning of Boltolomew's troubles: soon he begins seeing a Spaceship landing on his way home from work, although no one else can see it, and then even stranger things start happening. One night, visitors emerge from the craft, only to vanish into thin air, leaving Boltolomew confused and overheated from too much thinking. Boltolomew's friends become concerned for him, and his Supervisor at the Cleaning Factory, Chief Bot, decides to have him reprogrammed.

  Boltolomew doesn't want to be reprogrammed, however, because it would make him forget the things he saw - well, he's pretty sure that he saw them, anyway. He must make a difficult choice: stay in the City without any memory of his previous self, or run away and face the dangers of the desolate Junk Yard. But most of all, Boltolomew wants to know: who are the visitors from the Spaceship, and why can't anyone else see it?

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