No child should ever be a soldier.

Jon Moore knew that better than most, having learned to fight to survive before he'd hit puberty. So when a former comrade, Alissa Lim, asks for his help in rescuing a group of children pressed into service by rebels on a planet no one cares to save, he agrees. Only later does he realize he's signed up to do far more than he'd ever imagined. Jon's commitment hurtles him and Lobo, the hyper-intelligent assault vehicle who is his only real friend, into confrontations with the horrors the children have experienced and with a dark chapter from his past.

About the Author

Mark L. Van Name, whom John Ringo has said is "going to be the guy to beat in the race to the top of SFdom," has worked in the high-tech industry for over 30 years and today runs a technology assessment company in the Research Triangle area of North Carolina. A former Executive Vice President for Ziff Davis Media and a national technology columnist, he's published over a thousand computer-related articles and multiple science fiction stories in a variety of magazines and anthologies, including the Year's Best Science Fiction. Jon & Lobo stories have appeared in a Baen anthology and Jim Baen's Universe.

Jon and Lobo are back—and everything is about to change.

If they both survive.

Haunted by memories of children he could not save, Jon Moore is so increasingly self-destructive that even his best friend, the hyper-intelligent Predator-Class Assault Vehicle, Lobo, is worried. When Jon risks meeting a woman from his distant past and undertakes a high-stakes mission, Lobo fears this will be their last.

The job is illegal.

They have to take on one of the oldest, most powerful men alive.

Two different security forces are tracking them.

And Jon is falling in love.

Desperate and out of options on a world so inhospitable that its statues and monuments outnumber its living inhabitants, Jon and Lobo encounter their deadliest challenges yet. They must make decisions from which there truly is No Going Back.

TWO WOLVES IN A GALAXY OF LARGER PREDATORS

Jon Moore: nanotech-enhanced solider-of-fortune.

Battlewagon Lobo: A.I.-equipped intelligence and weapons platform (think: a fortress on wheels) of enormous destructive potential.

Two very dangerous wolves in a galaxy of deadly corporate and paramilitary predators. But Moore has grown weary of the killing and just once he'd like to finish a job without leaving a trail of blood behind him. Not going to happen. Not on a pristine planet called Macken, where two gigantic corporations vie for control of the local jump gate and access to the riches of an undeveloped world. Dealing with a kidnapping and extortion scheme is only the beginning for Moore and Lobo. Next they must survive an enormous bounty placed on Moore's head long enough to rescue yet again the young woman they accidentally delivered into the wrong hands. But with the help of an old lover and under-the-table support from the mercenary outfit that made him, Moore just might beat the odds, save the girl, and get out of this one a little richer and one step closer to making it back to the strange world of his origin.

One Jump Ahead: the first novel in the Jon & Lobo series

"Just when I was thinking science fiction might be over, Mark Van Name proves that there are still smart, exciting, emotional sci-fi stories to be told. "
—Orson Scott Card

"Holy Squidlets, Batman! One Jump Ahead is like well-aged white lightning: it goes down smooth then delivers a kick that knocks you on the floor. I want to kidnap Mark Van Name and steal his brain. I also want an illegal, souped-up racing ray. Mark's going to be the guy to beat in the race to the top of SFdom."
—John Ringo

"Hard real science smoothly blended into action that blazes like a pinball from one exotic setting to another. This one is very, very good."
—David Drake

"One Jump Ahead is the sort of—dare I say it —old-fashioned SF adventure tale that I dote on. Mark Van Name's headlong pace of story-telling reminds me a lot of Keith Laumer, in fact. He's one of the very few modern authors I've seen who can manage that."
—Eric Flint

"One Jump Ahead is alive with fast-paced action, wild ideas, and characters to root for. A joy to read."
—Jack McDevitt

It began as a favor to a woman
trying to get away from an abusive husband.

Jon Moore grew up in a prison laboratory. When he escaped with nothing but his body's nanotech enhancements and more anger than even a long lifetime could wash away, an entire planet died behind him.  Memories of the things he'd done still haunted him; because of them, he often ended up helping those in need.

His kindnesses frequently didn't work out well. This one really didn't work out well.  It hurled Jon and Lobo, the intelligent assault vehicle and Jon's only friend, down an accelerating, ever more dangerous spiral involving:

• Private armies and government covert ops teams

• A courtesan who always seems a step ahead of him

• Rival superpowers that define Good in terms of their own advantage and Ethics as whatever doesn't get in the way of their Good

• And a brilliant, amoral scientist to whom human beings are just more experimental animals--and who might be Lobo's creator.

Jon and Lobo take the reader on a headlong rush through armed enemies and untrustworthy allies and encounter what just might be the worst danger their partnership will face: the truth.

About the Author

Mark L. Van Name, whom John Ringo has said is "going to be the guy to beat in the race to the top of SFdom," has worked in the high-tech industry for over 30 years and today runs a technology assessment company in the Research Triangle area of North Carolina. A former Executive for Ziff Davis Media and a national technology columnist he's published over a thousand computer-related articles and multiple science fiction stories in a variety of magazines and anthologies, including the Year's Best Science Fiction. Jon & Lobo stories have appeared in a Baen anthology and Jim Baen's Universe.

Save the Boy—Save the Galaxy!

Pinkelponker.  Funny name.  Dangerous planet.  It's one of the darkest secrets in the human-inhabited space—a planet under a centuries-long quarantine.  A planet of mutant seers and psychics whose very existence threatens the galactic balance of power.   But a young boy with extraordinary precognitive abilities has surfaced, and a cult leader seeking ultimate power wants to possess him, body and soul.  Now the boy's future rests with a treacherous con man and with the one person who can understand the boy's strange destiny.  For it is a destiny that master mercenary Jon Moore shares—since he, too, is a son of Pinkelponker!

Military SF with an adventurous flourish—here is the second entry in Mark Van Name's thoughtful and hard-hitting "Jon and Lobo" saga!