About the CROOKED anthology series
I grew up reading science fiction and fantasy. I write science fiction. But my true love is crime novels.
I love the fast pacing, the mystery, the cat-and-mouse play between the good guys and the bad guys. The heists, the cons, the double-crosses, the easy money jobs gone wrong—I love it all. When a crime story is set in our mundane world, it’s fine. But when it’s set in a science fictional word? It lights me up.
You find these types of stories scattered amid “first contact with alien” stories and “space marines defending galaxy-spanning empires” stories on the Science Fiction shelf. But—like the shifty criminals who lurk on their pages—sci-fi crime stories are hard to nail down. They dance between categories in the online stores, classified as “adventure” or “cyberpunk” or “general.”
For years, I’ve been wanting to create a place for these misfits. A virtual Continental Hotel, neutral territory where stories of space pirates, mobsters, private eyes, grifters, mercenaries, and lawmen can all hang up their EVA suits and holster their blasters. A place where readers who love both science fiction and crime stories can go to find their next thrilling read.
The goal of the Crooked anthology series is to introduce you as the reader to authors who are currently writing sci-fi crime stories, and give you a glimpse into their worlds. Find an author you love? Many of the short stories in this collection are set in larger universes, which means that if you read something you like, you’ll find plenty more stories by that author to keep you busy.
Welcome to the seedy underbelly of the Science Fiction shelf.
CROOKED V.3
Welcome to CROOKED V.3! This third installment in the Crooked anthology series brings you ten more stories of space crime. The goal of the Crooked anthology series is to introduce you, the reader, to authors who are currently writing sci-fi crime stories. Many of the stories in this collection are set in larger universes, which means that if you read something you like, you’ll find plenty more in that author’s catalogue to keep you busy.
Jobs will go wrong. Backs will be stabbed. Mayhem will break out.
And things will definitely explode.
You’re gonna love it here. I promise.
CROOKED V.3 Author Interviews!
Read more about the authors here.
CROOKED V.2
Welcome to CROOKED V.2, the second volume of sci-fi crime stories edited by Jessie Kwak.
In this volume you’ll find 18 stories of mayhem and tangled loyalties. Bounty hunters chase targets who aren’t what they seem. Private eyes hunt wrongdoers in mean, futuristic streets—and are hunted in return. Easy jobs go wrong. Hunted bounties get wily. Mysteries are solved, only to lead to more horrifying mysteries.
Sometimes the bad guys win, sometimes the good guys do. And, hey. It’s a crime anthology. Most of the time it’ll be pretty damn hard to tell the two apart. These folks are just trying to do their best (or not) in morally gray worlds.
This anthology contains stories by C.E. Clayton, Austin Dragon, Jim Keen, G.J. Ogden, Patrick Swenson, Maddi Davidson, Kate Sheeran Swed, Frasier Armitage, Mark Teppo, E.L. Strife, Greg Dragon, William Burton McCormick, Erik Grove, Mark Niemann-Ross, Caitlin Demaris McKenna, R J Theodore, Andrew Sweet, and Jessie Kwak.
CROOKED V.1
Welcome to Crooked, the first volume of a new anthology series.
You’ll find Mark Teppo’s retrieval job gone very, very wrong (or has it?). You’ll find Eric Warren’s gunrunner getting a second chance, Greg Dragon’s smuggler surviving on the edge, Kate Sheeran Swed’s unlikely bounty hunter getting her feet underneath her, and Wade Peterson’s fighting bot showing its fiercely loyal heart.
The law is represented in this collection, too — you’ll find Benjamin Gorman’s take on an interspecies police investigation and Mark Niemann-Ross’s story of near-future intellectual property noir.
And I snuck a story in, too — the very first one I’m releasing from my next series of space pirate shenanigans, the Nanshe Chronicles.
CROOKED V.2 reading series
Did you miss the live CROOKED V.2 readings? Check out the videos here — they’re broken out by author so you can easily find your favorites