Marko Kloos

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About Marko Kloos
Marko Kloos was born in Germany and raised in and around the city of Münster. In the past, he was a soldier, bookseller, freight dock worker, and corporate IT administrator before he decided that he wasn't good at anything except making up stuff for fun and profit.
Marko writes primarily science fiction and fantasy, his first genre love ever since his youth when he spent his allowance mostly on German SF pulp serials. He's the author of the bestselling Frontlines series of military science fiction as well as the upcoming Palladium Wars. He likes bookstores, kind people, October in New England, fountain pens, and wristwatches.
Marko lives in New Hampshire with his wife, two children, and roving pack of voracious dachshunds.
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I am pleased to be able to show you the cover for CENTERS OF GRAVITY, Frontlines #8, which will be out on August 30. I think it may just be the best-looking Frontlines cover yet, although they’ve all been really great.
The book is available for pre-order in Kindle, paperback, and Audible formats. Pre-orders make my publisher happy, which in turn helps me to keep making up stuff for a living, so if you have a mind to read the eighth Frontlines book anyway and See How It3 months ago Read more -
Blog post
I always love being able to type those two words at the end of a draft, but it was both exhilarating and bitter-sweet to do it on this one. Nine years, eight novels, and almost a million words later, it’s not just the end of a single novel but the capstone on a storyline that started a long time ago in a writing workshop on Martha’s Vineyard. What a ride it’s been since then.
It’s not the last you’ll read of the Frontlines universe. But there’ll be new voices and new pe4 months ago Read more -
Blog postI know it’s high time to groom and trim Andy A. Doodle when he starts to look remarkably like British Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
5 months ago Read more -
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If you enjoyed Love Death + Robots on Netflix and you would like to own the anthology of all the short stories that were the basis for the first season, I have good news: it’s on sale this week at Amazon for the low, low price of $2.99 for the Kindle version. Here are the links for the respective regional Amazon pages:
US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0923HJQ5G
UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0923HJQ5G
Canada: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B09235 months ago Read more -
Blog postNot everyone got to travel internationally since the start of the pandemic, so I figured I’d share a few pictures from my quick visit back home last month. (All photos taken with the camera on my iPhone 11.)
Descending into Schiphol. I fly into Amsterdam because it’s the closest major airport to where my family lives. Big fan of both the city and the country.
Schiphol airport is best airport. Whenever I see this place, I am happy because I’m either about to see6 months ago Read more -
Blog postI’ve been a little scarce here on the blog over the last two months. I’m running a little—okay, a lot—late on the latest Frontlines book because I have to fit a lot of action between the covers, and it’s turning out to be a little trickier than I had anticipated. But it’s coming along, and I think it will be the best book in the series when it’s done.
I turned 50 at the end of October and went over to Germany for a quick family visit. (My mother’s birthday is on the same day as mine,6 months ago Read more -
Blog postTook a walk to my favorite pond the other day, and this shot turned out pretty all right:
With the world the way it is at the moment, I am happy to be in a place where I can just walk out the door and be at this sort of place within ten minutes of leisurely walking. I’ve never been a big fan of exercise for the sake of it, but walking out in nature never fails to improve my mood…unlike reading stuff on the Internet, which never fails to make me anxious. However the next8 months ago Read more -
Blog postI’ve been re-reading some non-fiction favorites recently, and these quotes from Carl Sagan’s “The Demon-Haunted World” (published 26 years ago, back in 1995) really seem amazingly prescient considering the state of the world in 2021:
One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledg8 months ago Read more -
Blog postI recently did an interview with S. Daniel Smith over at the Coffee in Space podcast. You can check it out here if you want to hear me talk about various Frontlines and Palladium Wars-related things, my writing process, and various other subjects.
(Side note–I’ve been at this for almost ten years, and in that time, I’ve given lots of interviews, including places like BBC World Service and NPR. I like giving interviews. I want to think I’m a pretty good guest because I tend to talk a l8 months ago Read more -
Blog postThis has come up several times on Twitter today already, and I am sure I’ll read it a few dozen more times in the Amazon reviews, so I am going to explain the situation one more time in order to have something to link whenever this pops up in the future.
Book 1, AFTERSHOCKS, was narrated by Luke Daniels.
In 2019, I finished two novels, one for each series, and I managed to outpace Luke, who has a very busy narration schedule for Audible because he is awesome and in very9 months ago Read more
Titles By Marko Kloos
Stranded light-years from home, Major Andrew Grayson and his crew are on a desperate mission to discover the Lankies’ secrets. They can’t let what they’ve found die with them.
Nine hundred light-years from home, Major Andrew Grayson and the crew of NACS Washington are marooned in a sunless system with limited water, reactor fuel, and food. The last hope for survival is to go where nothing human has gone before.
After embarking on a scouting mission to the only moon with surface signs of life, Andrew and his special tactics team make two startling discoveries. One is a dream: a form of protein and plant life that could save the starving humans in the rogue system. The second is a nightmare: this harvested rock is infested with Lankies. Far from the seemingly mindless aggressors Andrew has battled for years, these show a terrifying awareness, and they have surprising secrets of their own hidden away in the darkness.
When the Lankies sense an uninvited presence in their world, Andrew’s operation becomes an expedition to hell. The odds against his small crew are stacked high. Of all the mysteries of space, how to escape with their lives is the greatest unknown of all.
The battle against the Lankies has been won. Earth seems safe. Peacetime military? Not on your life.
It’s been four years since Earth threw its full military prowess against the Lanky incursion. Humanity has been yanked back from the abyss of extinction. The solar system is at peace. For now.
The future for Major Andrew Grayson of the Commonwealth Defense Corps and his wife, Halley? Flying desk duty on the front. No more nightmares of monstrous things. No more traumas to the mind and body. But when an offer comes down from above, Andrew has to make a choice: continue pushing papers into retirement, or jump right back into the fight? What’s a podhead to do?
The remaining Lankies may have retreated in fear, but the threat isn’t over. They need to be wiped out for good before they strike again. That’ll take a new offensive deployment. Aboard an Avenger warship, Andrew and the special tactics team under his command embark on the ultimate search-and-destroy mission. This time, it’ll be on Lanky turf.
No big heroics. No unnecessary risks. Just a swift hit-and-run raid in the hostile Capella system. Blow the alien seed ships into oblivion and get the hell back to Earth. At least, that’s the objective. But when does anything in war go according to plan?
An interplanetary battle is renewed in an epic novel of a warring solar system by the author of Ballistic.
The war should have been over. But it’s not for a group of nationalists grabbing for control.
It’s been two weeks since a missile with a nuclear warhead tore through the planetary defenses in the most blistering large-scale attack ever committed in the history of the Gaia system. Commander Dunstan Park of the Rhodian navy has been handpicked to command an experimental cruiser that could dictate the course of the escalating conflict. All he has to do is keep the ship from falling into the wrong hands.
On Gretia, the powder keg is beyond control. A terrorist attack against civilians draws Idina Chaudhary into a costly battle. It also forces a cautious Aden Jansen back into the fray. Now dedicated to a just cause, he’s still keeping his past hidden. The risk of exposing his former alliance could twist not only his fate but also that of his sister, Solveig, heir to the family empire.
With no time to waste, Dunstan hits the ground running. But as insurgents threaten the unstable peace, what’s ahead for both sides could change the destiny of the Gaia system forever.
Vicious interstellar conflict with an indestructible alien species. Bloody civil war over the last habitable zones of the cosmos. Political unrest, militaristic police forces, dire threats to the Solar System…
Humanity is on the ropes, and after years of fighting a two-front war with losing odds, so is North American Defense Corps officer Andrew Grayson. He dreams of dropping out of the service one day, alongside his pilot girlfriend, but as warfare consumes entire planets and conditions on Earth deteriorate, he wonders if there will be anywhere left for them to go.
After surviving a disastrous space-borne assault, Grayson is reassigned to a ship bound for a distant colony—and packed with malcontents and troublemakers. His most dangerous battle has just begun.
In this sequel to the bestselling Terms of Enlistment, a weary soldier must fight to prevent the downfall of his species…or bear witness to humanity’s last, fleeting breaths.
Humankind may have won the battle, but a new threat looms larger than ever before…
Earth’s armed forces have stopped the Lanky advance and chased their ships out of the solar system, but for CDC officer Andrew Grayson, the war feels anything but won. On Mars, the grinding duty of flushing out the twenty-meter-tall alien invaders from their burrows underground is wearing down troops and equipment at an alarming rate. And for the remaining extrasolar colonies, the threat of a Lanky attack is ever present.
Earth’s game changer? New advanced ships and weapons, designed to hunt and kill Lankies and place humanity’s militaries on equal footing with their formidable foes. Andrew and his wife, Halley, both now burdened with command responsibilities and in charge of more lives than just their own, are once again in humanity’s vanguard as they prepare for this new phase in the war. But the Lankies have their own agenda…and in war, the enemy doesn’t usually wait until you are prepared. As Andrew is once again plunged into the chaos and violence of war with an unyielding species, he is forced to confront the toll this endless conflict is taking on them all, and the high price of survival…at any cost.
“There is nobody who does [military SF] better than Marko Kloos. His Frontlines series is a worthy successor to such classics as Starship Troopers, The Forever War, and We All Died at Breakaway Station.” —George R. R. Martin
The year is 2108, and the North American Commonwealth is bursting at the seams. For welfare rats like Andrew Grayson, there are only two ways out of the crime-ridden and filthy welfare tenements: You can hope to win the lottery and draw a ticket on a colony ship settling off-world . . . or you can join the service.
With the colony lottery a pipe dream, Andrew chooses to enlist in the armed forces for a shot at real food, a retirement bonus, and maybe a ticket off Earth. But as he starts a career of supposed privilege, he soon learns that the good food and decent health care come at a steep price . . . and that the settled galaxy holds far greater dangers than military bureaucrats or the gangs that rule the slums.
The debut novel from Marko Kloos, Terms of Enlistment is an addition to the great military sci-fi tradition of Robert Heinlein, Joe Haldeman, and John Scalzi.
Revised edition: This edition of Terms of Enlistment includes editorial revisions.
The time has come to take the fight to the Lankies.
Mars has been under Lanky control for more than a year. Since then, the depleted forces of Earth’s alliances have rebuilt their fleets, staffing old warships with freshly trained troops. Torn between the need to beat the Lankies to the punch and taking enough time to put together an effective fighting force, command has decided to strike now.
Once again, seasoned veterans Andrew and Halley find themselves in charge of green troops and at the sharp tip of the spear as the combined military might of Earth goes up against the Lankies. But if there’s one constant in war, it’s that no battle plan survives first contact with the enemy…and the Lankies want to hold on to Mars as badly as humanity wants to reclaim it.
The alien forces known as the Lankies are gathering on the solar system’s edge, consolidating their conquest of Mars and setting their sights on Earth. The far-off colony of New Svalbard, cut off from the rest of the galaxy by the Lanky blockade, teeters on the verge of starvation and collapse. The forces of the two Earth alliances have won minor skirmishes but are in danger of losing the war. For battle-weary staff sergeant Andrew Grayson and the ragged forces of the North American Commonwealth, the fight for survival is entering a catastrophic new phase.
Forging an uneasy alliance with their Sino-Russian enemies, the NAC launches a hybrid task force on a long shot: a stealth mission to breach the Lanky blockade and reestablish supply lines with Earth. Plunging into combat against a merciless alien species that outguns, outmaneuvers, and outfights them at every turn, Andrew and his fellow troopers could end up cornered on their home turf, with no way out and no hope for reinforcement. And this time, the struggle for humanity’s future can only end in either victory or annihilation.
The assault on Earth was thwarted by the destruction of the aliens’ seed ship, but with Mars still under Lanky control, survivors work frantically to rebuild fighting capacity and shore up planetary defenses. Platoon sergeant Andrew Grayson must crash-course train new volunteers—all while dulling his searing memories of battle with alcohol and meds.
Knowing Earth’s uneasy respite won’t last, the North American Commonwealth and its Sino-Russian allies hurtle toward two dangerous options: hit the Lanky forces on Mars or go after deserters who stole a fleet of invaluable warships critical to winning the war. Assigned to a small special ops recon mission to scout out the renegades’ stronghold on a distant moon, Grayson and his wife, dropship pilot Halley, again find themselves headed for the crucible of combat—and a shattering new campaign in the war for humanity’s future.
“I gulped down Ballistic in one long read, staying awake half the night, and now I want the next one!” —George R. R. Martin
There is a personal price to pay for having aligned with the wrong side in a reckless war. For Aden Jansen it’s the need to adopt a new identity while keeping his past hidden. Now he’s integrated himself aboard the Zephyr, a merchant ship smuggling critical goods through dangerous space. But danger is imminent on planet Gretia, as well. Under occupation, torn between postwar reformers and loyalists, it’s a polestar for civil unrest.
Meanwhile an occupation forces officer is pulled right back into the fray when the battle alarm is raised, an ambitious heiress is entangled in a subversive political conspiracy, and an Allied captain is about to meet the enemy head-on.
As Aden discovers, the insurgents on Gretia—and in space—are connected, organized, and ready to break into full-scale rebellion. History is threatening to repeat itself. It’s time that Aden rediscovers who he is, whom he can trust, and what he must fight for now.
“A new series that promises to be just as engrossing [as Frontlines]…the action just as exciting, the science just as solid, the tension just as high. I gulped down the first book in a day, and I am already eager for the next one.” —George R. R. Martin
Across the six-planet expanse of the Gaia system, the Earthlike Gretia struggles to stabilize in the wake of an interplanetary war. Amid an uneasy alliance to maintain economies, resources, and populations, Aden Robertson reemerges. After devoting twelve years of his life to the reviled losing side, with the blood of half a million casualties on his hands, Aden is looking for a way to move on. He’s not the only one.
A naval officer has borne witness to inconceivable attacks on a salvaged fleet. A sergeant with the occupation forces is treading increasingly hostile ground. And a young woman, thrust into responsibility as vice president of her family’s raw materials empire, faces a threat she never anticipated.
Now, on the cusp of an explosive and wide-reaching insurrection, Aden plunges once again into the brutal life he longed to forget. He’s been on the wrong side of war before. But this time, the new enemy has yet to reveal themselves…or their dangerous endgame.
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