Kieran Shea Books In Order

Publication Order of Koko / EBK Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Short Story Collections

Publication Order of Anthologies

Kieran Shea is an American novelist best known for writing the EBK series of novels, among other well-liked single standing novels and series. His series of novels are best classified as futuristic science fiction novels. He published his first novel in the EBK series of novels “Koko Takes A Holiday” in 2014. The series spawned one more title in 2015 that was just as popular as the first. Before he began writing the EBK series, Kieran Shea had written a series of short stories that had featured in several publications that include Crimefactory, Dogmatika, Thuglit and the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. His works have twice made the shortlist for the Story South’s Million Writers Prize. He currently spends most of his time between Ocean City, New Jersey, and Annapolis in Maryland.

Kieran first got into writing when he was about nine years old for his own amusement. In fact, he cites one of his teachers at the Christian Brothers Academy in Middletown telling him that he was destined to be an author. Given that he was only doing some writing for fun, he never took her seriously at the time, as he thought he wanted to become something other than a writer. Despite being one of the best science fiction writers of his generation, growing up he never thought he wanted to become a science fiction writer. For one, most of the people he interacted with including his teachers and parents saw comics, sci-fi, and horror ass an utter waste of time and advised against reading such novels. As such, when he set out to become a professional writer, all he wanted to be was a crime writer. It seemed to the young author that most of the writers that he admired or knew were crime writers, which eventually led to him gravitating towards crime fiction eventually selling his very first crime stories to Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. Some of his favorite writers during this time were Charles Willeford, James Crumley, and Pascal Gurnier, authors that he likes to describe as incorrigible old jesters.

Even as Kieran Shea’s interest in science fiction and fantasy genre was middling in his early years, he has always been one to love a good story. As a child, he would spend most of his time wandering around his hometown coming up with different versions of the most common narratives he read in school. With no preference for genre he read horror, crime, adventure, war and even love stories with a little bit of the peril. Shea was a voracious reader and lost himself in anthologies of stories such as Sgt. Rock, Tales of Horror, Tin-Tin, and Terry and the Pirates. He would also watch a lot of television where he consumed a warped cerebral diet of cheesy monster movies and slightly seditious watching harmless titles such as “The Omega Man”, “UFO”, “Logan’s Run”, “Space:1999”, and “The Prisoner”. But it was not until he wrote a book report about heroin smuggling based on Alistair MacLean’s classic “Puppet On A Chain” that he became hooked into writing. He would take a hiatus from writing until about a decade later when he started publishing his short stories such as “Thrilling Detective”, “Plot with Guns”, and “Thuglit” that achieved moderate success. However, it was not until the publication of his debut novel “Koko Takes A Holiday” in 2014 that his writing career took off.

The EBK series of novels was the result of a competition held by PWG seeking a noir science fiction novel set 500 centuries in the future. Even as he had never written any science fiction set that far into the future, Kieran Shea three drafts and finally got the third one accepted. The third story that was published in Plots With Guns Magazine formed the basis for the Koko series of novels that he expanded from the short story following a suggestion from a friend. Tackling the themes of extremism and corporate greed in a form of zany black humor, the novels feature Koko a funny, loyal, beguiling, proactive, deadly clear-headed, and strong character that is an expert mixer of the cocktail. When we are first introduced to Koko Martstellar, she is living on Sixty Islands set 500 years in the future, where she owns and run a male brothel that is known for its simulated violence and sex. As the boss of the whorehouse, she is surrounded by dangerous and demanding customers, komodo dragons, and smart talking boywhores. However, the most vexing part of her day is the decision on what she should drink next. With influences from the likes of Blade Runner and Logan’s run, Koko handles it all well until an old comrade Delacompte arrives with an intention of killing her.

“Koko Takes a Holiday” is the anarchic first novel in the EBK series of novels that introduces the gun for hire protagonist, Koko Martstellar. Set in 2516, the blood flows freely and the body count keeps going up as the author paints the punk dystopian narrative. Koko has just lost her job as the manager of an outer space station after a Custom Pleasure Bureau executive and former ally and friend Portia Delacompte, sends security personnel to kill her. She is now on the run from a ferocious band of bounty hunters and has to flee to a giant residential barge known as Alaungpaya. Joining forces with Jedediah Flynn a depressed former security officer, they race up hatchways and sprint down corridors in the quest for survival, even as sparks of romance begin to fly.

“Koko the Mighty” is a high-energy and violent sequel to the first novel in the EBK series of novels. Together with her boyfriend and sidekick, Jedidiah Flynn Koko briefly return home after the wily Delacompte temporarily calls off the hunt against them in a ruse. But what was to be a peaceful return turns into an impromptu escape after Jackie Wire, one of Delacompte’s finest bounty hunters reappears. They manage to escape but Flynn suffers a gunshot wound to the leg, which soon turns septic. Even as the medics on the under defended complex they had sought refuge in can offer medical care to Flynn, they need to leave if they hope to survive the bounty hunter’s onslaught. Koko’s unrelenting self-confidence, quick thinking, and brash attitude echo the likes of Mad Max Fury Road or Tank Girl. With just enough cultural and scientific realism, the dystopian twenty sixth century world is well designed to allow the characters to express themselves as much as they can, making for a thrilling narrative.