Mark S. Geston Books In Order

Publication Order of Lords of the Starship Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Anthologies

Mark S. Geston is a bestselling author of science fiction novels who is best known for the “Books of the Wars” series of novels.

The author was born in New Jersey’s Atlantic City to parents who were both teachers. His mother then used to teach journalism and English in addition to penning book reviews for several publications.

In his earlier years, he went to Abington High School, which is where he began experimenting with stories. However, none of the short stories that he penned while he was in high school or while growing up in Philadelphia were ever published.
It was not until he was in his second year in college and a nineteen-year-old that he began writing the manuscript for his debut novel.

In 1967, he published “Lords of the Starship,” his debut novel and the first of the “Book of the Wars” series of novels, which he would then turn into a trilogy.

Later he went to the Ohio-based Kenyon College where in 1968 she graduated with a history degree. She would then proceed to law school at New York University, where she graduated with her juris doctor degree in 1971.

Like many novelists, Mark S. Geston grew up around books, particularly because his mother did theatre and book reviews for women’s clubs and local newspapers, and taught college journalism and English for years.
Combined with a severe social skill deficit during his teenage years, he resorted to reading. During these early years, he read the likes of Eric Ambler, Davis Grubb, and Alistair MacLean for fiction.

The good thing was that his parents encouraged his reading habits and he remembers that when he was in junior high school he asked for “Rise and Fall of the Third Reich” for his birthday and got it.

He was introduced to science fiction when he got fascinated watching the television show “Twilight Zone.”

He would then get introduced to other authors Walter M. Miller and Ray Bradbury and even chanced into some great monthly science fiction magazines such as “Galaxy” that had stories from some very good writers.
It was not long before he started writing his own stories and trying to get them published, even though he had no idea how to go about it.

By the time Mark S. Geston was in her sophomore year in college, he had run out of short story ideas and thought why not try something longer?

Nonetheless, the idea of coming up with and typing more than 200 words of story then seemed out of reach. Fortunately, writing and literature were part of the culture at Kenyon College, which offered a good environment for her to write.
It was while she was in college that she had an idea for a seven-mile-long spaceship, which she wrote over the course of her freshman year and the start of her junior year.

Since she had read a lot of science fiction novels from Ace Paperbacks including “The Lord of the Rings,” she decided to take it to the publisher’s offices in New York.

A few weeks later, Don Wollheim an editor at Ace Paperbacks sent her a letter offering to buy her manuscript for $1500.

The novel was published while she was in her senior year and emboldened her to make contact with a featured author who referred her to a New York agent.

She now has more than half a dozen works of fiction to her name.

Mark S. Geston’s “Lords Of The Starship” is a story set in a future devastated by war and humanity does not seem to have any hope.

It is at this time that a leader of a country that knows all about horse-drawn carriages and machine guns reveals that there is a place afar off known as the Yards, where a starship that is seven miles long is hidden.

The leader intends to use the ship’s restoration as a rallying point for all the people under him. While he is certain that he can rally most people to build the seven-mile-long spaceship, it will still take 250 years to finish constructing it.
Once it is done, it will be what humanity will use to get away from their ruined world, which they now consider a perpetual purgatory.

But to build the massive ship, the entire nation would have to be united in carrying out a ruthless program of conquest and war, of reconstruction and annihilation, and of discovery and education.
However, their quest results in all manner of sacrificial wars fueled by propaganda, political infighting, and fears of what the competition of the starship might mean for those who are in power.

Mark S. Geston’s “Out Of The Mouth Of The Dragon” tells the story of Amon VanRoark.

He just listened to the words of a prophet speaking in the decaying city’s marketplace. Timonias the prophet spoke with crystal clarity and glowing words about his calling and he could not help but listen and follow the man.
He was called to the Wars in the Meadows and to Armageddon, in which all the forces of Evil and Good would meet, clash, and determine the fate of a world already doomed.

Amon believes that there had been many false Armageddons prophesied before during the times of his father and grandfather.

But looking at the devastated world all around, the warped rays of the sun, the vestiges of dying cultures, and the lost technologies, he knows he has to answer the call to what has been called the last Armageddon.
In this last war, creation will ultimately have to either be crushed and wiped out or be fully renewed.
It is a complex and rich work with a surreal haunting quality.

“The Day Star” by Mark S. Geston is a work set in the fabled city of Ferrin which existed at the height of the fabled history of the Earth.

Compared to the fabled cities, all cities that would be ever built or that had been from New York City to Rome and R from the future would be insignificant.

But the city had fallen and experienced a long twilight, during which men’s ambitions waned and memories of the city faded.

By the time Thel heard of the city, most people believed that it was nothing but a myth. However there is an abandoned highway just outside Thel’s home and when he stumbles upon a brightly colored fragment from the city, he knows he will never rest.
He will follow the roadway, ruined as it is to find the truth about the establishment, prosperity, and ultimately fall of Ferrin alongside the hopes of humanity.
It is a work that explores aspiration, time, and decay as a ghost and a boy seek to understand a more glorious world.