{"title":"Base City – Paperbacks","description":"\u003cp\u003eUsed by the series row on book pages.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"the-magu-program-paper-back","title":"The Magu Program-paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003eA hundred years into the future, megacities dominate the landscape. Buildings soar a mile into the sky, leaving dark canyons below. While the wealthy and powerful live amongst the clouds, those below choke on pollution, blinded by the neon glow of Base City.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAshiro Taki has amnesia and can't remember anything before a few months ago. Memories come to him, disconnected and unexplained. A view of a building, the face of a child, and the noodle stand where the proprietor, Eido, seems to know him.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhat Ashiro does know is that he's enhanced, \u003cem\u003every\u003c\/em\u003e enhanced. Brain augmentation, data ports, and sensory upgrades give him extraordinary advantages when jacked in. On the street, muscle, bone, and tissue implants make him an elite soldier. But what is it all for?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOne day, while wandering through the smog-filled half-light of Base City, Ashiro comes upon a boy and his mother. He recognizes the child, his smile, his voice, everything. Has he met him before? Is the boy his? What about the woman? She's familiar, too.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhen Ashiro is injured in a deadly fight following a botched hack, he awakens to find the woman, Chiya, caring for him. She doesn't know who he is but has discovered a terrible secret, something she's too afraid to tell him.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAshiro is dying, melting from the inside out as his extraordinary enhancements degrade.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Hakko Ichiu Corporation is one of the largest in the world, and its resources are vast. In control of it all is Yugi Orgata. He has lost something very precious, and he wants it back.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFor Chiya, the child Wren is pure and innocent. He is her chance to be a mother again after losing her own son. For Yugi, the boy is something else--and he will do whatever it takes to get him back.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAshiro, Chiya, and Wren find themselves united in a desperate struggle to survive. Together, they will fight to answer the greatest question of all-- What is The Magu Program?\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Hartle Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48119207559449,"sku":"The Magu Program - paperback","price":24.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0862\/5396\/1497\/files\/paperbackLayout_v002_Magu_600.png?v=1727536649"},{"product_id":"base-city-short-stories-paperback","title":"Base City: Short Stories-paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe Gift:\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eEvery day, Police Chief Kahn faces the worst Base City has to offer—violence, corruption, and loss. His only refuge is Emiko, his wife and the woman who reminds him there’s still beauty in the world. When the Corporation offers them a second chance at a future they thought was lost, it feels like a miracle. But in a city where even hope is weaponized, no gift comes without a cost.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eA gripping sci-fi story of love, sacrifice, and survival.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe Noodle Chemist:\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn the neon haze of Base City, Eido Naki runs a humble noodle stand by day—and a covert chemistry lab by night. To the neighborhood, he’s a healer and a provider. But when a heavily augmented stranger named Ashiro Taki stumbles into his stand, Eido is pulled into a dangerous entanglement.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAshiro’s mind is shattered, but his body is a masterpiece of decaying technology—a ticking time bomb. If Eido is to help him, he must accept the danger that is sure to come, and Ashiro will have to learn to trust in a world he can't remember.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eA story of loyalty, survival, and reliance in a crumbling world.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe Postulant:\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn the fractured shadows of Base City, the ancient walls of an abbey provide refuge from the neon world beyond. For Vox 5, a nameless postulant raised in silence and ritual, this is the only life she has ever known.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBut when violence breaches the sacred halls, a doorway to another life cracks open.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAlone and adrift in the chaotic sprawl of the city, Vox 5 confronts a world she has only glimpsed in her dreams—where hunger, wonder, and fear move hand in hand.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eA story of innocence colliding with survival and the first trembling steps into an unknown future.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Hartle Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50789392253209,"sku":"Base City: Short Stories - paperback","price":9.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0862\/5396\/1497\/files\/paperbackLayout_v002_BaseCityShortStories_600.png?v=1749171293"},{"product_id":"halcyon-prime-paperback","title":"Halcyon Prime-paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe Moon is hostile. The corporations are ruthless. And family may be the deadliest risk of all.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLiving on the fringes of Base City, Riku Hayashi knows exactly who he is: a farmer’s son, skilled with machines, dreaming of a simple life rooted in the land.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBut when a devastating fire reduces their world to ashes, the Hayashi family is forced into a future none of them wanted: a new life off-world.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Moon—rich in resources and free from Earth’s governments—is ruled by the powerful Hakko Ichiu Corporation. Beneath its gray surface, vast mines churn out unimaginable wealth. Above, massive domes rise from the lunar regolith, housing workers in a world bound to weeks of unbroken light and endless darkness.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Moon also harbors something else: a haven for those who thrive in its shadows. Pleasure domes lure the desperate and ambitious alike, Zuhara the most notorious of them all.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Hayashi family settles in Halcyon Prime, the lunar farming colony. While Riku struggles to find his place in this new life, his younger brother Kaito is drawn to the danger, riches, and seduction of the lunar underworld. On Earth, he was restless and bored; here, with nothing to hold him back, the possibilities seem endless.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBut in a world where every breath is manufactured and aging domes strain to hold back the vacuum of space, Riku must decide how far he’s willing to go to save his brother.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Hartle Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51174457835801,"sku":"Halcyon Prime - paperback","price":24.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0862\/5396\/1497\/files\/paperbackLayout_v002_HalcyonPrime_600.png?v=1791849355"},{"product_id":"the-scrape-paperback","title":"The Scrape-paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe Core is merciless. The Scrape is deadly. And the name he’s hiding behind may be the most dangerous thing he carries.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAshiro Taki has been back in Base City for over a year now, though he couldn’t say exactly how long. The days don’t have much shape at street level. He sleeps in a capsule hotel when he can afford one and on the sidewalk when he can’t, eats at the noodle stands, and keeps one pill in an inside pocket that he hasn’t taken and tells himself he won’t.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHe used to be somebody else. He had a farm outside the city, and a family, and a name, and he lost all of it on the Moon. His father is dead. His mother is in an abbey and doesn’t speak anymore. His brother is still up there, doing well for himself in a line of work Ashiro wants nothing to do with. The name he goes by now was his brother’s idea. It was supposed to keep him safe.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt does, more or less, until a job goes wrong and he walks away from a man named Kenzo, who doesn’t take that kind of thing well.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSo he enlists. It’s a bed and three meals and a place nobody will think to look for him, and right now that’s enough.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Core has a place it takes recruits. There’s a part of Base City older and poorer than the rest, built down in the shadows where the megastructures block out what’s left of the sky. The people there have been left alone for a long time, and they’ve made things in that dark they’d rather the rest of the city never saw. Recruits call it the Scrape. It’s where the Core sends them to see who washes out.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAshiro figures he’s handled worse. Kenzo, meanwhile, hasn’t forgotten him.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Hartle Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":67668699349273,"sku":"The Scrape - paperback","price":24.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0862\/5396\/1497\/files\/paperbackLayout_v002_theScrape_600.png?v=1791322599"}],"url":"https:\/\/store.hartlepublishing.com\/collections\/base-city-paperbacks.oembed","provider":"Hartle Publishing","version":"1.0","type":"link"}