Jeff Somers Books in Order

Three twentysomething underachievers decide to rob the publishing house that keeps one of them trapped in a dead-end job. The plan is less about money than anger, dignity, and the foolish hope that one big gesture might change something.

A collection from Somers's zine The Inner Swine, gathering essays, observations, and sharp humor from his early nonfiction years. It shows the same dark wit and self-mocking energy that later turns up in his novels.

In a bleak future, killer-for-hire Avery Cates is forced to take one impossible job, assassinate Dennis Squalor, founder of the Electric Church. Squalor's followers trade flesh for machine bodies, and stopping him may cost Avery everything.

Avery has clawed his way to the top in New York, which only means he has farther to fall. Injected with deadly nanotech while the world slides toward extinction, he may become either executioner or savior.

After surviving catastrophe, Avery lands in Chengara Penitentiary, a prison with a survival rate of zero. Escaping it is only the first problem. Outside, the world is splintering and somebody wants him dead in very strange ways.

The army has rebuilt Avery with top-class augments and turned him into a weapon again. When he is sold to the highest bidder, he ends up in the hands of an old enemy who wants one last job done.

With the System broken apart, Avery and his protege Remy take a job to kill a Bolivian despot. The payout is information Avery badly wants, but the hunt leads straight into psionics, war, and one more impossible choice.

A wedding, too much alcohol, and a tight circle of friends with too many secrets push everything toward collapse. Told through multiple first-person voices, this is a darkly funny story about love, loyalty, and the damage people do to each other.

Lem Vonnegan lives by one rule, he only uses his own blood for magic. When he and Mags find a kidnapped girl marked for ritual, they stumble into a plot far bigger and bloodier than either of them can handle.

After a con collapses and a huge debt lands on their shoulders, Lem and Mags are forced into dirty work for a New Jersey boss. Lem thinks he has an angle out. Blood magic and desperation rarely stay under control.

Thomas Massery has a gift for drink, sarcasm, and wrecking other people's evenings. Stuck at a wedding with several ex-wives and far too much liquor, he sets off a chain of chaos that gets darker as the night goes on.

Blood mage Lem Vonnegan and his friend Mags scrape by on small cons and small spells until they cross paths with a girl marked for a terrible ritual. Their attempt to help pulls them into a war among mages willing to bleed the world dry.

Avery is hauled toward the mysterious Iron Island, where he may finally learn why so many people want him alive. The trip brings fresh enemies, uneasy allies, and one more brutal turn in the end of the world.

Chasing a clue called the Pale, Avery pushes toward Castelvecchio and the chance to get his footing back. The road is ugly, the alliances are worse, and the world keeps narrowing around him.

Avery's later adventures continue with a showdown against a psionic who has made himself lord of a crumbling city. Avery wants passage and answers. Trouble is what he actually gets.

When a powerful mage takes Lem hostage, Mags is left angry, isolated, and desperate. To find his friend before it is too late, he has to lean on blood magic in ways that could change both of them.

Back on dry land, Avery keeps moving through a shattered world ruled by psionics, warlords, and bad luck. The trail leads toward the mysterious Bey, and every new ally looks like tomorrow's problem.

Avery follows the trail to fortified Castelvecchio, where a surviving piece of the old System may still exist. He finally has a target again, but reaching it means crossing a city full of traps, politics, and powerful enemies.

Lem and Mags take what looks like easy money and get far more than trouble. The job leaves Lem entangled with a Stringer, an alien intelligence that can hijack a body and run it into the ground.

Lem Vonnegan signs on to help with a magical heist and starts feeling like time itself is slipping. Mags is missing, the police are acting helpful, and that alone tells Lem something is deeply wrong.

Years before The Electric Church, a younger Avery Cates takes his first real job in the newly formed System. The hit teaches him hard lessons about power, survival, and why trust is usually a luxury.

This Avery Cates short story drops the gunner into another ugly dispute where nothing is fair and violence is always the final argument. In Avery's world, justice is mostly a story people tell themselves.

Avery needs guns, transport, and time he does not have. To reach the buried System war chest before the Archangel does, he has to cut a deal with dangerous people and hope it does not kill him first.

Avery has information that might reboot a dying world, but the Archangel's army is camped outside his walls. Trapped in a city under pressure, he has to gamble everything on one desperate plan.

Life as a City Lord suits Avery Cates about as well as a funeral suit. When Lucinda Barowel returns with a proposal, he is dragged into a new bargain that could help save humanity, or finish him.

Lem Vonnegan and Pitr Mags run into a magical artifact that hijacks pleasure and attention, turning obsession into a weapon. In the Ustari world, even curiosity can become a way to lose yourself.

Avery is making his play for the coast and the hidden System tech that could change everything. Then the job goes sideways, and he ends up trapped in the dark with an unlikely ally and nowhere safe to run.

This collection gathers Idolator, The Bleeder, and The Red Line, three later Ustari stories centered on Lem Vonnegan and Pitr Mags. It is a compact dose of blood magic, ugly choices, and the moral lines Lem keeps trying to hold.

Fleeing the ruins behind him, Avery heads toward Cochtopa, a hidden cache of data, weapons, and hope. The trip is brutal from the start, with old enemies, bad terrain, and a dying world closing in from every side.

In the Ustari underworld, Bleeders are treated like livestock for magic. When Lem Vonnegan joins a risky heist, his refusal to use anyone else's blood turns a bad plan into a much worse one.

Lem Vonnegan and Pitr Mags try to help a desperate Bleeder, and Lem gets pushed to the edge of his own rules. For the first time, he seriously considers crossing the line against using other people's blood.

Avery and his shrinking band finally reach Cochtopa, the hidden installation packed with old System weapons. The problem is its AI security is built around Dick Marin, turning the prize into another deadly showdown.

Avery Cates is closing in on Cochtopa, the buried System bunker that might give humanity one last chance. The nearer he gets, the smaller his crew becomes, and every mile turns into a fight over survival, trust, and dwindling resources.

Cochtopa should feel like victory, but holding a miracle bunker is harder than finding it. Strange failures inside the installation turn Avery's prize into one more trap while the larger war keeps closing in.