The journey continues in this fourth issue of a seven-part adventure!!! Through Scalus Mountain, Crush winds his way into the caverns to find the dragon that holds the key to his mission!!! Meanwhile, Pound climbs the outside of the mountain of the mines to enter the lair of the Queenmother!!! Hold onto your seat as the ride for their lives takes the action up a notch!!!The journey continues in this fourth issue of a seven-part adventure!!! Through Scalus Mountain, Crush winds his way into the caverns to find the dragon that holds the key to his mission!!! Meanwhile, Pound climbs the outside of the mountain of the mines to enter the lair of the Queenmother!!! Hold onto your seat as the ride for their lives takes the action up a notch in the mysterious world of giants, dragons, and men made of stone!!!

Legacy is based on a scenario in my major novel, After the Last Day. It is the story of the people who were left to guard nuclear waste buried in an abandoned mine near Sudbury Ontario. One thousand years later, when the knowledge of the purpose of the mine has been lost and the containment is failing, one person discovers the danger and vainly tries to warn his fellow villagers.Legacy is based on a scenario in my major novel, After the Last Day. If you enjoy this story you may want to read the novel which is available both as an e-book and paperback. Links to purchase the novel can be found at the end of the story. In the novel, some years after a global economic disaster, the struggling community in southern Ontario was faced with the imminent failure of all safety systems at the nuclear generating stations. A safe disposal of the nuclear material had to be found, and the community chose the “McNeil Mine” near Sudbury Ontario as the place to bury the danger. Legacy is the story of the people in charge of the site one thousand years after the nuclear waste was sealed inside the mine.

Escape was the easy part.Jey and Elle are no longer students at Tessili Academy, but the outside world is not the safe haven they imagined. Hunted by hounds and tracked by their former classmates, Jey and Elle are in constant danger. Worse, they have discovered the brillbane their tessili need to survive only grows within the academy walls.Escape was the easy part.Jey and Elle are no longer students at Tessili Academy, but the outside world is not the safe haven they imagined. Hunted by hounds and tracked by their former classmates, Jey and Elle are in constant danger. Worse, they have discovered the brillbane their tessili need to survive only grows within the academy walls.As winter sets in, their tessili have grown thin, temperamental, and erratic. When a mysterious stranger finds them and seems to offer both help and friendship, the girls fear he’s too good to be true.from reviewers “The drama of not knowing who to trust kept me intrigued throughout the story. I am also obsessed with the newfound abilities of Phril.”“I really began to love the characters and want to see what happens next!”“An imaginative series that will pull the reader in and not let go until the last page.”

Dr. Eric Sweetscent has problems. His planet is enmeshed in an unwinnable war. His wife is lethally addicted to a drug that whips its users helplessly back and forth across time -- and is hell-bent on making Eric suffer along with her. And Sweetscent's newest patient is not only the most important man on the embattled planet Earth but quite possibly the sickest. For Secretary Gino Molinari has turned his mortal illness into an instrument of political policy -- and Eric cannot tell if his job is to make the Male better or to keep him poised just this side of death. Now Wait for Last fear bursts through the envelope between the impossible and the inevitable. Even as ushers us into a future that looks uncannily like the present, it makes the normal seem terrifyingly provisional -- and compels anyone who reads it to wonder if he really knows what time it is. From the Trade Paperback edition.

When Gilda buys a locket for her birthday, she finds more than she ever dreamed of, literally. She soon discovers the locket is more than a piece of jewelry; it holds the power to let her relive her life in her dreams. What's left of her life quickly spirals out of control as she becomes ever more obsessed with the locket and the desperate need to relive the happiest moment of her life.The ascendancy of mankind is being decided on Jupiterwatch the trailer: https://youtu.be/gWYCcvlBD80In the 22nd century, mankind assimilated the Solar System within the orbits of the inner planets, and was gradually moving further out, beyond the asteroid belt, onward towards the outer planets. The recently discovered technology of remote manipulation gave people the capability of altering the orbit of celestial bodies of planetary size, which laid the foundation of a new era for the human race: the terraforming age. The colonization of space beyond the limits of the Solar System became only a matter of time. Soon after the first successful test, changing the orbit of Mercury, a strange object moving from the depths of space towards the centre of the Solar System entered the field of vision of a telescope at an observatory in Chile…

Hallowed Be Thy Name is the second installment of the epic serial adventure series The Go-Kids from award-winning writer Ryan Schneider.Hallowed Be Thy Name is the second installment of the epic serial adventure series The Go-Kids from award-winning writer Ryan Schneider.July 13, 2047.7:13 a.m.Thousands of heavily-armed unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are highjacked via remote control.But on that fateful morning, known simply as The Attack, Parker Perkins survives.Three years pass.Parker struggles to reassemble the pieces of his former life. Little does he know what awaits him.Hallowed Be Thy Name portrays universal themes of growing up, friendship, loss of innocence, and making difficult moral choices, filling this story with fast-paced action, deep characters, and emotional impact.Readers will come to know and love Parker, Sunny, Bubba, Igby, and Colby as their adventure unfolds, for though it is a story about kids, it is much more than just a kids' story.

Gheid has been in imprisonment for several years when, for the first time since being captured, noises of a fight alert him to the possibility of escape.But who is Gheid?This is a short story of 1.990 words. It is part four in the 'Origins' series of stories which connect with one another in unexpected ways.Although forbidden to read scrolls without permission, Catriona couldn’t help herself and approached the table. She glanced at the open door to the outside, looking for any sign of Sari. There was none.A Loss too Much to Endure. Magic wielded by experienced hands can sometimes lead to disappointment; in the hands of a novice, it can be devastating.Destiny Governed their Lives is a short story that ties into the Castle Keepers series. Many of the characters who appear in it also appear in Shadows in the Stone and Scattered Stones.Follow Diane Lynn McGyver into the Land of Ath-o’Lea and live the fantasy.

I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones. -Albert Einstein We know our world, our land and our oceans, will survive an apocalyptic event… We can only hope the same can be said for our humanity. And so, WWIV begins.I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones. -Albert Einstein We know our world, our land and our oceans, will survive an apocalyptic event… We can only hope the same can be said for our humanity. What will we do when suddenly our power, our phones, and our cars don't work? What will we do when we realize our government is missing and we have no protection; no police, no national guard? What will we do when our food runs out or spoils, and fresh water becomes scarce? What will we do when we realize we are completely and undeniably on our own? What could possibly happen next? What happens when IT happens? Follow an ordinary man through the first 30 days of the ensuing uncertainty.

Becoming a telepath was hard. Being a telepath is harder. Eighteen-year-old Amber is the youngest of the five telepaths who protect the hundred million citizens of one of the great hive cities of twenty-sixth century Earth. Her job is hunting down criminals before they commit their crimes, but this time her team arrive too late. Someone is already dead. Someone that Amber knows. Amber is determined to catch the murderer, but she doesn’t realize who she’s up against, or the true danger of opening her mind to the thoughts of others. Defender is the second book in the Hive Mind series.

For the fugitive settlers of Jijo, it is truly the beginning of the end. As starships fill the skies, the threat of genocide hangs over the planet that once peacefully sheltered six bands of sapient beings. Now the human settlers of Jijo and their alien neighbors must make heroic—and terrifying—choices. A scientist must turn against the benefactors she's been trained to love. A heretic must rally believers for a cause he never shared. And four youngsters find that what started as a simple adventure—imitating exploits in Earthling books by Verne and Twain—leads them to the dark abyss of mystery. Meanwhile, the Streaker, with her fugitive dolphin crew, arrives at last on Jijo in a desperate search for refuge. Yet what the crew finds instead is a secret hidden since the galaxies first spawned intelligence—a secret that could mean salvation for the planet and its inhabitants … or their ultimate annihilation.

A human space traveler trapped on a remote planet must somehow unravel a confounding alien technology—or else surrender himself to a host of incomprehensible horrors For thousands of years, Carter Horton has been traveling across the galaxy toward a distant world capable of supporting human life. At journey’s end, awakened from his millennia-long sleep by a curiously adaptive android, he is informed that his crewmates have all perished due to a system malfunction. But worse is yet to come: Horton’s sentient ship is refusing to return him to Earth, and a strangely cordial predator is waiting for him on the planet’s surface. The repulsive creature, Carnivore, arrived here via a tunnel across the universe, as did his late companion—a human dubbing himself William Shakespeare—whom Carnivore just recently devoured. But the tunnel moves in only one direction, and if Carter is unable to reverse it, he will find himself marooned forever in this incomprehensible world, at the mercy of monsters and a terrifying, mind-freezing alien anomaly that occurs every evening in the “God-hour.” With unparalleled verve, award-winning science fiction Grand Master Clifford D. Simak performs a truly astonishing feat of world-creation in Shakespeare’s Planet. Bursting with intelligence, imagination, and breathtaking invention, this is a gem of speculative fiction from one of the genre’s most revered and innovative artists.

When Brick and Spiritwind drunkenly head out into the universe for a dance and takeaway food, they awake enrolled at Evil University, and after the Vice-Chancellor takes a liking to the pair's philosophy, he sets about making them the new ideological hope for all mischief.Given a tip for a galactic hot spot, complete with dance floor and attached takeaway, Brick and Spiritwind head towards Fluffy McCoy's with a smile and a chat up-line beneath each sleeve; unfortunately, They's drunken memory tells their ship to go to Huffy LeRoy's by mistake: a bus depot with a dilapidated pub, hanging on for sanity and rare custom.Determined to have fun wherever they are, Brick and Spiritwind pull up a chair at Bozo and Schmuk's booth, two beasts of defiant size who are off to start a henchman training course at Evil University; as politeness spills forth and drink flows, the heroes offer the monstrous duo a lift. When they awake the next morning, they find themselves enrolled on the megalomaniac course, under threat of a thousand pinches and eternal headlocks should they try to leave. Adopting the pseudonyms of Dag Nammit and Corsetry Overload, they opt for study over pain.Nicole Extravaganza and Suzy Fantastic had recently been promoted to grade three heroes, and as such had to cash in their outdated nemesis at Velos 19, the hub of hero admin and ego driven rhetoric. Discovering their nemesis had given up day to day Evil, they hear he now works as the Chancellor at Evil University, and head to the planet that houses the academia of the naughty. Whilst there, they stumble across Brick and Spiritwind's room and overhear the pair mentioning their true identities as grade five heroes. Convinced they could gain further promotion, they offer to help.Hugo Cortizone, the popstar of the hero world, has a monumental crush on the two female heroes, a crush they repeatedly spurn. When his scanners see their ship at Evil University, he considers it his duty to pay them a visit and check they're safe, and maybe to hang around long enough to try and woo a snog out of one of them, or both.Dip Sing Doolally, the chancellor and nemesis in question, decides the institution needs a figurehead for potential students to aspire to, and to increase revenue. He instructs his vice-chancellor, Spon Dooliks, to find one from the current intake and elevate their reputation through manipulated drama.Spon had always envied Good's professional and well thought out approach to the battle of light and darkness, not like Evil with its flawed plans and flippant security measures, so when he spots the heroic nature of Brick and Spiritwind, he believes he's found a duo who can not only be the new hope for bad, but also shift the entire ethos towards greater success. Dip finds the pair little more than annoying and insists they can only be used if they are martyred after achieving whatever Spon intends them to achieve. He wishes to use their memory as an icon rather than the duo themselves.The final assessment for the megalomaniac course is to take over an Earth planet in the early twenty-first century. From their Evil base, a pub by a picturesque canal, Brick and Spiritwind plan to steal the internet and infect it with the news that they now rule the world.With countless pseudonyms and missions overlapping, heroic narrative struggles to make sense of the unfolding adventure, but with a pen and paper, and the odd shot of rum, it slowly falls into place as Good and Evil battle with their own identities as much as each other.

Welcome to a future where long-distance travel involves nothing more than stepping into a booth. Unfortunately, for one man this tiny step is a giant barrier ...Welcome to a future where long-distance travel involves nothing more than stepping into a booth. Unfortunately, for one man this tiny step is a giant barrier ... Martin stared in wonder at the mirrored surface suspended between the chrome arches. They were the teleporters! He'd imagined something more robust, more ... sci-fi. He felt a weight lift from his shoulders, a tight knot unfurling in his stomach. After all his worries, it looked as safe as crossing the road.Tell that to a hit and run victim, said a tiny voice inside his skull. But it sounded plaintive now, lacking the wisdom and authority which had plagued him every night for the past week.A 2000-word short story from the author of the Hal Spacejock series

A little down-time as the crew waits to see if their captain will pull through, and 'Freya's' First Officer reflects on revenge, survival, and his lack of compassion.Young children cannot grasp some abstract concepts. They simply do not understand death. The idea of the disappearance of a loved one, the wonderful friend who is a pet, for instance, it is difficult to accept. But what if this disappearance is only apparent, because the pet soul will return as another animal? It could be a wild animal, or a domestic one? A funny or an annoying one? This short story will propose scenarios and link together happy memories, meant to bring a smile through tears.Following A New Pet in the Family, Bookata addresses the end of the life cycle in My Pet is Gone. With this new addition, Bookata’s collection covers the full range of family-child-pet dynamics, introducing elements from the child’s environment to create unique, personalized books.