Pale Reflection

      James Bailey
     Pale Reflection

In the near future death is little more than an inconvenience, a mind can simply be transferred into a new body upon death. Sam, a young boy, watches as his mother slowly passes away in front of him. He struggles to understand how her mind and consciousness will be transferred into a new body and that she will be the same mother he grew up with.The author's mother has always been present in her daughter's consciousness, manifesting in front of her eyes at times. In this second story in the series mom tells her own story, luring her daughter into a world created to the daughter's liking, made of childhood fairytales, memories, and dreams. Mom tries to encourage her daughter, disheartened by the harsh realities of her surrounding life, to adapt a different point of view towards life, one in which the future is more bright and colorful. Will the mother succeed?

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    Star Yawns Episode 2. By David Williams. Smashwords Edition. Copyright (2012) by David Williams

      David Williams
     Star Yawns Episode 2. By David Williams. Smashwords Edition. Copyright (2012) by David Williams

The captain and three others beam on to a planet and are met by people resembling characters from old TV sows. Before long they find they have been kidnapped by aliens who want to hold them accountable for being a warlike species.In the meantime the remaining crew on the ship must find a way to rescue their crew mates.Cover Image provided by: NASA/JPL-Caltech and The Hubble Heritage Team (STS)Sadie, from Haiti, otherwise known about town as the "Wackadoo Wady" absolutely loves karaoke. She and her four daughters, Tootsie, Alma, Mojo and Koolinapski wind up one evening at the one place in town everyone goes to have fun: Swig Willy's. The Wackadoo Wady is in rare form on stage singing out karaoke like it was goin' outta style (it's her birthday) when all of a sudden a ruckus starts. Well, the Wackadoo Wady isn't about to be upstaged so she and her daughters quickly whip up an unusual solution, which quickly has everyone enjoying themselves again.The poem is written tongue in cheek with most R's and L's being spoken as W's.

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    Fate, Wants and Mistakes

      Oma Laralea
     Fate, Wants and Mistakes

Moving through time or moving through space. Can we do both? Could time and space be bridged? It had been tried once before with fatal consequences. Now, over a decade later, Mayne had a chance to try it all again. Hopefully, with a different outcome.Bernard Mayne had solved the matter transmission puzzle and just needed a research grant to bring his project to fruition. But the Crayston Foundation, who had given Mayne the grant, wanted more and found it in a bright newcomer, Frederick Gallenmeadow. Gallenmeadow may have deciphered the ability to not only travel a great distance in a matter of seconds, but to also move through time.Both Mayne and Gallenmeadow are ambitious men and wanted sole credit for the discovery of trans-dimensional travel; the Crayston Foundation wanted the control.The series follows two students, Yvon and Artemus, and their six years at the Conar Academe for Exceptional Students. After rediscovering the research for the time/distance warp device, Yvon involves his best friend, Artemus, in the project. The time/distance warp project would be hard to keep a secret, but Cedric Kentry, the head of the science wing at the academe, manages to do so, at least until the project catches the attention of its original creators, Bernard Mayne and Frederick Gallemeadow. This is short story from within a nine book series called “Journey From Within”.

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    The Last Shuttle

      Tom Glover
     The Last Shuttle

A top-secret NASA space telescope designed to detect alien life is in trouble, at risk of entering Earth’s upper atmosphere and vaporizing. Only one man could prevent the accident. An ex-NASA scientist reluctantly joins the crew of re-commissioned space shuttle Discovery on a daring rescue mission to recover the satellite. Orbiting Earth, they are about to experience something out of this world.For nearly two decades, a top-secret NASA space telescope kept watch on the Solar System’s closest neighbor, star system Alpha Centauri, in the hopes of detecting life-sustaining planets. Inexplicably, the satellite’s orbit was beginning to decay, its mission about to come to an abrupt end as it would soon enter Earth’s upper atmosphere and vaporize. There was one man alive who could prevent the accident. Forced by his former boss into a daring rescue mission, ex-NASA scientist Dr. Frank Carver reluctantly joins the crew of re-commissioned space shuttle Discovery, with one simple objective: recover the satellite’s secret data. He would soon discover that mission was anything but simple.

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    Hellbender

      Laurie R. King
     Hellbender

Once people have messed with a man’s DNA, what can he do but become a private eye? And when a gorgeous thing like Elizabeth Savoy comes gliding into his office and blinks her big baby blues, what can PI Mike Heller do but say sure—even though he sees just what she is, and knows what a bad idea it could be? Not that Heller has a clue just how bad. But by the time he suspects that Lizzie’s troubles might bring the end of life as he knows it, he’s already in far too deep. (Previously published in the short story compilation "Down These Strange Streets")

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    The Skull

      Philip K. Dick
     The Skull

Conger, the protagonist, is given a chance to get out of jail if he agrees to travel back in time and kill a man. He has agreed to kill a stranger he has never seen. He isn't concerned about getting the wrong man. He knows what the man looked like. There was no way he could make a mistake about his target's identity -- he has the man's skull under his shoulder.

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    Titania's Purse

      Bruce Davis
     Titania's Purse

Tito the Denver Dwarf is on his own after his mentor, Charlie flees Chicago C.O.P.S. He comes home from an undercover job getting evidence on an abusive Group home to find a cryptic message from a beautiful woman. She has a job for a 'fixer'-finding her long lost sister. But Tito uncovers something more. Now he must decide whether to honor a vow from his past, or look for his own lost daughter.The Black Ships - First in the seriesOur planet was just one small island in the midst of a vast, empty sea. For millennia, its inhabitants thought they were alone - until they took their first tentative steps out of the cradle. As the nations of Earth struggle to establish a fragile colony on the surface of Mars, they suddenly lose all contact with their settlers.In the days that follow, it becomes abundantly clear that humans are not the only ones intent on exploiting the resources of the solar archipelago. In a desperate bid for freedom, Humanity must undergo social and economic changes on a scale previously unheard of. In the midst of growing turmoil, the struggle to build an effective defense leads the species to a turning point. The smallest of chances may determine the difference between freedom or eternal subjugation.

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    Cerberus

      J.P. Yager
     Cerberus

Sometimes time just gets away from us. Brandon Halverson knows this all too well as a man eternally late. Ironically, he's pulled through time to serve a malicious future Earth. One hell bent on using time travelers to aid them in destroying innocent life. Now Brandon has to figure out how to escape before his time literally runs out.Sometimes time just gets away from us. Brandon Halverson knows this all too well as a man eternally late. Ironically, he's pulled through time to serve a malicious future Earth. One hell bent on using time travelers to aid them in destroying innocent life. Now Brandon has to figure out how to escape before his time literally runs out.This was written at about the same time as Thief, but I found it harder to find a proper ending. After a couple of months of re-writing it, I finally feel like it's finished. Thank you for reading and supporting indie authors! If you enjoy this check out my other work, including my novel Void Star.-J.P. Yagerwww.otterbored.com

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    On Ice

      A. L. Strezze
     On Ice

An interplanetary surveyor wakes up in a cave, on an uninhabited planet, to the sound of purring... and screams of agony.Can Jade survive long enough to find out what went wrong?8022 wordsWhat could have caused the dragons to decide they are tired of being pushed around by lesser beings? For the first time they've chosen to spread their wings and have taken over the second largest city in the Dwarven kingdom. Join with the Magical Seven as they react to this revolt.More than any other time in their history the Dwarves need heroes, a crazy inventor and his family are the ones who step up to the challenge. Dr. Kilgen is a Dwarf on a mission. Since the dragons attacked his village he has spent every minute that he isn’t saving Dwarves at the hospital inventing steam powered machines of mass dragon destruction.Can the Dwarven Dragon Hunters of THE DIRGE and the Magical Seven put down the dragon uprising and reclaim their fallen city? Or will the dragon's fire ultimately leave their inventions in a cloud of smoke?

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    Quicksilver

      Neal Stephenson
     Quicksilver

Quicksilver is the story of Daniel Waterhouse, fearless thinker and conflicted Puritan, pursuing knowledge in the company of the greatest minds of Baroque-era Europe, in a chaotic world where reason wars with the bloody ambitions of the mighty, and where catastrophe, natural or otherwise, can alter the political landscape overnight. It is a chronicle of the breathtaking exploits of "Half-Cocked Jack" Shaftoe -- London street urchin turned swashbuckling adventurer and legendary King of the Vagabonds -- risking life and limb for fortune and love while slowly maddening from the pox. And it is the tale of Eliza, rescued by Jack from a Turkish harem to become spy, confidante, and pawn of royals in order to reinvent Europe through the newborn power of finance. A gloriously rich, entertaining, and endlessly inventive novel that brings a remarkable age and its momentous events to vivid life, Quicksilver is an extraordinary achievement from one of the most original and important literary talents of our time. And it's just the beginning ...

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    Balanced on the Blade's Edge

      Lindsay Buroker
     Balanced on the Blade's Edge

Colonel Ridge Zirkander isn't the model of military professionalism - he has a tendency to say exactly what’s on his mind, and his record has enough demerits to wallpaper the hull of an airship - but as the best fighter pilot in the Iskandian army, he’s used to a little leniency from his superiors. Until he punches the wrong diplomat in the nose and finds himself issued new orders: take command of a remote prison mine in the inhospitable Ice Blades Mountains. Ridge has never been in charge of anything larger than a flier squadron — what’s he supposed to do with a frozen fortress full of murderers and rapists? Not to mention the strange woman who shows up right before he arrives... Sardelle Terushan wakes from three hundred years in a mage stasis shelter, only to realize that she is the last of the Referatu, the sorcerers who once helped protect Iskandia from conquerors. Their subterranean mountain community was blown up in a treacherous sneak attack by soldiers who feared their power. Everyone Sardelle ever knew is dead, and the sentient soulblade she has been bonded to since her youth is buried in the core of the mountain. Further, what remains of her home has been infested by bloodthirsty miners commanded by the descendants of the very soldiers who destroyed her people. Sardelle needs help to reach her soulblade — her only link to her past and her last friend in the world. Her only hope is to pretend she’s one of the prisoners while trying to gain the commander’s trust. But lying isn't her specialty, especially when the world has changed so much in the intervening centuries, and if Colonel Zirkander figures out who she truly is, he’ll be duty-bound to sentence her to the only acceptable punishment for sorcerers: death.

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    Elemental

      Antony John
     Elemental

A lost colony is reborn in this heart-pounding fantasy adventure set in the near future . . . Sixteen-year-old Thomas has always been an outsider. The first child born without the power of an Element—earth, water, wind or fire—he has little to offer his tiny, remote Outer Banks colony. Or so the Guardians would have him believe. In the wake of an unforeseen storm, desperate pirates kidnap the Guardians, intent on claiming the island as their own. Caught between the plague-ridden mainland and the advancing pirates, Thomas and his friends fight for survival in the battered remains of a mysterious abandoned settlement. But the secrets they unearth will turn Thomas’ world upside-down, and bring to light not only a treacherous past but also a future more dangerous than he can possibly imagine.

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    Tales from Omega Station: Belly of the Beast

      ZJ McBeattie
     Tales from Omega Station: Belly of the Beast

If you were a clone grown for spare parts, kept in a cage for experimentation, how would you feel? Accept your fate and be happy you're helping the 'real' person whose DNA you share? No; I didn't think so...Eighteen-year-old Sage Hannigan wants to get back to her own time, preferably one that hasn't been destroyed by an underworld plot brewing in Edwardian-era South Carolina. How hard can it be? All she has to do is: 1. Learn to use newly acquired warping skills to bend time to her will. 2. Take out a few rogue vampires. 3. Join an ancient secret society. 4. Figure out who is putting the time stream in jeopardy. 5. Find and maim whoever invented the corset. Sage never asked to be chosen by the Druid Priestess, Amerach, to become a Warper, and she never asked to have the future hanging on her shoulders or to warp a hundred years into the past. She certainly never asked to meet Dr. Aldwin Blake, who would make her question her desire to get back to her own time. But if she fails her mission, people will die, history will change, and the present she wishes to return to will be no more.

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