Never take off the mask that hides your deepest truthsBut what if you did, what would you find beneath the ruins?There is a place full of shame and hatredWhere people hide their torn facesThey cower behind masks and close themselves offAnd they're told not to come out no matter the scoffNo matter the torment, no matter the pain, Taking off your mask will admit that you're vain. Never take off the mask that hides your deepest truthsBut what if you did, what would you find beneath the ruins?Someone is following Becca ReedHe wants her on the Dark ClanAnd he says things... Things that don't make sense. Things that are making BeccaReach insanity. But what is insanity In a world full of it?

A robot endlessly navigating a snowy wilderness in search of people who aren't there. Two lovers trying to feel good about not having children. A girl and her siblings listening to their grandmother's old stories during a storm. An artist responding to questions about his comeback after a coma. A futuristic train circumnavigating the globe, hiding from the sun. AKRASIA is a longform poetic work.A robot endlessly navigating a snowy wilderness in search of people who aren't there. Two lovers trying to feel good about not having children. A girl and her siblings listening to their grandmother's old stories during a storm. An artist responding to questions about his comeback after a coma. A futuristic train circumnavigating the globe, hiding from the sun. AKRASIA is a longform poetic work somewhat reminiscent of T.S. Eliot's "Waste Land". Various narratives loop together like interlinked Moebius strips, obeying a logic not unlike that of a David Lynch movie or a David Bowie concept album.

Taking place after the events of SoM: Forerunners, four eccentric mercenaries are challenged with the task of covering up a parasitic outbreak causing the infected to mutate into savage creatures that can only exist through bloodshed. Will they be able to quell the outbreak in time or will their personal agendas cause them, and the rest of the planet, their lives?FREE STORYPublished as part of the The Real Story: Safe Sex ProjectTravis McDonald is fifteen and has never been in love (other than a wicked crush he harbored on his eighth grade sex ed teacher, Mr. Myers). When Jeremy Loper asks him to hang out, Travis's heart is all a flutter. He and Jeremy really hit it off and soon become boyfriends, but when they decide it's time to take their relationship to the next level on Jeremy's sixteenth birthday, Travis is faced with a harsh reality. Can he support his boyfriend at a time he needs him most, or is the situation just way too scary for Travis to deal with?

We've got more great stories for you this month, with a god morgue, a few unexplained benefactors, and a xenobiologist who would really rather not be eaten by space slugs. Yep, it's that good.We've got more great stories for you this month, with a god morgue, a few unexplained benefactors, and a xenobiologist who would really rather not be eaten by space slugs. Yep, it's that good.Fiction Vortex publishes science fiction and fantasy stories weekly at FictionVortex.com

Big Brothers Are Watching Legendary science fiction icon Arthur C. Clarke, who in recent years has cowritten The Trigger with Michael Kube-McDowell and several Rama novels with Gentry Lee (Rama II, Garden of Rama, Rama Revealed) collaborates here for the first time with British author Stephen Baxter (Moonseed, Voyage, Titan, and Manifold Time) on a powerful, near-future speculative story of our world on the brink of radical change. The authors envision what the social consciousness and culture shock of life would be like when all privacy is irrevocably gone. Driven by Clarke's vision and fleshed out by Baxter's easygoing narrative, The Light of Other Days is intriguing conjecture supported by deep-seated principles in a time when total indifference has taken root. In the early 21st century, industrialist Hiram Patterson isn't content with his multimedia conglomerate called OurWorld and dedicates himself to further innovation. While attending an OurWorld event, journalist Kate Manzoni prepares to break a major story on Hiram's latest invention, which is shrouded in secrecy. Her previous cutting-edge bit of news was the disclosure of the Wormwood, a comet which is set on a collision course with Earth and destined to destroy all life on the planet in 500 years. Drug use, suicide, and apathy are at an all-time high across the globe. Still, that doesn't stop Hiram from doing what he does best: making money off scientific breakthroughs. His latest invention, as Kate learns, is a "WormCam": a stabilized wormhole of atomic size that is only large enough to send a radio signal through. His next call of order is to enlarge the wormhole until it is big enough to allow for visual images. Hiram's long-abandoned son, David, a top physics scientist and devout Catholic, is called back to OurWorld in order to oversee the WormCam project. The debonair Bobby Patterson, Hiram's younger son, is soon wooing Kate even while she uses him to get closer to Hiram's secrets. Bobby learns that the brain implant he had embedded as a child was actually designed to make him lack emotion and religious faith, as well as allow him to be easily coerced by his father. When Kate helps him to shut down the implant, Bobby is opened to a whole new world of exquisite love, anger, and pain. Eventually his brother David enlarges the WormCam until visual imagery is capable of traveling back and forth. David also determines that the WormCam is not only capable of bending space, but also time. As Kate uses the WormCam in an attempt to take down a notorious religious leader who uses a deadly form of virtual reality on his followers despite its ill effects, she begins to make herself powerful enemies, among them Hiram. Bobby and Kate set out on personal missions intended to keep the wormholes out of the wrong hands and put them to use for mankind's benefit. However, that's easier said than done, as government agencies and corporate competitors learn of the invention and a chain reaction is started -- everyone spying on everyone else across the globe and across time. Stephen Baxter deserves all the praise he's received in recent years for his thought-provoking and evocative novels. As a winner of the John W. Campbell Award, Baxter again proves he has what it takes to hold his own with such a visionary as Arthur C. Clarke. The authors are at ease fusing their ideas and techniques, moving between the hard-science elements and the credible, emotionally dense circumstances propelling the characters forward. The constant tension between Hiram, Kate, and Bobby is put to wonderful use, as Bobby sees life for the first time with an open soul. Possibly the strongest scene comes when Hiram realizes the WormCams can look backward into time. He turns a challenging gaze to the heavens for all the future watchers staring at him to see. As the world undergoes extreme change and privacy is done away with, our protagonists are forced to take personal stands for their beliefs despite all the conflict taking place around them. This is made even more difficult for them by the ever-present threat of the Wormwood comet that will eventually decimate all life. The theme is a strong one: How hard will you strive for your ideals when the world is going to end in the not-so-distant future? How strong is your faith? Clarke and Baxter have given us a moving and believable story, bringing together various scientific threads and philosophical ideology. They not only grab the reader's interest but also fire one's imagination on how technology leads to radical social and political change. The Light of Other Days doesn't sink under the inertia of the secular debates in the novel: Clarke and Baxter's unraveling of the intense subplots of faith and fear is impeccable. It's rare to find authors so cognizant of cultural transformation, who understand the ethical dilemmas that influence a world on the edge of upheaval in the name of progress. This is an enthralling inquiry into the effects of a major scientific breakthrough on values and belief systems; it will draw the reader into the brilliant light of powerful storytelling. —Tom Piccirilli

Can a lowly gumpaw hope for love with a girl who rides in a jewel-encrusted carrier? Feline investigator Leon, with opposable thumbs and the ability to talk, is possibly the most dangerous cat in the galaxy. Indentured to the Security department of Gamma Station until the cost of his creation is paid off, Leon alternates between harassing his human partner/roommate Devin and fighting sleazoid criminals, yet still finds time to flirt with the lovely Leila, an exotic Burmese who lives in the swankiest level of the station. Will he win her heart, and more important—will he win his freedom?

The Galactic Hegemony has been around a long time, and it likes stability--the kind of stability that member species like the aggressive, carnivorous Shongairi tend to disturb. So when the Hegemony Survey Force encountered a world whose so-called "sentients" "humans," they called themselves—were almost as bad as the Shongairi themselves, it seemed reasonable to use the Shongairi to neutralize them before they could become a second threat to galactic peace. And if the Shongairi took a few knocks in the process, all the better. Now, Earth is conquered. The Shongairi have arrived in force, and humanity's cities lie in radioactive ruins. In mere minutes, more than half the human race has died. Master Sergeant Stephen Buchevsky, who thought he was being rotated home from his latest tour in Afghanistan, finds himself instead prowling the back country of the Balkans, dodging alien patrols and trying to organize scattered survivors without getting killed. And in the southeastern US, firearms instructor and former Marine Dave Dvorak finds himself at the center of a growing network of resistance putting his extended family at lethal risk, but what else can you do? On the face of it, Buchevsky's and Dvorak's chances look bleak, as do prospects for the rest of the surviving human race. But it may well be that Shongairi and the Hegemony alike have underestimated the inhabitants of that strange planet called Earth

Alisa Marchenko has reunited with her daughter, and even though she hasn’t figured out how to get Jelena to accept Leonidas yet, she dreams of the three of them starting a new life together. They can return the Star Nomad to its original purpose of running freight and staying out of trouble (mostly). Before that can happen, Alisa must fulfill the promise she made to Jelena: that she and her crew will retrieve young Prince Thorian, the boy who has become Jelena’s best friend. But Thorian was kidnapped by the rogue Starseer Tymoteusz, the man who wants to use the Staff of Lore to take over the entire system—and the man who may have the power to do it. Alisa doesn’t know why he kidnapped Thorian, but Tymoteusz once promised to kill the prince, so she fears they don’t have much time. Unfortunately, Tymoteusz hasn’t left a trail of breadcrumbs. Finding him will be difficult, and even if they’re successful, facing him could be suicidal. To have a chance of surviving, Alisa will have to come up with her greatest scheme yet.

Artifact by F. Paul Wilson, Janet Berliner, Matthew Costello Six adrenalin junkies who call themselves the Daredevils Club hold the fate of the world in their hands. In an ancient undersea cavern, one of them, oil man Frik van Alman, discovers a set of stones that are unlike anything else on Earth. Fitted together, the stones form an object that promises limitless free energy for the world. After a terrified scientist scatters the pieces, the club members race to retrieve them. Each knows that whoever reassembles the unique device will have unlimited power at his or her fingertips. Can anyone be trusted? In a thrilling adventure that stretches from deep beneath the Caribbean to the penthouses of Las Vegas, friend battles friend for control of the Artifact.

Starting out as a harrowing wartime sea adventure, The Land that Time Forgot ultimately develops into a lost world adventure storyStarting out as a harrowing wartime sea adventure, The Land that Time Forgot ultimately develops into a lost world adventure story

John Allyn Berryman (October 25, 1914 – January 7, 1972) was an American poet and scholar, born in McAlester, Oklahoma. He was a major figure in American poetry in the second half of the 20th century and was considered a key figure in the Confessional school of poetry. His best-known work is The Dream Songs.

The little Med Ship came out of overdrive and the stars were strange and the Milky Way seemed unfamiliar. Which, of course, was because the Milky Way and the local Cepheid marker-stars were seen from an unaccustomed angle and a not-yet-commonplace pattern of varying magnitudes. But Calhoun grunted in satisfaction ... Written by Murray Leinster (a pseudonym of William Fitzgerald Jenkins's) This World Is Taboo was first published as Pariah Planet in Amazing Stories, July 1961, and is the second volume in the Med Services series. Leinster wrote more than 1500 stories and articles during his career and is credited with first using the concept of parallel universes in his fiction.

Darius John Granger wrote this popular book that continues to be widely read today despite its age.

Strange things are happening when China begins exporting designer athletic shoes to the US that sell for less than cheap canvas shoes. Is there a connection between the shoes and violence that erupts on playgrounds across America?Kermit O’Doyle, a paraplegic, works as an analyst on the China desk of the CIA’s Economic Analysis Unit. He’s tasked with discovering why the Chinese are flooding the US with designer hi-tops that sell for less than canvas sneakers. Everyone wants them and soon they’re outselling America’s top brands. But violence follows the shoes onto the playgrounds across America. Moreover, Kermit and the paraplegics he plays wheelchair basketball with are beset with unusual nervous reactions since switching to the Chinese sneakers. Is there a connection? If so, how to react to China’s ominous economic attack.

“I am Morning Toill, the daughter of, Geth—the last of his powerful children. Today the Thieves Guild pilot will come to see me, just as I have dreamed--my dreams are always true. He is the one they will call Lazarus, but he will not accept it when I tell him so. The tale of Thad Cochran begins here with me, and I will show him what is coming." Thus begins The Guild Saga.“I am Morning Toill, the daughter of, Geth—the last of his powerful children. Today the Thieves Guild pilot will come to see me, just as I have dreamed--my dreams are always true. He is the one they will call Lazarus, but he will not accept it when I tell him so. The tale of Thad Cochran begins here with me, and I will show him what is coming. A bloodthirsty one he will one day be, and not even his love for Maggie Thorn will keep him forever on the path of peace. One day soon, the Thieves Guild pilot will face his destiny…at a faraway place called, the North Ridge. There the avenger will confront the dreamer, and only the spirits know which one will prevail.”Thus begins The Guild Saga which continues in The Wonk Decelerator, The Late Great Benjamin Bale and The Return of the Crimson Witch.