"One of science fiction's most reliable practitioners" (San Francisco Chronicle) continues his saga of space exploration. The mysterious alien Others have prohibited humans from space travel-destroying Earth's fleet of starships in a display of unimaginable power. Now Carmen Dula, the first human to encounter Martians and then the mysterious Others, and her colleagues struggle to find a way, using nineteenthcentury technology, to reclaim the future that has been stolen from them.

Olivia and her twin brother Aidan are heading alone back to Earth following the virus that wiped out the rest of their crew, and their family, in its entirety. Nathan is part of a community heading in the opposite direction. But on their journey, Nathan’s ship is attacked and most of the community killed. Only a few survive. Their lives unexpectedly collided, Nathan and Olivia are instantly attracted to each other, deeply, head-over-heels – like nothing they have ever experienced. But not everyone is pleased. Surrounded by rumours, deception, even murder, is it possible to live out a happy ever after . . . ?

Angel 6.0: Emissary, episode 5 in a space opera romance series from NYT and USA Today bestseller Travis Luedke. Born of illegal genetic cloning experiments, Angel is not quite human. She’s never known her place in the universe. Stolen by the Gran, a fierce race of warrior Cats, she survived enslavement as a concubine. Beloved by the Prince, he mated her, freed her from captivity and declared her Princess of the Gran, despite her love for the pirate Cesar. Now Angel is thrust into the center of interstellar war and forced to choose sides between humanity and her surrogate family of Cats. Facing war and the loss of her loved ones, Angel is appointed Emissary to the Emperor. The fate of both species depends on her to bridge the gap between the corrupt politicians of Earthside and greedy, war-mongering Cats.

A Wall Street Journal and Booklist Best Mystery of 2012 From the acclaimed author of The Gone-Away World, blistering gangster noir meets howling absurdist comedy as the forces of good square off against the forces of evil, and only an unassuming clockwork repairman and an octogenarian former superspy can save the world from total destruction. Joe Spork spends his days fixing antique clocks. The son of infamous London criminal Mathew “Tommy Gun” Spork, he has turned his back on his family’s mobster history and aims to live a quiet life. That orderly existence is suddenly upended when Joe activates a particularly unusual clockwork mechanism. His client, Edie Banister, is more than the kindly old lady she appears to be—she’s a retired international secret agent. And the device? It’s a 1950s doomsday machine. Having triggered it, Joe now faces the wrath of both the British government and a diabolical South Asian dictator who is also Edie’s old arch-nemesis. On the upside, Joe’s got a girl: a bold receptionist named Polly whose smarts, savvy and sex appeal may be just what he needs. With Joe’s once-quiet world suddenly overrun by mad monks, psychopathic serial killers, scientific geniuses and threats to the future of conscious life in the universe, he realizes that the only way to survive is to muster the courage to fight, help Edie complete a mission she abandoned years ago and pick up his father’s old gun . . .

It is the time of the Reformation. Henry VIII's England moves toward schism; Luther's precepts spread through Europe even as the Inquisition strives to wipe out any hint of heresy. Franzicco Ragoczy di Santo-Germano-the vampire Saint-Germain-is a successful merchant based in Venice. His lavish lifestyle and rumored cache of magnificent jewels have attracted the wrong sort of attention, and without Santo-Germano's noble-and papal-connections, he might be imprisoned, his property confiscated. Also under surveillance is his mistress, the lovely and talented musician Pier-Ariana Salier. In the Spanish Netherlands, Ragoczy's publishing business is being investigated by the Inquisition. Coming to the aid of his employees, Ragoczy becomes tarred with the brush of heresy, as does Erneste van Amsteljaxter, a writer whose intelligence Ragoczy finds attractive. Ragoczy does what he can to help her, but must return to Venice when he learns that his fortune there has been embezzled away and that Pier-Ariana has disappeared. In Venice, things are worse than Santo-Germano expected. Not only has his money disappeared, so has a young man who had been spying on the vampire and his mistress. Santo-Germano is accused of kidnapping and perhaps murder. Another spy has discovered Santo-Germano's true nature and intends to kill him before he can feast on all of Venice!

A strange behemoth of a boat is parked off the coast of Hawaii, but it isn't alone. On the shore are dozens of protesters, and in the legislature are dozens of greedy politicians promising to lower their roadblocks if the deep pockets of this new industry make the right campaign contributions. No, this boat is surrounded on all sides by controversy.It's an island factory, the first of its kindI always thought love was found on exotic beaches and at hometown picnics, not on bombing ranges. But then again, life is never normal for an archaeologist. Here's the tale of how I met the love of my life, the only man for me. Excerpt:“Yep. That’s unexploded ordnance.” Jeffery commented. Both he and Matthew stood with their arms crossed against their chests, looking down at it with the manly consideration reserved for beat up vehicles, broken garbage disposals, and apparently artillery.“Is it live?” I asked“Don’t know.” Our trusty EOD expert replied. He pulled a GPS from his backpack and began plugging in the location for future reference.“If I had stepped on it would it have blown up?” My mind flashed to the training video we had been forced to watch explaining the dangers of unexploded ordnance and the very real possibility of death or injury.“Maybe.” He smiled.I pursed by lips and squinted. “You’re messing with me.” He shrugged and turned back the way they had come. I glared at his back, then walked a good ten feet around the ordnance and flounced through the brush. Matthew’s infectious laughter caught me before I could outrun it.

Kei Salin has been watching young lives fall to faulty bureaucratic nonsense for decades and she's tired of it. She forces the hand of her superiors to remove her from the project. Before obtaining her reassignment,she takes a trip. One stop on her vacation forces her to reveal something she's denied for decades.Ever wonder why aliens don't visit Earth? Or what coffee a demon likes to drink? Or how bureaucracy could really screw up a grand space adventure? A Flash in the Pan? is a collection of speculative flash fiction and short stories that answers these questions and more.The collection includes the following speculative fiction stories:- Beware Antipodean Shores (50 words)- Shipwrecked (500 words)- The Gloriously Cunning Plan (500 words)- Make Mine a Macchiato (500 words)- Striking Twice (500 words)- In the Service of the Public (500 words)- The Devil Wears Ugly Shapeless Garments Covered in Dog Hair (500 words)- The Regersek Zone (500 words)- Hindsight is a Bitch (50 words)- Authentic Empathy (500 words)- Wefting the Warp (4,300 words)- Showdown (5,100 words)

Fixer 13 is the first book in The Forevers, featuring Jayne Wu.Jayne Wu is a brilliant and inexplicably-lucky 13-year-old in a future Earth obsessed with its own survival. Jayne's mind is extraordinary and she soon attracts attention from the organized crime Consortium, the Sentinels, the World Police and the Forevers. In order to survive Jayne must decide who to trust.Fixer 13 is the first book in The Forevers, featuring Jayne Wu.Jayne Wu is a brilliant and inexplicably-lucky 13-year-old in a future Earth obsessed with its own survival. The Swarm, a meteor field billions of kilometres across, will soon smash through the solar system, destroying all life and possibly the planet itself. The only hope for humankind's survival are the biomes - twelve asteroid-size escape vessels constructed in orbit to travel to and colonize far distant worlds with the best Earth can offer. Jayne - whose nickname is Thirteen - wants only to leave the Nursery, study to be a Technical Electrical Mechanical Fixer and become part of the great adventure. And, of course, play GravBall. But Jayne's mind is extraordinary and she soon attracts attention from the organized crime Consortium, the Sentinels, the World Police and the Forevers - a cabal of ultra-rich who will stop at nothing to subvert society's colonization plans to their own diabolical ends. They all want to use her. In order to survive Jayne must decide who to trust.

Robert Neville is the last living man on Earth...but he is not alone. Every other man, woman, and child on Earth has become a vampire, and they are all hungry for Neville's blood. By day, he is the hunter, stalking the sleeping undead through the abandoned ruins of civilization. By night, he barricades himself in his home and prays for dawn. How long can one man survive in a world of vampires? I am legend -- Buried talents -- The near departed -- Prey -- Witch war -- Dance of the dead -- Dress of white silk -- Mad house -- The funeral -- From shadowed places -- Person to person.

Numbers that pop into her head when she looks into someone’s eyes. They’re dates, the numbers. Dates predicting with brute accuracy each person’s death. Burdened by such grim knowledge, Jem avoids relationships. Until she meets Spider, another outsider, and takes a chance. Maybe they can find happiness together, if only in the brief time that remains before his expiration date. But on a trip to London, Jem foresees a chilling chain of events: The city’s a target. The clock’s running out. The countdown is on to a blowup!

Armchair fiction presents extra large paperback editions of the best in classic science fiction novels. “The Planet Strappers,” written by Raymond Z. Gallun, is a fine tale about the wilds of outer space. They started out as “The Bunch,” a group of student-astronauts in the back room of a store in Jarviston, Minnesota. They wanted off Earth, and they begged, borrowed, and built what they needed to make it all happen. “The Planet Strappers” got what they wanted—a start on the road to the stars. But no one brought up on Earth could have imagined what was waiting for them out there…out there in the blackness of outer space. In “The Planet Strappers,” Rayond Z. Gallun has written a story of the Day After Tomorrow—a story of what it will be like for the men who cross the space frontier. A story that some of us will be living…someday.

James H. Schmitz was a heck of a writer, and this story -- "The Winds of Time" -- is fascinating stuff. Star ships, aliens from the future, time travel, romance, cannibalism, pet humans and mute-but-brilliant aliens. . . . and, of course, it's got a hero who solves every problem by being smarter and trickier and better-prepared than we'd ever imagine being. But what would you expect? This story first appeared in John W. Campbell's Analog. Analog heroes did it with their brains. Us? We have to work. Schmitz is best known as a writer of "space opera" and for his strong female characters (such as Telzey Amberdon and Trigger Argee) who didn't conform to the "damsel in distress" stereotype typical of science fiction of the time.

In The Osiris Invasion, the Earth of the future is attacked by an alien force known as the Orians who come from the Orion Stars.In The Osiris Invasion, the Earth of the future is attacked by an alien force known as the Orians who come from the Orion Stars. The Earth has suffered a second Dark Ages in the 22nd and 23rd century and recovered enough that they are planning to send an exploration mission to alpha centauri. However, an alien starship crashes on Earth, pursued by another group of aliens called the Orians, and the Earth of the future must deal with this alien invasion…

Earth's Survivors Apocalypse follows survivors of a worldwide catastrophe. A meteorite that was supposed to miss the earth completely, hits and becomes the cap to a series of events that destroy the world as we know it. Hopes, dreams, tomorrows: All buried in a desperate struggle to survive. Small groups band together for safety, leaving the ravaged cities behind in search of a new future...Apocalypse follows survivors of a worldwide catastrophe. A meteorite that was supposed to miss the earth completely, hits and becomes the cap to a series of events that destroy the world as we know it. Police, fire, politicians, military, governments: All gone. Hopes, dreams, tomorrows: All buried in a desperate struggle to survive. From L.A. To Manhattan the cities, governments have toppled and lawlessness is the rule. The dead lay in the streets while gangs fight for control of what is left. Small groups band together for safety and begin to leave the ravaged cities behind in search of a future that can once again hold promise.Los Angeles: Billy and Beth start out with a small group and wind up on their own as they make their way across America trying to find others and safety.Manhattan: Adam leaves the safety of his apartment to find his way out of the dying Manhattan, gathering others as he makes his way.Old Towne New York: Conner is alone for the first few weeks, but then he finds Katie and a reason to live again. They set out to survive and find much more than survival.Watertown New York: Mike Collins goes to sleep thinking about his first vacation in many years that he will start in the morning. He awakens to destruction.The Earth's Survivors series of books follow the people that survive and set out to rebuild their lives. At first hoping only to make it day by day, but ultimately looking to the future and rebuilding a society where fear does not rule...This is the original series that has found new life and new writers to take the story to completion.