An average guy and his alien, mind-controlling amoeba must save the world from an invasion of Foosball-playing lizardmen. Using chicken nuggets.On a near-future Earth, humanity is still rebuilding from the failed invasion of the Puppeteers, a mind-controlling, amoeba-like race of creatures that tried to take over “for their own good.” Suddenly, a race of aggressive, Foosball playing, chicken nugget eating lizards muscle their way through dimensional portals all over the planet in a bid for world domination. It’s up to Mike, an average guy, and his Puppeteer side kick, a blob who is “fed up with the way that human/Puppeteer contact was handled,” to repel the lizards while Humanity still controls the Universe foosball championship, and the world chicken nugget supply is safe.

The year is 2203, and the ruler of the Universe is chosen according to the random laws of a strange game under the control of Quizmaster Verrick. But when Ted Bentley, a research technician recently dismissed from his job, signs on to work for Verrick, he has no idea that Leon Cartwright is about to become the new Quizmaster. Nor does he know that he’s about to play an integral part in the plot to assassinate Cartwright so that Verrick can resume leadership of a universe not nearly as random as it appears. Winner of both the Hugo and John W. Campbell awards for best novel, widely regarded as the premiere science fiction writer of his day, and the object of cult-like adoration from his legions of fans, Philip K. Dick has come to be seen in a literary light that defies classification in much the same way as Borges and Calvino. With breathtaking insight, he utilizes vividly unfamiliar worlds to evoke the hauntingly and hilariously familiar in our society and ourselves. From the Trade Paperback edition.

"A novel of classical proportions and virtues...humane and moving."–*The Washington Post Book World "A love story on more than one level, and Ms. Willis does justice to them all. It was only toward the end of the book that I realized how much tension had been generated, how engrossed I was in the characters, how much I cared about their fates."–The New York Times Book Review* For Jeff Johnston, a young historical reseacher for a Civil War novelist, reality is redefined on a bitter cold night near the close of a lingering winter. He meets Annie, an intense and lovely young woman suffering from vivid, intense nightmares. Haunted by the dreamer and her unrelenting dreams, Jeff leads Annie on an emotional odyssey through the heartland of the Civil War in search of a cure. On long-silenced battlefields their relationship blossoms–two obsessed lovers linked by unbreakable chains of history, torn by a duty that could destroy them both. Suspenseful, moving, and highly compelling, Lincoln’s Dreams is a novel of rare imaginative power. From the Paperback edition.

Fleeing the supernova chain reaction at the galactic core, the cowardly Puppeteers of the Fleet of Worlds have---just barely---survived. They’ve stumbled from one crisis to the next: The rebellion of their human slaves. The relentless questing of the species of Known Space. The spectacular rise of the starfish-like Gw’oth. The onslaught of the genocidal Pak.  Catastrophe looms again as past crises return---and converge. Who can possibly save the Fleet of Worlds from its greatest peril yet? Louis Wu? Trapped in the Wunderland civil war, all he wants is to go home---but the only possible escape will plunge him into unknowable danger.  Ol’t’ro? The Gw’oth ensemble mind fled across the stars to establish a colony world free from tyranny. But some problems cannot be left behind, and other problems---like the Fleet of Worlds itself---are racing straight at them.  Achilles? Despite past disgrace, the charismatic Puppeteer politician knows he is destined for greatness. He will do anything to seize power---and to take his revenge on everyone who ever stood in his way. Nessus? The insane Puppeteer scout is out of ideas, out of resources, with only desperation left to guide him.   Their hopes and fears, dreams and ambitions are about to collide. And the winner takes . . . worlds.

They were known simply as the Nine - grim and ancient rulers who thirty thousand years ago had discovered the key to eternal life and ever since had secretly held the world in thrall. Once, Doc Caliban had been their servant and had shared their secrets. Now, appalled by their tyranny, he has turned against them, daring to challenge their centuries-old supremacy. Together with two henchmen whose superhuman skills match his own, Caliban sets out on the trail of the deadliest of the Nine: the mad goblin Iwaldi, the very incarnation of evil...

“My favorite historical novel . . . a superb re-creation of the Battle of Gettysburg, but its real importance is its insight into what the war was about, and what it meant.”—James M. McPherson   In the four most bloody and courageous days of our nation’s history, two armies fought for two conflicting dreams. One dreamed of freedom, the other of a way of life. Far more than rifles and bullets were carried into battle. There were memories. There were promises. There was love. And far more than men fell on those Pennsylvania fields. Bright futures, untested innocence, and pristine beauty were also the casualties of war. Michael Shaara’s Pulitzer Prize–winning masterpiece is unique, sweeping, unforgettable—the dramatic story of the battleground for America’s destiny.

All Earth needed was a good stiff dose of common sense, but its rulers preferred to depend on the highly fallible computers instead. As a consequence, interplanetary diplomatic relations were somewhat strained—until a nimble-witted young man from Mars came up with the answer to the “sixty-four dollar” question.

Scale Free takes the reader to a pivotal moment in future-history, when a fledgling society of uploaded people, still reveling in their new-found freedom, must face the turbulent old-world of humanity.Humans, burdened by their traditions and biases, are struggling to come to grips with presence of uploads; but one way or another, the decision to treat them as a blessing or a threat, will soon come to a head...Scale Free is a fast-paced recounting of the extraordinary events that unfold as the crisis deepens, told through the eyes of Jarrod Roamer, an ex-diplomat and recent immigrant to an uploaded community. Jarrod is just looking to live quietly and explore the great richness and freedom afforded by his new-found existence, but he soon finds himself a key player in events that will shape a new era.

What is there to do when you're the last woman on the planet? A free digital short story.This first collection of contemporary poems includes works previously published in the USA and New Zealand. The collection uses narrative, prose, Fibonacci sequences, odes, and open forms to describe experiences from a range of socio cultural perspectives. The collection explores composition, childhood freedoms, the complexities of intimacy, and short pieces about moveable objects.

Welcome to Kluskey's spacer hangout. Here, spacers swap yarns of ghost ships, space monsters, the weird and wonderful and the downright daft. In this story the hangout is visited by alien monks keen to try Tam Kluskey’s famous burgers.The five little men who walk into Kluskey’s are no ordinary customers. They are Shantaitha, monks from the planet Gide, making an epic journey across human space. On the way, they would like Kluskey Burgers.

This is a short story, in the science fiction/horror genre. It is told in the first person. The narrator is in a kind of prison for the criminally insane. He is highly intelligent, but an extreme sociopath.The story opens in Melbourne in the mid 21st Century, as the world is on the brink of a calamitous nuclear conflict. Our hero, Simon Redhead, is a young university student who is unaware that his genetic make-up has conspired to make him a manifestation of the 'Everlasting Hero'. Simon is saved from the forces of evil that are also looking for him and taken to FirstWorld, where he learns about its history and the eternal battle between Law and Chaos into which he is to be thrust. FirstWorld is at the centre of the multiverse – perhaps an infinite number of dimensions that reflect the various probabilities of existence. Originally, there was a single universe and time was linear. We discover that Simon and another manifestation of the Everlasting Hero were responsible for the Sundering, which caused the formation of the multiverse. We are confronted with the possibility that Fate controls everything we do in life and that we have no control over our own actions.Simon finds a group of friends and colleagues to help him in his great quest. There’s a wizard (one of the last of the wise, created by the Great Old Ones to maintain the Balance), an elf, a dwarf, a human warrior, a being of currently uncertain parentage who is the Hero’s companion, and a strange fellow who is perhaps a bard and could be either a friend or a foe. There are possible friends and potential enemies around every turn. There’s a wizard turned evil, who is the main protagonist in Volume One, and there’s the big evil bad guy who won’t be vanquished (or will he?) until Volume Four.We follow two groups of this fellowship as they travel within FirstWorld and through the dimensions and have to overcome many challenges, as well as Simon’s individual journeys through time. Simon’s first quest is to find his Sword, a very powerful talisman, and learn how to control and use it. Others seek it too. When he finds it, there’s an internal moral struggle as to whether he should use its great power. After great soul searching and hiding away in the past, Simon realises that he must accept and face his destiny as the Everlasting Hero and he must use the Sword to save his friends and attempt to defeat the evil wizard, just when all seems lost.

The Machineries of Joy • (1962) The One Who Waits • (1949) Tyrannosaurus Rex • (1962) The Vacation • (1963) The Drummer Boy of Shiloh • (1960) Boys! Raise Giant Mushrooms in Your Cellar! • (1962) Almost the End of the World • (1957) Perhaps We Are Going Away • (1962) And the Sailor, Home from the Sea • (1960) El Dia de Muerte • (1947) The Illustrated Woman • (1961) Some Live Like Lazarus • (1960) A Miracle of Rare Device • (1961) And So Died Riabouchinska • (1953) The Beggar on O'Connell Bridge • (1961) Death and the Maiden • (1960) A Flight of Ravens • (1952) The Best of All Possible Worlds • (1960) The Lifework of Juan Diaz • (1963) To the Chicago Abyss • (1963) The Anthem Sprinters • (1963)

In ASSASSIN’S CODE, the fourth book in New York Times bestselling author Jonathan Maberry’s Joe Ledger series, Joe Ledger and the DMS go on a relentless chase to stop an ancient order of killers from plunging the entire world into Holy War. When Joe Ledger and Echo Team rescue a group of American college kids held hostage in Iran,the Iranian government then asks them to help find six nuclear bombs planted in the Mideast oil fields. These stolen WMDs will lead Joe and Echo Team into hidden vaults of forbidden knowledge, mass-murder, betrayal, and a brotherhood of genetically-engineered killers with a thirst for blood. Accompanied by the beautiful assassin called Violin, Joe follows a series of clues to find the Book of Shadows, which contains a horrifying truth that threatens to shatter his entire worldview. They say the truth will set you free… Not this time. The secrets of the Assassin’s Code will set the world ablaze.

The fourfold sting of the eye teeth balanced the gut-wretchedness of his looming hangover, so that Spar's mind floated as free as his body in the blackness of Windrush, in which shone only a couple of running lights dim as churning dream-glow and infinitely distant as the Bridge or the Stern.