Gladiator

      Philip Wylie
     Gladiator

The product of an amazing biological experiment, Hugo Danner was born and grew up free from the fears that inhibit other men... with an infinitely superior mind and a sex-drive that put insatiable women at his feet and turned men green with envy. Considered by many to be the inspiration for the character Superman.

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    Terror on Telderan

      Lawrence Johnson Sr.
     Terror on Telderan

This short story takes place before Escape 2 Earth 2012. It tells the story of the planet that crashed into Earth during Escape 2 Earth. In this story you'll learn how Telderan was damaged so badly it was thrown off course and headed for Earth. The story also depicts the roles of Earth's Guardians and the Planetary Alliance before the planet was disrupted and the crop circle messages began.INSIDE — SET FIRE TO THE RAIN: Part Two of UNCENSORED’s Exclusive Interview with Daytime’s Best Actress (And 2010’s Sexiest Woman Alive) Y&R’s Michelle Stafford In Her Most Personal and Honest Interview Ever — “I Felt Like A Failure!” Exclusive: ONE LIFE’s Trevor St. John on Todd’s Arrest For Victor’s “Murder!” Report: Is THE REVOLUTION Being Cancelled? Is GH Safe? GH’s Maurice Benard Sounds Off on JFP, Garin Wolf, Megan Ward, and Cartini! Rumour: Is Billy Miller Leaving Y&R? Find Out! Plus: Is Y&R Already Planning a Tristan Rogers Comeback? Y&R Spoiler: Find Out How Harmony Falls For: Tucker, Neil or Sarge! Plus: A Neil-Ashley Redux? B&B: Katherine Kelly Lang On Losing Her Pre-Nom! GH: The Return of Liason! Plus: More Franco! Why Tyler Christopher Wants to Finish Off GH’s Nikolas For Good! Kristian Alfonso Toronto-Bound! DAYS: Divorce for Sami and Rafe! More On The GH DVR Blackout? Plus: Last Week's Reviews, Unbelievable Blind Items, and Next Week's Cheat Sheet!

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    Brane Child

      D.L. Morrese
     Brane Child

The Brane Skip device may allow a spaceship to skip between layers of reality, bypass normal space, and avoid the universal speed limit—the speed of light. Lisa Chang, mission commander for its first crewed test, doesn't trust it. It seems like magic to her, and she doesn't believe in magic, not even after the ship skips to a fantasy version of Earth, complete with dragons, orcs, and wizards.The Brane Skip device designed in the twenty-second century is intended to move a spaceship between the membranes of reality in order to get around the universal speed limit: 'Thou shall not go faster than light'. The theory behind the device is unproven, the technology experimental, but if there are side paths through the universe of normal space, there should be short cuts where speed limits simply don't apply.The unmanned tests of the Brane Skip are inconclusive. The probes wink out and then back into existence, but all they record in between is a mysterious gray haze. No one knows where they go. But they must go somewhere. The automated systems can't say. It's time to send volunteers.The Brane Skip seems like magic to Lisa Chang, the young engineer in command the first crewed test flight, and Chang doesn't believe in magic. But she does believe in the mission. Humanity must explore space in order to survive and prosper, and she feels honored to be among the first to go where no one has gone before. She does not know what will happen when the Brane Skip device engages. She thinks it will do nothing. She fears it will explode. What she does not expect is popping out adrift in space and on a collision course with a fantasy version of Earth, complete with dragons, orcs, and wizards.Unfortunately, this is exactly what happens.

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    Through Fire

      Jacob Magnus
     Through Fire

Surrounded by wild lands and death machines, the last city relies on the riggers to carry water and vital supplies. Flint, driver of the toughest rig, loves the freedom of the open way, and hates the cruel customs of the city, but when the President's daughter tries to run in his rig, he must dare terrors without and treachery within to protect her, even if it means running through fire.When the mysterious murder of a rival company's security guard stirs the curiosity of New York City billionaire Abram Guy, he dons his goggles and grabs his Skeleton Key to investigate as the Innovator in the dead of night. However, upon his investigation, the only thing he finds to be right about the investigation is that there was more to it than met the eye.And how right he was...Aided by both his personal assistant Duke Costello and a persistent, yet unwelcome guest, the Innovator follows the breadcrumb of clues left at the scene of the murder, only to stumble upon a discovery that could change the very progression of mankind. But how can the goggled guardian hope to protect such a discovery, when its very threat is humanity itself?

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    Eternal Love

      Lev Minkovsky
     Eternal Love

A moving love story with elements of sci-fi and humor and an epigraph from Nietzsche. A meditation on time and timelessness, memory and forgetting. A drama of an immortal man falling for a mortal woman. Read it if you want to learn what it is like to be immortal living amidst mortals, and whether love can truly be eternal in a world where everything is transient and fleeting...A moving love story with elements of sci-fi and humor and an epigraph from Nietzsche. A meditation on time and timelessness, memory and forgetting. A drama of an immortal man falling for a mortal woman. Read it if you want to learn what it is like to be immortal living amidst mortals and whether love can truly be eternal in the world where everything is transient and fleeting...A beautiful young woman in a university town meets a man at a bus stop. She doesn't realize that he is much older than he looks, because he doesn't age. A whirlwind romance follows, and they settle in a small single-story house, their future home of many decades and the only house she will ever own. Eventually the man moves to New York City and resurrects her in his memory in a truly astonishing way.The author created a web site dedicated to this story, eternallove.love, with a few extras including a detailed floor plan and furniture layout of the dwelling of its heroes.

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    The Confederation Handbook

      Peter F. Hamilton
     The Confederation Handbook

The Night's Dawn Trilogy is one of the most triumphant works of science fiction to appear in decades. Swiftly gathering a worldwide readership, this masterwork of cosmic imagination and storytelling brought to life an entire galaxy of diverse planets and astonishing civilizations. At the core is the Confederation, an assembly of human and alien colony worlds whose cultures, conflicts, and turmoil are described over a Timeline of nearly 600 years. "The Confederation Handbook" is Peter F. Hamilton's companion guide to the diverse elements in the massive universe he created. Including a full list of characters and their roles and, of course, details of the Timeline itself, this is a must-read for Hamilton's fans.

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    Danger! and Other Stories

      Arthur Conan Doyle
     Danger! and Other Stories

A collection of short stories, some of which have to do with the war. The longest and most noteworthy of the ten tales which make up this book is the one which gives its name to the collection. " Danger!". The most notable thing about “ Danger!" is the fact that it was written about a year and a half before the outbreak of the great war. The events related in it resemble so closely those which have actually transpired during those four years; but when one recollects that no one of these had happened at the date when it was written, it becomes a very remarkable bit of prophecy.

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    The Trilisk Ruins

      Michael McCloskey
     The Trilisk Ruins

When a group of artifact smugglers recruits her, Telisa can't pass up the chance at getting her hands on objects that could advance her life's work. But she soon learns her expectations of excitement and riches come with serious drawbacks as she ends up fighting for her life on a mysterious alien planet.Telisa Relachik studied to be a xenoarchaeologist in a future where humans study alien artifacts but haven't ever encountered live aliens. Of all the aliens whose extinct civilizations are studied, the Trilisks are the most advanced and the most mysterious.Telisa refuses to join the government because of her opposition to its hard-handed policies restricting civilian investigation and trade of alien artifacts, despite the fact that her estranged father is a captain in the United Nations Space Force.When a group of artifact smugglers recruits her, she can't pass up the chance at getting her hands on objects that could advance her life's work. But she soon learns her expectations of excitement and riches come with serious drawbacks as she ends up fighting for her life on a mysterious alien planet.The Trilisk Ruins is a science fiction adventure of 70,000 words and the first book in the PIT series.

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    Memory Stick

      Paul Comstock
     Memory Stick

Imagine a world where IQ means nothing. Where another measure, something called PQ, Potential Quotient, has replaced it, and where a person's worth is determined by this measure instead. For Low Pots like Tricia Clark, a brilliant girl with a high IQ but low PQ, it means being stuck in a prison she can never break free of, or does it?Imagine a world where IQ means nothing. Where another measure, something called PQ, Potential Quotient, has replaced it, and where a person's worth is determined by this measure instead. For Low Pots like Tricia Clark, a brilliant girl with a high IQ but low PQ, it means being stuck in a prison she can never break free of, or does it?Also Included in Space and Waste, Anthology #2 (ISBN 9781476146225) and Anthology #3 (ISBN 9781476122038)

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    The Judgement Conundrum

      Lacerant Plainer
     The Judgement Conundrum

Lacerant Plainer’s new short story is set in the near future, and with its fast-paced action, dystopian world and warring humans and aliens it ticks all the boxes for a near-perfect first contact tale.Dylan crouched against the wall. He listened carefully for any further sound. His alertness was vindicated by the whoosh of a vehicle passing by, its air cushion blowing out an immense amount of dust and debris.Making himself as small as possible, he froze into a ball, waiting for the vehicle to pass. The sound continued and then there was an explosion, as someone fired at the wall where he had been hiding. He managed to somersault away from the wall as he smelt the ozone an instant before the blast. He crawled away slowly, moving an inch at a time. The commander of the flying vehicle scanned the area again. The psi-scan showed a human in close proximity, but it seemed to be wounded.Lacerant Plainer’s new short story is set in the near future, and with its fast-paced action, dystopian world and warring humans and aliens it ticks all the boxes for a near-perfect first contact tale. But is it? Or is there another point of view to the destruction of Earth, the concept of war and the perspective of aliens? Read this cracking account of the interaction between humans and Xylex, and the implications of greed, short-sightedness, violence and judgments.

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    Earths Survivors The Zombie Killers: Origins

      Dell Sweet
     Earths Survivors The Zombie Killers: Origins

The Zombie Killers are the men and women who keep the new settlements safe for the other survivors. Those in the Nation and those in the Fold, and the many independent colonies that would not be able to exist without their help and intervention. They are the ones who search out supplies, fight the Zombie Plagues so that the others can live in safety...THE ZOMBIE KILLERS: ORIGINSBearAugust 4thWe were down along the river checking over some of the old buildings that are perched on the cliffs there, high above the water. Fall was not far away, and we knew we had to get moving, get out of this dead city. We had half the country to cross and find a place before winter came back around again. We had left the others in our place off the park - an abandoned factory building I had found after I had lost Donita - and struck out looking for food earlier that morning. With the park and its crowds so near to us, the shops and small stores for blocks around us were stripped clean. Another reason to get out of the city. It was time. I remember thinking that as I walked along.I was thinking back to March as I walked. Not really paying attention to the walk, where I was going... March... Just a few months ago, but the world was still the world then. And for the next little while there, we didn't even know about the dead. Dead was still dead. When you closed your eyes for the long eternal sleep you didn't wake up a short minute later as something else. No. We were ignorant up until they decided to come after us. Ignorant. Stupid. Didn't know a thing. Didn't have a clue. I had been in Central Park a few days after the first earthquakes hit. I had left Donita alone and went down on my own to see what the deal was. I found out nothing. No one knew any more than any one else. There was a lot of speculation, but that was it. There had been earthquakes. It had rained hard for nearly twenty four hours straight. The really freaky stuff hadn't happened yet. We were just starting down our new path, but what was clear was that thousands of people had died in the city, maybe more than thousands, maybe a million or more. And certainly millions if the damage here was the same across the country... or worldwide. And my initial estimate turned out to be a kind. In the city alone: collapsed buildings, fires, exposure to the elements because there was no shelter. There were millions of bodies. It was not so bad in those first few days, but a few days later, when the smell of the dead rotting under the rubble began, it was horrible. The diseases started then too. And the diseases took thousands more, and we thought that was the end of it, but it was not. The dead came next. The same dead, newly risen to some other sort of life. But that day in Central Park I did not know about the dead yet. I had no idea what was ahead; what was before me was bad enough...The Zombie Killers are the men and women who keep the new settlements safe for the other Earth's Survivors. Those in the Nation and those in the Fold, and the many independent colonies that would not be able to exist without their help and intervention. They are the ones who search out supplies, fight the Zombie Plagues and live in the constant danger of the real world so that the others can live in the safety of their settlements.In this first book they come into their own as a team and set themselves on the true course that they will follow from then on, with one mission only: To wipe out the Zombie Plagues infesting the world and make it a safe place to live and die once more. Whether through fighting them or finding the reason and the cure for the Zombie Plagues that have infested the world.

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    It's Just a Job

      Walter Lazo
     It's Just a Job

A specialist in photographing places that are not supposed to exist, from a safe distance, is enticed by an obscene amount of money into infiltrating an abandoned Research Facility. There he will discover that it is never a good idea to deviate from standard operating procedure. It’s just a job, but sometimes it’s not what the job pays, but what it extracts.Rumours of a remote magical resource becoming active again attract disparate factions. Artous is a dwimmerscout who examines such resources. His regular duties don't include getting between warring factions. Sometimes it can't be helped, forcing him to negotiate a peace amid violence and veiled motives. A 3,400 word fantasy short story.

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    The Anzu: Alec

      Mary S. Sheppard
     The Anzu: Alec

The Anzu, a spaceship built for exploration of the galaxy, has been operational for about one year. Everything has been functioning optimally and the Zandu believe the humans, the most recently invited species, and the others, are ready to go ahead with their mission. It could be risky with such a diverse group.The mission of The Anzu was clear and simple, the exploration of space. The Zandu, the builders of the spaceship, were a highly advanced and logical race and they planned to include other species in their quest. Their intent was not only to learn from their travels, but also to learn from each other, they had not counted on how disparate intelligent beings could be. When Alec was born in Santa Cruz, California, he had no idea he would be part of a interplanetary crew. There are currently twenty-four humans on board and after a year in space, there is one thing Alec knows for sure, there is nowhere else he would rather be, even if the humans are not in the majority or in charge.

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    The Adoration of Jenna Fox

      Mary E. Pearson
     The Adoration of Jenna Fox

A seventeen-year-old girl wakes from a year-long coma and is told her name is Jenna Fox. She doesn't remember the accident; she doesn't remember her life; she doesn't remember herself. Her parents show her home movies of her past, but is she really the same girl she sees on the screen? When the memories start to come, they come with questions - questions no one wants to answer. How did the accident happen? Why does her own grandmother hate her so? And why does she feel her parents are hiding her away? Who is Jenna Fox?

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