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Original Strand

The human race did its best to annihilate itself and certainly went out with a bang. Hundreds of nuclear devices and biological viruses have transformed the earth into a no man’s land. For the isolated moon survivors, biodiversity takes on a whole new meaning.The story is roughly 9 700 words and was originally published in the June edition (2012) of eFiction.The human race did its best to annihilate itself and certainly went out with a bang. Hundreds of nuclear devices and biological viruses have transformed the earth into a no man’s land. For the isolated moon survivors, biodiversity takes on a whole new meaning.The story is roughly 9 700 words and was originally published in the June edition (2012) of eFiction. It is offered as a marketing freebie to convince readers to purchase other material from the author.
Views: 730

The Orphan Army

Milo's Louisiana bayou is overrun with alien bug invaders and magical creatures in this start to a breathtaking series from bestselling author Jonathan Maberry. In a world filled with Bugs - monsters that ceaselessly ravage the Earth - Milo Silk has a hard time keeping his dreams separate from reality. So he keeps them locked up in his dream journal and hopes they'll never come to pass. But too often, they do - like when his father disappeared three years ago. Lately, the Witch of the World has been haunting his dreams, saying he is destined to be the hero who saves everyone. But all Milo can think about is how he fears the Bugs will attack his own camp, and bring something even more terrible than ever before. What Milo doesn't know is that the Earth is already fighting back with its own natural power in the form of Nightsiders, magical creatures who prefer shadows to sunlight and who reside in trees, caves, and rivers. And the Nightsiders are ready to find an ally in Milo!
Views: 729

Broken Angels

Welcome back to the brash, brutal new world of the twenty-fifth century: where global politics isn’t just for planet Earth anymore; and where death is just a break in the action, thanks to the techno-miracle that can preserve human consciousness and download it into one new body after another. Cynical, quick-on-the-trigger Takeshi Kovacs, the ex-U.N. envoy turned private eye, has changed careers, and bodies, once more . . . trading sleuthing for soldiering as a warrior-for-hire, and helping a far-flung planet’s government put down a bloody revolution. But when it comes to taking sides, the only one Kovacs is ever really on is his own. So when a rogue pilot and a sleazy corporate fat cat offer him a lucrative role in a treacherous treasure hunt, he’s only too happy to go AWOL with a band of resurrected soldiers of fortune. All that stands between them and the ancient alien spacecraft they mean to salvage are a massacred city bathed in deadly radiation, unleashed nanotechnology with a million ways to kill, and whatever surprises the highly advanced Martian race may have in store. But armed with his genetically engineered instincts, and his trusty twin Kalashnikovs, Takeshi is ready to take on anything—and let the devil take whoever’s left behind.
Views: 727

Not on My Patch

Just another Hallowe'en in the Young Wizards universe... In this 14,000-word novelette, written for UNICEF's 60th annual "Trick or Treat for UNICEF" campaign, we tag along with Nita Callahan, Kit Rodriguez, Ronan Nolan, and Dairine Callahan as they do a little overage Trick or Treating in their own neighborhood, and find themselves going up against an old adversary with a peculiar new ally...
Views: 726

The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl: Squirrel Meets World

WHO RUNS THE WORLD? SQUIRRELS! Fourteen-year-old Doreen Green moved from sunny California to the suburbs of New Jersey. She must start at a new school, make new friends, and continue to hide her tail. Yep, Doreen has the powers of . . . a squirrel! After failing at several attempts to find her new BFF, Doreen feels lonely and trapped, liked a caged animal. Then one day Doreen uses her extraordinary powers to stop a group of troublemakers from causing mischief in the neighborhood, and her whole life changes. Everyone at school is talking about it! Doreen contemplates becoming a full-fledged Super Hero. And thus, Squirrel Girl is born! She saves cats from trees, keeps the sidewalks clean, and dissuades vandalism. All is well until a real-life Super Villain steps out of the shadows and declares Squirrel Girl his archenemy. Can Doreen balance being a teenager and a Super Hero? Or will she go . . . NUTS?
Views: 724

Cory's in Goal

Cory Towson is the new kid at school and on the Grandview soccer team. When a split-second accident ends the star ‘keeper’s season, Cory also finds himself the new kid in goal, with the team’s hopes for the championship riding on his shoulders. With riveting action on and off the soccer pitch, Cory’s in Goal follows a boy’s quest for excellence and stability in his fast changing world.Sophomore Cory Towson is the new kid in town, at school, and on the Grandview soccer team. When a split-second accident ends Grandview’s star ‘keeper’s season, Cory also finds himself the new kid in goal, with the team’s hopes for the championship riding on his shoulders. Time after time, he fails to defend his goal. The team’s bully sweeper increases the pressure. Other teammates avoid eye contact in the locker room and at school. As if that weren’t enough, when Cory rides his bike home through the wide high desert streets, the house is always empty, his mom out with her new boyfriend once again. His parents’ divorce has landed him and his mom in Southern California, and he hasn’t heard from his dad since they left Utah many months back. Cory feels alone except for one nerdy friend, Gene, and a personal goalkeeper coach he can trust to watch his back…or can he? Will betrayal and self-doubt take Cory down, along with Grandview’s chances for victory? With riveting action on the soccer pitch, on suburban streets, and even in a secret hideaway, Cory’s in Goal follows a boy’s quest for goalkeeping excellence and stability in his fast-changing world.
Views: 722

Dare Quest - Sherlock Holmes

There is an evil man prowling the streets of London in 1892. He lures poor children with food and the promise of a better life. Where does he take the children? A terrible murder is committed. What is the dark secret behind it? It's a case for Sherlock Holmes. Then Edward and Anthony are called in on the case...There is an evil man prowling the streets of London in 1892. He lures poor children with food and the promise of a better life. Where does he take the children? A terrible murder is committed. What is the dark secret behind it? It's a case for Sherlock Holmes. Then Edward and Anthony are called in on the case. Who made the dare? And what is the connection between the murder and the missing children? Can YOU survive the Dare Quest challenge?
Views: 721

Tess of the Road

Meet Tess, a brave new heroine from beloved epic fantasy author Rachel Hartman. In the medieval kingdom of Goredd, women are expected to be ladies, men are their protectors, and dragons get to be whomever they want. Tess, stubbornly, is a troublemaker. You can’t make a scene at your sister’s wedding and break a relative’s nose with one punch (no matter how pompous he is) and not suffer the consequences. As her family plans to send her to a nunnery, Tess yanks on her boots and sets out on a journey across the Southlands, alone and pretending to be a boy. Where Tess is headed is a mystery, even to her. So when she runs into an old friend, it’s a stroke of luck. This friend is a quigutl—a subspecies of dragon—who gives her both a purpose and protection on the road. But Tess is guarding a troubling secret. Her tumultuous past is a heavy burden to carry, and the memories she’s tried to forget threaten to expose her to the world in more ways than one. Returning to the fascinating world she created in the award-winning and New York Times bestselling Seraphina, Rachel Hartman introduces readers to a new character and a new quest, pushing the boundaries of genre once again in this wholly original fantasy.
Views: 719

Rot and Ruin

In the zombie-infested, post-apocalyptic America where Benny Imura lives, every teenager must find a job by the time they turn fifteen or get their rations cut in half. Benny doesn't want to apprentice as a zombie hunter with his boring older brother Tom, but he has no choice. He expects a tedious job whacking zoms for cash, but what he gets is a vocation that will teach him what it means to be human.
Views: 714

Code Zero

For years the Department of Military Sciences has fought to stop terrorists from using radical bioweapons—designer plagues, weaponized pathogens, genetically modified viruses, and even the zombie plague that first brought Ledger into the DMS. These terrible weapons have been locked away in the world’s most secure facility. Until now. Joe Ledger and Echo Team are scrambled when a highly elite team of killers breaks the unbreakable security and steals the world’s most dangerous weapons. Within days there are outbreaks of mass slaughter and murderous insanity across the American heartland. Can Joe Ledger stop a brilliant and devious master criminal from turning the Land of the Free into a land of the dead?  Code Zero, a Joe Ledger novel from Jonathan Maberry, is the exciting direct sequel to Patient Zero
Views: 714

That Mouse Is High

A father frantically prepares for his daughter's birthday party only to come across a stumbling block that threatens to ruin the day. A short story by Scott Semegran.Horrified by the violence following Iran's 2009 contested presidential elections, the author, Mojdeh Marashi is reminded of her parents’ ordeal during another disheartening event for Iranian people, the 1953 coup d'état. Saboteur, the first of a series, is told by a pair of white doves who in the tradition of old Persian storytellers recount the event in a hot summer afternoon when a sea of men inThis is a fictional memoir by Mojdeh Marashi, a writer, translator, artist and designer who is deeply influenced by the ancient and modern history of Iran. This story merges the world of magical realism in Persian literature that Mojdeh grew up reading, the reality of the world she lives in today, and the utopia she dreams about.Mojdeh is the translator (from Persian, with Chad Sweeney) of The Selected Poems of H. E. Sayeh: The Art of Stepping Through Time (White Pine, 2011). Her fiction was published in the anthology Let Me Tell You Where I’ve Been: Women of the Iranian Diaspora (University of Arkansas, 2006). She was born in Tehran, Iran and moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1977, and now lives and work in Palo Alto, California. She is the Managing Partner at Blurred Whisper, an Idea and Design studio in Palo Alto, California, which she co-founded in 2002.Mojdeh studied at California College of Arts (CCA) and later at San Francisco State University where she earned her M.A. in Interdisciplinary Arts and an M.A. in Creative Writing.
Views: 713

Beautiful Struggle

An exceptional father-son story about the reality that tests us, the myths that sustain us, and the love that saves us. Paul Coates was an enigmatic god to his sons: a Vietnam vet who rolled with the Black Panthers, an old-school disciplinarian and new-age believer in free love, an autodidact who launched a publishing company in his basement dedicated to telling the true history of African civilization. Most of all, he was a wily tactician whose mission was to carry his sons across the shoals of inner-city adolescence--and through the collapsing civilization of Baltimore in the Age of Crack--and into the safe arms of Howard University, where he worked so his children could attend for free. Among his brood of seven, his main challenges were Ta-Nehisi, spacey and sensitive and almost comically miscalibrated for his environment, and Big Bill, charismatic and all-too-ready for the challenges of the streets. The Beautiful Struggle follows their divergent paths through this turbulent period, and their father's steadfast efforts--assisted by mothers, teachers, and a body of myths, histories, and rituals conjured from the past to meet the needs of a troubled present--to keep them whole in a world that seemed bent on their destruction. With a remarkable ability to reimagine both the lost world of his father's generation and the terrors and wonders of his own youth, Coates offers readers a small and beautiful epic about boys trying to become men in black America and beyond.
Views: 712

Cold Stairs

Winner of an Honorable Mention Virginia Tech Literary Award, this story takes place in Eastern Kentucky and is based on what might have been a true ghost story. I consider this to be my best finished piece, and I look forward to your feedback. Enjoy!What if you found out your whole life was a lie, and that was after you were turned into a vampire?"I don't know what blood tastes like to a human. I'd never even licked a tiny drop of it from a pricked finger, let alone suck on a bleeding cut. Now it's my only food source." Meet teenage runaway Ellie. She's snarky, witty, funny, and has issues with her mother, just like any other 17-year-old girl.She's also a vampire.Days before her 18th birthday, the mysterious and handsome immortal Christian, turned her into a creature that she loathes, forcing her to leave her old life behind forever and move to London. Thrust into the supernatural world, full of magic and danger, Ellie doesn't want to be a killer.She doesn't even like to drink blood.But Christian wasn't completely honest about why he'd taken a romantic interest in her, and he wasn't the only one keeping things from her, either.Her mother was hiding the same secret.Truth is: Ellie was never an ordinary teenager, and now, she's no ordinary teen vampire. When she discovers why she's not like others of her kind, why she protects humans instead of hunting them, she realises that her life is about to change all over again.And the world as she knows it will never be the same...Poison Blood, Book 2: Absolution is also free to download and answers some of the questions raised in Book 1, while asking many more...What Readers Said About Poison Blood, Book 1: Revelation'What great book' 5-stars~ B&N Nook Review'This is definitely not a soppy vampire romance! As usual with Neha Yazmin's novels, things are never as they seem.' 5-stars~ Amazon UK Review'Awesome. This was great, couldn't put it down.' 5-stars~ iBooks Australia Review'I am definitely hooked on the Poison Blood series. This is a character-driven story. Neha's characters' depths are what drive her stories, each with their hidden secrets.' 5-stars~ Smashwords ReviewBook Details:Length: A 29,000-word paranormal urban fantasy novel with added bonus contentGenre: Teen & YA Paranormal Romance / YA Vampire Romance / Teen Paranormal Fantasy / YA Urban Fantasy / Young Adult & Teen Science Fiction & Fantasy / Fantasy Romance / Paranormal Urban Fantasy / Supernatural Romance / Supernatural & Fantasy Mood: Dark / Humorous / Coming of ageContent: No violence / No explicit sex scenes / No eroticaAudience: For Teens / Young Adults / New Adults / AdultsRecommended for: Readers that love all things vampires, slayers and witches!This book is suitable for fans of Twilight, The Mortal Instruments and A Shade of Vampire and readers that love all things related to the Chosen One, vampires, slayers and witches!
Views: 711

Dinner Party

How far has humanity come as far as enriching the soul? Join Mr Parker as guests from the past come to discuss this question.An aetheric chain-reaction sends a wave of death rolling around the world, warping living beings and aether-based technology alike. In one afternoon, trains go from being the power that pushed civilization out to the frontier, to being very expensive sheds of scrap metal, filled with rotting produce and dying cattle. Cities go hungry.The farmers are in hardly better shape than their former customers in the city. Some trees bear withered fruit, while gobbets of exploded fruit flesh drape the limbs of others. One wheat stalk might be strong and firm, but its neighbor disintegrates to dust at a touch. Harvesting crops takes more work, but yields less food. People try not to starve, using a variety of tactics.The Loyale traveling circus survives the aether storm mostly unscathed and decides to continue touring despite the difficulties. When the circus comes to Seppanen Town, all seems well until a ragged fugitive plunges into their camp and begs for sanctuary.
Views: 710

Vatican Assassin

It's 2109. BC - Bernard Campion - poses as a priest, but he's an assassin for the New catholic Church. His new assignment: Assassinate Meredith McEntyre, Governor of Lunar Prime, the non-aligned city-state on the Moon. BC tries to take care of his “business” during an out of control interplanetary War between the west and Islam. He doesn't know it yet, but BC's next move will change everything!The war between The Universal Trade Zone, the commercial power of Earth, and the UIN, the Universal Islamic Nation, based on Mars, continues. BC's bosses in the Office of Papal Operations - the OPO - say Luna Prime Governor McEntyre has been sympathizing with the enemy, the UIN. They can't let her give the Moon to them. That's where he comes in. BC works for the Pope, "officially" assigned as PR man to the Cardinal and the Vatican Mission on Luna Prime. Just a mild mannered, young, twenty-something priest working for the New catholic Church on public relations. But under his cover he's a weapon pointed at the UIN by the NcC and their Earth based allies, the UTZ. As he goes off, the repercussions will be cosmic...
Views: 709