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John Perry did two things on his 75th birthday. First he visited his wife's grave. Then he joined the army.
The good news is that humanity finally made it into interstellar space. The bad news is that planets fit to live on are scarce-- and alien races willing to fight us for them are common. So: we fight. To defend Earth, and to stake our own claim to planetary real estate. Far from Earth, the war has been going on for decades: brutal, bloody, unyielding.
Earth itself is a backwater. The bulk of humanity's resources are in the hands of the Colonial Defense Force. Everybody knows that when you reach retirement age, you can join the CDF. They don't want young people; they want people who carry the knowledge and skills of decades of living. You'll be taken off Earth and never allowed to return. You'll serve two years at the front. And if you survive, you'll be given a generous homestead stake of your own, on one of our hard-won colony planets.
John Perry is taking that deal. He has only the vaguest idea what to expect. Because the actual fight, light-years from home, is far, far harder than he can imagine--and what he will become is far stranger. Views: 798
From New York Times bestselling author Gail Carriger comes the delightful sequel to Imprudence.
Accidentally abandoned!
All alone in Singapore, proper Miss Primrose Tunstell must steal helium to save her airship, the Spotted Custard, in a scheme involving a lovesick werecat and a fake fish tail.
When she uncovers rumors of a new kind of vampire, Prim and the Custard crew embark on a mission to Peru. There, they encounter airship pirates and strange atmospheric phenomena, and are mistaken for representatives of the Spanish Inquisition. Forced into extreme subterfuge (and some rather ridiculous outfits) Prim must also answer three of life's most challenging questions:
Can the perfect book club give a man back his soul?
Will her brother ever stop wearing his idiotic velvet fez?
And can the amount of lard in Christmas pudding save an entire species? Views: 798
It's been eighty-six years since the Red Sox won a World Series. Eighty-six years cursed.
Twelve-year-old Oscar Egg be-lieves he is cursed, just like the Red Sox. His real parents didn't want him, and now his adopted mom has dumped him off to live with his strange, sickly dad.
But there's something Oscar doesn't know. The Boston Red Sox really are cursed, and not just because they sold Babe Ruth in 1919. Someone deliberately jinxed the team, and the secret to breaking the Curse lies deep below Fenway Park, with Oscar's dad and the Cursed Creatures, a group that has been doomed to live out their miserable lives below Fenway until the Curse is broken.
Oscar knows he can be the one to break the Curse, allowing the Red Sox to finally win the World Series and setting the Cursed Creatures free. But some of the creatures are angry. Some don't want the Curse broken. Some want Oscar, and the Red Sox, to fail and remain cursed forever. Views: 798
Herb Moss is a nice young man. He's a Vegan. It's a good life, really; he's engaged to his childhood sweetheart Lily, has a job with his father's firm, and can look forward to a solid if unexciting future. And if he's bored and wistful every time he thinks about it--well, that's normal, isn't it? Surely, thinks Herb, a little romantic correspondence on the side can do no harm. Especially if Lily doesn't find out.
Meanwhile, on a planet far away, a nice young woman named Spring only wishes she were bored. Spring's been living with her widowed father Gabriel, a practicing sorcerer, keeping house and helping out with the business. It's been a good life. But the evil wizard Zygote has learned of the existence of those secrets. And he'll do anything to get them, including the obvious.
When Gabriel is killed, Spring takes refuge with the austere Order of Companions. There, grieving and lonely, she places a personal ad, looking for a pen pal who can discuss botany. Little does she know that she's actually placed a personal ad in Play Plant magazine, and that her new pen pal Herb thinks she's interested in romance.
When Zygote closes in on her, Spring flees to the only friend she can think of: her buddy Herb. Trouble ensues--with Zygote following close behind it! Views: 798
Saying Toby Klein is an unlikely cheerleader is like saying Paris Hilton might be into guys-understatement of the year. But as a Bayport High cheerleader and an undercover government operative, she's living a life that's anything but typical. Being on the Squad has its benefits, but just as Toby is getting the hang of protocol and pep rallies, fate kicks things up anotch. "From the Paperback edition." Views: 798
"Children of a Sunless Land" is the first installment in the "Deaf Swordsman Series"."Children of a Sunless Land" is the first installment in the "Deaf Swordsman Series".Told in serial form, the Deaf Swordsman Series is a collection of stories featuring the fantastical deaf swordsman, Vohro Vahllenu. These set of stories is a sprawling epic of good and evil, bringing together the supernatural and weird, featuring dark fantasy adventures sure to resonate with both the hardcore and casual reader of dark fantasy literature.The stories begin and end in chaos, promising the reader a wild ride through the darkest bowels of the imagination while offering moments of deep reflection. Here are the terror-inducing tales of children clad in beastly armor, of people consumed by their own shadows, and of dark nights spent under the auspices of an angry moon.Embark on perilous journeys into unknown places like an abandoned asylum floating in the open, midnight sky, or an eerie forest characterized by the continuous sounds of echoing whispers. These are some of the places you'll venture into, following a fierce avenger armed with nine of the deadliest blades known to mankind, as he rides from the seen into the unseen, where hope and doom are bound only by the thinnest threads of humanity.Series No. 1: Children of a Sunless Land: 8,000 words (the equivalent to 30 paperback pages).*Includes illustrations. Views: 798
Emika Chen barely made it out of the Warcross Championships alive. Now that she knows the truth behind Hideo's new NeuroLink algorithm, she can no longer trust the one person she's always looked up to, who she once thought was on her side.
Determined to put a stop to Hideo's grim plans, Emika and the Phoenix Riders band together, only to find a new threat lurking on the neon-lit streets of Tokyo. Someone's put a bounty on Emika's head, and her sole chance for survival lies with Zero and the Blackcoats, his ruthless crew. But Emika soon learns that Zero isn't all that he seems--and his protection comes at a price.
Caught in a web of betrayal, with the future of free will at risk, just how far will Emika go to take down the man she loves? Views: 797
Jacob Reckless continues to travel the portal in his father's abandoned study. His name has continued to be famous on the other side of the mirror, as a finder of enchanted items and buried secrets. His family and friends, from his brother, Will to the shape-shifting vixen, Fox, are on a collision course as the two worlds become connected. Who is driving these two worlds together and why is he always a step ahead?
This new force isn’t limiting its influence to just Jacob’s efforts – it has broadened the horizon within MirrorWorld. Jacob, Will and Fox travel east and into the Russian folklore, to the land of the Baba Yaga, pursued by a new type of being that knows our world all to well. Views: 797
I see dead people. Okay, that’s a lie. I hear dead people—on an antique radio…So far, that talent hasn’t brought Shannon Cheney fame or fortune. Since the world remains unaware that magick is real, being Gifted largely sucks. Her boss is an asshole, she makes minimum wage, and she’s got a serious case of forbidden lust for a sexy cop named Jesse Saldana. He’s part Mexican heat, all Texas charm, and enough of a dirty cowboy to curl her toes. Too bad he’s set on resisting her wiles.To make matters worse, there’s this weird amnesia thing happening. She might think she’s going crazy, except Jesse’s got it too, and memory loss isn’t contagious like the flu. When Shannon pokes around, trying to put the missing pieces together, demonic retaliation is swift and potentially deadly. Jesse’s too much of a white knight to let her face danger alone, and she’s hoping he can’t resist the white-hot chemistry blazing between them…----This is a spin-off from the Corine Solomon series. In terms of continuity, this is 3.5 and it fits in between Shady Lady and Devil's Punch. It's written in first-person in Shannon's POV and it's hotter than the Corine series. Views: 797
An Epsilon Sector Novella featuring Amalie.
Amalie is the last unmarried girl in Jain’s Ford settlement.
Life on a frontier farming planet in the twenty-eighth century has a few complications. The imported Earth animals and plants don’t always interact well with the local ecology, and there’s a shortage of doctors and teachers. The biggest problem though is the fact there are always more male than female colonists arriving from other worlds. Single men outnumber single women by ten to one, and girls are expected to marry at seventeen.
Amalie turned seventeen six months ago, and she’s had nineteen perfectly respectable offers of marriage. Everyone is pressuring her to choose a husband, or possibly two of them. When Amalie’s given an unexpected chance of a totally different future, she’s tempted to take it, but then she gets her twentieth offer of marriage and it’s one she can’t possibly refuse.
FRONTIER begins with Epsilon Sector 2788 – the short story about Amalie – and continues it to be a full novella. Views: 797
For fans of "The X-Files," "Fringe," and "Jurassic Park" comes the "Land of Enchantment"—a thrilling new series from award-winning filmmaker and author Randy Nargi which combines action, adventure, unexplained phenomena, and cutting-edge science."Shadow of the Lizard" is the first in this new series and is distributed in four parts.For fans of "The X-Files," "Fringe," and "Jurassic Park" comes the "Land of Enchantment"—a thrilling new series from award-winning filmmaker and author Randy Nargi which combines action, adventure, unexplained phenomena, and cutting-edge science."Shadow of the Lizard" is the first in this new series and is distributed in four parts.“This is a great, fast read—the first installment in what promises to be a very cool thriller/sci-fi series. Nargi's characters are well drawn, and the setting—a desert mountain wilderness near Albuquerque, New Mexico—forms the perfect backdrop as tension builds and mayhem ensues. What's lurking in the crags and recesses of the Sandia Peak Wilderness? The military's involved, but the investigation is hush-hush. Secretive. The mystery deepens with each succeeding page, and I want to know more. Can't wait for the next installments. --Ken Bennett, author of "The Gaia Wars" series“An intriguing tale of mystery and monsters in the Land of Enchantment... I'm hooked already!” --Benjamin Radford, author of "Tracking the Chupacabra"Overview:When two teenagers go on a romantic hike in Albuquerque’s Sandia Mountains, they encounter terror beyond imagination and set in motion a dangerous and unforeseeable chain of events.Episode 1 of the "Land of Enchantment" series—titled "Shadow of the Lizard"—is written in the tradition of the great pulp stories of the 1930s and 1940s. "Shadow of the Lizard" will be published in four 10,000-word installments, with one part released each week starting December 1.If you enjoy the fiction of James Rollins, Douglas Preston, Michael Crichton, Matthew Reilly, or J.A. Konrath, check out the "Land of Enchantment" series. Views: 797
This edition of the Grantville Gazette Volume 6 is derived directly from the online edition at http://www.grantvillegazette.com.
Stories include:
A Taste of Home by Chris Racciato
Federico and Ginger by Iver P. Cooper
Recycling by Philip Schillawski and John Rigby
Old Folks' Music by Gorg Huff and Paula Goodlett
Mightier than the Sword by Jay Robison
Grantville is Different by Russ Rittgers
The Woman Shall Not Wear That by Virginia DeMarce
Live Free by Karen Bergstralh
The Dalai Lama's Electric Buddha by Victor Klimov
The Doctor Gribbleflotz Chronicles, Part 1: Calling Dr. Phil by Kerryn Offord
Dr. Phil's Amazing Lightning Crystal by Kerryn Offord
Dr. Phil's Aeolian Transformers by Kerryn Offord and Rick Boatright
Exegesis and Interpretation of Up-timer Printed Matter by Francis Turner
Bouncing Back: Bringing Rubber to Grantville by Iver P. Cooper
On the Design, Construction and Maintenance of Wooden Aircraft by Jerry Hollombe
The Jews of 1632 by Douglas W. Jones Views: 797
Stories can be powerful. In 1719, Elizabeth Goose of Boston Massachusetts published a collection of rhyming spells as a children's book, creating a spellbook of terrifying power. The Librarian of that age managed to dispose of all copies of the book except one, which remained in the possession of Elizabeth Goose and her family, temporarily averting any potential disaster.
However, strange things are happening, A window washer in San Diego who was blown off his elevated perch by a freak gust of wind, but miraculously survived by landing on a canopy over the building entrance. A woman in rural Pennsylvania who was attacked by mutant rodents without any eyes. And, a college professor in England who somehow found herself trapped inside a prize pumpkin at a local farmer’s market. Baird and her team of Librarians suspect that the magic of Mother Goose is again loose in the world, and with Flynn Carson AWOL once again, it is up to Cassandra, Ezekiel, and Stone to track down the missing spellbook before the true power of the rhymes can be unleashed. Views: 797
**In *City of the Lost*, a thrilling new eBook in six parts, *New York Times* and *Globe* and *Mail* bestselling author Kelley Armstrong delivers us to Rockton, a secret little town in the far north where the hunted go to hide. And where a hunter has now come to play.**
Casey Duncan once killed a man and got away with it. Since then she’s become a talented police detective, tethered only to her job, her best friend, Diana, and the occasional evening with her sexy, no-strings-attached ex-con lover, Kurt. But then Diana's abusive ex finds her again, despite all Casey has done to help her disappear. And Casey’s own dark past begins to catch up with her. The two women need to run—and Diana’s heard of a place where they won’t be found, a town especially for people like them…. Views: 796
