IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A STANDARD RESCUE MISSION
Private Travis Buckley and his friends from Bandit Company were strictly rear echelon types—a support platoon for the Alpha Elite Commandos of the Stellar Armada. When an orbital disaster destroys their ship, Travis and fellow survivors Ernie “Struts” McCaskey and Private Numbnuts go from being “in the rear with the gear” to the forefront of an improbable rescue mission that could plunge the entire Confederation into intergalactic war with the mysterious Machai Legion.
Dr. Arnac has been kidnapped by terrorists in black rumored to be a Machai death squad, only the Machai vanished into the depths of interstellar space centuries ago. Arnac is carrying a secret in his head that can’t be allowed to fall into enemy hands. Alpha Elite’s orders are clear: reacquire Dr. Arnac, or make sure he doesn’t leave Askura alive.
The survivors of the crash landing must mount a desperate rescue and fight their way across trackless jungles filled with ancient civilizations, exotic beauties, and deadly predators. If they can survive becoming bullet bait, they must lay siege to the lost city and halt the diabolical Machai plan to conquer Earth. The enemy didn’t count on one thing: Travis and the Bandits are determined not to fail!
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Book 1 of the Keystones Superhero Series
A Chronicle of the Rise of Superhumans in the Year 2159 A.D.
Deklan’s life is irrevocably changed by an event known as “The Sweep.” Billions of mammals in the solar system are simultaneously imbued with super powers, becoming once-rare “Keystones.”
Keystone traits range from the near-unnoticeable to god-like.
In a matter of days the situation on Earth deteriorates and people are swept up in an all-encompassing need to flee the planet.
One of the first to realize the danger posed in the new world Deklan abandons his old life in the pursuit of one simple goal, survival.
keystone species (kē′stōn)
A species whose presence and role within an ecosystem has a disproportionate effect on other organisms within the system. A keystone species is often a dominant predator whose removal allows a prey population to explode and often decreases overall persity. Other kinds of keystone species are those, such as coral or beavers, that significantly alter the habitat around them and thus affect large numbers of other organisms.
keystone (kē′stōn)
n.
1. Architecture The central wedge-shaped stone of an arch that locks its parts together. Also called headstone.
2. The central supporting element of a whole.
3. Modern A super-powered inpidual.
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In Thomson’s The Color of Distance (1995), Dr. Juna Saari was accidentally abandoned on the planet Tiangi. Despite life-threatening allergic reactions to that world’s life-forms, she managed to survive thanks to the biological wizardry of the Tendu, Tiangi’s intelligent native species, who radically altered her body to thrive in their environment. Now, returned to human form, Juna comes back to Earth accompanied by two Tendu. They must learn aboard ship, while visiting a series of Earth orbital habitats, and then on Earth to adapt to a human environment, but it isn’t clear whether humanity will accept them in return. Despite the great biological gifts the Tendu can offer an environmentally distressed Earth, many humans find the aliens frightening. Escorting the Tendu through Earth society, Juna finds her life spun upside down when she discovers that she is accidentally pregnant, an illegal act on an Earth struggling to overcome critical overpopulation. Much of the novel’s tension stems from attempts to force Juna either to abort or to give up her baby attempts stemming, in part, from the father’s refusal to allow his child to be raised with aliens. Thomson is an excellent prose stylist with an obvious love for the kind of wild country that is the Tendu’s preferred habitat. Her major characters are well developed, though her secondary characters, particularly the good guys, are not properly differentiated. Overall, this is an amiable, unusually thoughtful novel of first contact that should boost Thomson’s growing reputation. Views: 6
Becoming a vampire guardian was Dawn Fairchild’s ticket out of the Scarlet House. Fresh off a successful mission, life in Angel Creek should have been great. But when her sort-of-maybe-boyfriend, Sebastian, disappears on a quest to help a beautiful vampire from his past, Dawn finds herself amidst a web of danger, lies, and deceit.Joining forces with Razor, an enigmatic rebel lacking both a verbal and a physical filter, and her band of Misfits—Brooke, Sophie, Hunter, and Seth—Dawn is thrust into a race against the clock to solve the mystery surrounding brutal Born kidnappings and come to terms with the sudden discovery of her own unique powers. With time ticking away and Born vampires’ lives in jeopardy, it quickly becomes evident that someone—or something—desperately wants her and is willing to shed any amount of blood to get her.Dawn has only one chance to face her demons and overcome all obstacles standing in her way as she embarks on the biggest mission of her life—one that threatens a deadly outcome for all involved. Views: 6
Victor Pelevin is "the only young Russian novelist to have made an impression in the West" (Village Voice). With A Werewolf Problem in Central Russia, the second of Pelevin's Russian Booker Prize-winning short story collections, he continues his Sputnik-like rise. Like the writers to whom he is frequently compared––Kafka, Bulgakov, Philip K. Dick, and Joseph Heller––he is a deft fabulist, who finds fuel for his fire in society's deadening protocol. In "The Tarzan Swing," a street wanderer converses with a stranger who could be his own reflection; in the title story, a young Muscovite, Sasha, stumbles upon a group of people in the forest who can transform themselves into wolves; in "Vera Pavlova's Ninth Dream," the attendant in a public toilet finds her researches into solipsism have dire and diabolical consequences. As Publishers Weekly noted about this collection, "Pelevin's allegories are reminiscent of children's fairy tales in their fantastic depictions of worlds within worlds, solitary souls tossed helplessly among them." Pelevin––whom Spin called "a master absurdist, a brilliant satirist of things Soviet, but also of things human"––carries us in A Werewolf Problem in Central Russia to a sublime land of black comic brilliance. Views: 6
Black faith. White faith. Whose claim of spiritual allegiance to the land really matters?They're flying me across the country to fight a hag. They think to reason with. But I know to fight.An iron town is dying.Inside a fibro bungalow in a horizon-wide mirage Belle Furphy is watching from her kitchen window while her town is dismantled around her and trucked south. Ignoring the Dreamtime and spurning the Multinational and vowing to die here where she long ago dug the ashes of her family into the rock of the land, she's becoming the island they say no man is.Flying in from the east coast is her estranged son Jack with his Sunset Village brochures: snapshots of happy deaths on ergonomic beds with palliative carers hovering angelically overhead.Out the front of her house in airconditioned site-vans housewreckers play poker and read letters from her happily relocated neighbours at her through a megaphone. And they wait -for her resolve to give; or for her... Views: 6
Annie Wilkes from Misery… John Doe from Se7en… Hannibal Lecter… For everyone who thinks the bad guys are so much more fun to read than the good guys, we’ve written a book just for you. In the annuls of modern thriller fiction, the villains always steal the show. We love to read and watch great villains. In many cases, they’re the best, most entertaining parts of our books, so it only made sense to write a book featuring every major villain we’ve ever written. They’re all here…Lucy and Donaldson from Serial, Orson and Luther from Desert Places, Locked Doors, and Break You, Mr. K from Shaken, Alex and Charles Kork from Whiskey Sour and Rusty Nail, Isaiah from Abandon, Javier from Snowbound, and many, many more from the Crouch and Konrath/Kilborn books including Trapped, Run, Bloody Mary, Afraid, Endurance, and Shot of Tequila. If you liked Serial Uncut and Killers, Birds of Prey is going to blow your mind, scar your soul, and scare you to death. If you haven’t read anything by Crouch, Kilborn, or Konrath, Birds of Prey is the perfect introduction to the dark side of their universe. And if you enjoy a good bad guy (or bad girl), you’re going to love this. Because there are TWENTY-ONE of them featured in this book. Beyond a thrilling piece of horrifying suspense, Birds of Prey also takes the collaborative literary experiment begun in Serial and Killers to the next level, with most of the novel having been written in a Google Doc, where the authors could simultaneously write in real time. All bets were off, and may the best psycho win. NOTE: Birds of Prey is a 40,000-word novella, which is FULLY CONTAINED in Killers Uncut and Serial Killers Uncut. If you’ve already bought Killers, this is all the new material contained in Killers Uncut except for Killers. If you haven’t read Killers yet, buy Killers Uncut. Views: 6
A Lana Harvey, Reapers Inc. Holiday ShortThis short story takes place between book 5 (Death Wish) and book 6 (Ghost Market)Christmas looks good on Limbo City, especially with Bub under the mistletoe. Lana Harvey's holiday cheer is in overdrive, but when she and archangel Gabriel are summoned to harvest a holly jolly soul in Alaska, the spirit of Christmas brings all the villains to the tundra. Views: 6
