He also possesses raw magical talent and the ability to make objects in his vicinity light as a feather or as heavy as depleted uranium, all with a magical thought. It's no wonder the G-men turn to Jake when they need someone to go after a suspected killer who's been knocking off banks in a magic-enhanced crime spree. Problems arise when Jake discovers the bad girl behind the robberies is an old friend, and he happens to know her magic is just as powerful as his, and the Feds have plunged Jake into a secret battle between powerful cartels of magic-users--a cartel whose ruthless leaders have decided that Jake is far too dangerous to live. . . .

    Presidential candidate. Murderer. Unpunished is a tale of murder, ambition, corruption, and the redemptive power of love. Leonard Pilcher, a scion of entitlement and privilege, is a congressman, presidential candidate...and a murderer. As an American pilot interned in Sweden during WWII, he kills one of his own crewmen and gets away with it, without suspicion. Two people have witnessed the murder--American airman Joe Gelardi and his secret Swedish lover, Pola Nilsson-MacLeish--but they cannot speak out without paying a devastating price. Tormented by their guilt and separated by a vast ocean after the war, Joe and Pola maintain the silence that haunts them both...until 1960, when Congressman Pilcher's campaign for his party's nomination for president gains momentum. As he dons the guise of war hero, one female reporter, anxious to break into the "boy's club" of TV news, fights to uncover the truth against the far-reaching power of the Pilcher family's wealth, power that can do any wrong it chooses--even kill--and remain unpunished. Just as the nomination seems within Pilcher's grasp, Pola reappears to enlist Joe's help in finally exposing Pilcher for the criminal he really is. As the passion of their wartime romance rekindles, they must struggle to bring Pilcher down before becoming his next victims.

     East Wind Returns is a story of WW2 set in July-November 1945 which explores a very different road to that conflict’s historic conclusion. The American war leaders grapple with a crippling setback: their secret atomic bomb does not work. The invasion of Japan seems the only option to bring the war to a close. When those leaders suppress intelligence of a Japanese atomic weapon poised against the invasion forces, it falls to photo reconnaissance pilot John Worth to find the Japanese device. Political intrigue is mixed with passionate romance and exciting aerial action—the terror of enemy fighters, anti-aircraft fire, mechanical malfunctions, deadly weather, and the Kamikaze. When shot down by friendly fire over southern Japan during the American invasion, Worth leads the desperate mission that seeks to deactivate the device. Turning back the clock to 1942, follow John Worth’s exploits as an eager rookie pilot in Grasso’s Operation Long Jump.

    Frequently quoted as one of the ‘favorite’ books of many of the masters of the field, this book by L. Sprague de Camp helped establish time-travel as a solid sub-genre of science fiction.An indication of the influence and longevity of the book is by the number of best-selling writers who have written stories in direct response to, or influenced by, "Lest Darkness Fall." This new volume also includes three such stories by Frederik Pohl, David Drake and S. M. Stirling written over a period of forty-three years—a testament to the timelessness of the book. Similar, thematically, to Mark Twain’s "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court", the book tells the tale of Martin Padway who, as he is walking around in modern Rome, is suddenly transported though time to 6th Century Rome. Once in ancient Rome, Padway (now Martinus Paduei Quastor) embarks on an ambitious project of single-handedly changing history.L. Sprague de Camp was a student of history (and the author of a number of popular works on the subject). In Lest Darkness Fall he combines his extensive knowledge of the workings of ancient Rome with his extraordinary imagination to create one of the best books of time travel ever written.“Endlessly fascinating. The author knows a lot about Gothic Italy and almost as much about human nature, and he has a real gift for making the people of those days come alive.”—The New York Times“Lest Darkness Fall [is] one of the best time travel stories ever written…”—A Reader’s Guide to Science Fiction“Good fun.” —The New Yorker“A work of real and stimulating imagination.” —Saturday Review of Literature

    This 2nd Edition is a revised and expanded version of the long awaited sequel to H. Beam Piper's Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen, chronicling the further adventures of Calvin Morrison, Pennsylvania State Policeman--forcibly retired. This new edition is revised and expanded (over 60,000 words) by the authors with new maps, including Hostigos Town, Hostigos and the Five Kingdoms, and a new dramatis personae. Calvin Morrison was a pretty good cop in Pennsylvania-until he was scooped up by the cross-time flying saucer and transported to Styphon's House Subsector, a 16th Century equivalent parallel time-line. Here the Indo-Aryan invasions went east across Asia and down the Aleutian Islands into North America, where they have stagnated for thousands of years. Dropped off into the middle of a local dispute, Corporal Calvin Morrison comes face to face with warriors armed with pikes and broadswords, not petty criminals. Lord Kalvan, as the locals call him, transforms the petty Princedom of Hostigos into a fearsome warrior Kingdom by inspired leadership and advanced military knowledge. Now, after having created and saved his new nation of Hos-Hostigos from destruction by Styphon's House, a tyrannical theocracy that holds sacred the secret formula for gunpowder, Kalvan, now Great King of Hos-Hostigos, faces his greatest challenge-keeping what he has won. The Holy Host of Styphon and the Royal Army of Hos-Harphax, two of the greatest armies in the history of the Five Kingdoms, are on the move and Kalvan will once again have to call upon his knowledge of military history to save his family and friends. This time it's personal!

    In the process it has rebuilt its armed forces at the cutting edge of modern operational technology. But, they are still untested and untried. Now, as the Argentine Government casts covetous eyes on the Falkland Islands, Britain must show the world that it is, once again, a major power with a voice to be heard. To do this, they must fight an unprecedented campaign at the end of an 8,000 mile supply line and endure a brutal slugging match. Has their army shaken off the specter of defeat? Is their Navy capable of fighting so far from home bases? What are the mysterious Auxiliary Units whose very existence is denied? Above all, is the Lion Resurgent?

    It's been over a century since the War of Retribution cleaned up Europe, long enough that now curious tourists flock to the painstakingly recreated "village" of Wawolnice, where--along with dozens of colleagues--Veit and Kristi re-enact the daily life of the long-exterminated but still frightening "Jews."Veit and Kristi are true professionals, proud of their craft. They've learned all there is to know about this vanished way of life. They know the dead languages, the turns of phrase, the prayers, the manners, the food. But now they're beginning to learn what happens when you immerse yourself long enough in something real...

    Since then, he has a new faith, a new job as a reporter for the London Times, and a new love a beautiful heiress named Frances. Life couldn t be better. But then things begin to go very wrong. Disturbing questions surface from Gilbert s murky past. His best friend Herb s sudden, unexplained wealth has made him distant and evasive. And the mysterious redheaded woman reappears, with trouble surely behind her. When Gilbert learns his life is in jeopardy, he leaves England and returns to his American homeland, where he thinks he ll be safe. There he meets a powerful man who calls himself the Emperor of North America. Why has he taken such a keen interest in Gilbert s career? Gilbert fights past dogged, airborne assassins and steam-powered cowboys, through the streets of New York and a floating city in the clouds. Along the way he learns that while his adversaries may change, America may not be any safer than England. For it is in America that both Gilbert and Herb will confront their most dangerous opponents yet...themselves. About the Book The Emperor of North America by John McNichol is the sequel to the bestselling novel The Tripods Attack! and the second volume in the Young Chesterton Chronicles a delightfully inventive fiction series for teens to adults that re-imagines the famous Catholic author as a young man living in an alternative Edwardian age of steam-driven wonders. The Tripods Attack is a page-turning adventure of Chestertonian proportions, a feast of the imagination for the young and for adults. It rendered this reader ready to read more Chesterton, as well as, this, McNichol s next volume! Kevin Vost, Psy.D., bestselling author of Tending the Temple and Memorize the Faith!

    After years of war ravage the globe and decimate humanity, civilization is revitalized in the city of New Arcadia, a cybernetic playground where longevity treatments promise near immortality. Detective Cyrus, fond of fedoras and narcotics, is hired by Benji MacDowell, heir-apparent to an eugenics empire, to find MacDowell's long-lost biological father. Employing his network of shady contacts within the underbelly of the city, Cyrus uncovers a murderous web of corporate corruption and political conspiracy with ties to the old Order, a tyrannical organization whose sole intent was perfecting the next generation of genetically engineered soldiers. Now Cyrus knows too much and finds himself caught in the cross-hairs of super-soldier assassins while the dark secrets of his past snap at his heels, forcing him to confront the truth he's been running from... and discover his own terrifying purpose.

    † † † † †Also starring: Countess Elizabeth Báthory aka The Blood Countess, Varney the Vampire, progenitor of the undead species, & Aleister Crowley, The Great Beast. And Special Guest Star: Count Vlad Dracula, the Prince of Darkness & Lord of the Vampires. † † † † †Paranormal investigators and adventurers.† † † † †Archaeologists of history.† † † † †Vampire slayers!!

    a successful marriage of bold imagination and finely-crafted details, which results in a chilling page-turner." —Rainbow Dragon Recommends

    But the all-powerful President of the Union says no. When Britain decides to ignore this veto, and the President reacts, events spiral out of the control of both men – in very different ways. A military solution and a military response, together with mass resistance, sends the whole of Europe teetering towards nuclear war....

    We know they are there. No government can control them; no authority can stop them. Some are evil. Some are good. All are powerful. They inhabit our myths and fairy tales. But what if they were real, the witches, wizards, and fairy godmothers? What if they were called "adepts" and used talismans to increase their power? The most powerful talisman in the world is The Hammer of Thor and Hitler stole it from its rightful owners, the Valkyrie. When American adept Francis Kader is reluctantly drawn into the effort to retrieve the Hammer from the Nazis, he begins a journey that leads him to a confrontation with Thor himself. Can a mere human hope to defeat an immortal god?

    Steampunk teases your imagination with the fantastic and makes dreams a reality. These 25 incredible stories will take you to a time in history when crazy inventions and scandal were born.

    Edward VIII still reigns and mourns the death of his mistress, Wallis Simpson. Left with almost no troops, guns or tanks, Britain stands alone against the might of a German Wehrmacht armed with assault rifles, main battle tanks, aircraft carriers and a pair of 'superguns' firing seven tonne shells across the English Channel.Day after day, Squadron Leader Alec Trumbull and a fast-dwindling number of broken veterans and inexperienced new-recruits take to the skies against the seemingly endless streams of German aircraft. His Spitfire damaged in the heat of battle and pursued by enemy fighters he can’t outrun, Trumbull is saved at the last moment by a strange jet aircraft that can land and take off vertically. He discovered that the advanced aircraft belongs to the Hindsight Unit: a UN task force from the 21st Century sent to combat a group of Neo-Nazis also returned from the future to aid Nazi Germany wins the Second World War. As technology accelerates and events begin to spiral out of control, Trumbull finds himself drawn into Hindsight’s desperate struggle to prevent a seemingly inevitable invasion of Great Britain and return history to its true course.

    The world we know is crumbling. A devastating war in the Persian Gulf has left the global economy in ruins, and civilization itself is beginning to crack under the strain. When a war-weary task force of NATO ships races against time and a rival fleet to prevent Brazil's descent into a murderous civil war, their mission is unexpectedly upset by a mysterious tempest. Thrown back in time, Captains Steven Flynn and Florian Hallwinter with their crews emerge in the year 1940 as the world is gripped in the fires of World War Two. Presented with the opportunity to change both past and future for the better, they find themselves drawn into a maelstrom of conflicting interests. While overcoming the suspicion of their natural allies of the time proves harder than they imagined, they soon discover that even the best intentions carry the seeds of doom. For whereas Flynn is American, Hallwinter and his crew are from Germany...

    The year is 1876. Sheriff Ramon Morales of Socorro, New Mexico, meets a beguiling woman named Fatemeh Karimi, who is looking to make a new start after escaping the oppression of her homeland. When an ancient life form called Legion comes to Earth, they are pulled into a series of events that will change the history of the world as we know it. In their journeys, Ramon and Fatemeh encounter mad inventors, dangerous outlaws and pirates. Their resources are Ramon's fast draw and Fatemeh's uncanny ability to communicate with owls. The question is, will that be enough to save them when airships from Czarist Russia invade the United States?

    The Soviet Union has won the Cold War and occupies most of the former United States, now referred to as Soviet America. A fledgling American insurgency commits acts of random sabotage and sporadic bombing attacks against the Soviet occupiers and their collaborators. Two MIT professors of astrophysics, Paul deVere and former Special Operations Officer Lewis Ginter, have discovered a subatomic particle that accelerates matter to speeds faster than light, thereby opening wormholes in time. They create an Accelechron, which makes it possible to propel a human through a wormhole. Working with fellow resistance activists from New England, they develop a daring plan to go back to the early 1960s to alter the course of American history. As the time travelers scheme to avoid the watchful eyes of Soviet intelligence agents Igor Rostov and Natasha Nikitin, they find themselves increasingly distrusted by their fellow resistance leaders. When they finally make their daring attempt, they must confront not only history, but also their own pasts.

    The particle accelerator experiments he is conducting for the university are capable of opening a window back in time.Can he tune that window to the night his wife died? Can he actually go back in time to save her?But what of the strange radio broadcasts he keeps hearing? Broadcasts warning that changing the past could produce a very dark future for the world—or no future at all.How much will Liam risk to bring back the only woman he ever loved?Science fiction, love story, time travel (short story)"A very human story of a man hung up on the past for far too long, and a woman who can't make him realize her true feelings. ... The resolution is a key moment of personal growth for our protagonist, and that's really what I ask for in a story." — Scientifically Bookish"This is a great story, that connects [the reader} with the emotional pain and trauma [of the characters]." — Contemplating the Cosmos

    Based on the game DEADLANDS from Pinnacle Entertainment! Visionary Comics and Pinnacle Entertainment present the first of four one-shots by industry superstars, bringing the weird Western world of DEADLANDS to comics! In this issue: The Havey Award-winning HIGH MOON team of DAVID GALLAHER & STEVE ELLIS tell the story of inventor Copernicus Blackburne, who risks even his immortal soul in his Faustian quest to build 'The Devil's Six-Gun!'

    Thirty seven years later, high school freshman Michael Gurick’s father is killed combating cyborg supervillains. With a little help from his friends, Michael takes up his father’s super-identity to seek justice against the cyborgs who killed his father-or will it be revenge?“Taking a page from Robert Heinlein’s classic juvenile novels, Dispensing Justice is a story set in a science fiction/superhero universe and features a clique of smart and likeable teenagers grappling with complex (adult) issues.” — Eric SearlemanAfter witnessing his superhero father death at the hands of four cyborg supervillains, Michael has sworn to bring his father’s killers to justice. If fitting into his father’s battlesuit isn’t problem enough, Michael must survive one friend’s wanna-be ninja younger siblings and another friend’s developing telekinetic powers. Then there’s his mother’s obsession with cleaning the house over and over, a shape-shifting government agent, and, oh yeah, his high school grades. They keep threatening to move into A+ territory, bringing unwanted attention when he just wants to assemble enough weapons to take down four killer cyborgs. Dispensing Justice is the first book of Nova Genesis World, a science fiction superhero series set in an alternate 1980s.

    Read about the glorious adventures that might have been...and very nearly were!

    What if that sinful race didn't die when floodwaters covered them but instead adapted to breathe water? Under the depths of the ocean one boy has raised himself, until the day when he meets a dark-skinned man with news that will change the lives of his civilization forever.Now he must save his people from another empire of water dwellers bent on enslaving the oceans and torturing his peaceful realm.Yet another question is posed as he learns that his people are descended from humans that lived on the land above the ocean; a people that were destroyed by floods made by the rage of God.If they have to, in order to escape, will they be able to breathe air and join whatever is left of the world above the waters?What would they find there? Is the mythological Noah still alive?

    But what if we have it wrong? What if God hates us? Two thousand years ago, an obscure Christian sect captured God in a wooden prison and buried him in the desert. Ever since, clandestine groups have searched in vain for the prison's location. Until now. When a team of archaeologists find a Gnostic temple in the Egyptian desert, it ignites a race to locate God's prison. The winner will hold God- and the future of us all- in their hands. Ialtaboath: A unique adventure combining fantasy, history and religion into a simple journey to an odd destination. If you like Indiana Jones or The DaVinci Code, you'll love Ialtaboath.

    Red Wheels Turning takes place in the same historical timeline, and features some of the same characters. With a backdrop of Tsarist Russia prior to the events described in Beneath Gray Skies, Red Wheels Turning once more mixes real historical characters with fictional characters and events in a an entertaining adventure featuring two of the most extraordinary weapons ever developed – the massive "Netopyr" and the rail cruiser "Zaamurets". Finch-Malloy battles against the maniacal gangster-turned-Bolshevik revolutionary Kolinski in a contest of wits to determine who will have control of these incredible machines.Described by readers as "a ripping yarn" and a "page-turner", Red Wheels Turning continues the tradition of high adventure, espionage and treachery, mixed with steampunk-like technology in a genre best described as "steampulp". Ashton's writing in Beneath Gray Skies has been characterized as "well-written with a brilliant story", "a delightful romp through what it terms "a past that never happened."" and "a remarkable alternate history novel".From Christopher Belton, author of Isolation and Crime sans Frontières: "Red Wheels Turning provides fans of Beneath Gray Skies with another opportunity to meet up with an old favorite; Brian Finch-Malloy. An impeccably crafted tale exuding volumes of World War I's black-and-white atmosphere in vibrant technicolor. Hugh Ashton's careful attention to detail pulls the reader into the story from page one and then steps on the accelerator. A riveting plot wrapped up in a firm coating of history, with good guys to root for and bad guys to despise. A thoroughly enjoyable read from start to finish."

    A companion to Force on Force and Ambush Alley, giving players the opportunity to reenact 'what if' scenarios between the forces of the Warsaw Pact and Nato that stood opposed, and on the brink of war for decades.

    In Europe Czech and German republicans have been fighting for years against the Habsburg Emperor's oppressive rule. Rebel spy Johnny Bornewald is dispatched to the southern-most continent of Alba, the home of the non-human ursines, to gather technological intelligence about the enemies. However, war unexpectedly erupts there, too, so Johnny and his native guide Linda Connor must flee for their lives through icy wastelands. But more than cold and gunfire imperil their lives when they get entangled in a conspiracy that may wreck much of Alba. Will Linda and Johnny be wily enough to evade their enemies’ schemes? The Ice War is a dieselpunk science fiction thriller is set in an alternate history inspired by the societies, technology and aesthetics of the interwar era. The story offers more than action, because the protagonists face serious moral issues during their flight. How do they retain their humanity in the maelstrom of battle? There is no easy way out and nobody escapes the war zone unhurt. The Ice War is based on the author's experience as a civilian specialist in multinational peace-making operations in the Balkans in the 1990s and Afghanistan after 9/11.