Massive space habitats house anywhere from hundreds of thousands to billions of people. The colonies vary greatly in size and design, in politics, in technology, and in religion and faith. You might think that people who live in space and depend on technology all day, every day, would be above superstition, but you would be wrong. Even on Harkon Colony - one of the largest, most advanced space habitats in the solar system - there are plenty of people who believe in all kinds of strange mystical things.Things like what Will Ozwald sells at his shop, “Master Wu’s Spells and Spare-Ribs.” There, you can buy anything you want: from a necklace for hiding skin blemishes, to a ring that suppresses teenage libido. Except, don’t ask for a love potion. “Master Wu say can not do.” There is even a sign. You see, Will can illegally exploit the tech every Harkonite has in his head to create many illusions. But love is no illusion! Will believes that all he could manage would be a kind of lust-slave spell, and even a con-artist has to draw the line somewhere. Yet, despite the sign, citizens keep on asking. Why can’t his customers accept his one rule? Why do they keep asking for love? And, what happens when one particular customer won’t take “no” for an answer?“Cyborg Spell Shop” is a short story (6,000 words) set in a shared fictional universe with author James Chalk’s “Jonathan Harkon Adventure” series. At the author's request, this title is sold without DRM (DRM Rights Management).

    While the rest of Britain has devolved to anarchy, the M25 cordon protects a decaying city filled with homeless refugees, street gangs, exiled yakuza, crooked cops and mad cults. And something else; something new and dangerous.Enter Samuil Petrovitch: a Russian émigré with a smart mouth, a dodgy heart and a dodgier past. He's brilliant, friendless, cocky and - armed only with a genius-level intellect, prototype cyberware and a prodigious vocabulary of Russian swear words - might just be most unlikely champion a city has ever had.Welcome to the future. Mind the gap.This omnibus edition contains EQUATIONS OF LIFE, THEORIES OF FLIGHT and DEGREES OF FREEDOM

    Dontnod founder and comics veteran Aleksi Briclot sheds light on the genius that inspired the creation of this alluring, daring, and dangerous new universe! * Sure to be one of the gaming highlights of 2013! * Introductions by the game's creative and art directors! * Experience the creation of Remember Me's innovative, arresting visuals!

    With rules for characters creation , magic combat, Matrix hacking, rigging and more. You have everything you need to face the challenges of the Sixth World

    What price freedom when government knows all our secrets? WELCOME TO THE NEW BADLANDS Fawn got to the shelter too late for dinner, so she just wanted a safe place to sleep. But a dark stranger offered her more. A ticket to a new world, filled with opportunity. And danger. Welcome, Fawn, to the New Badlands. A place beyond the reach of any government. Without laws or regulations of any kind. Where everyone is free. But no one is safe. This is the story of a young mother's attempt to survive in the new digital underworld. Follow her as she becomes a pioneer, a smuggler, a spy, and a freedom-fighter while dodging forces that threaten to destroy the foundations of the modern nation-state. The characters in this novel are fictional. The place is not. It's growing around you, like cracks in the armor of the new surveillance state. Read about it now, while you still can.

    I've rewritten and re-edited the novel and have re-released it as GHOSTS OF TOMORROW. There are several new scenes, and a new ending.***The dream of Artificial Intelligence is dead and the human mind is now the ultimate processing machine. Demand is high, but few are willing to sacrifice their lives to become computers. Black-market crèches, struggling to meet the ever-increasing demand, deal in the harvested brains of stolen children. But there is a digital snake in that fractally modelled garden; some brains make better computers than others.

    Night lasts for days on planet Jannix, and in a city full of murderers, thugs, gangsters and con artists, no man can ever be sure he'll see another dawn. So when private investigator Jack Tarelli is called to the home of an enigmatic billionaire just hours after an unspeakable murder, he knows a long, long night has only just begun. Led on a chase into the shadowy underbelly of a city that never wakes, the hard-nosed and uncompromising Jack will stop at nothing to track down a deadly killer whose motives are shrouded in corruption, betrayal and deceit. But as connections to Jack's own dark and mysterious past arise, it becomes clear that this is more than a search for answers; it's a race against time. Fools rush in where devils fear to tread.

      The Art of Watch Dogs is an in-depth review of Ubisoft’s amazing new game with extensive concept and development art and detailed creator commentary. The first of its kind for a franchise that is certain to be a future classic, the book will explore the technology-controlled world of Watch Dogs, taking readers on a visual guide through Aiden Pearce’s quest to turn Chicago’s Central Operating System (CtOS) against its corrupt owners.

    He's just in it for his cut, the ten percent of the life energy he collects before he transfers it on to the high potentials, the people who will make the world a better place with their brains, their work, and their lives. That hit of life energy, a bottle of vodka, and a visit from one of Madam Anastazja's sex workers keep him alive, stable, and mostly sane... until he collects again. But when his recovery ritual is disrupted by a sex worker who isn't what she seems, he has to choose between doing an illegal hit for a girl whose story has more holes than his soul or facing the bottle alone—a dark pit he's not sure he'll be able to climb out of again.Contains mature content and themes.OPTIONED FOR VIRTUAL REALITY BY IMMERSIVE ENTERTAINMENT 2014 Semi-Finalist in Science Fiction in the Kindle Book AwardsThe fourth through sixth episodes of the Debt Collector serial are collectively the length of a short novel, or 168 pages. It is recommended that you start with the first season, but each season is a complete story for that debt collector and can serve as an entry point to the series. There are five planned seasons in the Debt Collector series, the first four each from the perspective of a different debt collector with the fifth season bringing all four together. READING ORDERSeason One – Lirium - COMPLETEEpisodes 1-9: Delirium, Agony, Ecstasy, Broken, Driven, Fallen, Promise, Ruthless, PassionSeason Two – Wraith **available for pre-order** releases 12.15.14Episodes 10-18: Wraith, Specter, Menace, Temptation, Shattered, Penance, Judgment, Corruption, Atonement

    Clark's "Numbfish"), is presented by the author through a kindle-only e-book.

    Transhuman is the expanded guide for both players and gamemasters:* Package-based character creation* Random life path character creation* Get more out of flexbots, swarmanoids, asyncs, and infomorphs with expanded rules and options* Make better Firewall agents with advice on investigation, combat tactics, espionage, and infiltration* Over 30 new morphs, new traits, and new character backgroundsTranshuman was nominated for a 2014 Origins Award for Best Roleplaying Supplement.

    Cybernetic implants replaced the organics she lost in the line of duty, and their appearance often causes Amber to doubt her self-worth.Rookie detective Kevin Glass is her partner. And though he may be new, Kevin's unparalleled skill as an elite cyber-surfer makes him an invaluable asset.When Alta Corp contracts the two of them to solve a case of high stakes data theft, they will need every bit of skill, experience, and determination to succeed. For the more they investigate, the more it becomes evident that this case is much more than it appears, and its resolution may forever alter the world in which they live.Show more Show less

    He's just in it for his cut, the ten percent of the life energy he collects before he transfers it on to the high potentials, the people who will make the world a better place with their brains, their work, and their lives. That hit of life energy, a bottle of vodka, and a visit from one of Madam Anastazja's sex workers keep him alive, stable, and mostly sane... until he collects again. But when his recovery ritual is disrupted by a sex worker who isn't what she seems, he has to choose between doing an illegal hit for a girl whose story has more holes than his soul or facing the bottle alone—a dark pit he's not sure he'll be able to climb out of again.Contains mature content and themes.The first three episodes of the Debt Collector serial are collectively the length of a short novel, or 152 pages. It is recommended that you start with the first season, but each season is a complete story for that debt collector and can serve as an entry point to the series. There are five planned seasons in the Debt Collector series, the first four each from the perspective of a different debt collector with the fifth season bringing all four together. Reading order:Season One – Lirium - COMPLETEEpisodes 1-9: Delirium, Agony, Ecstasy, Broken, Driven, Fallen, Promise, Ruthless, PassionSeason Two – Wraith **available for pre-order** releases 12.15.14Episodes 10-18: Wraith, Specter, Menace, Temptation, Shattered, Penance, Judgment, Corruption, Atonement

    Fortunately he’s taken in by a wise old codger named Theodore Wiseman, who makes his living as the resident Troubleshooter: a jack of all trades, if those trades involve greenbacks, that is.Wiseman shows Mick the rules of the Troubleshooter business, which are pretty simple: shoot first, shoot fast, and above all, trust no one.

    He's just in it for his cut, the ten percent of the life energy he collects before he transfers it on to the high potentials, the people who will make the world a better place with their brains, their work, and their lives. That hit of life energy, a bottle of vodka, and a visit from one of Madam Anastazja's sex workers keep him alive, stable, and mostly sane... until he collects again. But when his recovery ritual is disrupted by a sex worker who isn't what she seems, he has to choose between doing an illegal hit for a girl whose story has more holes than his soul or facing the bottle alone—a dark pit he's not sure he'll be able to climb out of again.Contains mature content and themes.OPTIONED FOR VIRTUAL REALITY BY IMMERSIVE ENTERTAINMENT 2014 Semi-Finalist in Science Fiction in the Kindle Book AwardsThe seventh through ninth episodes of the Debt Collector serial are collectively the length of a short novel, or 176 pages. It is recommended that you start with the first season, but each season is a complete story for that debt collector and can serve as an entry point to the series. There are five planned seasons in the Debt Collector series, the first four each from the perspective of a different debt collector with the fifth season bringing all four together. READING ORDERSeason One – Lirium - COMPLETEEpisodes 1-9: Delirium, Agony, Ecstasy, Broken, Driven, Fallen, Promise, Ruthless, PassionSeason Two – Wraith **available for pre-order** releases 12.15.14Episodes 10-18: Wraith, Specter, Menace, Temptation, Shattered, Penance, Judgment, Corruption, Atonement

    Page count: 30. Word count: 2000. It's illegal to wear clothes. In some streets, it's also illegal to sing. Concetta, a famous Italian a capella singer from before "the change," breaks these laws. As punishment, her vocal chords are brutally slashed, and her eardrums surgically perforated. Unable to cope living a life without song, she resolves to drown herself in the river, clothed in a dress stained with performance memories. But Concetta's suicide attempt is deterred, when she is distracted by a busking harpist with gold eyes and teeth. Will he show her how to sing again, or will the LEO on the prowl for another offender to detain, arrest her before she has the chance?

    Now, she must convince people, including her previous incarnation’s husband, that she is not the same person that they think she is. As she struggles to overcome the romantic and sexual expectations of her predecessor's husband, the new, digital Lynn Vargas must also contend with his mercurial attitude. Bill has a tendency to limit the functions of her body when he thinks she's “acting out.” Her only options are to either placate Bill or to somehow force his staff to openly acknowledge the implications of his behavior. Will they listen? Or will guilt cause them to shut their ears and their hearts? Every time Lynn confides in someone, they immediately run roughshod over her wishes, rebooting her without permission and adding software patches that change the way her senses work. The result is that all the other people in her life control what she can do with her body. As this truth sinks in, Lynn realizes that she has to face the only question that will ever matter: What makes a life worth living?

    Under the rhetoric of “democracy” and “mutual protection against Western imperial interests”, puppet-states of fragile, oil-rich Central Asian nations are annexed into the new Eurasian Federation. Rebellions and insurgencies quickly break out across Central Asia, inspired by the Arab Spring years earlier, and eked on by cyber-revolutionaries and foreign agent-provocateurs...However, in the aftermath of bloody lessons from Egypt, Libya, and Syria, a new multi-trillion dollar industry has emerged in cyber-security, mass network surveillance, digital censorship, and unmanned automated armies. Its architects are foreign companies secretly subsidiary to Silicon Valley corporations eager to cash in on Big Brother; they have been contracted to Eurasia in order to engineer a new state-wide surveillance model based off Cloud-Computing, enabling Eurasia total digital control within its borders — ushering in a new, and very real Dystopian Nightmare of the Information Age.Madame Einzige, a subversive Nietzsche-esque Cypherpunk anti-heroine, is thrust onto the Central Asian killing fields of revolution and counter-revolution, in search of a nihilistic hacker-Magus — a former elite of the Iranian cyber-army — who has allegedly been kidnapped and recruited by the CIA...

    Eleanora Rosewood searches for a doomsday machine designed by her late husband. With the aid of Sacha Valentin she must face spies, assassins, and a formidable female gangster. Can Valentin and the Widow save a city from destruction?

     And Life is only getting more complicated for Tol as the Chosen One, when his younger brother becomes king by defeating all comers in a network hacking contest, only to then staff his cabinet with the legendary and nefarious hacker, Boogla. And not helping Tol in the least, are the intrepid reporter Selpla and her crew as they battle their way to the uber story of the century, through magical super-storms, vicious wildlife and a robot that grafts random animal parts onto wandering pets. In Goblinopolis, Robert G. Ferrell has crafted an entirely new comedic world of magic, mayhem and technocracy that devoted readers of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld will love and new fantasy readers will devour and be left wanting more.

    Frank Campanelli, a homicide detective, is called in to investigate. Together with his partner, Marcus Williams, the pair are pressed to solve the case before a gang war envelopes Chinatown.

    Gareth's mission, to reach the beginning of earth time, and confront God. He's just not too good at getting there. Dead people can be unpredictably dangerous. Will they slingshot Gareth to God and the chance to undo a heinous murder? Can Adrianna protect him and fix their long-damaged relationship? Can she protect herself in alien psychic dimensions?Brutal Dr. Buckleigh pursues them, missioned by the elitist Foundation to eliminate Pugh and Adrianna, and any evidence of God and time travel. His sadistic mercenary Cabot takes up the hunt, lustful to own Adrianna in a space/time of his choosing...... But nobody factored in Rasputin, the hidden power of Stonehenge, or Black Holes.

    When a hooker plunges from the sixty-sixth floor of an opulent nightclub and a senator is found dead in his room, the police call on Lt Durante Hoskin to solve what swiftly becomes a string of murders of the rich and powerful. Now Hoskin must stop a vicious and brilliant sociopath, who’s executing the elite, erasing their memories and exposing their lives to an angry public, before his society explodes in open class war.

    Criofan Byrne is the city's favorite son, champion of the local boxing circuit and heir to a corporate empire. Their separate worlds are brought together and destroyed around them in a single night by the leader of the Cabezas de Muerte gang, who will stop at nothing in order to make a name for himself in Upper Charlton.Forced into using the experimental prosthetic technology Miranda had been working on, Criofan must put aside everything he knew of his privileged existence and work with Miranda. Together, they must find a way to escape the machinations of the cruel, vindictive gang leader, the life he's thrust them into, each other and themselves—and reclaim control of what remains of their lives.

    L. Solomon begins his epic action adventure, sci-fi thriller, Strings, at an international airport in Mumbai, India, where an exclusive team of both military and civilian experts waits to board the flight to Kolkata. The team blends a military faction headed by Captain Jim Randall, of the U.S. Army, and a civilian faction led by Gavin McClune, a PhD in civil and environmental engineering. While the team waits, the airport is overtaken by unusual weather activity. When the dust settles it seems that Randall, McClune, and the entire team has disappeared along with an Air India Airbus 310. Meanwhile, Dr. Hirotoshi Yang, a Chinese string theory expert, learns of the event and theorizes that the cause is likely connected to his revolutionary theory that several different worlds exist in the same space and time, just under different frequencies. Dr. Yang hypothesizes that the outward expansion of the universe is slowing and that the cosmic braking system is causing the smallest particles in the universe, strings, to alter their frequency patterns erratically. Dr. Yang believes that these shifts will cause frequency walls to collapse, permitting alternate realities to collide and resulting in consequences almost too devastating to consider. As Yang begins to look into the incident at the airport, he abruptly vanishes at the hands of a sinister and furtive global conglomerate that just happens to be under investigation by the FBI. All the while, Captain Jim Randall’s commanding officer, Colonel Blake Johnson, is heading a worldwide search for the missing team. Unfortunately, the more he searches, and the closer he gets to the truth, the more his fears increase. Johnson’s search takes him across the world in a dizzying fight versus a vicious, ancient Mongol tribe made up of direct descendants of the formidable Genghis Kahn. The Mongols are determined to leverage the now unsteady and collapsing frequency walls of the layered, parallel universes for their own dark vision of the future. While Colonel Johnson desperately searches, a Russian scientist, Antonina Ivanov, is hard at work, developing cutting-edge technology that will allow her to gaze inside the gaps and holes created by these collapsing frequency walls. She is unwittingly being monitored in her endeavor and is kidnapped while out conducting field experiments in Nigeria. Will she give in to her captors’ demands for her research and expertise? As the chaos of the pulse-pounding converging storylines progress, Dr. Yang’s daughter, Dong-Mei, a beautiful doctoral student in high-energy physics at MIT, finds a bizarre note written by her father. This strange note, which she believes was written in her father’s hand, causes her to begin a search to locate the AWOL Yang. It is not long before she too becomes a pawn in a struggle so unbelievable that she can neither understand nor fathom its depth and breadth. Throughout all the convergent epic struggles separated by time and distance, a mysterious and sad young man waits for something. He knows not what. Wondering if his past was a dream, his longing and hope gradually fade away. How do all these parallel strings connect?

    She creates custom cybernetic limbs, unique works of art. Lumi is everything Claudia is not, exotic, exciting, outgoing. Claudia comes to realise they both have their secrets. Secrets that will tear them apart.