Best of
Near-Future

2013

Where We Stand (Life After War, #6)


Angela White - 2013
    and everyone else like him. Safe Haven has grown too powerful to be ignored any longer and the surviving government wants these dangerous Descendants secured for their own use or eliminated. And they couldn't have chosen a better time to reemerge. Safe Haven has a new leader and XO, and a thick wall of fresh challenges to overcome. Adrian's condition is critical, the camp isn't ready to accept the existence of magic, mother nature still has them in her crosshairs, and they are low on food, water, and fuel. The next eight weeks might be the hardest they've worked, and still not be enough to ensure survival. Can they bring the pieces together in time or will this be the end of Safe Haven Refugee Camp? http://www.safehavenrefugeecamp.com/

The Petrovitch Trilogy


Simon Morden - 2013
    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

Nodding


Jacqueline Druga - 2013
    A disease so feral, it strikes eighty percent of all children under the age of fifteen. For decades it has pushed the boundaries into three countries. Those infected become mere shells, often in a state followed by violent tantrums. There is no hope, no treatment and there is no cure.Little is known about the sickness called the Nodding Disease. Information regarding it is often buried deep. But what would happen if the resilient disease mutates and breaks into heavily populated areas? With a infection rate of eighty percent, our future could all but be eliminated along with our young.Nodding takes an emotional and fictional look at this very real disease.In Nodding, the disease has mutated. Following an outbreak in the UK, a global pandemic ensues. The young victims are so violent, they are a danger to all those around them. The bacteria is resistant to any treatment and deadly to any adult exposed. Governments must make their resolutions as time runs out for humanity, and worse, parents must face their most heart wrenching decisions.

When the Ashes Fall


Jacqueline Druga - 2013
    Not everyone knows what to do.Lacking any survival knowledge, she finds herself in the shelter of the city's Liberty Tunnels with a group of strangers, none of which know much more than she does. The odds are against them. Panic, hunger, and sickness are rampant. The tunnels increasingly become more dangerous.With limited skills, Abby must pull it together, not only get her and the girls out of the tunnel shelter, but to survive long enough to make it home one last time.

Olympus Rises


Jim Roberts - 2013
    Two weeks before the final withdrawal of all Coalition forces, a small unit of Army Rangers is attacked and destroyed by a Private Army known only as Olympus. The survivors are captured and held in a fortress in the Pamir Mountains of Kazinistan. There, they must effect a daring escape from their captors and at the same time find the secret of the mysterious Code of War. Drawing inspiration from GI Joe, Ian Fleming and Don Pendleton, this book is written for action aficionados everywhere. An exciting, action-packed yarn filled to the brim with high-tech adventure! 'Olympus Rises' leads directly into the blockbuster sequel, 'The Peacemakers', available now!

Nothin' But Blue Skies: The Heyday, Hard Times, and Hopes of America's Industrial Heartland


Edward McClelland - 2013
    Decades of unprecedented prosperity followed, memorably punctuated by riots, strikes, burning rivers, and oil embargoes. A vibrant, quintessentially American character bloomed in the region's cities, suburbs, and backwaters.But the innovation and industry that defined the Rust Belt also helped to hasten its demise. An air conditioner invented in Upstate New York transformed the South from a sweaty backwoods to a non-unionized industrial competitor. Japan and Germany recovered from their defeat to build fuel-efficient cars in the stagnant 1970s. The tentpole factories that paid workers so well also filled the air with soot, and poisoned waters and soil. The jobs drifted elsewhere, and many of the people soon followed suit.Nothin' but Blue Skies tells the story of how the country's industrial heartland grew, boomed, bottomed, and hopes to be reborn. Through a propulsive blend of storytelling and reportage, celebrated writer Edward McClelland delivers the rise, fall, and revival of the Rust Belt and its people.

Auto


David Wailing - 2013
    This sophisticated ‘super-app’ is a digital personal assistant which acts on your behalf. It knows your personality and habits – and mimics them. It learns from your behaviour – and copies you. Digital detective Joanna O’Donnell has heard stories about autos going wrong, twisting people's lives inside out. She doesn’t believe it. Until it happens to her. Unable to trust her own agency, Joanna secretly investigates and discovers these incidents may be part of a bigger, more terrifying story.Michael Walker – the man who invented the auto, and public enemy number one – is back...

The Wolf of Descarta


Daniel Pike - 2013
    But in the Dream Box, he has forged a new digital identity for himself: Balmus, the Wolf Knight.Balmus has long since carried a torch for the Linker Petra, but he doesn’t know her, not really. Outside of the Dream Box she is just another one of his fantasies. But Brea Morgen is the real thing– a living, breathing person who desires Jaren for who he truly is, not merely what he pretends to be. When the Dream Box that Jaren depends on crashes due to the evolution of a hostile A.I. life form, a secret military branch commissions a team of gamers and hackers to go back into the corrupted Dream Box to eliminate the threat and Jaren is given the chance of a lifetime—though it comes at a price—and Jaren now needs to decide just how much he’s willing to lose because the war about to be waged will be one on two fronts - the corporeal and the virtual.

Fear and Anger


Shawn Kupfer - 2013
    Nick Morrow, commander of the convict unit 47 Echo, has been abandoned by his government and left for dead deep inside enemy territory. Using only his wits and instinct, he must somehow escape a hostile country where his face is plastered over every screen and his wanted poster is projected on the side of every building.Christoper Lee, Nick’s second in command, is tasked with taking over the unit and tracking a group of traitors who have stolen an advanced prototype weapon and fled into North Korea. Unsteady and terrified by his first command, Christopher is sure his mission is going to fail — and that failure, he fears, will turn the tide of the war and crush the already overextended Allied forces.

Crash


Guy Haley - 2013
    Mankind, trapped by a rigid hierarchy of wealth, bends to its every whim. To function, the Market must expand without end. The Earth is finite, and cannot hold it, and so a bold venture to the stars is begun, offering a rare chance at freedom to a select few people. But when the colony fleet is sabotaged, a small group finds itself marooned upon the tidally locked world of Nychthemeron, a world where one hemisphere is bathed in perpetual daylight, the other hidden by eternal night. Isolated and beset, the stricken colony members must fight for survival on the hostile planet, while secrets about both the nature of their shipwreck and Nychthemeron itself threaten to tear their fragile society apart.