Bread is a good start for sustenance.Don Eyr and Serana were survivors who came to Low Port – it gave them air, water, a place to stand and a place to make bread. The place to sleep meant they needed a certain amount of safety and to get that they founded a bakery at the corner of Crakle and Toom, brought in others seeking to survive in the midst of the poverty and ignorance, and built a tiny bastion of a self-sufficient community dedicated to raising competent, alert children who understood decency.Low Port toughs tried to break the bakery and a planet-shaking blast from the skies nearly did it in, but the bakery was hope, and people who have hope will fight to keep it.This chapbook collects four stories about sustenance, all about the bakery, its people, and its influence. ″Degrees of Separation,″ ″Fortune’s Favors,″ and "Block Party" are reprints. The novelette ″Our Lady of Benevolence″ appears here for the first time.

    An impossible to miss new explosive release sure to catch the eye of all the fans of Sword Art Online and Log Horizon! The Fate has to lead you to a stone dead! The body languishes in the captivity of the regeneration capsule; the mind is connected to the virtual game of the new generation. Well, you could take it, but a strange system error has deprived you of the connection with reality and outside help. Now for NPCs you are one of them, and for the players you are one of NPCs. There is the only chance to recover your body, crippled by the catastrophe. It is to survive in this superfluously cruel world! To survive here--you need to become stronger. But who could make you stronger but the 'Shadows', the most famous assassin guild in Noria? 'The Birth' is the first book by Paul Kite (real name - Pavel Korshunov) - one of the most popular Russian LitRPG series 'Realm of Noria'. Paul Kite is one of the top-rated of the new wave gamelit-author. He has created the story of Kraven, a person who accidentally became a captive of the virtual world and fought not only for his freedom, but also for his life.

    But the worms aren’t the only thing that he finds. Staring at him through the darkness, with wide, innocent eyes, is something that makes Seckry’s heart almost stop.A girl.She’s shaking, petrified, and has no recollection of who she is or what she’s doing there.Floodlights bleach the area and Seckry has no choice but to grab a hold of the girl and escape with her.Suddenly the question of what Endrin were doing with a few worms becomes the last thing on Seckry’s mind. What were Endrin doing with a human?

    Keener senses, heightened awareness and an enhanced physical strength that could be called upon by his sheer will. Erik becomes involved with a team of high profile investigators and local police trying to locate a girl who was kidnapped in the middle of a playground amongst dozens of adults and children. None of the adults saw anything and what the children claim to have seen is too far fetched to be believed. The search evolves into a full-scale manhunt into the dark and desolate woodlands of the Hopedale Mountain. After a lethal encounter and a fatality, Erik, the investigators and police realize that what they're dealing with isn't a man and possibly isn't of this world. What they're dealing with is a sentient evil that has an appetite for young children.

    The human race has been wiped out by the 6DM virus (Six Days Maximum - the longest you've got before your body destroys itself). The end of the world as we know it.Yet someone is still alive. Alone in a new world of burning cities, rotting corpses and ravenous rats, one woman has survived. A woman who has spent her whole life compromising what she wants and hiding how she feels to meet other people's expectations. From her career to her relationships, to what she wears and where she lives, she's made a lifetime of decisions to fit what other people want her to be. But with no one else left, who will she become now that she's completely alone?

    Military Science Fiction Short Story Nate is a test pilot for the United States Army. Actually, he is the best damned test pilot period, even with the headaches. The United States is developing a new kind of piloted war machine with the help of Franklin Industries and they have secured some of the most high tech, abrasive equipment on the planet. Does it work? According to the test pilot, it works like a champ. If that's the case, then why is everything shrouded in mystery at the end of Nate's test flight? Furthermore, why does Nate suffer such horrific migraines? Read here to find out!

    They say that vengeance is a dish best served cold, but to the men and woman who went with him over the border to deliver that vengeance, it was dish served hot, and out of the barrel of a gun and cannon, and from the air. Yet in victory came defeat as he found three hundred years later in the world he woke up in. One far different from the one he'd left behind when he went into cold sleep. Now he had to find a place in this strange new world, one without the means to wage war against an alien race raping the planet of its young people. First, he had to build an army, navy and air force from scratch while fending off attacks from the aliens and the secret government that wanted to put him and his men back into cold sleep or the grave.

    The great and the good celebrate her victories. Criminals dread the day they hear she is hunting them. But it was not always thus…

    Then came a final blow no one could have expected: all the world’s corpses rising up to make more.Born into this bleak and bloody landscape, twelve-year-old Julie struggles to hold on to hope as she and her parents drive across the wastelands of America, a nightmarish road trip in search of a new home.Hungry, lost, and scared, sixteen-year-old Nora finds herself her brother’s sole guardian after her parents abandon them in the not-quite-empty ruins of Seattle.And in the darkness of a forest, a dead man opens his eyes. Who is he? What is he? With no clues beyond a red tie and the letter “R,” he must unravel the grim mystery of his existence—right after he learns how to think, how to walk, and how to satisfy the monster howling in his belly. The New Hunger is a glimpse of the past and a path to an astonishing future…

    In fact, you get paid big money—more than you've ever dreamed of—to spend a few seasons in this luxurious locale. The catch? For nine months, you belong to the Farm. You cannot leave the grounds; your every move is monitored. Your former life will seem a world away as you dedicate yourself to the all-consuming task of producing the perfect baby for your überwealthy clients.Jane, an immigrant from the Philippines and a struggling single mother, is thrilled to make it through the highly competitive Host selection process at the Farm. But now pregnant, fragile, consumed with worry for her own young daughter's well-being, Jane grows desperate to reconnect with her life outside. Yet she cannot leave the Farm or she will lose the life-changing fee she'll receive on delivery—or worse.Heartbreaking, suspenseful, provocative, The Farm pushes our thinking on motherhood, money, and merit to the extremes, and raises crucial questions about the trade-offs women will make to fortify their futures and the futures of those they love.

    Orwell’s dystopia has been stalled - so far. The world wears Lenses, computerized glass contacts manufactured by a corporation called Newsight. The technology is regulated by the Senate, so no one worries about breaches in privacy. A teenage boy named Vincent, however, feels quite differently. After his Senator father tells him that Newsight has been pushing for an appeal on the data regulations, Vincent begins to dig deeper. He learns that Newsight’s CEO claims to want to use the data in his fight against the Order, a terrorist organization whose attacks have recently been mounting in frequency, but the man’s true motives aren’t so clear - until Vincent meets a girl from school whose father is a Newsight developer. There is a trail of bread crumbs in the software’s code. Newsight has a closer relationship to the Order than anyone may have guessed, and the Lenses have been doing more than just running simulations. Caught in the middle of a world blinded by progress, Vincent finally discover the truth. But it might already be too late. “2084” casts a technocentric world into an Orwellian shadow. Told in close but unique parallel to “1984”, Vincent’s ever-quickening journey to the world’s new dystopia has left readers wanting more. Reviews “Honestly I didn't enjoy 1984 and don't usually like Sci-Fi/Post-Apocalyptic stories, so when my friends told me I had to check it out, I was more than hesitant. Surprisingly, after the first few pages, I couldn't put it down. It made my commute to/from work fly by. If 1984 had been this engaging, I would have paid more attention in high school. Perfect short read for book clubs on the go. One complaint: I WANT MORE.” “Engel is able to create vividly detailed environments without slowing the pace his story. Definitely a good quick read that makes me want to see more by him.”

    A world ruled by women. A world designed to be perfect. Here, women and men are kept separate. Women lead highly controlled and suffocating lives, while men are subordinate – used for labour and breeding. Sisterland’s leaders have been watching Constance and recognise that she’s special. Selected to reproduce, she finds herself alone with a man for the first time. But the mate chosen for her isn’t what she expected – and she begins to see a darker side to Sisterland. Constance’s misgivings about the regime mount. Is she the only one who questions this unequal society, or are there other doubters? Set in the near future, About Sisterland is a searing, original novel which explores the devastating effects of extremism.

    Beyond the Forest lie the mountains of the Snowy Dark and a cold so bitter and a night so profound that no man has ever crossed it. The Oldest among the Family recount legends of a world where light came from the sky, where men and women made boats that could cross the stars. These ships brought us here, the Oldest say—and the Family must only wait for the travelers to return. But young John Redlantern will break the laws of Eden, shatter the Family and change history. He will abandon the old ways, venture into the Dark…and discover the truth about their world.Already remarkably acclaimed in the UK, Dark Eden is science fiction as literature; part parable, part powerful coming-of-age story, set in a truly original alien world of dark, sinister beauty--rendered in prose that is at once strikingly simple and stunningly inventive.

    Nineteen-year-old Paige Mahoney is working in the criminal underworld of Scion London, based at Seven Dials, employed by a man named Jaxon Hall. Her job: to scout for information by breaking into people’s minds. For Paige is a dreamwalker, a clairvoyant and, in the world of Scion, she commits treason simply by breathing.It is raining the day her life changes for ever. Attacked, drugged and kidnapped, Paige is transported to Oxford – a city kept secret for two hundred years, controlled by a powerful, otherworldly race. Paige is assigned to Warden, a Rephaite with mysterious motives. He is her master. Her trainer. Her natural enemy. But if Paige wants to regain her freedom she must allow herself to be nurtured in this prison where she is meant to die.The Bone Season introduces a compelling heroine and also introduces an extraordinary young writer, with huge ambition and a teeming imagination. Samantha Shannon has created a bold new reality in this riveting debut.

    Chewing grass in a field, gazing dreamily at passing clouds or standing at a hedge to watch the world go by. Perhaps a light nap followed by a gentle canter and more grazing, and then off to the stable for a programme of psychological tests designed to expand the boundaries of horse consciousness.For Betty and Tim, life was also simple. Or at least as simple as life could be when you are scientists conducting neurological experiments on a horse. That is until the day they discovered their horse was conducting an experiment of its own.Life became rather more complicated after that for Tim, Betty and Buttercup, and the ensuing struggle for control over one horse's destiny results in an intellectual arms race that takes all three of them to the edge of reality and beyond. It is a struggle that threatens to shake the foundations of civilisation and unravel the fabric of time and space. Can anyone stop this horse from destroying the universe?