At the Australian Solar Power facility that Tower City is built around, however, the inspector is about to learn that the man everyone thinks is hiding from the law is actually doing anything but.Thermals is a fast paced near future terrorism thriller that will keep you flipping the pages as fast as your reader, and your eyes, will allow. From the start it builds to a rising crescendo that will leave you breathless and cheering.

    Antigravity’s cheap. Weapons shoot all manner of energy. Human modification has become as common as football on a Friday night.Yet, not everyone embraces technology.When a rancher is murdered, Sheriff J.D. Crow calls upon his old-fashioned tracking skills to find the killer. When the trail leads him to a complex conspiracy, J.D. is forced to confront the very core of his beliefs. Doing the right thing has always been straightforward, but now things don’t seem so simple.What does it mean to hold hard the line of Justice in an Age of Metal and Men?

     WELCOME TO THE SLAB. A vast orbiting slum where rats grow big, sweat falls in rain and the gene-spliced come in all shapes and sizes. Slab City Blues - There's a stranger on the Slab, a stranger with very sharp claws and a penchant for killing assassins. Finding him is the job of Inspector Alex McLeod, detective, disfigured war veteran and reluctant widower. Some days are worse than others on the Slab but today is going to be a gem. A Song for Madame Choi - An old enemy embroils Inspector Alex McLeod in the hunt for a kidnapped girl. With no leads he finds himself reluctantly seeking help from drug dealer and fellow war veteran Madame Choi. But can he really trust her? A Hymn to Gods Long Dead - Inspector Alex McLeod, recently suspended for excessive force and nurturing a growing addiction to bourbon, has been reduced to tending bar when an improbably beautiful vampire comes to him with a bizarre theory: there’s a killer on the Slab, a killer with a liking for recreating ancient myth, in bloody and spectacular fashion. But who exactly is this vampire, and how does she know so much? And what kind of killer can walk through security systems without a trace, leaving deadly traps for those hunting him? The Ballad of Bad Jack - The Asteroid Belt, home to mining corporations and those who prefer to live beyond the heavily policed habitats of Earth orbit – the perfect hunting ground for Bad Jack, captain of the Dead Reckoning and the most feared pirate in the solar system. About to embark upon the biggest job of his career, Jack finds himself in need of a specialist, but is unaware his latest recruit has a new face, a new name and an agenda of his own. Chief Inspector Alex McLeod has been reset to war mode, and things are about to get very ugly. The fourth story in the Slab City Blues series, The Ballad of Bad Jack is an all-action future-crime thriller from the best-selling author of the Raven’s Shadow trilogy. An Aria for Ragnarok - Alex McLeod has a score to settle. Back on the Slab and newly promoted to head of Special Homicide, Alex decides it’s time to finally bring down Mr Mac - his longest-standing enemy and the most powerful criminal kingpin in the Confederation of Autonomous Orbiting States. But, before the hunt can begin he finds himself lumbered with the inconvenient and spectacularly bloody murder of a famous industrialist. A swift but violent resolution to the case raises more questions than it answers and Alex’s inability to tolerate a mystery soon uncovers a far greater threat than he has ever faced before. Ragnarok is coming. To stop it, Alex must call on the help of both friends and foes, as well as placing himself in an alien and hostile environment: it’s time for a return visit to Planet Earth.

    But this time, the nation to beat is China, and the goal is Mars.Far behind steady advances in Chinese aerospace engineering and even lunar colonization, a team of American scientists, engineers, and astronauts struggles to integrate decades-old technologies, untested prototypes, and some very out-of-the-box thinking to give their nation a shot at one of the most important achievements in human history. Nothing goes as planned while pursuing what appears to be the impossible, but the ultimate surprise lies in the mission's conclusion.This quirky and intelligent novella by Christian Cantrell is both humorous and unpredictable as it explores an unfamiliar, but not entirely unimaginable, post-superpower United States.

    Still, like everything else in the Budayeen, he’s available…for a price.For a new kind of killer roams the streets of the Arab ghetto, a madman whose bootlegged personality cartridges range from a sinister James Bond to a sadistic disemboweler named Khan. And Marid Audrian has been made an offer he can’t refuse.The 200-year-old “godfather” of the Budayeen’s underworld has enlisted Marid as his instrument of vengeance. But first Marid must undergo the most sophisticated of surgical implants before he dares to confront a killer who carries the power of every psychopath since the beginning of time.Wry, savage, and unignorable, When Gravity Fails was hailed as a classic by Effinger’s fellow SF writers on its original publication in 1987, and the sequence of “Marid Audrian” novels it begins were the culmination of his career.

    As sea levels rise and livable landmasses shrink, the Reorganized United States of America has instituted population control measures to ensure there are sufficient resources and food to sustain the growing population. Birth authorization must be paid for and obtained prior to having a child. Someone must die before another can be born, keeping the country in a population neutral position at what experts consider to be the optimal population. The new laws are enforced by a ruthless government organization known as Pop Con, responsible for terminating any children resulting from unauthorized births, and any illegals who manage to survive past their second birthday, at which point they are designated a national security threat and given the name Slip. But what if one child slipped through the cracks? What if someone knew all the loopholes and how to exploit them? Would it change anything? Would the delicate resource balance be thrown into a tailspin, threatening the lives of everyone? And how far would the government go to find and terminate the Slip? In a gripping story of a family torn apart by a single choice, Slip is a reminder of the sanctity of a single life and the value of the lives we so often take for granted.

    The true universe is unfathomably vast, teeming with life and untold wonders. And it is enslaved.Created by ancient aliens in a daring gambit to understand the nature of the enemy, humanity is now asked to be the savior of a universe not their own. If they are to succeed, they must rise above not only their fractious past but the sins of their genetic ancestors to boldly embrace a future they never dared imagine possible.*RELATIVITY"I'd tell you to be careful, but we wouldn't be here if you'd ever taken that advice. No reason to start now, right?"For millennia the Anadens have ruled the known universe. They believe they've crafted the perfect empire, ordered and impervious to challenge. They believe the fight has been crushed out of the species they subjugate. They are wrong.It's a suicide mission, without a doubt. Alex Solovy and Caleb Marano must steal crucial intelligence from the Anadens' central military headquarters. To succeed, they'll need to navigate a strange universe ruled by a cabal of powerful immortals, populated by aliens they've never met and fueled by technology they've never seen. They're going to need a little help--the kind of help only a suicidally defiant anarchist on the run from more than just personal demons can provide.*RUBICON"We are you--the you that you could have been."The Anaden Directorate has ruled Amaranthe for millennia, subjugating species and galaxies in a neverending quest for control and order. For as many millennia, the anarchs have rebelled, defiantly claiming their own freedom yet without hope of winning it for everyone. Now, an alliance with humans offers a tantalizing chance to at last defeat their immortal masters. But can they trust an ally who looks suspiciously like the enemy?Humanity is the genetic recreation of the Anadens, but genetics aren't everything. Humans like to make their own destiny, and they have overcome great challenges to achieve unprecedented peace and prosperity. But have their trials prepared them for the enemy they now face?"The battle for the heart and soul of Amaranthe will be joined, and we must be unafraid."Amidst the chaos of an escalating war, Caleb's bond with the mysterious diati grows ever more powerful, even as Alex's forays into the hidden dimensions of the universe lead them to unfathomable places. But when the anarchs are pushed to the breaking point and the AEGIS fleet is dealt a devastating blow, Miriam Solovy must find a way to defeat a foe wielding superior technology, firepower and numbers, or else more than one civilization will be lost.*REQUIEMThe end of the world began with a library query...how will it conclude?What began as a chance discovery of an anomalous signal is now a multiverse war between humanity and its genetic ancestors over who controls the levers of life and death. Over who decides what life is and whether it will be allowed to exist. For the ruling Anaden Directorate, victory means immortality. For humanity, defeat means extinction.

    This collection includes the first three books and is over 1000 pages (350,000 words) of post-apocalyptic survival.BREAKERS (Book 1)In New York, Walt Lawson is about to lose his girlfriend Vanessa. In Los Angeles, Raymond and Mia James are about to lose their house. Within days, none of it will matter. A plague tears across the world, reducing New York to an open grave and LA to a chaotic wilderness of violence and fires. Civilization comes to an abrupt stop.Just as the survivors begin to adapt to the aftermath, Walt learns the virus that ended humanity wasn't created by humans. It was inflicted from outside. The colonists who sent it are ready to finish the job--and Earth's survivors may be too few and too weak to resist.MELT DOWN (Book 2)In upstate Idaho, Ness Hook is run out of his mom's house by his bullying brother Shawn. In Redding, California, Tristan Carter is graduating college, but with no job and no prospects, she'll have to move back in with her parents.Then the world ends: first with a virus, then with an alien invasion.Ness and Shawn take to the mountains to fight a guerrilla against the attackers. In California, Tristan and Alden are taken prisoner. Separated from her brother, Tristan crosses the ruins of America to track him down. She will stop at nothing to get Alden back--but her fellow survivors prove even more dangerous than the monsters who broke the world.KNIFEPOINT (Book 3)Raina was just a girl when the plague came. She survived. Her parents didn't. Neither did the world. As civilization fell, she took to the ruins of Los Angeles, eating whatever she could catch.After two years alone, she's found and adopted by a fisherman and his wife. Their makeshift family lives a quiet life--until a man named Karslaw sails in from Catalina Island with an army of conquerors. Driven by visions of empire, he executes Raina's new father as a traitor and takes her mother captive.But Karslaw's people aren't the only ones vying for control of the ruined land. As violence wracks the city, Raina joins a rebellion against Karslaw's rule. She will stop at nothing to free her mother--and to have her revenge.

     That means taking almost any job that comes his way, no matter the situation. So long as he can keep his ship floating, he's free to live the life he wants. But that all changes when he meets Abigail Pryar, a nun looking for safe passage out of the system. Too bad there's something off about the cargo she's carrying. Jace knows he shouldn't ask too many questions, but when odd sounds start coming from inside the large, metal box, he can't help but check it out. Big mistake. The Renegade Star boxset includes the first three books in the series.

     In the year 2098, there is no more war, no more hunger and no more pollution. The world is secure and Earth’s 2.9 billion people are healthy and happy. There is also only one remaining library that still houses physical books. In addition to the dusty volumes, the library holds many secrets. But the government has decided to shut it down and burn the contents. Unless an unlikely trio can save the books, humanity will lose more than just what is printed on those antique pages. With a single government ruling the entire planet, one currency, one language and no religion, the population is unified and enjoying the prosperity that comes with more than seven decades of peace. Free healthcare for all and guaranteed employment make the future a dream. But this future may only be safe if they can hide the past. The books must be saved . . . the impossible task is up to an angry author, a brazen revolutionary and the last librarian. When everything is perfect, the only thing left to fear is the truth.

    The soil was poisoned. The air became toxic. Billions died. Those who survived took refuge in great towered cities, and began constructing giant colony ships that would enable them to escape the ruined Earth. The work wasn’t completed in their lifetime. The seas rose to swamp the diseased land, and lap against the city walls. Their descendants laboured on, and now the first of the spaceships is nearing completion. But these cities aren’t dictatorships. An election is scheduled to choose a leader for this last exodus of humanity. With twenty-four hours until voting is due to begin, two workers are murdered. It is the first serious crime in generations, and it is down to the young Constable Ely to solve it. The election must take place. The ships must be launched. Above all, production must come first. (54,000 words)

    JFK’s assassination. A tyrannous regime’s inner-workings. Welcome to The Theta Prophecy, where alternate history meets modern dystopian.Having survived a perilous journey into the distant past, a time traveler grapples with the crushing realization that his sacrifices were in vain. In a different era, the world suffers at the hands of an empire bent on instilling misery upon an entire population. But the course he unknowingly sets the world upon will change everything we think we know about history.Irreverent but insightful, The Theta Prophecy is an adventure spanning centuries. More than just another dystopian story, it offers a disturbing vision of the future that will leave you asking, what is reality and what is fiction? And most importantly, can the Tyranny be stopped?"A terrifying glimpse at a believable future." - Kirkus

    Brace for the Arrival. Paramedic Maya Talbot knows her unhinged, ex-husband is gunning for custody of their children. When she drops off Aiden and Laura at Grandma's for a weekend visit, Maya assumes they'll be safe. However, nothing could have prepared her for the chaos created when a strange obelisk rises from the ground and generates an impenetrable dome over the city. Riots, looting, and violence run rampant. The situation in Nashville deteriorates—and then they arrive, thrusting Maya into a desperate race to escape the dome and save her children from the dangers on the ground—and from above. When darkness falls, the intergalactic visitors manifest our worst fears and threaten the future of humankind. Arrival is the new post-apocalyptic thriller from bestselling authors, J. Thorn and Zach Bohannon, the first book in the War for Earth trilogy.

    An intrepid group of friends will stop at nothing to defend their home. A massive fleet of aliens arrived weeks back and have been battling it out with the combined fleets of mankind's most powerful nations. The war for humanity's very existence has begun and it's not going very well. With supremacy in orbit, the Kroerak empire has started the second phase of their invasion by sending in their armies. Lester Knight, Jeremy Tinker and Clara Daws have grown up in the sleepy little town, Elm Bluff on the western border of Iowa. Nothing much exciting every happens in Elm Bluff until suddenly it becomes a buffer between two armies. The town has only one chance of survival and that's if it can be cut off from the bugs. Read Uncommon Bravery and discover just how far a group of friends will go to protect their home.

    A new terror group calling themselves the Cabal is plaguing the galaxy. Former Imperial Navy Ensign Tisiphone thought returning home was going to be easy. Life on the farm was still incredibly boring. Her home planet is still recovering from the recent revolution. They have been attacked from space and thousands are dead. A new and effective Military is what they need. To be the best officer she can be she needs to go to the Academy first. Will the Cabal give her planet time to learn to combat them? Or will a new threat from Old Earth come into play?