The material was recorded while he was on Iora, a technically advanced world as the holocaust virus struck it. She is to review all materials and create a report that includes insights into the young pilot's personality, strategic information about Iora and any other details that could help Haven Fleet. Before long, Alice becomes personally invested in the plight of her subject, and makes discoveries that could change her forever. Meanwhile, a permanent government is taking hold in Haven Shore, and the Fleet is undergoing one last shakeup that could break the Apex class apart. All the while Alice is left to wonder where her father and his ship, the Revenge have gone while they wait for the rest of their active fleet to return from the Iron Head Nebula. The Spinward Fringe saga continues in Carnie's Tale, the connective tissue between Spinward Fringe Broadcast 10: Freeground and Spinward Fringe Broadcast 11: Revenge, telling Alice's story between those books from a more personal perspective. Version 2.

    Two of Earth’s largest corporations now supply the planet with the technology and fuel to make air and space flight available to everyone. Taft Gaurdia spends his weekends at an abandoned flying field, racing through the skies with his three best friends and the girl he longs to be with, Kaytha Morrow. After receiving a mysterious message from her deceased NASA-scientist father, Kaytha and Taft make a shocking discovery.  With Earth now suddenly facing a great disaster, a ruthless and power hungry enemy emerges. Unwittingly, Taft, Kaytha and their friends are thrust into the middle of humanity's fight for survival and future among the stars.

    As he blows out the candles on his cake, he makes a token wish. Three days later, to his utter astonishment, that wish comes true.All his problems solved, Kyle is busy counting his blessings when a gaunt pensioner turns up at his door unannounced. The stranger then confounds Kyle by claiming credit for his recent good fortune, followed by a bizarre declaration … when Edmund Wishkin grants a wish, there’s always a price to pay.Whether he believes the old man or not, Kyle is about to discover the true cost of a wish fulfilled.

    But when a terrified woman falls through his bathroom ceiling, he's forced back into a life of gunfights, double agents and paranormal research. The secret he's been keeping for nearly four decades might reunite him with his lost love, or kill millions.This new short story by John August falls into the genre of paranoid "spy-fi" popularized by writers like Jorge Luis Borges and shows like The Prisoner and The Man from U.N.C.L.E.== What Others Say =="I really dug the story. Gave it a glance just to see, got totally hooked, and blazed on through to the end."-- Michael Chabon (The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, The Yiddish Policemen's Union) "The Variant" is both a good, fun, smart story and an interesting experiment in indie self-publishing for fiction."-- John Gruber, daringfireball.net== About the Author ==An excerpt of The Variant is available at johnaugust.com/variant About the AuthorJohn August is the screenwriter of eight feature films, including Go, Big Fish, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Corpse Bride. He wrote and directed the 2007 movie The Nines.He can be found on Twitter, @johnaugust

    The team, introduced in Book 4 of the A Galaxy Unknown series, and with small roles in subsequent books, is now featured in their own story as this AGU: SCI series kicks off. This story is a mix of low-tech and high-tech as shootouts in saloons and city streets vie with spaceship chases and space battles to dominate the pages of this book. Space Command Intelligence operates to the full width and breadth of Galactic Alliance space— and sometimes beyond. Intelligence gathering is a dangerous profession, and most agents operate alone, or with a single partner, but there are exceptions. Trader Vyx, originally a lone field agent, was saddled with two information gatherers when he left the Gollasko Colony, but mutual bonds of respect soon grew between the three men. When two female operatives were rescued from Tsgardi slavers by Vyx, Byers, and Nelligen, SCI temporarily assigned the women to Vyx's team. Now, years later, the team is still together, and operating as one of the most effective groups in SCI.With the defeat of the Uthlaro Dominion, their former territory has fallen into anarchy. Space Command doesn't have adequate resources to bring the region under control while facing other enemies on multiple fronts in Regions One and Two, so SCI agents have been sent in to do what they can.Trader Vyx and his team are on the planet Bleadalto, two hundred light-years from Uthlarigasset. Their mission is to assess the situation there and learn everything they can about the slavery problem, but the once out-of-control-violence situation on Gollasko seems like a tea social compared to everyday life on Bleadalto. Within hours of arriving on the planet, Vyx is forced into a gunfight with a Brotherhood thug. The large crime organization is not pleased.

    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.

    She erred in not considering commercial and political consequences. Now, someone wants to steal or bury her research and, perhaps, her with it. With no way to fight this unknown foe, Jaswinder knows she has but one chance—complete her research and publish. To do that, she has to stay alive and stay free. Pilot Johannes Yrden desires a courtesan, someone to keep him company on the 8 month trip to the planet Liberty and back. He wants someone not from the Yrden Family spaceship and to hell with his brother, Captain Matt Yrden, who believes the TransPlanetary Corporations will stock his line-up with spies. Yrden's plan runs afoul of circumstance, which throws him together with one 'Jazz Saro', a woman on the run. Forced to run with her, Yrden allows her to convince him to sign her on as courtesan. He needs a companion; she needs a ship, a place to hide. It seems a simple enough arrangement. Jaswinder thinks she's found her perfect solution: a hiding place in hyperspace, where she can complete her research using the ship as her laboratory. Unfortunately, she hasn't reckoned on the possibility of one of her pursuers booking passage, forcing her to maintain the fiction of her alias. The pilot's family, with troubles of their own, grow suspicious and it becomes apparent she cannot complete her research openly. That leaves her the choice: Do what she needs to do to in order to save Jaswinder's life or become Jazz Saro.

    More than 1,100 pages of epic space opera action and adventure with unique heroes and twists that you won’t see coming. Over 1.5 Million Page Reads and counting! From book one: No-one comes in peace. Every being in the galaxy wants something, and is willing to take it by force. The Hedalt were no different. They came from the distant reaches of the galaxy to wage war. Their fleet wanted to take Earth for its prize, but we were ready. We were stronger. For years, we fought them, ship-to-ship, until we scattered their forces and drove them back. Pursuing the Hedalt fleet to their home world, we delivered the decisive blow. We nuked their planet and wiped them out for good. Or so we thought. For decades, Earth Fleet sent out Deep Space Recon missions to scour the galaxy and clean up the remnants of the Hedalt Empire. Eventually, we found only ghosts – empty outposts and long-dead colonies. But, close to the edge of known space, I – Captain Taylor Ray – and my crew are about to make a discovery that will change everything. The war isn’t over. The war has yet to begin. The series includes: The Contingency The Way Station Gambit Rise of Nimrod Fleet Earth’s Last War

    In another universe, humanity is overrun by monsters so evil that their very presence dims the light of the stars. In yet another universe, humanity is drawn into an endless battle for dominion over the galaxy. This is not one of those universes. In this universe, humanity is in charge of the Galactic Peace Committee. In theory, the Committee is an unmatched force for good, bringing peace and prosperity to countless worlds and ensuring that conflicts between different races are settled with words and not planet-cracking weaponry or super plagues designed to turn everyone into goo. In theory. Jake Smith is a diplomat. He works for the Committee. This is his story – and it goes about as well as you’d expect. In other words, it doesn’t go very well at all. Can Jake survive petty aliens? Sure. He’s a diplomat. It’s all part of the job. What about angry aliens? Probably. He does have a killer robot for a secretary, and he’s not bad with a shock staff. How about a fleet of aliens out for blood? That… that might be a little bit trickier. The Galactic Peace Committee… keeping peace (sort of) throughout the galaxy.

    And, as they charge headlong into the galaxy, humans discover other worlds that are already there.

     Milton Frederick was originally abducted from his apartment to help defend one batch of pacifistic aliens called The Collective against another set of homicidal aliens called Heliothropes…but he never quite made it that far. Instead, during the process where his human consciousness was ripped from his body and inserted into a massive metal contraption called a Station Core, the ship that he was being transported on blew up and he was sent hurtling through space. Crash-landing on an unknown planet with just a foot-and-a-half tall, foul-mouthed, nanite-formed AI guide called ALANNA to tell him what happened, Milton has to come to terms with his new existence as a giant metal egg, defend his hazardously-in-need-of-repair outer shell from the dangerous local wildlife (including blood-thirsty squirrels), and manage the unique radiation spewing from his damaged internal reactor – all while figuring out how the heck to get off the planet. All of his work building a “dungeon” underground, defending it with makeshift traps, and filling it with small Combat Units may work well enough against the random beasts wandering around, but they’re next to useless when something else even more dangerous shows up knocking on his door: people. Not humans, of course, but the local equivalent – Proctans – who are similar enough to Milton’s original species…though with one major difference. They all have unique special abilities that looks suspiciously like “magic”. However, there is an even bigger threat that looms on the horizon not only for Milton, but all the Proctans as well… Contains LitRPG/GameLit elements such as level progression and experience, optional tables, no harems, and a heavy Dungeon Core emphasis. Note: The optional stat tables tend to skew the percentages toward the back of the eBook. The locations can be a tad deceptive; while this box set is 562,000 words, stat tables comprise less than 8% of that total word count.

    Now it's about to become ground zero in a gold rush by every crooked company and asteroid thief in the galaxy. Andrew Cochrane, with his crew of the finest veterans and cunning rogues, have an even better scheme. They've conned the owner into hiring them as a mercenary security company to defend the system. With no oversight but their own, Cochrane's Company plans to seize the richest pickings for themselves. But nothing ever comes easy. If they want to keep their loot, they're going to have to outwit and outfight every smuggler, bandit and renegade after the same prize - and their boss, too!

    Resigned to spending the rest of his days as a latter day Robinson Crusoe, the Captain is shocked to find the remains of uninhabited alien exploration base on the planet. This soon becomes a desperate fight for survival for the Captain, but also an exhilarating journey, full of adventure and new discoveries.

    The crew of the Edison suddenly find themselves fighting for their lives - and amongst the chaos, Taniya will discover that she's not the only member of the crew with a secret . . .