Helpless, doomed, into the graveyard of space floats the wrecked freighter Pallas.

    Over time he has learned to accept his confinement. After all, it is no more than he deserves given the heinous nature of his previous crimes. However, when a new member of the nursing staff begins taking an interest in Tommy, he learns things previously kept from him: Like why he is being permanently dosed with meds. How, and why, his parents really died. And is it just a coincidence his earlier crimes occurred at the time of a full moon? Nurse Jenny informs Tommy about the true nature of his world: Secret Government cabals, and their plans for a New World Order; the murder of his parents, and facing up to the reality of his life as a werewolf. Then, when she thinks he is ready, she tells him the biggest secret of all: Nurse Jenny has a way out of Broad-lands. But, as is often the case, nothing comes without a price. What is the real motivation for her aiding Tommy's escape? A tale of horror that unfolds beneath the light of a full moon.

    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

    All of the stories are interesting, many involve alcohol, and five are collected for the first time in The Immortal Chronicles! The books in this collection take Adam from the Barbary Coast of the 1500's, to England at the turn of the 19th century, Vienna of 1815, Chicago in the 1930's, and 1950's New York. He spends time with pirates and assassins, a succubus, a shape-shifting monster, a madman who can see the future, and Santa Claus. The Immortal Chronicles is an ongoing series of novellas from Adam, the star narrator of the Immortal Novel trilogy (IMMORTAL, HELLENIC IMMORTAL and IMMORTAL AT THE EDGE OF THE WORLD.) Collected here for the first time: IMMORTAL AT SEA, HARD-BOILED IMMORTAL, IMMORTAL AND THE MADMAN, YULETIDE IMMORTAL and REGENCY IMMORTAL. Catch up with Adam now!

    You?Alcoholic, said Rohan.Sixteen light-years from Earth, a black hole spins in the darkness, gravity and rotation flattening it into a Kerr singularity. In Colombo, Sri Lanka, a suicidal alcoholic signs up for the ultimate one-way trip: to be frozen, sent light years away from home, and shot into the black hole itself.

    Not exploding, not dropping out of the sky, just disappearing. When the Hubble Space Telescope vanishes, reluctant hero Jake Corby is dispatched to figure out who or what is responsible. He's used to solving problems for the FBI, but hunting down missing satellites? That's a new one. The mysterious force next cripples the International Space Station and destroys the only spacecraft that could rescue the astronauts. The race is on to avert the final death blow to the ISS and execute a risky plan to get the astronauts back home. Before it's too late. This short prequel to Contact Us is filled with the quirky surprises and humor that Al Macy's readers have come to expect. The Antiterrorist is a standalone book, with no cliffhanger or "to be continued" at the end. It may be read before or after other books in the series.

    As tiny and inconspicuous as it may seem, That-Which-Had-Been exhibits an unexpected and varied gift for survival, as it journeys implacably toward its ultimate destination. Along the way, it meets a rich array of ordinary human beings, some of whom assist it along its way, others who impede its progress, none of whom have any idea of its existence.From whence comes the strange, but universal, experience of deja vu? Why do some people exhibit a wisdom far beyond their age and experience - persons reincarnationists refer to as 'old souls'? Joseph Wurtenbaugh in this short story offers a fascinating and tantalizingly plausible explanation for these phenomena, presented in a natural setting that brims with adventure and exhilarating possibility. Not to be missed by anyone who enjoys science fiction or thinking outside the box.

    But Commonwealth operative Simon Kovalic knows nothing ever goes to plan. So, when a duplicitous bounty hunter lives up to his reputation, Kovalic’s ready—just maybe not ready enough.Now he and his team must get offworld, before their enemies catch up with them…

    While they slept, the starship went through the wrong fold in space and settled for a different world, a wild world. Three centuries after the founding of a colony on the uncharted planet, Gilead awakens to find humanity slipped back to medieval tech and a feudal structure. Worse, the king who wants Gilead awake won’t let Gilead awaken his wife.

    This collection of stories is where robots stand in for us, where both we and they are disadvantaged, and where hope and optimism shines through.

     Will the disgraced former Admiral earn the trust of his crew?Known for being a tactical genius, Captain Jameson has been given a less than exciting mission. Go investigate the anomaly. Deep in an unchartered section of space, the UAF Titan must find the source of a mysterious signal.He hates the mission.Babysitting scientists in the middle of nowhere makes him crazy.When they find the artifact, everything changes.A semi-globe, opaque, and glowing, Jameson’s crew makes a single mistake and they are soon in over their heads. Have they just started a war?Will the ship hold together?What’s his next move?You’ll love this first book in this exciting new series, because finding the artifact was only the beginning. Get it now!

    They knew it would be difficult, but they weren't prepared for the cruelty of the unknown. Coming to terms with new equations and ways of looking at the future is difficult enough, but can any relationship prevail when the only tie to the present starts to break down? "An astonishing debut." -- John Joseph Adams, host, Geeks Guide to the Galaxy This debut novelette by Jake Kerr is a modern classic of science fiction. Nominated for the Nebula Award, the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award, and the StorySouth Million Writers Award, it immediately established Kerr as a modern force in science fiction's humanist tradition. "Heartwrenching." SF Revu

    But when another version of himself appears and kidnaps Gary's wife before his very eyes, Gary must decide whether or not to use the strange mechanical devices his duplicate has left him ... and then live with the choice. YOUR NAME IS IN THE BOOK: When John was eleven years old, he came home to find a book he'd never seen before lying on his bed. The cover had been torn off, and inside it were endless lists of names - some of which belonged to people he knew - with a single number behind each one. That was his first glimpse into a darker reality than he could have ever imagined, because even though couldn't know it at the time, that mysterious book would go on to affect every facet of the rest of his life. And potentially, hold the key to his death.

    Here is a must-read for any science fiction lover, for, as the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction says, "the film lost the story's ironic ending." Discover for yourself what Hollywood left out in this first-ever collection of the best work of the legendary 1930s idea man, Harry Bates (1900-1981). Rounding out this collection of sophisticated plays-on-ideas that stood traditional science fiction on its head are "A Matter of Size" and "Alas, All Thinking" (1935). These three short novels, which the Encyclopedia calls his most "notable stories," have never before been gathered in one book. Bates' "The Day the Earth Stood Still" (1940 under the title, "Farewell to the Master"), with its poignant, haunting last line, would posthumously bring him the coveted Balrog Award (1983). When you have read it, you will understand why long-time science fiction fans rank it and its creator, Harry Bates, among the greats.

    4-chapters in total; only available for e-purchase.First contact: despite our cosmic littleness, the aliens have come to visit. But they have parked their interstellar craft on the outskirts of the solar system, and despite friendly interaction (their English if fluent and idiomatic) they will come no closer. So an Earth ship, the "Leibniz", crewed by the best and the brightest, begins the slow haul towards the Oort cloud, in the hopes that meeting these alien creatures will answer the most profound questions humanity can ask. “Anticopernicus” is not their story, though. It is the story of Ange Mlinko, an ordinary individual working the Earth-Mars trade routes, largely uninterested in the arrival of alien intelligences. And because the focus is on her, it remains to be seen whether this short novel can answer the following questions: why have the aliens come? Why won't they come any closer than the furthest edges of the solar system? What does this have to do with the nature of the mysterious ‘dark energy’ pervading the cosmos? What about the celebrated Fermi Paradox? And most pressingly: could Copernicus have been wrong all along?