One day, Colonel Fred Johnson will be hailed as a hero to the system. One day, he will meet a desperate man in possession of a stolen spaceship and a deadly secret and extend a hand of friendship. But long before he became the leader of the Outer Planets Alliance, Fred Johnson had a very different name. The Butcher of Anderson Station. This is his story.Word Count: ~9,000 words

     But Peter Miller, an analyst at the headquarters of the Office of Strategic Services in Washington D.C., learns of a secret Nazi weapons project that may pose a far greater threat: the Black Gate. Sent alone on a perilous mission into the heart of Germany in the guise of an SS officer, Peter discovers that Nazi scientists have recreated an ancient machine that opens a portal to another universe, a gate they believe literally leads to Hell. With the help of Mina Hass, a beautiful woman who is also the lover and confidant of the madman leading the project, Peter must find a way to close the gate forever before the Nazis unwittingly unleash Armageddon…

    As plague ravages the continent and the heavens burn with meteors, the empire's greatest general will stop at nothing to possess the first Phoenix.And when Kaifeng, the Chinese capital falls, the only thing standing in the path of total domination is one lone alchemist and a rogue assassin.The Phoenix Ascent is a free short story. Check out The Phoenix Variant for the full story.

    When HMS Reliant captures a French frigate and seizes the precious cargo, an unhatched dragon egg, fate sweeps Captain Will Laurence from his seafaring life into an uncertain future – and an unexpected kinship with a most extraordinary creature. Thrust into the rarified world of the Aerial Corps as master of the dragon Temeraire, he will face a crash course in the daring tactics of airborne battle. For as France’s own dragon-borne forces rally to breach British soil in Bonaparte’s boldest gambit, Laurence and Temeraire must soar into their own baptism of fire.

    But as the Skins invade bucolic Thallspring, Z-B's strategy is about to go awry, all because of: Sgt. Lawrence Newton, a dreamer whose twenty years as a Skin have destroyed his hopes and desires; Denise Ebourn, a school teacher and resistance leader whose guerrilla tactics rival those of Che Guevara and George Washington and Simon Roderick, the director who serves Z-B with a dedication that not even he himself can understand. Grimly determined to steal, or protect, a mysterious treasure, the three players engage in a private war that will explode into unimaginable quests for personal grace...or galactic domination

    Martin is a giant in the field of fantasy literature and one of the most exciting storytellers of our time. Now he delivers a rare treat for readers: a compendium of his shorter works, collected into two stunning volumes, that offer fascinating insight into his journey from young writer to award-winning master.Gathered here in Volume I are the very best of George R.R. Martin's early works, including never-before-published fan pieces, his Hugo, Nebula, and Bram Stoker Award-winning stories plus the original novella The Ice Dragon, from which Martin's New York Times bestselling children's book of the same title originated. A dazzling array that features extensive author commentary, Dreamsongs, Volume I, is the perfect collection for both Martin devotees and a new generation of fans.Contents:- Introduction by Gardner Dozois One: A Four-Color Fanboy (2003)- Only Kids Are Afraid of the Dark (1967)- The Fortress (2003)- And Death His Legacy (2003)Two: The Filthy Pro (2003)- The Hero (1971)- The Exit to San Breta (1972)- The Second Kind of Loneliness (1972)- With Morning Comes Mistfall (1973)Three: The Light of Distant Stars (2003)- A Song for Lya (1974)- The Stone City (1977)- This Tower of Ashes (1976)- And Seven Times Never Kill Man (1975)- Bitterblooms (1977)- The Way of Cross and Dragon (1979)Four: The Heirs of Turtle Castle (2003)- The Lonely Songs of Laren Dorr (1976)- The Ice Dragon (1980)- In the Lost Lands (1982)Five: Hybrids and Horrors (2003)- Meathouse Man (1976)- Remembering Melody (1981)- Sandkings (1979)- Nightflyers (1980)- The Monkey Treatment (1983)- The Pear-Shaped Man (1987)

    One hundred years later, Heron of Alexandria--the city's most renowned inventor and creator of Temple miracles--receives coin from a mysterious patron to investigate the crime. Desperate to be free of the debts incurred by her twin brother, she accepts and sets in motion a chain of events that will shake the Roman Empire and change the course of history forever.

    Joe Tournier has a bad case of amnesia. His first memory is of stepping off a train in the nineteenth-century French colony of England. The only clue Joe has about his identity is a century-old postcard of a Scottish lighthouse that arrives in London the same month he does. Written in illegal English—instead of French—the postcard is signed only with the letter “M,” but Joe is certain whoever wrote it knows him far better than he currently knows himself, and he's determined to find the writer. The search for M, though, will drive Joe from French-ruled London to rebel-owned Scotland and finally onto the battle ships of a lost empire's Royal Navy. In the process, Joe will remake history, and himself.

    Fourteen worlds that never were. Throughout the human experience, historians have wondered, “What if?” What if Japan had been on the side of the U.S. in World War II? What if things had been just a little different in the Falklands? What if Russia had started World War Three? Wonder no more, for these questions, along with many others, are answered within the pages of this book. Told by a variety of award-winning authors, like Sarah Hoyt, the 2018 Dragon Award Winner for Alternate History, and Kacey Ezell, the winner of the 2018 Baen Reader’s Choice Award, “Those in Peril,” deals with naval warfare that never happened in our world…but easily could have. The first book in the exciting new “Phases of Mars” anthology series, there is something for everyone inside! From sailing ships, to steam, to today’s modern aircraft carriers, “Those in Peril” traces several centuries of naval warfare…that wasn’t. From adding a psychic…to making a different choice of friend or foe…to something insignificant toppling a kingdom, this book has it, so come aboard and find out “what if” all of these things had changed history…just a little. You’ll be glad you did! Inside you'll find: Naked by Kacey Ezell Captain Bellamy’s War by Stephen J. Simmons A Safe Wartime Posting by Joelle Presby Beatty’s Folly by Philip Wohlrab Martha Coston and the Farragut Curse by Day Al-Mohamed The Blue and the Red: Palmerston’s Ironclads by William Stroock Far Better to Dare by Rob Howell Off Long Island: 1928 by Doug Dandridge For Want of a Pin by Sarah Hoyt Nothing Can Be Said Sufficient to Describe It by Meriah Crawford Corsairs and Tenzans by Philip S. Bolger For a Few Camels More by Justin Watson Per Mare Per Terram by Jan Niemczyk Fate of the Falklands by James Young

    MooreRed Dirt by Mira GrantBlack Water by Weston OchseInstinct by Bryan Thomas Schmidt and G.P. CharlesNo Guns at the Bar by Aaron RosenbergStrange Harvest by Jon McGoranNo Business at All by Javier Grillo-MarxuachGanbatte by Keith R.A. DeCandidoWhite Flame on Sunday by James Ray TuckWet Tuesday by David FarlandPrince of Peace by Jeremy RobinsonRookie by Joe McKinneyThree Times by Jennifer Campbell-HicksPsych Eval by Larry CorreiaCrash Course by Dana FredstiAtoll by Jonathan Maberry©2017, 2017 Jonathan Maberry and Bryan Thomas Schmidt; foreword copyright by Tony Eldridge (P)2017 Macmillan Audio

    But when her aircraft carrier, the USS Carl Vinson, travels back in time to 1941, she must not only fight for her right to fly the world's best fighter plane, she must also fight in the opening air battles of World War II. She must fight her father's war.

    The awesome Russian invasion force smashes across the West German border, driving for a breakthrough. With M-1 tanks and a mechanized infantry division, Captian Sean Bannon's "Team Yankee" must defend their vital strategic post. They will engage the enemy with the ultimate in sophisticated weaponry. They will fight beyond all limits of human endurance - on the brink of World War III... "Team Yankee"

    And with their success is launched a brave new world that is in some ways better than ours--but in most ways even worse. Fry's experiment in history makes for his most ambitious novel yet, and his most affecting. His first book to be set mostly in America, it is a thriller with a funny streak, a futuristic fantasy based on one of mankind's darkest realities. It is, in every sense, a story of our times.

    Such a world requires a firm hand and a guiding light. But does it need the Concern: an all-powerful organization with a malevolent presiding genius, pervasive influence and numberless invisible operatives in possession of extraordinary powers?Among those operatives are Temudjin Oh, of mysterious Mongolian origins, an un-killable assassin who journeys between the peaks of Nepal, a version of Victorian London and the dark palaces of Venice under snow; Adrian Cubbish, a restlessly greedy City trader; and a nameless, faceless state-sponsored torturer known only as the Philosopher, who moves between time zones with sinister ease. Then there are those who question the Concern: the bandit queen Mrs. Mulverhill, roaming the worlds recruiting rebels to her side; and Patient 8262, under sedation and feigning madness in a forgotten hospital ward, in hiding from a dirty past.There is a world that needs help; but whether it needs the Concern is a different matter.

    From the creator of the #1 bestselling Future Chronicles anthology series comes a collection that turns the world you know upside down.In Alt.History 102 - the follow-up to the bestselling Alt.History 101 - twelve top speculative fiction authors re-imagine the world - as one where a beautiful actress becomes a spy for the Allied forces, as one where the Internet is tightly held only by an elite few, as one where the Native American population is resistant to European diseases - and nine other compelling stories charting the histories of our world.Enter worlds so much like our own, yet so different - where everything you know... is history.