Nick Antosca's THE GIRLFRIEND GAME is a tumble through the looking glass into a vortex of violence and desire. The 12 stories in the newest collection by the Shirley Jackson Award-winning author are brutal, urgent and unforgettable.In "Predator Bait," a decoy in a sex sting news show questions her job and the man who shares her bed. An undependable son watches his mother become a creature he hardly recognizes in "Amphibian." A young man plots the death of his girlfriend's killer in "Winter Was Hard."Antosca crafts surreal doomsday scenarios and otherworldly transformations alongside painfully articulate depictions of sexuality and animal impulse. The stories in THE GIRLFRIEND GAME are mesmerizing, leaving a haunting afterglow long after you close the book.

    

    He intends to work hard and one day be wealthy just like Ryan promises everyone who moves to Rapture. He opens a small business. For a few years things are good, almost idyllic. The good life is shattered when one day his daughter mysteriously vanishes without trace. The police of Rapture don't seem to want to help. So Arthur sets out to find her himself. He is lead down into a seedy underworld that exists below the upmarket façade of Rapture. But can he find her in time? Would you kindly like to know more? Download now to find out for yourself. Scroll to the top of the page and select the buy now button. Product Tags: Rapture, The Big Daddy, Andrew Ryan, Rapture The Big Daddy,

     Eve is an 18,000 word novella originally published as an ongoing story on Reddit's Writing Prompts forum by user /u/psycho_alpaca.

    When Captain Meredth Simmons decides to set down on Porto San Lucia, notorious for being the center of organized crime for most of the known galaxy, it's supposed to be for her husband (and the ship’s pilot), Lincoln Simmons to see an eye doctor, which sounds simple enough. Simple enough, that is, until a mob heiress is kidnapped while they are there, sending part of the crew on a desperate hunt for her kidnappers even as others are trying to unravel the mysteries that surround another member of the crew....all the while Lincoln waits to see if his flying days are over for good.

    Off the grid, out of sight of the authorities. Hoping to escape a terrifying secret; to outrun what he has seen and what he has done. Kane is an assassin who, with the help of the Machine, possesses the ability to assume the identity of anyone he wishes. He can strike without warning, and kill without mercy. Stronger than a dozen men, faster than sight itself, he can be anywhere, anytime.When Book catches Kane’s eye, he discovers the world is even more dangerous than he knew. Book must ally himself with people who, like him, know that Kane is on the verge of remaking the world in his image.But how do you know who to trust, when the man who wants you dead can be anyone he pleases? How can you fight for the ones you love......when you can’t even believe who you see?

    Wright's four brilliant forays into the dark fantasy world of William Hope Hodgson's 1912 novel, The Night Land. Widely considered to be the finest tribute to Hodgson ever written, this novella was previously published in 2004 in The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-First Annual Collection. The five-million year epic that begins with "Awake in the Night" continues in AWAKE IN THE NIGHT LAND, which in addition to "Awake in the Night" contains "The Cry of the Night-Hound", "Silence of the Night", and "The Last of All Suns", which collectively tell the haunting tale of the Last Redoubt of Man and the end of the human race. John C. Wright has been described by reviewers as one of the most important and audacious authors in science fiction today. In a recent poll of more than 1,000 science fiction readers, he was chosen as the sixth-greatest living science fiction writer.

    He sees himself achieving his greatest wish of becoming a gold-star swimmer, but strangely enough, the vision also shows him locking eyes with a girl from his past, Callie Stone, and experiencing an overwhelming sense of love and belonging. Logan’s not sure what the memory means, but soon enough, he learns that his old friend Callie is in trouble. She’s received an atypical memory, one where she commits a crime in the future. According to the law, she must be imprisoned, even though she's done nothing wrong. Now, Logan must decide if he'll give up his future as a gold-star swimmer and rescue the literal girl of his dreams. All he'll have to do is defy Fate.

    When an oil rig drills too deep under the Gulf of Mexico it breaks the capstone separating our world from the UnderRealms - home to monsters, daemons and dark magiks. The nightmares of our long ago come flooding back into the world where they are met by automatic weapons fire, heating seeking missiles (they're hell on dragons, don'tcha know) and one drunken, dissolute son of a bitch called Dave. But this is not Dave's story. This is the story of the poor bastards who had to put up with him while he saved the world and acted like a jerk.

    "For fans of Alfred Hitchcock and The Twilight Zone"PLOT: A kitchen-confined housewife has frightening revelations while preparing dinner for her husband.GENRE: Creepy Short StoryREADING TIME: 30-45 minutes

    Although they have been mentioned in the bible and traces of their existence are scattered throughout the globe, Peter Madeloy had always presumed that the myths of the possible existence of an ancient brotherhood, living on Earth for milennia, was nothing more than that, a myth. Until one day his father is brutally murdered and his mother is kidnapped. In exchange for his mother’s safe return, Peter must enter his father’s secret world, uncover the truth about his mother’s kidnappers and find the ancient artefact his father had dedicated his life to protecting. Peter enlists the help of his uncle, Daniel O'Brien, a professor of Philology and avid researcher of veiled organisations and his wife, Emily, a geneticist, to unravel a series of clues his father has left him. Together they embark on a journey that thrusts them into the centre of an ancient battle for supremacy that uncovers a truth that for them, will change the history and future of humanity simultaneously. With the enemy watching their every move Peter, Daniel and Emily must figure out his father's clues in time to save his mother and ultimately protect the world from the true secret that was unearthed from beneath King Solomon's Temple all those centuries ago.

    They mourn, and Cormac sends a beautifully written eulogy back to Earth. The word from ground control is unequivocal: no matter what happens, the mission must continue.But as the body count begins to rise, Cormac finds himself alone and spiralling towards his own inevitable death … unless he can do something to stop it.

    In these labors, there is one friend that they can count on, day in and day out . . . he’s a constant companion in their headsets with the Smack and Crack, Sno Bro, and other music they love, as well offering a seemingly endless stream of friendship and encouragement: the morning DJ on Company Radio Channel D, Robin Whitlake. But, Robin is more than a warm human voice in the endless night, he is a man with a heroic, yet deadly and dangerous secret past that could condemn him to death at any time. Disfigured and aging rapidly, he must work harder and harder to project the youth and vitality that he brings to his broadcasts, all the while wondering when and if his past will catch up with him. On 14 January 2314, it did. A disaster in the mining colony brings the heroic and deadly elements of Robin’s past into sudden collision. Not only must he decide whether to subject himself to possible execution, Robin has to call upon all his professionalism as a broadcaster, the skills he spent decades honing in his former life, and the Morse code abilities of a red-headed, pig-tailed Space Scout named Elaine, in a desperate “Hail Mary” improvisation with thousands of innocent lives hanging in the balance. Good Morning Vendemiatrix is an 8800 word stand-alone novelette set in the “Man of War” universe. Fans of Honsinger’s other work will recognize the setting and be treated to a cameo appearance by a familiar character, while new readers will not find themselves “lost in space.” It is a humorous and exciting piece of shorter fiction written to be enjoyed by all Science Fiction readers.

     In the near future, humanity builds a colony on Europa, one of the moons of Jupiter. They tunnel into the ice to explore the dark oceans beneath the moon's surface, searching for signs of extraterrestrial life. What they find will change them forever, setting humanity on a path to the stars. But the old conflicts and hatreds of Earth are not so easily escaped. Will human colonists on distant planets and moons create a paradise or a horrifying dystopia?