Once he was outbound, where the Society that ruled Earth could not reach him, he headed his starship toward the galactic core, where the unimaginable energies of the Universe wrenched the fabric of time and space and promised final escape from his captors.Then he returned to an Earth eons older than the one he'd left...a planet that had had 3,000,000 years to develop perils he had never dreamed of -- perils that became nightmares that he had to escape...somehow!

    When did academia get to be so complicated?Kas is a junior researcher on a fact-finding mission to old Earth. But when a con-artist tricks her into wagering a large sum of money belonging to her university on the outcome of a manned robot arena battle she becomes drawn into the seedy underworld of old Earth politics and state-sponsored battle-droid prizefights.Is it time to get back to the books, yet?

    Until the day they kill her.An executive clan gives the order to shoot Oichi out of an airlock on suspicion of being an insurgent. A sentient AI, a Medusa unit, rescues Oichi and begins to teach her the truth—the Executives are not who they think they are. Oichi, officially dead and now bonded to the Medusa unit, sees a chance to make a better life for everyone on board.As she sets things right one assassination at a time, Oichi becomes the very insurgent the Executives feared, and in the process uncovers the shocking truth behind the generation starship that is their home.

    As a sexual companion that sustains Luo troops with human energy, she's eager for her first assignment. Fresh out of training, she's assigned to a hell of a team in a hellish situation and promptly falls for all four of them. Three of them accept her immediately, bound to her in the searing sexual circumstances of her arrival.But Shon is her hard case. He accepts her body and her energy just fine, but holds his heart back. The team leader doesn't trust his gift of berzerker rage, and his own team doesn't trust him either. She's happy to prove them wrong by taking all of him in his darkest moment...only to find the team doesn't see it as the confirmation she does. When her men disagree despite the proof she presents, Malla sees she's not really the equal partner she thought she was. If her team won't trust her judgment, then she can't trust them with her heart.When a lonely warrior who has never fully let himself go because of his "gift" of berzerker rage meets a woman who actually expects him to do so, he's shockingly tempted. In the fight of his life, Shon's team is saved because of Malla's open spirit and dazzling sexuality. But the thrill of success after the mission is ripped away when he discovers she has faced his berzerker state...alone.She trusted him to be more human than he is, and he tragically, horrifically proved her wrong. There's no way he deserves her heart, he no longer deserves her body, and he can't possibly continue with his team, facing their knowledge of what he's capable of. No one should ever face his Fury again. Broken, the team scatters, the defeat of their enemy small comfort to the shattering of their family. War takes its toll on all of them, until Shon finally sees the truth of what it means to have someone believe in him.Publisher's Note: This book contains explicit sexual content, graphic language, and situations that some readers may find objectionable: Anal play/intercourse, domination, dubious consent, exhibitionism, male/male sexual practices, masturbation, Ménage (m/m/m/f), spanking, violence, voyeurism.

    Demetri messed up in the military and now must serve as a miner on Earth's ally planet Secren. This is the last place he wants to be. Earth men are considered small and cute to the violent Secren men. Demetri already ran a mine on the ice world Donovan. This gives him enough notoriety for mine overlord Malstrum to take an interest in him. It seems cut and dry that he's going to rebuff Malstrum and make it on his own, but Secren is a brutal world. The male population are all slave miners desperate to reach their quotas. As an Earthling Demetri is an easy mark to get robbed or killed. Giving in to Malstrum is the only way Demetri can survive. The charismatic mine overlord decides to make it easy for him.  From the author of The Demon and the Emperor!

    Keith Hartman's "Sex, Guns and Baptists" gives a disturbing view of how the world could become if the Christian fundamentalists continue gaining political ground; Ralph Sperry's delightful aliens in "On Vacation" are refreshingly similar to us: shy workaholics, exasperated lovers, good with machines; Ellen Klages takes a '90s dyke back forty years to 1950s San Francisco where she discovers her modern sensibilities are utterly alien to the lesbians of the time. These stories explore physical, emotional, and moral landscapes vastly different from the familiar -- where nothing is as it seems.This group of talented newcomers and award-winning genre veterans includes Jim Grimsley, Mark W. Tiedemann, Charles Sheffield, Carrie Richerson, Keith Hartman, Nancy Kress, Richard Bamburg, L. Timmel Duchamp, Charles Sheffield, Don Bassingthwaite, and many others.