James Melville-Ross, their father, tells of how the twins not only survived—despite being given the last rites as babies—but also thrived. From the dramatic first few months of the twins’ lives—when Alice suffered a heart attack when only a day old, and Thomas’s lungs filled with blood, leaving him only 20 minutes away from death—Two for Joy reveals the path that James and his wife Georgie have followed as parents to two severely disabled children. After the initial anger came the sheer hard work: the sleepless nights; the hospital dashes; the curious stares and unwelcome comment from strangers. But slowly came acceptance and, eventually, celebration of the joy that the medical marvels Thomas and Alice—now happy and energetic ten year olds—have brought to their lives. Finally they understood that disability might have turned their world upside down, but that it has also provided rewards beyond anything they could have imagined. This story is for any parent experiencing the shock of having extremely premature babies or coming to terms with having a child diagnosed with a disability. More than that, this story will change people’s attitudes to disability, and show that love and true happiness can be found in even the most challenging of circumstances.

     Martin L. Shoemaker, author of “Today I Am Paul”, presents stories of ordinary people doing extraordinary work. Planning, exploring, constructing… living and growing and dying… across the Solar System. Includes these award-winning stories: Scramble (second place, Jim Baen Memorial Short Story Award, 2012) Unrefined (third place, Writers of the Future, 2014) Racing to Mars (first place, Analog Analytical Laboratory award, 2016) Plus seven more stories!

    

    

    Staff Sergeant Seth Collins wasn’t your typical Marine. A member of the elite Marine Corps Force Recon, he had a Navy Cross on his chest and six combat deployments under his belt. Called home to care for his ailing father, he became a Hillsdale police officer. Seth needed to quit and escape from the memories of Marines killed fighting the president’s politically correct wars. Fate had a different plan. The Mexican Los Guerreros and Halcon Cartels declared war against each other for control of the drug trade. Hillsdale was ground zero. Police officers selling drugs threatened Collins father. Big mistake. Seth tossed political correctness out the window. He fought back like one pissed-off Marine.

    It seems they would like nothing more than to start a revolution...Can the three Scrapyard survivors come together with an Islamic Ambassador on a mission of peace, a smuggling ring bent on nothing more than making a profit, and a small, underarmed orbital station security force to somehow thwart a terrorist attack that threatens to ignite a new interplanetary war?

    The mission to destroy a domestic terrorist cell in possession of a nuclear bomb sounds like the opportunity he is looking for, until he realizes that his targets are not terrorists, and that what they have is something infinitely more dangerous than a bomb. On the run with Dr. Grace Llewellyn and the device she calls Prometheus, Markus finds himself pitted against the full might of US intelligence and military forces as they mount the biggest manhunt ever conducted on American soil. He quickly learns that Prometheus represents a technological advancement so profound that it can alter the course of history. But there is another such device already in play, and he, Grace and Prometheus are all that stand between it and the end of human civilization as we know it.

    The enemy is consuming all intelligent life throughout the galaxy. And to stop them, the stars may have to die.Enter Julian Nverson, a disgraced pilot reactivated to fight in a conflict humanity lost long ago. He joins the remnants of mankind, in the midst of another invasion, another exodus, when billions of lives have already been swept away.Perhaps the end is inevitable. But Julian won't be alone in his fight. Forces that were formerly dead, forgotten or trapped will converge together, all in the hopes of freeing the galaxy once and for all.

    When a small team of criminal buffoons grabs her instead, she’s honor bound to execute them despite their pleas of innocence.The Star Renegade crew is guilty on many counts, and they must be punished for their crimes. However, they use their smuggling profits to feed the hungry. Dania will face her own execution for not enforcing royal edicts, but how can she execute people breaking the law for all the right reasons?Star Renegades is Guardians of the Galaxy meets Firefly and Robin Hood.Jump on board and start your inter-galactic adventure today!

    Army Ranger, until an unfortunate incident forced him out of the service. He is soon hired by the Foundation for Undocumented Biological Investigation and given a new mission, to search for cryptids, creatures whose existence has not been proven by mainstream science. Teaming up with the daring and beautiful wildlife photographer Karen Thatcher, they must stop a sea monster's deadly rampage along the Jersey Shore. But that's not the only danger Rastun faces. A group of murderous animal smugglers also want the creature. Rastun must utilize every skill learned from years of fighting, otherwise, his first mission for the FUBI might very well be his last.

    When a flying saucer crashes into his fishing hole, Jimmy tries to use the stranded survivors to jump-start his TV career. This first contact isn't accidental though. The Galactic Pool's saddest excuse for a politician has committed sabotage while plotting to rule Earth. And he's about to find out what happens when you mess with Earthlings.*81,000 words with a courteous 0.0149% F-word rate*There are sex scenes, but they are strictly telepathic. (sorry)

    However, a dramatic turn of events occurs when an astronaut emerges from the spacecraft a few days later and initial communication with him begins. In a series of breathtaking events, the astronaut reveals that he has the mission to reveal the truth about the history of the planet and to prepare humanity for a new role in the Universe. However, before it can take on this role, humanity must first prepare to deal with a pending natural catastrophe. The means to do this have been installed on Earth millions of years ago, but humanity has since lost all knowledge of this tool. The astronaut's story paves the way for humanity's efforts to survive what is coming and to accept its new destiny.

    He is left with nothing but the clothes on his back, not even citizenship to his name. Is the ancient, broken down military surplus starship and the young lady living aboard it the key to a bright future, or will his repairs and new mercenary friends reawaken the demons lurking in the ship’s murky and lethal past to come back and deliver a world of destruction?

    Big trouble. And she was going to clean it off if it was the last thing she'd do... which it was looking like it very well might be. Daisy had a simple rule for space travel. Don't blow up. So far she'd been managing to abide by that, but something was very much not right. With the powerful AI supercomputer guiding the craft beginning to show some disconcerting quirks of its own, and its unsettling cyborg assistant nosing into her affairs, Daisy’s unease was rapidly growing, as was her bigotry toward artificially intelligent beings. Add to the mix a crew of mechanically-enhanced humans, any one of whom she suspected might not be what they seemed, and Daisy found herself with a sense of pending dread tickling the periphery of her mind. Something was very much not right––she could feel it in her bones. The tricky part now was going to be overcoming her biases and figuring out what the threat was, before it could manifest from a mere sinking feeling in her gut into a potentially deadly reality. Only things were far different and far worse than she could ever have imagined, forcing her to repeatedly adjust and overcome a reality that turned out to be far from what it had originally seemed. The complete series set of all five of the Clockwork Chimera books: 1. Daisy's Run 2. Pushing Daisy 3. Daisy's Gambit 4. Chasing Daisy 5. Daisy's War A space opera adventure featuring damaged spaceships, rogue artificial intelligence, homicidal cyborgs, mechanically-enhanced humans, genetic engineering, nanotech, and, of course, bloodthirsty aliens.

    Going around will take years, but there is rumor of a path through. A path known only to those who live at Star CityBut Star City is interdicted, its outer reaches patrolled by Orion ships. Though Misha knows of a hidden FTL route that can get a ship close enough to the city, using it assumes the city’s inhabitants are friendly.Jessica and Trevor risk the pathway, travelling to Star City where they find something far more amazing than they ever expected—only to learn they must make a sacrifice unlike any they had ever dreamed.The Toll Road Between the StarsNo one ever said that travelling ten thousand light years would be easy...Sabrina and her crew are nearly through the Stillwater Nebula. But before they pass through into the open space beyond, they have to get through the Perry Strait. A stretch of space where no FTL is possible, with the Perry System at its center.There they learn that an old enemy has leapfrogged them and laid a trap. A trap they're going to have to spring if they want to get through to the other side.The Final Stroll on Perseus's ArmAn old foe from Finaeus's past reveals a secret that will save the crew.It has been eight long years since the crew of Sabrina passed beyond the Stillwater Nebula. They are now deep within the Orion Freedom Alliance, taking a short respite on the planet Ferra, roughly five-hundred light years from the inner edge of Orion space--only a year from the relative safety of the Inner Stars.But when Cheeky is abducted, everything is turned on its head once more, and the crew learns of secrets the Orion government had tried to keep under wraps for millennia.Now they're in a race to save Cheeky, and take advantage of an opportunity they thought never to see again.