With polite smiles, the planet frustrated him at every turn - until he found them all the hard way! A classic science fiction story originally published in the "If Worlds of Science Fiction" in July, 1953. Includes a detailed "About the Author" and a selected bibliography.

    But instead she is thrown into danger unlike any other she has faced and finds herself isolated, unable to communicate with the outside world, commanding a motley group of unfamiliar troops, and struggling day by day to survive in a deadly environment with sabotaged gear. Only her undeniable talent for command can give her ragtag band a fighting chance.Yet even as Ky leads her team from one crisis to another, her family and friends refuse to give up hope, endeavoring to mount a rescue from halfway around the planet—a task that is complicated as Ky and her supporters find secrets others will kill to protect: a conspiracy infecting both government and military that threatens not only her own group’s survival but her entire home planet.

    Sent on a routine mission to analyze one of the millions of systems in the galaxy, she stumbles across something that could threaten humanity’s very existence. She barely escapes with her life, but in the process, has to shut down her scout’s AI. As with all OPWs, she has few rights, and instead of being lauded as a hero, the corporation thinks she is lying. Her managers believe she found something valuable and shut down her AI in an attempt to hide that fact, hoping she can sell that information to the highest bidder. Grounded, and with a huge debt now over her head, Beth has to convince the powers that be that a very real danger to humanity is lying in wait out there in deep space.

    The endless surface of the water extends to the horizon, whichever way I look.Our world is small. We’re on our own, and we only have ourselves to depend on. We rely on the Force deep within us as taught to us by our forefathers.If I were to walk westward from here, I’d come across a barrier - the Wall. Behind it, there are Fools. At least, that's what everyone says. I’ve never seen one.'Leia lives on an island where children leave their parents to take care of themselves when they’re just ten years old. Across the island runs a Wall that no one has ever crossed. The Fools living behind it should be shunned because they believe in salvation from across the sea. That's what The Book says, the only thing left to the Eastern Islanders by their ancestors.But when a strange man washes ashore and Leia meets a Fool face to face, her life will never be the same again. Walt, the boy from the other side of the Wall, isn’t as foolish as she was always led to believe. And as Leia and Walt set out to bring the truth about both their societies to light, all the things they once took for granted fall by the wayside.Their island world is about to change... for better or for worse.

    When a mysterious accident transports Simon and his assistant, Elizabeth West, back in time, Simon finally finds both the proof that he's been looking for, and the romance that he hasn't.Simon and Elizabeth's developing relationship is tested by demons real and imagined. In 1920s Manhattan, there are more than mobsters vying for power in the city's speakeasies. When the local kingpin with a dark secret sets his sights on Elizabeth, day to day struggles become a fight for their very lives.When the Walls Fell (Book #2)Professor Simon Cross and his assistant Elizabeth West have returned from their accidental journey into the past and are adjusting to their new life together as a couple. But an unwanted visit from the Council for Temporal Studies could change everything.A murder in the past is changing the future, and if the killing isn't stopped, Simon Cross might never be born.When they arrive in 1906 San Francisco, Elizabeth and Simon have no idea who wants Victor Graham dead or how it will happen. With the earthquake that leveled most of the city just days away, the race to save Graham thrusts them into a complex mystery of jealousy and revenge where murder might be the least of their worries.Fragments (Book #3)Simon & Elizabeth are back in book #3 of the Out of Time Series! Professor Simon Cross and his assistant, Elizabeth West, thought their time traveling days were over. That's before they stumble across a World War II photograph -- with missing time traveler, Evan Eldridge, injured and in desperate need of help.They find Evan in 1942 London, ill and not quite sure what's happened. He remembers only one thing with crystal clarity -- the whereabouts of an artifact Hitler believes can win the war. That's information every Nazi spy in the country would kill to know.As if saving Evan and surviving war-torn England weren't enough, the outcome of the war hinges on Simon and Elizabeth finding Evan's artifact before the Nazis do. But time is running out: for them, for London, for the world.Be sure not to miss the rest of the Out of Time Series!

    Mistakes might be made, but they are never acknowledged, especially when billions of embezzled dollars earned from illegal weapons sales are at stake. But where does one run when all Earth and the planets are under the aegis of one government?

    Orphaned as an infant and reluctantly raised by an overly-strict "aunt," she's not even sure who she is. M's dream of someday escaping tiny Jewel, Indiana and making her mark in the world seems impossibly distant until hot new quarterback Rigel inexplicably befriends her. As Rigel turns his back on fawning cheerleaders to spend time with M, strange things start to happen: her acne clears up, her eyesight improves to the point she can ditch her thick glasses, and when they touch, sparks fly--literally! When M digs for a reason, she discovers deep secrets that will change her formerly mundane life forever... and expose her to perils she never dreamed of.  Book 1 of the award-winning Starstruck series, where teen romance blends with science fiction to open a whole new world of action, adventure and discovery.

    It triggers dreams of disasters. Tragedies that happen exactly as he envisions them. He learns that not only can he see the future, he can change it. Then the unthinkable happened and everyone ignored his frantic warnings. Thousands die. Suddenly, the Feds are pounding on his door and the name they have for Taylor isn't urban hero. It's enemy combatant. And, it means they can do anything they want to him. Anything at all.

    Her toes start tingling and she has a few minutes to find a secret haven where she can disintegrate and appear in another time and place. While “across the line,” her training and skills are put to the test as she completes a mission that will change history for the lucky few her father has selected. Gemma's parents are adamant that secrecy is paramount to her family’s safety. If people knew what they were capable of, they could be "used and abused", as her mother always says. Afraid she might accidentally utter the truth and break the ancient oath of her people, Gemma spends her school days as a loner. Only one thing can throw her sheltered life askew... Harrison Granger.Harrison never expected to talk to the strange Hart girl, but after a brief encounter he can't stop thinking about her. He begins a campaign to chisel away her icy veneer and is met with unexpected consequences. As he slowly wins this girl over, he enters a surreal world that has him fighting to keep his newfound love and his life.

    How do you break time? Can something so bad happen that you fracture the world?" Benjamin Travers has been electrocuted. What's worse, he and his friends have woken up in the past. As the friends search for a way home, they realize they're not alone. There are other time travelers, and some of them are turning up dead. When Ben meets an enigmatic scientist and his charming, time-traveling daughter, salvation seems at hand, but escaping the dangers of the past may lead to a deadly future. If he hopes to save his friends, Ben must learn to master space and time, and survive a journey where past and future violently collide.

    This collection includes the first three books and is over 1000 pages (350,000 words) of post-apocalyptic survival.BREAKERS (Book 1)In New York, Walt Lawson is about to lose his girlfriend Vanessa. In Los Angeles, Raymond and Mia James are about to lose their house. Within days, none of it will matter. A plague tears across the world, reducing New York to an open grave and LA to a chaotic wilderness of violence and fires. Civilization comes to an abrupt stop.Just as the survivors begin to adapt to the aftermath, Walt learns the virus that ended humanity wasn't created by humans. It was inflicted from outside. The colonists who sent it are ready to finish the job--and Earth's survivors may be too few and too weak to resist.MELT DOWN (Book 2)In upstate Idaho, Ness Hook is run out of his mom's house by his bullying brother Shawn. In Redding, California, Tristan Carter is graduating college, but with no job and no prospects, she'll have to move back in with her parents.Then the world ends: first with a virus, then with an alien invasion.Ness and Shawn take to the mountains to fight a guerrilla against the attackers. In California, Tristan and Alden are taken prisoner. Separated from her brother, Tristan crosses the ruins of America to track him down. She will stop at nothing to get Alden back--but her fellow survivors prove even more dangerous than the monsters who broke the world.KNIFEPOINT (Book 3)Raina was just a girl when the plague came. She survived. Her parents didn't. Neither did the world. As civilization fell, she took to the ruins of Los Angeles, eating whatever she could catch.After two years alone, she's found and adopted by a fisherman and his wife. Their makeshift family lives a quiet life--until a man named Karslaw sails in from Catalina Island with an army of conquerors. Driven by visions of empire, he executes Raina's new father as a traitor and takes her mother captive.But Karslaw's people aren't the only ones vying for control of the ruined land. As violence wracks the city, Raina joins a rebellion against Karslaw's rule. She will stop at nothing to free her mother--and to have her revenge.

    Some men go to war to escape. For Scott Remington, war is entirely different. It is a belief. It is a calling. It is a destiny. Leaving everything behind-his fiancée, his future, his life-he embarks on a mission of faith into a battle he can barely understand. This is his story. This is his war. This is only the beginning.

    But he cannot go home yet. Against his better judgment, he agrees to take a spoiled prince into the Qaharadin Marshes, a treacherous place all sane men avoid.After arriving at a deserted temple, the prince vanishes within. When a column of blue fire erupts from the temple and pierces the heavens, Kian rushes to help. What he finds emerging from the temple is not the prince, but a horror unleashed from the Thousand Hells.Now Kian must draw upon all of his strength, courage, and skill to survive—because if he dies, the world dies with him.Reading order:The God King (book one)Crown of the Setting Sun (book two)Shadow and Steel coming April 2013!Other series by James A. West: Songs of the ScorpionReaper of Sorrows (book one)

    Francine is a rising TV news reporter in New York City. Despite her brains, beauty and a growing following, she is stuck covering local interest stories. That is until her career literally hits the jackpot when the winner of a $450 million dollar lottery tells Francine that he is committed to using his new fortune to avenge his brother's killing at the Pentagon on 9/11. His seemingly crazy plan is backed by more than just money-he is in league with a ruthless and powerful Army Colonel gone rogue, religious extremists and co-conspirators in the highest levels of government. Francine teams with FBI Special Agent Will Allen, one of the few people who believe the threat is real, in a desperate race across three continents to stop the plot before it's too late.

    An infamous poet living in self-imposed exile. An ancient treasure about to fall into the wrong hands.Melanie Karsak's Chasing the Star Garden takes readers on a thrilling adventure from the gritty opium dens of gaslamp London to the gem-coloured waters of the ancient world. Lily Stargazer, a loveable but reckless airship racer with a famous lover and shattered past, reluctantly plunges into a centuries-old mystery in a romantic adventure best described as Dan Brown meets Mary Shelley.It all begins on one of the worst days of Lily’s life. She just lost the London leg of the 1823 Airship Grand Prix. To top it off, a harlequin fleeing from constables shoved a kaleidoscope down her pants, told her to fly to Venice, then threw himself from her airship tower. What’s a girl to do? For Lily, the answer is easy: drink absinthe and smoke opium. Lily’s lover, Lord Byron, encourages her to make the trip to Venice. Lily soon finds herself at the heart of an ancient mystery which has her running from her past and chasing true love and the stars along the way.