One morning he misses his bus when he stops to put a strange caterpillar in a matchbox. As the bus passes he’s shocked to spot himself inside. Like Schrödinger’s Cat in the famous quantum thought experiment, the caterpillar's spawned parallel possibilities. This comic novel explores Graham’s search for a better life among the various overlapping alternatives.Another clone, Grim Dupeint, is a loathsome international arms dealer. Graham infiltrates Grim’s corporation, then embezzles cash for charity. When a furious Grim realises, Graham must act fast. And right now he's acting like fish food.Graham launches upon a new lifestyle (and sex life) as he dons the designer suits of power. But sinister figures soon see through Graham’s clothing. Now Graham’s under attack from the corporation, the police, his ex-wife’s private detective, and an infuriatingly pompous water-colourist who Graham might have been if he’d gone to art college rather than business school. To survive (and steal the artist’s wonderful woman) Graham needs to find hidden resources. By definition Dopplegraham’s equally resourceful. Bugger...Schrödinger's Caterpillar - a stupid book for brainy people!

    The ship she lives and works in is waylaid on a barren planet for repairs. She’s bored, goes for a stroll, and meets someone who would very much like to spend the rest of their life with her.

    But when a terrified woman falls through his bathroom ceiling, he's forced back into a life of gunfights, double agents and paranormal research. The secret he's been keeping for nearly four decades might reunite him with his lost love, or kill millions.This new short story by John August falls into the genre of paranoid "spy-fi" popularized by writers like Jorge Luis Borges and shows like The Prisoner and The Man from U.N.C.L.E.== What Others Say =="I really dug the story. Gave it a glance just to see, got totally hooked, and blazed on through to the end."-- Michael Chabon (The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, The Yiddish Policemen's Union) "The Variant" is both a good, fun, smart story and an interesting experiment in indie self-publishing for fiction."-- John Gruber, daringfireball.net== About the Author ==An excerpt of The Variant is available at johnaugust.com/variant About the AuthorJohn August is the screenwriter of eight feature films, including Go, Big Fish, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Corpse Bride. He wrote and directed the 2007 movie The Nines.He can be found on Twitter, @johnaugust

    Now, the Confederation's crises are spawned from within, and one brave woman struggles against all odds to keep mankind united amidst a hailstorm of rebellion, war, and moral declination.* * * * *The Lucani Ibron have yet to return, but all is not well within the Alpha Sector. Internal strife, terrorism, and ever-escalating conflicts with several neighboring species have spread the Confederation's resources dangerously thin. Captain Anastasia Mason, together with an eclectic group of humanity's most decorated heroes, struggles to hold the Confederation together against powerful forces that threaten to rip it apart at its very core. Then, at what appears to be mankind’s most desperate hour, an old enemy returns from a ten-year hiatus, casting humanity to the brink of civil war... and outright annihilation.

     Alone in the cold black with 36 hours of oxygen. Jolo Vargas, Federation Gunboat Captain, is trapped in a runaway escape pod zooming towards Federation space. But will he be dead before he gets there? He's in a tight spot. But he's a war hero, just the type of man who could work his way out of this jam. But there's just one little problem. He doesn't remember who he is. Will he find out his identity and his place in the universe, or will he run out of air on the edge of Fed space?

    The Tyrell are a race that loves to fight, and they’re very good at it. The harder they fight, the better they like it. Whenever they discover another intelligent race, they force them into combat whether they want it or not. When humans are warned of an inevitable confrontation with the Tyrell, they attempt to form a multi-species Alliance, but the challenges are great, and they know it’s only a matter of time before a Tyrell fleet of massive ships will arrive in Earth orbit. Cate Harrow and Gort Eagleton are two Aerospace Force officers with the kind of strategic and tactical skills that the Alliance needs to win this war, but before they can even begin to defeat the Tyrell, they must survive the incompetent leadership that threatens complete disaster. Defeating the Tyrell will be far more difficult than the Alliance initially believes unless they can discover their one weakness. This action-packed series has lots of space battles and political intrigues, as well as personal triumphs and tragedies. Excerpt: “Flight Ops to Skydiver. You and your squadron have the green light, Commander. Good luck.” “Thanks, Ops. Skydiver to Squadron. We have a green light. Sound off when you’ve undocked in sequence order. Here we go.” She turned and nodded to her co-pilot who would maneuver the corvette out the half kilometer wide maw of the carrier, Ranger, while she monitored the rest of the squadron. As Skydiver gently pulled away from the docking bay then past the baffles and moved towards the opening, Harrow switched one of her displays to the rear external view, using computer enhancement to compensate for the low level of light inside the main hangar space. Each corvette in the squadron was undocking and maneuvering in a specified sequence in order to avoid collisions. “Skydiver is clear of Ranger,” said the co-pilot. As the ship began to accelerate, Harrow watched the carrier start to recede into the distance. Just as she began to shift her gaze, she saw a streak of light hit Ranger from below, penetrate up through the interior of the huge hangar and come out the top of the ship. “FLIGHT OPS! WHAT THE HELL—“ shouted Harrow. “—BEEN HIT! RANGER’S BEEN HIT!” Harrow recognized the voice of the Flight Operations Duty Officer. “OH GOD! BISMARK REPORTS BEING HIT TOO!” Harrow thought fast. The Tyrell had obviously detected the four carriers and were firing their long range, faster-than-light kinetic energy projectiles from below. The mission was clearly compromised, and to her way of thinking, getting the carriers to a safe distance was now not only their top priority, it was their only priority. “SL to Flag!” said Harrow quickly. “We’re kinda busy right now, Commander!” Harrow didn’t know who was replying, but she did know it wasn’t Vice-Admiral LeClair, and that’s who she wanted to talk to. “You tell the Admiral that he needs to order his carriers to jump RIGHT NOW, Goddamit! We’re sitting ducks here!” Without waiting for a reply she turned to the co-pilot. “How many of our ships have cleared the Ranger?” “They’re all out! Do we try to dock again?” “God no! No time for that. We’ll have to catch up with her at the rally point if our carriers bug out in time!” She looked at the display that was still showing a now much smaller Ranger.

    But time is running short: the mark knows that he’s coming, and he’s not the only contractor on the job …

    Not officially a "Liaden Universe® Adventure", Calamity's Child is SRM Publisher's first chapbook of 2006 and features two Sharon Lee and Steve Miller stories ...one is the off-the-beaten track Liaden Universe® novelette "Sweet Waters," which appeared in magazines in both the UK and the US (3SF and Absolute Magnitude), and the second is "Night at the Opera," a fantasy-mystery first seen in the critcally acclaimed Rosemary Edghill anthology Murder by Magic in October of 2004.

    He's a dead man walking until his doctor gives him a way out. If he's willing to give up his entire life, he can travel for eight hundred years in stasis to planet Epigog 31 to receive treatment. With no other options available, he agrees.Once there, he discovers that aliens exist and they are allies with humanity. But there's a catch to receiving treatment: while his body heals, he must act as muscle for the aliens.His conscious mind is uploaded into a mechanical battle unit and he is sent to train for warfare.He will travel the galaxy, meet numerous aliens, and make friends along the way. But everything is not as it seems, and Jack's mech is far more unique than he realizes.

    From that moment onward every construct is different.They all have one thing in common, though; all constructs are bound by rules. They serve. They do not question their place. They do not betray.Each construct is different, but some are more different than others...A 4,000 word short story set in the Lacuna universe but suitable to read as a stand-alone story.

    After a plague surges out of control, the infected begin to overrun humanity's cities one by one. Forcing those who survive to take orbit. Commander Dalton James has walked many paths. Most of them in search of whiskey. As the fleet discovers a brand new race and its horrible secret, however, Dalton may just be the right man for the job. A rugged brown coat to his back and revolver hanging from his side, Dalton James is in no mood for games. He's always had a distaste for the undead and it just so happens that Dalton is wearing his shit-kicking boots. It's about to be on as high-tech weaponry clashes with the zestful tongue of a man who's had enough.

    It is an offense punishable by death-and a fate to which Commander Yaru Korsin will not succumb. But on a crucial run to deliver troops and precious crystals to a combat hotspot in the Sith's war against the Republic, Korsin and the crew of the mining ship Omen are ambushed by a Jedi starfighter. And when the Sith craft crash-lands, torn and crippled, on a desolate alien planet, the hard-bitten captain finds himself at odds with desperate survivors on the brink of mutiny-and his own vengeful half brother, who's bent on seizing command. No matter the cost, Korsin vows that it will not be his blood and bones left behind on this unknown world. For the way of the Sith leaves little room for compromise-and none at all for mercy.

    America has traded security for liberty following the attack with the suspension of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. The Constitution is not even taught in school any more. In this environment, Dan “D2” Daniels, a retired Army NCO of the old breed sworn to protect the constitution finds a crashed space ship and learns at the same time Earth will soon be invaded. Using the technology from the space ship, Dan forms an army of fellow senior veterans with two missions. First, to revive the Republic they had sworn their allegiance to and their second mission to save that Republic, and the world with it. Their first foray includes converting the CVN 80, USS Enterprise, a rusting air craft carrier, from a rusted heap waiting to be scrapped, into the first ship of the new space fleet of the Gray Panthers.

    Then the enemies are forced to become allies when everyone becomes lost in an unfamiliar region of the galaxy and must fight their way back through primative planets and against alien fleets. As always with Smith, romance and action are equally mixed. The Seaton is forced back into action to stop a menace that threatens every civilized planet in the galaxy, but to do it he must create the greatest starship ever conceived. Finally read Triplanetary, the story that helped launch the Lensmen series. A brainy man and heroic woman fight against ruthless space pirates for life and love.

    A network of wormholes connects the far-flung segments of humanity, allowing virtually instantaneous travel between Star Systems connected by this vast, invaluable network. But what happens when one of those wormholes collapses and an entire Sector of relatively poor worlds is left to fend for itself without support, without guidance, and without the vast infrastructure of the Imperium available to its citizens? What might such a society look like after two centuries of independence, having been left to devise their own culture, values, and government? Welcome to the Chimera Sector. The citizens of this seemingly-forgotten splinter of the Imperium hold one belief above all others: Only when the leaders fear the voters as much as the voters fear the leaders can harmony be achieved. To achieve this harmony, a special type of guild was created called the Timent Electorum. The operatives of this guild -- called 'Adjusters' -- work at the behest of the voting public, and exclusively punish political corruption, tyranny, and treason with the ultimate sanction: assassination. This is the story of one such Adjuster, Jericho, who forges an unlikely alliance with an urban detective, Masozi, whose steadfast adherence to the Sector's core principles have placed her in harm's way. Acting together in a tenuous alliance, they will follow a trail of corruption across the Virgin Star System and witness the birth of a conflict which will forever change them -- along with the entire Chimera Sector.