He was just another researcher in a jumpsuit until he saw something that didn't fit. At the time, it was nothing but a blip on a sensor read-out, an asteroid that wasn't an asteroid, but it became his obsession. He named it Zebra-1, and now he's hurtling through the solar system on a mission to see it in person.Meanwhile, the Earth has its own visitors. Seven massive vessels appear out of nowhere and rain hell down from orbit, reducing civilization to a pile of ashes and rubble. Our world is conquered before anyone even knows we're under attack.Enter Jack Hernandez, a search & rescue specialist and true blue everyday hero. After crash-landing in the wasted ruins of China, he links up with the scattered resistance and begins to fight back. Having witnessed the invaders' cruelty first hand, he's driven to do whatever it takes to make them pay in blood.Neither Jack nor Marcus ever could have predicted it, but humanity's future now depends on them both. One will be bonded to an ancient warship and asked to lead, while the other is imprisoned, tortured and forced to submit; before it's over, they'll each face challenges beyond imagination in a savage war as old as time.When the stars rain down from the sky, who will rise up to meet them?

    And he watched it shaking its hideous head. "That's not me. You're not me."As commercial and compelling as a computer game, this is the first book in a major new series.

    This is the irony faced by a group of friends whose lives are changed forever when the mysterious alien race known as the Kethani come to Earth bearing an amazing gift: immortality. These superbly crafted episodes deal with human emotions in the face of the vast consequences of the alien arrival, and show how people across the world react to this benign invasion, how ultimately we evolve as we gain the stars. 7 • Prelude: The Coming of the Kéthani • [Kéthani Stories] • (2008) • short story by Eric Brown 19 • Ferryman • [Kéthani Stories] • (1997) • short story by Eric Brown 41 • Onward Station • [Kéthani Stories] • (1998) • short story by Eric Brown 65 • The Kéthani Inheritance • [Kéthani Stories] • (2001) • novelette by Eric Brown 95 • Thursday's Child • [Kéthani Stories] • (2002) • novelette by Eric Brown 131 • The Touch of Angels • [Kéthani Stories] • (2006) • novelette by Eric Brown 169 • The Wisdom of the Dead • [Kéthani Stories] • (2003) • short story by Eric Brown 193 • A Heritage of Stars • [Kéthani Stories] • (2005) • short story by Eric Brown 215 • Matthew's Passion • [Kéthani Stories] • (2008) • short story by Tony Ballantyne and Eric Brown 245 • A Choice of Eternities • [Kéthani Stories] • (2004) • short story by Eric Brown 269 • The Farewell Party • [Kéthani Stories] • (2007) • short story by Eric Brown 293 • Coda: Diaspora • [Kéthani Stories] • (2008) • short story by Eric Brown

    Original.

    The fascination with cosmic mysteries that had led her to become an astronomer in the first place, and a glimmer of professional ambition, still existed somewhere deep inside. But opportunity wasn't exactly pounding down her door.Then it came blazing out of the sky: a huge meteor that crashed in the remote Amazon jungle.It was the scoop of the century for the CNN team covering the event. They wanted an expert with them on the scene, and Lori's boss picked her for the assignment. Only it turned out to be an even more incredibly story than anyone bargained for.The meteor was no ordinary hunk of rock. It held a gateway through space that led to the Well World—a world originally created by a vanished race for a complex, long-term experiment...research now possibly tainted.Lori and the news team weren't the only new variables on the Well World. But their presence was more disruptive because they inadvertently got involved with a centuries-old woman named Mavra Chang, whose association with an even more ancient fellow named Nathan Brazil—the guardian of the Well—had reached a critical point. It was up to Nathan to restart the universe when things went awry. The question was, what had gone awry this time? And did the universe really have to end again to put it right?If either Mavra or Nathan had known about the alien entity that had arranged for the meteor to land on Earth—the first phase of its plan to disrupt the Well World—they'd have had a least one of the answers to those disturbing questions...

    Across the street are the bodies of fourteen innocent men and women, each quickly and cleanly murdered. The sniper Galileo is on the loose. He can end a human life from hundreds of yards away. And he is just getting started. Where others see puzzles, Esme Stuart sees patterns, and these outside-the-box inductive skills made her one of the FBI's top field operatives. But she turned her back on all that eight years ago to start a family and live a normal life. She now has a husband and a daughter and a Long Island home to call her own, far removed from the bloody streets of Atlanta. But Galileo's murders escalate and her beleaguered old boss needs the help of his former protégée. But how can she turn her back on her well-earned quiet life? How would she ever be able to justify such a choice to her husband? To her daughter?And what will happen when Galileo turns his scope on them?

    But if this is a computer-generated world, then how can he reconcile the complexity of its inhabitants, people capable of frustration, joy, and pain? Are they simulations, or something more? And what about the abilities which allow him to create or control whatever he wishes? Is he a god, as the people of Vrin believe? Grappling with his new-found powers, haunted by a conversation with scientists on the outside, and stalked by a mad god, Tardin must unravel an impossible mystery—to save a world that is not his own.

    Izzy works the fields as a fruit picker, following the produce north and south through the growing season. When they reach a struggling pear orchard in the Sacramento River Delta, Izzy intends it to be just another way station in their nomadic lives. But the orchard and its kindly owners capture Quinn’s heart, and Izzy briefly forgets that she’s running from a past that still haunts her—until a strange incident brings national media attention to the Delta. Seemingly a world away, Karen is a rising young star in figure skating with an edgy, daring new partner. Nathan is everything her old teammate wasn’t: sexy, dangerous, and extremely headstrong. As Karen nears her eighteenth birthday, the partners find themselves on the world stage—and the simmering intensity between them finally erupts.As each woman struggles with a sudden thrust into the spotlight, their narratives become more intertwined—until Izzy’s past and Karen’s future finally collide.

    Status: Civilian. Paranormal skills: Powerful. Able to manipulate AS energies and communicate with UBEs (e.g. "ghosts" and other entities). Psychological profile: Extremely independent, potentially dangerous. Caution is urged....As far as Gabriel Bleak is concerned, talking to the dead is just another way of making a living. It gives him the competitive edge to survive as a bounty hunter, or "skip tracer," in the psychic minefield known as New York City. Unfortunately, his gift also makes him a prime target. A top-secret division of Homeland Security has been monitoring the recent emergence of human supernaturals, with Gabriel Bleak being the strongest on record. If they control Gabriel, they'll gain access to the Hidden -- the entity-based energy field that connects all life on Earth. But Gabriel's got other ideas. With a growing underground movement called the Shadow Community -- and an uneasy alliance of spirits, elementals, and other beings -- Gabriel's about to face the greatest demonic uprising since the Dark Ages. But this time, history is not going to repeat itself. This time, the future is Bleak. Gabriel Bleak.

    "This is a promise bridge, and it bridges a promise flowing from your heart to mine. It can't never be broken...the promise is part of you now, understand." Thus begins an unlikely friendship between Hannelore Blessing, a plantation mistress, and a slave girl named Livie. As the young women are launched on a harrowing journey of awakening filled with shared risks and nurtured promises amid whispers of the Underground Railroad and the rising tension preceding the Civil War, they discover their ability to trust, love, and ultimately take action.Aided by Colt, a devoted suitor hoping to win her heart, Hannah comes to understand that true friendship means letting go, so that Livie can be free to find a life and destiny all her own. However, a vicious slave catcher stalks the two women-and his unseemly motives and relentless pursuit threaten all that Hannah holds dear, as well as put her loved ones in unimaginable danger.

    In One Hundred Percent Lunar Boy, Stephen Tunney has created one of the most vivid and exciting of literary worlds, with shades of the best of Ray Bradbury, Stephenie Meyer and George Orwell.

    It is a time for warriors, a time for heroes. Kell's axe howls out for blood.

    Then, as quickly and inexplicably as it had struck, the disease–dubbed Transcription Divergence Syndrome (TDS)–vanished, leaving behind a population divided into three new branches of humanity: giant gray-skinned argos, hairless seal-like betas, and grotesquely obese charlies.Paxton Abel Martin was fourteen when TDS struck, killing his mother, transforming his preacher father into a charlie, and changing one of his best friends, Jo Lynn, into a beta. But Pax was one of the few who didn’t change. He remained as normal as ever. At least on the outside.Having fled shortly after the pandemic, Pax now returns to Switchcreek fifteen years later, following the suicide of Jo Lynn. What he finds is a town seething with secrets, among which murder may well be numbered. But there are even darker–and far weirder–mysteries hiding below the surface that will threaten not only Pax’s future but the future of the whole human race.

    It doesn't help that the residents are a colony of intelligent, prehistoric, dinosaur-like birds. This flock of beasts has escaped the mass extinction that killed off the dinosaurs, relying on stealth, cunning, and killer instinct. The creatures have been living in secret, just outside our developed world.As the developers push to have the recently-discovered animals exterminated, a billionaire rogue environmentalist step in to protect these rare, predatory creatures. A na�ve young Fish and Wildlife officer finds himself caught in between these two incredibly powerful forces, and may find out the hard way that man is the most dangerous predator of them all . . .The Flock is a contemporary eco-thriller about what can happen when man violates nature, and when nature fights back.

    What do you do if you’re a failed music fanzine writer in your early thirties with a dead-end job, and the best moment of your life occurred when you went to your first Thieving Magpies gig as a teenager and suddenly you belonged in a way you never had before, and the worst moment of your life occurred about six years later when Lance Webster, the Magpies’ lead singer, self-destructed on stage before your eyes—basically taking you with him—and just today you’ve discovered that Lance lives down the street from you?If you’re Clive Beresford—the haplessly obsessed guy at the center of Tim Thornton’s wildly comic and energetic debut novel—you get remarkably drunk and write and deliver a note to your idol (the contents of which you can’t remember the next morning), which causes two very large bouncer types to appear at your door warning you to back off, which, in turn, causes you to hide your true identity when you do finally meet Lance, totally by accident (he’s come a long way since the Magpies, but he is still LANCE F**CKING WEBSTER!)…none of which deters you from believing—really believing—that he could still save your life if only you could get that “earth-shattering exclusive” interview with him.With the story shifting between Clive’s life-changing Magpies past and his frantic present, we get a headlong, boisterous coming-of-age (if-not-quite-growing-up) romp and a warmhearted, hilarious view of friendship, hero worship, and the full-blast power of music to help us become, at the very least, who we would like to think we are.