Whatever the reason, Jim has elected to commit suicide. But before he can do the deed, a mysterious resident at work equips him with a dog and a bag of ash, and throws him into a secret game known as Cryptofauna. Cryptofauna is played by Operators, persons of special abilities who battle one another to influence important events around the world. To become an Operator, Jim must survive being stranded in the Pacific Ocean, pass a bizarre examination by leprous French monks, and pluck the existential splinter from his troubled soul. If there’s time, he must also stop a rival player from ending all life on the planet. Underwater Norwegian lairs, obsession with a decent pair of socks, and shapeshifting animals obsessed with AM radio all make up the strange world of Cryptofauna, which might help Jim discover a reason to live, assuming he doesn’t die in the process.

    With all the worries about his first year in college, he was not prepared for what would happen next. His way of life was flipped upside down when he mysteriously crossed into another dimension, into the beautiful land of Everville. His excitement was abruptly halted when he discovered that there was a darkness forged against both the natural world, which he knew well, and the new land which he discovered, Everville. He must devise a plan to save both worlds while joining forces with the race of Fron and The Keepers, whom both harbor hidden secrets he must learn in order to gain power over the evil that dwells in The Other In Between. With a race against time to save both worlds, his short time at Easton Falls did not quite prepare him for the evil, dark forces he must fight in order to conquer The Other In Between.

    But searching for the secrets of magic puts Jane on a collision course with villains and monsters so sinister they previously only existed in fiction. To save reality and live to see the year 2000, Jane will have to escape a morally gray ancient cult-poration, team up with a gun nun from a neighboring comba-convent, and captain a band of eccentric heroes to stop a middle aged madwoman from ripping a hole in the multiverse.Spicy Buffy the Vampire Slayer meets the X Files in this Urban Fantasy Romance adventure full of Arthurian mythology, complex multi-book puzzles, smart humor, and slow burn m/f and m/m love stories.

    It is a meditation on miscommunication, childhood, Northeastern vs. Southern American culture, family, nature vs. technology, and the imagination of the introvert."From sonnets to somnambulance, from algae to oxytocin, from manatees to Manhattan, Stirling Smith rides the riptides of memory’s fictions and frictions in this prolific debut. Butterfly Bruises is a gem mine of poems and stories that write through grief and growing up, personal and planetary survival, with words rugged and glistening like seashell shards..." -Poetry Critic and Scholar, Professor Robert Dewhurst, PhD.

     Milton Frederick was originally abducted from his apartment to help defend one batch of pacifistic aliens called The Collective against another set of homicidal aliens called Heliothropes…but he never quite made it that far. Instead, during the process where his human consciousness was ripped from his body and inserted into a massive metal contraption called a Station Core, the ship that he was being transported on blew up and he was sent hurtling through space. Crash-landing on an unknown planet with just a foot-and-a-half tall, foul-mouthed, nanite-formed AI guide called ALANNA to tell him what happened, Milton has to come to terms with his new existence as a giant metal egg, defend his hazardously-in-need-of-repair outer shell from the dangerous local wildlife (including blood-thirsty squirrels), and manage the unique radiation spewing from his damaged internal reactor – all while figuring out how the heck to get off the planet. All of his work building a “dungeon” underground, defending it with makeshift traps, and filling it with small Combat Units may work well enough against the random beasts wandering around, but they’re next to useless when something else even more dangerous shows up knocking on his door: people. Not humans, of course, but the local equivalent – Proctans – who are similar enough to Milton’s original species…though with one major difference. They all have unique special abilities that looks suspiciously like “magic”. However, there is an even bigger threat that looms on the horizon not only for Milton, but all the Proctans as well… Contains LitRPG/GameLit elements such as level progression and experience, optional tables, no harems, and a heavy Dungeon Core emphasis. Note: The optional stat tables tend to skew the percentages toward the back of the eBook. The locations can be a tad deceptive; while this box set is 562,000 words, stat tables comprise less than 8% of that total word count.

    Indian mythology is replete with tales of Dévas battling the Asuras constantly. The interesting thing to note is that whether it is a God or an incarnation of a deity in human form, aka an Avatār, there was also a human element involved in these stories. The teachers of the Dévas (gods) and the Asuras were human sages, known as Rishis.    Find out what happens when seemingly unconnected individuals get drawn into a world of suspense and action, as mythology collides with their world in the book 'The Mahāsiddha Field', the first in a new sci-fi/fantasy series!   An elderly wandering mendicant in South India, two young Indian-American men, two soldiers from the Indian Army and a mysterious sage from high up in the Himalayas are thrown together in an adventure unlike any other; as a most unlikely adversary leaps out of the world of Indian Mythology to challenge their beliefs, their sanity and their courage.

    Six years later, during the sweltering summer of 1968 in rural Oklahoma, Theo meets Frank, a Native American outcast, and learns that he has the ability to heal through his disfigured hands.As he explores the extraordinary, Theo desperately attempts to remain an ordinary boy. But when word of his gift spreads, Theo is shunned by the church for doing “the devil’s work.” He is immediately swept away by his Auntie Li, and into a world which ultimately threatens his life as he saves others’.Told from Theo’s perspective some fifty years later, it is through his work as a therapist with a broken woman that he musters the courage to relive the summer that haunts him.The Substance of All Things is the gripping, heart-wrenching, and often humorous tale of mentors and mothers and fathers, love and redemption, prophets and charlatans, miracles and faith._________________From The Substance of All Things...Suddenly, I felt a twitch in the palm of my left hand. Just the slightest tingle, a prickling really, so that I couldn’t quite discern if the feeling was painful or stimulating—like when water is so hot on the skin that it might be cold, the distinction cannot be made. Then my right hand twitched, sparkling to a tickle that felt like a fortune-teller following the lines of my destiny with a fingernail. The current splayed to my fingers, tiny jolts of something—something charged, even voltaic. But there was something more—a feeling inside of me that couldn’t be located in my physical body, as if a door which had always existed but had always been locked suddenly opened, slowly, to a secret place, and whatever was within engulfed me like a color I’d never seen; a feeling almost too large for my body, and my knees buckled at its enormity, but I would not fall. I knew that something beyond myself was happening like a dream and I dared not peek for fear that it would end.

    Holmberg.When a star dies, a new one must be born.The Sun God chooses the village of Endwever to provide a mortal womb. The birthing of a star is always fatal for the mother, and Ceris Wenden, who considers herself an outsider, sacrifices herself to secure her family’s honor and take control of her legacy. But after her star child is born, Ceris does what no other star mother has: she survives. When Ceris returns to Endwever, however, it’s not nine months later—it’s seven hundred years later. Inexplicably displaced in time, Ceris is determined to seek out her descendants.Being a woman traveling alone brings its own challenges, until Ceris encounters a mysterious—and desperate—godling. Ristriel is incorporeal, a fugitive, a trickster, and the only being who can guide Ceris safely to her destination. Now, as Ceris traverses realms both mortal and beyond, her journey truly begins.Together, pursued across the Earth and trespassing the heavens, Ceris and Ristriel are on a path to illuminate the mysteries that bind them and discover the secrets of the celestial world.

    Neal Stephenson’s science fiction thriller, depicts the end of the Earth through the destruction of the Moon by an unknown Agent and the attempts to preserve humanity through a multi-millennial gap between times when the surface of the planet will be inhabitable. The preservation efforts soon bog down in political entanglements, both from the doomed world and from within the populations who are meant to carry humanity through thousands of years in space to a planned return to Earth. When, at last, humanity makes to return to the surface of Earth, they find that other populations, not entirely friendly, await them, having endured their own privations across the millennia. Seveneves, by Neal Stephenson, is a substantial piece of apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic science fiction. Well-written and compelling, it offers a convincing account of one of the many scenarios in which Earth might end – only to be reborn millennia later from seeds sown by the seven Eves of the novel’s title and others uncontrolled by them. It is an excellent piece of science fiction. This companion also includes the following: • Book Review • Story Setting Analysis • Story elements you may have missed as we decipher the novel • Details of Characters & Key Character Analysis • Summary of the text, with some analytical comments interspersed • Thought Provoking /or Discussion Questions for both Readers & Book Clubs • Discussion & Analysis of Themes, Symbols… • And Much More! This Analysis of Seveneves fills the gap, making you understand more while enhancing your reading experience.

    On the night he decides to strike, his life, and his world, are forever changed. Alien scientists from across the cosmos, abduct and place Kazaka in deep storage for centuries. When they revive him with the intent to subject him to extraterrestrial evisceration, the ninja escapes. The shadow warrior then begins to hunt his captors, one by one, leading up to a battle that will shake the galaxy.The Bear That Fell From the StarsA different kind of alien terror. NOTE: This is a Novella of approx. 20,000 words, or about 60 pages.Science Fiction Fantasy and not hard SciFi.Some scenes of graphic violence.

    Chill your bones with two hundred horror stories, two sentences at a time.Do you have the courage to face the natural and supernatural scares that lay within these cursed pages? Pull up the blankets, close the blinds, take a deep breath and find out.A series of brief, horrible moments await.

    Good thing his companion is a mysterious young woman with exceptional fighting skills. Too bad she has her own agenda.When Duncan decided to take a month off and travel around Europe, he never imagined where he would end up. Or when.He wakes up in a world utterly different than the one he knew—a world with no GPS signal and no internet connection. Struggling with the societal norms, injustice, and inequity of the time, Duncan reluctantly accepts the help of a beautiful young woman, Alana, and her father.With the threat of an attack looming over their heads, Duncan must use his knowledge of modern chemistry, physics, and cyber technology to stop an invading army and save an entire town along the way. Will he find a way to protect them and return home or die at the hands of the ruthless Celtic warriors?

    Save 40% versus buying the individual episodes! "This Hatar Kalar has more natural Talent than any Second Born found in the Empire." Every ten years the Imperium Provosts travel the provinces of the Great Suene Empire and take every second born child as the property of the Emperor. His Due for their continued protection. Kalena, taken from her family and friends finds herself alone and scared in the imperial Stronghold of Darkon. And when she cries out to the darkness for help, Kalena is shocked when it answers her back. If you found out that you were different from everyone else, what would you do?

     After struggling with the death of her lifemate of over a century, Tara spends what the leaders of her clan considers an unreasonable amount of time in finding another. The clan needs offspring, they insist. While soaring over a meadow, Tara sees a dragon intruder attack a shepherd. Outraged, she intervenes and saves the young man from certain death. Breaking a two hundred year old pact between man and dragon forbidding any contact between the two, a powerful yet dangerous bond slowly grows between the dragon and her boy. This is a fun short story, at 5300 words. Stories two and three are already written. They continue the series and will be available shortly! I hope you enjoy them all.

    In most of Norton's works, alienated outsiders undertake a journey through which they realize their full potential. Many planets in the books are Earth-like places, where humans can live without special protection, and have extensive flora and fauna which are described in considerable detail and often have substantial bearing on the plot.On February 20, 2005, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, which had earlier honored her with its Grand Master Award in 1983, announced the creation of the Andre Norton Award, to be given each year for an outstanding work of fantasy or science fiction for the young adult literature market, beginning in 2006. Nobody today is telling better stories of straight-forward interstellar adventure.Included in this volume:Book One: Storm Over Warlock - Stranded on the alien world of Warlock, Shann Lantree's expedition camp has been wiped out by the Throgs, beings so alien that humans have yet to communicate with them. Lantree must quickly learn how to survive under harsh conditions while being chased by the Throgs -- and how to distinguish the real from the dreamed when he meets the mysterious Wyverns. A satisfying and mature novel which readers will seize upon if they want to enjoy a good adventure story...Book Two: Star Born - When the oppressive global dictatorship of Pax took over Earth they put a stop to space exploration. Still, a few rebels escaped in the sleeper ships to found free new colonies -- or perish in the attempt. Those few colonists that reached inhabitable worlds were cut off for centuries, and in that isolation and freedom they developed the mysterious mental powers that "civilization" had all but destroyed...Book Three: Star Hunter - Somewhere on the jungle world of Jumala, there was a man in hiding--a man whose mind had been reconditioned with another's brain pattern and for whom there was a fabulous reward. Star Hunter is a thrill-packed account of that other-worldly game of hide-and-seek between a man who did not know all his own powers and an interstellar safari that sought something no man had a right to find...Book Four: Plague Ship - A fast-moving suspense tale, full of unusual detail and unexpected turns. Several highlights make the book really shine: the sunset gorp hunt on the reefs of an oily sea; a raid on an asteroid's emergency station; and a landing in the Big Burn, resulting in an encounter with the mutant life-forms that reside there...Book Five: Voodoo Planet - Dane Thorson of the space-trader 'Solar Queen' found himself embroiled in a desperate battle of minds between the rational science of the spaceways and the hypnotic witchcraft of the mental wizard that ruled the Voodoo Planet...Book Six: The Gifts of Asti - Varta, the last priestess of Asti, lives alone with Lur, a telepath of the lizardfolk, in Asti's isolated mountain retreat. Decadent Memphir has long since drifted away from the austere paths of Asti, and now the barbarians of Klem are sacking the city, and the smoke of its burning drifts up to the temple...Book Seven: The People of the Crater - "Send the Black Throne to dust; conquer the Black Ones, and bring the Daughter from the Caves of Darkness." These were the tasks Garin must perform to fulfill the prophecy of the Ancient Ones--and establish his own destiny in this hidden land!This are the original and unabridged versions of these tales.