In the wake of war, refugees still flee to nearby stars, but there are sinister forces at work in Alpha Centauri who would turn their plight into profit. None of this is apparent to an easygoing, self assured pilot-for-hire named Jason Andrews. Recently arrived from Proxima Centauri to visit his sister, he is sucked into a covert operation by a brother-in-law who is not who he seems. But then again, neither is Jason.... But the enemy they face has grown more powerful than any had expected, and the fate of the star systems' humans and AIs are at stake. Jason must engage in an all-out bid to save a world he's just getting to know, in a war he only just learned about. **

    The group’s leader, Naomi Perrault, is a beautiful geneticist who Jack believes conspired to kill his friend, and is claiming that a major international conglomerate developing genetically engineered crops is plotting a sinister transformation of our world that will lead humanity to extinction. As Jack is drawn into a quietly raging war that suddenly explodes onto the front pages of the news, he discovers that her claims may not be so outrageous after all. Together, the two of them must battle a horror Jack could never have imagined, with the fate of all life on Earth hanging in the balance…

    His life is about to undergo a massive shift. A violent and merciless otherworldly enemy unleashes slaughter in the streets, calling out in a language only he understands.And it is seeking its challenger.In order to defeat the threat, Jonathan must become a temporal weapon... while remaining completely anonymous. Unfortunately, harnessing off-world powers has its own special challenges...The Never Hero is the first installment in The Chronicles of Jonathan Tibbs -- a mind-bending, genre crossing, action-adventure trilogy.

    Jack encountered Gilbert Chesterton’s Father Brown tales a few years later and they ultimately became the prime influence in his science fiction. The issue with Father Brown was never a question of who committed the murder, but rather what in heaven’s name is going on here? Why does an astronaut, in “Cathedral,” sacrifice her life to collide with an asteroid that she knows poses no threat to the Earth? Why does a scientist who’s designed an actual working AI in “The Play’s the Thing,” hide what’s he’s done? How is it that the lives of two people working at Moonbase in “Blinker” depend on a quasar? In “Lucy,” Jack shows us why sending automated vehicles to explore the distant outposts of the solar system may not be a good idea. And in “Searching for Oz,” an alternate history story, how things might have been if SETI had gotten what it was looking for. He describes our reaction in “Listen Up, Nitwits,” when a voice begins speaking to us, apparently from Jupiter, in Greek. And in “The Lost Equation,” a Holmes adventure, we discover who really was first to arrive at e=mc2. Jack also provides two episodes, “Maiden Voyage” and “Waiting At the Altar,” from Priscilla Hutchins’ qualification flight; and an effort by a sixteen-year-old Alex Benedict, in the title story with his uncle Gabe and Chase Kolpath’s mom, Tori, who are trying to understand why a brilliant radio entertainer, lost in the stars when his drive unit suffered a malfunction, never said goodbye. These and fourteen other rides into odd places await the reader.

    After a PR disaster has activists and media storming the Admiralty gates, First Lord Dix Harangay sends Minnow out on a makework patrol. Inspector Mako Ireson goes with them to investigate what’s really going on. Mako has never been on a starship before. He can’t tell port from starboard, doesn’t know what the 0-G sign means at freefall hatchways, and may need to change his underwear after the launch.Nobody is expecting that the “mission zero” they've been sent on will turn into a real operation. When it does, the Minnow’s crew has to rise to the challenge and justify their skipper’s faith in them.This is the first mission of the legendary Fourth Fleet Irregulars, the unit you send for when you need a miracle.For Mako Ireson, it will be the adventure of a lifetime.

    Twenty-five chances to impress.When the test takes an unexpected and tragic turn, Idir is handed the power of life and death.How do you value a life when all you have is multiple choice?

    For the black-clad Leiters were on the prowl ... and the grim red planet was not far behind. First published in 1954.

    [A Beowulf Shaeffer Story] Itinerant space pilot and epic hero Beowulf Shaeffer finds himself in the midst of an interstellar scandal when an alien sculpture artist is kidnapped from his passenger starship.

    Not everyone can. Who decides? Desperate to save his daughter from a mysterious sickness, Daniel applies for the Methuselah Treatment. If she gets it, his daughter won’t just recover, she’ll live forever. But the drug is tightly controlled, and only the special, the talented, and the truly deserving ever receive it. There is nothing special about Daniel’s destitute ten- year-old girl—or is there?

    What begins as an almost ludicrous predicament in Concrete Island soon turns into horror as Maitland - a wickedly modern Robinson Crusoe - realizes that, despite evidence of other inhabitants, this doomed terrain has become a mirror of his own mind. Seeking the dark outer rim of the everyday, Ballard weaves private catastrophe into an intensely specular allegory.

    Except the minor non-player character in the world Riley is building makes her own impossible decision—veering wildly off course and exploring the boundaries of the map. When the curious Riley extracts her code for closer examination, an emotional relationship develops between them. Soon Riley has all new plans for her spontaneous AI, including bringing Max into the real world. But what if Max has real-world plans of her own?Blake Crouch’s Summer Frost is part of Forward, a collection of six stories of the near and far future from out-of-this-world authors. Each piece can be read or listened to in a single thought-provoking sitting.

    After many years in space, one of the robot probes returning with samples from the farthest reaches of the solar system crashes on Jupiter’s moon Ganymede, destroying a research station there. After contact with Ganymede is lost, a second sample reaches Earth, and quickly sets off a struggle for control of a substance that defies the understanding of all the world’s scientists.Amid the ensuing chaos, astronaut Rachel Ferreira and a team of leading scientists board a ship bound for Ganymede to discover the reason for the disturbing silence. They leave behind an Earth erupting in conflict, as a team of mercenaries struggles to get its hands on a possibly alien technology, in the process uncovering a conspiracy that could shake the very foundations of the future.

    But on removing it, something else tumbles free. Something that switches on, and then calls home. Soon the owners are coming back, and nothing will stop their ruthless search for their lost prize. Gruesome corpses begin to pile up, and Detective Ed Heisner of the Berlin Police is assigned to a case like nothing he has ever experienced before in his life. Heisner must stay one step ahead of a group of secretive Special Forces soldiers also tracking the strange device, while trying to find an unearthly group of killers that are torturing, burning, and obliterating their victims all the way across the city. THE FOSSIL is a time jumping detective novella where humans soon find that time can be the greatest weapon of all. * THE FOSSIL first appeared in SNAFU No.1 (2014) as a short story. Due to numerous requests, it has now been expanded and released here in its complete, stand-alone novella form.

    Silas’s radical theory that drafters are not replaying time as much as they are temporarily sliding into an alternate universe has never been well-received, but frankly, the darling of Opti’s research has enough clout not to care, until a professor with a grudge tries to put a permanent end to it. Love can’t alter time, and sometimes, even being able to rub out a single mistake isn’t enough…