Still, like everything else in the Budayeen, he’s available…for a price.For a new kind of killer roams the streets of the Arab ghetto, a madman whose bootlegged personality cartridges range from a sinister James Bond to a sadistic disemboweler named Khan. And Marid Audrian has been made an offer he can’t refuse.The 200-year-old “godfather” of the Budayeen’s underworld has enlisted Marid as his instrument of vengeance. But first Marid must undergo the most sophisticated of surgical implants before he dares to confront a killer who carries the power of every psychopath since the beginning of time.Wry, savage, and unignorable, When Gravity Fails was hailed as a classic by Effinger’s fellow SF writers on its original publication in 1987, and the sequence of “Marid Audrian” novels it begins were the culmination of his career.

    No longer relegated to the fringes of literature, this explosive collection of the world’s best apocalyptic writers brings the inventors of alien invasions, devastating meteors, doomsday scenarios, and all-out nuclear war back to the bookstores with a bang.The best writers of the early 1900s were the first to flood New York with tidal waves, destroy Illinois with alien invaders, paralyze Washington with meteors, and lay waste to the Midwest with nuclear fallout. Now collected for the first time ever in one apocalyptic volume are those early doomsday writers and their contemporaries, including Neil Gaiman, Orson Scott Card, Lucius Shepard, Robert Sheckley, Norman Spinrad, Arthur C. Clarke, William F. Nolan, Poul Anderson, Fredric Brown, Lester del Rey, and more. Relive these childhood classics or discover them here for the first time. Each story details the eerie political, social, and environmental destruction of our world.

    It’s a quiet, urban example of the American dream. Here businessmen are neighbors with radio DJs, young doctors buy their first houses, and author Mark Garrett has been settling in with his lovely new wife and stepdaughter. But tonight Mark’s new neighborhood is going to come with something he never bargained on. The pits of hell have yawned wide and poured their contents into the midnight streets and homes of Coventry Woods. Everything has gone insane. Shots and screams ring out in the night, while death stalks the darkness in forms this earth has never before seen. Even worse, the only hope of escape is by foot. Now Mark, along with his stepdaughter and his back-fence neighbor, must flee the neighborhood while attempting to help anybody they meet. And it won’t be easy. They will be walking a gauntlet of unearthly predators, as they strive toward a goal they aren’t even sure still exists…the outside world.

    That is, until she meets Mercury, an anti-establishment angel who's frittering his time away whipping up batches of Rice Krispy Treats and perfecting his ping-pong backhand instead of doing his job: helping to orchestrate Armageddon. With the end near and angels and demons debating the finer political points of the Apocalypse, Christine and Mercury accidentally foil an attempt to assassinate one Karl Grissom, a thirty-seven-year-old film school dropout about to make his big break as the Antichrist. Now, to save the world, she must negotiate the byzantine bureaucracies of Heaven and Hell and convince the apathetic Mercury to take a stand, all the while putting up with the obnoxious mouth-breathing Antichrist.

    What will happen when humans can live forever? Or die with just a few keystrokes? How will our governments react as they lose control of their citizens' data? And how do you feel about uploading your mind into a computer so that you may live on after death?The Post-Human Omnibus is the perfect book for these times. It's an epic series of stories that explore all sides of humanity's future through science fiction, from both near-future dystopias to far-future utopias (and everything in between). Written by award winning author & TEDx speaker David Simpson, this collection explores many different genres from thrillers to romances to mysteries and much more.

    It never opened its doors, and for all that time, the townspeople have wondered why the ship landed there, and what—or who—could be inside. Then one day a government operative—posing as a journalist—arrives in town, asking questions. He discovers sixteen-year-old Annie Collins, one of the ship’s closest neighbors and a local fixture known throughout the town, who has some of the answers. As a matter of fact, Annie Collins might be the most important person on the planet. She just doesn’t know it.

     It’s Commander Joe Pikeman’s job to protect what’s left: not just the computer servers, but the flesh-and-blood people huddled in fortified settlements, praying to be overlooked by pirates and other predators. When raiders start abducting children from those settlements, Joe uncovers a galaxy-wide conspiracy bent on enslaving everyone. They hit Joe where it hurts the most – where he keeps his heart buried. Now, he’s going to use all his training and skill to make them pay.

    From there, things got stranger, and now not only does she have premonitions, but she can also read and influence the minds of those around her.Cynthia is not the only one with the ability to “weave”—all over the country, people with similar abilities struggle to balance their lives with their powers. Some with this gift are weavers with dark motives and grisly appetites who want to use people like Cynthia for their own purposes.Meanwhile, a top-secret government organization, the Telekinetic Research Center, has been looking for telekinetics to use for its own clandestine agenda. When TRC agents learn of Cynthia and her dangerous pursuers, will they come to her rescue? Or will they capture her and take her power for themselves?

    Scared out of his wits, he soon discovers that the aliens, Simon and Leonidas, aren’t planning to probe him… huge relief. Instead, after injecting Luke with nano-translators so he can understand them, they tell him that his parents, both astronauts who were pronounced dead during a failed mission to Mars, are still alive... and they need his help to rescue them from an evil spider-alien dictator named Drac Moor. There’s just one itsy bitsy catch. Luke will first need to be “reconditioned” so that he can withstand the harsh alien atmospheres that he’ll be subjected to. Oh… and it’s probably going to hurt a little. Follow along as Luke stumbles through one disaster after another, in an attempt to pull off a daring prison break and free his parents before it’s too late.

    They’re wrong.Commander Noa Sato plans a peaceful leave on her home planet Luddeccea ... but winds up interrogated and imprisoned for her involvement in the Archangel Project. A project she knows nothing about.Professor James Sinclair wakes in the snow, not remembering the past twenty four hours, or knowing why he is being pursued. The only thing he knows is that he has to find Commander Sato, a woman he’s never met.A military officer from the colonies and a civilian from Old Earth, they couldn’t have less in common. But they have to work together to save the lives of millions—and their own.Every step of the way they are haunted by the final words of a secret transmission:The archangel is down.

    . . With mankind on the brink of economic collapse, a population growing at an unmanageable rate and a limited supply of natural resources, there is only one place we can look to for our future . . . the stars. A deep space mining tug is sent to a planet codenamed New Dawn to begin a mission to relocate humanity.. . . the only person you can trust . . . is youThe mission falls into chaos when a crewmember dies unexpectedly. Geologist Jake Brooks must keep his wits about him to uncover what really happened—but are the confines of the ship clouding his judgment? Is there really a sinister motive behind the death—and the mission—or is he letting his mind get the better of him? What really awaits him on New Dawn? He must push on to reveal the truth, no matter who or what stands in his way . . .Please note: New Dawn is not a hard sci-fi novel.Here's what people are saying about New Dawn:"The suspense is killing me!""A perfect ending""A whodunit in space!"

    For the four spin-off novels, search for the Second Chances box set.1 The Time BubbleThe story begins as Charlie and Josh discover a time portal in a railway underpass which transports those who enter forward in time.2 Global CoolingTen years after the events of The Time Bubble, the world is gripped by a catastrophic climate event. Can time travel provide an escape?3 Man out of TimeA victim of The Time Bubble finds himself thrust twenty-two years into a future where he's been declared legally dead.4 Splinters in TimeJosh has perfected the art of time travel - until an accident sends him backwards in time on a nightmarish journey through a series of alternate universes.5 Class of '92A man from the 21st Century finds himself stranded in the pre-internet culture of 1992. Meanwhile, historical figures from the past are starting to turn up in Oxford.For more information on each individual book, plus reviews, please check out the individual product pages on Amazon.

    Unbeknownst to him, there’s a reason why he’s always the odd boy out: he is an Oddfit, a rare type of human with access to the More Known World, a land invisible to most people. Yet unfortunate circumstances keep Murgatroyd stranded in the Known World, bumbling through life with the feeling that an extraordinary something is waiting for him just beyond reach.Seventeen years later, that something finally arrives when a secret organization dedicated to exploring the More Known World invites Murgatroyd on a mission. But as the consummate loser begins to grow into the Oddfit he was meant to be, the Known World becomes bent on exterminating him. For once in his underachieving life, will Murgatroyd Floyd exceed expectations and outsmart those trying to thwart his stupendous destiny?

    Merchant ships operating in neutral space near the Terran Coalition and the League of Sol are disappearing without a trace. The latest report has something the others didn’t. A survivor. When news reaches the planet Lusitania during a cargo offload, Captain Henry and the Shadow Wolf’s crew are hired to extract the surviving operative before she’s silenced and the information she has is lost.But too many opposing forces are at work within the faction-torn republic – and they all want a piece of the prize.With directives from multiple government contacts, Captain Henry concedes to protect his ragtag crew. Years ago, he surrendered to dishonor and dismissal from the Coalition Defense Force in order to protect his fellow officers. This time he knows how to play the game.To save his band of brothers and sisters, Jim must walk a fine line between the operative’s survival and the threats against his crew from the League of Sol. Before the time to negotiate runs out.

    to "The Land!"Tricked into a world of banished gods, demons, goblins, sprites and magic, Richter must learn to meet the perils of The Land and begin to forge his own kingdom. Actions have consequences across The Land, with powerful creatures and factions now hell-bent on Richter's destruction.Can Richter forge allegiances to survive this harsh and unforgiving world or will he fall to the dark denizens of this ancient and unforgiving realm?A tale to shake "The Land" itself, measuring 10/10 on the Richter scale, how will Richter's choices shape the future of The Land and all who reside in it? Can he grow his power to meet the deadliest of beings of the land? When choices are often a shade of grey, how will Richter ensure he does not become what he seeks to destroy?ps - Gnomes Rule