Time Capsel


Jonathan Maas - 2020
    It has a strong female lead, and though it is aimed at adults, it can also be read by a YA audience.Fans of Ted Chiang will like this one, as well as readers who want a book they can read in one sitting.So wake up with Capsel and see what the future holds for us―you will be quite surprised indeed.-J. Shaw, Editor, Cynical Optimist PressFor fans of Ted Chiang, Blake Crouch, Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, and Yuval Noah HarariFor fans of Science Fiction, SciFi, Strong Female Leads, Environmental Fiction, Future Worlds, Young Adult, YA, Humanity and Time Travel

The Old Man and the Princess


Sean-Paul Thomas - 2016
    A Nashville Film Festival Screenplay Finalist and now recently optioned to be a MAJOR MOTION PICTURE'He promised her the world, just not this one...' Derek, a mysterious old Irish man, who claims to be not of this Earth, kidnaps Sersha, a young, headstrong, Irish foster girl, from the streets of Galway and tries to convince her that her life's destiny is tied to a seemingly random cave in the Scottish Highlands. But with half of the Irish criminal underworld violently on their trail, the kidnapped Sersha, struggles back and forth with the old man's real identity and far-fetched schemes and intentions to whether he truly is genuine in his wild and fantastical beliefs. Or is he just some kind of mad, demented and misguided old fool, having a mental breakdown in his twilight years?

Seconds to Act


Stephanie Flynn - 2020
    Promised a distraction, April accepts her quirky roommate's dream experiment, but as she's drifting off, she's given a surprising mission: Prevent Sam Hartley's arrest in 1852, otherwise he will be murdered.In 1852 Wisconsin, Sam Hartley wishes to return to blacksmithing, where he could use his hands to create, but until something is done about his tyrannical boss, he's trapped. When an extraordinary woman comes asking for him, escalating threats and her suspicious knowledge force him to keep her close. But too soon he must decide if risking her safety is worth mending his heart.Time's running out, and April must choose between her mediocre boyfriend and 1852, risking her life to save the man who stole her heart.If you love sizzling romance, edge-of-your-seat action, time travel, swoon-worthy heroes, and sassy ladies in a small town setting, you'll love Stephanie Flynn's dramatic historical adventure books. Each is a standalone with guaranteed HEA, but an overarching narrative. Best if read in order.

Trak


Ella Blake - 2020
     Desperate for money to continue her brother’s expensive medical treatment, Anna Baker signs the contract to enter herself in the running to produce an heir for one of these alien males. It doesn’t sound so bad, and hey, she’s always wanted to travel. To Anna’s surprise, she is chosen out of hundreds of qualifying women, but she doesn’t expect to be tossed in a transport ship, shuttled to a disreputable space station on the other side of the galaxy, and dropped off in a stranger’s bedroom. Her match is swaggering scoundrel Trak Letu, Prince of the Virilian fleet Exir, who turns out to be as infuriating as he is sexy. All she has to do is have his child and she can go home a rich woman, but the easier time passes with Trak, the harder it is to imagine leaving him, or the child he is desperate for. Prince Trak’s people are heading for extinction, and honestly, mail-ordering a female from a distant planet isn’t his ideal way of meeting the mother of his future child. He’s willing to do whatever it takes to ensure his species’ survival, but the female chosen for him isn’t just beautiful, she’s opinionated, intelligent, and more passionate than he could have imagined. As time passes, he begins to dread the day Anna does have his baby, for he does not look forward to sending her back to Earth. However, Trak isn’t the only alien who desires her. When a trade deal goes badly and Anna, herself, becomes the currency, Trak must navigate a deadly path that unveils a frightening and dangerous face that all Virilian males strive to keep hidden. Even if he saves her, he could still lose her. This story can be read alone with no cliffhangers and no cheating. I write what I love to read, so there is always consent and always a happy ending.

Echoes of Starlight


Eric Michael Craig - 2019
     No bodies. No evidence of an attack. Just gone. On what should have been a routine cargo run to the far edge of the Coalition, Captain Ethan Walker is carrying a payload of medical technology and two passengers returning home to Starlight Colony. When they arrive, they discover that everyone on the planet is missing. The company he works for wants him to leave immediately, but he’s obligated to report to FleetCom that the entire population has vanished. Captain MacKenna of the Magellan, tells him stay put until they can arrive to begin an official investigation. Caught between his legal responsibilities and the need to know what happened, Walker has to resist increasing pressure to defy orders. Unfortunately, his passengers make a decision that forces him into doing the one thing he can’t do. Captain Walker must risk his ship and crew to return to the surface even though it may ultimately cost him everything. Get the exciting opening book to the new Wings of Earth series.

The Fermata


Nicholson Baker - 1994
    He is hard at work on his autobiography, The Fermata, which proves in the telling to be a very provocative, very funny and altogether morally confused piece of work.Hilarious and totally original, Nicholson Baker's new novel is a triumphant comedy about sexual fantasy and fantastic sexuality.

My Other Car is a Spaceship


Mark Terence Chapman - 2014
    One minute Hal Nellis, former air force fighter pilot, is mowing his lawn; the next, he finds himself drafted to fight interstellar pirates set on sacking Earth and other backwater worlds. When the pirate ships acted independently, the civilian Merchants’ Unity had no trouble keeping them under control. But when the pirates organized to better coordinate their activities, they became an unstoppable force, pushing the underfunded Unity to the brink of collapse and leaving backwater worlds like Earth defenseless. As one of the rare humans with the hypertasking gene, Hal is able to pilot the best the Unity has to offer. With his help, and that of Captain Kalen Jeffries—the son of human slaves, the remaining ships of the Unity plan a last-ditch effort to break the pirate hegemony. Succeed, and the pirate organization is crushed forever; fail, and the people of Earth and countless other worlds are doomed to slavery and death. Prepare for a rollicking adventure full of twists and turns you won’t see coming. It's part “Kidnapped,” part “The Guns of Navarone,” and part “The Great Escape.” For more information about the author and his books, visit his website at: http://MarkTerenceChapman.com Or read his blog at: http://tesserene.blogspot.com

The Ka


Mary Deal - 2006
    After the founder of the Institute of Archaeology learns that Chione’s dreams might be connected to events in Egypt, he accepts an offer to examine a mysterious site in Valley of the Queens. After they discover an ancient burial site, spells encoded into the hieroglyphs on the tomb’s walls transport Chione and her former boyfriend, archaeologist Aaron Ashby, 3,500 years into the past: to ancient Egypt. There, they learn of Tutankhamon and Tauret, a priestess in Pharaoh's Court. Meanwhile, the other team members are affected in unfathomable ways by the Ka: the spirit of the entombed. Chione and Aaron learn that Tauret plans to provide Tutankhamon with a living heir... and that they have been chosen to play a crucial part in completing their destiny.

Out of Babylon


Walter Brueggemann - 2010
    Devoted to materialism, extravagance, luxury, and the pursuit of sensual pleasure, it was a privileged society. But, there was also injustice, poverty, and oppression. It was the great and ancient Babylon--the center of the universe. And now we find Babylon redux today in Western society. Consumer capitalism, a never-ending cycle of working and buying, a sea of choices produced with little regard to life or resources, societal violence, marginalized and excluded people, a world headed toward climactic calamity. Where are the prophets--the Jeremiahs--to lead the way out of the gated communities of overindulgence, the high rises of environmental disaster, and the darkness at the core of an apostate consumer society? Walter Brueggemann--a scholar, a preacher, a prophetic voice in our own time--challenges us again to examine our culture, turn from the idols of abundance and abuse, and turn to lives of meaning and substance.

Laying Down the Sword: Why We Can't Ignore the Bible's Violent Verses


Philip Jenkins - 2011
    But fanaticism is no more hard-wired in Christianity than it is in Islam. In Laying Down the Sword, “one of America’s best scholars of religion” (The Economist) explores how religions grow past their bloody origins, and delivers a fearless examination of the most violent verses of the Bible and an urgent call to read them anew in pursuit of a richer, more genuine faith.Christians cannot engage with neighbors and critics of other traditions—nor enjoy the deepest, most mature embodiment of their own faith—until they confront the texts of terror in their heritage. Philip Jenkins identifies the “holy amnesia” that, while allowing scriptural religions to grow and adapt, has demanded a nearly wholesale suppression of the Bible’s most aggressive passages, leaving them dangerously dormant for extremists to revive in times of conflict. Jenkins lays bare the whole Bible, without compromise or apology, and equips us with tools for reading even the most unsettling texts, from the slaughter of the Canaanites to the alarming rhetoric of the book of Revelation.Laying Down the Sword presents a vital framework for understanding both the Bible and the Qur’an, gives Westerners a credible basis for interaction and dialogue with Islam, and delivers a powerful model for how a faith can grow from terror to mercy.

One Dinosaur One Bullet


Dane Hatchell - 2018
    Dan Webber and his son guide wealthy hunters 100 million years back in time where Tyrannosaurs rule and Velociraptors scavenge. New understandings of physics alleviate the once-honored fear of altering the future by new actions committed in the past. But when an anomaly interferes with the time machine’s programming, Dan and the others find themselves in a life-threatening situation no one has prepared for! Paying homage to the SF classics A Gun for Dinosaur by L. Sprague de Camp and A Sound of Thunder by Ray Bradbury, One Dinosaur One Bullet pits six time travelers against vicious dinosaurs in the prehistoric past. One Dinosaur One Bullet is a novella 22,000 words long, available at this time for the special price of .99 cents.

Storm Portal


Michael R. Stern - 2014
    Lee resting in the woods on the day after the surrender at Appomattox. A lover of history, Fritz finds his sudden time trip to the past both a gift and a chance for great adventure. But when the classroom door opens to the Oval Office, he realizes that his time portal might also be put to serious purpose. Hired by the president to help on behalf of national security. Fritz does not believe he will be endangered by using his door to travel across time and space. But will Fritz’s own government consider him expendable, if he cannot solve the mystery of the portal?

Legend


Jude Deveraux - 1996
    When she came to, Kady was in the dusty western town of Legend, Colorado--where a hanging was about to commence! With quick wits and more than a little moxie, Kady halts the proceedings, much to the relief of one Cole Jordan, a tall, thankful, and very appealing man.Now it's Kady's turn to enlist his help to find a way back home. But before long, Kady discovers a passion that she knows can only live in Legend--until Cole reveals a secret that unites them in a way Kady never could have imagined.

We Could Be Villains


Missy Meyer - 2014
    Besides, she has her own problems to worry about: her career isn’t going anywhere, she doesn’t have a boyfriend (or any prospects), and most of her weekends are spent escaping into video games that are way more thrilling than anything that will ever happen to her. And worst of all, her thirtieth birthday is right around the corner. But everything changes the day she runs into Nate—a chance encounter with a handsome stranger that turns her quiet life upside down and throws her into the middle of a world of heroes, villains, and adventure. In We Could Be Villains, Sarah learns that there’s a very hazy line between the good guys and the bad guys. With the help of an unexpected journey, a motley team of professionals, and some eye-opening backstory about the heroes she’s grown up watching, Sarah just might find the job, romance, and excitement she’s been waiting for.

Star Maker


Olaf Stapledon - 1937
    The book describes a history of life in the universe, dwarfing in scale Stapledon's previous book, Last and First Men (1930), a history of the human species over two billion years. Star Maker tackles philosophical themes such as the essence of life, of birth, decay and death, and the relationship between creation and creator. A pervading theme is that of progressive unity within and between different civilizations. Some of the elements and themes briefly discussed prefigure later fiction concerning genetic engineering and alien life forms. Arthur C. Clarke considered Star Maker to be one of the finest works of science fiction ever written.