By dawn, only a dead city remains, eerily quiet and still, except for mutant beasts that hide from the light, multiply, and await the shadows of night to continue their relentless advance.Ordered to investigate the unfolding crisis, biowarfare specialist Carolyn Ridenour barely escapes the creatures’ nocturnal onslaught, saved in the nick of time by Colonel Garrett Hoffman, who lost hundreds of his troops to a swarm that neither bombs nor bullets can stop.As Carolyn and Garrett race to stop the plague, a battered and broken government prepares to release the fury of America’s nuclear arsenal on its own soil and its own citizens. The Gemini Effect was originally published as The Mengele Effect. This edition has been completely edited and revised, including significant plot changes.

    Epic battles. Artificial Intelligence's longing for meaning. Life as we know it, ending... Sci-Fi Bridge is thrilled to present its second collection from bestselling authors and newly emerging writers. These stories span the near and far future. They transport you to worlds unknown. They examine today's fears amid tomorrow's technologies. From the far corners of the galaxy to the inner reaches of the human heart, the exciting stories in At the Helm will thrill, inspire, and make you wonder--do humans have what it takes to build a better future? Or are we doomed by our own failings? Foreword by Jay Allan. "Scout" by Will McIntosh. "Gelassenheit" by Chris Pourteau. "Rubbish with Names" by Felix R. Savage. "Galaxy's Edge" by Jason Anspach and Nick Cole “A God Among Us” by Rhett C. Bruno "Just An Old Fashioned Lust Story" by Christopher J. Valin "The Quarium Wars" by E. E. Giorgi "Death-Life on Kepler 452b" by Hall & Beaulieu "The Tunnel" by Andreas Christensen "Caterpillar" by Isaac Hooke "The Null" by Vincent Trigili "The Machine" by Mark R. Healy "Bottled Lightning" by Philip Harris "The Gambit" by Rysa Walker "Control" by Will Swardstrom "The Greatest Serial Killer in the Universe" by Robert Jeschonek "Magnet" by David Adams "Stasis Dream" by Josi Russell

    What happens within hours of settling in to their rural, rustic little cottage in a far-flung spot on the coast of Ireland is an international incident that leaves the family stranded and dependent on themselves for their survival. Facing starvation, as well as looters and opportunists, they learn the hard way the important things in life. Can a family skilled only in modern day suburbia and corporate workplaces learn to survive when the world is flung back a hundred years? When there is no internet, no telephones, no electricity and no cars? And when every person near them is desperate to survive at any cost?

    Gerry Cardle reluctantly runs the Death Lottery. It's a job he despises, yet one which keeps his name off the list. Until one day, despite his agreement with The Family, his name is inexplicably drawn next.With his world crashing down around him and with just seven days left to live, Gerry realises that the system has been breached by a malicious artificial intelligence. In order to save his life and preserve the safety of those within the city, he must do the unthinkable: flee to the abandoned wastelands outside the dome. Bitter, resolute, and with nothing left to lose, Gerry will have to do whatever it takes to survive--even if it means sacrificing his freedom, and possibly worse--his life.

    The slaves stole an ore carrier and escaped, and after failing at trade, desperation and hatred drove them to piracy. John was a hugely successful pirate, until forced to confront the horrors committed by his men. He grabs a ship and a bag of gems, and runs away, determined to regain his self-respect. Pursued by his former colleagues, he flees across man-settled space. Along the way, he learns that his ship is much more than a simple yacht, deals with a stowaway girl, almost accidentally buys an orbital scrap yard, finds himself responsible for a beautiful young woman, fights off a pirate attack, falls in love, makes a friend, and learns that his refuge has been invaded by another planet. John, now Cale, and his friends plan to use derelicts from his scrap yard to free his sanctuary planet. But can a bunch of resurrected hulks really defeat a planetary fleet? And just what IS a Privateer, anyway?

    Virtually unknown and only published in pulp magazines before he died in poverty, he is now regarded as one of the most significant 20th-century authors in his genre. Lovecraft was born in Providence, Rhode Island, where he spent most of his life. Among his most celebrated tales is "The Call of Cthulhu", canonical to the Cthulhu Mythos. Never able to support himself from earnings as author and editor, Lovecraft saw commercial success increasingly elude him in this latter period, partly because he lacked the confidence and drive to promote himself. He subsisted in progressively straitened circumstances in his last years; an inheritance was completely spent by the time he died at the age of 46.

    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.

    The electrical grid will come back up. The government will reassure the panicked populace. The hurricanes, tornadoes, and earthquakes will abate. Most importantly, Cameron’s husband and daughter will get home safely from New York City. Instead, Cameron finds herself alone as the world tears itself apart. Her best hope for refuge is the family’s isolated cabin, but distance isn’t the only obstacle Cameron faces. Society has been destroyed, and a bunch of scared, confused people are trying to figure out how to survive. They need a leader with a firm grip on reality and a steady hand, but does Cameron want the responsibility of so many lives? Meanwhile, Cameron’s family travels across a ruined America in a quest to reunite with her. Alex believes that his wife is safe at their cabin in the Pacific Northwest, but he doesn’t know if his diabetic daughter, Piper, can survive the journey without access to insulin. As father and daughter fight to survive, they bear witness to not only the horrific violence desperation unleashes but also the grace and compassion of ordinary people.

    Those who survived contamination were herded into a US Army medically maintained quarantine and cut off from the world. Dosed with powerful drugs to combat the poison, their bodies give off a sickly sweet smell and the containment zone becomes known simply as Flowertown. Seven years later, the infrastructure is crumbling, supplies are dwindling, and nobody is getting clean. Ellie Cauley doesn’t care anymore. Despite her paranoid best friend's insistence that conspiracies abound, she focuses on three things: staying high, hooking up with the Army sergeant she's not supposed to be fraternizing with and, most importantly, trying to ignore her ever-simmering rage. But when a series of deadly events rocks the compound, Ellie suspects her friend is right—something dangerous is going down in Flowertown and all signs point to a twisted plan of greed and abuse. She and the other residents of Flowertown have been betrayed by someone with a deadly agenda and their plan is just getting started. Time is running out. With nobody to trust and nowhere to go, Ellie decides to fight with the last weapon she has—her rage.Flowertown is a high-intensity conspiracy thriller that brings the worst-case scenario vividly to life and will keep readers riveted until the final haunting page.

     To who, Michael 'Ward' Miller isn't exactly sure. Whoever killed his partner was a pro. She was shot at an impossible distance, by a weapon that isn't supposed to exist. But Sadler wasn't just his partner, she was the best person he knew. Now she's dead, and Ward won't rest until he finds out who was responsible. But on Mars, 2342 AD, anyone could be the killer. The Solar System is awash with spies, mercenaries and powerful, unaccountable corporations. After powerful aliens arrived a hundred years before, colonizing the red planet, our system was thrown into chaos. The Martians were stronger, more advanced, and remorseless. They could have wiped us out. Instead we struck a fragile, uneasy truce. And now someone wants to blow the whole thing up. And maybe, take humanity with it. Ward was supposed to be out of the espionage business. Now he has seven days to uncover the conspiracy that killed his partner. Or let the entire system go up in flames...

    Those two little words can mean so much. But how will things end...and will it hurt? That’s what we really want to know. Delve into the darkness and join us at the end of the world. From a blighted sky to an invasion from beyond, from untethered time to one person driven beyond the edge of sanity, from a child’s game to an unseen apocalypse...it’s all imagined here, and imagined darkly. Inside The Ways We End is a combination of new stories and previously published anthology tales, now re-imagined without word limits, including Cottage of Hunger, The Mergens, The Mountains of Five, The Bridge, Rock or Shell, and A Mother So Beautiful.

    Responding to the crash, the primitive earthlings discover the ship's commander Valerie Dunne is a 5,000-year-old woman from the future, forced to escape her nemesis, the Boecki, by hiding in the past. Soon they learn the fate of the future world now rests on this strange woman's ability to harness five Hesaurun rings - rings with the power to destroy, heal, and manipulate time - and somehow, to find a way to alter her own destiny.An epic Sci-Fi tale of good and evil, rescue and survival, betrayal and love, and a threat to mankind unlike anything the human race has ever faced, The Rings of Hesaurun: Book One burns with the scope and imagination of the greatest Fantasy novels of the golden age. Weaving in a huge cast of humans and aliens, Peter Harrett has crafted a galaxy for readers of the 21st century to believe in...immense, ancient, and mind-bending.

    Due to heroism and long distinguished service, he’s elevated to the rank of Lt. Commander when most of his peers have just attained senior lieutenant. His career appears to be going very well.The year is 2263, and the UEDF is in several star systems in a twenty-light year radius from earth, but are expanding even further. He’s assigned to a one year exploratory mission to become accustomed to his new rank, one that will finally culminate in reaching a new star system, 61-Virginis, which is just short of twenty-eight light years away from the Sol system, and he’s excited to be one of the first humans in a new solar system as they finish the race across the void between stars in the scout ship Columbus.There will be challenges he never imagined though, especially not on a simple survey mission. The death of his best friend to a senseless accident is the least of his troubles. Because mankind always thought they were alone in the stars. They’re about to find out they’re wrong, very wrong…Author’s Note: This series will be told in the first person, the reader will discover things as Michael does, there will be no other points of view excepting the prologue. This is also the start of a series, I will avoid cliffhangers as best I can, and believe it can stand as a series of mostly complete stories with overarching plots.

    

    His life consists of experiments and research on all the strange alien lifeforms they encounter. He is content to explore the universe through a microscope. All that changes when the Argo is attacked by an unknown alien ship. Tag is the sole survivor. After crash-landing the damaged Argo, Tag is stranded on a deadly planet filled with mysterious creatures. He must figure out why the Argo was attacked and escape before his attackers return to finish the job. His only hope is to somehow find a crew that can help him—or create one from his biological artificial intelligence research. But creating a new unpredictable intelligent lifeform is only half the battle. Convincing it to help you instead of killing you and taking command of your ship is a whole other ordeal. In this three book set, Tag embarks on an expansive adventure filled with strange planets, exotic aliens, and interstellar conspiracies. He discovers new threats to humanity that he must stop… or else let civilization crumble.