But all drugs have unforeseen side-effects. Before he could be buried, the killer wakes up. Hungry. Infected. Contagious. This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang…but a bite.

    The results are individual glimpses of a shared vision, and a reading experience unlike any you've had before.A strange man comes to an even stranger encampment...a bouncer becomes the linchpin of an unexpected urban movement...a courier on the run has to decide who to trust in a dangerous city...a slacker in a "zero-footprint" town gets a most unusual new job...and a weapons investigator uses his skills to discover a metropolis hidden right in front of his eyes.Welcome to the future of cities. Welcome to Metatropolis.Contents:Introduction (METAtropolis) - essay by John ScalziIn the Forests of the Night - novella by Jay LakeStochasti-city - novella by Tobias S. BuckellThe Red in the Sky Is Our Blood - novelette by Elizabeth BearUtere Nihil Non Extra Quiritationem Suis - novella by John ScalziTo Hie from Far Cilenia - novella by Karl Schroeder

    A man who has been trained in the savage arts of war. A man who lives his life according to a creed. A simple man who wants none of the power thrust upon him. This man is Marine Sergeant Nathaniel Hogan, seconded to the American Embassy in London and, although he does not know it, he is – The Forever Man.The first pulse occurred in the old calendar year of 2022. A sequence of gigantic solar flares created a series of massive electromagnetic pulses that stopped the heart of our modern world and returned us to the DARK AGES.Tens of thousands died within the first few hours as airplanes fell from the skies, hospitals ceased to work and every form of modern transportation ground to a halt.Within days the death toll had reached the hundreds of thousands. Fires raged unchecked through the cities, water supplies ran out and survivors turn on each other as mob rule surpassed all else.And Nathaniel finds that he has been changed by the huge amounts of Gamma radiation in the solar flares. They have enhanced his natural abilities, giving him increased speed, strength and healing. Indefinitely extended his life span and enabling him to be able to draw on the power of the solar flares to create magik.But even The Forever Man was not prepared for what happened next, as the ongoing flares tore a hole in time and space, creating a gateway through which ‘they’ appeared. From the realms of fantasy came the orcs, the goblins and, leading them all – the Fair Folk.Were they here to help – or to conquer?

    He loves his friends, even if the teachers are terrified of them. They're members of the rising plague generation. Each bearing their own extreme genetic mutation.The people in the nearby town hate Enoch, but he doesn't know why. He's never harmed anyone. Works hard and doesn't make trouble. He believes one day he'll be a respected man.But hatred dies hard. The tension between Enoch's world and those of the "normal" townspeople is ready to burst. And when a body is found, it may be the spark that ignites a horrifying revolution.

    These days, we know what those quarantines are—holding pens where human blood is turned into more food for the undead monsters, known as Ticks. Surrounded by electrical fences, most kids try to survive the Farms by turning on each other…

    Tyndall expertly interweaves history with fiction to create a spellbinding tale any lover of pirate romance will enjoy. Cindy Vallar – Editor Pirates and Privateers Charlisse Bristol sets off on a voyage in search of a father she never knew, only to become shipwrecked on an island. She longs for a father’s love to fill the emptiness in her soul from an abusive childhood, but resigns herself to a lonely death of starvation. Her salvation comes in the form of a band of pirates and their fierce, enigmatic leader, Captain Merrick. The last thing Merrick expected to find in the middle of the Caribbean was a beautiful maiden. Now he is burdened with the task of not only protecting her from his crew, but from himself. A recent convert to Christianity, Merrick is haunted by a sordid past while he struggles to become a better man and accepts a mission from God to hunt down the most vicious pirates on the Caribbean. Charlisse can make no sense of Captain Merrick. A pirate who prays and drinks rum? Breaking her vow to never trust any man, she finds herself falling for the pirate/priest, who more than once risks his life to save her. When she confides in him her quest to find her father, Merrick agrees to help. What he doesn’t realize is Charlisse’s father is the ruthless Edward the Terror, the one man Merrick has vowed to hunt down and kill. Evil forces are at work against Charlisse and Merrick: enemies, battles, imprisonment, jealousy, and betrayal, all threaten to destroy not only their new found romance but their very lives. It will take a miracle—or several—for either of them to survive. M. L. Tyndall has written a fascinating story that rivals Pirates of the Caribbean, and Captain Merrick is giving Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) a run for his money, too! I highly recommend this well-written, high-seas novel that dares anyone to label it as merely just another romance. Sherri Myers, Romance Junkies

    Explore the future of humanity in Massimo Marino's sci-fi debut, Daimones, an apocalyptic tale that feels like it could happen tomorrow. You may never sleep through a windstorm again.Death swept away the lives of billions, but spared Dan Amenta and his family, leading them to an uncertain future. When merely surviving isn't enough and the hunt for answers begins, memories from the past and troubling encounters lead Dan to the truth about the extermination of the human race. Distressing revelations will give new meaning to their very existence.Early humans shaped the future and seeded a plan millions of years in the making. Now survivors must choose: Endure a future with no past or fade away into a past with no future?

    For recent apocalyptic cult escapee Wynter Roth, it’s the end she’d always been told was coming.When Wynter Roth is turned out of New Earth, a self-contained doomsday cult on the American prairie, she emerges into a world poised on the brink of madness as a mysterious outbreak of rapid early onset dementia spreads across the nation.As Wynter struggles to start over in a world she’s been taught to regard as evil, she finds herself face-to-face with the apocalypse she’s feared all her life—until the night her sister shows up at her doorstep with a set of medical samples. That night, Wynter learns there’s something far more sinister at play and that these samples are key to understanding the disease.Now, as the power grid fails and the nation descends into chaos, Wynter must find a way to get the samples to a lab in Colorado. Uncertain who to trust, she takes up with former military man Chase Miller, who has his own reasons for wanting to get close to the samples in her possession, and to Wynter herself.

    Medical science and governments around the world scramble in an effort to solve the problem, but twenty-five years later there is no cure, and an entire generation grows up with a population of fewer than a thousand women.Zoey and some of the surviving young women are housed in a scientific research compound dedicated to determining the cause. For two decades, she’s been isolated from her family, treated as a test subject, and locked away—told only that the virus has wiped out the rest of the world’s population.Captivity is the only life Zoey has ever known, and escaping her heavily armed captors is no easy task, but she’s determined to leave before she is subjected to the next round of tests…a program that no other woman has ever returned from. Even if she’s successful, Zoey has no idea what she’ll encounter in the strange new world beyond the facility’s walls. Winning her freedom will take brutality she never imagined she possessed, as well as all her strength and cunning—but Zoey is ready for war.

    The most "developed" nations of the world have fallen to the shambling zombie masses. Only a few pockets of humanity survive — in places rife with high-powered weaponry, such as Somalia. In New York City, the dead walk the streets, driven by an insatiable hunger for all things living. One amongst them is different; though he shares their appetites he has retained his human intelligence. Alone among the mindless zombies, Gary Fleck is an eyewitness to the end of the world — and perhaps the evil genius behind it all. From the other side of the planet, a small but heavily-armed group of schoolgirls-turned-soldiers has come in search of desperately needed medicine. Dekalb, a former United Nations weapons inspector, leads them as their local guide. Ayaan, a crack shot at the age of sixteen, will stop at nothing to complete her mission. They think they are prepared for anything. On Monster Island they will find that there is something worse even than being undead, as Gary learns the true price of survival.

    She is cleaning cages and floors at Pope Pharmaceuticals when the President of the United States announces that human beings are no longer a viable species. When Zoe realizes that everyone she loves is disappearing, she starts running. Scared and alone in a shockingly changed world, she embarks on a remarkable journey of survival and redemption. Along the way, Zoe comes to see that humans are not defined by their genetic code, but rather by their actions and choices.

    In a span of mere hours, the entire adult population is decimated, leaving their children behind to fend for themselves and deal with the horrific aftermath of the freak occurrence. As one of the newly made elders in his small town, Shane finds himself taking on the role of caretaker for a large group of juvenile survivors. One who just happens to be Kelly Douglas—an out-of-his-league classmate—who, on any other day, would have never given Shane a second glance. Together, they begin their quest to find out why all of the adults were slaughtered. What they find is even more horrifying than anything they could have expected—the annihilation of the adults was only the beginning. Shane and his friends are not the unlucky survivors left to inherit this new, messed-up planet. No, they are its next victims. There is an unknown power out there, and it won’t stop until every person in the world is dead. A spine-tingling adventure that will have you gasping for breath all the way until the last page, The Last Orphans is the first book in an all-new apocalyptic series.

    Her younger brother, Jordan, is having no problem fitting in and making friends.Everyone on Castine Island is anxiously awaiting the arrival of the purple moon, caused by a comet entering the Earth's atmosphere. Scientists expected this thrilling phenomenon and food companies are churning out purple-colored products in celebration of the comet’s arrival.The morning following the comet’s debut Abby and Jordan make a chilling discovery: every adult on the island is dead. The children of the island band together to withstand their new circumstances, and the older kids quickly learn a gripping truth about their own ticking clocks. It's only a matter of time before they succumb to the comet bacteria, but can they raise the next generation to survive?"Frightening and inspiring" - Kirkus Reviews. Riveting dystopian drama for all ages (13+)Alternate Cover edition for ISBN 9780615637082

    It's the only way to survive. The only way not to draw the living dead. Helping a small group of people, she learns the new world might not be what she assumes. Venturing out of her refuge and comfort zone, she meets Rudy, who helps her find a greater purpose. She realizes that the world has moved on without her. Only it's not what she expects. Her knowledge of the living dead grows and only makes her more curious as humanity continues to hang on by a thread. While on her search for answers she finds comfort in new friendships and love, but her past seems as if it will haunt her forever. Kansas takes it upon herself to help other survivors, which would be easy if the famished were the only obstacles.

    When radio transmissions of a resistance offering shelter and safety cease, Abby is tempted to give up. Struggling to overcome life-threatening obstacles in their dangerous journey, Abby and her companions quickly discover there are much worse things lurking in the dark than they could have ever imagined.