Astonishing Times #1 (comiXology Originals)


Frank J. Barbiere - 2021
    

Dragon Web Online: Inception


S.R. Witt - 2016
    Play games, get rich. It seemed like the perfect way to make the cash my family needed to keep us off the streets. It seemed too good to be true.It was.I made a terrible mistake and stumbled into the truth behind the world’s most popular Virtual Reality game. Now I’m marked for death and the most powerful people in the world want to hang their crimes around my neck.They call me a thief. A murderer. The killer of worlds.The people who know the truth call me the Saint of Shadows.I didn’t set out to destroy the world, but somebody had to do it.Somebody had to set you free. Dragon Web Online: Inception kicks off the Electric Shadows LitRPG Adventure series. Meet the Saint of Shadows as he begins his journey into a virtual reality that threatens to consume the world as we know it.

GOON SQUAD 2014 Summer Special


Jonathan L. Howard - 2014
    The Goon Squad 2014 Summer Special contains an introduction to the Squad, and four short stories: "Red Wolf, Red Wolf, Does Whatever a Red Wolf Can," "Changes," "No-No Dojo," and "Tale of Terror." Join Puppet Girl, the Revenant, Red Wolf, and Talos as they protect the fairly innocent, are sharply critical about modern newspapers, talk to a door in Salford, and recount the day the city nearly blew up.

Tears of the Anaren


C.W. Longbottom - 2021
    Longbottom, the Nebula Award-winning science-fiction and fantasy author and head writer of Mythic Quest. C.W. found literary fame with Inside the Caves of Beneroth and Tears of the Anaren, but even his most loyal fans don’t know that Tears of the Anaren began as a short story he wrote in the early 1970s while interning at Amazing Tales magazine.This never-before-published draft is now yours to discover, complete with C.W.’s (extremely) colorful commentary and an Introduction and Afterword by Ian Grimm, the iconoclastic creator of Mythic Quest. As sparks fly between heroic scoundrel Zeb and space seductress Merrith, we get a glimpse into the mind of a talented young man yearning for greatness. Like early Mozart, it is raw and green — but also magic.From Charlie Day, Megan Ganz, and Rob McElhenney, the Apple TV+ original comedy series, Mythic Quest, goes behind the scenes to follow the game’s creators. In a workplace focused on building worlds, molding heroes, and creating legends, the most hard-fought battles don’t occur in the game — they happen in the office. Rob McElhenney stars as Ian Grimm alongside Charlotte Nicdao and F. Murray Abraham.

Troy Ounce


Phillip S. Power - 2017
    Why? Because as the only openly vampire police officer in the world, even after disclosure, he's been put on one of the very few supernatural divisions anywhere. Meaning it's his job.It also doesn't hurt that the demon whose area he works in has been targeted as well, seemingly by the same group.If he and his new partner can't figure the case out in time, things might well end up going very badly, indeed.

SNAFU: Future Warfare


Geoff BrownSteve Lewis - 2016
    See far-flung worlds, they said. Meet interesting creatures, and kill them all. Soldiers fighting aliens in unforgiving landscapes, where every breath could be their last. Featuring stories by Weston Ochse, Mike Resnick, and others. From near-future to far-future, featuring some of the best writers working in the field today.

Hybrid


Greg Ballan - 2007
    Keener senses, heightened awareness and an enhanced physical strength that could be called upon by his sheer will. Erik becomes involved with a team of high profile investigators and local police trying to locate a girl who was kidnapped in the middle of a playground amongst dozens of adults and children. None of the adults saw anything and what the children claim to have seen is too far fetched to be believed. The search evolves into a full-scale manhunt into the dark and desolate woodlands of the Hopedale Mountain. After a lethal encounter and a fatality, Erik, the investigators and police realize that what they're dealing with isn't a man and possibly isn't of this world. What they're dealing with is a sentient evil that has an appetite for young children.

Three Feet of Sky


Stephen Ayres - 2012
    with a peculiar talent.After years of destitution, Adam Eden's life is finally on the up. But, whilst out celebrating his recent good fortune, Adam unwittingly chooses death over embarrassment.Awaking in a future of leisure, luxury, and immortality, Adam suffers serious shrinkage and is branded an 'undesirable'. Shunned by family and neighbours for his first-life sins, can he find respect and redemption in this tightly controlled world? Facing a grim eternity, Adam wants out.A randomly chosen day trip changes everything.Though cruel and heartless, they always let you choose your weapon.

King Henry and the Three Little Trips (The King Henry Tapes)


Richard Raley - 2016
    Telling three interconnected stories taking place on the same day, two weeks after events in "The Foul Mouth and the Mancy Martial Artist" this novel is a can't miss for fans of THE KING HENRY TAPES. Spending equal time with Tyson Bonnie, Eva Reti, and King Henry Price himself, KING HENRY AND THE THREE LITTLE TRIPS shows the fallout from the Days of Supernatural Exhibit in both the personal cost for our characters and the political cost for supernatural organizations worldwide as fear of the Curator spreads to even the Asylum itself. Read as Tyson Bonnie escorts Vicky Welf to the Coyote Nation compound, find out if Eva Reti can survive the anima experiment inflicted upon her, and follow King Henry as he returns to the Asylum seeking Plutarch's help. The queue for the "Foul Mouth and the Pit of No Return" roller-coaster begins here! THE KING HENRY TAPES Book 1 - "The Foul Mouth and the Fanged Lady" (released) Book 2 - "The Foul Mouth and the Cat Killing Coyotes" (released) Book 3 - "The Foul Mouth and the Troubled Boomworm" (released) Book 4 - "The Foul Mouth and the Headless Hunny" (released) Book 5 - "The Foul Mouth and the Mancy Martial Artist" (released) Book 5.5 - "King Henry and the Three Little Trips" (released) Book 6 - "The Foul Mouth and the Pit of No Return" (forthcoming)

Terms May Apply


Keith A. Pearson - 2020
    As he blows out the candles on his cake, he makes a token wish. Three days later, to his utter astonishment, that wish comes true.All his problems solved, Kyle is busy counting his blessings when a gaunt pensioner turns up at his door unannounced. The stranger then confounds Kyle by claiming credit for his recent good fortune, followed by a bizarre declaration … when Edmund Wishkin grants a wish, there’s always a price to pay.Whether he believes the old man or not, Kyle is about to discover the true cost of a wish fulfilled.

Fractured Light


Nick Cook - 2018
    THEY UNCOVERED A THREAT TO EVERY PERSON ON THE PLANET. NOW AN INVISIBLE ENEMY IS HUNTING THEM DOWN. What would you do if you started to see something lurking in the shadows of our everyday world? That's the reality that Jake Stevens has been pitched into and now he’s questioning his sanity.Jake’s been an outsider in his hometown Stoneham, England, ever since his life was shattered when his father's experiment into dark energy exploded, killing himself and many others.When Jake witnesses a satellite crash-landing, and starts to receive garbled messages that hint at a conspiracy, a chain of events is unleashed that will threaten the very existence of all life on Earth in a dystopian nightmare.Can Jake, and the best friend that he froze out of his life, Chloe Haze, a coding genius who’s heavily entrenched with the underground hacking network, figure out the connections of the mystery that link all the events before it’s too late?Fractured Light is the first volume in the Fractured Light trilogy, and is also part of the Multiverse Chronicles, an epic series of interlinked stories that follows the struggle of humanity to survive across parallel universes. If you love books by Michael Grant and Robert J Crane, or adore series like Stranger Things and Fringe, then this page-turning smart sci-fi thriller, is for you.

Station Cores: Complete


Jonathan Brooks - 2019
     Milton Frederick was originally abducted from his apartment to help defend one batch of pacifistic aliens called The Collective against another set of homicidal aliens called Heliothropes…but he never quite made it that far. Instead, during the process where his human consciousness was ripped from his body and inserted into a massive metal contraption called a Station Core, the ship that he was being transported on blew up and he was sent hurtling through space. Crash-landing on an unknown planet with just a foot-and-a-half tall, foul-mouthed, nanite-formed AI guide called ALANNA to tell him what happened, Milton has to come to terms with his new existence as a giant metal egg, defend his hazardously-in-need-of-repair outer shell from the dangerous local wildlife (including blood-thirsty squirrels), and manage the unique radiation spewing from his damaged internal reactor – all while figuring out how the heck to get off the planet. All of his work building a “dungeon” underground, defending it with makeshift traps, and filling it with small Combat Units may work well enough against the random beasts wandering around, but they’re next to useless when something else even more dangerous shows up knocking on his door: people. Not humans, of course, but the local equivalent – Proctans – who are similar enough to Milton’s original species…though with one major difference. They all have unique special abilities that looks suspiciously like “magic”. However, there is an even bigger threat that looms on the horizon not only for Milton, but all the Proctans as well… Contains LitRPG/GameLit elements such as level progression and experience, optional tables, no harems, and a heavy Dungeon Core emphasis. Note: The optional stat tables tend to skew the percentages toward the back of the eBook. The locations can be a tad deceptive; while this box set is 562,000 words, stat tables comprise less than 8% of that total word count.

It Was You Who Made My Blue Eyes Blue


Scott Alexander - 2015
    This plant is used exclusively to comply with the extremely complicated ritual laws set down in the Tablets of Enku.

Big Bad


David Brian - 2014
    Over time he has learned to accept his confinement. After all, it is no more than he deserves given the heinous nature of his previous crimes. However, when a new member of the nursing staff begins taking an interest in Tommy, he learns things previously kept from him: Like why he is being permanently dosed with meds. How, and why, his parents really died. And is it just a coincidence his earlier crimes occurred at the time of a full moon? Nurse Jenny informs Tommy about the true nature of his world: Secret Government cabals, and their plans for a New World Order; the murder of his parents, and facing up to the reality of his life as a werewolf. Then, when she thinks he is ready, she tells him the biggest secret of all: Nurse Jenny has a way out of Broad-lands. But, as is often the case, nothing comes without a price. What is the real motivation for her aiding Tommy's escape? A tale of horror that unfolds beneath the light of a full moon.

Bread Alone (Adventures in the Liaden Universe® Number 34)


Sharon Lee - 2021
    Bread is a good start for sustenance.Don Eyr and Serana were survivors who came to Low Port – it gave them air, water, a place to stand and a place to make bread. The place to sleep meant they needed a certain amount of safety and to get that they founded a bakery at the corner of Crakle and Toom, brought in others seeking to survive in the midst of the poverty and ignorance, and built a tiny bastion of a self-sufficient community dedicated to raising competent, alert children who understood decency.Low Port toughs tried to break the bakery and a planet-shaking blast from the skies nearly did it in, but the bakery was hope, and people who have hope will fight to keep it.This chapbook collects four stories about sustenance, all about the bakery, its people, and its influence. ″Degrees of Separation,″ ″Fortune’s Favors,″ and "Block Party" are reprints. The novelette ″Our Lady of Benevolence″ appears here for the first time.