Fiction by Hugo and Nebula award winners and nominees as well as talented newcomers. Stories were selected by the Unidentified Funny Objects series curator Alex Shvartsman.

    

    With snow on the ground, no skills, and not much more than the clothes on their backs, the group is in dire straits, and probably won't last out the coming night. Until, out of the falling snow, a lone figure approaches. Over the next few days their silent benefactor will keep them safe, fed, and warm, while helping them acquire the know how to care for themselves. The thing is, he's just a kid. . . .

    May of these stories are from the pages of Weird Tales and other classic magazines which brought the work of masters like H.P. Lovecraft, Seabury Quinn, Clark Ashton Smith, August Derleth, Robert E. Howard, and many others to the public. Includes an active table of contents.

    We've spread to other galaxies and continue to thrive as a vast civilization. But calamity looms on the horizon. Little do our people know that a long-gestating killer, called The Keresian Virus, will soon decimate 99.99% of our population.  One of the few people aware of the government cover-up is Cutler Copeland. Not only is he immune to the virus, he's also a scout who's spent his life finding inhospitable planets with just the right attributes to facilitate terraforming into living ecosystems. But now, with his ex-wife dead, Cutler must return to Earth to fetch his teenage daughter, Kit, and somehow remain undetected by the government conspirators hellbent on stealing the secrets that will soon come into Cutler's possession.Will he succeed in reconnecting with his daughter, and get away just before the slaughter, or will his enemies track him down and use him for their own nefarious plans?P.S. Visit SimeonGraves.com to get a free copy of the never-to-be-published prequel to The Last Builder. ​

    The best of the best. And now he's gone Rogue... His entire life, all James 'Red' Maddox has known is war. He was born on a dust rock called Genesis-526, conscripted into the Federation military with thousands of other recruits, and somehow stumbled into the Mech Corps. It was a moment that changed his life. Mech Corps pilots are the best of the best. They sit in the cockpit of iron beasts that tower into the sky, fighting alongside men and women who have been bred for their task since birth. Perfect reaction times. An almost inhuman level of concentration. The courage to throw themselves into the fight day after day, year after year, knowing that their mechs are sent into the crucible of the fight, into the heart of danger—and expected not just to survive, but to win... But Red is getting real tired of putting down rebellions on colony planets he's never heard of. Of pulverizing alien planets before he ever even learns their name. Of losing friends, lovers, and brothers in the service of an empire that doesn't care whether he lives or dies. Every man has his breaking point. And Red just found his...

    And she has strange powers. What can feed her challenge-addiction now? Fighting crime? There is plenty of it.

    Worlds will end. Humanity’s conflict with the Raggers shows no sign of ending. The aliens have no respect for the boundaries of war and they will attack any target, civilian or military. Luckily, the Unity League is in possession of stolen intel which points to the location of three of the enemy’s critical manufacturing planets. A huge fleet carrying thousands of nuclear bombs is sent to lay waste to everything. Captain Jake Griffin is with the fleet and in charge of a new heavy cruiser called Hurricane. Any hope that the Raggers would leave their primary facilities unguarded are soon dispelled and he finds himself in the middle of a brutal engagement in the skies of a world in flames. To add to the difficulties, a completely unexpected discovery makes things much more complicated. A distress call from the surface requires a deployment of troops. It’s Lieutenant Tanner Conway who is given the job. His mission leads to a top-secret research lab where the Raggers have been working on something new and unpleasant. Conway and his squad will be tested to the limit as they try to complete their mission and escape before the worst outcome imaginable becomes a reality. The universe holds many surprises and sometimes it’s best to remain ignorant… Death Skies is a fast-paced military sci-fi shooter filled with spaceships, guns, tech and warfare. It follows on from book 3 in the Fire and Rust Series: Havoc Squad.

    Name of the Rose meets Basic Instinct in this old-world thriller.

    

    Find out what happens to Josh's family when the zombie apocalypse shambles into Savannah, Georgia! Will thirteen year old CJ understand what is going on? Will he believe it? Will his family get out of the city alive? Added bonus! Two FREE chapters of A New Death included!

    

    "Tank Farm Dynamo" sure tried! What if we found the nerve, the spirit and daring to use every resource -- including those that NASA simply threw away? An unabashedly old-fashioned hard SF story with science and technology as central, problem-solving players... plus a real twist.

    Oscar Milke and other settlers are rejoicing in the land they’ve claimed and have plans for its future. However, they soon discover that it’s occupied by two outlaw brothers who declare the land theirs. The dispute sets in motion a violent series of events that will end in a deadly clash.

    In this world, the "rich" are those whose quotas are low; while the "poor" live in vast mansions and have to eat endless gourmet meals.