For twelve hours a day, every class, conversation, and gesture is broadcast to millions of viewers. And for twelve hours each night, the students undergo an induced sleep, proven to maximize creativity.Rosie Sinclair has staked all her dreams of becoming a filmmaker on succeeding at Forge. But when she skips her sleeping pill one night, she discovers an insidious world behind the cameras. As she navigates the Forge landscape of art and manipulation by day, Rosie finds it increasingly difficult to trust either her instincts or her mind. The only thing she knows for certain is that she must unearth the ghastly secret that the Forge School is hiding.From the author of the Birthmarked Trilogy comes a fast-paced, psychologically thrilling novel about what happens when the dreams you follow are no longer your own.

    With her career and her life at stake, June Stefanov will ally with a remarkable traveler who exposes her to a reality she never imagined, as they embark on an around-the-world adventure and discover breathtaking secrets of the past...Russia, 1725: In the depths of the Kremlin, the tsar's loyal mechanician brings to life two astonishingly humanlike mechanical beings. Peter and Elena are a brother and sister fallen out of time, possessed with uncanny power, and destined to serve great empires. Struggling to blend into pre-Victorian society, they are pulled into a legendary war that has raged for centuries.The Clockwork Dynasty interweaves past and present, exploring a race of beings designed to live by ironclad principles, yet constantly searching for meaning. As June plunges deeper into their world, her choices will ultimately determine their survival or extermination.

    Mars and Return to Mars follow the struggle of settling on Mars, and Moonrise and Moonwar follow the events of colonizing the Moon – all struggling against the limitations Earth would set on these bold innovators. Mars: A team of astronauts face many challenges on a mission to Mars—including subzero temperatures, violent meteor showers, and a deadly virus. Native American geologist Jamie Waterman must navigate political intrigue at home, team conflict on the base, and a harsh and unforgiving environment to protect his own life and those of his crewmembers.Moonrise: A private company has established the first permanent human settlement on the Moon. But all is not as it seems there. Facing internal conflict and external protest, the company threatens closure—and former astronaut Doug Stavenger must protect the base and its inhabitants from the Moon’s harsh environment and the threat of murder.Moonwar: The second of Ben Bova’s Moonbase Saga, Moonwar picks up seven years after the events of Moonrise—when Doug Stavenger succeeded in protecting his beloved lunar colony. But the nanotechnology that keeps the colony functioning is now illegal on Earth—and the settlers must defend themselves against new threats from Earth.Return to Mars: Six years after the first manned expedition to Mars, a second is being planned, and Native American geologist Jamie Waterman is assigned as commander. He must face deadly internal rivalries, dangerous "accidents" that look like sabotage, and an intense new attraction to one of the crew members—and keep his crew safe while exploring the secrets of the Red Planet.

    In the early 1800s, Nicholas, Jessica and Jon Santa attempt the first human trek to the North Pole and stumble upon an ancient race of people left over from the Ice Age. They are short, fat and hairy. They slide across the ice on scaly soles and carve their homes in the ice that floats on the Arctic Ocean. The elven are adapted to life in the extreme cold. They are as wise as they are ancient.Their scientific advancements have yielded great inventions -- time-stopping devices and gravitational spheres that build living snowmen and genetically-modified reindeer that leap great distances. They’ve even unlocked the secrets to aging. For 40,000 years, they have lived in peace.Until now.An elven known as The Cold One has divided his people. He’s tired of their seclusion and wants to conquer the world. Only one elven stands between The ColdOne and total chaos. He’s white-bearded and red-coated. The Santa family will help him stop The Cold One. They will come to the aid of a legendary elvenknown as...Claus.

    In this novel America is in the grip of a deadly flu pandemic. When Frank catches the virus, his girlfriend Polly will do whatever it takes to save him—even if it means risking everything. When she finds out there’s a company that has invented time travel, she agrees to a radical contract: if she signs up for a one-way-trip into the future to work as a bonded laborer, the company will pay for the life-saving treatment Frank needs. Polly promises to meet Frank again in Galveston, Texas, where she will arrive in twelve years. But when Polly is re-routed an extra five years into the future, Frank is nowhere to be found. Alone in a transformed and divided America, with no status and no money, Polly must navigate a new life and find a way to locate Frank, to determine if he is alive, and if their love has endured.An Ocean of Minutes is a gorgeous and heartbreaking story that paints an intimate portrait of endurance and complexity of human relationships and the cost of holding onto the past—and the price of letting it go.

    In Los Angeles, Raymond and Mia James are about to lose their house. Within days, none of it will matter.When Vanessa dies of the flu, Walt is devastated. But she isn't the last. The virus quickly kills billions, reducing New York to an open grave and LA to a chaotic wilderness of violence and fires. As Raymond and Mia hole up in an abandoned mansion, where they learn to function without electricity, running water, or neighbors, Walt begins an existential walk to LA, where Vanessa had planned to move when she left him. He expects to die along the way.Months later, a massive vessel appears above Santa Monica Bay. Walt is attacked by a crablike monstrosity in a mountain stream. The virus that ended humanity wasn't created by humans. It was inflicted from outside. The colonists who sent it are ready to finish the job--and Earth's survivors may be too few and too weak to resist.

    Even more unexpected is the fact that the bullet doesn’t kill him—instead, it causes the rest of humanity to vanish. Darren’s attempted murder has caused a temporal paradox extending back over a thousand years, and now it’s up to him to repair the damage. Embarking on a mind-bending journey through time, Darren encounters Vikings, a depressed Norwegian silversmith, a cult that believes in salvation through pain, a beautiful Hebridean lass, and Archibald Fischer—the foul-mouthed, Kurt Cobain-worshiping Head Librarian of the Library of Timelines, where all of the possibilities that could ever happen are catalogued, tracked, and managed.

    Nature.Bea’s five-year-old daughter, Agnes, is slowly wasting away. The smog and pollution of the City—an over-populated, over-built metropolis where most of the population lives—is destroying her lungs. But what can Bea do? No one leaves the City anymore, because there is nowhere else to go. But across the country lies the Wilderness State, the last swath of open, protected land left. Here forests and desert plains are inhabited solely by wildlife. People are forbidden. Until now. Bea, Agnes, and eighteen others volunteer to live in the Wilderness State as part of a study to see if humans can co-exist with nature. Can they be part of the wilderness and not destroy it? Living as nomadic hunter-gatherers, this new community wanders through the grand country, trying to adhere to the strict rules laid down by the Rangers, whose job it is to remind them they must Leave No Trace. As the group slowly learns to live and survive on the unpredictable and often dangerous land, its members battle for power and control and betray and save each other. The farther they roam, the closer they come to their animal soul.To her dismay, Bea discovers that, in fleeing to the Wilderness State to save Agnes, she is losing her in a different way. Agnes is growing wilder and closer to the land, while Bea cannot shake her urban past. As she and Agnes grow further apart, the bonds between mother and daughter are tested in surprising and heartbreaking ways.Yet just as these modern nomads come to think of the Wilderness State as home, its future is threatened when the Government discovers a new use for the land. Now the migrants must choose to stay and fight for their place in the wilderness, their home, or trust the Rangers and their promises of a better tomorrow elsewhere.

    The United States splintered into fifty walled cities where the surviving citizens clustered to start over. The Company, which ended the plague by bringing a life-saving vaccine back from the future, controls everything. They ration the scant food and supplies through a lottery system, mandate daily doses of virus suppressant, and even monitor future timelines to stop crimes before they can be committed.Brilliant but autistic, sixteen-year-old Clover Donovan has always dreamed of studying at the Waverly-Stead Academy. Her brother and caretaker, West, has done everything in his power to make her dream a reality. But Clover’s refusal to part with her beloved service dog denies her entry into the school. Instead, she is drafted into the Time Mariners, a team of Company operatives who travel through time to gather news about the future.When one of Clover’s missions reveals that West’s life is in danger, the Donovans are shattered. To change West’s fate, they’ll have to take on the mysterious Company. But as its secrets are revealed, they realize that the Company’s rule may not be as benevolent as it seems. In saving her brother, Clover will face a more powerful force than she ever imagined… and will team up with a band of fellow misfits and outsiders to incite a revolution that will change their destinies forever.

    For Trevor Stone, however, what began as a straightforward battle for survival has grown into a complex campaign against both external and internal adversaries. While his forces confront a human/alien alliance, Trevor finds that his most dangerous enemy is much closer to home. Schism is the fourth installment in the five-part Beyond Armageddon series and features massive battles over the skies of California, a conspiracy that will shake the foundation of humanity's empire, and a conversation with the gods. Get Ready. Hold on. Choose your side.

    Every day, she provides customers with personalized recommendations for greater contentment. She's good at her job, her office manager tells her, successful. But how does one measure an emotion?Meanwhile, there's Pearl's teenage son, Rhett. A sensitive kid who has forged an unconventional path through adolescence, Rhett seems to find greater satisfaction in being unhappy. The very rejection of joy is his own kind of "pursuit of happiness." As his mother, Pearl wants nothing more than to help Rhett—but is it for his sake or for hers? Certainly it would make Pearl happier. Regardless, her son is one person whose emotional life does not fall under the parameters of her job—not as happiness technician, and not as mother, either.Told from an alternating cast of endearing characters from within Pearl and Rhett's world, Tell the Machine Goodnight delivers a smartly moving and entertaining story about relationships and the ways that they can most surprise and define us. Along the way, Katie Williams playfully illuminates our national obsession with positive psychology, our reliance on quick fixes and technology. What happens when these obsessions begin to overlap? With warmth, humor, and a clever touch, Williams taps into our collective unease about the modern world and allows us see it a little more clearly.

    Haunted by her failure, she lives in quiet anonymity, convinced her days in space are over.She’s wrong.A large alien object has entered the solar system on a straight course toward Earth. It has made no attempt to communicate and is ignoring all incoming transmissions.Out of time and out of options, NASA turns to Jansen. For all the dangers of the mission, it’s the shot at redemption she always longed for.But as the object slowly begins to reveal its secrets, one thing becomes horribly clear: the future of humanity lies in Jansen’s hands.

    1,000+ pages of military science fiction action adventure. Book 1: Sol Shall Rise The Sol System was conquered and humans lived as slaves for 500 long years. Now, after years of brutal warfare, humanity has been liberated. Liberation, however, comes at a cost, and the Sol System has become nothing more than a puppet state for a vast galactic empire. For Jon Pike, a war hero who has lost everything, there is no substitute for freedom. He blames the aliens for humanity’s troubles, especially the one living inside him. But when he is sent on a top secret mission into unexplored regions of the galaxy he discovers that humanity’s troubles are just getting started. Can he find freedom for himself and humanity? Book 2: Prevail A battle weary Captain fighting for redemption. An impossible search for a scattered crew. Marines pushed beyond their limits. A heinous alien race bent on annihilation. When all is lost, a brave few dare to hope, and continue to fight for freedom. Do they struggle in vain? Or will they prevail? Book 3: Ronin A tenuous alliance. A brazen power play. A looming alien threat. A planet's future held in the balance. In a galaxy where danger waits at every turn, will former enemies be doomed by their past? Or can they fight together in the name of freedom? Book 4: Ghost Fleet A planet surrounded. A homeland in peril. A fleet outgunned. A prophecy to fulfill. With half the galaxy on the brink, can a fledgling alliance offer hope? Or is it doomed to perish in the pyres of war? Book 5: Interstellar War A homeland in ashes. A merciless ancient enemy. A vicious new foe. A galaxy convulsing with war. With humanity on the brink of annihilation, only one option remains, Interstellar War. Can Jon Pike achieve victory, and revenge, for himself and humanity? Find out in Interstellar War, Book 5 of The Pike Chronicles. As a matter of principle, all my books are DRM free. The Pike Chronicles is an epic space opera adventure with space fleet and space marine battles, galactic empires, and alien invasions. For fans of John Ringo, David Weber, Jon Scalzi, David Drake, Joe Haldeman, Vaughn Heppner, B.V. Lasrson, Jay Allan, M.R. Forbes, Ken Lozito, Isaac Hooke, Nick Webb, Richard Fox, Marko Kloos, Evan Currie, Robert A. Heinlen, Isaac Asimov, Orson Scott Card, and Ryk Brown.

    Beyond the Forest lie the mountains of the Snowy Dark and a cold so bitter and a night so profound that no man has ever crossed it. The Oldest among the Family recount legends of a world where light came from the sky, where men and women made boats that could cross the stars. These ships brought us here, the Oldest say—and the Family must only wait for the travelers to return. But young John Redlantern will break the laws of Eden, shatter the Family and change history. He will abandon the old ways, venture into the Dark…and discover the truth about their world.Already remarkably acclaimed in the UK, Dark Eden is science fiction as literature; part parable, part powerful coming-of-age story, set in a truly original alien world of dark, sinister beauty--rendered in prose that is at once strikingly simple and stunningly inventive.

    Now it is their only chance for survival... Britain in 2075 is a dangerous place. A man known only as the Governor rules the country with an iron hand, but within the towering perimeter walls of London Greater Urban Area anarchy spreads unchecked through the streets. In the abandoned London Underground station of St. Cannerwells, a group of misfits calling themselves the Tube Riders seek to forget the chaos by playing a dangerous game with trains. Marta is their leader, a girl haunted by her brother's disappearance. Of the others, Paul lives only to protect his little brother Owen, while Simon is trying to hold on to his relationship with Jess, daughter of a government official. Guarding them all is Switch, a man with a flickering eye and a faster knife, who cares only about preserving the legacy of the Tube Riders. Together, they are family. Everything changes the day they are attacked by a rival gang. While escaping, they witness an event that could bring war down on Mega Britain. Suddenly they are fleeing for their lives, pursued not only by their rivals, but by the brutal Department of Civil Affairs, government killing machines known as Huntsmen, and finally by the inhuman Governor himself.