Hough goes back to the beginning with this eBook exclusive novella, the prequel to the New York Times bestseller The Darwin Elevator. An indispensable introduction to a trilogy wrought with action, imagination, and mystery, The Dire Earth is sure to thrill new readers and diehard fans alike.   In the middle of the twenty-third century, an inexplicable disease engulfs the globe, leaving a trail of madness and savagery in its wake. Dutch air force pilot Skyler Luiken discovers he is immune to the disease when he returns from a mission to find the world in chaos, but he soon realizes that he’s not the only one to have endured the apocalypse. Elsewhere, the roguish Skadz, the cunning Nigel, and the tough-as-nails Samantha each make their way toward the last remaining bastion of sanity: Darwin, Australia, home to a mysterious alien artifact that may hold the key to the survival of the human race.

    But perfection comes at a price and not even the looms of Arras can manipulate away every problem in the fabric of life. Something Karoline Swander knows all too well. She has a respectable job, an important husband, and she's about to commit treason.

    The figure resting there is too thin; too still, the prominent bones the result of long starvation, the stillness the product of too much anguish and abuse. He watches, though. An anxious, intelligent mind still occupies this frail and failing body, one that watches and wonders about the new guard occupying his cell each night.

     The Hugo Award-winning author of such groundbreaking and innovative novels as "Accelerando, Halting State," and "Saturn's Children" delivers a rich selection of speculative fiction- including a novella original to this volume- brought together for the first time in one collection, showcasing the limitless imagination of one of the twenty-first century's most daring visionaries.

    Dystopian short story.

    Unearthing a den of corruption, Spinoza learns what it means to fight alongside the Emperor’s Angels, and vows to prove herself worthy of this honour or die in the attempt. Read it because It's not often we get to see Space Marines through the eyes of a servant of the Inquisition, and seeing the contrast between their different methods of serving the Emperor is quite fascinating.

    Descending beneath Sangrel Hive in search of an ancient shrine to Saint Sabbat herself, Gaunt and his men encounter something altogether more sinister.

    An alien sex club. A Krinar who won’t take no for an answer. Amy Myers is tired of writing fluff. She wants to work on serious assignments—and what better way to prove herself than to uncover something new about the mysterious Krinar, the aliens who took over the Earth just two years earlier? But when she meets Vair, the dark and sexy owner of a Manhattan x-club, she may get more than she bargained for... The X-Club is a novelette/short story of approximately 10,000 words (56 print pages), set in the world of the Krinar Chronicles about three years before Mia & Korum’s trilogy. It’s an erotic story, not a romance. It can be read as a standalone or after the Krinar Chronicles trilogy.

    Featuring new fiction by Hao Jingfang (translated by Ken Liu), Sam J. Miller, Amal El-Mohtar, Richard Bowes, and Sunny Moraine, classic fiction by Ann Leckie, essays by Jim C. Hines, Erika McGillivray, Michi Trota, and Keidra Chaney, poetry by Isabel Yap, Mari Ness, and Rose Lemberg, interviews with Hao Jingfang (translated by Ken Liu) and Ann Leckie, by Deborah Stanish, a cover by Julie Dillon, and an editoral by Lynne M. Thomas and Michael Damian Thomas. Contents:FictionThe Heat of Us: Notes Toward an Oral History by Sam J. MillerFolding Beijing by Hao Jingfang, translated by Ken LiuLove Letters to Things Lost and Gained by Sunny MoraineAnyone With a Care for Their Image by Richard BowesPockets by Amal El–MohtarThe Nalendar by Ann LeckiePoetryAfter the Moon Princess Leaves by Isabel YapAfter the Dance by Mari Nessarchival testimony fragments / minersong by Rose LembergEditorialsThe Uncanny Valley by Lynne M. Thomas & Michael Damian ThomasEssaysThank You, Again, Kickstarter Backers!The Politics of Comfort by Jim C. HinesAge of the Geek, Baby by Michi TrotaThe Evolution of Nerd Rock by Keidra ChaneyThe Future’s Been Here Since 1939: Female Fans, Cosplay, and Conventions by Erica McGillivrayInterviewsInterview: Hao Jingfang by Deborah Stanish, translated by Ken LiuInterview: Ann Leckie by Deborah Stanish

    In Ireland, an unexpected reunion takes a terrible turn. In Australia, the tides are changing while those involved never stop watching. In Mexico, fear brings uncertainty into a once strong relationship. And in the United States, worlds are about to collide.1/27 answers the important question: What happens next?

    Short flashback that occurs between "The Scorch Trials" and "The Death Cure."

    Anderson's The Saga of Shadows: The Dark Between the StarsThis is a slightly edited extract from the first quarter of The Dark Between the Stars, corresponding to chapters 1-2, 6-7, 11-12, 17-19, 22-23, 27-28, 37.

    Memory-blind himself, he can’t feel those wounds. Clara can, and she prefers them irretrievable. Until her sister, Beatrice, ultrasensitive to memory, raises one that could change Clara’s mind. For Gui, the past is gone. For Clara and Beatrice, deciding what to remember reaches to the heart of their shared history.

    And they have scores to settle with one another.

    But out in deep space the normal may be reversed--for humans at any rate.