The stories were the most exciting part of Ren’s life, and he often dreamed about leaving his backwater planet and finding his place among the neighboring drifts. When Ren is captured by soldiers and taken from his home, his dream slips further out of his grasp. Now a slave of a despotic Baron, Ren must remain inconspicuous while plotting his escape. It’s a challenge since the general of the Baron’s army is convinced Ren is something out of one of his mother’s stories.Ren finds companionship in the occupant of the cell next to his, a drifter named Asher. A member of the Phoenix Corps, Asher is mysterious, charming, and exactly the person Ren needs to anchor him as his sudden technopathic ability threatens to consume him. Ren doesn’t mean to become attached, but after a daring escape, a trek across the planet, and an eventful ride on a merchant ship, Asher is the only thing that reminds Ren of home. Together, they must warn the drifts of the Baron’s plans, master Ren’s growing power, and try to save their friends while navigating the growing attraction between them.

    These stories feature clockwork hearts, lascivious queens, paper men, island circuses, and a flooded world.• On the island of Skye, an antlered girl and a tiger-tailed boy resolve never to be friends – but can they resist their unique connection?• In an alternative 19th-century Paris, a love triangle emerges between a man, a woman, and a coin-operated boy.• A teenager deals with his sister’s death by escaping from their tiny Scottish island – but will she let him leave?• In 1920s New Orleans, a young girl comes of age in her mother’s brothel.Some of these stories are radical retellings of classic tales, some are modern-day fables, but all explore substitutions for love.

    Easton when he was four permanently set Cole's status to freak. At seventeen, his exit plan is simple: make it through the last few weeks of high school with his grades up and his head down. When he pushes through the front door of the school and finds himself eighty kilometers away holding the door of a museum he was just thinking about, Cole faces facts: he's either more deluded than old Ms. Easton, or he just teleported. Now every door is an accident waiting to happen―especially when Cole thinks about Malik, who, it turns out, has a glass door on his shower. When he starts seeing the same creepy people over his shoulder, no matter how far he's gone, crushes become the least of his worries. They want him to stop, and they'll go to any length to make it happen. Cole is running out of luck, excuses, and places to hide. Time for a new exit plan.

    I got out. I’m safe now.An alternate Victorian world controlled by clock towers, where a damaged clock can fracture time—and a destroyed one can stop it completely.A prodigy mechanic who can repair not only clockwork but time itself, determined to rescue his father from a Stopped town.A series of mysterious bombings that could jeopardize all of England.A boy who would give anything to relive his past, and one who would give anything to live at all.A romance that will shake the very foundations of time.

    But can she survive living among them?For Cassandra Leung, bossing around sea monsters is just the family business. She’s been a Reckoner trainer-in-training ever since she could walk, raising the genetically-engineered beasts to defend ships as they cross the pirate-infested NeoPacific. But when the pirate queen Santa Elena swoops in on Cas’s first solo mission and snatches her from the bloodstained decks, Cas’s dream of being a full-time trainer seems dead in the water. There’s no time to mourn. Waiting for her on the pirate ship is an unhatched Reckoner pup. Santa Elena wants to take back the seas with a monster of her own, and she needs a proper trainer to do it. She orders Cas to raise the pup, make sure he imprints on her ship, and, when the time comes, teach him to fight for the pirates. If Cas fails, her blood will be the next to paint the sea.

    A lower-caste Luudi who left her planet and made a new home with a group of idealistic humans, she spends her time looking out for new family and working in secret to rescue refugees from a neighboring country. She is content with what she has, if sometimes lonely. Then a Pros arrives their tense little border town. Although mostly human, the Pros were genetically engineered to look perfect and to offer pleasure, both physically and psychically. Beautiful, sophisticated Cin is no exception, which is why when she approaches Tat, Tat knows it can’t be personal. Luudi are big, strong, purple, and impervious to psychic influence—making Tat the safest outlet for someone like Cin. Tat says yes with no expectation that Cin would ever want more, while convinced the danger will eventually drive Cin away. But the Pros can take care of themselves, as well as any quietly heroic Luudi who catches their eye—if only that Luudi would let them. Tat has spent so long helping others find a future, it doesn’t occur to her to seek out her own even when her silence might cost her the one she wants.

    V. Larson! This 60,000 word book is an Anthology of short stories. Most are Science Fiction mixed with Horror. Others might be called Dark Fantasy... Many have been published previously in various magazines.The Barrier – What does it take to go faster than light?Symptoms of Godhood – How far can you modify a body and still call the results human?Discharged – A long war and an even longer stay in an automated hospital.Teeth at Bedtime – Technology follows us everywhere.The Insect Requirement – Great sacrifices are required for Earth’s early colonists.Blind Eyes – If we can design our own children, how far will we go?TA96 – Do our genes belong to us?Zundra’s Movies – A future where video is created with the mind, and insanity is fun to watch.Pinball – A young man builds his own watchdog.Love Aboard the Kamadeva – A love triangle between two desperate souls and a digital mirage.Starplay – A window into the universe becomes a door.The One-Way Gang – Leaving Earth is easy, but you can never come back.Rusted Metal – What has spent the last century in the basement?Lunar Lotto – Death comes instantly to outlaws in vacuum.The Rollers – Crime has been mostly eliminated by removing all forms of cash... Mostly.

    Convicted of a crime she did not commit, former Hope child Jackal serves a terrible solitary imprisonment sentence and is eventually abandoned in a strange country where other people like herself help her learn the truth about her imprisonment.

    Her prowess in the game makes her an ideal candidate to learn the secrets of "power morphemes"—unnaturally dense units of meaning that warp perception when skilfully pronounced.But Isobel’s reputation makes her the target of a strange resistance movement led by spellcasting anarchists, who may be the only thing stopping the cabal from toppling California over the edge of a terrible transformation, with forty million lives at stake.Time is short for Isobel to level up and choose a side—because the cabal has attracted much bigger and weirder enemies than the anarchist resistance, emerging from dark and vicious dimensions of reality and heading straight for planet Earth!

    Mind your manners and enjoy the chocolate in a dance of sparkling wit and political intrigue.Tremontaine is an episodic serial presented by Serial Box Publishing. This collected omnibus edition gathers all 16 episodes from Season 1.

    For no crime on his record, the young officer had been identity wiped, and his innumerable, now-forgotten enemies were still tracking him across the galaxy.

    Saddling their war dragons, the Naridans rush to defend their home only to discover that the clanspeople have not come to pillage at all. Driven from their own homeland by the rise of a daemonic despot who prophesies the end of the world, they have come in search of a new home. Meanwhile the wider continent of Narida is lurching toward war. Black Keep is about to be caught in the cross-fire of the coming war for the world – if only its new mismatched society can survive.

    Le Guin has, in each story and novel, created a provocative, ever-evolving universe filled with diverse worlds and rich characters reminiscent of our earthly selves. Now, in The Birthday of the World, this gifted artist returns to these worlds in eight brilliant short works, including a never-before-published novella, each of which probes the essence of humanity.

    Scholey's popular science fiction & romance series are available in one ebook bundle, including:Book 1: SHIELDEarth is all but dead. With meteors exploding in their midst, the shuttle Grace boards takes flight in a last ditch effort to save human lives. With little food, water and eight stowaways the situation is volatile while they race to the new planet, Ulsy. A wormhole and a crash are their undoing. While fleeing into the strange surroundings on an even stranger planet two of Grace’s shuttle pilots are killed by a massive ebony creature with fangs as white as ivory.Rask is a full blooded Castian warrior who thinks his planet has been stormed. When he comes across the little being that cowers from him he is intrigued. After four hundred years and virtual immortality Rask thought he had seen everything. When the being before him declares herself to be a human female he is beyond amazed. Females have been extinct as long as he can remember. But there is no denying her sweet scent. One inhaled breath is all it takes to drop his shield and reveal the muscular tanned male beneath.Rask had thought his armor impenetrable - but one touch from a slender hand and he realizes he is powerless against the tiny human he must have.Book 2: ARMOREarth is a fiery pile of rubble. Amy, a woman left to fend for herself on the volatile planet, seeks to feed a pitiful group of women and children, misfits left to perish because of various and devious reasons. Amy was diagnosed with cancer the year her world fell apart and not given a shuttle pass to the new planet, Ulsy. That she is still alive is all but a mystery to her. When strange beings land on Earth’s surface, Amy presumes the armored, hideous creatures are looming death.Dasks is a full-blooded Castian warrior from Dargon. He and his warrior mate have come to Earth seeking human females to bond with. A male of almost four hundred years old, he can’t believe how captivating his new human female, Amy, is. But Dasks’ race can sense deception and lies—he can smell fear. Amy is keeping a secret from him.When a Castian mates, he mates for life. If Amy dies, so will Dasks. Dasks must decide if he can live without her—because if they mate he will surely die with her.Book 3: IMPENETRABLEKidnapped from dying Earth by the heinous Tonan race, Piper is locked in a small cell, deprived of light and human companionship and tormented on a daily basis. When the door to her hell opens unexpectedly Piper is blinded by the light and walks headlong into a massively built creature. She is tossed over a shoulder, taken on the wildest ride of her life then placed into a healing pool.Jago is a four-hundred-year-old immortal who has never seen a living breathing female before, but he knows of their existence. Their ship was headed to the planet Earth to see if they could find these rare human gifts when they accidently stumbled onto the Tonan vessel. Desperate to find a mate Jago was thrilled when the little female walked right into his arms as though she was waiting for him. Unfortunately Jago’s leader, Cobra, has asked to impregnate Piper, thinking Jago too young. Ultimately, the choice is Piper’s. Who will she choose?Book 4: APPARITIONHalf Castian and half Tonan, Doss is considered nothing more than a Tonian hybrid. A being to be feared, with the power to kill by penetrating what is supposed to be impenetrable.Loathed by many, feared by more, Doss has spent the last 700 years alone, shunned by the Tonans on his planet. He prefers it that way until a nude female rider on a huge, black stallion, fleeing for her life, catches his eye. If left alone, both beast and human would be killed by their pursuant, an enraged Tonan warrior. When the scent of the female invades his nostrils, Doss is captivated. He must have the female human and will go to great lengths to secure her safety.Zoe hates both Castians and Tonans. The promise of salvation from dying Earth, on planet Ulsy, had been nothing more than a lie. Human males were slaughtered, and human women were captured to lure secrets of the Castian planets, Bagron and co-planet Dargon, from enslaved warriors with the promise of sex. When met with the six-foot-six hybrid warrior who moved like an apparition in battle to save her and her beloved stallion Caveat, Zoe is unsure what to do. She has no idea of his intentions, but from the shiver that runs down her spine she is certain she's about to find out.Book 5: ENGULFFor a year, Abri and five other women have found themselves trapped on a lonely planet, after their shuttle crashes on its way to Ulsy. They have fled Earth and the fiery rubble it has become. The crash has left Abri deaf and hurting with her aloneness. When sound becomes nothing, her other senses heighten, especially when they encounter two huge, handsome aliens.Raiden has seen human women, but on his planet, females are few and far between. He and his warrior mate Cace can't believe their good luck when they stumble across six of them on a deserted planet. The little deaf female, Abri, catches Raiden's heart the moment her essence seeps into his skin. He must have her. Their healing waters or his shield will cure her strange malady once they have mated. Or will it?

    There are only better guys and worse guys.One of the worse guys is Val Toreth. In a world in which torture is a legitimate part of the investigative process, he works for the Investigation and Interrogation Division, where his colleagues can be more dangerous than the criminals he investigates.One of the better guys is Keir Warrick. His small corporation, SimTech, is developing a "sim" system that places users in a fully immersive virtual reality. A minnow in a murky and dangerous pond, he is only beginning to discover how many compromises may be required for success.Their home is the dark future dystopia of New London. A totalitarian bureaucracy controls the European Administration, sharing political power with the corporations. The government uses violence and the many divisions of the feared Department of Internal Security to maintain control and crush resistance. The corporations fight among themselves, using lethal force under the euphemism of "corporate sabotage," uniting only to resist attempts by the Administration to extend its influence over them.Toreth and Warrick are more natural enemies than allies. But mutual attraction and the fight for survival can create unlikely bonds.