An extinction-level asteroid is cannonballing toward Earth. In humanity’s final hours, a lucky few earn a one-way ticket to the brand-new, ultra-immersive, fantasy-based VRMMORPG, Viridian Gate Online. Making that leap of faith might mean survival, but it comes with a steep price tag: “Travelers” will forever be stranded as digital avatars inside a fantastical world filled with vicious monsters, all-powerful AIs, and cutthroat players. Let the games begin … Six amazing authors. Six incredible new tales. All set in the best-selling Viridian Gate Online Universe. Side Quests is an anthology for fans, by the fans! Included in Side Quests: “A Gentleman’s Work” by James A. Hunter When an Imperial Inquisitor captures a Thieves Guild Operative, Cutter must undertake a deadly rescue mission while using every grift in the book to stay one step ahead of a Headsman’s Blade. And the prize for this extraordinary quest? Nothing short of the keys to the Rowanheath Thieves Guild. Deception, subterfuge, and heavy drinking—all in a day’s work for a Gentleman … “The Funeral Parlor” by Raymond Johnson A young spiderling is stranded in an alien land, surrounded by hostile creatures. Forced to fight for her life in a bid to find her way home, she must transform into the predator she is destined to become or die alone and forgotten, trapped in a dark world know as the Shadowverse. “The Raiding of Rowanheath” by J.D. Astra The Crimson Alliance has breached the walls of Rowanheath, inciting Aleixo Carrera’s rage. Now Abby and her rag-tag invasion crew must reach the keep’s Command Center before the defending troops mobilize and shut down the takeover, else they’ll lose the battle and the war for Eldgard’s freedom. “The Ballad of Jaro Edgewalker” by N.H. Paxton Jaro is an assassin, and he’s good at it. But when he finds a foe that is insurmountable by normal means and uncovers a plot to destroy everything he loves, Jaro has to balance his morality with his love for his friends and make an incredibly difficult decision. “Buried Alive” by Nicholas Reid Carlos Vega thinks he’s escaping certain death by entering the virtual world of V.G.O., but instead he’s swallowed alive by the deadly Barren Sands. He’ll have to overcome the riddles and horrors of a long-forgotten temple in order to escape, but can he do it before the evil sealed there centuries ago finds him? “A Final Kindness” by D.J. Bodden Alan Campbell was a talker, not a fighter, until someone murdered his girl. He’d almost given up on finding the killers; now he’s got a fresh lead, a trio of mercenaries who outclass him in every way but his wits. He’ll cheat, bluff, and steal to get his revenge, and as one of V.G.O.’s immortal travelers, he’s willing to die trying. Want to keep up with the Viridian Gate Online Universe? Visit Shadow Alley Press and subscribe to our mailing list!

     The very word immediately conjures up images of cackling madmen waving death rays as they rant and rave about their maniacal plot for world domination. But there is more to professional evil - so many questions left unanswered by movies and comic books. What kind of salary do henchmen get? Where do all these super gadgets come from? How come good guys never use the door? One man has the answers. Mike Leon spent months following Baron Hammerspace during his rise from C-list rogue to A-list arch-nemesis of the most powerful heroes on the planet. This is the startling and true story of those events.

     Future America is dangerous and bankrupt. The interstate highways are littered with the rusted hulks of ambushed cars and trucks, and only Mad Max would dare travel the back roads. When an arms race with Russia and China to develop time travel for military purposes achieves success, the body count skyrockets as both patriot and enemy try to hijack the new technology. Like the Manhattan Project and Operation Overtime before it, such a project attracts the best and the brightest as well as the worst and the psychotic. But not everyone has given up on the rule of law. In Tennessee, Fayette County D.A. Pete Dance wants to prosecute the murder of a man whose fossilized remains turn up after a series of devastating earthquakes. The problem is that the victim is still alive. When the violence starts, it doesn’t stop until the final whirlwind of teeth and claws and lasers. The first spinoff series from William Alan Webb’s immensely popular series The Last Brigade is described by one critic as “…Spectre agents chasing Fast and Furious through Jurassic World,” while another reviewer added “…with a heavy dose of Harry Bosch for good measure.” “After the heart-pounding finale, you won’t see the shocking ending coming. Guaranteed to keep you awake at night.”

    Three years into a twenty year mission to a new solar system, the colony ship Magellan and its ten million residents sent their last pulse message… "Peace with the Navereen is at an end." Trapped in Cargo Bay 37, fighter pilot Fristion Nash and twelve hundred others lived through the Magellan apocalypse. They have survived for a decade under Frank Block's exacting leadership. Now survival isn’t enough. Nash wants answers. Frank Block wants only control and obedience.Praise for Map Runners: “I found the book funny and exciting. I can't wait for the rest of them to come out.”

    For Adam Hale, the thrill of plunging his tiny ship into the unimaginable maelstroms on the king of planets helps him forget the blood-soaked tragedy that ended his military career. Rachel Price came to Jove Station to find her missing partner, Zane Hale, who is also an intelligence operative for the Republic. To do that, she must convince Zane’s brother—the man responsible for slaughtering dozens of her friends on Mars—to help her. Amid the crowds of the first annual system-wide storm diving competition, they stumble onto an insidious conspiracy that changes everything they thought they knew about each other and themselves. They must overcome the past and work as one or Jupiter will eat their bones.

    Commander Halsey wants it back. For decades they were among us, silently infiltrating the power structures of society. Now the Swarm stands on Earth’s doorstep. As humanity launches a desperate counter-attack, the alien victory seems inevitable. For Halsey, this is personal. While the Fleet executes their battle plan, she leads a do-or-die suicide strike at the heart of the alien force: her own INVINCIBLE, turned into a weapon against mankind. With a few marines, a pirate ship, and an ex-lover by her side, Halsey fights to take back her command and save the human race--or die trying. She is a proud warrior. She is humanity’s last hope. She is INVINCIBLE.

     These are some of the stories you will encounter in Chimerascope, the first full collection of short fiction from multi-award-winning Canadian author, Douglas Smith. Sixteen engaging stories of fantasy and science fiction that take you from love in fourteenth-century Japan to humanity's last stand, from virtual reality to the end of reality, from alien drug addictions to a dinner where a man loses everything.

    Heat vision? Super strength? Flight? They are nowhere to be found. Instead, powers like photosynthesis or the ability to spontaneously change hair color seem to be the best the world can offer. To make matters worse, the gifted individuals tend to suffer from psychological issues. Nonetheless, in hopes of finding enough functional meta-humans to form a squad, in 1965 the US military created The Guardian Project. The head of the Army's current incarnation of the project hires Dr. Adam Aiken, a psychologist specializing in the meta-human condition, to filter out the most dangerously unbalanced of the prospective super-soldiers. The screening process is to be done with all possible secrecy. This proves to be more easily said than done. A misfiring superpower leaks news of the recruitment effort to the public, attracting a flood of misfit meta-humans from around the nation, each hungry for heroic validation. A sleazy PR officer knows publicity when he sees it and converts the secret program into a nationally broadcast competition with all of the dignity and grace of a reality show. The ultimate prize is a coveted spot on a government sanctioned super team.The Other Eight follows the exploits of the applicants deemed sane enough for consideration. On one side are earnest but underpowered heroes like the twitch-inducing Nonsensica or the fluorescent tube-hurling Phosphor. On the other are the better equipped but less dedicated recruits like walking good luck charm Johnny on The Spot and seed-spitting loose cannon The Hocker. Who will win a place on the team, and what will be done about the jilted heroes who didn't make the cut?

     Lieutenant Commander Torrance Black, career is already on shaky grounds, finds himself facing questions. Did they just contact sentient life in the Centauri system? Will humankind sacrifice an entire alien species in their quest for the stars? Starflight, the first book of Stealing the Sun, a space based Science Fiction series from frequent Analog contributor and bestselling Amazon Dark Fantasy author Ron Collins. “Ron Collins is one of our best hard science fiction writers—a novel from him is a major event. Enjoy!” Robert J. Sawyer Hugo Award-Winning Author of Quantum Night

    We had beaten the common cold. But in doing so we created something new, something terrible that no one could stop. The infection spread, a man-made virus taking over bodies and minds, filling them with one, unstoppable command...FEED.Countdown"Everglades"San Diego 2014: The Last Stand of the California BrowncoatsHow Green This Land, How Blue This SeaThe Day the Dead Came to Show and TellPlease Do Not Taunt the OctopusAll the Pretty Little HorsesComing to You Live

    But when Omar is accused of murder over the north sea, his quest for answers may end in a watery grave. Welcome to a fantastical world where strange machines sail the seas and the skies, enormous prehistoric beasts roam the earth, and the restless dead whisper to the living.

    Not a vermin hunt.The colony is plagued by rogue genetically engineered critters, and the newly-minted Space Corps agents are expected to pitch in. Elfrida and her best friend take up the challenge, but the hunt turns into a nightmarish ordeal when they get lost in the subterranean caverns.And, worst of all … they’re not alone.In this explosive prequel to the Sol System Renegades series, Elfrida Goto’s first assignment takes her to the underbelly of the solar system, where nice girls finish last.The Sol System Renegades series in chronological order:Keep Off The Grass (short origin story)Crapkiller (prequel novella)The Elfrida Goto Trilogy 1. The Galapagos Incident 2. The Vesta Conspiracy 3. The Mercury RebellionA Very Merry Zero-Gravity Christmas (short story)The Solarian War Trilogy 1. The Luna Deception 2. The Phobos Maneuver 3. The Mars ShockThe Callisto Gambit (the final novel in the series)

    It was every smuggler's dream, the "Big Score," and they find themselves filthy rich as a result. But their good fortune attracts exactly the wrong kind of attention: the Alliance of Free Worlds has been trying to infiltrate Ur Voys without success, so they conscript the only man who has: Grif Vindh. The Radiant Throne, desperate to know how their security was so easily thwarted, send one of their best to track him down and learn the truth... by any means necessary. Grif and his crew must perform the impossible a second time: break into Ur Voys, steal something so secretive their employers don't really know what it is, and get away clean. Along the way they'll have to deal with deadly spies, psychotic telepaths, vicious cyborgs, inconvenient family ties... and a hyperintelligent bug who always bets against its captain.

    SNAFU HeroesFour tales of military horror from Jonathan Maberry, Weston Ochse, Joseph Nassise, and James A Moore.A supplemental volume to SNAFU, this book contains short stories and novellas from four of the best military horror writers in the field.From demons to horrors from the deep, the battles keep on coming.Fight or die…50,000 words to keep you on the edge of your seat.

    Our stories take place under the sun: bright, clear, unafraid.This is not a book of those stories.These are the stories of people who live at night; under neon and starlight, and never the light of day.These are the stories of poets and police; writers and waiters; gamers and goddesses; tourists and traders; the hidden and the forbidden; the lonely and the lovers.These are their lives. These are their stories. And this is their time:The Outcast Hours.Including stories by Marina Warner, China Miéville, Frances Hardinge, Will Hill, Sally Partridge, Jesse Bullington, Jeffrey Alan Love, Kuzhali Manickavel, Amira Salah-Ahmed, Cecilia Ekbäck, Celeste Baker, Karen Onojaife, Daniel Polansky, Genevieve Valentine, Indrapramit Das, Leah Moore, Sam Beckbessinger, Sami Shah, Lauren Beukes, Dale Halvorsen, Yukimi Ogawa, Lavie Tidhar, Silvia Moreno Garcia, Genevieve Valentine, Maha Khan Phillips, William Boyle, S.L. Grey, M. Suddain, and Omar Robert Hamilton..