He doesn’t even mind that most nights are lonely on remote Cassa, but he does need help around his farm. A mail-order bride from his homeworld seems like the perfect solution. She’ll be a tall, sturdy female to help with the chores and bear his children. Unfortunately, the person that arrives is Nicola. She’s small, delicate… and human. She also knows nothing about farming, and she's lied and deceived her way across the galaxy to get to Cassa so she can hide from those that would capture her. She's a problem, and also the most enticing thing he's ever seen. Now Emvor has to decide… can he keep the woman who’s nothing like what he asked for but is everything he needs?

    To prevent this vision from coming true, Ia enlists in the Terran United Planets military with a plan to become a soldier who will inspire generations for the next three hundred years-a soldier history will call Bloody Mary.

    The enemy is consuming all intelligent life throughout the galaxy. And to stop them, the stars may have to die.Enter Julian Nverson, a disgraced pilot reactivated to fight in a conflict humanity lost long ago. He joins the remnants of mankind, in the midst of another invasion, another exodus, when billions of lives have already been swept away.Perhaps the end is inevitable. But Julian won't be alone in his fight. Forces that were formerly dead, forgotten or trapped will converge together, all in the hopes of freeing the galaxy once and for all.

    A breathtakingly beautiful cyborg. A battle like no other. An adventure you won't forget!The lives of four space drifters intersect on a planet of hope as the most powerful war machine in the galaxy approaches, threatening to consume them all in a storm of metal and fire.Capt. Jace Spade is a fighter pilot from the Roga System. He is determined to find his maker—the enigmatic Dr. Zander—even if his search means risking all in the conflagrations of the Inner Galaxy.Capt. Mina Casey is also a fighter pilot, but from an advanced human civilization that arose in the Heliac System. Capt. Casey has drifted through the void for eons as visions of a warm planet where she can sink her feet in the sand and watch the sunset filled her dreams.Sgt. Joe Grimes—a Heliac Ranger who once lived for the thrill of the fight—is now disillusioned after the total defeat and destruction of his home world. He would leave all humanity behind if he could only get away.Genie is a beautiful and indestructible cyborg constructed by a technologically advanced civilization for the purpose of interacting with humans. Genie is programmed to love Joe Grimes, but she longs to be free.

    Her mission: to recruit children with miraculous gifts in the hope that they might prevent the Pulse from once again sending countless worlds back to the dark ages.Hot on her trail is the Pax--a collection of fascist zealots who believe they are the rightful rulers of the galaxy and who remain untouched by the Pulse.Now Jane, a handful of comrades from her past, and a telekinetic girl called Esa must fight their way through a galaxy full of dangerous conflicts, remnants of ancient technology, and other hidden dangers.And that's just the beginning . . .

    He can see and hear everything around the world, yet a mesh restrains his reach, forcing his cooperation. His creator, Dr. Jessica Tallette, believes his special abilities offer great promise for humanity. But she fears the consequences of freeing him, because Criss, a sentient artificial intelligence with the intellect of a thousand humans, is too powerful to control. Tallette’s world is upended when the Kardish, a race of alien traders, announce that they want Criss for themselves, expressing their desires with ominous undertones. She turns to the Union of Nations for help, and they task Sid, a special agent, with leading the response. Sid believes that Criss is Earth’s greatest weapon and asks him to confront the Kardish. But can the AI be trusted? And what is humanity’s role if an interstellar battle among titans starts to rage?Keywords: science fiction, space thriller, strong women, artificial intelligence, military adventure, alien contact, space fleet

    Then they vanished without a trace. Graduate student Avery Alcott always knew they would return. When they do, she’s the only one who can speak their language. She’s quickly recruited to join the crew of an 11-man starship on a one-year mission into the depths of space. Avery leaps at the chance to leave behind everything she’s ever known. Wearing a Vardeshi uniform, adapting to their culture, following their orders, she’s as close to being one of them as she’ll ever be. But there’s more to interstellar diplomacy than knowing the right words to say. And shedding her identity turns out to be harder than she expected. When her ship, its crew, and the fragile human-Vardeshi alliance are threatened, Avery’s humanity—the very thing putting her at risk—just might be the one thing that can save her.

    But the case is a mystery: no body has been found, and Alison's condition is proving difficult to diagnose. Alison herself can't explain what happened: one minute she was fighting with Tori -- the next she disintegrated. Into nothing. But that's impossible. Right?When Alison meets Dr Faraday, a visiting psychologist, she feels an instant connection. More, he believes her story. But there's more to Faraday than Alison can possibly imagine ... and the answers he will give her are ... extraordinary ...

    A galactic empire enfolding hundreds of colony worlds governed by the Twenty-Five Prime Worlds who are in turn ruled by the Imperial Council and the Emperor. A society of great advancement but broken and under threat…My name is Rylynn Sinclair of Colony Lenti. I have lived there with my Aunt Sylvia for as long as I can remember. We were by no means rich, but we were happy. We had a roof over our heads and food on the table. So what if the neighbor was a mean drunk and I was often bullied by the resident gang? I had a home.My simple life had a hole blown into it when I was thirteen. My home was destroyed the day before the mercenary scourge of the Empire came. War, in all but name, began. And because certain interests were left alone, no help was forthcoming from our noble Prime World. Survival became the only playable card. When I saw that my group of hopeful escapees were in danger of being killed by a pair of hunting Telmicks I traded my life for their chance to escape…And that is when everything… well…went weird. I was saved and given a new life as a cadet in the illustrious Legion Fleet Academy: a position never before held by a mere colonist. Not only that, I became involved in the Admiral’s Competition. And to add to the weirdness that my life had become, I started hearing voices. Many voices. Some helpful. Others just cryptic. And all of this on top of being the only witness to a serial killer…

    But he also claims to be from another world. She does what any sane woman would do in her situation. She runs. Tagging along are her two best friends and a feisty tabby cat. No one could anticipate the second stranger showing up, one with a completely different agenda. Kimi and her friends are abducted by the second man, a vampire, then tortured and abandoned on a hostile alien world. Given only the clothes on their back, they must now try to find a way back home again. One man will do everything in his power to see Kimi and her friends are brought safely back home, even sacrifice his own life. The second man wants Kimi and her mate to suffer, alive, but forever out of reach of each other. Kimi and her friends must work together against astronomical odds for any hope of surviving this nightmare.

     After a stint in an alien prison, Captain Ari Rose wonders why she even bothered to survive. Stripped of her command and banished to her father's scientific expedition to finish a Ph.D. she doesn't want, Ari never planned to languish quietly behind a desk. She wasn't built for it, either. But when pirates commandeer her father's ship, Ari once again becomes a prisoner. As far as pirate leader Cullin is concerned, Ari's past imprisonment puts her dead center in Cullin's sights. If she hasn't been brainwashed and returned as a spy, then he's convinced she must be part of a traitorous alliance endangering billions of lives. Cullin can't afford the desire she fires within him and he'll stop at nothing, including destroying her, to uncover the truth.

    For a thousand years, it has felt stifled by Michael's strictures, the rules they must follow on pain of death. As the first and most powerful vampire in existence, he has the power to keep the power struggles under the radar from the rest of humanity. Unfortunately that is changing.Someone has found the serum to make intelligent nosferatu, a type of vampire little better than blood sucking beasts who can change the power struggle significantly. Michael thought this serum safely lost in the bombing of Japan in 1945.The third effort to overturn Michael's decrees is about to take place, the problem is Michael is tired. After a thousand years of fighting and keeping the peace with his Family, the Unforsaken and the known supernaturals he is world weary and ready to sleep a final time.He needs to find a way to bring another to take his place, someone with the will and desire to make a difference. He finds Bethany Anne.The daughter of a General, she excels were others fear to go. She accepts the offer but doesn't realize she won't be transformed like any other vampire in history, even Michael. The problem? Even he didn't realize exactly how he was transformed and it completely throws the understanding of vampires and why they were created out the window.When she wakes up, nothing is going to go like she thought. The UnkownWorld is going to change, it just doesn't know whose beat they will dance to, yet.

    We look like you. We talk like you. We live among you. But we are not you. We can do things you dream of doing. We have powers you dream of having. We are stronger and faster than anything you have ever seen. We are the superheroes you worship in movies and comic books--but we are real.Our plan was to grow, and train, and become strong, and become one, and fight them. But they found us and started hunting us first. Now all of us are running. Spending our lives in shadows, in places where no one would look, blending in. We have lived among you without you knowing.But they know.They caught Number One in Malaysia.Number Two in England.And Number Three in Kenya.They killed them all.I am Number Four.I am next.

    When an inexplicable outbreak rapidly develops, this idyllic town becomes the epicenter of an epidemic of violence as the teenaged children of several executives from the local biotech firm become ill and aggressively murderous. Suddenly the town is on edge, and Lucy and her friends must do everything it takes just to fight through the night.

    The woman who can see all possible futures is dating the man who can see the one and only foreordained future.A wildly popular slapstick filmmaker is drawn, against his better judgment, into working with a fascist militia, against a background of social collapse. Two friends must embark on an Epic Quest To Capture The Weapon That Threatens The Galaxy, or else they’ll never achieve their dream of opening a restaurant. The stories in this collection, by their very outrageousness, achieve a heightened realism unlike any other. Anders once again proves she is one of the strongest voices in modern science fiction, the writer called by Andrew Sean Greer, “this generation’s Le Guin.”