He is joined by flight engineer, Captain Nick Reed, and mission specialist, Dr. Christine Baker. Together they embark on a dangerous journey aboard the spaceship Cetus Prime - dangerous because they know what awaits them around Mars. UMO’s, or unidentified magnetic objects.UMO’s are believed to be an electromagnetic life form feeding on ions caught between Earth’s magnetosphere and ionosphere. The elusive creatures appear as nothing more than small bright lights, but they are capable of supersonic speeds and non-ballistic motion. Space exploration authorities have, at various times, provided benign explanations for these bright lights; melting frost shed by spacecraft caught in sunlight, solar wind particles or flaming meteors bouncing off the Earth’s atmosphere, to name a few. Anything but an alien life form.Disavowed for decades, the UMO’s had been viewed as harmless, amoeba-like blobs that existed only around Earth, as none had ever been observed by deep space probes to other planets in the solar system. But that perception changed with the final photographs snapped by one of the doomed Mars probes. The pictures showed a swarm of UMO’s descending upon the probe in the moments before communication was lost. Instrument readings from the same probe showed huge spikes in electromagnetic radiation in its last transmission.No one knows for sure what happened to the Mars probes, but authorities speculate the UMO’s destroyed them. Now, Avery, Nick and Christine must travel sixty-five million miles to Mars and gather evidence to confirm what destroyed the probes without attracting a swarm of the lethal creatures. For if a swarm of the UMO’s appears, Cetus Prime is ill-prepared for fight and too slow to escape.UMO, a novella, is the first installment of The Rorschach Explorer Missions, a new sci-fi thriller series from mystery-thriller author K. Patrick Donoghue. UMO is also the prequel to the full-length novel, Skywave, which is targeted for release in late November 2018. The Prologue from Skywave is included as a free bonus chapter in UMO.

    A pretender who has outdone the master. Fifty planets. The dead are screaming for vengeance and only Rivka and her team can hear their cries. The Singularity. The Magistrate and her crew.How many more must die before the killer can be brought to justice?The battle of wits has begun, and only one can survive. Win or die trying.Rivka has to dig deeper than ever before into her investigative skills to figure out who’s next and how to stop the one masquerading as…Jack the Ripper.Magistrate Rivka Anoa is the legal eagle you want on your side. No better friend. No worse enemy.Get it today.Judge, Jury, & Executioner is within the Kurtherian Gambit Universe, but you don’t need to read those to enjoy these. Start with You Have Been Judged and enjoy the stories of Rivka and her team. Just lock in your seatbelt, grab your favorite drink, and be ready for your socks to be blown off.

    P. Somtow [as by Somtow Sucharitkul ]155 • Into Gold • (1986) • novelette by Tanith Lee181 • Sea Change • (1986) • shortstory by Scott Baker198 • Covenant of Souls • (1986) • novelette by Michael Swanwick229 • The Pure Product • (1986) • novelette by John Kessel247 • Grave Angels • (1986) • novelette by Richard Kearns274 • Tangents • (1986) • shortstory by Greg Bear289 • The Beautiful and the Sublime • (1986) • novelette by Bruce Sterling314 • Tattoos • (1986) • novelette by Jack Dann333 • Night Moves • (1986) • novelette by Tim Powers352 • The Prisoner of Chillon • (1986) • novelette by James Patrick Kelly384 • Chance • (1986) • novelette by Connie Willis411 • And so to Bed • (1986) • shortstory by Harry Turtledove425 • Fair Game • (1986) • novelette by Howard Waldrop439 • Video Star • (1986) • novelette by Walter Jon Williams469 • Sallie C. • (1986) • shortstory by Neal Barrett, Jr.490 • Jeff Beck • (1986) • shortstory by Lewis Shiner499 • Surviving • (1986) • novelette by Judith Moffett529 • Down and Out in the Year 2000 • (1986) • shortstory by Kim Stanley Robinson544 • Snake-Eyes • (1986) • shortstory by Tom Maddox562 • The Gate of Ghosts • (1986) • novelette by Karen Joy Fowler581 • The Winter Market • (1985) • novelette by William Gibson599 • Honorable Mentions: 1986 • essay by Gardner Dozois

    One of three very distinct - but subtly linked - novels written by major authors who are fans of the game, this novel will be a must-buy not only for the 25,000+ people who funded the new game on kickstarter, but also for all of those fans of the original game.When a routine bit of piracy goes wrong, the crew of the Song of Stone realise that there's a bounty hunter on their tail. One who might, finally, be able to outclass them. The Dragon Queen is feared across space, and for good reason. But even the bounty hunter doesn't realise what she's been hired to do. Or what is in the container she's been sent to retrieve.And she's not the only hunter in the game...Gavin Deas is the pseudonym used by Stephen Deas and Gavin Smith when writing together.

    Reeve's dream has always been to rebuild Lithia. But when a mysterious explosion destroys the station, forcing Reeve to crash-land on Lithia's blood-hued soil, he soon learns that the reality of saving a dying planet is quite different from what he imagined. For Gabriel Bonhert, former captain of the space station, has set in motion a world cataclysm, using a fatal probe that will travel down the fiery pathway of a deep mantle plume.Now, to save the homeland he has never known, Reeve is caught in a race against time to reach Bonhert's base in the Rift Valley, a remote volcanic gateway to the hidden heart of Lithia. His staunchest ally may be a feral girl who alone seems enthralled by what Lithia is becoming, and whose enigmatic past holds the key to startling possibilities. As the old Lithia struggles to be reborn in a tide of toxic red flora creeping across the oxygen-starved planet, Reeve forges onward, coming into conflict with savage enclaves of colonists, a doomsday genemorphing cult, and a mysterious alien race with its own intentions for the planet--intentions that may include humanity's slavery or their terrible transformation....

    A remarkable anthology uniting twenty of today's leading thinkers, writers, and visionaries, among them Cory Doctorow, Gregory Benford, Elizabeth Bear, Bruce Sterling, and Neal Stephenson, to contribute works of "techno-optimism" that challenge us to dream boldly and do Big Stuff. Engaging, mind-bending, provocative, and imaginative, Hieroglyph offers a forward-thinking approach to the intersection of art and technology that has the power to change our world.Contents: Foreword (Hieroglyph: Stories and Visions for a Better Future) • essay by Lawrence M. Krauss Preface: Innovation Starvation (Hieroglyph: Stories and Visions for a Better Future) • essay by Neal Stephenson Introduction: A Blueprint for Better Dreams • essay by Kathryn Cramer and Ed Finn Atmosphaera Incognita (2013) / novelette by Neal Stephenson Girl in Wave: Wave in Girl (2014) / novelette by Kathleen Ann Goonan By the Time We Get to Arizona (2014) / novelette by Madeline Ashby The Man Who Sold the Moon (2014) / novella by Cory Doctorow Johnny Appledrone vs. the FAA (2014) / novelette by Lee Konstantinou Degrees of Freedom (2014) / novelette by Karl Schroeder Two Scenarios for the Future of Solar Energy (2014) / short story by Annalee Newitz A Hotel in Antarctica (2014) / novelette by Geoffrey A. Landis Periapsis (2014) / novelette by James L. Cambias The Man Who Sold the Stars (2013) / novelette by Gregory Benford Entanglement (2014) / novella by Vandana Singh Elephant Angels (2014) / novelette by Brenda Cooper Covenant (2014) / short story by Elizabeth Bear Quantum Telepathy (2014) / novelette by Rudy Rucker Transition Generation (2014) / short story by David Brin The Day It All Ended (2014) / short story by Charlie Jane Anders Tall Tower (2014) / novelette by Bruce Sterling Science and Science Fiction: An Interview with Paul Davies • interview of Paul Davies (1946-) • interview by uncredited.

    Anyone is welcome to read it, of course, but it is primarily intended for those who’ve read either or both of the United Federation Marine Corps and/or the United Federation Marines’ Lysander Twins series. Unlike the other books in both series, there is no combat action in the story. Regardless, I hope it is a fitting conclusion before the UFMC universe continues a century in the future from where these two series left off.

    Yes, it will be dangerous, frequently brutal, and often devastating. But it’s also savagely funny, deliriously strange, and absolutely brimming with adventure.In these edgy, unexpected tales, a body-hopping mercenary avenges his pet elephant, and an orphan falls in love with a sentient starship. Fighters ally to power a reality-bending engine, and a swamp-dwelling introvert tries to save the world—from her plague-casting former wife.So come meet Kameron Hurley in the future. The version she's created here is weirder—and far more hopeful—than you could ever imagine.

    These stories explore everything from artificial intelligence to parallel universes to video games, and each story is accompanied by an author’s note exploring the background and genesis of each story.   Howey’s incisive mind makes Machine Learning: New and Collected Stories a compulsively readable and thought-provoking selection of short works—from a modern master at the top of his game.

    Clavell* Mail Stop by Virginia DeMarce* Those Daring Young Men by Rick Boatright* Those Daring Not So Young Men by Rick Boatright* A Matter Of Taste by Kerryn Offord* Those Not So Daring by Rick Boatright* Anna the Baptist by Terry Howard* Fly Like a Bird by Loren Jones* Gearhead by Mark H. Huston* Water Wings by Terry Howard* Under the Tuscan Son by Iver P. Cooper* Wings on the Mountain by Terry Howard* Pocket Money by John and Patti Friend* Moonraker by Karen Bergstralh* The Minstrel Boy by John Zeek* Ultralight by Sean Massey* Tool or Die by Karen Bergstralh* If at First You Don't Succeed . . . by Paula Goodlett* Waves of Change by Paula Goodlett and Gorg Huff* Try, Try Again by Paula Goodlett* Little Jammer Boys by Kim Mackey* Safe at First Base by Mark H. Huston* The Order of the Foot by Richard Evans* Trip to Paris by Kim Mackey* At the Cliff's Edge by Iver P. Cooper* A 'Merican in Moscow by Gorg Huff and Paula Goodlett* Radio in 1632, Part 3 by Rick Boatright* The Sound of Mica by Iver P. Cooper* A Tempest In a Baptistry by Terry Howard* The Daily Beer Anette Pedersen* White Gold by Kerryn Offord

    Jack encountered Gilbert Chesterton’s Father Brown tales a few years later and they ultimately became the prime influence in his science fiction. The issue with Father Brown was never a question of who committed the murder, but rather what in heaven’s name is going on here? Why does an astronaut, in “Cathedral,” sacrifice her life to collide with an asteroid that she knows poses no threat to the Earth? Why does a scientist who’s designed an actual working AI in “The Play’s the Thing,” hide what’s he’s done? How is it that the lives of two people working at Moonbase in “Blinker” depend on a quasar? In “Lucy,” Jack shows us why sending automated vehicles to explore the distant outposts of the solar system may not be a good idea. And in “Searching for Oz,” an alternate history story, how things might have been if SETI had gotten what it was looking for. He describes our reaction in “Listen Up, Nitwits,” when a voice begins speaking to us, apparently from Jupiter, in Greek. And in “The Lost Equation,” a Holmes adventure, we discover who really was first to arrive at e=mc2. Jack also provides two episodes, “Maiden Voyage” and “Waiting At the Altar,” from Priscilla Hutchins’ qualification flight; and an effort by a sixteen-year-old Alex Benedict, in the title story with his uncle Gabe and Chase Kolpath’s mom, Tori, who are trying to understand why a brilliant radio entertainer, lost in the stars when his drive unit suffered a malfunction, never said goodbye. These and fourteen other rides into odd places await the reader.

    Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities. Editors Ann and Jeff Vandermeer have gathered together a spectacular array of exhibits, oddities, images, and stories by some of the most renowned and bestselling writers and artists in speculative and graphic fiction, including Ted Chiang, Mike Mignola (creator of Hellboy), China Miéville, and Michael Moorcock. A spectacularly illustrated anthology of Victorian steampunk devices and the stories behind them, The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities is a boldly original, enthrallingly imaginative, and endlessly entertaining entry into a hidden world of weird science and unnatural nature that will appeal equally to fantasy lovers and graphic novel aficionados.

    Take your first step into a much larger world with this prologue and begin your journey to save Humanity from an overpowering enemy. Enlist in Star Force today and see why the series has over 50,000 sales to date.

    Not everyone can. Who decides? Desperate to save his daughter from a mysterious sickness, Daniel applies for the Methuselah Treatment. If she gets it, his daughter won’t just recover, she’ll live forever. But the drug is tightly controlled, and only the special, the talented, and the truly deserving ever receive it. There is nothing special about Daniel’s destitute ten- year-old girl—or is there?

    Moon Flight is a collection of over 100,000 words of fiction, Short stories both from the two previous published collections, as well as from uncollected short fiction, the best of work from the breadth of her 15+ year career, and a brand new story set in the Vatta universe. Her fiction spans the gamut from military science fiction to cutting edge stories biotechnology, to heartfelt examinations of politics and social issues.Contents: Introduction (Moon Flights) (2007) • essay by Anne McCaffrey If Nudity Offends You (1988) / short story by Elizabeth Moon Gifts [Paksenarrion Universe] (2004) / novelette by Elizabeth Moon Politics (1990) / novelette by Elizabeth Moon And Ladies of the Club [Ladies' Aid & Armor Society • 1] (1995) / short story by Elizabeth Moon Accidents Don't Just Happen - They're Caused (1996) / novelette by Elizabeth Moon New World Symphony (1989) / novelette by Elizabeth Moon No Pain, No Gain [Ladies' Aid & Armor Society • 2] (1998) / short story by Elizabeth Moon Tradition (1998) / novelette by Elizabeth Moon Fool's Gold [Ladies' Aid & Armor Society • 3] (1999) / short story by Elizabeth Moon Judgment (2003) / novella by Elizabeth Moon Gravesite Revisited (1988) / short story by Elizabeth Moon Sweet Charity [Ladies' Aid & Armor Society • 4] (2000) / novelette by Elizabeth Moon Welcome to Wheel Days (1989) / novelette by Elizabeth Moon Say Cheese [Vatta's War] (2007) / short story by Elizabeth Moon Fencing In (1993) / short fiction by Elizabeth Moon.