The offer on her desk from Corporate Financial Consultants included a high five figure salary, generous benefits and cushy perks. Finally, after a escaping the psychological abuse of an emotionally cold mother and a series of dead-end jobs she could start planning a future with her fiancé, Donald.However, Michelle forgot the cardinal rule for any job offer; always read the fine print. She really should have gotten more detail about her overtime hours,company policies, and exactly what they meant when they said “Welcome to the Corporate Financial family”.Michelle isn’t afraid of hard work. She’s a dedicated employee,the kind any manager would want for his firm. But this Corporation requires much more than just dedication...

    Newly edited and released. Michael Baker is a 35 year old, natural born, American citizen from Texas, a successful entrepreneur and amateur astronomer. The scientific community mocks him when he publishes the time and coordinates where a supernova will occur. When it occurs, people start wondering who Michael is. The day after his third supernova prediction stunningly comes true, Michael abruptly takes over every television and radio in the world and announces that he is the Ambassador to Earth from the Intergalactic Confederation of Planets. Earth is facing multiple grave threats and must take immediate action, if there is any hope for humanity’s survival. The Confederation has come to help and is willing to intervene, IF world leaders will accept the help the Confederation offers. Set initially on the Big Island of Hawaii, the story circles the globe in search of enough allies to allow the Confederation to work on humanity’s behalf. It is a riveting epic of alien first contact that features uplifting and sometimes humorous accounts of humanity’s first interactions with intelligent extraterrestrial life, and it reveals as much about the people of Earth as it does of those who have come to save it. If you like Arthur C. Clarkes' Childhood’s End, or the movie Avatar, then you will love this book. It tells the story of the aliens walking among us, and their purpose here on Earth. Rich characters, touching stories, advanced technologies… an intelligent, but relentlessly optimistic, book that appeals to Science Fiction fans and anyone that enjoys a good read. It is the first book in the Ascendancy series, which tells the story of humanity's ascent into intergalactic civilization.

    No cliff-hangers! Let the adventures begin... WEIGHT OF BLOOD (The Half-Orcs) - David Dalglish The struggles of two half-orc brothers will soon bathe the land of Dezrel in demon fire. A LEGACY OF LIGHT (The Dragon War) - Daniel Arenson A rebel band of dragon folk from the kingdom of Requiem face down the dark empire that's crushing them. DEFENDER (The Sanctuary) - Robert J. Crane Someone is stealing weapons of unlimited power, and only Sanctuary stands between the world of Arkaria and total destruction. SWORD OF THE ARCHON (Shader) - D.P. Prior The deadliest warrior of his generation, Deacon Shader must win Archon's Sword to battle a powerful, ancient enemy that threatens Creation. THE DARK CITADEL (The Dark Citadel) - Michael Wallace A slave boy and a young queen lead alliances of spies, servants and merchants to stave off the encroaching armies of a dark wizard. THE WHITE TREE (The Cycle of Arawn) - Edward W. Robertson The followers of the death god Arawn march from the shadows, and a young student of magic must assassinate the leader or see his homeland fall. RAVENWOOD (Tanyth Fairport Adventures) - Nathan Lowell When shamanistic healer Tanyth Fairport stops by to help a small village, she discovers you're never too old to make a bad decision.

    But somehow Everon resisted all their efforts; it was as if the planet itself fought against human efforts to establish a foothold. Some settlers want to return the favor, wrecking Everon's ecology in revenge, but Jef Raboni loves the great cat-like maolots of Everon, and the planet itself; he believes that settlers and planet can coexist. Now time is running out - and even the hints that Jef has uncovered are not enough to prpare him for the incomprehensible strangeness and wonder of the true Masters of Everon.

    Her father regards her as an embarrassment, a reminder of his one and only indiscretion. Yet she is a remarkable woman, one whose keen mind wins her an education at the feet of Emperor Mathias the Glistening himself.All his life, General Black served the noble emperor, and, out of loyalty to the father, continues to serve his son after Mathias's death, even as the son's reign degenerates into an insane tyranny worthy of Nero or Caligula. As the rule of the empire passes from father to son with disastrous results, a strange metal plague begins slowly destroying the empire's technology, plunging the realm into chaos and the world into war. Amid the destruction and upheaval, General Black must decide whether to turn his back on the men and institutions who never loved him nearly as much as he did them, or whether to save his most trusted ally and adviser, his best friend and only real family.The Martian General's Daughter is a gripping tale of a world at war; of cunning strategies and vile politics; of bravery, foolishness, and excess. It is at once a stirring military adventure, a cautionary tale of repeating history, a cutting satire, and a heartbreaking examination of the joys and pain inherent in the love between a father and child. Judson's previous novel was selected in multiple best-of-the-year lists. With The Martian General's Daughter, he offers another must-read epic destined to take its place in the canon of science fiction, and sure to appeal to readers of everything from Orson Scott Card to Walter M. Miller, Jr.

    Then, suddenly, a force field surrounds the town, through which no-one can pass, and the population is completely cut off from the outside world by an unknown force.

    Organic life forms are all but obliterated, and the human race is reduced to a tiny fraction of its population. This event is known as the Ruin. But five centuries later, humanity still survives. Cloudwalkers tells the story of Conn Brataich, a young man who lives a privileged life above the cloudbank, relying on his noble heritage—and the abilities it provides—to guide him through his beautiful but treacherous realm in the New York skylands, and Misty Casper, a Grounder who lives an arduous and somber life hundreds of feet below in the former subway tunnels of crumbling midtown Manhattan. Their two cultures live in uneasy, segregated codependence, rarely interacting until late one fall evening when, mysteriously, an experienced Cloudwalker of noble blood falls five hundred feet to his death. Conn is sent to recover the body in secret, but he doesn’t expect to encounter Misty on the dangerous streets of the dying city. Their chance encounter triggers a domino effect that throws them both headlong into a struggle for their very survival. Conn and Misty soon discover that only by working together can they succeed, but first they’ll have to put aside their preconceived notions about one another. Dark forces, long thought to have been expunged, have returned and are threatening to destroy both their ways of life. Through love, loss, and the looming threat of war, Misty and Conn will be forced to face their greatest fears for the sake of their very world and each other.

    He's spent the last five years hiding from his past, from those responsible for the failed mission, from those responsible for running him out of the Navy, and from those originally responsible for making him into who he was - a highly-trained, physically and mentally augmented Special Forces soldier. Two mysterious visitors appear unannounced at the door of Gabriel's seedy hotel room in the slums of Jamaica. His past has finally caught up with him. From the decaying Caribbean to politically-charged South America, from the back alleys of Mars to a tiny colony on a planet six hundred light years from Earth, Gabriel's Redemption is a near-future military science fiction story of a personal journey seen from the perspective of a soldier who has lost everything -- one who desperately needs to redeem himself not only in his government's eyes, but also his own. Interstellar action and political intrigue mix with one-on-one battles on the surface of a frozen planet in Book One of the science fiction-adventure trilogy.

    Frontiers of time and space, as well as frontiers of courage, devotion, love, hate, and the outer limits of the human spirit. This outstanding collection of stories by one of science fiction's premier talents spans the length and breadth of history and the universe, while exploring thought-provoking new ideas and dilemmas.From the Baghdad of the Arabian Nights to a vast interstellar empire thousands of years in the future, from the Vatican to a one-man vessel drifting in the vast emptiness of the Asteroid Belt, from virtual reality duels to the subtle intricacies of time travel and a golf tournament on the Moon, here are tales of scoundrels and heroes, scientists and explorers, aliens and artificial intelligences, and even a young Albert Einstein. Each of them stands at the border of a new frontier and must venture out into unexplored territory—thanks to the limitless imagination of Ben Bova.

     In an anarcho-capitalist future, space-based corporate settlements have replaced the State. Colonel John Alvarez, a fifteen-year veteran, is unwilling to waste more years leading missions into deep space. He wants to start over and make a new life with his wife and son. But when a distress message from a distant research probe is received, Novos Corp reactivates Alvarez's contract. He must carry out one last mission, a rescue attempt. Unknown to Alvarez, however, is the hidden threat that awaits him, one that—if he cannot stop it—will doom humanity to a fate worse than death.

    But what if a monster isn’t enough? Shadows gather, winter deepens, and Assevan falls farther into the dark. Pitted against monsters and men, Konrad faces deeper challenges. Darker foes. Some can rival even the Malykant’s power. Pushed beyond his endurance, challenged beyond his sanity, at long last Death’s Avenger might need a little help... Konrad Savast returns for another chilling set of adventures in the second volume of the Malykant Mysteries.

     Alone in the cold black with 36 hours of oxygen. Jolo Vargas, Federation Gunboat Captain, is trapped in a runaway escape pod zooming towards Federation space. But will he be dead before he gets there? He's in a tight spot. But he's a war hero, just the type of man who could work his way out of this jam. But there's just one little problem. He doesn't remember who he is. Will he find out his identity and his place in the universe, or will he run out of air on the edge of Fed space?

    After barely surviving the dragon's magic, Bryce flees into the nearby forest fearing that the dragon is still after him. He stumbles upon a mysterious tower built in the forest and finds shelter from the monster.

    One minute Hal Nellis, former air force fighter pilot, is mowing his lawn; the next, he finds himself drafted to fight interstellar pirates set on sacking Earth and other backwater worlds. When the pirate ships acted independently, the civilian Merchants’ Unity had no trouble keeping them under control. But when the pirates organized to better coordinate their activities, they became an unstoppable force, pushing the underfunded Unity to the brink of collapse and leaving backwater worlds like Earth defenseless. As one of the rare humans with the hypertasking gene, Hal is able to pilot the best the Unity has to offer. With his help, and that of Captain Kalen Jeffries—the son of human slaves, the remaining ships of the Unity plan a last-ditch effort to break the pirate hegemony. Succeed, and the pirate organization is crushed forever; fail, and the people of Earth and countless other worlds are doomed to slavery and death. Prepare for a rollicking adventure full of twists and turns you won’t see coming. It's part “Kidnapped,” part “The Guns of Navarone,” and part “The Great Escape.” For more information about the author and his books, visit his website at: http://MarkTerenceChapman.com Or read his blog at: http://tesserene.blogspot.com

    The embryo, named Prospect, is given a starter kit of human knowledge and its consciousness is inserted into a synthetic twenty-year-old body. What will he make of the modern world with its over-the-counter solutions, rising tide of mean-spiritedness, and senseless violence? He meets a range of people to help him decide, from a greeting card writer with a knack for sympathy cards "because there's so much in the world to be sorry about" to his parents whose first child disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Battling over the soul of Prospect is a scientist who sees an opportunity to help the human race evolve -- and a businessman who is more interested in creating something marketable than something remarkable. Sprinkled with humor, The Prospect of My Arrival is a cautionary tale exploring the triumph of imagination, the limits of modern science, and the perils of losing one's sense of wonder.