But when a terrified woman falls through his bathroom ceiling, he's forced back into a life of gunfights, double agents and paranormal research. The secret he's been keeping for nearly four decades might reunite him with his lost love, or kill millions.This new short story by John August falls into the genre of paranoid "spy-fi" popularized by writers like Jorge Luis Borges and shows like The Prisoner and The Man from U.N.C.L.E.== What Others Say =="I really dug the story. Gave it a glance just to see, got totally hooked, and blazed on through to the end."-- Michael Chabon (The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, The Yiddish Policemen's Union) "The Variant" is both a good, fun, smart story and an interesting experiment in indie self-publishing for fiction."-- John Gruber, daringfireball.net== About the Author ==An excerpt of The Variant is available at johnaugust.com/variant About the AuthorJohn August is the screenwriter of eight feature films, including Go, Big Fish, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Corpse Bride. He wrote and directed the 2007 movie The Nines.He can be found on Twitter, @johnaugust

    If her job doesn’t give her enough opportunity, her best friend Kippy will hustle up a brawl for her at his bar. Most of the time, she’s busy enough as a corporate fixer to keep her satisfied. Some people call her a bounty hunter, and she does do a lot of hunting people down. Her expertise goes much deeper than that, though, she demands a steep price for it. When her boss assigns her an unwanted partner, Reece is further dismayed to find that he’s a gen-mod from outside the retro zone. The last thing she wants to do is be a mentor to someone like that. She’ll scrape him off if she can. As they chase a rogue scientist out of the Machete system, she’s looking for a way to get rid of him. That endeavor takes a backseat when their search for the scientist takes them into greater danger than either of them bargained for. She’ll have to move fast and shoot straight to get out of this one. A hired gun goes where the job is, and doesn’t ask too many questions.

    A pulse-pounding tale of first contact gone horribly wrong. Ender’s Game opens in the last desperate days of Earth’s war against the implacable insectoid aliens. We are told early on that the Battle School is training generals for the Third Formic War — the war that will end the war; will save the Earth; will finally defeat the Buggers. This is the story of the First Formic Wars, back when humans thought they were alone in the galaxy. Humanity was slowly making their way out from Earth to the planets and asteroids of the Solar System, exploring and mining and founding colonies. Then a ship’s telescopes pick up a fast-moving object coming in-system, it's hard to know what to make of it. It's massive and moving at a significant fraction of the speed of light.Earth Unaware — When mining ship El Cavador's telescopes pick up a fast-moving object coming in-system, it's hard to know what to make of it. It's massive and moving at a significant fraction of the speed of light. But the ship has other problems. Their systems are old and failing. Worrying about a distant object that might or might not be an alien ship seems…not important.Earth Afire — Victor Delgado beat the alien ship to Earth, but not soon enough to convince skeptical governments that there was a threat. That is, until space stations and ships and colonies went up in sudden flame. And when that happened, only Mazer Rackham and the Mobile Operations Police could organize in time to meet the threat. Earth Awakens — Politics slowed the response on Earth, and on Luna, corporate power struggles seemed more urgent than distant deaths. It's up to Mazer Rackham's squad in China, who have developed a method to destroy the alien landers one by one; and Lem Jukes and his crew on the Moon, who may have the key to destroying the Formic mother ship in orbit. Books by Orson Scott Card The Ender UniverseEnder Quintet#1 Ender’s Game#2 Ender in Exile#3 Speaker for the Dead#4 Xenodice#5 Children of the Mind Ender’s Shadow Quintet #1 Ender’s Shadow#2 Shadow of the Hegemon#3 Shadow Puppets#4 Shadow of the Giant#5 Shadows in Flight The Second Formic War (With Aaron Johnston) #1 The SwarmOther Books in the Ender UniverseChildren of the Fleet A War of Gifts (novella) First Meetings (novella)Other SeriesHomecomingThe MithermagesThe Tales of Alvin MakerAt the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

    Everything was taken from him and he was pressed into military service as a fighter pilot. A few years later, Jace has gotten out of military service and worked on a corporate freighter. He has grown to love space and plans to never return to earth. Dissatisfied with the corporate life, Jace finds the necessary backing to go independent. Thus, he begins the life of an independent freight hauler. This story is inspired by Nathan Lowell's Golden Age of the Solar Clipper series, Firefly, and some anime.

    Now, the Confederation's crises are spawned from within, and one brave woman struggles against all odds to keep mankind united amidst a hailstorm of rebellion, war, and moral declination.* * * * *The Lucani Ibron have yet to return, but all is not well within the Alpha Sector. Internal strife, terrorism, and ever-escalating conflicts with several neighboring species have spread the Confederation's resources dangerously thin. Captain Anastasia Mason, together with an eclectic group of humanity's most decorated heroes, struggles to hold the Confederation together against powerful forces that threaten to rip it apart at its very core. Then, at what appears to be mankind’s most desperate hour, an old enemy returns from a ten-year hiatus, casting humanity to the brink of civil war... and outright annihilation.

     Exiled from Mount Weather, Gabe, Mags and Johnny make their way north, seeking shelter from the coming storms. With the furies awakening across the country they stumble into the middle of a feud between two unlikely adversaries.

    Trevor Stone has survived the invasion of alien armies and creatures, cut off their conduits to Earth, and built a small Empire that has turned the tide of the war, but victory has come at a high personal cost. When Nina Forest disappears, Trevor makes the reckless decision to personally lead a rescue team. What follows is a trip down the proverbial rabbit-hole, one that brings him face to face with the most terrifying monster in a changed world: himself. Parallels is a mature journey to a place where inhibitions are stripped, desires indulged, and where Trevor Stone may be eclipsed by the darkness within.

    Written by well-known fantasy author Robert Holdstock it describes the quest of Alex Ryder, a newly-qualified pilot, to exact revenge for his father's death at the hands of a paid assassin. Along the way he is assisted by the enigmatic Rafe Zetter who links him up with a fugitive pilot who also wishes to eliminate the killer of Alex's father, but for her own reasons.All in all, a good story which, though spoiled by a few irritating character traits and a number of typographical errors, sets up the Elite universe in a cohesive manner.It also covers the combat and trading sides of Elite and the general nature of trading between different systems, buying what's cheap on one world and selling it wherever the demand is sufficient to keep the price high.Interestingly, the back of the BBC novella states that a sequel was planned for publication in 1985, but as far as I know this never came to fruition. Later editions of The Dark Wheel, included in the Sinclair Spectrum and Commodore 64 versions amongst others, sported new artwork

    A deadly challenge. The fate of the world is on Astra’s shoulders.Twenty-five-year-old Astra Ching has never sought the spotlight. So when a mysterious black orb appears with a challenge for Earth and selects her to compete in its strange—and very public—game, she’s not pleased to find herself a sudden superstar.The rules are bewildering, and there are no second chances for losers. Yet while Astra fights to stay alive and save the world from imminent destruction, the people of Earth are more interested in tabloids and gossip, like whether or not she’s engaging in a scandalous love affair with a fellow contestant . . . or the mysterious alien known only as Eleven.In her struggle to survive, Astra forms tentative alliances with a handful of trustworthy friends. But as the global gossip seeps into the game and contestants are eliminated with each round, Astra’s celebrity threatens to become infamy and the line between friend and foe blurs.Will she emerge from the arena a hero, or just another headline?

    Seconds later it's gone, and no one knows what happened. Normal life resumes. BBQs continue, and kids play in backyards. No one notices the screams coming from one backyard.Everyone believes it to be a fluke. But it doesn't just happen in Carthage, it happens all over.While delayed, the after effects of the event are brutal to all those who were exposed to the flash, and horrifying to behold.Those not exposed, like Alana Cross, are helpless to do anything. All they can do is witness humanity self-destructing right in front of their eyes.

    Keener senses, heightened awareness and an enhanced physical strength that could be called upon by his sheer will. Erik becomes involved with a team of high profile investigators and local police trying to locate a girl who was kidnapped in the middle of a playground amongst dozens of adults and children. None of the adults saw anything and what the children claim to have seen is too far fetched to be believed. The search evolves into a full-scale manhunt into the dark and desolate woodlands of the Hopedale Mountain. After a lethal encounter and a fatality, Erik, the investigators and police realize that what they're dealing with isn't a man and possibly isn't of this world. What they're dealing with is a sentient evil that has an appetite for young children.

    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.

    "The green hills of Earth" is the fascinating tale of the Blind Singer of the Spaceways, a legend from Marsopolis to the Jovian asteroids. Jake Pemberton is a "Space jockey" on the regular run from Earth to the moon-- when disaster strikes, it takes guts to ride his ship home safely.~~~Warner Audio Publishing : 2145.Duration: 70 mins.Reader: Colin Fox.

    He is left with nothing but the clothes on his back, not even citizenship to his name. Is the ancient, broken down military surplus starship and the young lady living aboard it the key to a bright future, or will his repairs and new mercenary friends reawaken the demons lurking in the ship’s murky and lethal past to come back and deliver a world of destruction?

    On the night he decides to strike, his life, and his world, are forever changed. Alien scientists from across the cosmos, abduct and place Kazaka in deep storage for centuries. When they revive him with the intent to subject him to extraterrestrial evisceration, the ninja escapes. The shadow warrior then begins to hunt his captors, one by one, leading up to a battle that will shake the galaxy.The Bear That Fell From the StarsA different kind of alien terror. NOTE: This is a Novella of approx. 20,000 words, or about 60 pages.Science Fiction Fantasy and not hard SciFi.Some scenes of graphic violence.