15 Stories. 15 Australian authors. One theme: Journeys.What games do the dead play?Can the ambassador negotiate peace with a hostile alien race?Why is Rae so terrified of a letter from the 'Next Chapter' Department of Lebensqualitat?Read about living mannequins, prison ships, pandemics and more in the second anthology from Aussie Speculative Fiction.

Oh-Four-Two-See was to be the prototype unit for a revolutionary new line of Syntech models and the promise of a much needed economic boost for a struggling nation. On the night of the nation's elections, a radical anti-Syntech movement assumes power and Oh-Four-Two-See discovers exactly how closely he resembles his human designers.

16 stories. 16 Australian authors. One theme. Beginnings.Esmeralda is trapped in a nightmare, unable to wake and escape from the darkness.A simple bus trip turns into a fight for survival.Alone in a strange place with no memories of who she is or how she got there, Alora's world changes forever.These are just some of the stories that you will find in this thrilling collection of speculative tales.

Willa Harmon can't seem to catch a break. Her ex-girlfriend is a freakin' psycho who just wants to pull Willa back into her web of needfulness. Willa doesn’t need the distraction, her life is complicated enough.Using security work as a cover to keep her real job secret, Willa falls in on a gang of drug smugglers. Which leads to the Navy’s rescuing and resuscitating her. Her use of an illegal gun to signal for help, destroys a multi billion dollar launch system, putting her in the F...

A discosurf champion living on the planet of Marinopolis discovers one day that his sister has been kidnapped. Assisted by his faithful android, Jenkins, he investigates. Little does he know that his enquiry will lead him to the depths of the Great Ocean, to places where mysterious intelligent living forms, the Azal’nams, are evolving.

What would you do if you discovered you were a key to human salvation? Living his very ordinary life, Jacob soon discovers he is one of the gatekeepers. What is a gatekeeper? If you die near a gatekeeper you automatically go to heaven...or hell, depending on which gatekeeper you are lucky or unlucky enough to die close to. Will their power remain a secret or is the only way to help, a full reveal?

The Voq are a harmless alien race on a small and insignificant planet. But the virus that's now destroying them must be contained before it spreads to other worlds, especially to Earth. Dr. Roland Price has been summoned to space station Observer I to assess whether the eighty million Voq can be saved. If not, the military plan to annihilate the entire race before their disease harms anyone else.But could Price's mother be right, as she remains on the infected planet to argue for th...

A high tech software and medical conglomerate is capitalizing on decades of advancement and the evolution of medical and computer science, which may enable the seamless merging of the human mind with the modern electronic world. Created and born in a laboratory, seven-year old Toby Crawford is an engineered test subject for new research on human simulation and artificial intelligence. Toby is a genius with a photographic memory, otherwise enviable gifts; Toby was born with a limited short-...

Now with a new afterword by David Drake!The Empress of EarthFinest passenger liner in the galaxy —Brightest link in the chain that binds the starflung civilization of the 23rd century—Six thousand lives in a single hull, trembling through multiple universes to land on raw, often violent worlds, each with its own history and wonder —The Empress of EarthNeutral pawn in an interstellar war!

A thrilling journey into a world where genetic modification is controlled by a privileged few determining the future for us all.Seventeen-year-old Samantha has a seemingly perfect life; great parents, early admission to Stanford, and her boyfriend, Colin, quarterback of the football team and the hottest guy in school. But a shocking secret from her past turns her world upside down.Sam discovers she's part of a global corporation's genetic enhancement projec...

Alex's hands are slowly turning black and a deadly family secret is revealed.CW for animal deaths.

While attempting to complete the work of a beloved colleague, Herbert George Li inadvertently transports a young college student through time, tearing multiple holes in the fabric of time and space. With the help of new and old friends, Herb and Alex must undo the mistakes of the past, repairing time before all of human history is erased.