There can be an eeriness to silence in war. No screaming men, no wailing children, no malicious explosions, or crack crack crack of small arms punctuated with a sudden thump whack of something scoring a near miss. The torpedoes had killed all pursuit literally and figuratively. The remainder of the living aboard the floundering coast guard ships would most likely be dead by drowning, internal injuries, or just plain brutal shock.There are times when you hold a mirror to yourself an...

Never leave time travel to a hapless wizard and an evil princess. Or is that evil wizard and hapless princess? So hard to tell. Regardless, the Imperial Garden Boy has to be the least qualified, least heroic individual ever to be sent to fix an epic mess. He's not even a good gardener.Before the Blue Mage rewrote Chafrium history and became a legend, he took a little detour through time and memory. His mission: save Qelniasherah, heir to the Skeleton Throne, from multiple selves. I...

The average person will spend 90,000 hours at work over a lifetime–unless it kills them first. Or throws them through time, converts them to a soul-sucking, dimension-hopping sorcerer, or simply obliterates them at a sub-atomic level.In the eighteen stories that follow, half-orc bounty hunters merge with NAFTA regulations and aliens take much-needed coffee breaks. Do elves file TPS reports? Can a robot have a work-spouse? Add love, regret, friendship, the inevitable sternly worded ...

There can be an eeriness to silence in war. No screaming men, no wailing children, no malicious explosions, or crack crack crack of small arms punctuated with a sudden thump whack of something scoring a near miss. The torpedoes had killed all pursuit literally and figuratively. The remainder of the living aboard the floundering coast guard ships would most likely be dead by drowning, internal injuries, or just plain brutal shock.There are times when you hold a mirror to yourself an...

Nothing is as it seems. After the mysterious death of his family, retired operative Spetz has come looking for answers, using himself as bait. The shadowy Syndicate has made him a job offer that a deranged cadre of Nazi supersoldiers, the various global Mafias, and a ship full of eco-fanatics would all prefer he decline. By midday, the U.S. Government has declared him a terrorist, and an unseen adversary has offered more than a billion dollars to have him killed.In the midst of thi...

The street has its own uses for magic, and no mercy.When immortals start meddling with a century-old murder mystery, the King of the Eternal City summons Delphi Janjack: fixer, tour guide, gentleman's gentleman … a one-person army meant to solve problems without mussing his tophat and brocaded vest. Delphi might also be a disgraced champion in hiding, his secrets so abhorrent nothing but death will wipe the slate clean. Nearly 400 years after the Elves invaded South America, there ...

NEW FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION STORIES WITH A HARDBOILED NOIR TWIST—FOCUSING ON THE MEAN STREETS OF THE CITY“Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid.” —Raymond ChandlerHumans have always been fascinated by darkness. Especially the darkness of a city at night, when the black sky is made ever more inky by the pools of illumination dropped under streetlights. We harken to the sound of streetc...

Kenneth Chinran commanded the elite unit assigned to take out an entire planet in a terrible war. Millions died; billions more perished in the aftermath. One doesn't send a sociopath on such a mission. A sociopath might not stop. Chinran did stop—but in the process nearly lost his sanity and his soul.But one of Chinran's men was a sociopath going in. Now he's a trained sociopath with the knowledge and firepower to take out entire tactical teams, evaporate security cordons and chang...

Science Fiction is our conversation with the future; politics are our conversation with each other. Strange Bedfellows - as in 'politics makes strange bedfellows' - contains short fiction from the best writers in the field including including Nebula Award-winner Eugie Foster; writers who are passionate about the importance of ideology and political action as a source of solutions as well as problems.

Welcome back to the brash, brutal new world of the twenty-fifth century: where global politics isn’t just for planet Earth anymore; and where death is just a break in the action, thanks to the techno-miracle that can preserve human consciousness and download it into one new body after another.Cynical, quick-on-the-trigger Takeshi Kovacs, the ex-U.N. envoy turned private eye, has changed careers, and bodies, once more . . . trading sleuthing for soldiering ...

Earning comparisons to such sci-fi/fantasy greats as Frank Herbert, Isaac Asimov, and George R. R. Martin, Peter F. Hamilton is a one-of-a-kind voice in space opera. His interstellar adventures are hugely ambitious, wildly entertaining, and philosophically stimulating. Now Hamilton’s centuries-spanning Commonwealth Saga—the linked novels Pandora’s Star and Judas Unchained—is available in one epic eBook bundle.Contains a thrilling preview of Peter F. Hamilt...

It’s been roughly one year since Chuuya Nakahara joined the Port Mafia, and he’s determined to become an executive before fellow mafioso Osamu Dazai. However, a man by the name of Paul Verlaine—the king of assassins who claims to be Chuuya’s older brother—suddenly appears, vowing to murder everyone he cares about! Now Chuuya must team up with Adam, an AI investigator from Europe, to stop this madman before another storm engulfs Yokohama. Along the way, many truths will be revealed…includin...