Some people are born to advantage, privilege. Edmond was born to village idiots who put all his skill points into Luck. They knew an opportunity to win the lottery when they saw it.Edmond doesn’t want to be a winning ticket. He dreams of becoming a great hero and scholar. Impossible goals when your Intelligence and Wisdom stats couldn’t be lower.Is Edmond nothing but a walking rabbit’s foot? Will his parents’ dreams of easy fortune come true? It’s all just a lucky roll away...

Humanity’s best hope is a wicker spaceship.Josie Stein woke up a thousand years in the future and was immediately elected captain of the U.F.S. Greenstar, a recycled spaceship on a mission to stop the self-destructive aliens of the galaxy from wiping themselves out.Now the Kalmari, a homicidal race of aliens, have set their sights on Earth. How can the ramshackle Greenstar possibly stand in their way?A fun and fast-paced episodic s...

In a world of shadows, joyful colours are an act of heroism.Modern tales are filled with clowns who invoke fear not laughter: painted grins covering fanged maws; baggy costumes concealing unspeakable horrors; malevolent parodies of nature.But the tools of a clown work for good as well as ill: only a trickster could tweak a monster’s nose; make-up is war paint for the modern age; the devil cannot tempt a happy soul.What if, instead of being the demon...

We fear discovery when we should fear what there is to discover.Lovecraft and his successors show a world where human civilisation is only a thin veneer over black seas of ignorance. A world where men exalted for their reason uncover logic-defying truths. A world where the marginalised discover uncaring horror on the fringes of a society that rejects them. A world where the bonds between us unravel.But what of those who wear their own averageness like a ven...

Each year we hand-pick 50 of today's top indie authors and ask them to submit a story. Then we ask a team of ruthless judges to scour that ore and pick out the gems. The result is All These Shiny Worlds II:* a world of today where cosplay and stagecraft are bright lights hiding dark shadows* a world of tomorrow, where kitchen appliances fend for themselves and take solace in each other's arms, refugees from indifferent owners* a world of little cogs in big ma...

Josie Stein saved humanity and they hate her for it.Josie foiled a scheming, homicidal AI. She saved the Earth from the Kalmari. But nothing is good enough for Burger Supreme: they think a ray forcing everyone to have a conscience is a bad thing.Dispatching Vesta Hartman, a captain with two itchy trigger fingers and everything to prove, Burger Supreme want the Greenstar brought to justice at any cost. Even if it means turning it to powder first.Pursued rele...

What if you really had to start again from scratch?After saving Earth for the second time, Josie thought she finally had time to deal with personal business. But a booby trap in the Greenstar's engines meant she really got away from it all.Trapped in a featureless void, with only the Greenstar’s crew and an equally odd interloper for company, she discovers that even being the first woman in a new universe won't protect her from having to solve everyone else...

For more than 170 years, Delaware's lighthouse keepers guarded one of the most dangerous coastlines in America. Their lives unfolded far from the spotlight, yet their work shaped maritime safety, coastal communities, and generations of families who lived at the edge of the sea.Delaware Keepers: Life at the Edge of the Sea tells the largely untold story of these men and women-from the first keeper appointed in 1769 to the quiet end of human watchkeeping in the mid-twentieth...

A collection of short works, containing two new and three republished stories:Thieves in the Night: With Comet Grijalva predicted to wipe out life on Earth, Jason Pendrick fled to his uncle-in-law's farm. When the apocalypse doesn't happen, he has an opportunity to help rebuild society, but will the past drag him down? (6,444 words)Washed Clean: Seimunda lives in a hovel, eking out a living bartering herbal remedies to villagers. But an accusation ...

Five short works of science-fiction:Shoulders of Giants: With a Comet Grijalva predicted to exterminate humanity, Commander Matej Tomasch and Flight Engineer Nathan Roberts decide to remain aboard the International Space Station to document the apocalypse. When the comet breaks up, filling their flight path with debris, how will they cope with being the only ones still at risk? (2,315 words)Pig Boy: Billy has spent his enti...

Collects every part of the swords-and-sorcery serial, Seven Stones.Plagued by nightmares of shifting stone and ancient evil, Absolution Kobb, Reverend Militant of the Order of the Maker, journeys to the northern edge of civilisation. Encountering violence from both villagers and the inhuman tribes that dwell beyond the palisades, and exhausted from both his age and his visions, he is saved by two very different people: Anessa, a young villager seeking to escape a life of s...

Collects parts 1 - 9 of the weekly swords-and-sorcery serial, Seven Stones. Plagued by nightmares of shifting stone and ancient evil, Absolution Kobb, Reverend Militant of the Order of the Maker, journeys to the northern edge of civilisation.From the moment he arrives in the village of Morth, he is treated with disdain and ill-trust. A disdain that turns to violence and accusations of grievous assault.But not all the villagers wish Kobb gone. Anessa Tanton, more at...