Aliens attack Earth, or so world governments believe. In the aftermath of global warfare brought on by the crash of an alien spacecraft, Adriana wakes up in a hospital-like facility with no memory of who she is or how she got there. The administrator tells her she has family on the outside that she needs to find. When she leaves, she begins to hear whispers in her mind that draw her to a disparate group of strangers that she instinctively feels are her brothers and sisters. After discoveri...

An investigator journeys to a castle in a remote valley on a frontier planet to determine the motivation for a gruesome suicide. When he arrives, he encounters a sexually profligate cult focused on a local fungus with hallucinogenic properties. As he learns more about the alien psychedelic and its devoted users, he discovers a sinister threat to his sanity and his life.

From the author's introduction:Preparing the second volume of Reviews and Reflections on Books, Literature, and Writing has caused me to think about the role not only of reading books but also of writing book reviews in my life. To write about the thoughts and impressions brought about by a book is as valid as writing about a physical journey that I take to another location. The author of the book serves as my traveling companion.Because of the inevitably profound effect th...

In the near future when their benefits are cut off, veterans resort to professional combat to make ends meet. Makeshift arenas open in numerous locales, and websites offering crowdsourced funding proliferate. An ex-soldier rising in popularity on the entertainment circuit attempts to reconcile his empathy for his opponents with his need for finances.

On a primitive frontier planet, a woman's companions are killed by a monstrous creature while traversing an isolated canyon on horseback. Teamed only with a near-feral orphan child, she determines to kill the monster so it won't endanger future travelers.

An estranged married couple remains in virtual worlds compiled from past memories while they await new younger bodies. Their adult children must cope with tense surrealistic visits with each of their parents as well as protestors that resent the resources spent on keeping older people alive.An official investigating a gruesome suicide journeys to a castle in a remote valley on a far planet where a sexually profligate cult ritually imbibes a fungus with hallucinogenic properties.

In the aftermath of devastating warfare that has reduced human society to confusion and poverty, benevolent alien visitors have arrived to help put the planet back together. Sithonia, an autonomous polity open only to women on an isolated peninsula in northeastern Greece, has remained intact. As an alien negotiating team with human translators prepares to enter Sithonia to confer with its abbesses, questions about the genders of the representatives arise.

An estranged married couple remains in virtual worlds compiled from past memories while they await new younger bodies. Their adult children must cope with tense surrealistic visits with each of their parents as well as protestors that resent the resources spent on keeping older people alive.

After fleeing systemic intolerance on Earth, a lonely man on a far-flung interstellar outpost receives an exciting offer from a battle-jaded veteran - but there's a catch. She's lonely too, and wants a traveling companion, but only if he agrees to assimilate a hitchhiking alien life form.

It is the early 1970s. A barmaid at a live rock venue has become dazed, unresponsive, and unable to function normally. A bouncer offers the diagnosis that her soul has been stolen by the dead. The only way her friends can rescue her is to locate a shaman, undergo a ritual, enter the spirit world, and bring her back.

An elderly homeless man suddenly discovers that his debit card, which is usually almost empty, has been filled with thousands of dollars, and whenever he spends money, by the next morning it has somehow reappeared. He uses this inexplicable bounty to get off the streets, clean himself up, and attain a measure of personal security. The source of the magical largesse is something he never would have imagined.

Technology has been developed that can reanimate corpses and simulate personalities after death. The wealthy use it as a means of carrying on their legacies. Sylvia Peddington, also known as Sinister Silvia, was a ruthless businesswoman in life. Now, shortly after her resuscitation, a hearse driver has delivered her to the elegant mansion of one of her competitors in life for a party to celebrate her coming out as one of the undead. Little does she realize that some rivalries continue even...