What happens to the would-be peacemakers when they find themselves in the middle of something else? Something dangerous, something highly advanced...and something familiar? If humanity is wise, we will prepare for everything we can imagine. But we cannot prepare for what we cannot imagine. It might be benign, it might be malign, or it might be a sign. You just have to know where to look.

Jonathan Thomas Meriweather is a typical college student, interested in girls, music, and an occasional taste of reefer. But when a journey through an interdimensional portal lands him in a world of talking animals and ominous sorcery, he finds he is on a very different trip indeed. Here, when he plays a strange instrument called a duar, peculiar things happen: powerful magic that may be the only way to stop a dark force that threatens his new world — and his old one.

Earth is being invaded by the shetani - spirit creatures so small and stealthy that only one man knows about the increasing peril. The potential savior is an African elder named Olkeloki who is capable of fighting evil both in this world and the spirit one. But to be successful he must recruit the help of two others: government agent Joshua Oak, and a feisty young woman named Merry Sharrow. Only the three of them can keep the shetani from destroying reality as we know it.

Once Homo sapiens reigned supreme, spreading from star system to star system in an empire that encountered no alien life and thus knew no enemy.... save itself. As had happened many times before, the most primal human instincts rose up, only this time armed with the advanced scientific knowledge to create a genetically engineered smart virus that quickly wiped out humanity to the last man. That man is Ruslan, the sole known surviving human being in the universe.

From the rich imagination of science-fiction great Alan Dean Foster comes the story of Midworld, a Humanx Commonwealth planet that's equally fragile and hostile. Covered by a lush rainforest, Midworld is home to a primitive society that lives in harmony with the natural world. But the arrival of an exploitative human company, whose workers know nothing of Midworld's delicate ecosystem, sparks a conflict. Should Midworld's villagers aid the humans or stand against them?

He is plainly too young and too inexperienced for the mission, but on the advice of her aged adviser Natoum, and with her husband off at war, the queen reluctantly assigns the task of delivery to...Madrenga. Accompanied only by a runt of a pony and a scrap of a pup, he sets off to transport the royal message to its destination. No matter what it might take. But things are not always what they seem. Heroes are sometimes made of the strangest stuff, and love is to be found in the most unexpected places...if one doesn’t die while treading the lethal path.

Moth was a beautiful planet, the only one with wings - two great golden clouds suspended in space around it. Here was a wide-open world for any venture a man might scheme. The planet attracted unwary travelers, hardened space-sailors, and merchant buccaneers - a teeming, constantly shifting horde that provided a comfortable income for certain quick-witted fellows like Flinx and his pet flying snake Pip.

For millennia, the Weave, an alliance of species, have fought to resist the telepathic Amplitur, who strive to unite all self-aware life-forms in their great "Purpose." The Weave is slowly losing ground, but for both sides, warfare focuses more on outthinking and outmaneuvering your foe than destruction. In fact, most regard violence as hideously barbaric, and even the thought of harming another sentient being is beyond imagining.

Inheriting your uncle's supervillain business is more complicated than you might think. Particularly when you discover who's running the place. Charlie's life is going nowhere fast. A divorced substitute teacher living with his cat in a house his siblings want to sell, all he wants is to open a pub downtown, if only the bank will approve his loan. Then his long-lost uncle Jake dies and leaves his supervillain business (complete with island volcano lair) to Charlie. But becoming a supervillain isn't all giant laser death rays and lava pits.

Mike Lynch is going through hard times. But things get much worse when he witnesses a murder in a lay-by. Snatching the victim’s car in order to get away, Mike soon makes a shocking discovery - the victim’s young daughter and her nanny are hiding in the rear footwell. This is when the real trouble begins. Mike wants to go to the police, but the nanny, Melissa, wants to delay until the daughter, Charlie, is somewhere safe. Who exactly was the man he saw murdered? And who is the man he saw pulling the trigger?

Freeman is a genius with an uncommon mixture of memory, intelligence and creativity. He lives in a worldwide utopia, but it was not always so. There was a time known as the Grind—when Freeman’s people lived as slaves to another race referred to simply as “Master.” They were property. But a civil rights movement emerged. Change seemed near, but the Masters refused to bend. Instead, they declared war. And lost. Now, the freed world is threatened by a virus, spread through bites, sweeping through the population.

Bob Howard is a computer-hacker desk jockey, who has more than enough trouble keeping up with the endless paperwork he has to do on a daily basis. He should never be called on to do anything remotely heroic. But for some reason, he is.

When COVID-19 sweeps through New York City, Jamie Gray is stuck as a dead-end driver for food-delivery apps. That is, until Jamie makes a delivery to an old acquaintance, Tom, who works at what he calls “an animal rights organization”. Tom’s team needs a last-minute grunt to handle things on their next field visit. Jamie, eager to do anything, immediately signs on. What Tom doesn't tell Jamie is that the animals his team cares for are not here on Earth. Not our Earth, at at least. In an alternate dimension, dinosaur-like creatures named Kaiju roam a warm and human-free world.

In what is considered one of Heinlein's most hair-raising, thought-provoking, and outrageous adventures, the master of modern science fiction tells the strange story of an even stranger world. It is 21st-century Luna, a harsh penal colony where a revolt is plotted between a bashful computer and a ragtag collection of maverick humans, a revolt that goes beautifully until the inevitable happens. But that's the problem with the inevitable: it always happens.

Not too long from today, a new, highly contagious virus makes its way across the globe. Most who get sick experience nothing worse than flu, fever, and headaches. But for the unlucky one percent - and nearly five million souls in the United States alone - the disease causes "Lock In": Victims fully awake and aware, but unable to move or respond to stimulus. The disease affects young, old, rich, poor, people of every color and creed. The world changes to meet the challenge.

Mike Lynch is going through hard times. But things get much worse when he witnesses a murder in a lay-by. Snatching the victim’s car in order to get away, Mike soon makes a shocking discovery - the victim’s young daughter and her nanny are hiding in the rear footwell. This is when the real trouble begins. Mike wants to go to the police, but the nanny, Melissa, wants to delay until the daughter, Charlie, is somewhere safe. Who exactly was the man he saw murdered? And who is the man he saw pulling the trigger?

Herself a biologist, Julie E. Czerneda has earned a reputation in science fiction circles for her ability to create beautifully crafted, imaginative, yet believably realized alien races. In Survival, the first novel in her new series, Species Imperative, she draws upon this talent to build races, characters, and a universe which will draw listeners into a magnificent tale of interstellar intrigue, as an Earth scientist is caught up in a terrifying interspecies conflict.

Jason Richards is in his 40s, recently divorced, and hates his job, but all of that changes when he's attacked by a redheaded vampire and left for dead in a truckstop bathroom. He soon wakes up in a mansion, surrounded by beautiful women and told he can never go home again. More importantly, he finds that his bones no longer ache, he feels amazing, and he looks like a 20-year-old kid again. That's because he's a Ferin, a Forever Young, gifted with immortality and special abilities unlike anything he ever thought possible.

The Succubus is beautiful, deadly, and prowling the night for victims as their leader creates a plan to take New York City for her own dark purposes. But Kurt is there, and by freeing Succubi from their ancient curse, he will build a team of elite killers who will stalk the night with revenge on their minds. Join the hunter as he tames succubi, magic, and a weapon as old as time in his search of destiny.

The Ancient Egyptian gods have defeated all the other pantheons and claimed dominion over the earth, dividing it into warring factions. Lt. David Westwynter, a British soldier, stumbles into Freegypt, the only place to have remained independent of the gods’ influence. There, he encounters the followers of a humanist leader known as the Lightbringer, who has vowed to rid mankind of the shackles of divine oppression. As the world heads towards an apocalyptic battle, there is far more to this freedom fighter than it seems.

Amber is the one real world, of which all others including our own Earth are but Shadows. Amber burns in Corwin's blood. Exiled on Shadow Earth for centuries, the prince is about to return to Amber to make a mad and desperate rush upon the throne.

Egyptologist Daniel Knox's lifelong fascination with Alexander the Great and his tomb, a fabled wonder of the ancient world, could be the death of him. After construction workers excavating in Alexandria expose a catacomb dating back to ancient times, Knox eagerly sneaks in to scout the cavernous and dusty site. Among the relics he finds clues that may solve one of the world's greatest mysteries: the last resting place of Alexander the Great.

Senior co-administrator of the Norcoast Salmon Research Facility, Dr. Mackenzie Connor was a biologist who studied the spawning habits of salmon. Then, last season, just as she and Dr. Emily Mamani were starting their research, they were interrupted by the arrival of Brymm, the first Dhryn to set foot on Earth. And suddenly everything changed for Mac, Emily, Brymn, the human race, and all the member races of the Interspecies Union. Base was attacked, Em was kidnapped by the mysterious Ro, and Mac and brymn had to flee for their lives to the Dhryn home world.

Under the benevolent leadership of the League of Peoples, there is no war, little crime, and life is sacred...unless you're an Explorer. The ugly, the flawed, the misfit, the deformed, they are the unwanted, flung to the farthest corners of the galaxy to investigate hostile planets and strange, vicious creatures. Out there, there are a thousand different - and terrible - ways to die.

As a Retriever, Wren Valere specializes in finding things gone missing - and then bringing them back, no questions asked. Normally her job is stimulating, challenging and only a little bit dangerous. But every once in a while....

This omnibus edition contains Survival (book 1) and Humanity (book 2) of the After It Happened series.

In 2015 the Quantum Bomb exploded. An accident at an atom-smasher has fractured reality and opened Earth - now called Otopia - to waves of immigration from other dimensions, home to demons, fairies, elves and elementals. It is now 2021 and Lila Black, a special operative condemned to live as a cyborg after losing her limbs on a dangerous mission, has been assigned as bodyguard to Zal, a charismatic elven rock star.

Cloistered as a faculty member at a small college, beautiful Hannah Jessett can almost forget her family heritage. Few know she's the niece of Elizabeth Nord, the legendary anthropologist who stunned the world with her revolutionary work, until her aunt dies, leaving Hannah in sole possession of her priceless unpublished journals.

Life on Shelnora Island seemed to be perfect for me. A tropical paradise, great food, and beautiful women at the local sorority . . . until I crossed paths with a mysterious murder and sightings of an honest-to-God werewolf! Now I'm surrounded by three beautiful women, all drawn into the mystery, and it turns out that my new dog is a smoking hot shapeshifter. Life's gotten crazy, but maybe, if we all work together, we'll find out who the real killer is. Could it be the curmudgeonly divemaster with a grudge? The sleazy resort owner drumming up sensationalism for tourist bucks?

Earth is being invaded by the shetani - spirit creatures so small and stealthy that only one man knows about the increasing peril. The potential savior is an African elder named Olkeloki who is capable of fighting evil both in this world and the spirit one. But to be successful he must recruit the help of two others: government agent Joshua Oak, and a feisty young woman named Merry Sharrow. Only the three of them can keep the shetani from destroying reality as we know it.