Despite its futuristic technical trappings, enduring family bonds are at the core of this riveting techno-thriller. An alien virus that prolongs life has infected a couple, Zakariah and Mia Davis, and made their blood a valuable black-market staple due to its rejuvenating effects. The eternal virus has not affected their son Rix, and Zakariah is consumed with the search for an active sample to inoculate the teenager against mortality.

The Shape of Water is set in Cold War-era Baltimore at the Occam Aerospace Research Center, which has recently received its most sensitive asset ever: an amphibious man captured in the Amazon. What unfolds is a stirring romance between the asset and one of the janitors on staff, a mute woman who uses sign language to communicate with the creature.

In 1948, an alien starship crash-landed in the New Mexico desert and brought with it the key to mankind’s future. Code-named the Rho Project, the landing was shrouded in secrecy, and only the highest-ranking US government and military personnel knew it existed. Until now....

In Hemlock Hollow, life isn't easy, but it is simple. Things in my community haven't changed much in over 300 years, since the time my Amish ancestors came to what is now the Green Republic. I milk my cow by hand, make fresh bread every morning, and hope to be courted by Jeremiah, a boy I've known since childhood. When my father falls ill, the English doctor says a hospital outside the wall can heal him. Jeremiah convinces me to go on rumspringa, to experience the outside world as an Englisher.

She's a prisoner with a secret gift. He's a soldier with a monster locked inside. Now they will decide if humanity is worth the fight.

You know about the invasion of Earth, and the Garde who will do anything to stop it. Yet there is still so much to learn. The stories in Zero Hour will help you get the answers you seek, but only the Garde and their allies can save our planet.

Just outside Los Angeles, a prisoner hidden away for 70 years sits up, gets off the bed and disappears through a solid wall. In Australia, a magician impresses audiences by producing real elephants. Nobody realizes it's not an illusion. Across the world, individuals and organizations with supernatural power suddenly detect the presence of something even they can't understand. At the center of it all, Seb Varden, a 32-year old musician with a secret in his past, slits his wrists, is shot dead and run over on the freeway.

Suspended in the nothing between timelines, the station Janus is an unseen marvel: the greatest technological achievement in human innovation. From Janus, Gustavo and his hand-selected team of historians and engineers venture into the past and observe history, unseen and unnoticed. But they are not alone. Another traveler is shattering history. Unhindered by desires to remain scientific and uninvolved, the intruder’s technology is far advanced with methods more brutal and a present more terrifying than anything Gustavo and his team are prepared for.

Demon patrol officer Ella Grey was pronounced dead after an accident on the job, but 18 minutes later she woke up on a gurney bound for the morgue. With no explanation for her mysterious resurrection, she just wants to get back to life as usual. But she didn't return to the living alone. The soul of a reaper followed her back from the grave, and it's not just along for the ride. It's taking over her body and mind, trying to use her to continue its morbid work.

Biomites are artificial stem cells that can replace any cell in your body. No more kidney failure, no severed spines or blood disease. No cancer. Pharmaceuticals become obsolete. With each dose of biomites, we become stronger, we become smarter and prettier. We become better. At what point are we no longer human? Jamie wants to be a halfskin. But Jamie's body is already 49.9% biomites. The rest is clay - her God-given organic cells. Any more biomites and she becomes a halfskin. And halfskins are shutdown.

Jason Zhou survives in a divided society where the elite use their wealth to buy longer lives. The rich wear special suits, protecting them from the pollution and viruses that plague the city, while those without suffer illness and early deaths. Frustrated by his city's corruption and still grieving the loss of his mother, who died as a result of it, Zhou is determined to change things, no matter the cost.

Lexi Sobado is a young woman with a special gift: She's psychic. But even knowing things others don't, Lexi's unable to avoid genuine danger when a stalker focuses his evil on her. As the situation escalates, she must navigate through a sinister web of fear and danger to stay alive.

Mad scientists have never had it so tough. In super-hero comics, graphic novels, films, TV series, video games, and even works of what may be fiction, they are besieged by those who stand against them, devoid of sympathy for their irrational, megalomaniacal impulses to rule, destroy, or otherwise dominate the world as we know it. It’s just not fair. So those of us who are so twisted and sick that we love mad scientists have created this guide.

Modern gods and goddesses, remote, revered - and like the pantheon of heroes and heroines of ancient myth - possessing great power tempered with flaws. Now, find within this anthology great tales by gifted and award-winning authors who move superheroes from the four-color panels of comic books to the fantastic pages of fiction, stories that will remind anyone who ever wanted to wear a cape or don a cowl of the extraordinary powers of the imagination!

Italian director Nicolo Funelli's lost film comes alive when the maven of the macabre is released after 20 years of VHS imprisonment. New hire Annie Watkins' pre-emptive obituaries at Live @ Five New Orleans News seem to be killing off famous people. A used delivery van causes Katie and Gavin's life to take an unimaginable wrong turn into very dark territory. A teen orphan with a unique ability is held captive in a secret government lab, forced to submit to their whims. Vacationers become a grotesque part of the Easter festivities in a small English town.

NYPD detective Paul Donner and his wife Elise were killed in a hold-up gone wrong. Fifty years later, Donner is back: revived courtesy of the Shift. Supposedly the unintended side-effect of a botched biological terrorist attack and carried by a ubiquitous retrovirus, the Shift jump-starts dead DNA and throws the life cycle into reverse, so reborns like Donner must cope with the fact that they are not only slowly youthing toward a new childhood, but have become New York's most hated minority.

They call it Company Town - a city-size oil rig off the coast of the Canadian Maritimes, now owned by one very wealthy, powerful, byzantine family: Lynch Ltd. Hwa is of the few people in her community (which constitutes the whole rig) to forgo bioengineered enhancements. As such, she's the last truly organic person left on the rig - making her doubly an outsider as well as a neglected daughter and bodyguard extraordinaire.

Mad scientists have never had it so tough. In super-hero comics, graphic novels, films, TV series, video games, and even works of what may be fiction, they are besieged by those who stand against them, devoid of sympathy for their irrational, megalomaniacal impulses to rule, destroy, or otherwise dominate the world as we know it. It’s just not fair. So those of us who are so twisted and sick that we love mad scientists have created this guide.

Modern gods and goddesses, remote, revered - and like the pantheon of heroes and heroines of ancient myth - possessing great power tempered with flaws. Now, find within this anthology great tales by gifted and award-winning authors who move superheroes from the four-color panels of comic books to the fantastic pages of fiction, stories that will remind anyone who ever wanted to wear a cape or don a cowl of the extraordinary powers of the imagination!

In the middle of America, Amy Lewis is on her way to her grandma's house. She's being chased by a very bad wolf. Galaxies away, Loki is waking up in a prison cell, strangely without a hangover and with no idea what he's done wrong - this time, anyway. But he does know that Thor is hiding something, Odin is up to something wicked, and there seems to be something that he's forgotten....

In the burned-out, futuristic city of Empire Island, three young people navigate a crumbling metropolis constantly under threat from a pair of dragons that circle the skies. When violence strikes, reality star Duncan Humphrey Ripple V, the spoiled scion of the metropolis' last dynasty; Baroness Swan Lenore Dahlberg, his tempestuous, death-obsessed betrothed; and Abby, a feral beauty he discovered tossed out with the trash; are forced to flee everything they've ever known.

Two years ago, the aliens made contact. Now Cara Sweeney is going to be sharing a bathroom with one of them. Handpicked to host the first-ever L'eihr exchange student, Cara thinks her future is set. Not only does she get a free ride to her dream college, she'll have inside information about the mysterious L'eihrs that every journalist would kill for. Cara's blog following is about to skyrocket. Still, Cara isn't sure what to think when she meets Aelyx. Humans and L'eihrs have nearly identical DNA, but cold, infuriatingly brilliant Aelyx couldn't seem more alien.

Every vampire has heard rumor of the mythical place where their kind can daywalk. But what no vampire knows is that this City of Eternal Night actually exists. And its name is New Orleans. For centuries, the fae have protected the city from vampire infestation. But when the bloodsuckers return, the fragile peace in New Orleans begins to crumble.

Short novels are movie-length narratives that may well be the perfect length for science fiction stories. This audio collection presents the best-of-the-best short science fiction novels published in 2014 by current and emerging masters of this vibrant form of storytelling.

The end of the world didn't happen overnight. After years of war, societal breakdown, freak storms, and rising tides, humanity already hovered near the edge. Then came the most unexpected threat of all: the world's corpses rising up to deliver the final blow.

Humans beware. As the robotic revolution continues to creep into our lives, it brings with it an impending sense of doom. What horrifying scenarios might unfold if our technology were to go awry? From self-aware robotic toys to intelligent machines violently malfunctioning, this anthology brings to life the half-formed questions and fears we all have about the increasing presence of robots in our lives.

It’s a good thing Gabe Bristow lives and breathes the Navy SEAL credo, “the only easy day was yesterday”, because today, his life is unrecognizable. When his prestigious career comes to a crashing halt, he’s left with a bum leg and few prospects for employment that don’t include a desk. That is, until he’s offered the chance to command a private hostage-rescue team and free a wealthy American businessman from Colombian paramilitary rebels.

Stuntwoman Dawn Madison hasn't been on the best of terms with her father since her movie star mother died. Still, he is her dad, and when he vanishes while investigating the bizarre sighting - caught on film - of a supposedly long-dead child star, she comes home to Tinseltown to join the search for him. Working with his odd colleagues, she discovers an erotic and bloody underground society made up of creatures she thought existed only on the screen.

It always started like this, a pulse inside me, like a warning before the tide surged, roared... and froze everything. Twenty-year old Emma just landed in Rome, to find the father who walked out of her life more than a decade ago and was too busy eating pizza to call. Traveling with her is a secret she's carried alone since childhood: sometimes, around her, time stops. People and cars freeze, rain hangs still in the air and there's only her left in the silence. To make things worse, instead of her dad, Em runs into a past she'd rather forget in the person of Lily, her stepsister.

The Archangel of Death is the master of taking human life. But keeping mortals alive? Not exactly Azrael's forte. For thousands of years, Azrael’s greatest enemy has been silent. Leaving him in relative peace for the first time since the great angel war. Now that silence has been broken, and the Morning Star has returned with a dangerous ultimatum: Azrael can join, or watch everything he loves be destroyed. Two lives hang in the balance - Azrael’s beloved human wife, Nadine, and their unborn, part-angel son...Warren.