Ryland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission - and if he fails, humanity and the Earth itself will perish. Except that right now, he doesn't know that. He can't even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it. All he knows is that he's been asleep for a very, very long time. And he's just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company.

It’s 1984, and life has changed beyond recognition. Airstrip One, formerly known as Great Britain, is a place where Big Brother is always watching, and nobody can hide. Except, perhaps, for Winston Smith. Whilst working at the Ministry of Truth, rewriting history, he secretly dreams of freedom. And in a world where love and sex are forbidden, where it’s hard to distinguish between friend and foe, he meets Julia and O’Brien and vows to rebel.

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.

Six days ago, astronaut Mark Watney became one of the first people to walk on Mars. Now, he's sure he'll be the first person to die there. After a dust storm nearly kills him and forces his crew to evacuate while thinking him dead, Mark finds himself stranded and completely alone with no way to even signal Earth that he’s alive - and even if he could get word out, his supplies would be gone long before a rescue could arrive. But Mark isn't ready to give up yet.

Jazz Bashara is a criminal. Well, sort of. Life on Artemis, the first and only city on the moon, is tough if you're not a rich tourist or an eccentric billionaire. So smuggling in the occasional harmless bit of contraband barely counts, right? Not when you've got debts to pay and your job as a porter barely covers the rent. Everything changes when Jazz sees the chance to commit the perfect crime, with a reward too lucrative to turn down.

"Early Adopter" is a collection of short stories from the edge of human progress. Eight stories hold dark mirrors to our own world—experience thought-provoking sci-fi, technologic tragedy, and pulse-pounding thrillers. To Run Again: Dr. Laura Brandie is ready to change the world. She's the lead researcher behind the KSE, a revolutionary cure for paralysis and neurodegenerative conditions. And now, by good fortune, she's found the perfect candidate for her first human trial: a man who suffers from locked-in syndrome.

Forty years later, the pain of his personal tragedy still echoes within John Hopper. He retreats to the small town, Ripley, West Virginia, and is content being alone and in peace. He spends his evenings as an amateur podcast host, anonymously broadcasting rants about what is wrong with the world. Through a faithful listener and scientist, Jarvis, John finds out about the impending comet impact, possibly, an extinction level event.

Dalton Grinder's life had unraveled in a brutal series of blows. First, the Army cast him aside. Then, his wife walked out, leaving him with nothing but the hollow echo of a once-shared life. As if that wasn't enough, his last remaining relative—his grandfather—passed away, closing the final chapter of his family history. Born and bred in the heat and humidity of Florida, Dalton now finds himself heading north to the cold, unforgiving woods of Wisconsin to settle his grandfather’s affairs. But fate isn't done with him yet.

In a utopian future society, where all social unrest has been engineered away, a man has an awakening. Starting as a happy worker drone, he meets a woman who reveals to him the reality of life outside the state's control - the glories of chaotic nature in the world and in the heart. They become entwined with a conspiracy against the state, and eventually try to escape beyond the walls of the state's control... only to meet betrayal, failure, and a dark ending in the glorious light of the state's total control.

One hundred years ago, the Eternals, 13 men and women closer to gods than mortals, stood against the greatest threat the world had ever faced. They died. All save for one who managed to flee with the enemy leader’s weapon, a cursed blade of incredible power. This is a battle he fights alone, for after they defeated the Eternals, the enemy used their magic to pose as their conquered opponents, taking over rule of the world in their stead. For the last 100 years, the people have believed that the legendary Eternals triumphed, that they are safe. Only the wanderer knows the truth .

Millions of years beyond our time, our Earth has long since stopped spinning—and giant flora have taken over the sunlit half of the motionless world. Here humans are among the very few animal species that still exist, struggling to survive against enormous odds, but they have become small and weak, and their numbers have dwindled to almost nothing. When the aging leader of Gren's tribe decrees it is time for the old ones to go "Up," the younger are left to make their own way below.

Nobody was prepared, including the world’s governments. The damage to humanity through loss of life was predictable, yet unfathomable. As nuclear winter spread across the globe, a rapidly cooling climate shocked humanity and many living things to their death. Nuclear Armageddon had become reality and ordinary people were paying the price. In a world without power, the exchange of information was virtually non-existent. A battle for resources was waged, pitting friend against friend and friend against foe. For the Bartlett family, their days on Swan’s Island were untenable.

When Rab was a baby, his mother made a decision which would change his life. She feared he would be sent to work in the hellish mines of Mercury, to eke out his life until he was worn out, all in the name of maintaining the defense of the Solar System. But when her desperate attempt to flee with her 2 year old failed, she took a desperate step to save him. She cut off his hand. Decades later, Rab has been spared the physical hardships he can no longer endure, and is now based on the Mask, the all-encompassing structure which hides the Solar System from alien eyes.

There is a time to weep and a time to mourn. For the CSV Lion of Judah, that time has not yet come. The war with the League of Sol ended in victory for the Terran Coalition. Major General David Cohen and his crew conclude their three-month goodwill cruise with one final FTL jump. But instead of returning home in a blaze of glory, the wormhole collapses and hurls them more than four million lightyears into the unknown.

The Soviets invade Afghanistan, and the governments of Jimmy Carter and Leonid Brezhnev jockey for position on the international stage. CIA operative Fred Poole races against the clock to decode the pieces of a Soviet puzzle that could lead to war.

Kuno's quest for fortune takes a perilous turn as he and his companions venture deeper into the Brink. Now a fugitive from the king's law, he must navigate treacherous bogs, face monstrous creatures, and unravel the mysteries of a strange new dungeon. But Kuno is no ordinary delver. Armed with the enigmatic Godstone, he stands on the precipice of a greater destiny.

Tensions are running high aboard The Camelot, a deep-space exploration vessel. Spending an extended amount of time in close quarters has left most of the crew at each other’s throats, and put their veteran captain in the position of constantly playing peacemaker. As bad as things are, they get markedly worse when The Camelot unknowingly picks up a stowaway: a shapeshifting alien monster who boards their ship and begins killing the crew one by one.

A conflicted extraterrestrial from a dying species lands on semi-dystopian Earth in 2040 with one intent: human consumption. It holds a secret. A few groups including two scientist lovers and a pair of military officers pursue the alien for their own purposes. The third group are members of China's Communist Party. With the advent of humanoid artificial intelligence, possibilities for android usage expand. A self-serving billionaire manufactures humanoids that are indistinguishable from humans. His purpose is morally questionable.

Vance, once a simple engineer, is transformed into the last hope of humanity when an ancient suit of armor bonds with him. Through rigorous training and self-discovery, he learns to harness the powers of his suit, including energy manipulation, an arm cannon, enhanced physical abilities, and time dilation. His journey is one of growth, loss, and redemption as he faces the masterful villain, Warlord Draxon, who commands a vast cybernetic army and poses the greatest threat to the universe. Contents of Chrono-Vanguard: Collector's Edition: 1) Chrono-Vanguard 2) The Art of Chrono-Vanguard 3) ...

The once-mighty Maurian Empire is crumbling before an unstoppable enemy, and Fleet Commander Mog is fighting to hold their last outpost. As the mysterious Ta'Krell press their assault on Sledgim's gates, only a miracle can save the Maurians from extinction. Light-years away, humans have spread throughout the solar system and are forging ahead towards the stars. When the International Space Force's secret starship propulsion program goes wrong, Morgan Greenfield, a teenage rally-car racer from Arizona, is flung into deep space.