Traveling across the Martian polar cap, the second TransPolar Expedition is tracing the shape of the hidden lands beneath the ice and snow. Sita, the expedition’s cartographer, has a talent for interpreting the shades and squiggles that the computer produces from satellite photos and sonic recordings. She takes ambiguous data and makes a clear and precise map of lands no one has ever seen.

But Sita knows that maps are black-and-white portraits of a world that exists in shades of gray and, like cartographers before her, she knows that dragons lurk beyond the edges of every map. At night, in the darkness of her dreams, she believes in the yeti, the messengers from the secret lands, the dark-eyed dream beasts that haunt the crevasses and move as softly as the blowing snow.

The world is not all that it seems on the surface. Beneath the polar ice lies danger and discovery.

A novelette.

Vivia has guile. Using only the power of her mind, she can make water boil, heal the sick, create illusions, and even transform herself into a bird or a pirate. But guilish folk are considered witches by most people, and that frightens them.
Her first teacher taught her healing arts, and after that she studied with Taso Raym, the most powerful male witch in the land. He taught her many things, and not just guilish skills. Unfortunately, neither Vivia nor Raym could ignore their attraction to each other, and intimacy between them would have meant the end of her guile. So she joined Ladygate, an all-female community, and accepted that love was not for her.
After a while, though, she realizes Ladygate is not where she belongs either. So she accepts the task of investigating the disappearance of a lord’s son, kidnapped, it seems, by the malevolent witch Orath. Her guilish training is not quite complete, and she hopes Raym can help her.
But Raym has also disappeared. Vivia is on her own, with a task to do—one that now touches her heart. She’s almost sure she has the necessary strength and skill…
…Unless Raym and Orath are in league with each other.
Meeting challenges head on, Vivia learns from her mistakes. Her guile grows with each success, as she follows a convoluted, hazy trail to the sea and, beyond, to the lair of Orath and her tyrannical consort, the Red Prince. There she finds Raym, captive and enthralled by a guile stronger and more deadly than she ever imagined. Planning carefully, she prepares herself for a confrontation she must believe she will win…

Sometime in the near future, Jack Pence finds himself in New York City . . .

. . . ALONE.

A sole survivor, apparently, of an unstoppable pandemic. He begins a journey west, hoping to find someone—anyone—who has also survived.

The search proves fruitless, and Jack stops in the tiny hamlet of Luna, New Mexico, slipping into despondency, and then despair, on the brink of defeat.
But when he suddenly finds he is not alone after all, what happens next re-ignites his consciousness, provides him a home, and launches him on an unforgettable mission.

Jack Bronson desperately needs a job. In fact, there isn’t much he’d say no to if it meant a paycheck to keep a roof over his family’s head.

When an opportunity arises to become the maintenance worker at an apartment complex, Jack jumps at the chance. During his interview, however, he can’t help but wonder if there’s something wrong. His new boss offers him the job in under five minutes, there’s an enormous willow tree that seems to have taken over one building and there’s a maintenance shed filled with unusual liquids.

Will Jack survive as caretaker of Apartment Building E, or will something sinister take care of him?

Back when he was just Lon Kardl, before he knew he was the crown prince of anywhere, he’d had a pretty good life, all things considered. No, he and his stepfather hadn’t gotten along very well, so he’d had to learn how to take punishment. Yes, he’d had his troubles in school, so he’d had to know how to fight.

But it was good he’d learned those things, wasn’t it? Because the Old Court was a bad place for a boy, just turned fifteen, who looked older than his age. He was going to have to fight–he was going to have to win that fight–if he wanted to get out of the trouble he was in now.

When Dani Donovan got a new heart, she also got something else–psychic abilities. Knowing things she shouldn’t know has taken some getting used to, the reason she hasn’t told her parents. They’d definitely flip out or, worse, take her to another doctor. The head kind this time.

Wanting to know more about her gifts, Dani decides to answer a World Security League call for psychics to help in the capture of the world’s most wanted criminals. She heads to a Birmingham hotel so her new abilities can be tested. There she meets another psychic, Ren Mallett, who bursts into her mind while she’s trying to read his. Their connection is so incredible that the WSL agents testing them promise to recommend that they work together.

Although Ren and Dani part ways after the testing, distance doesn’t hinder their connection. And as she gets to know him better, their relationship evolves into a friendship, maybe more, at least on her end. Strange? Absolutely, but no stranger than finding a match on an online dating site. The difference is that she can’t be catfished if she’s reading his mind.

To make her parents happy, Dani finishes her current semester of college before heading to Rutledge. Ren, on the other hand, starts there immediately. When their mental conversations become less frequent and finally stop altogether, she chalks it up to whatever training and work he’s been assigned. They’ll talk face-to-face when she finally gets to The Rutledge Institute, herself. But when she gets there, Ren is nowhere to be found. She finds out that he’s working undercover and seems to have lost contact not just with her, but with everyone.

She’s brave, crazy, dangerous… and your best shot at crossing the galaxy alive.

For once, things are going well for space smuggler Shaen Morris and her sentient ship the Belle Starr. Which should have been her first clue that something was about to go very wrong. When an anomaly in the Passage causes all transportation in the galaxy to grind to a sudden halt, she is forced to help out an old adversary – and put an old friend in grave danger.

Shaen could uncover the secret to what created the Passage, and why it drives humans insane. But what will this ancient knowledge cost?

All Lindsay wants is a normal life. What she’s got is anything but.

Betrothed to the Devil by her greedy father, Lindsay was blissfully unaware there was anything unusual about her life until her twenty-first birthday, when the groom appeared before her and presented her with a black diamond wedding band.

Displaying uncharacteristic patience and soft heartedness toward his young wife, Big Red (as Lindsay calls him) endures all her attempts to annul their union and forge an independent life as far away from his world as she can possibly get. In the end, all he really wants is her happiness.

When the ghost of Lindsay’s father visits and offers her exactly what she wants, will she still be so eager to rid herself of her husband?

A paranormal romance and a Hell of a lot of fun from our Orbits sci-fi/fantasy short story line.

The whole world has been terrorized and we wallow in terrible fear of getting sick. We placed our faith in medicine and now we pray for redemption. That’s why our police kidnap the sick and send them to the furnaces.

After we conquered a return of the Black Death, our scientists celebrated the triumph of modern medicine and the awesome power of antibiotics. But our bodies became weaker and the bugs became stronger and soon they were immune to anything our doctors could throw at them. It wasn’t long until just the right conditions, high mercury levels in our food to be precise, came along and gave the super germs the breeding grounds for the elimination of the human race. That’s what’s happening to the United States; that’s what happening to my family.

First, Dad went missing, presumably dead overseas, then Mom caught the common cold and the Sanitary Police came and took her. Now I’m all alone. And I’m tired of wasting away, day-by-day, waiting for my turn to fall ill and be taken to the incinerators. I’ve decided I’m going to rescue her, even if it means the death of all of us. She deserves it. I deserve it. And the whole world deserves another chance to live.

A short story.

The Irish Giant – that’s what Londoners called Charlie Bryne, an enormous country lad standing 8 feet tall in his bare feet. He made his fortune by exhibiting himself, but Bryne was far more than a human oddity. He had the magical power of healing, a deep connection to the natural magic of the earth, and the blood of Irish kings in his veins. In 1782, he came to London with a single goal — to bring the Irish home to the island they had left.

John Hunter was a man of science and insatiable curiosity — a surgeon, a natural philosopher, and a tireless collector of natural oddities. With analysis and dissection, Hunter strove to understand the natural world — and he wanted to add the bones of a giant to his collection.

This novella, winner of the 1990 World Fantasy Award, examines what happens when the quest for scientific knowledge meets ancient natural magic.

Head of Janas Corporation and local counselor on Pallas Four, Maegan Shale is a highly respected member of the community in the paradise destination of the Grogon Asteroid Belt. But Maegan leads a secret life. Operating in a relay network in this remote corner of the Crestar System, she intercepts Taragon vessels and rescues children destined for armies being built to destroy the life she knew as a child.

Alerik Mariltar had a choice—governor of an insignificant asteroid cluster, or the more prestigious position of junior counselor for the Coalition Council. Alerik wants a mate, and the Match Key has chosen for him—a highly unsuitable, rebellious female from his past who happens to live in the Grogon Asteroid Belt. And so, in defiance of the training of a lifetime and all that he has been groomed to be, Alerik chooses a woman over the best interests of his career.

Grogon is not the sleepy, uneventful corner of the Crestar System it should have been. Rumors of death matches and flesh trading surface, and Maegan’s covert activities seem to be linked. Forced to incarcerate her for treason, Alerik attempts to unwind the mystery of six Taragon children and Maegan’s elusive uncle. Something has attracted a great evil to his jurisdiction, and that evil is focused on the woman he loves and those close to her.

Convinced the Coalition’s Vision is flawed, Maegan isn’t about to cooperate with the man who is the quintessential servant of the Coalition. He might be her mate, but the cause for which she fights demands all her passion and her loyalty. Then what are these growing feelings she has for him, and why does she care so much how her illegal activities will affect his career?

As the threat to the galaxy grows, Alerik and Maegan struggle to reconcile their beliefs to defeat a common enemy.

After Bette Davis posthumously funds a museum-theater complex at her hometown college, the Producer-on-High fulfills her longtime dream of playing Scarlett O’Hara. But Bette has no idea how much she’ll shake up her career and her love life by appearing in Gone with the Wind.

And that’s only the beginning. Her cosmic do-over also derails eighty years of world history.

To curator Dana Foster’s horror, the casting reboot plays havoc with her exhibits and replica Hollywood Walk of Fame. It turns egotistical superstar Patrice Clark into a nobody just as she is about to become the museum’s first Hall of Fame inductee.

Desperate, the two form an uneasy alliance to unravel the mystery before the induction ceremony. As they spend a stressful but enlightening day trying to restore order, the Producer takes Bette on a bumpy multi-media ride of her own. She sees favorite film roles elude her and her onetime husband marry another, and mourns all she has sacrificed by starring in the Civil War epic.

When Patrice and Dana’s efforts stall, Bette gets permission to make a cameo appearance on earth and lend them a hand. Together they learn new lessons about film, fate and roads not taken.

Much as mortal youths once ran off to join the circus, this particular Sidhe ran off to join Actors’ Equity. She’s lived among us for over a century, but stage actress Juliet McKenna isn’t immune to loneliness. So when a castmate invites her home for Thanksgiving, Juliet accepts.

Her friend’s brother sees through her magical disguise–and has the knowledge to trap her into slavery. Now she must choose: return to Faerie and the High Court’s wrath, or satisfy Richmond Becket’s desire for power at any cost–including her life.

FIRE IN THE OTHERWORLD

There are circles within circles, lands of magic and wonder that touch upon our own. But now war is on the horizon in the mystical realm of the Sidhe—a brutal clash of Faery against Faery that threatens to cross secret boundaries into the unsuspecting world of mortal men.

Once more young David Sullivan has been called upon to do the bidding of Lugh Samildinach, Lord of Tir-Nan-Og. Together with three friends—one white, one red, and one immortal—David embarks on an astonishing journey through a perilous kingdom of brittle brightness. But grim betrayal lies in the path of their quest for peace in the Otherworlds. And an inescapable doom in the terrifying judgment of Uktena, the great and hideous serpent…

A Fae daycare teacher, and an exterminator under a family curse Need each other more than they can guess when magic goes wonky.

Glori loved working with children–and not just because children produced magic that fed her own Fae magic. But when her magic started going wonky and all her maintenance spells for the daycare started working backwards, not even her Fae administrator could fix what was wrong.

Lance Knight faced a lonely future, thanks to a family curse that turned him into a mouse at the dark of the moon. Lonely, except for the ghosts of all his angry, misogynistic male ancestors. And he would join them someday, if he didn’t find a woman to love him despite the curse.

He needed the kiss of a Faerie princess to break the spell. When he got called to Glori’s daycare center to deal with an unbelievable bug problem, and realized she was a Fae, he thought his problems were solved.
Glori hated telling Lance that the Fae didn’t have hereditary royalty anymore, but she promised she would try to find him a solution while they worked together to solve her problem. Things got sticky when she realized that she was going through the Fae equivalent of puberty, and Lance might just be the answer to her problem.

If only his nasty, ghostly relatives wouldn’t keep getting in the way.

Fae use dark chocolate as a cure-all, so how did the Queen die of eating too much?

Epsi gave her former school chum a boatload (we’re talking Cleopatra’s barge here) of chocolate as a coronation present. Now she’s a prime suspect. Where’s a knight in shining armor when a Fae damsel in distress really needs one?

Enter Guber, Fae of royal blood, Human-phile and techno-geek. Mysteries and gizmos to test for substances harmful to Fae life and limb are right up his alley. Epsi is the prettiest damsel in distress that he’s ever seen–and she doesn’t think he’s weird.

Guber has been living in the Human realms for decades to avoid both the Fae who want to reinstate the hereditary royalty and those who want to eradicate anyone with the slightest trace of royal purple blood. Both of them are on Guber’s tail, and could focus on Epsi at any moment.

It’s a good thing they have an entire warehouse of possibly poisoned chocolate to use as a weapon.

Amy has never really known family. Not like her husband, Brad, with his tribe of brothers, sisters, and cousins. Amy’s only ever had her Aunt Zara – ever since Amy was twelve and her parents died. It was Aunt Zara who took her in, raised her, and provided for all her needs and desires. Aunt Zara has been her world.

When Aunt Zara passes unexpectedly during Amy and Brad’s fifth wedding anniversary, Amy is at a loss. How will she be able to go on? Will she be able to go on without Aunt Zara’s nurturing and guidance, even if Aunt Zara has provided for them with an inheritance?

That night, Amy awakes to find a doorway glowing with a faint nimbus standing at the foot of her bed and the possibility that perhaps Aunt Zara hasn’t left her after all.

Ostracized for speaking her mind and standing up against a man she doesn’t wish to marry, a young girl is cast out of her village and forced to fend for herself in the mountains. When she ventures too closely to a lake and nearly drowns, she is rescued by a man from Athens who introduces himself as Herodotus. What transpires after the rescue is an education for the young girl, providing names for the things that surround her. When an encounter with a fish leads her to discover her own true name, she soon discovers the gift she can take back to her village to be accepted once again. A short story.

Halloween is rapidly approaching. In the chill of late October, three childhood friends gather in the forest to partake in a dangerous rite: David Sullivan and Alec McLean, who once walked the world of Faerie…and young Aikin Daniels, a “Mighty Hunter” desperate to join the select brotherhood of those who have trod the Straight Tracks. In the moonlight, in separate dreams, their quests are revealed to them—enticing each into the Otherworlds with promises of glorious adventure, lost love regained…and vengeance. But All Hallows is no time for a group of inquisitive college students to be traipsing back and forth across forbidden borders. For this Samhain night is owned by a dark and hideous power older than Faerie itself—an irresistible force that combs the Tracks in search of blood and souls. Only the dawn can save those whom he pursues—an eternity for David, Alec, Aikin and their friend Liz Hughes, who find themselves at the mercy of unrestrained chaos in a perilous, uncertain place. But suddenly there is no escape—not even in their own familiar mortal realm of cars and friends and rock ’n’ roll. For the World Walls are breaking down—and can no longer restrain the terrible mad ride of the Wild Hunt.

Eccentric Symmetries, 20 fantasy short stories spanning the forty-year career of author Nancy Springer, showcases tales ranging from the quirky to the transcendent. Including mythic tales of long ago and far away such as award-winner “The Boy Who Plaited Manes,” this collection also contains wry, sometimes humorous contemporary fantasy stories such as “Rumple What?” and “Snow Spawn,” plus mystic magical realism in which cabbage roses grow down from the ceiling (“Mariposa”) and hard-edged future fantasy stories such as “We Don’t Know Why,” a tale of failing “angels.” Like our lives, the stories in Eccentric Symmetries are mostly off-kilter, even laughable, but sometimes achieve a luminous moment of perfect balance, an epiphany. In this carefully selected collection, every fantasy reader should find something to love.

On the space station known as Moon Talk, engineers and poets work together to prototype and manufacture communications satellites. The founder of the station decided to include poets because they specialize in communicating high-density information in very short bursts.

Angel, a 20-year-old robotics engineer, is visiting Moon Talk on a poetry/engineering internship when an accident on the station’s hull leaves her paralyzed. Unable to return to Earth where the relentless pull of gravity would kill her, Angel must make the station her home.

Though her body is trapped, the poets and engineers who run Moon Talk find a way for Angel’s consciousness to escape the confines of the station. The robotics staff jacks Angel first into a robotic unit on the station’s hull, and then into a body that can move about the station’s interior. She inhabits a robotic probe that prospects among the orbiting rocks of the asteroid belt. But that’s just the beginning of Angel’s journey.

A novelette.

Dr. Dakota Thomas isn’t prepared for the gunshot victim who rolls through his emergency room doors. Michael Ricco looks like a young Marine in a world of trouble, his dog tags, however tell a different story.

How could the military have no record of him? Why was he shot in the back in the middle of the desert, and why were thirteen people murdered to keep his secret? More than that, how could he have a birth date of 1898?

In a world where genetic experimentation pushes the boundaries of what someone would do to live a little longer, the question may be, how many will die in order to keep one person alive?

FIRE, FLAME, AND REVENGE
There are worlds above the earth and under the sea, mystical kingdoms of silver and light, known only to those who can see beyond…and there is the unknown place of fire frozen in time…
FIRESHAPER’S DOOM
Mortal boy David Sullivan had discovered the mysteries of the other world. Indeed, he was put to the test, triumphing over the wily schemes of the Windmaster. But in that evil game, an innocent Faerie lad fell dead. Now his mother, bent on vengeance, has kidnapped David from the earthbound world and brought him to the land of flames. Here he will be forced to do her bidding in an adventure dark and fateful. Once more, he will cross swords with his archenemy, the Windmaster. And in so doing, David will know the great Power of the Fireshaper…
“HIS CHARACTERS LIVE AND BREATHE AND PASS EASILY BETWEEN THE REALMS OF REALITY AND FANTASY.” Lynn Abbey, author of Unicorn of Dragon
“I HAD A HARD TIME PUTTING IT DOWN!” Katherine Kuntz

From the twisted mind of bestselling author Wade J. McMahan (“Bite This! A Richard Dick Mystery”) comes another hilarious short story. Larry the hairy-legged Fairy gets called up on the carpet by the Queen’s representative, Rupert the Low. A meeting of the two minds at a local Bug Bar, however, is about to change the situation. You’ll never look at stories about Fairies the same way again!

There is a realm where the living are forbidden. It’s an infernal place of shadows and souls that only the damned may enter. And now a spirit beckons from this land of terrible fire, challenged a courageous young Cherokee sorcerer to walk a world of dark dreams and to confront a dread and powerful force of nature…in order to save the one he loves from a fate truly worse than death.

Last year, when they were still children, they went trick-or-treating. You followed them, in case there was trouble. Next year, when they’re teenagers, there could be problems – spiking the punch, necking in the corners, smoking illegal substances in the bathroom… You remember that sort of thing, don’t you? Of course you do. So, this year, on a holiday that gets wilder every year, let’s keep the fun under control. We’ll have a Halloween party. They’ll love it.

But what if guests show up who aren’t on the guest list?

The age-old question about alien existence and human contact is explored in a new way in this collection of six novellas, previously anthologized in Analog magazine. When disillusioned aerospace engineer Adrian Mast buys a book at a remainder sale, the last things he expects to find in its appendix are alien spacecraft designs. With the help of the bookstore owner, Adrian tracks down the author―only to find him in a mental institution anguishing over the intentions of the aliens who sent the designs to him. By bluffing a bureaucrat intent on thwarting their progress, the two friends continue their quest for the stars and go ahead with the spacecraft designs. Having successfully launched their ship 15 years later, the questions that remain are What were the intentions of the aliens? Is mankind ready to face what’s out there?

Erin has problems. Her parents are divorced. Her stepdad is a jerk. Her real dad, while willing to help her run away from home, insists that she hole up in a high school for psychics so she can complete her senior year. Why does he think this is a good idea? Well, that would be problem number four–ghosts. As in, she sees them, the reason Dad thinks specialized schooling is a good idea.

Although Erin has doubts, she quickly learns that high schools are pretty much the same everywhere. In fact, the only difference in this school and her last is the number of students who attend–way less–and her afternoon classes, which are all held in the Mind Studies Annex.

Since Mom is certainly looking for her, Erin keeps her circumstances a secret. Nervous, shy, and doubting her abilities, she’s still able to connect with a couple of other students. But it’s only when Erin meets Trace, a stone mason helping renovate the school, that she begins to relax. Her beloved dad is a mason, too. Trace is wonderfully blue collar. Even better, he’s not a mentalist like most of the guys on campus are. In fact, she feels very grounded whenever she’s with him.

But even down-to-earth Trace has his secrets. And the nature of them could be another problem Erin has to worry and wonder about.

Ellie Boone bakes novelty cakes for a living. Kit Macchiano is the handsome photographer who lives down the hall. They occasionally have lunch together, but never without her best friend and other neighbor, Hanna. Both women are fascinated by Kit, whose bachelor lifestyle contrasts sharply with their where-are-all-the-good-men desperation.

Ellie never tells Kit that her parents hunt mythical monsters for a living and host their own cable television series. But they do, and they’re in a jam, with the threat of cancellation hanging over their heads. For that reason, Ellie’s mom begs her to accompany them on a hunt for the Cherufe, a legendary Chilean cave monster. Ellie, who hasn’t traveled with them getting lost in a cave at age six, reluctantly agrees, but only if Hanna can tag along.

Ellie tries to convince herself that she can overcome the lingering trauma of her childhood misadventure. For one thing, her resulting nightmares rarely recur these days, thanks to a male presence—a personal dream catcher–her subconscious inserted into a paraticularly bad dream years ago. For another, she’ll have sweet, funny Hanna around for moral support. But a last-minute emergency sidetracks her friend. And though Kit volunteers to step in for Hanna, Ellie isn’t thrilled and only agrees out of desperation.

To make matters even more awkward, her parent can’t be talked out of their assumption that the two of them are a couple. It’s only when Kit and a frightened Ellie are deep inside the cave looking for the Cherufe that déjà vu slams her. She’s suddenly sure they know each other way better than she originally thought. In fact, it almost feels as if Kit has helped her through this ordeal before.

But how? Her dream catcher is just a figment…isn’t he?

When Lizzie and Robert married, she thought he’d had enough of adventure to last a lifetime. After all, his voyage above the Arctic Circle had been a near-fatal disaster, and he never talked about it at all. He’d never even written about it, except in a long letter to his sister. But someone, somehow, had found out. And now, given another chance, he couldn’t resist that call.

When he came back, of course, she would share in his fame, glory, and wealth. But what would happen to her if he didn’t come back?

Iris is an imaginative little girl with the ability to make just about anything seem to come to life when she plays with it. After Iris’ death at a young age, her mother feels that there isn’t much left to celebrate when it comes to the holiday season. Little does she know that Iris has one last gift to give her mother this year, and it’s going to make it one Christmas to truly remember. An uplifting holiday short story.

Ivy Warren, owner of pagan supply shop Something’s Brewing, is a white witch with a secret power—the ability to read a soul by gazing into someone’s eyes.  Sometimes her power is wonderful; sometimes it’s not.  When Ember, a witch with nominal powers, tries to buy a love potion, Ivy won’t sell it to her and not because she has seen Ember’s soul. No man should be tricked into loving a woman. A glimpse of Ember and an unknown male on the sidewalk later that day pokes Ivy’s conscience. Should she warn the handsome stranger that Ember is after him?
Amos “Hutch” Hutchinson is the new pharmacist in town. He and Ivy meet when she picks up a prescription for her aunt. They wind up flirting with each other and making a coffee date, but she never shows up. He decides she didn’t like him as much as he liked her.

What Hutch doesn’t know is that Ivy missed their date because she was drugged. Even worse, her love potions were stolen. Now she has no ethical choice but to knock on his door, apologize for being a no show, and ask if Ember has offered him a drink. But will a down-to-earth chemist ever believe her crazy story? And what if it’s already too late to save him?

Petty thieves Kean and Ozzy are recruited by an eccentric collector to smuggle outlawed treeware. When the pickup goes wrong, they are hunted through the streets of Morocco. Running for their lives, they discover what lengths each will go to to save the other. A short story.

Jackie is on her way to work one Saturday morning to fulfill yet another of her boss’s outrageous demands, but the love magic she doesn’t know is woven into the gloves made by her best friend sends her instead on an unexpected detour to true love.

Too bad there aren’t any knights-in-shining armor around when a girl needs one. But maybe one wearing chain mail will do just fine. Lance Masters, European Martial Arts Master extraordinaire, appears out of the misty Seattle rain when she runs out of gas. The zap of chemistry between them makes her wonder if she has met the man of her dreams, but her hopes are just as quickly dashed upon learning that her gallant knight is only in town to attend a huge local Live Action Role Play (LARP) event taking place that weekend.

Lance Masters has a chain of European Martial Arts studios back East and is thinking of expanding to the West Coast. When he meets Jackie, wet, bedraggled and pushing her dead-as-a-doornail car in the rain, he knows he must see her again. He invites her to cheer him on in tomorrow’s multi-state European Martial Arts tournament. But he suspects that won’t be nearly enough.

Raised in hiding, Athrar Warhawk emerges to claim his place and destiny as Warhawk’s Heir. Guided by Mrillis and Meghianna, supported by his foster-brother, Lycen, Meghianna’s adopted son, he tries to hold the alliance together as rebels and traitors fight for dominance. Young love turns to betrayal and loss, made worse by the political games of court and a growing schism between Noveni and Rey’kil.

When Athrar finds his soul-mate, traitors and politics try to tear them apart, and magic tries to force her to betray him with Lycen. A new prophecy emerges, speaking of the Lady Warhawk, promising sorrow and hope for the future–even as the Nameless One emerges from hiding and begins his final campaign of destruction. Mrillis and Meghianna risk all to protect the defenseless thousands who have fled to Moerta, and in so doing lock the defenders in with their enemy, for all time. Only the Lady Warhawk will hold the key to the future, and to freedom.

The World Walls separating the “real world” from the alternate world of Faerie are becoming so thin that Faerie can now be seen in satellite photographs. As craven mortal land developers threaten to exploit the magic lands, David Sullivan finds that it is up to him and his friends to prevent the High King Lugh from implementing his “final solution” to a most vexing problem—humankind.

The bombs have fallen, and the world as we know it has ended. In her final days, one robotics engineer works to ensure that life will go on, constructing the creatures that will inherit the earth. New times are coming. The future echoes with the rattle of metal claws. A short story.

Aimee believes everything in her life is great. She’s got a boyfriend who’s terrific (in bed and out), a penthouse apartment, and everything else a girl of privilege could possibly want.

Well, except for a soul. That seems to have gone missing somehow.

After a trip to a Warlock Doctor confirms that her soul has indeed vanished, she’s left with two options: buy a prosthetic one, or try to figure out what happened to the original. Feeling that she must have left her first one somewhere where she could find it, Aimee enlists the help of her mother and grandmother in a hunt for the wayward soul. But Aimee’s search for the missing part of her is about to bring forth some long-forgotten memories, and she’s going to learn what it really means to have everything in life that’s really important.

A short story.

A long-held axiom maintains that morality cannot be legislated; morality, after all, is a personal concept that comes from within each individual, while laws passed supposedly for the good of all are imposed from without.

So, what happens when the government steps in to regulate a particular human trait and everyone jumps on board to ensure the law doesn’t get broken? Conrad accidentally breaks one of the laws of the land and finds himself being pursued by bystanders and police alike, he quickly discovers that one simple mistake could be the end of his freedom…and possibly his life.

A short work of a dystopian future from our Orbits sci-fi/fantasy line.

July 1969, and mankind is on the Moon. Both the United States and Soviet Russia have lunar bases, and both are in trouble.

Back on Earth, Anne Travers has learned she is about to be visited by an old friend from America, Doctor Patricia Richards. Lance Corporal Bill Bishop is aware of the visit, and is on hand to meet Richards.

She brings with her a surprise, one which the Americans and Russians wish to get their hands on. But the only man who can truly help Anne, Colonel Lethbridge-Stewart, is away in Scotland.

It’s a game of cat and mouse, as Anne and Bishop seek to protect the life of an innocent baby – one that holds the secrets to life on the Moon.

The first book in the second series of Lethbridge-Stewart novels.

A series of novels from the classic era of Doctor Who, starring Anne Travers and Colonel Lethbridge-Stewart, based on the characters and concepts created by Mervyn Haisman and Henry Lincoln.

Kate Lawless, nineteen, is all alone in the world and struggling at the moment to make ends meet. Although answering a World Security League all-call for psychics is dangerous in these phobic times, she is tempted by the promise of reimbursement for just showing up. Screenings take place in a hotel conference room. When hers goes very well—a shocker—she is checked in so that she can undergo further testing. Staying at the ritzy hotel is quite a treat for Kate. The Christmas decorations are beyond beautiful. The festive background music reminds her of past holidays, most of them celebrated with a foster family or with other kids living in the youth ranch or orphanages that have been her life since the age of two. Her holiday plans this year? Enjoy this surprise vacay to the max, take the money, and pay her past-due rent.

Nikolai Nycov, a Russian member of the WSL team, is assigned to her. While he claims that he’s only interested on a professional level, he won’t stop meddling in her personal life. He comes off as deliberately distant one minute; helpful, the next. Although annoying, this actually intrigues Kate, as does the fact that her clairvoyance gets a psychic boost whenever Nikolai is physically close.

Distracted by her growing feelings for him, she finds it harder and harder to lock onto Mbali Tinibu, the ruthless Sierra Leone civil war criminal she is helping the WSL locate. Kate finally asks to work alone and is given permission in spite of Nikolai’s objections. Only then does she realize how unpredictable and dangerous her psychic gifts can be. And having an annoying Russian around? Well, sometimes that’s not a bad idea.

Detroit. A tough town, where you have to be tough to survive. And few are tougher in facing the realities of the streets than the Firebird Scouts of Wayne County. But, are they tough enough to deal with the supernatural – in the form of a werewolf aiming to eat them up? A short work from our Spectres line from the author of Murder’s Not Cool. For readers ages 13 to adult.

Ever since they outlawed giving presents, only outlaws give presents.

What would happen if gift-giving and Christmas were outlawed? Some guys would do stuff just because they were told they couldn’t. For a couple of young desperadoes, looking to make reputations, laws were meant to be broken … especially when they’re hungry for pizza.

A short work of alternate history from our Orbits line.

Ian Baptiste was finally starting to see some light in his life after the tragic death of his wife. Following a significant promotion, he’d been able to move with his son into WhisperWood, an exclusive, gated neighborhood. His son was thriving and getting ready to go off to college. Ian’s most recent work with predictive analytics was attracting even more attention to him from the company executives. Still, something nagged at him. Something didn’t feel quite right. Something was off. All of his feelings came to a head when he looked through a crack in the wall behind his home and discovered something that both broke and awakened his heart. In the spirit of 1984, Brave New World, and Fahrenheit 451, Parable of Weeds is a speculative look at a possible future. A novelette (50 pages).

In a near-future world where the car is king and the people are divided between those who ride on a network of highways connecting the glittering hubs of the city, and those left on foot — the lowly “Peds” — who inhabit the lands that lie between them, Robert Balkoner has always believed these latter, even if disadvantaged, are well cared for by the city as a whole. These beliefs are shattered, however, when a freak auto accident thrusts him among the Peds, and he discovers a system more varied, complex, and sometimes horrific, than anything he might have imagined. Yet even here Balkoner also can find love, as well as a handful of rebels willing to barter their lives in a quest to improve conditions for themselves and their fellows. A novelette.

While serving as an artist-in-residence at a small Pacific Northwest college, stage actress Juliet McKenna is directing Gilbert & Sullivan’s The Sorcerer. Rivalries among the student cast are only to be expected–but are other troubles the work of the theater’s restless ghost?

Nonsense, Juliet insists, and with Sidhe-born senses to back her conclusions, she should know. But as the curtain rises on opening night, she’s forced to revise her opinions. With one performer in chains and another possessed, the show seems poised to end in disaster–because even if Juliet can improvise a new ending, she may not be able to free her students without revealing her own Sidhe origins.

Stephanie will do anything to make partner at her law firm, even if it means going on the totally unnecessary Caribbean vacation her boss sends her on, and returning with all the items on his stupid scavenger hunt list.

Little does she know that magic is hitching a ride on this vacation from hell, courtesy of her friend Nichole who has knit a little pirate-y magic into the sexy monokini bathing suit Stephanie has tucked away in her suitcase.

She may find all the items on her list, but what is she supposed to do about the pirate who sails away with her heart?

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Cicero Clayton and his gal pal, Suzy Mack, have had plenty of adventures in their fictional version of Halifax. After all, life as a cartoon character should be nothing but fun and excitement, right?

All things may be possible in the world of Cicero and Suzy, but the real adventure won’t begin until their show is cancelled – and that’s exactly what’s about to happen.

Please Don’t Talk About Me When I’m Gone is David Perlmutter’s follow-up to his previous life-of-cartoons short story release, Tooned Out.

Caleigh, a fledging empath, is thrilled to be at Rutledge Institute a.k.a. “Psychic High.” She has three goals: fit in at the institute, earn her high school diploma, and get a handle on her psychic gift. Miles has too many psychic talents to count. His cocky self-assurance and his know-it-all attitude annoy Caleigh. Even worse, he’s gorgeous  and knows it. But in the classroom, he is all business. Caleigh is irresistibly drawn to that professional, mature persona, and soon they discover that they work well together.

Because of this, the World Security League asks them to help a young woman who survived a mass murder in which five of her friends were brutally slaughtered. Her memories of the horror are repressed. Miles will have to hypnotize her to get the answers needed to solve the case. As for Caleigh, she’ll monitor the emotions of their subject to avoid irreversible trauma.

Simple enough, right? Only if things are really what they seem.

Winner of the 1987 Nebula Award!

Rachel has the mind of a teenage girl, but the body and the innocent heart of a young chimp. Sometimes when she looks at her gnarled brown fingers, they seem alien, wrong, out of place. She remembers having small, pale, delicate hands with painted fingernails. Memories lie upon memories, layers upon layers, like the sedimentary rocks of the desert buttes.

Aaron Jacobs, the man Rachel calls father, was a neurologist who discovered how to capture the electrical pattern of a living brain’s thoughts and memories. When his daughter died unexpectedly, the grieving father imposed the electrical pattern of the girl’s brain on a young chimp, creating Rachel, a chimp he recognizes as his daughter.

Rachel knows that she is a real girl – but when Aaron Jacobs dies, she must make her way in a world that treats her as nothing but an animal.

We’ve all heard the fairy tale of the girl who could spin straw into gold, and the creature that would demand her first-born as payment for helping her achieve the horrible tasks put to her by her father.

Let’s face it, though, The Brothers Grimm couldn’t get the facts of a story straight if their lives depended on it, and this classic tale of excess and woe is certainly no different. Here, revealed for the first time, is the absolutely true account of the events surrounding the spoiled little gold-spinner and her entire wretched family and the poor, innocent imp cheated out of what was rightfully his.

A hilarious retelling of a classic fairy tale from legendary wordspinner Nancy Springer.

Alaska, 1987. In a world where Alaska is still a Russian possession, charter captain Grigoriy Grigorievich has a stained past. As a major in the Czar’s Troika Guard, he was cashiered for disobeying a direct order.

Now, ten years later, Grisha charters out to a Cossack and discovers his past has not only caught up with him, but is about to violently change his future, and the future of all nine of the nations of North America as well.

Revolution against an oppressor, continent-wide alliances, and an epic struggle of a people to be free—spanning Alaska from the Southeastern Inside Passage to the frozen Yukon river, this is an epic tale of one man’s journey of redemption and courage to face old fears, new challenges, and help birth a new nation.

Syl Gordon just wants the perfect career and she thinks she’s found it. What could be easier than collecting plant specimens, even if she has to be a little deceptive about it? The jewel-eyed chancellor at The Simjul Research Institute seems to have fully accepted her less than truthful reason for being there. Now all she has to do is stay out of the way of temptation, and find her target specimen.

Jarek Mariltar has dealt with competitors anxious to learn more about his research, and friends anxious to find him a mate, but he has never before encountered anyone like Syl. He knows the accident-prone, fashion-conscious female is a fraud. He just can’t figure out who might have sent her. And he must protect the rare plant specimen from her amateur attempts to retrieve it at all costs.

Someone is manipulating them, but neither has a clue. They know they shouldn’t be spending so much time together, but they can’t seem to help themselves, nor can they refute their growing feelings for one another despite a relationship rooted in deception.

Sophie’s doctoral thesis stated magic was a psychosomatic phenomenon. Few took her seriously–she had a family reputation for strangeness and pointed ears to live down. In her research, she ran into Kevyn at a science fiction convention. When strange things happened, she slowly realized that she wasn’t going insane–magic was real.

Kevyn was a Fae trying to avoid family traditions. He lived on the run in the Human realms, making his living as a day actor, staying under the radar. On an acting gig at a convention, he met up with Sophie and realized that she could not only see through his magic, she had magic.

When Hunters showed up to drag Kevyn home and make him become an Advocate, he let Sophie capture him and take him home for research, thereby rescuing him from a fate worse than death — respectability and responsibility. Somewhere along the way, the lines between researcher and lab rat became blurred, then switched places, and the two of them discovered a magic of their own, and rescued each other.

Jamie Race is on the run. Not surprising for the world’s first shapeshifter.

All that stands between Jaime and a lifetime of incarceration are his wits, his unique ability and two girls, Amy and Celeste. A clandestine government organisation, the Company, killed his mother and is pursuing him relentlessly. Things couldn’t get much worse.

Wrong.

To complicate matters, Jamie suddenly develops the ability to change into females. How does a nineteen year old boy of limited sexual experience cope when he suddenly finds that a macho biker who saves his life has the hots for him? Or rather, her. What is his circus star girlfriend, Celeste, going to say when she learns out that he slept with a biker? Not to mention the gay martial arts instructor, Amy, who falls for him when he is a girl…

Jamie seeks refuge with Theo Tanis, a millionaire businessman with a secret life. His first mistake is discovering Theo’s deadly passion. His second was falling for Theo’s super model girlfriend, Samantha. He soon learns it isn’t wise to piss off a serial killer.

Jamie leads Theo and Dr Locke, the Company’s ruthless scientist, on a wild and hair raising chase through the wilds of outback Australia, with his freedom and his life at stake.

Mia Tagliaro was born with the ability to communicate with the dead, the reason her parents sent her to a weekend camp for kids with similar talents when she was just eight. With the help of seasoned clairvoyants, she learned that she wasn’t a freak at all. There were lots of other people just like her, in particular a boy camper her age named TC, who got vibes from the living and the dead.  By the end of their stay, Mia and TC had shared more than just secrets about their “sidekicks,” their nickname for psychic abilities. They shared a first kiss and a vow they’d never lose touch.

That was then. Now eighteen, Mia is quite comfortable in her skin and frequently passes along messages to the living from departed friends and family. She also helps the police with missing persons cases, loving the rush she gets when the lost are found. Though she hasn’t heard from her first crush, TC, for nearly a decade, Mia still thinks of him.  So it’s quite a shock when they run into each other at a school dance. Tall, athletic, and definitely gorgeous, TC, who calls himself Cooper now, seems just as amazing as she remembers. Then he tells her that his sidekicks deserted him years ago and actually uses the word freak when talking about them. Even worse, he lies when he says they can be friends again. Just when Mia is ready to give up on him, the ghost of Cooper’s dad begs her to try a little harder. But how can she reach a guy who not only thinks she’s a freak but deliberately keeps his distance? And what will happen when the spirits of local murder victims suddenly begin haunting her?

Alexi’s malfunctioning magic made him a sitting duck when it came to husband-hunting Fae women. He knew he had to find a place where he could hide and make a living before he became completely bereft of magic, and ended up in Vegas, where his wonky magic wouldn’t raise any eyebrows.

Megan was a Halfling Fae who made her living as a magician. She had enough magic to know Alexi was in deep trouble, and enough sense not to tell him she was a halfbreed. She took him on as her assistant because she thought they would both be safe with each other, and because he needed her help even more than she needed his.

Eventually, their working friendship turned to close friendship, partnership, looking out for each other. And then they realized they not only needed each other, but wanted each other.

However, there was Alexi’s doomed magical heritage, and hungry Fae women caught in Need still on the prowl, and what chance did a halfbreed woman have against all that?

Quinn Riley wasn’t born. He was created. Constructed of artificial DNA, he was designed as the perfect soldier, explorer or assassin. His destiny is clear…until the scientists who created him abduct him in infancy.

Quinn was raised as human, oblivious of his true origins. He had a normal childhood, planned for a normal career as a doctor. But the day he got his M.D., his whole life changed. Socrates, the company that funded his creation, found him. And Quinn learns the truth of who or what he is.

With the help of his best friend, a renegade scientist, and a Hawaiian girl who shares his love of surfing, Quinn goes on the run. Or tries to, until Socrates catches up with him.

It’s time for Quinn to fulfil his destiny, and Socrates will use any means, up to and including murder, to force him to become the inhuman creature he was bred to be. The only question that remains is whether the years of being part of a family, of being loved and taught to love, will be able to overcome what was bred into him.

Can Quinn’s learned humanity override his man-made genetic programming?

Though Everly Sayers makes every effort to be friendly to new student Roone Thorsen, he doesn’t actually acknowledge her until he needs help with physics. Tall and a little on the teddy-bear side physically speaking, Roone falls somewhere in the middle when it come to the guys in her senior class, words actually imprinted on the black cause bracelet he wears.

Turns out they have more than seventh period study hall in common.  They’re both avoiding dating if for different reasons. Since the best way to deter wannabe suitors is to be involved in a real relationship, they decide to fake one even if it means they’ll have to show up at the Christmas dance as a couple.

That night is an eye opener for Everly on several levels. First of all, Roone is quite a sight in his tux, which shows off his muscular frame instead of camouflaging it the way his boxy casual clothing does. Second, the kiss they share just for show somehow rocks her world. And third, with a flick of a finger, Roone mysteriously maneuvers a rogue chandelier that crashes to the crowded floor, saving a lot of dancers in the process.

Or did he? Not quite believing her eyes, which suddenly have hearts in them, Everly is reluctant to admit that Roone is not only as far from somewhere in the middle as possible, he just might be out of this world.

“This is not the Russia I remember.”
Baba Yaga, legendary witch and mistress of the chicken-legged hut Izbushka, has awakened to find her ancient homeland a blasted, nearly lifeless wasteland. Forestland has vanished, the old spirits are gone, and even humanity has nearly disappeared.
“You are stubborn as we were stubborn, fierce as we were fierce, self-reliant as we were self-reliant.”
One young man, Josef, finds himself caught up in Baba Yaga’s search for answers. But even with Josef’s insight, and with all the magic in Russia at her fingertips, will Russia’s most notorious sorceress be able to restore her homeland to even a shadow of what it was?
This title is published by Uncial Press and is distributed worldwide by Untreed Reads.

Cassie Gordon is up for sale on the notorious flesh auction block of the Fortis Cluster. The man who pays a fortune for her promises to deliver her to sanctuary. His only demand is for payment in kind—rescue from an untenable situation. The price—marriage.

The rogue trader who travels the shadowy byways of questionable commerce in three star systems may not be what he seems. Sebastian Asteril’s past begins to surface as Cassie builds a new life for herself in the Crestar System. How could her husband have once been a high-ranking officer in the elite Seventh Fleet of the mighty Mariltar Nation when all the evidence points to his illegal trade in shlil dust?

The mission that has consumed him becomes an intolerable burden when Sebastian learns that the evil that delivered Cassie to the auction block stalks her still. Somehow, he has to keep her safe. Somehow, he must protect his wife from the vicious alien force that wants her back.

The war in Faerie is over, and David Sullivan’s Cherokee friend, Calvin McIntosh, has returned to Georgia. But the young brave has unknowingly left the portal to Galunlati open…and Spearfinger has entered his world.

A Stoneskin with powers over rocks and earth, who feeds on mortal flesh, Spearfinger has brought her Otherworldly terror into the realm of humanity. And now Calvin, with his newly awakened magic skills, must confront the insatiable fiend…and destroy the evil that would devour mankind!

WAR OF THE WORLDS

An evil brew has boiled over in the mystical realm of the Sidhie…a great conflict has devastated the lands of Faerie—and its earth-shaking repercussions can be felt across the boundaries of the mortal lands.

Young David Sullivan has been to the Otherworld, and knows of its mysteries…and its terrors. Now he must somehow find his way past the magically sealed borders of Tir-Nan-Og—for the life of a mortal friend hangs in the balance. And if the dreaded war continues unchecked, the harnessed power of the Sun will unleash the forces of chaos and death in two separate worlds on Midsummer’s Day…

“Deitz  gives every indication of having several more equally impressive tales up his sleeve. Few writers match personal crisis with epic conflict as effectively.” Dragon

Derek relishes being the bully of his Catholic school, and when Julian arrives with his purple hair, he seems like an easy target. When Julian starts asserting that God might actually be a woman, Derek is immediately enraged and becomes determined to get Julian to recant his thought, no matter the price. It soon becomes apparent that perhaps Julian has some strength Derek isn’t quite prepared for, and that the boy with the purple hair knows something more than he’s telling. A short story.

When a young man mysteriously shows up in the stables of Lord Robley and demonstrates an amazing ability to braid horse manes and tails, the Lord and Lady are quite taken with his abilities and have him stay on. Sure, he doesn’t speak a single word and there’s truly something odd about him, but his talents at braiding are second to none. When the Lady finds herself in need of the man’s skills for her own head of hair, the situation is looked upon as a bit scandalous, but nobody is prepared for the outcome that befalls them as a result. A short story.

Tired of war and killing, Earth’s Global Director Alexa Lange has developed a method of creating world peace by altering the population’s brainwave activity. Assisted by her hyper-intelligent and quirky helper Jonas, Alexa is excited that her plan is becoming a reality. That is, until something goes terribly wrong. A sci-fi novella.

From werewolves to witches, vampires to Santa Claus, private investigator Richard Dick has seen it all. From the warped mind of author Wade J. McMahan comes the most hilarious, pun-riddled tales of mystery and deceit ever to grace the virtual pages of an ebook. For the first time, all of the original Richard Dick mysteries are gathered together in one volume. These include:
“Bite This!”
“Fanged”
“Naughty or Nice?”
“The Lincoln Park Horror”
“Witches Witch?

In 2010, author Bryl R. Tyne introduced the character of Zagzagel, the angel with a tormented heart, and the fantasy and LGBTQ literary worlds were forever changed. Readers fell in love with Zag (as he was affectionately known) and his determination to do his job and please Big Papa while wrestling with his own conflicted feelings and desire to be loved.
For the first time ever, all six stories that were released individually are compiled into one complete collection: The Complete Zagzagel Diaries.

Emily Storey has just flipped her entire life: new town, new apartment, new roomie, new job. She has also gone blonde and lost some weight. What Emily hasn’t managed to do is kick other people’s random thoughts out of her head. That’s no easy feat for a psychic, especially one who has spent the last three years training to enhance her abilities, not suppress them.

Emily soon volunteers to feed the homeless one night a week, hoping she can help change other people’s lives, too. But her good intentions are annihilated when Detective Bastian Rossi, a cop who speaks at her orientation meeting, warns them all against giving rides, loaning phones, or offering shelter to the street people they’re feeding. Homelessness, he tells them, is a chronic problem that no single person can solve. All they’re supposed to do is hand out sandwiches.

In spite of all that, Emily’s first night on the street with her assigned partner goes very well until she begins intercepting random thoughts of the people they’re feeding. She quickly learns that some of them aren’t that needy while others have family willing to help out. But it’s the scattered thoughts of a mystery male presence that bother her most– “…blonde passing out sandwiches …thinks she’s saving lives…maybe I’ll do her next…” Is she the “blonde” and if so, what, exactly, is this creep planning to do to her?

Though Emily could easily confide in the dashing homicide detective who has somehow found a place in her heart, she hesitates. Bastian already has his hands full with a local serial killer. She can definitely take care of herself…unless the guy inside her head is actually the evil murderer he’s trying to find.

Shiloh Nilsen lives at one end of the street. Nathan Conti lives at the other. In all her eighteen years, they’ve never met in the middle. Why? Because he attends a special school for psychics in Wyoming while she goes to their neighborhood public school, Dillon High, right there in Montana.

Nothing changes until Shiloh loses a treasured family heirloom–a ring that dates back centuries. Desperate to find it before her mom figures out it’s missing, Shiloh crashes a birthday party just to meet Nate. If the local newspaper is right, he has psychic gifts. She hopes one of them will help her out of a mess she can only blame on herself.

Nate reluctantly agrees to accompany her to a local ghost town, the last place she wore the ring. With the weather getting worse by the minute, they search everywhere she hiked until the skies open up and they’re forced to take shelter in the ruins. Huddled there, they talk about his psychic abilities, a conversation that opens Shiloh’s mind to what’s really out there.

Unfortunately, Nate’s conclusion about the ring’s location isn’t at all what Shiloh was expecting. Instead of getting closure, she’s faced with a new dilemma. She can either confess everything to her mom, who will be crushed, or she can confront the person who has the ring, a guy who, according to Nate, gives off some very bad vibes.

The daughter of the High King has a regal name, but she is small and plain, so everyone just calls her Wren. As a mere girl, she is not her father’s heir; her cousin Korbye is. But Wren’s infallible sooth-sense tells her that Korbyn would make no good king. Nor is sooth-sense her only fate. Wren is the Kingmaker. When an ancient and dangerous ring of power finds its way to her, how should she use it?

Alyssha promised her father she wouldn’t return to Bandor, and for six years she has kept that promise. But the hit-and-run victim she found dying on a Granville street was a man she met in that other world, and his family won’t know what happened to him unless she goes back to tell them. She really has no choice, has she?

And the other dead man, the body lying in a willow grove near the road to Bandor Gan… Finding him there was just a terrible coincidence, wasn’t it?

Alyssha fervently hopes so. Yes, six years ago Bandor had troubles – cruel and repressive laws, workers exploited in the city’s woolen mills and the northern mines. Growing pains of the budding industrial revolution. Some people were angry, ready to fight. But these problems seem smaller and easier to solve, somehow, than the problems she’s left behind. Bandor is cleaner, kinder, more peaceful, more right, than the frantic world she inherited in 21st Century America.
Anyway, the problems aren’t hers to solve. There’s so much country here that these troubles don’t touch. She’ll go to the nomadic village where her friends are, where she was happy all those years ago.  She’ll study with the old kura, learning to be a teacher, a healer. Her life will mean more, here among these cheerful, pleasant people, than it would mean in Granville. She’ll find her home here, and she’ll be content.

And, as in a fairy tale, there’ll be a happy ending. She and Kardl loved each other back then, when they were children. Now they’re grown up, and the daydreams that sustained her in Granville will come true at last. Kardl will be here, waiting for her, as she’s waited all these years for him…

Won’t he?

In a future world of deadly solar flares and cloned dinosaurs, an investigative journalist sets out to uncover the truth about an urban myth: the Laundress of Silver Lake. As he wanders the banks of the lake he discovers some mysteries are better left unsolved.

A short story from our Orbits sci-fi/fantasy line.

Lawyer H.L. Snodgrass has it all: a successful practice, a devoted wife and a passionate boyfriend. When he decides to sell off a family heirloom, his cozy life takes a drastic turn for the worst. Now, he and the ghost of his great-great-great grandfather have to get it back before a Gypsy curse destroys everything. Add in a furry junk dealer, a leaky waterbed and a nun in jail, and Snodgrass is in more trouble than Dickens ever dreamed up for Scrooge!

The girl named Saffron knows family and clan the way she knows earth and sky, as absolutes. Of course, after a separation of four years, she looks forward to seeing her grandmother again, and makes a gift for her, a clay spindle. When Grandmother does not know who she is or what her gift is for, Saffron’s world is shattered. What good is a circle of clay now? How can anything ever make sense again?

Awakened from magical sleep, Emrillian Warhawk grew up in the modern, technological world of Moerta, 2000 years away from Quenlaque and Lygroes. There, the legends of Athrar Warhawk and Quenlaque, Braenlicach and the Zygradon were nothing but fanciful tales warped beyond all recognition. Raised by Mrillis the enchanter, she knew the truth, and sought out friends among the Archaics, who believed in the promise and prophecy of Quenlaque and the return of Athrar. Only they had access to star-metal, the Threads, and the magic of the Rey’kil.

Then the authorities threatened their sanctuary to confiscate star-metal to use in weapons of war. Emrillian and Mrillis fled back to Lygroes through the tunnel under the sea, accompanied by Grego, a friend with inborn magic who had sworn loyalty to Athrar and Quenlaque. In Lygroes, where only 200 years had passed, they joined forces with Baedrix, descendant of Lycen, and prepared for the awakening of Athrar, the dismantling of the dome of Threads that kept Lygroes hidden from the modern world, and the final battle with Edrout, son of the Nameless One.

With the help of Archaics who crossed to Lygroes and awakened their own inborn magic, Emrillian, Baedrix, and Grego set out to retrieve Braenlicach from hiding and find the lost Zygradon to heal and awaken Athrar. Time was their enemy as Edrout gathered his forces and armies from the modern world surrounded them — and failure could mean the destruction of the entire world.

When a dog discovers that he can’t be a witch’s familiar because he’s white, he sets off on a quest to be the faithful aide to an angel. As his sense of smell leads him from one person in need to another, will he find the ethereal being he’s looking for or will his nose, in fact, lead him to the last place he’d ever expect to find his real purpose in life? A short story.

Tommy is taking Curt home to meet his parents for Thanksgiving. The only redeeming factor to sitting down to dinner with his family and their decade-old strained relationship is Tommy’s love for his mother’s cranberry sauce. What he’s about to discover is that every great recipe, whether for relationships or cranberry sauce, has a secret ingredient that makes everything better. A short story from our Diversity line.

‘Nuzzink in ze vorld can schtop me now!’

There’s a new TV show about to hit the airwaves, but Colonel Lethbridge-Stewart won’t be tuning in. With the future of the Fifth Operational Corps in doubt he’s got enough to worry about, but a plea from an old friend soon finds Lethbridge-Stewart and Anne Travers embroiled in a plot far more fantastical than anything on the small screen.

Can charismatic star Aubrey Mondegreene really be in two places at the same time? What lengths will ailing entertainment mogul Billy Lovac go to in order to reach his audience? And is luckless journalist Harold Chorley really so desperate that he’ll buy into a story about Nazi conspiracies from a tramp wearing a tin foil hat?

There’s something very rotten at the heart of weekend television, and it isn’t all due to shoddy scripts and bad special effects.

When two young men get lost in Alaska’s mountainous wilderness, they slowly begin to die of exposure. As their senses become numb, they become aware of a third man traveling with them at times, and are too disoriented to make contact. When the two young men collapse in exhaustion and give themselves over to death, the mysterious third man appears again. Is he there to help, hinder…or is he even there at all?

Based on a phenomenon experienced in the real world by various adventurers including mountaineers on Everest and by the Shackleton survivors in the Antarctic, The Third Man redefines the modern ghost story.

Jessie is tired of dealing with her drunk mother and life in a rough part of town, and when a creepy woman approaches her one morning and advises her to pay attention to Shakespeare’s As You Like It in her English class she shrugs off the recommendation. After all, what relevance does Shakespeare have with her life? A chance encounter with an unusual toad, however, is about to completely alter Jessie’s perceptions of what matters in the world, and might just provide her with an unexpected happily-ever-after.
A short story.

Meghianna was chosen as the next Queen of Snows before she was born. Megassa, her sister, should never have been born. Mrillis watches both daughters of the Warhawk as they grow up and choose the paths of their lives. They could be part of the fulfillment of the prophecy of the Three Drops of Blood–but which one will wait, and which one will abominate? The choices the sisters and their teachers make could affect the destiny of the World for centuries to come.

Riley McConnell, 19, loves living in San Antonio while she attends the University of Texas. Her major: public health.  Although grateful that her aunt and uncle took her in when her mother died, she welcomes the break from them and her three young cousins. How she wishes she could forget advertising for a housemate to share the rent. But her part-time job selling tacos in a mall food court just isn’t cutting it.

Zander Bennett, 23, is also separated from his family by choice. A veteran of Operation Enduring Freedom, he lives in a trailer park near Brook Army Medical Center where he receives care for injuries sustained in Afghanistan.  Zander is a physical and emotional wreck, and the psychic gift that was an asset overseas is now as useless as his military training.

Or so he thinks, until he spots a zombie in the mall food court on Halloween night. To most, the guy with the creepy face paint is just another costumed shopper among hundreds. But Zander knows recon when he sees it, and this dude is definitely sizing up the area as well as the pretty brunette bagging tacos. Even weirder, he has buddies doing the same. Zander’s skin actually crawls, a feeling not experienced since his return to the states. Should he warn the pretty brunette? Or is his paranoia just another symptom of his troubled state of mind?

If you ever thought the life of a cartoon character was one of ease and unbridled joy, think again. Janey the Robot and her pals have to work plenty to earn their keep, and they know it. Which is why they take it the wrong way when they learn their show has been cancelled.

Told in a compelling documentary style, this short story will make you rethink the place of the cartoon character in Hollywood.

When he arrived at the New England town of Vanitas, all that Caleb Rushton wanted was an escape from the life of a seaman. What he found there included murder, a ghost-like apparition, a multi-layered trail of deception, and a need for his carpentry skills to help in the building of a gigantic church organ powered by steam.

A great blend of steampunk and horror from our Orbits sci-fi/fantasy short story line.

Jocelyn is a complete pest, She’s constantly playing practical jokes and has no problems beating up boys. Not quite the person you want around you when you’re trying to enjoy your summer art class on a college campus.
When Jocelyn decides to take out her inner aggressions on the cafeteria’s vending machines, it’s not just the students who decide it’s time to do something about the biggest bully on campus. After all, even a vending machine has feelings.
Jocelyn is about to learn a very dangerous lesson. Sometimes the least healthy item in a vending machine isn’t the weeks-old chocolate, but the machine itself.
A short story.

In the year 2053, Dallas bounty hunter Mina Maxwell’s goal is to reach Global status, and she is only three catches away from the needed 25. During one of her hunts, she lets criminal Roberto Franco go in order to capture his higher-ranking boss. It is a mistake that will come back to haunt her.

As she continues on toward her goal, she battles with the demons of her past, among them being Damon Wolfe, her Global bounty hunter lover who left her without explanation. Attempting to heal the damage is Mina’s good friend, musician Jackson Kincade, who has been hinting at taking their friendship to the next level if she will let him.

All hope for the future shatters when Roberto returns, hunts her down and kidnaps her. His plan: weaken her body and crush her spirit so he can sell her to the highest bidder.

For almost thirteen years, Vivia has been a child. Now, suddenly, she’s a woman. That’s startling enough, but she’s pretty sure she can learn to handle it. She’s not so confident, though, about other things. She’s begun to know what people are feeling. She can change what they’re feeling. She can make things happen—make water boil, make the wind around the campfire slacken—just by willing them to happen. All this is unsettling, but even scarier is the fact that she’s been careless with her new-found powers. Her older brother knows what she can do, what she’s becoming. Witchery, he calls it, and he also knows what will cure her. Now Vivia has a choice to make, and she’d better make it fast.

 

Magical tracks of silver and gold connect our world to others. But now an evil wind blows among them all—bringing with it the scent of war…

Lugh Samildinach, High King of Tir-Nan-Og, has been deposed and imprisoned, and the throne of Faerie is under siege. Those who would seize its power bear little love for humankind, and will risk everything to defend their weakening borders from the unwitting invasion of mortal land developers—even if it means drowning the entire state of Georgia. David Sullivan, human liason between mortal and Faerie, must summon his friends to aid both races. Armed with weapons of iron and magic, they must rescue the captured Faerie King and forestall the despoilers of David’s beloved homeland.

But even as the fate of thousands hangs in the balance, a very personal tragedy raises the stakes for David alone…who has discovered just what he stands to lose if he should fail.

It is an age when kings and gods rule Ireland. The sun, but a pale orb, labors across somber skies; the moon and stars, distant memories. Ash falls upon the land like fine gray snow, while crops wither in the fields and famine creeps into every home.
It is an age of endless wars and chaos. Kings, great and small, fight among themselves for land, wealth and power. Ships from distant lands bring plague to coastal villages and certain death for all who fall ill.
Families cower about their fires calling upon their gods, the old and new, for salvation. Yet, the old gods of the Druids, the Lords of the Sidhe, are falling back in the face of the irresistible Christian incursion.
Within this maelstrom of inevitable change, Ossian, a Druid among the Eoghanachts, battles Christian priests and their Holy Trinity, but risks losing everything he holds dear—including the eternal love of a goddess.
Richly steeped in the sights, sounds and emotions of the sixth century, this historical novel allows a glimpse into an Ireland that exists today only in conjecture, and gives insight into the people whose presence may only be felt and never seen—like waves in the wind.

To a future girl, Mishell, who flies with the aid of anti-gravity wings, the death in a freak accident of a beloved older brother, Mykel, is hard to accept. Why had it happened? To Mykel, of all people? Why ?
Rebelliously going AWOL from her home spacecraft, cruising  the sky of an earth-like planet, Mishell  is worshipped by primitive people who believe she is an angel. After she rescues one of them, their faith in her is boundless, and she begins to understand the weight of the question, “Why?”
A short story.

RIDDLE, RING, AND QUEST
In Georgia’s Blue Ridge Mountains, tales are told of strange lights, of mysterious roads…of wondrous folk from enchanted realms. All these are hidden from mortal men, and those who have the gift to look on them are both blessed and doomed…
THE WINDMASTER
Young David Sullivan never dreamed that the myths of marvels and magic he loved were real. But in his blood was the gift of Second Sight. And near his family’s rural farm lay an invisible track between worlds…where he would soon become a pawn in the power game of the Windmaster, an evil usurper among those the Celts called the Sidhe. David’s only protection would be a riddle’s answer and an enchanted ring…as he began his odyssey of danger into things unknowing and unknown…
“A SPECIAL MAGIC…A DELIGHT FROM START TO FINISH.” —Sharon Webb
“WINDMASTER’S BANE has heart, an easy humor, and the simple wisdom of compassion.” —Michael Bishop

What do women want? Well, if Pat Murphy is to be trusted (and we’re not saying she is), women are looking for trouble. And in this collection of powerful stories, they find it — at an archeological dig in the Southwest, in the urban alleys, in California suburbs, in the old West, in ironic fantasy settings.
Over the past 25 years, Pat Murphy has been writing stories that garner critical attention and win awards. Her work is difficult to categorize, living on the boundaries between genres. But her characters are easy to recognize. They are troublemakers, every last one of them.

The sun’s intense draw lures out all the people of the world, while agoraphobic Chava Logan hunkers down inside her San Francisco apartment in terror. Slowly, more and more people succumb to the allure of the sun.

The Sun Pandemic is a global phenomenon that no one seems to understand or be able to fight. Alone in her apartment, Chava struggles against this unknown force. Can her neurotic behaviors actually save her life? A short story from our Orbits sci-fi/fantasy line.

Child of Blood or Child of Life, both born in a fierce winter storm. Mrillis was orphaned in a battle against the Nameless One, the most evil enchanter the World had ever known. Raised by the most powerful Rey’kill enchanter of their time, Mrillis and Ceera grew up as brother and sister, and discovered their destinies and magical talents – and knew they would always be together.

When the Nameless One targeted Mrillis, to either destroy him or turn him into the Child of Blood, all the armies of the World joined together to defeat him. He left three children, Three Drops of Blood, according to prophecy. The oldest, a boy, became Mrillis’ friend. Endor, Mrillis and Ceera grew up together, exploring their talent, learning their destinies, and fighting to find a cure from the ravages of star-metal that poisoned their world.

Almost by accident, Ceera attempted to use star-metal as metal, and tame it. And from her hammer, the Zygradon was born, to harness all the magic of star-metal in the world.