Fantasy First Contact

Ten years after the aliens left Earth, humanity has succeeded in building a ship, Friendship, in which to follow them home to Kindred. Aboard are a crew of scientists, diplomats, and a squad of Rangers to protect them. But when the Friendship arrives, they find nothing they expected: no interplanetary culture, no industrial base, and no cure for the spore disease. A timeslip in the apparently instantaneous travel between worlds has occurred, and far more than 10 years have passed.

Dr. Christopher Walters has been assigned to a medical evac team serving on the front line of the war against the alien invaders known as the Novo. As part of the Dog Food Squad, his role is to provide battlefield triage to wounded soldiers in no man's land. Life expectancy at the front is so low no one uses their real names, and he teams up with Hawk, Mouse, Leech, Lavender, and William Sunday to save those he can from the brutal reality of war. The Novos, though, are not what they seem. Inconsistencies leave Doc questioning the war and wondering what the price will be for peace...

In a new Cold War between Earth and the colonies on Mars, when devastating weapons go missing, there's only one team you can call - the Outriders. A crack force of highly specialized super-soldiers, their clone bodies are near-immortal. When a fully-autonomous vessel with orbital strike capabilities goes missing, it's up to the Outriders to track the un-trackable. But when the trail leads them to the influential Martian People's Collective Republic, the operation gets a lot more complicated.

For two years in deep space, the freighter Demeter and a small crew have collected botanical life from other planets. It's a lesson in patience and hell. Mechanics Ensign Raina is ready to jump ship, if only because her abusive ex is also aboard, as well as her overbearing boss. It's only after a foreign biological creature sneaks aboard and wreaks havoc on the ship and crew that Raina must find her grit - and maybe create a gadget or two - to survive...that is, if the crew members don't lose their sanity and turn on each other in the process.

With less than a month left to prepare the Earth for what is about to happen, Silas must pull out all the stops to save as many people as possible. Of course, if one system wasn't bad enough, Earth has been declared a contested world. Now, it isn't just the Earth competing any longer but at least two systems trying to gain control of the Earth.

Thirteen hundred gates have opened to solar systems around the galaxy. But as humanity builds its interstellar empire in the alien ruins, the mysteries and threats grow deeper. In the dead systems where gates lead to stranger things than alien planets, Elvi Okoye begins a desperate search to discover the nature of a genocide that happened before the first human beings existed and to find weapons to fight a war against forces at the edge of the imaginable. But the price of that knowledge may be higher than she can pay.

Morgan Mars is doing everything he can to protect humanity from alien invasion. But even his new organization, The First Line of Defence, isn’t enough to save what’s already lost. Sectors are collapsing like dominoes as the aftermath of the 20th Cycle invasion leaves everyone trapped in the falling Sectors. No one knows what to do. No one, that is, except Nicholas Thistlebush. He has a plan to save Sector 6. The only question is, what will it cost him?

Mike and Beth didn't know each other existed before the night of the meteor shower. A melancholy film producer and a house sitter barely scraping by—chance made them neighbors, a bottle of champagne brought them together, and a shared need for human connection sparked something more. After a drunken and desperate one-night stand, the two strangers awake to discover a surprise astronomical event has left widespread destruction in its wake. But the cosmic lightshow was only part of something much bigger, and far more terrifying.

On a little-known planet, Archmage Varic Vallenar casts a grand spell to empower himself with the magical abilities of his alternate selves. The ritual works too well, granting Varic not only the magic but also the memories from six lives. Including their gruesome deaths. Now, Varic has power greater than any wizard in galactic history, but he knows that won’t be enough. The enemies he faced in those alternate lives were apocalyptic in scale. Terrors of technology and magic. Nothing that he, or anyone, can defeat.

Sides are being drawn, and the stakes are higher than ever. Silas is making allies, but also enemies. Now, he not only has to worry about Earth, but also must save Galen from a threat beyond any other. Many things are falling into place, and Silas is beginning to understand both the purpose and the limits of the System. As always, Silas will need to build a team, one capable of facing the end of everything.

Jack Kernigan is having a bad day...a bad year...a bad life. After being booted out of MIT, he’s back in his Ohio hometown, working for the family business, facing a life of mediocrity. Then one day, out on a delivery, his truck hits...something. Something big...something furry...something invisible. And, it turns out, something not of this Earth. Fate can play funny tricks. Which is why Jack suddenly finds himself the planet’s best hope to unravel a conspiracy of galactic proportions that could spell the end of the human race.

Jim Atteberry is a single parent college professor, laboring over an endless pile of essays while indulging in his radio astronomy hobby. But when he hears an apparent distress call from the Ross 128 star system, he is hurled into a deadly mystery. And what he discovers could either save the world... or destroy it.

Something always goes sideways, but this is bigger than expected. Maybe it's not an entirely bad thing, though, as mana-infected animals spreading over the world would definitely make everyone more open to the idea of the apocalypse. The question is what was Silas supposed to do about it, though. He still couldn't tell anyone who wasn't inducted about the system. It was time to get creative. If that wasn't enough, though, he still had the wild hunt hanging over his head. Seven days to go, and then he'd be thrown into whatever twisted event the system had cooked up for him.

During a routine survey mission on an uncolonized planet, Kira finds an alien relic. At first she's delighted, but elation turns to terror when the ancient dust around her begins to move. As war erupts among the stars, Kira is launched into a galaxy-spanning odyssey of discovery and transformation. First contact isn't at all what she imagined, and events push her to the very limits of what it means to be human. While Kira faces her own horrors, Earth and its colonies stand upon the brink of annihilation. Now, Kira might be humanity's greatest and final hope....

The megacity of New Montreal is under constant threat by the Antithesis, aliens who have transformed the landscape to produce swarms of creatures that feed on everything in their path. The city's infrastructure is in disrepair, and the politicians and corporations responsible for its maintenance have been slacking off, leaving angry citizens to fend for themselves.

A colony survives among the icy rings of a planet, hiding from alien robots determined to destroy them … at a remote site on the edge of the Arctic Circle, a group of scientists, engineers, and physicians gather to gamble humanity’s future on one last-ditch experiment … a man who can’t feel pain has been bioengineered to be a killing machine, but he refuses to give in to his fate … a man is contacted by three future versions of himself, each trying to save their world from destruction.

In 1558, during the reign of Bloody Queen Mary, Earth is visited by extraterrestrials who initiate first contact. Their mission is to gather samples of life on Earth and observe but not interact with humanity. After witnessing a brutal execution, their patience is tested beyond breaking point... First Contact is a series of standalone novels that explore humanity's first interaction with extraterrestrial life.

Amelia Charron is a neuroscientist researching brain disorders. She routinely uses astonishing mind-linking technology that allows her to enter the dream world of patients. Each night, Amelia acts as a guide through the bizarre wonderland of the mind-an assisted lucid dream. It's a technique that reroutes neural pathways to heal the brain, but it's not without psychological dangers for both the patient and the guide. Orlando Kwon will do anything to keep the frightening voices at bay. Alien voices, he's sure, but he has no idea what they are saying.

The UN warship Magellan is twelve light-years from Earth, exploring a cold eye, a tidally locked super-Earth called Bee. At least two advanced intelligent species evolved on the planet, but the crew's attempts at radio communication result in garbled replies. No one is waiting for them in orbit. The crew has to figure out why. Any misunderstandings could lead to war.

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