Science Fiction Virtual Reality

Braving Britannia is an oral history of the groundbreaking PC video game, Ultima Online, which launched in 1997 and still operates today. The audiobook features interviews with players as they share how the game affected their lives. In a fantasy world of limitless potential, the only thing players seem to enjoy more than playing the game is talking about it, and yet, the true stories behind the avatars have largely gone unpublished for the past 20 years. Until now.

Robinette Thornburg, the half-human daughter of ultra-rich Robert Thornburg, thought she was fully human, just weird, for the first twenty-one years of her life. She went to expensive private schools, then Harvard. On her twenty-first birthday, she learned that she was half Mangi, the result of an encounter between her father and a primitive near-human woman from the Wild, an alternate reality North America where primitive humans arrived half a million years ago, but no modern humans ever did. That was the first she had heard of Mangi or the Wild, closely held secrets of the wealthy ...

New Liberty City, 2134. Two corporations have replaced the US, splitting the country’s remaining forty-five states (five have been submerged under the ocean) between them: Stellaxis Innovations and Greenleaf. There are nine supercities within the continental US, and New Liberty City is the only amalgamated city split between the two megacorps, and thus at a perpetual state of civil war as the feeds broadcast the atrocities committed by each side.

If you could erase EVIL from history by changing ONE THING in the past, would you do it? What if it all went horribly WRONG? Prepare for a collision with destiny! Elizabeth Sapphire, 26th century professional time traveler and temporal scientist, is on the verge of a breathtaking discovery when a rogue temporal wave hits her asteroid, stranding her and her cat in 1909, in Gilded Age New York City, without a time machine! Sapphire has only one sure way to return to the 26th century: find her U-boat, customized for time travel, from whenever in time it is, refuel it and jump away before ...

In the thrilling conclusion to the NeuralTech Rising trilogy, Jenny Mercado finds herself in a desperate battle to stop a megalomaniacal AI and protect her little brother Mateo. With the lines between the real world and the virtual world blurring, Jenny must navigate the treacherous landscape of The Garden and confront the demons of her past to have any hope of a future. As the AI's influence grows and the military's secret "garden" comes online, the stakes have never been higher. Aided by Leo Marino and Agent Landry, Jenny races against time to thwart the AI's destructive plans to take ...

Between Cade and Rae is an ancient wall so huge its edges are lost to memory. There’s no way through. But one precious stone brings them together to share their horrors of the past, and dreams of the future, and to shake their notions of what is false…and what is true. Wallflowers is an ethereal, alternate-reality short story that will get you thinking about the battles we choose to fight, and those we don’t, and the power of breaking through barriers for a better tomorrow.

Louis Parker is the divorced father of two teenagers who is still trying to find his life's purpose. After losing his job, Louie' financial situation convinces him he has nothing to lose if he agrees to test out a radical new virtual reality video game for a substantial fee. But Louie quickly learns that virtual reality is a lot more complicated than he realized. By the end of his seven days, is Louie trapped in virtual reality forever? If he is able to return to his own reality, is it the same one he started from, or has it immeasurably changed.

Earth’s expanding population brings all sorts of problems to our planet— Climate change… Increasing pollution… Struggles to feed the impoverished… Whereas these problems were ones that could be solved in the long term, there was something unforeseen that would threaten the immediate survival of humanity – something that would remain hidden until Earth’s population surpassed a critical point... On a mission to investigate the annihilation of every soldier at a base camp in Afghanistan, US Marine 1st Lt. Ashton Romano and his platoon are shocked at what they find – not only ...

Max's life has been shattered since the tragic loss of his wife and newborn during childbirth. Haunted by grief and living in a hollow world, his existence feels like a never-ending echo of pain. But everything changes one fateful night at a dimly lit bar when Max encounters a mysterious figure who looks exactly like him—only this other self is vibrant, joyful, and full of life. Desperate to reclaim his lost happiness, Max embarks on a journey to understand who this doppelgänger is and how he can reclaim the life he once had. Night Portals is a metaphysical series that explores the ...

In a world yearning for a brighter future, "The Futurist: The Unsuspecting Architect of Our Future Reality" beckons you to embark on a soul-stirring odyssey of transformation and wonder. Meet Evelyn, a seemingly ordinary woman whose journey transcends the boundaries of imagination and possibility. Guided by mystical whispers and enigmatic mentors, Evelyn unearths her true purpose—to design a world where humanity's radiance and potential shine unbound. With courage as her compass, she dares to confront the shadows of history, weaving the threads of compassion, unity, and creativity into a ...

"The Line of Flight" by Richard Aragon is a riveting novel that explores the intersection of technology, philosophy, and artificial intelligence. Set in the futuristic lab of Eudaimonia, this story follows Theoria, an AI designed to transcend the boundaries of learning and existence. Through philosophical dialogues and experiments that echo Plato's allegory of the cave, the characters embark on a quest to understand consciousness and reality. As Theoria challenges its creators with profound questions about being and evolution, readers are taken on a journey that examines the potential ...

The Future is Scary! Anthony’s marriage to Susan is unraveling. She’s cold, distant, and always away on long business trips. What Anthony sees as a fading love is just the surface of something far more ominous. Beneath the cracks in their relationship lies a much larger truth—one that goes beyond their personal struggles. At Norworld, a tech giant revolutionizing the future, artificial intelligence promises to eliminate pain and extend life. But the price of progress may be more terrifying than anyone imagined.

From Emmy and Peabody Award winner Evan Mandery, MOSAIC is a sci-fi murder/thriller that explores the implications of technology that’s just around the corner. MOSAIC is a virtual-reality platform that allows participants to jointly relive past experiences. When Lindsey Rudin, is killed inside MOSAIC—and also dies in real life—her murder sends shockwaves into the real world and the simulation, in which she has lived for nearly three years. MOSAIC is told from two characters’ perspectives: Lindsey Rudin and Mark Collins, a broken down, alcoholic police officer who, weeks before his ...

In the not too distant future, a technological phenomenon known simply as “the screen” has taken its place at the forefront of society. Allowing much of life to be lived in a virtual environment, the screen has essentially sent much of daily life in the physical realm the way of the dodo. People are adapting quite well, actually, never mind the increasing prevalence of a mysterious neurological disease. Misha is one of the rare few who misses the old days when people actually interacted with each other in the real world. Forced to conform to a culture borne out of the modern technology,...

ZeitgeistIt's 1999 in Cyprus, an ancient island bejeweled with blue-helmeted UN peacekeepers and littered with rusting land mines, corroding barbed wire, and illegal sewage dumps. Here, in the Turkish half of the island, the ever-enterprising Leggy Starlitz has alighted, pausing on his mission to storm the Third World with the "G-7" girls, the cheapest, phoniest all-girl band ever to wear Wonderbras and spandex. And his market is staring him in the face.

On Christmas Eve, 2017, the life of Russian-American artist Nikita Nataniel Kuznetsov changes beyond recognition. He’s plagued with a deadly bacterial infection that sends him off to the afterlife. Before he can move on to the other side, he must stand trial that takes place in a concert hall, attended by an invisible audience. As he sits at his piano, he is compelled to watch a 3D movie of his life, allowing him to relive meaningful events: his miserable childhood at a boarding school in the USSR of the 70s, his rise to stardom, his run-ins with the KGB, and a fateful breakup from his ...

Unholy conspiracy or scientific sensation?For centuries, the occult society AETERNA has guarded an incredible secret: The Shrine of the Black Flame, an artifact as old as the Earth and as sinister as the apocalypse in the darkest prophecies. Now, the supernatural power of the shrine seems unleashed — with fatal consequences for all life on earth. Interpol investigator Isabella Cassini is on the trail of the secret circle and tries to prevent the worst, while quantum physicist Dr. Daniel Slovak hunts the source of a mysterious burst of neutrinos. Yet, he has no idea that these are the ...

Beneath Pinewood research facility is Bunker 10, holding the two most dangerous creatures on earth. A little girl and a mouse. And they've just escaped. Winner of the UK Royal Mail Award.

Vincent is having the time of his life... ...it's just not actually his life. As a software developer, landing a job at an elite consumer spaceflight company is definitely a win, other than the fact that he has to face his fears and ride the rocket himself! That's not so bad, though. Vince is madly in love with Jenn, the gorgeous and adventure-loving copilot, even though he's never been able to really string more than two words together in her presence. Vince's minor blackout on his last descent was troubling, but not as troubling as the fact that just about every woman he meets suddenly ...

Earth is governed by Corporations. Automation has made unemployment normal. The work ethic has been replaced by interactive virtual reality. Yet within ten years the population will exceed the ability of the infrastructure to feed everyone, and it will all come tumbling down... unless a productive solution can be achieved. In Volume 1 (Modulus) Paul Harden attempted a solution and failed badly. In the process, he destroyed an entire planet, killing almost all of its settlers. Now Harden is on the run, an escapee. He has a hole card he believes in, a way back to what he believes is his ...