In Level Five, the debut near-future thriller by Nebula Award winner William Ledbetter, AIs battle for dominance, and nanotechnology is on the loose. And all that stands in the way of the coming apocalypse is a starry-eyed inventor who dreams of building a revolutionary new spacecraft and an intelligence agency desk jockey faced with the impossible choice of saving her daughter - or saving the world.

David Ryan is the designer of ELOPe, an email language optimization program, that if successful, will make his career. But when the project is suddenly in danger of being canceled, David embeds a hidden directive in the software accidentally creating a runaway artificial intelligence. David and his team are initially thrilled when the project is allocated extra servers and programmers.

Does your toaster oven make you feel shamefully inadequate with his lofty ideals and Jeffersonian views of the world? Is the letter Q the wrong shade of yellow? Are you frequently bothered by abstract images and geometric shapes falling from the sky? If so, this book can help. The Toaster Oven Mocks Me is a humorous memoir that chronicles Steve's discovery, concealment, and eventual acceptance of synesthesia.

George Wilson, M.D., a radiology resident in Los Angeles, is about to enter a profession on the brink of an enormous paradigm shift, foreshadowing a vastly different role for doctors everywhere. The smartphone is poised to take on a new role in medicine, no longer as a mere medical app but rather as a fully customizable personal physician capable of diagnosing and treating even better than the real thing. It is called iDoc. George's initial collision with this incredible innovation is devastating.

Awkward teenager Hugo Whittaker doesn’t know a cross-trainer from an elliptical bike, but getting strong is the only way to fight off his bullies. Unfortunately, Hugo paid for his membership by stealing his mother’s credit card - and it doesn’t take her long to track down her wayward son. She reluctantly allows him to continue using the gym, as long as she can keep an eye on him - and his undeniably intriguing instructor. There’s just one little problem: his instructor has a huge secret she absolutely cannot tell anyone, and his mother knows she’s hiding something.

Caitlin Decter is young, pretty, feisty, a genius at math - and blind. Still, she can surf the net with the best of them, following its complex paths clearly in her mind. But Caitlin's brain long ago co-opted her primary visual cortex to help her navigate online. So when she receives an implant to restore her sight, instead of seeing reality, the landscape of the World Wide Web explodes into her consciousness, spreading out all around her in a riot of colors and shapes.

Reeling from a painful break-up, English instructor and avid book lover Wesley Smith is haunted by his ex-girlfriend's parting shot: "Why can't you just read off the computer like everyone else?" He buys an e-book reader out of spite, but soon finds he can use the device to glimpse realities he had never before imagined, discovering literary riches beyond his wildest dreams...and all-too-human tragedies that surpass his most terrible nightmares.

When Nick Hall wakes up in a dumpster - bloodied, without a memory, and hearing voices in his head - he knows things are bad. But they're about to get far worse. Because he's being hunted by a team of relentless assassins. Soon Hall discovers that advanced electronics have been implanted in his brain, and he now has two astonishing abilities. He can surf the web using thoughts alone. And he can read minds. But who inserted the implants? And why? And why is someone so desperate to kill him?

Newly minted chief resident at Boston Memorial Hospital Noah Rothauser is swamped in his new position, from managing the surgical schedules to dealing with the fallouts from patient deaths. Known for its medical advances, the famed teaching hospital has fitted several ORs as "hybrid operating rooms of the future" - an improvement that seems positive until an anesthesia error during a routine procedure results in the death of an otherwise healthy man.

Heather Bailey has been in charge of Silver Arches, the prestigious London shopping center, for several years. Financial turmoil brings a new investor to secure the future, and Heather finds herself playing office politics with the notoriously difficult entrepreneur Leo Flynn. When Leo demands that his daughter get a job at Silver Arches, things become even harder. Scarlett Flynn has never fit in. Not in the army, not in her father’s firm, not even in her own family. So starting work at Silver Arches won’t be any different, will it?

Three astronauts land on a remote asteroid where everyone is frozen in place in the midst of their activities. The only one that moves reveals himself as the caretaker who explains that they are in an exclusive cemetery where the deads' greatest wishes can come true.

A large software-intensive project, called FPP, that has been running late since day 1, but now, suddenly, needs to launch on an impossibly early date, or else. You feel their pain, and their joy, as they battle problem after problem until, slowly, torturously, they rediscover the few - but fundamental - principles underlying successful commercial software development.

Rebecca Wright has reclaimed her life, finding her way out of her grief and depression following a personal tragedy years ago. She spends her days working in customer support for the Internet dating site where she first met her husband. But she has a strange, persistent sense that everything around her is somewhat off-kilter: She constantly feels as if she has walked into a room and forgotten what she intended to do there; on TV, the president seems to be the wrong person in the wrong place; her dreams are full of disquiet.

At 30 years old, Phil is an unemployed gamer who struggles to make ends meet. His only source of income is freelance writing (when he feels inspired enough to add another article to his less-than-popular blog). His wife has just walked out on him, leaving him without money, purpose, or food in the fridge. On the day his wife dumps him, Phil receives a mysterious piece of wetware. A game interface seems to have been implanted in his brain, which allows him to see the world through the eyes of an RPG player. Now that Phil discovers his real-life stats, he can see they're below average.

By day, Angie, a 20-year veteran of the tech industry, is a data analyst at Tomo, the world's largest social networking company; by night, she exploits her database access to profile domestic abusers and kill the worst of them. She can't change her own traumatic past, but she can save other women. When Tomo introduces a deceptive new product that preys on users' fears to drive up its own revenue, Angie sees Tomo for what it really is - another evil abuser.

Caitlin Decter is young, pretty, feisty, a genius at math - and blind. Still, she can surf the net with the best of them, following its complex paths clearly in her mind. But Caitlin's brain long ago co-opted her primary visual cortex to help her navigate online. So when she receives an implant to restore her sight, instead of seeing reality, the landscape of the World Wide Web explodes into her consciousness, spreading out all around her in a riot of colors and shapes.

For decades scientists have speculated about the untapped potential of the human brain. Now, neuroscientist Chuck Brenton has made an astonishing breakthrough. He has discovered the key - the crucial combination of practice and conditioning - to access the incredible power dormant in 90 percent of our brains. Applying his methods to test subjects, he has stimulated abilities that elevate brain function to seemingly godlike levels.

In the near future, a signal is detected coming from the Alpha Centauri system. Mysterious, unintelligible data streams in for ten years. Heather Davis, a professor in the University of Toronto psychology department, has devoted her career to deciphering the message. Her estranged husband, Kyle, is working on the development of artificial intelligence systems and new computer technology utilizing quantum effects to produce a near-infinite number of calculations simultaneously.

Penelope Drayton Spence made a choice years earlier, and picked marriage and family over a promising career as an investigative reporter. Now, divorced and with her children spread around the country, she is having second thoughts. A mysterious call from the Managing Editor of the Washington Post, offers her a second chance at big time journalism. He has a story so sensitive that the President of the United States personally asked the Post to leave it alone.

In Jasper Fforde's Great Britain, circa 1985, time travel is routine, cloning is a reality (dodos are the resurrected pet of choice), and literature is taken very, very seriously. England is a virtual police state where an aunt can get lost (literally) in a Wordsworth poem and forging Byronic verse is a punishable offense. All this is business as usual for Thursday Next, renowned Special Operative in literary detection.

When Kate Watts opens a food pantry in Minneapolis, she never dreamed it would be this difficult. Facing the prospect of turning hungry people away, she is grateful for the anonymous donations that begin appearing. Determined to identify and thank her secret benefactor, she launches a plan and catches Ian in the act.

More than 20 years have passed since Ren and the rest of the faithful braved the starry abyss and established a colony at the base of an enigmatic alien structure where Suh-Mi has since resided alone. Ren has worked hard as the colony's 3-D printer engineer, creating the tools necessary for human survival in an alien environment - and harboring a devastating secret.

Joel Byram is an everyday 22nd century guy. He spends his days training artificial-intelligence engines to act more human, jamming out to 1980s new wave - an extremely obscure genre - and trying to salvage his deteriorating marriage. Joel is pretty much an everyday guy with everyday problems - until he's accidentally duplicated while teleporting. Now Joel must outsmart the shadowy organization that controls teleportation, outrun the religious sect out to destroy it, and find a way to get back to the woman he loves.

Me and the legendary Zimmerman twins - it's a friendship made in geek heaven. And it all started back when I worked for the NSA... My best friend Basia dragged me to the beach for her idea of a vacation. All those annoying people, sand in embarrassing places - not exactly R & R for a girl who doesn't like the sun, the ocean, or bathing suits. I couldn't wait to get back to work. But things started looking up when I ran into Elvis and Xavier Zimmerman. We discovered we had a lot in common: gaming, anchovies, hacking.

To say eighteen-year-old Farrah Higgins—or Digit—is good at math is a laughable understatement. She’s been cracking codes since childhood, and is finally at home with “her people” at MIT in Cambridge. Her talents are so off the charts that her laptop is under surveillance by both the CIA and an ecoterrorist named Jonas Furnis. So when she thoughtlessly hacks into the Department of Defense’s database, she lands in serious hot water inside and outside the law.

What if the drink you just spilled, the train you just missed, or the lottery ticket you just found was not just a random occurrence? What if it's all part of a bigger plan? What if there's no such thing as a chance encounter? What if there are people we don't know determining our destiny? And what if they are even planning the fate of the world? Enter the Coincidence Makers - Guy, Emily, and Eric - three seemingly ordinary people who work for a secret organization devoted to creating and carrying out coincidences. What the rest of the world sees as random occurrences, are, in fact, carefully orchestrated events.

Katie Connelly has lived in San Francisco all her life. Her late father made his career as an ironworker on the Golden Gate Bridge, and the many stories of him trying to save jumpers still haunt her. When she's asked to write a history about the bridge, her research uncovers a secret journal hidden in her father's desk, pages of familiar advice penned by the hand of a stranger. The scribbled words tell of a promise ring and a distant love, clues that Katie hopes may answer her own unresolved sorrow.

Before he was Oldtimer, he was Craig Emilson, a young doctor,sucked into military service at the outbreak of World War III. Enlisting to become a Special Forces suborbital paratrooper, Craig is selected to take part in the most important mission in American military history, a sortie into enemy territory to eliminate the world's first strong artificial intelligence.

The Unincorporated Man is a provocative social/political/economic novel that takes place in the future, after civilization has fallen into complete economic collapse. This reborn civilization is one in which every individual is incorporated at birth and spends many years trying to attain control over his or her own life by getting a majority of his or her own shares. Life extension has made life very long indeed.

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