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

Inheriting your uncle's supervillain business is more complicated than you might think. Particularly when you discover who's running the place. Charlie's life is going nowhere fast. A divorced substitute teacher living with his cat in a house his siblings want to sell, all he wants is to open a pub downtown, if only the bank will approve his loan. Then his long-lost uncle Jake dies and leaves his supervillain business (complete with island volcano lair) to Charlie. But becoming a supervillain isn't all giant laser death rays and lava pits.

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

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

Ashley Perrin is fresh out of college and starting a job as a community liaison for the Third District–the city’s only sector with more alien residents than humans. Ashley’s barely found where the paper clips are kept when she’s beset with constituent complaints–from too much noise at the Annual Lupidian Celebration Parade to a trip-and-fall chicken to a very particular type of alien hornet that threatens the very city itself. And if that’s not terrifying enough, Ashley is next up at the office karaoke night.

Colonel David Gath is an aging astronaut on his last expedition to the International Space Station. He was no one’s first choice; he was a replacement of a replacement. After learning the United States has been attacked with a weaponized disease, Gath convinces his crew to help him bring a vaccine from the Station to Earth. As they cross a devastated land, facing violent infected, mercenaries, and a traitor determined to see them fail, Gath is haunted by the fear he may have led his crew to their deaths based on a lie.

A brain-rotting virus, which leaves its victims disoriented and hyper-violent, rages out of Cuba into the Florida Keys. The bewildered government destroys the mainland bridge and places the islands under quarantine. Inside this cordon, the population descends into chaos, as rival factions battle over dwindling resources, buildings become fortresses, boats lash together as defensible islands, and whole neighborhoods wall off into armed camps.

With the most explosive election in American history approaching, a new recreational technology from Euphoria Incorporated takes society to extremes never seen before, and a strange movement known as The Assembly of Balderdash gains uncanny power that no one can explain. Growing up in the ghetto of Cincinnati decades earlier, Amira Steele didn't think she was anyone special...but little did she know that her childhood crisis of conscience would eventually lead her to the very center of the world stage.

President John F. Kennedy once said, “Mankind must put an end to war or war will put an end to mankind.” Today, a new element has been introduced to the preparations—artificial intelligence. The United States, in its quest to rapidly and effectively defend the nation from a nuclear attack, has incorporated AI into its operation plan of response. But what if the artificial intelligence relied upon by the nation’s decision-makers is wrong? What if AI takes the controls of America’s nuclear response? Might it trigger nuclear war without justification?

As a villain for hire I followed those rules, facing down heroes in scripted fights to make them look good for the press and brand deals. Sure, losing every time was a pain, but the money was good. Well, decent. And it kept real heroes off my back. Well, usually.