The #1 New York Times bestselling author of Seveneves, Anathem, Reamde, and Cryptonomicon returns with a wildly inventive and entertaining science fiction thriller—Paradise Lost by way of Phillip K. Dick—that unfolds in the near future, in parallel worlds.In his youth, Richard "Dodge" Forthrast founded Corporation 9592, a gaming company that made him a multibillionaire. Now in his middle years, Dodge appreciates his comfortable, unencumbered life, managing his myriad business interests, and spending time with his beloved niece Zula and her young daughter, Sophia. One beautiful autumn day, while he undergoes a routine medical procedure, something goes irrevocably wrong. Dodge is pronounced brain dead and put on life support, leaving his stunned family and close friends with difficult decisions. Long ago, when a much younger Dodge drew up his will, he directed that his body be given to a cryonics company now owned by enigmatic tech entrepreneur Elmo...

Joey is one of those whom “Trinity” has titled “Irreverent.” He refuses to worship the evil organization and accept the eternal consequences waiting those who do. Instead, he searches for souls to rescue with his message of salvation. Joey battles his fear, pain, doubt, and faith along his epic journey. It is the situations he encounters that helps give him the miraculous answers.Chaos and evil rule the world. You must bear the brand, or run from the mark and fend for your life. The worldwide organization policing the mark is “Trinity.” Without their brand on your hand or forehead you cannot buy anything of value; especially those things that sustain life. Those not bearing the brand must hide and figure out a way to survive the demonic forces searching them out. “Trinity” is more than an organization. It is a religion that will drag you to Hell. There is no turning back once you have received their brand. Joey is one of those whom “Trinity” has titled “Irreverent.” He refuses to worship the evil organization and accept the eternal consequences waiting those who do. Instead, he searches for souls to rescue with his message of salvation. Joey battles his fear, pain, doubt, and faith along his epic journey. It is the situations he encounters that helps give him the miraculous answers he is desperately looking for. Join Joey as he races the clock that tick-tocks towards the end of time. Watch his fears become a second thought as the final sands of time sifts down the glass of time. His adventures take him through Heaven and Hell. But, the most important path he’ll take is the one leading through the coming hell on Earth. Is this prophetic? Or, is this just fantasy? Will you be like Joey and choose the tribulation? Only time can answer those questions! This story may become the field manual to surviving the predicted judgments and wrath to come. Or, it just may be another fanatical fantasy dealing with the prophetic phobia on the “end of the age.” Either way, the only thing you will lose is yourself in this most captivating adventure. This story is unlike any story ever told.

In the third decade of the twenty first century stagnation is driving the world to the brink. Into this world a pair of idealistic inventors introduce a technology that will give mankind the solar system, but will the forces of good or the powers of repression take hold of the technology and shape the future to their desires.The world has been treading water for the first two decades of the twenty second century, technology continues to evolve but in a zero sum world violence is creating the new barbarians that could bring civilization down. In this world Paul Richards and his genius friend Cooper Paaly are working on a source of clean and nearly free power, but unknown to them they have stumbled across much more than a source of energy. When Coop vanishes with his invention Paul is left to clean up the pieces, but when Coop calls to ask for help from a mysterious lab in a desolate desert town Paul cannot resist and is rapidly drawn into a plan to build an outlaw colony on the moon, driven by an industrialist with grandiose dreams. But just when the dream takes flight global realpolitik takes hold and it is left to Paul and his small group of friends and followers to try and save the world from a new Genghis Khan.

Ever wonder why aliens don't visit Earth? Or what coffee a demon likes to drink? Or how bureaucracy could really screw up a grand space adventure? A Flash in the Pan? is a collection of speculative flash fiction and short stories that answers these questions and more.Ever wonder why aliens don't visit Earth? Or what coffee a demon likes to drink? Or how bureaucracy could really screw up a grand space adventure? A Flash in the Pan? is a collection of speculative flash fiction and short stories that answers these questions and more.The collection includes the following speculative fiction stories:- Beware Antipodean Shores (50 words)- Shipwrecked (500 words)- The Gloriously Cunning Plan (500 words)- Make Mine a Macchiato (500 words)- Striking Twice (500 words)- In the Service of the Public (500 words)- The Devil Wears Ugly Shapeless Garments Covered in Dog Hair (500 words)- The Regersek Zone (500 words)- Hindsight is a Bitch (50 words)- Authentic Empathy (500 words)- Wefting the Warp (4,300 words)- Showdown (5,100 words)

Thousands of years ago, the Persian king Xerxes the Great was said to have raided the Treasury at Delphi, carrying away two solid gold pillars as tribute. In 1800, Napoleon Bonaparte and his army stumble across the pillars in the Pennine Alps. Unable to transport them Napoleon creates a map on the labels of twelve bottles of rare wine. And when Napoleon dies, the bottles disappear. Treasure hunters Sam and Remi Fargo are exploring the Great Pocomoke Swamp in Delaware when they are shocked to discover a World War II German u-boat. Inside, they find a bottle taken from Napoleon's 'lost cellar.' Fascinated, the Fargos set out to find the rest of the collection. But another connoisseur of sorts has been looking for the bottle they've just found. He is Hadeon Bondaruk - a half- Russian, half-Persian millionaire. He claims to be a descendant of King Xerxes himself. And he wants his treasure back.

"Brilliant. . . . A powerfully observed, stylistically elegant exploration." --The New York Times A New York Times Notable Book of the Year "The book's strength lies in Naipaul's extraordinary ability as a storyteller to draw striking portraits of a cross section of individuals."--The Boston Globe Fourteen years after the publication of his landmark travel narrative Among the Believers, V. S. Naipaul returned to the four non-Arab Islamic countries he reported on so vividly at the time of Ayatollah Khomeini's triumph in Iran. Beyond Belief is the result of his five-month journey in 1995 through Indonesia, Iran, Pakistan, and Malaysia--lands where descendants of Muslim converts live at odds with indigenous traditions, and where dreams of Islamic purity clash with economic and political realities. In extended conversations with a vast number of people--a rare survivor of the martyr brigades of the Iran-Iraq war, a young intellectual training as a Marxist guerilla in Baluchistan, an impoverished elderly couple in Teheran whose dusty Baccarat chandeliers preserve the memory of vanished wealth, and countless others--V. S. Naipaul deliberately effaces himself to let the voices of his subjects come through. Yet the result is a collection of stories that has the author's unmistakable stamp. With its incisive observation and brilliant cultural analysis, Beyond Belief is a startling and revelatory addition to the Naipaul canon. "Highly accomplished. . . . Another display of Naipaul's remarkable talent." --The Independent (London)

These five short stories tell, each in their own way, what people do when change enters their lives.Written clearly and concisely, the stories are tragic, ironic, touching, and hopeful.Whether it's about love, loneliness, or the yearning for recognition, in each story a decision must be made to give up, or to keep going, in the face of new situations.Secrets unravel in this science-fiction fantasy about a girl troubled by the death of her twin sister. Haunted by dreams and memories, seventeen-year-old Casey George struggles to reconnect with her former self, and when strange things start happening at school, Casey is convinced she's going crazy. Things go from bad to worse when Casey is implicated in the strange goings-on, and her future at the Malvern Academy hangs in the balance. After an attack by a malevolent creature, handsome newcomer, Caleb, takes Casey to Displacia - a rogue planet where the inhabitants possess unusual and powerful gifts. In this new world, Casey learns that her life is not what it seems and that her sister's death may not have been the tragic accident it was thought to be. Surrounded by mystery and intrigue, can Casey overcome her personal barriers to save both Earth and Displacia from the sinister force known as the Shadows? Please note: this book is the first part of a trilogy, the second instalment will be available Winter 2017.

Selena & Alex: Fifteen year old Selena Harris knew from the first moment she met Alex Kelly that she loved her but is Selena hiding a secret that will tear them apart?Apprehensive: Fifteen year old Carson Lucas prepares to take her first step into growing up.Selena & Alex: Fifteen year old Selena Harris knew from the first moment she met Alex Kelly that she loved her but is Selena hiding a secret that will tear them apart?Apprehensive: Fifteen year old Carson Lucas prepares to take her first step into growing up.First Sight: Harmony Hansen had an ordinary life until the last term of year twelve when she met Katarina Wolf. Before long her life is changing in every way but will it ever return to normal.Secret Crush: Tyronne Hastings has been in love with his best friend Penelope Gilbert for three years. Is he destined to be her friend forever or will he find a way to tell her how he feels?The Choice: Piper Jackson thought her relationship with Marcus Jones was rock solid until she met Katie George. Katie stirs up feelings Piper had never felt before and suddenly she’s faced with a choice. Will she make the right one?Confusion: Aster Little has always known she was different to the rest of her classmates but it wasn’t until now she knew just how different she was.Lucy Wilson: Turned into a vampire a year earlier when she and her best friend, Cassandra Riley were jumped, Lucy Wilson has barely begun to get used to her new vampire status when Conor Simpson, a powerful vampire, tracks her down.First Love: Natasha Waterson and Quinn Michele have been together for four years when tragedy strikes. Will Quinn be able to forget her first love or will she haunt her forever?

Who was Triton? Triton was a triton, an artificial, surreal mass of intelligences, a satellite of time, a protector, a place keeper in our main body of time. No blood and guts today, and not just because he doesn't have any, he's just in town for some and R and R. Or should that be just in time?Thrilling Adventure is an anthology where new characters debut, team ups between existing EBH heroes, and tales that cannot be told in the EBH solo series. This first episode features the team up of Scarlet Tie the openly gay African American hero of Cleveland and Jewish hero the Key-Master. The central theme is extinction and what future efforts might be used to restore extinct species to the planet.

Cindy Miller is a conservative business executive by day with a secret after five fantasy that she wants to pursue. Her husband tells her to get the idea out of her head and that no one will give her a second look.She has been going to amateur strip night but wants to take her fantasy to the next level with a man that will totally fulfill it. She meets Andre one night and wants him to be the oneAfter years in Boston and a year of working for herself as a contract consultant and adjunct professor, unemployed Dr. Anne Conner is ready to return home to work in her field as a marine biochemist and research scientist. With money running low, Anne jumps at the chance to interview for her dream job as a research scientist with the world famous Stanford Enterprises research company.When she makes the final round of interviews, Anne decides to combine her time in Seattle interviewing with a vacation trip to her family's inn on Orcas Island in the San Juan Islands. The last thing she expected was to run into her childhood friend and object of her teenage dreams, Ben Carlson, who is on the island for his sister's wedding. Nor did she plan on the passion that erupts between them. Is their relationship only a vacation romance as they agreed from the beginning or will it turn into something more when Anne moves back to Seattle?Just as Anne begins to hope for more, the unthinkable is revealed. Ben is none other than her new boss. Worse yet, he thinks that she only used him to get the job.

“Randy Newman is our great master of American song and storytelling."—Bruce Springsteen “At last, the biography that Randy Newman has long deserved. The emotional precision, the humor and sweep, the truths and secrets behind his remarkable body of work . . . it’s all here in Robert Hilburn’s heartfelt and indispensable account of America’s finest songwriter. Leave it to Hilburn to pull back the curtain on the incredible life of Newman, a shy genius who clearly trusted him enough to point him in all the right directions. It’s more than a great read, it’s an invitation to re-visit Randy Newman’s work with renewed appreciation for the man who uniquely defined the American Experience just when we needed it most.”—Cameron Crowe "[A] penetrating biography. . . . While the book posits Newman as a writer of sociopolitical import, its emotional narrative is driven by the more personal aspects of his story: a...

In each of his astounding #1 New York Times bestsellers, Mark R. Levin’s overlying patriotic mission has been to avert a devastating tragedy: The loss of the greatest republic known to mankind. But who stands to lose the most? In modern America, the civil society is being steadily devoured by a ubiquitous federal government. But as the government grows into an increasingly authoritarian and centralized federal Leviathan, many parents continue to tolerate, if not enthusiastically champion, grievous public policies that threaten their children and successive generations with a grim future at the hands of a brazenly expanding and imploding entitlement state poised to burden them with massive debt, mediocre education, waves of immigration, and a deteriorating national defense. Yet tyranny is not inevitable. In Federalist 51, James Madison explained with cautionary insight the essential balance between the civil society and governmental restraint: “In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.” This essential new book is, against all odds, a likeminded appeal to reason and audacity—one intended for all Americans but particularly the rising generation. Younger people must find the personal strength and will to break through the cycle of statist manipulation, unrelenting emotional overtures, and the pressure of groupthink, which are humbling, dispiriting, and absorbing them; to stand up against the heavy hand of centralized government, which if left unabated will assuredly condemn them to economic and societal calamity. Levin calls for a new civil rights movement, one that will foster liberty and prosperity and cease the exploitation of young people by statist masterminds. He challenges the rising generation of younger Americans to awaken to the cause of their own salvation, asking: will you acquiesce to a government that overwhelmingly acts without constitutional foundation—or will you stand in your own defense so that yours and future generations can live in freedom?