On a near future Earth, Good Man does not mean good at all. Instead, the term signifies a member of the ruling class, and what it takes to become a Good Man and to hold onto power is downright evil. Now a conspiracy hundreds of years in the making is about to be brought to light when the imprisoned son of the Good Man of Olympic Seacity escapes from his solitary confinement cell and returns to find his father assassinated.

Athena Hera Sinistra never wanted to go to space. Never wanted see the eerie glow of the Powerpods. Never wanted to visit Circum Terra. Never had any interest in finding out the truth about the DarkShips. You always get what you dont ask for. Which must have been why she woke up in the dark of shipnight, within the greater night of space in her father's space cruiser, knowing that there was a stranger in her room.

When marine private Oliver Chadwick Gardenier is killed in the marine barrack bombing in Beirut, somebody who might be Saint Peter gives him a choice: Go to heaven, which, while nice, might be a little boring, or return to earth. The Boss has a mission for him, and he's to look for a sign. He's a marine: He'll choose the mission. Unfortunately, the sign he's to look for is "57". Which, given the food services contract in Bethesda Hospital, creates some difficulty. Eventually it appears that God's will is for Chad to join a group called Monster Hunters International.

Humans have always been fascinated by darkness. Especially the darkness of a city at night, when the black sky is made ever more inky by the pools of illumination dropped under streetlights. Whether the mean streets be in an alternate past charmed with dark magic or the dirty alleyways of futuristic crowded space stations, the city—and its darkened streets—will always fascinate us. Here then, an anthology of all new stories of science fiction and fantasy with a hardboiled noir twist that acknowledge that the city is a living, breathing entity...and it isn’t always on our side.

After the War of the Gods, the demons were cast out and fell to the world. Mankind was nearly eradicated by the seemingly unstoppable beasts until the gods sent the great hero, Ramrowan, to save them. He united the tribes, gave them magic, and drove the demons into the sea. Ever since, the land has belonged to man, and the oceans have remained an uncrossable hell, leaving the continent of Lok isolated.

1462: an alien who feasts on the suffering of sentient beings dines off the agonies of Vlad the Impaler's twenty-thousand victims near Targoviste, Romania. 1688: a woman is framed for witchcraft and hanged by the neck in Boston. 1965: a toy store that never seems to run out of special toys is suspected of being the location of a temporal portal. 2022: a grandfather, showing his young grandchildren what remains of the Boston of his youth, is shown that portal by his granddaughters. And they're off! Off through the gate that grants wishes, off to deal with time travel.

Five days after Owen Zastava Pitt pushed his insufferable boss out of a 14th story window, he woke up in the hospital with a scarred face, an unbelievable memory, and a job offer. It turns out that monsters are real. All the things from myth, legend, and B-movies are out there, waiting in the shadows. Some of them are evil, and some are just hungry. Monster Hunter International is the premier eradication company in the business. And now Owen is their newest recruit.

Centuries in the past, mankind fought a seemingly unbeatable adversary from sector to sector across the Spiral Arm until the war ground to a standstill and the Enemy withdrew. Believing that they had won, the citizens of the galaxy rebuilt. The Inner Worlds, which had escaped the worst of the war's ravages, became even more insular, while the Rim worlds adopted a free and easy way with law and order. Now, hundreds of years after their withdrawal, the Enemy is back - and this time they'll be satisfied with nothing less than the extinction of the galaxy.

Lynn Raven may be the boss master of WarMonger 2050 with her online persona of "Larry the Snake", but when the CEO of Tsunami Entertainment personally asks her, as a favor, to beta test a new augmented-reality game, she has to face her greatest fear: going outside and dealing with, ugh, people.

It is 1801, and President Thomas Jefferson has assembled a deep-water navy to fight the growing threat of piracy, as American civilians are regularly kidnapped by Islamist brigands and held for ransom, enslaved, or killed, all at their captors' whim. The Berber States of North Africa, especially Tripoli, claimed their faith gave them the right to pillage anyone who did not submit to their religion.

Melanie Mooney thought she was just doing her job when she came upon an unusual accident in the deep woods late one night. Acting alone, what she found was nothing like she’d expected. What followed was even more unexpected. Recruited by emissaries of a galaxy-spanning civilization, Melanie is thrust into a world she thought only existed in supermarket tabloids. As the first human in the Galactic Union Medical Corps, she cares for extraterrestrials in desperate need of a medic who can ignore the fact that they’re nothing like any patient she’s ever seen, even on their best days.

For years, while Iran and North Korea kept Western diplomats busy, China and Russia have been quietly seeding the US with spies and soldiers. Now, a silent army of occupation lurks inside US borders, and for America, it is already too late. When the assault begins—via an EMP strike that disables the US electrical grid and neutralizes her defenses all in one fell swoop—the US is caught completely unprepared. The nation is lost, and it is up to ordinary citizens to defend their cities, towns, neighborhoods, or even just their families.

In a single ruthless blow, Commander Lorraine Adamant’s favorite uncle murders everyone ahead of him in the succession for the Star Kingdom of Adamant. Only luck and the paranoia of her bodyguard, Vigo Jarret, saves Lorraine’s life. On the run in a single starship Lorraine should never have commanded, with a crew she can not trust, she swiftly learns her uncle’s hounds are hot on her heels. She must gather every skill, every trick, she has ever learned if she is to survive—and pray the uncle who taught her those tricks is a step behind.

Earth is conquered. The Shongairi have arrived in force, and humanity’s cities lie in radioactive ruins. In mere minutes, over half the human race has died. Master Sergeant Stephen Buchevsky, who thought he was being rotated home from his latest tour in Afghanistan, finds himself instead prowling the back country of the Balkans, dodging alien patrols and trying to organize the scattered survivors without getting killed.

Jordan McKell has a problem with authority. Unfortunately for him, the iron-fisted authority of the powerful Patthaaunutth controls virtually every aspect of galactic shipping. In order to survive, Jordan ekes out a living dabbling in interstellar smuggling for outlaw concerns that represent the last vestiges of free trade in the galaxy. So when Jordan and his partner, Ixil - an alien with two ferret-like "outhunters" linked to his neural system - are hired by a mysterious gentleman to fly a ship and its special cargo to Earth, they jump at the job.