A sole survivor. A quest for answers. A deadly race against time. Nothing is as it seems, in this breakthrough robo-apocalyptic sci-fi thriller. Expanded from an original short story to a best-selling serial, Zero Hour is now collected in a single volume.

When an EMP devastates the nation's power supply, it doesn't take long for society to spiral out of control. There's no government to guide people. There's no power and no order. Only chaos and panic. In the immediate aftermath of the devastation, five survivors-a self-sufficient survivalist, a university student, a plane crash survivor, a young girl, and an escaped prisoner-all face a dangerous, treacherous journey towards safety. But as the day goes on, tensions reach breaking point; our survivors soon realize this solar event is far more dangerous than they could ever have imagined.

Eddie Royce is an up-and-coming science fiction writer with a terrible secret: he cheats. He knew he'd get caught, of course. Eventually. But not like this. When disaster finally strikes, it strikes big, and Eddie is confronted by the worst person imaginable: his idol, the SF master, Chester Blackwood. To Eddie's great surprise, however, Blackwood has secrets of his own, and instead of outing him, the master storyteller quickly embroils Eddie in a real-life mystery of time travel, beautiful women, and Hollywood gangsters.

Technology has developed to the point where a person can be placed in a sleep state: a cross between suspended animation and a drug-induced coma. Just as the trial of the new technology is being completed, an unusual comet is discovered approaching Earth, bringing with it radiation that will wipe out all life on the planet.

Jim Thompson is having a bad year. Last year; he celebrated his 25th wedding anniversary, had a good job he liked, and a home for retirement he built himself. This year, at 54 years of age; he is divorced, unemployed, and homeless. Fortunately, his luck is about to change. Enter Vincent, an extraterrestrial visitor with a crucial mission to save both our world and his, and a lesson on just how small Jim's place in the universe is.

Christine Stewart is a regular woman just doing her job when she becomes stranded in history. When she gets up for the day, her plan is simple: Wake up and head off to work, traveling back in time to Oklahoma in 1867 to deport a cyber-criminal. After work, it's back to 2070 Los Angeles to prepare for a vacation with her son, Michael. That's the plan. Then the system fails, leaving Christine - and dozens of other transporters around the world - stranded in the past with minimal training and no supplies.

Eden Lucas is having the worst week of her life. Everyone she ever knew is dead. In fact, it seems like life on Earth is at an end. Yet, as she grapples with her despair, the train that hovers three feet above the ground in front of her suggests there must be other survivors. What she finds aboard defies explanation. Meals that appear just by thinking about them; doors that open into a vacuum; new friends whose ages and experiences don't seem to make any sense.

Trained to fight, lead, and sail the ocean that is space, Nel Vaughn has the makings of a hero. She should have been the best, but Nel forsook a career with the Alliance and now sails the Free Lanes on the Tantamount with its misfit crew, Kitsune cabin girl, and absent-minded captain.

The vicars of the Temple of Light brought peace, ushering in an era of blessed simplicity. For 10 centuries they have kept the madness at bay with “temple magic,” and by eliminating forever the rush of progress that nearly caused the destruction of everything.

Archaeologist Eliana Fisk is ripped from Earth while the whole world watches. She lands on a strange new world inhabited by a lost tribe of ancient Mayans. Meeting them, getting firsthand exposure to age-old customs and rituals...it seems like an archaeologist’s dream. But what if their rituals have a darker meaning? What if the god these people pray to is no god at all? And how in the world will she ever get back home?

It’s the find of a lifetime - an ancient alien spaceship, hanging in a forgotten corner of space. For Song, this could change everything. She’s got as many problems with her finances as she does in her marriage - but maybe, at last, her passion for wreck-diving will pay off. One piece of unknown tech could set her whole crew up for life. The ship conforms to nothing in their records, and dwarfs the largest human vessels. Battle-scarred, and old before humanity ever reached the stars, it’s a mausoleum of an unknown, long-dead species. And it’s just winked at her.

Elizabeth Cochrane has a secret. She isn’t the madwoman with amnesia the doctors and inmates at Blackwell’s Asylum think she is. In truth, she’s working undercover for the New York World. When the managing editor refuses to hire her because she’s a woman, Elizabeth strikes a deal: In exchange for a job, she’ll impersonate a lunatic to expose a local asylum’s abuses. When she arrives at the asylum, Elizabeth realizes she must make a decision - is she there merely to bear witness, or to intervene on behalf of the abused inmates? Can she interfere without blowing her cover?

Liora Day, half-human, half-mess-with-her-and-you’ll-die Damaclan, had been thrown onto a rough path at a very early age. But when she is broken out of a cage by Devren, the young captain of the SS Kratos, she is shown that perhaps humanity does have a heart. When the Kratos is set on a mission to rescue fallen surveyors from the Revolutionaries, Liora is given the choice to follow her Damaclan instincts, or trust Devren’s dark eyes and captivating smile that promise an adventure unlike any she has ever experienced. 

Deadly radiation from a passing comet is about to destroy life on Earth. In desperation, the US government constructs a series of underground shelters to protect as many people as possible. They are expected to be underground for 20 years before returning back to the surface. But can they survive their time within the confines of the underground shelter? And what will they find when they finally emerge?

The Forerunner has decimated the Vanguard Islands in a surprise attack from the Trident warship. King Kade Long—seeing no alternative—accepts a peace deal, committing to a perilous mission with X, the “Immortal,” to activate weather-modification reactors at the poles. But as Kade and X set off, the fragile peace is threatened by a one-man guerrilla war against the psychopathic knight, General Jack. Meanwhile, halfway across the world, Michael and his family begin to settle into their new life in the Canary Islands, only to discover that it’s not the sanctuary they believed it was.