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The Brane Skip device may provide a way for humanity to overcome the light-speed barrier and finally head for the stars. It seems like magic to Lisa Chang, the young engineer in command of the first crewed test flight, and Lisa doesn't believe in magic. But she does believe in the mission. Humanity must explore space in order to survive and prosper, and she feels honored to be among the first to go where no one has gone before. She does not know what will happen when the Brane Skip engages. She thinks it will do nothing. She fears it will explode. She does not expect it will cast them adrift in space and on a collision course with a fantasy version of Earth, complete with dragons, orcs, and wizards. Unfortunately, this is exactly what happens. ...

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The antagonistic magician stepped back and drew another item from a belt pouch. This one looked like either a small cocoon or a large wad of pocket fluff. He gestured more theatrically this time. "Swirling mist on quiet bog "Patient sits a bump on log "Craving flies within the sog "Now thou art a croaking frog!" She could not restrain herself this time and laughed in his dumbfounded face. Rennart backed away, still watching her, his eyes narrowed in a cold, calculating squint. Ferman ran up to her. "How are you feeling?" he asked anxiously. "To be honest, a bit confused," she said, wiping her eye and trying to compose herself. "Oh? Like maybe wondering why you have a sudden urge to wallow in the mud or eat a fat, juicy fly?" "What? Don't be ridiculous. I'm confused about what all this is about. It's a joke, right? Is this some kind of movie set or something?" In her world, the real world, movies hadn’t been made with live actors and sets in over fifty years because it was so slow and expensive. Better results could be obtained from computer graphics, but this being a movie set was a more plausible explanation than anythin...

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And now for something completely different—a humorous science fiction parody of epic fantasy adventure stories—an anti-fantasy book that pokes some good-natured fun at the serious tone and dependence on magic common to many epic fantasy adventure genre novels. There are no dragons here, but there are some androids. This is the story of Prince Donald of Westgrove. He is the idealistic third son of the king, and he comes to believe that he may be the only one able to protect his country from an invasion spearheaded by an ancient and massive magical stone warrior known as the Warden of Mystic Defiance. Donald, unfortunately, is woefully unprepared. His only real understanding of such things comes from his reading of adventure stories. When he finds an ancient scroll he believes may allow him to take control of the mysterious Warden, he eagerly takes on the task. He dreams of saving the kingdom and becoming a hero like those in his books. To his dismay, his quest turns out to be nothing like he imagined. He finds the stories in his library seriously understate the complexities and hardships involved. He also soon realizes that ...

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Donald held his breath. The great black monolith stood its ground refusing to so much as acknowledge his presence, much less answer his summons. “Maybe you have to do it naked,” Muce whispered, breaking the silence. “What?” The young notso held the prince’s translation of the patched vellum scroll in his hand. “It says here, Naked to the Warden’s love. Maybe that means you have to do it without any clothes on.” “Let me see that!” The prince snatched the paper from his companion’s hand. “No. That’s just a poetic way to say you have to be sincere. It can’t literally mean without any clothes because it also says you have to have this silly hat and glove, for the gods’ sake. How can you be naked wearing a hat and a glove?” “I don’t know, but that’s what it says, and what you did before didn’t work. You sounded real good, though, Your Highness. It was really impressive.” “Uh, thanks. What do you think, Kwestor?” asked Donald. “You still don’t want to know. But if you’re going to try anything else, you’ll need to do it soon. Dawn doesn’t last that long.” The prince turned his eyes to the horizon and the creeping light of dawn. “B...

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An IT contractor finds out that a great disaster is going to strike earth and uses the opportunity to commit a crime that will set him for life. He comes up with an ingenious and infallible plan. Or so he thought. This short story book includes two book previews....

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Mark left the ground and soared up from the street between the buildings. He was at the wrong angle and feared he might continue into the sky even after all his preparation only to fall to his death once the wave had passed. He gritted his teeth and leaned into the building. His calculations were perfect and he was going to hit twenty just as planned. He had to. Beyond the floors of the building flying by him, he saw cars twisting up into the air. It hardly looked real. “Real life has terrible special effects.” His own laughter hurt his ears inside his helmet. He saw benches, stone, manhole covers, and other debris he couldn’t identify twisting up from the ground and out through the top of the city. He saw other bodies writhing through the air without suits – without being prepared. If the cars were flying away, what chance did people have in this perversion of gravity? Mark’s back hurt as he leaned harder and saw the building racing toward his face. He was tempted to pull back, but that wasn’t the plan and the plan was perfect. Mark heard his own screams as he slammed into the window for twenty. It was the fourth window from ...

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Ripe with literary and current-culture allusions, this book combines elements of world history, science fiction, political science, and satire. It's at once a brutally-serious and bitingly-humorous novel that, as one early reviewer noted: "Demands a lot from the reader, is a wonderfully-wild ride, and is well worth the time and energy invested."...

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Jake's Diner Saturday, July 13, 2024 Even though it was only 8:15, the intense Minnesota morning sun dumped waves of shimmering heat upon the thirsty wilted corn...unquenched by expensive center-pivot irrigation systems. A loosely-organized row of aggressive-looking pickup trucks--drearily-colored, indeterminate in age, manfully backed into position, and universally-equipped with locking tool boxes giving purpose to otherwise empty beds--had formed a defensive line on the torrid gravel in front of Jake's. By day a respectable diner and by night a bar that promised totally exotic dancing--whatever that meant, since no local dared investigate--Jake's was the social epicenter of Blue Earth...an ever-diminishing farming town that might as well have been located in Iowa for all the difference the unrelentingly-flat, hot, and wind-ravaged prairie landscape made. Although it had been decades since smoking had been banned in public places--with the exception of those wastefully-expensive new mobile home parks--the lingering smell of tobacco still clung to the tables, chairs, and walls…adding to Jake's unfinished-plywood, grease-en...

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This book is written in a diary format without chapters. Author's Foreword Dedication Text Appendix Image Attributions

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A radio signal is traced from outer space by SETI. The story now heads in an unexpected direction. This narrative is serious, not heavy and has a novel mix of technology, philosophy and ideology to suit readers of all ages. The singular feature of the book unravels as the soft and gentle mannerisms underlying the basic nature of the aliens come to light in the later chapters...

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It was 7th August 2011, and 10.55 pm. Greg, one of Seth’s staff members who was about to pour a cup of coffee for him, heard an unusual beep coming from his monitor. It was pulsating on the monitor repeatedly at regular intervals. He went back to his seat immediately; diverted his concentration fully on it and realized that may be the sign of SETI’s dream coming through. .... He said “As human beings, we should respect each other more than anything. Now I could visualize the damage we were doing to the moon people’s society with more and more of our influence and interference. Dooda’s speech was an eye opener to me in the matter of respecting each other’s belief system on which human societies are built. Everybody should realize the amount of influence that a belief system can have on the structure of a human society. Belief systems influence the architecture of our buildings, the food we eat, legal systems we follow, our customs, rituals we observe and how we behave”. ...

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Apparently, there’s been an underground, cold war going on, not noticed much by humans, between “good” vampires—those who have altered their biological needs and can use synthetic blood—and “bad” vampires—Rogues who actively enjoy hunting, draining and butchering humans. Now Sheriff Hudson and his friends are in the middle of the war, which has gone above-ground and hot. The chase to catch and stop—kill if necessary—the Rogues consumes Hudson and his crew, as they struggle for their lives on the platform. The good vampires help as they can, but Hudson’s not sure he trusts them completely either. The war spills over, involving Earth and the Navy Space Force, as the hordes of Rogues and their Servants come forth openly, killing hundreds of humans as they try to obtain the materials they need. Hudson and his friends—Doctor Holly Marten, an old Navy friend from “back in the day”; Max, Hudson’s former platoon corpsman; Cal, Max’s boyfriend; Helga, Doc Marten’s assistant—have to first get their minds around the almost unimaginable, then deal with the crisis as it spreads from the mining platform to a solar system war. ...

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“Man, I’ve never seen anything like this,” I mutter to the screen in front of me. The stale smelling air in the office circulates slowly around me as the electronics hum in the background. “You know? I’ve been in this business a damn long time and never…” Max grunts as he looks over the vid I’ve sent him. “Spirit! Me neither. What the hell happened? Someone making some crazy juice up there? Found any?” He glances back to me from the other screen, grimacing. He’s been in the cop business longer that I’ve been so my instincts were right—if it upsets him, it’s gotta be as bad as I thought it looked. I’m no fainting pansy myself but jeeze…I shudder. “Nope. Doc says no trace of drugs. There was some grass in the compartment, but it was only the company-issued crap they give out for anxiety. The little green pellets. Nothing else. Nothing but this.” I look down at the vids myself, displayed on my desk. They show… They show what used to be a human, although you’d be hard pressed to guess that at first. There are parts everywhere in the compartment; the man was literally pulled limb from limb and then the limbs were, well, destroy...

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Space Force Grunts (Second, Revised Edition) tells the story of soldiers conscripted to defend the Human Alliance, a civilisation that has spread over thousands of worlds after the invention of hyperspace flight. They are fighting an enemy they don't understand in a war they did not choose. Space Grunts is told mainly from the perspective of the rank and file of the Human Alliance ground forces, who face an eminent foe, commanding over far superior means. Space Force Grunts tells about the feelings and thoughts of these soldiers, reports their talks and the trials and tribulations they have to go through, as well as the little pranks they play to each other and their superiors. - See more at: http://gutenberg.us/wplbn0003468521-space-force-grunts--a-science-fiction-novel-by-potsch-ingo.aspx?#sthash.GxmYw9Wd.dpuf...

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Base 18 on Planet DN-DU-144/5 was a place that could only be found on detailed military maps. This planet was circling a sun situated at the border between our Local Bubble of stars in the Milky Way and the much bigger Loop 1 Bubble, another assembly of suns and planets. DN-DU-144/5 was the fifth planet in outward direction, when counted from the local star as centre. Base 18 now consisted of a dozen bunkers, a few deep wells and a couple of cisterns appendant to them, a makeshift front-line spa, and most importantly a maintenance station for fighter robots and combat drones. Base 18 on planet DN-DU-144/5 was in principle a bleak place. Though at that moment it was officially day-time at the location of base 18, there was actually just a little twilight. The far sun, going by the less-than-poetic name of DN-DU-144, illuminated only the abundant clouds enfolding the planet decently. Little light ever made it through to the surface. ‘I just love it’ Master Sergeant Koon had sarcastically said when arriving at this place, together with all the other soldiers of the 5th company. They had taken this base over from a unit that had suffe...