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Summary: In celebration of our tenth anniversary, Turtleduck Press has selected the best of our short fiction from the last six years for your reading pleasure. Each author has two stories included, one voted as their best by the members of TDP, and the one they consider their best work personally. Stories included in this collection: Changeling, Erin Zarro Baking Lessons, KD Sarge The Haunting of Heatherbrae Station, Siri Paulson 1-800-HAUNTME, Kit Campbell Warped, Erin Zarro Crazy Boy, KD Sarge Still Waters, Siri Paulson Deserts and Domes, Kit Campbell Thank you for supporting us these last ten years, and we hope to bring you many more stories in the future.
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Summary: Reclaiming Earth from the Zhen was only the first battle. Now Tajen Hunt and his fellow colonists must fight for their fledgling colony’s survival. Tajen’s mission to seek aid from the Kelvaki Assembly is cut short when the Zhen invade Earth. Now he, Liam, and Kiri must return to Earth and liberate the colony from brutal occupation. When Tajen learns the Zhen plan to destroy a human fleet amassing in preparation to help Earth, he and his crew must escape the planet once more and warn them.
Word Count: 84000
Summary: Pirate captain, inventor, and entrepreneur Onofre Cisneros sweeps his friends Fatemeh and Ramon Morales off to Hawaii for their honeymoon. Once there, a British agent makes Cisneros an offer he can't refuse and the captain must travel to Japan. Wanting to see more of the world, Ramon and Fatemeh ask to accompany the captain only to find themselves embroiled in a plot by samurai who steal a Russian airship, hoping to overthrow the Japanese emperor.
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Summary: 
Ten years ago, roboticist Forbes Pohle received a visit from time-traveler Oliver Lennox. “Wait for me,” Oliver said. Now a decade has come and gone, and Oliver has returned. However, Forbes never dreamed Oliver would reappear as the point man for a gang of technology thieves breaking into his lab. He finds the younger Oliver just as sexy and even more annoying; still, he must convince him their happily-ever-after is meant to be—but he only has the time it takes his robotic cat Jeepers to thwart the thieves to do it. After waiting so long, he could lose everything in the span of seconds.
Word Count: 44366
Summary: The Brimstone. Cargo ship, hive of thievery and profiteering. Captained by a demon prince and manned by a crew that puts any batch of misfits to shame. You've come along with a cargo of anti-gravity cows and one of jeweled-toned potatoes. You've shared the horrors of frogs and nightmares. Now share some, more or less, quieter moments with the Brimstone crew—small snippets plucked from various spots in each personal timeline, from Shax and Verin's childhood in Hell to after the events of Beside a Black Tarn. The Brimstone Journals, Collection One also includes an exclusive holiday short story, never published as part of the blog series. Shax would probably like to keep it that way, but too bad.
Word Count: 59337
Summary: The Brimstone. Demon owned and—mostly—demon operated. Shax, an exiled prince of Hell, has gathered only the best misfits for his motley crew. You've been with us from the rescue of a runaway angel in a psychedelic nightmare jungle to the house that Poe built. Now share some in-between moments with the Brimstone crew – flash fiction snippets plucked from various spots in each personal timeline, from Shax and Verin's youth in Hell to after the events of Beside a Black Tarn. The Brimstone Journals, Collection Two also includes an exclusive short story, never published as part of the blog series. Leopold meets his formidable grandmama, much to his father's dismay.
Word Count: 117000
Summary: You can choose your friends, but you can’t choose your family… Quirk and Moth have avoided killing each other long enough to solve another case. They decide on a local job next, and take up the search for a missing scientist. How could Quirk know this new mystery put them on a headlong collision course with his troubled past, a plethora of personal issues, and a hoard of genetic hybrid creatures with an appetite for anything that moves? When their client dies in mysterious circumstances, law enforcement pursues the dysfunctional duo all the way to a research lab in frozen Yellowknife. Can Quirk and Moth find the scientist before they are banged up for murder, or has she already been eaten? Is it coincidence Quirk’s father-in-law bought the company? Can they expose the shadow from Quirk’s past and clear their names? Quirk and Moth need time, but it’s fast running out, and the bodies are piling up. Find out what happens in The Carborundum Conundrum!
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Summary: Something is definitely rotten in the experimental settlement on Ceres. Jax wonders how it will affect her and her colleagues when along comes Nan and shows her a side to the complex she did not expect. Together, the two young women work to break the control the aliens have over the human settlers and begin to form the foundation of a fairer community.
Word Count: 97,600
Summary: **First Place Winner 2017 Rainbow Awards: Best Gay Sci-fi//Futuristic. ** **Third Place Winner 2017 Rainbow Awards: Best Gay Book.** Shield Captain Bennet arrives on the Gyrfalcon to take up his final year’s posting before returning to the Shield Regiment after his rotation out. On Gyrfalcon he faces up to the fallout from Makepeace—ethical, political and above all, personal. Will he be able to accept necessity: that knowing what the Maess are up to outweighs the humanitarian issues surrounding the prisoners he rescued from Makepeace? Can he ride out the political furore that follows the loss of the dreadnought Caliban? How will he cope with an entire year of serving under his father, Caeden? And worst of all, how in the name of every god in the Pantheon can he stand to see Flynn every single day, with the Fraternisation Regs standing between them and keeping them apart? It will be an interesting year. Bennet can hardly wait for it to be over. Of course, things never really do go to plan…
Word Count: 87,200
Summary: Childhood ends the night the sky explodes. Six teenagers from different backgrounds are thrown together when an unknown species seizes their world. Will they be able to put their differences aside long enough to survive?
Word Count: 7150
Summary: In a four-gendered world where correct gender identity is law, Venk struggles with his inability to choose one sexual orientation over another. His body has matured, but he still shows the multi-colored crest of a juvenile, someone who has not yet presented proper orientation. With his family losing patience and others beginning to whisper, Venk must find a way to change his crest or be labeled an aberration. But the only choice he sees is a dishonest one.
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Summary: Since the beginning, Doc Silence has warned the Indestructibles, his team of super-powered protégés, that magical threats would be the most dangerous. The team has faced down alien invasions, time traveled to post-apocalyptic futures, and more since they first banded together, but now, for the first time, they are confronted with not one but two sources of dark and dangerous magic. Together, Jane, Billy, Kate, Titus, and Entropy Emily will go up against an evil necromancer, warping his victims into weapons in a reckless pursuit of wealth; and an even stranger threat, a young girl with inherent mystical abilities who has become a pawn in an interdimensional power struggle. When an entire town disappears, the Indestructibles – a solar-powered girl, a boy with an alien in his mind, a ballerina vigilante, a werewolf with confidence issues, and a Whovian with a black hole where her heart should be – must band together with new allies to stop dark forces far beyond their comprehension. This is their greatest challenge and most personal mission yet. Has all their training been enough to prepare them?
Word Count: 13000
Summary: Poems written by Cyborgs in the future, melding sci-fi and poetry, human and machine. The Cyborg Anthology takes place in a future where there was a thriving world of Robots and Cyborgs living peacefully beside Humans, but a disaster destroyed all Robot and most Cyborg life. The book is organized like a typical anthology of literature, split into sections that include a biography of each poet and a sample of their poetry. It covers early Cyborg poetry, political, celebrity, and pop culture poets, and ends with the next generation of Cyborg poets. The narrative takes place in the time after a cataclysmic event, and the collection wrestles with this loss. Through the lives of the poets, the book chronicles the history of personhood for technological beings, their struggle for liberation, and demonstrates different ways a person can be Cyborg. The poems and biographies together tell the story of a complex and enthralling world-to-come, exploring topics that are important in the future, and also urgent right now. “With mordant wit and a playful satiric touch, these Cyborg poems showcase a dazzling range of poetic forms and ideas: imaginative and charmingly subversive. Move over Norton Anthology of Poetry, there’s a new force in town, and they are a delight.” —Renée Sarojini Saklikar, author of Listening to the Bees and Children of Air India “The premise of this collection alone is fabulous. The poems are potent and powerful. With echoes of Le Guin, Brunner and Monáe, Lindsay B-e’s debut is layered and smart, provocative, and deeply satisfying. I was moved and fascinated. Speculative poetry at its best.” —Hiromi Goto, author of Chorus of Mushrooms and Darkest Light
Word Count: 96500
Summary: Aik will never be the same … and neither will his world. War is coming. Aik has become the Progenitor, and the Seed Mother has released him to transform the world for her alien brood. Silya and Raven, Aik's former friends, are the only ones who can save him and the world. But what if the cure is worse than the invasion? As Silya rushes to prepare Gullton for the battle to come, she's determined to save as many people as she can. But new crises emerge that demand her attention. Raven has his own hands full, keeping the dragon-like verent in line, while helping Silya to save the world. But what if the only way to do so is to sacrifice Aik, the man that he loves? It's the end of the world … or could it be the start of something new?
- Fantasy
- Fantasy - High & Other World
- Fantasy - LGBTQ+
- Fantasy - Romance
- Fantasy - Sword & Sorcery
- Fantasy - Young Adult
- Sci Fi
- Sci Fi - Alien Invasion
- Sci Fi - Alien Races
- Sci Fi - Aliens
- Sci Fi - Artificial Intelligence
- Sci Fi - Colonization
- Sci Fi - Distant Planet
- Sci Fi - First Contact
- Sci Fi - Frontier
- Sci Fi - Hopepunk
- Sci Fi - LGBTQ+
- Sci Fi - Lost Worlds
- Sci Fi - Mind Uploads
- Sci Fi - Romance
- Sci Fi - Science Fantasy
- Sci Fi - Terraforming
- Sci Fi - Young Adult
Word Count: 93000
Summary: To resuscitate his fading celebrity, tech CEO Stephen Lucas would sell his soul for one more hit. When the subspace network for his holographic gaming empire crashes, his hardware guru makes a discovery proving that Einstein was right once again—information can be sent into the past. They accidently created a simple time machine. In a culture built on instant gratification, Lucas is sure he's stumbled upon the next big thing, the game-changer that will make Wall Street give him the accolades he craves—a device that makes instant delivery possible. Want a pizza now? Send your order back in time 30 minutes. Forgot to make reservations at that chichi french restaurant two weeks ago? No worries now you can make purchases of anything in the past and have it appear when you want it—now. So, buy last weeks PowerBall ticket. Invest in that stock you wish you bought last year. Share a FaceTime call with a loved one that passed away last month. Finally time really is on your side. A time machine for the rest of us. But when he rushes into beta testing, he learns that the stuff dreams are made of can quickly become the stuff of nightmares. It turns out Move Fast and Break Things is terrible policy when developing a time machine.
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Summary: ---From the Archives--- Stories by Mike McPhail and Danielle Ackley-McPhail based on the 1986-96 military science fiction role-playing game The Alliance Archives. By the late 21st century, humanity has final reached for the stars and established an off-world colony in the system of Tau Ceti, only to discover that man's greatest enemy is still man. On the colony world of Demeter, ADF power-armored troopers and their Parr scouts fight a desperate, covert war against invading corporate mercenaries. Even in the vastness of space, there is no room for lasting peace.
Word Count: 93700
Summary: Raven's a thief who just swallowed a dragon. A small one, sure, but now his arms are growing scales, the local wildlife is acting up, and his snarky AI familiar is no help whatsoever. Raven's best friend Aik is a guardsman carrying a torch for the thief. A pickpocket and a guard? Never going to happen. And Aik’s ex-fiancé Silya, an initiate priestess in a magical crisis, hates Raven with the heat of a thousand suns. This unlikely team must work together to face strange beasts, alien artifacts, and a world-altering threat. If they don’t figure out what to do soon, it might just be the end of everything. Things are about to get messy.
Word Count: 11500
Summary: Jey awakens to find himself in the care of a handsome stranger - a cheff from one of the mouuntain tribes, enemies of his own people. Afraid for his life, Jey has no choice but to let the man take care of him and his broken leg. Avain is on his Aud'ling - his coming-of-age test that requires him to spend a couple months alone, away from his own people. When he finds the steader trapped under his aur with a broken leg, he knows he has to help. But not being allowed to speak during his test makes things... difficult. The two of them will have to come to an understanding if they're not going to kill one another. And Avain has a secret to share with Jey, one that that will change his life forever.
Word Count: 103900
Summary: Exiled and disinherited, Pelinas finds refuge with his father's enemies. But his mind holds dangerous secrets locked away, ones he fears he won't unravel before he does immeasurable harm. Starved and ill, Pelinas finds himself at the gates of Arhanna, the city of his father's enemies. He doesn't recall how he came there, though he remembers vividly his father disowning him. Luckily, the kind-hearted General Devar takes him in. Roya Intalva returns from the Academy up north to take her rightful place in the Ktar's forces only to find that her friend, Romenel, has taken on a new aide whom she does not trust and the troops are succumbing to a mysterious illness. Intrigue piles upon intrigue and when the walking dead kidnap Duke Semis, it falls to a group of green cadets, a prickly young Lieutenant and the haunted, guilt-ridden Pelinas to ride to the rescue.
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Summary: Time travel is a long-standing tradition among superheroes, and so when Anachronism Annie, a friend and ally of Doc Silence, asks the Indestructibles to journey with her to save an alternate future where everything has gone terribly wrong, the team agrees. In this other timeline, a few small decisions have led to a much darker and more tragic world, and the adult versions of themselves the Indestructibles meet—Solar, the Dancer, Straylight, Whispering, and Entropy Emily—are nothing like they expected. Are they heroes? Martyrs? Or perhaps even villains? And what happens when the young Indestructibles discover that the alternate future’s version of one of their own team has been turned into the very weapon that will be used to destroy the whole world? Can they team up with these darker versions of themselves to save an entire future? It's said that when you time travel, you can never come back the same. How will journeying through time change the Indestructibles? Will they ever be the same? The Entropy of Everything is the third book in the Indestructibles series.
