sci fi – greenpunk

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Summary: How can something so cuddly and adorable be so destructive? The teddy bear robot decimating his lab is only the first disaster of the day for roboticist Forbes Pohle. If he can figure out how to end its rampage, he still has to interview applicants for the position of research assistant and convince the time traveler on his doorstop that they should be making their future right now. Oliver Lennox didn’t travel back in time to have a quickie in the blast chamber—but it certainly is fun. This younger Forbes is a sweeter, more innocent version of his lover. And it will be hard to leave him behind in the past. If you like sexy nerds, humor, plenty of action, and a love story not even time can disrupt, this romantic adventure has the perfect credentials for the job.

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Summary: Murderous magic, vanished races, killer relics, and drunken faeries--who knew the end of the world would look like this? Taryn St. Giles thought she knew all about elves. She dreamed of the long-vanished elves as a child and has spent the past fifteen years digging through their abandoned ruins in Beccia. Six months ago, Taryn found out everything she thought she knew about the elves was wrong. Two weeks ago she found out how very wrong she'd been. Taryn and Alric have been captured to answer for crimes against a long-lost people. Crimes that could bring down an entire kingdom and revolve around a small, glass gargoyle. Part of a weapon that destroyed an extremely powerful race, now only known as the Ancients, it, and its fellow pieces are deadly to any who have them. Knowledge of the relics found by Taryn and Alric have spread far. Dangerous bands of long dead creatures, ghosts, and nightmares out of myths are waking up and hunting for the relics. And Taryn. Winner of the RT Book Reviewers' Choice- Fantasy Adventure

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Summary: WILL YOU BE ONE OF THE INVITED? A forbidden midnight market is coming to town. The Night Bazaar isn't new. In fact, it's as old as civilization. Its first recorded appearance was in Sana'a, around 700 B.C.E. with secretive merchants from the East who presented covered stalls of exotic goods and arcane services. Various mentions appear in obscure and controversial works from around the world. The only common element is that the market opens at midnight, closes before sunrise, and may appear for up to a week in the same city . . . Paris, 1796 . . . London, 1888 . . . Berlin, 1936 . . . San Francisco, 1906 . . . but never in the same venue each night. And never again in the same city. There's just one catch: In order to find it, you must be Invited. Tonight, The Night Bazaar opens in a parking garage somewhere in Manhattan. A whole subterranean city full of antique costumes, alchemical treatments, magical dentistry, palmistry, Tarot, tea leaf-reading, and water-, glass-, and crystal-gazing, oddities and objets d’art, medical curiosities and surgical instruments. Other lost arts and body alterations are offered in certain alcoves. Through the narrow aisles throng jongleurs, freaks, charlatans, mountebanks, faeries, prostitutes, and acrobats. The scents of opium, perfume, tobacco, greasepaint, incense, plastic explosive, alcohol, and sex permeate the air. But each object or service comes with a gift, a curse, or a haunting. (This is the summary of volume one. However, The Night Bazaar anthologies need not be read in any particular order; they are all designed to stand alone as well.) The Bazaar sells that which cannot be had elsewhere. Everything you’ve read about but thought had passed away, or perhaps never existed. How wrong you were! Your guide is Madame Vera, a tall, thin woman of uncertain age, ethnicity, and trustworthiness. The stories within are your invitation to join us. It seems you have already spotted something you desire . . . but don’t head off that way, not just yet. You have all night . . . but not a moment more.

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Summary: Content with the quiet isolation of their lake house, Snowden and Rowan Hadley survive on summer jobs and winter hunting, unable to move on since their parents died. Their peace is shattered by a strange, human-acclimated bear who insists on following Rowan like a giant hunting dog and again by the discovery of a naked, surly stranger in the snow. Both bear and man lead the Hadley brothers into a strange, surreal world where sorcery and RPG software intertwine. Curses and magical traps lie in wait around every turn. Rowan and Snowden will need to adjust their view of how the world works, and quickly, if they want to live through rescuing their enchanted princes.

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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.

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Summary: The plan had been to un-man the battlespace, replacing flesh and blood with steel and carbon fiber. Machines, both remote-controlled and autonomous A.I.s, would fight and be destroyed in the name of freedom; sparing the troops at the cost of the nation's treasure. However, as with any arms race, the opposing side's technology eventually catches ups to yours, resulting in the need to put lives back in harm’s way on the frontline; to deal with, and adapt to the unknown, as only humans can. With stories by Brenda Cooper, Bud Sparhawk, Jennifer Brozek, Ronald T. Garner, Aaron Rosenberg, James Chambers, Nancy Jane Moore, Patrick Thomas, Jeff Young, Eric V. Hardenbrook, Robert E. Waters, Anton Kukal, and Danielle Ackley-McPhail, and an afterword by the late CJ Henderson.

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Summary: Li Liang has found a berth to suit her: chief pilot and first officer of the all-female crew of an old space freighter, the Sappho. Then one ordinary, unremarkable morning, Liang retunes the Sappho’s communications systems just in time to catch the breathless, terrible accounts from Mars of the total destruction of Earth. Earth’s a cinder. The unknown alien race that destroyed it has left Mars, too, in flames and is ravening outward from the solar system, devouring every human colony on the way. Liang’s one of the few survivors, racing ahead of the Devourers, rescuing as many frightened, shocked people as she can. Will Liang and the pitiful remnants of humanity find a new haven, somewhere to start again? Or will she, too, echo the dreadful last message coming out of their dead home? They’re coming. Oh God, they’re coming.  

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Summary: Returning to duty following his long recovery from the injuries he sustained during the events recounted in Heart Scarab, Shield Captain Bennet accepts a tour of duty in Fleet as flight captain on a dreadnought. The one saving grace is that it isn’t his father’s ship—bad enough that he can’t yet return to the Shield Regiment, at least he doesn’t have the added stress of commanding former lover, Fleet Lieutenant Flynn and knowing the fraternisation regulations will keep them apart. Bennet’s new mission takes him behind the lines to Makepeace, once a human colony but under Maess control for more than a century. The mission goes belly up, costing Albion one of her precious, irreplaceable dreadnoughts and bringing political upheaval, acrimony and the threat of public unrest in its wake. But for Bennet, the real nightmare is discovering what the Maess have in store for humanity. It’s not good. It’s not good at all

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Summary: Shield Captain Bennet is on Telnos, a unpleasant little planet inhabited by religious fanatics and unregistered miners running illegal solactinium mines. It’s about to be about to be overrun by the Maess. Bennet’s job is to get out as many civilians as he can, but the enemy arrives before the evacuation is complete. Caught in a vicious fire fight, Bennet is left behind, presumed dead. His family is grieving. Joss, his long-term partner, grieves with them; lost, unhappy, remorseful. First Lieutenant Flynn has no official ‘rights’ here. He isn’t family. He isn’t partner or lover. All he is, is broken.

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Summary: Willem’s father never approved of his artistic talents, his choices in life, or the fact that he’s gay. When the only thing Horst leaves to Willem is the family cat, he thinks it’s his father’s last insult from the grave. That is, until the cat starts talking to him. Though Willem’s lost his boyfriend, his home, and his job, Kasha, who claims to be a magic cat, reassures him that all will be well. All he needs is Willem’s trust and a good pair of boots. But giving boots to a talking cat has unexpected consequences when odd events ambush Willem at every turn, such as the appearance of a handsome stranger in his arms at night. While he begins to suspect Kasha’s plans might be dangerous for all involved, how can he distrust such a charming kitty in cowboy boots?

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Summary: Earth’s last known colony, Albion, is fighting an alien enemy. In the first of the Taking Shield serial, Shield Captain Bennet is dropped behind the lines to steal priceless intelligence. A dangerous job, and Bennet doesn’t need the distractions of changing relationships with his long-term partner, Joss, or with his father—and with Flynn, the new lover who will turn his world upside-down. He expects to risk his life. He expects the data will alter the course of the war. What he doesn’t expect is that it will change his life or that Flynn will be impossible to forget.

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Summary: Two years ago Trotter saved her world and the entire pantheon of Realm from a dark god. Unfortunately, gratitude didn't stop the gods from banning her from Realm when she refused to declare her dominion as a goddess. Now even her lonely refuge in Aevum is destroyed as something violently tilts the world away from the sun, plunging it into permanent night. Once again on her own to save her home, Trotter uncovers a hidden world forgotten by the gods that faces a similar fate. Unable to turn to Realm for help, Trotter will be forced to finally choose a dominion that will let her save both worlds, even if it means losing one forever. However, throughout her journey she is unaware that the terrifying darkness growing within her means another dominion has already chosen her...

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Summary: With Midwinter just around the corner, Mark's Nanna decides that it is time he learnt more about his family heritage. Learning witchcraft shouldn't be too difficult, right? Balancing school, magic, and the distractions of the gorgeous new guy, should make this a very interesting winter.   Free to download from most ebook retailers.

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Summary: Constance Kirby has lost her way. Nearing middle age, and working a dead end job, she is at her wit's end caretaking for her grumpy, housebound father. When the ghost of silent film star Rudolph Valentino visits her, can she get her life back on course?

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Summary: Kaede Hiyashi is sick and tired of living in the shadow of his father, supervillain Doctor Terror. Brilliant but crazy, Doctor Terror sends his son to Corwyn, California, for reasons Kaede can’t imagine. Sent to accompany and protect him is Ash, a genetically modified supersoldier raised and trained by an infamous death cult. Corwyn is lousy with superheroes, led by the obnoxious Dark Justice. Kaede finds himself dancing around Dark Justice as he digs into his father’s mysterious business and teaches his socially awkward—but physically lethal—bodyguard to acclimate to “normal” life. Can these two wacky supervillains figure out what Doctor Terror wants them to do, solve the riddle of the villain known as Black Hand, and keep Dark Justice from raining on their bloody parade? The course of love—and world domination—never did run smooth.

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Summary:   Many obstacles stand in Warrick Synclaire’s way. A baronet’s son, he’s in love with his best friend, Thomas Smythe. Same-sex love is illegal in early 20^th century England. To complicate things, Warrick is heading for Canada, while Thomas is destined for the military college at Sandhurst. Warrick isn’t sure he can bear the separation. The day before Warrick leaves, Thomas persuades him to see a fortuneteller. The old gypsy woman’s warnings don’t scare Warrick, but another gypsy, Nicolae, intrigues, arouses, and terrifies him. Later that evening, Nicolae breaks into Warrick’s bedchamber, bedding then biting him. But Warrick convinces himself it was just a bad dream and sails off to Canada to start a new life. There Warrick renews his acquaintance with Fox Sullivan, who he first met during the war. Soon the two become lovers, but for Warrick, the relationship is purely physical. Thomas still owns his heart. When he can no longer bear their separation, Warrick returns to his ancestral home in Kent, determined to reunite with Thomas, who now has a lover of his own. But the encounter with Nicolae changed Warrick considerably. Every full moon he turns into a ravenous creature, which seems able to rule his life even during daylight hours. Determined to win over Warrick, Fox sells his medical practice and heads for England. But will he be too late to save the man he loves?  

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Summary: What do you do when you finally prove the existence of the otherworld, but the ghosts kick your ass? For Trent Pielmeyer, the answer is run like hell—away from his hostile family, away from the disbelieving cops, and far, far, far away from anything that smacks of the supernatural. After seven years’ captivity in a whacked-out alternate dimension, he is so over legend tripping. When Christophe Clavret spots Trent in a Portland bar, he detects a kindred spirit—another man attempting to outrun the darkness of his own soul. But despite their sizzling chemistry, Trent’s hatred of the uncanny makes Christophe hesitant to confide the truth: he’s a werewolf, one of a dwindling line, the victim of a genetic curse extending back to feudal Europe. But dark forces are at work, threatening more than their growing love. If Christophe can’t win Trent’s trust, and if Trent can’t overcome his fear of the paranormal, the cost could be Trent’s freedom and Christophe’s humanity. Or it might be both their lives.

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Summary: It isn’t easy to survive in a weird hollow world, riddled with magic and stuffed with hostiles. Drome should know. In the days since he was kidnapped, he’s come close to death a little too often for comfort. Luckily, the common sense and skills of Nev, his fleshless fellow fugitive, have got him out of difficulty every time up til now. But there’s something bothering him about his feelings for Nev… And he can’t admit that to anyone, least of all himself. When he stalks off alone in a huff and walks wide-eyed into yet another sticky situation, he only has his own wits to rely on. Shackled to a wall and about to be put to death in the most horrible way imaginable, he’s beginning to wish he hadn’t alienated his only friend. Then there’s the warning he’s supposed to give to his fellow villagers. With him dead, they’ll be sitting ducks for the deathly force heading their way. Dammit! He needs a plan. And maybe a bit of help. But definitely not from a certain living skeleton with an attitude problem. If you like Terry Pratchett, Douglas Adams, and Joe Abercrombie, you won't be able to put down the addictive Hollow series.

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Summary: Fourteen-year-old Trotter was still just trying to get the hang of the demi-godding business when the apocalypse began. In a world where the other gods have withdrawn from humanity, leaving mortals bitter toward magic, she immediately becomes the prime suspect when the world begins tearing itself apart through magical means. Trotter’s desperate search to prove her innocence leads her to a mysterious little girl named Alice with powers shockingly similar to her own. Apparently, not all of the gods had been as distant as they seemed... Now, with everyone against her and the gods fighting amongst themselves, Trotter is on her own to stop a vengeful god from using Alice to destroy her world.