sci fi s-z

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Summary: Regan has her ups and downs. -Dumping her girlfriend: Down. -Moving in with her loving brother: Up. -Waking up to a plague of undead: REALLY down. After the undead began roaming the neighborhood, Regan lost track of her brother. She’s spent the last two years searching for him. In the meantime, she’s fallen in love, only to be told, “Sorry, I’m straight. And you’re a lunatic.” There’s a psycho out there somewhere who caused the outbreak, using nanotechnology, just for the fun of it, and Regan intends to hunt him down. Oh, and the crush she still has on the straight gal? Dangerously distracting, when there’s a zombie around every corner.

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Summary: When young paleontologist, Ryan Thompson, finds a new species of mosasaur in Cretaceous seaway sediments, he is thrilled. The discovery should jumpstart his career. Joy quickly turns to fear when he touches an artifact buried among the sea reptile’s ribs. Suddenly, he must fight a mental takeover by an alien intelligence committed to transforming the Earth into a refuge for her own race. As Ryan and his girlfriend, Skeets, attempt to thwart alien plans to colonize Earth begun in the deep past, even this crisis becomes trivial. The uneasy symbiosis of Ryan and the alien, Siu, generates a new entity with the power to transform the entire universe.

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Summary: All she wants is to be an engineer, but her parents—and society—will never allow it. Until riots break out in steampunk London and she seizes her chance... It’s 1889, and Claire Trevelyan is expected to do nothing more with her life than catch a rich husband. Unfortunately, her talents lie not in the ballroom, but in the laboratory, where things have a regrettable habit of blowing up. When her father gambles the estate on the combustion engine despite the fact that everyone knows the world runs on steam, Claire finds herself out in the street with nothing to her name but her steam landau and her second best hat. But the embarrassments of her old life just might be the talents that save her now ... and it’s not long before a new leader rises in the underworld, known only as the Lady of Devices… If you like old-fashioned adventure, brave young women, clever children, and strong-willed chickens, you’ll love the Magnificent Devices series. Fangs for the Fantasy says Claire is “a wonderful main character (one of my favourites in the genre)” and the series has “a great sense of Victorian style and language that’s both fun and beautiful to read.” With Lady of Devices, you can begin the adventure today!

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Summary: Sarah's got daddy issues. He lives in her head, built her out of fish, and killed millions of people. But he's really sorry. Honest. A father that lives in your head wouldn't be so bad if he wasn't the killer of millions. At least it's comforting to know that he didn't murder the fishes used to create your body. Or the seagull. Sarah hides her illegal nanite origins in an effort to build an ordinary life, but the legacy of dad's horrors makes it difficult. Especially when new but familiar zombie-like abominations begin to appear in the city.

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Summary: Cassidy needed a fresh start, and the offer of a guard posting for a historic temple in the middle of the desert sounded like a good way to clear her head. She didn't expect to find a new girlfriend- maybe even a soul mate. She didn't expect to be in the crossfire of a terrorist, a cowardly scientist, and a fleet of microscopic invaders. She didn't expect to lose. In the years after Lifehack and the Erebus incident, the world settles into relative quiet under strict nanite bans, but underground activity keeps dangerous nano-tech alive and well. (Although Watching Yute is a complete tale within the Lifehack series, it chronologically takes place between Lifehack and Echoes of Erebus.)

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Summary: Race, an ex-cop private eye in a world where most people are conditioned so that they cannot commit an act of violence, must release a savage artificial personality, Ralf, that was implanted in him when he did a deep-cover mission as a police officer, to rescue Astra, the woman he secretly loves, from the crime syndicates who have used a drug to turn her into a sex slave. Race succeeds at the cost of the crime syndicates discovering that Ralph is still alive. The syndicates want their assassin back and think nothing of toppling Race’s sanity to achieve their ends. Can Race maintain control of his body? Freed of the drug’s effect, will Astra return his affections? And what of Ralph, can a sociopath learn to love and what changes might that bring?

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Summary: When the shares Nicolas’s family rely on become worthless, he seeks help from their estranged Uncle Secundus Broadberry—a selfish man with no familial loyalty. Forced to live in a veritable hovel, Nicolas and his sister must find work to support themselves and their mother. Through his uncle, Nicolas meets Rufus Melbeck and accepts a post aboard his spaceship Strawberry Fields. Although the ship gives Nicolas a bad feeling, he quickly makes friends with Nathan Smith, a gentle, young man who seems very much out of place. Nothing and no one aboard the vessel are what they seem. Nicolas soon finds himself plunged into a dangerous adventure the likes of which he could never have imagined. Can Nicolas and Nathan survive the dangers of Strawberry Fields and solve the mystery that surrounds Nathan, or will Nathan's past reach out to destroy them both?

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Summary: Each unique short story in this supernatural anthology will transport you to a magical interpretation of romance as authors bring to life, uncommon love affairs and out of the ordinary long distance relationships. Escape into the realms of eroticism, fan fiction fables, intergalactic intimacies, lunar love, mythical fantasy, and past lives revisited. Is it fate, is it destiny or is it one of those defining moments where the universe comes to a screeching halt as an epic love appears?

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Summary: Eclectic, imaginative, and unexpected, Community of Magic Pens features forty genre-spanning flash and short stories--including fantasy, humor, science fiction, romance, historical fiction, satire, and mystery--bringing together a rich group of diverse voices from a wide range of backgrounds and intersections. Fountain pens, markers and ink, charcoals, spy pens, a braille writer, a printing press, virtual reality, and a supernatural pizza: whether revealing unspoken truths, fighting injustice, or finding friendship and love, our pens have power. Join us as a recent graduate of superhero school struggles to understand her gift, a disabled android interviews for a job, a queen’s conscripted artist must pull reality from illustrations on parchment, and a grandmother’s secret room is…better kept a secret. Tales of struggle and triumph, compassion and hope: Community of Magic Pens is a celebration of our shared story.

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Summary: Saving a life can change the course of history. Destin is torn away from his chicks and his bonded when the Terrens invade Aries 7. Experimented on in Terren labs, and made to work their mines, the GyrFalconi struggle to survive. Destin becomes their caretaker, endeavoring to save as many as possible, despite the emotional toll. Amidst the battle for survival, the universe shines on him and he bonds with not one but four people who give him a reason to keep fighting. When Valespia sends its Legions to the GyrFalconi’s aid, Destin and his bonded are eventually freed, only to face new cruelties from their own people. Freedom comes with its own trials, though, as a divide forms in GyrFalconi society between the winged and the wingless. Destin and his bonded are given a chance at true happiness and they keep what they claim, no matter what. Tags: The Twenty-Year War where Terrens really mucked things up, so many hatchlings, Love not Lust (yes, using caps there seemed necessary), survivors, bisexual characters, all the cute hatchlings, talking to spirits, low heat, protective chantelle, evil empress, courageous stags, polyamorous, Destin keeps collecting bonded, avian species screech... a lot, non-human ace spectrum characters, found family, underestimated batore, so many stags, Mar'Sani mentor, did I mention the cutest chicks ever? CHERISH is the fourth book in the award-winning Valespian Pact series. Trigger warnings can be found in the Author’s Note. Please download a sample of this book or use the Look Inside feature. 196,000 words.

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Summary: The embers of War still glow as memories of strange skies over an alien landscape, light-years from home, bring back the sensations of battle; a time when personal sacrifice meant the difference between salvation for all, or total destruction. Gathered here is a cross-section of stories from the first decade of the award-winning Defending The Future series. Written by the known and up-and-coming in the military science fiction genre, these stories represent the fan-requested highlights from the series.

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Summary: Brother and sister team Midnight and Aurora Pendragon have a successful airship business taking clients on trips to be photographed with their pet pterodactyl. The last thing they expect is to have one such trip hijacked by the dashing adventurer Voltaire Crevin and his right-hand man Trevilian Hawke. While his sister and Voltaire repeatedly lock horns, Midnight finds himself increasingly drawn to Trevilian. Finally, Voltaire explains they are trying to prevent a weapon of mass destruction from falling into the hands of a ruthless, secret organization, the S.O.R. With Midnight's help, they take the airship down into an extinct volcano to find that not only does Atlantis still exist, but the weapon is in the hands of the few remaining Atlanteans. But if Voltaire had believed the S.O.R. were ruthless, it's nothing compared to that of the Atlanteans who seek to return to the surface and rule the world using their ultimate weapon: The Leviathan. Midnight's feelings for Trevilian deepen as they seek a way to stop the Atlanteans and escape from Atlantis. Danger comes in many ways and takes many forms, each more deadly than the last. Can Midnight and Trevilian survive long enough to know whether love never dies?

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Summary:   In the groove. In the zone. A period of intense focus and high performance that feels effortless. Flow. When Kel invents a device to produce the mysterious state of ‘flow’ on demand, she hopes to unleash humanity's creative potential. But the prototype can also be used to record other mind-body states. Her device is stolen and used for a range of causes, some good... and some very bad. As Kel struggles to regain control of her device, it threatens to destroy her legacy and shatter lives around the world... until all uses of the tech converge on the most unexpected and unintended consequence of all.