Sci Fi - Near Future Genre

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Summary: Tangents & Tachyons is Scott's second anthology - six sci fi and sci-fantasy shorts that run the gamut from time travel to hopepunk and retro spec fic: Eventide: Tanner Black awakes to find himself in his own study, staring out the window at the end of the Universe. But who brought him there, and why? Chinatown: Deryn lives in an old San Francisco department store with his girlfriend Gracie, and scrapes by with his talent as a dreamcaster for the Chinese overlords. But what if a dream could change the world? Across the Transom: What if someone or something took over your body on an urgent mission to save your world? Pareidolia: Simon's not like other college kids. His mind can rearrange random patterns to reveal the images lurking inside. But where did his strange gift come from? And what if there are others like him out there too? Lamplighter: Fen has a crush on his friend Lewin, who's in a competing guild. But when the world goes dark, only a little illumination can save it. And only Fen, Lewin and their friend Alissa can light the spark. A Liminal Sky short. Prolepsis: Sean is the closeted twenty-five-year-old editor of an 80's sci-fi 'zine called Prolepsis. When an unabashedly queer story arrives from a mysterious writer, it blows open Sean's closet door, and offers him the chance to change the world - and the future. Plus two flash fiction stories – The System and The Frog Prince, never before published. This is the first time all of these stories have all been collected in one place.

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Summary: Their goal is to make the world a better place. One billionaires’s obsession may turn their altruism into destruction. Jay Ecklund is desperate to belong somewhere. Rejected by his family and former employer, he really needs this job as a receptionist at an up-and-coming tech corporation. He’s astonished when he discovers the all-woman staff is secretly developing a portal capable of instantaneous transport to anywhere on Earth. Thrilled to be part of a company designing innovations to help others, Jay is excited when the machine is at last operational. But he worries about it falling into the wrong hands when an ambitious billionaire hell-bent on accumulating power makes a bid to get it…at any cost. Will the portal be used as a rescue device as intended, or will a relentless manipulator warp it to a more sinister purpose? The Arachne Portal is an electrifying standalone science fiction novel. If you like fast-paced adventures, phenomenal science, and thought-provoking themes, then you’ll love Joan Marie Verba’s compelling story. Buy The Arachne Portal to open a gateway to the future today!

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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: The job seemed simple enough: collect the package and deliver it to Europa within two days' time, no questions asked. If only the client hadn't lied about there being no catch... A tale from the Jovian Empire.

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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: New Hopeland City may have been built to be the centerpiece of the technological age, but some remnants of the old world still linger. The tools of the trade have changed, but the corruption remains the same, even in the criminal underworld … When PI Cassie Tam and her girlfriend Lori try to make up for their recent busy schedules with a night out at the theatre to watch the Tech Shift performer Kitsune, the last thing they expected was for Cassie to get a job offer. But some people are never off the clock, and by the end of the evening, Cassie has been drawn into a mundane but highly paid missing pet case. Unfortunately, in New Hopeland City, even something as simple as little lost dog can lead you down some dark paths. Until now, Cassie wasn’t aware that there even was a rabbit hole, let alone how far down it goes.

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Summary: The Prince of Shadows, the Jack of Shades or just plain Jack is a naughty boy, a good boy really but naughty all the same. There's nothing he likes better than a wrong to right. Hmm . . . let's start again . . . there's nothing he likes better than a willing man or woman for that matter, willing to get down and dirty with Jack. If he can right a wrong and get laid on the side then Jack is a very happy man. I say man but then do we really know who or what Jack is? Never mind he is still one of the good guys. Jack is a man with many shadows, many inhabitants as it were, and not all of them originating from this world. He has a problem. Part of him or is it one of him needs to go home and sort out things. It's going to be dangerous, it could be a one way trip but, what the heck, there could be a chance of getting it on with . . . . well that's to be seen.   Available on Smashwords - free

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Summary: Escaping intergalactic kidnappers has never been quite so ridiculous. When Lem and her faithful dog, Spock, retreat from the city for a few days of hiking in Algonquin Park, the last thing they expect is to be kidnapped by aliens. No, scratch that. The last thing they expect is to be kidnapped by a bunch of strangely adorable intergalactic bounty hunters aboard a ship called the Teapot. After Lem falls in with an unlikely group of allies – including a talking horse, a sarcastic robot, an overly anxious giant parrot, and a cloud of sentient glitter gas – the gang must devise a cunning plan to escape their captors and make it back home safely. But things won’t be as easy as they first seem. Lost in deep space and running out of fuel, this chaotic crew are faced with the daunting task of navigating an alien planet, breaking into a space station, and discovering the real reason they’re all there… Packed with preposterous scenarios, quirky characters, and oodles of humour, The Left Hand of Dog tackles complex subjects such as gender, the need to belong, and the importance of honest communication. Perfect for fans of Charlie Jane Anders’ Victories Greater than Death – especially ones who enjoy endless references to Red Dwarf, Star Trek, and Doctor Who. This book will show you that the universe is a very strange place indeed. Scroll up and grab your copy now!

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Summary: While Sacrum Umbra showed us the darkness of our own shadow, and In Ventre Tuo the guts of our inner monster, The Lesser Apocrypha is still another beast altogether. Meant to gather together the stranger stories, it contains some of the more surreal and ephemeral stories, the ones that just are without much rhyme or reason. Stories like an odd moment in the park, the strange child who won't stop haunting you, an alien invasion that gets very personal, an AI born of a lolcat, monsters in the woods, and a spell gone terribly wrong.

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Summary: They say, “Never work with androids or children.” Quirk had one job to do, deliver papers to a Milan mafia boss, before leaving Earth for his home in the asteroids. But that was before being tailed, poisoned—oh, yes—and hijacked into raising foulmouthed fourteen-year-old convent girl Angelika Moratti, aka Moth, who'd rather see him asphyxiate in space. Fleeing assassins, Quirk, Moth and her syRen® android S-0778 ride the space elevator to the Moon, where Quirk hires on to hunt an ex-terra-former who somehow used an android to murder his doctor. But which android of the two hundred under Lunaville’s dome? The trail of bodies grows, time is running out; the only way they can save the dome and the two thousand souls beneath it is to solve The Mandroid Murders. Genres: Science Fiction / Thriller / Mystery / Adventure / LGBT and Non Binary Market: Adult

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Summary: An intriguing collection of short stories, from Space Opera to harder sf. Life can be hard when your papers suddenly aren’t valid anymore and you are forced to leave your home for another planet. How do you cope? Friendly aliens come in all shapes, as do the ones you don’t want in your mind. You will find some futuristic social science and a speculative one thrown in for good measure. The characters are younger and some are older, some are strange and some perhaps, are more familiar. This collection of short stories reveals capable humans, intriguing aliens, and new areas of trade.

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Summary: Whales around the world changed their songs the day scientists announced the discovery of powerful new particles around Saturn's largest moon which could solve Earth's energy needs. The Quinn Corporation rushes to build a solar sail space craft to unlock the secrets of these strange new particles. They gather the best and brightest to pilot the ship: Jonathan Jefferson, an aging astronaut known as the last man on Mars; Natalie Freeman, a distinguished Navy captain; Myra Lee, a biologist who believes the whales are communicating with Saturn; and John O'Connell, the technician who first discovered the particles. Charting the course is the mysterious Pilot who seems determined to keep secrets from the rest of the crew. Together they make a grand tour of the solar system and discover not only wonders but dangers beyond their imagination.

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Summary: Some stories are epic. The Earth is in a state of collapse, with wars breaking out over resources and an environment pushed to the edge by human greed. Three living generation ships have been built with a combination of genetic mastery, artificial intelligence, technology, and raw materials harvested from the asteroid belt. This is the story of one of them—43 Ariadne, or Forever, as her inhabitants call her—a living world that carries the remaining hopes of humanity, and the three generations of scientists, engineers, and explorers working to colonize her. From her humble beginnings as a seedling saved from disaster to the start of her journey across the void of space toward a new home for the human race, The Stark Divide tells the tales of the world, the people who made her, and the few who will become something altogether beyond human.

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Summary: In The Wrath of Leviathan, the second book of the BetterWorld trilogy, Waylee faces life in prison for daring to expose MediaCorp's schemes to control the world. Exiled in São Paulo, her sister Kiyoko and their hacker friends continue the fight, seeking to end the conglomerate's stranglehold on virtual reality, information, and politics. But MediaCorp and their government allies may quash the rebellion before it takes off. And unknown to Kiyoko and her friends, a team of ruthless mercenaries is after them, and is closing in fast.

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Summary: "Today I swam through MOMA. Leon says it was a waste, encasing the art, then flooding the museum—frivolous and elitist. I say it was a gesture of optimism, a triumph of technology and political will." Want to thrill to the possibilities of a hopeful future? We asked a bunch of sci-fi writers to spin tales of a better future, imagining ways in which the world might become a better place. From a swim through an underwater museum to a joyous dance at a futuristic concert, from the eco-friendly aftermath of an alien invasion and retreat to the refurbishing of an old climate-ravaged home in New Vancouver, these fourteen short sci-fi stories will to restore your faith in the future. A world transformed is a world we can all hope for. Book three in the Writers Save the World short story anthologies. If you enjoy this book, check out Fix the World and Save the World.

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Summary: Zeke is a hermit in his late forties who lives a quiet life in a small cabin in the Western Montana mountains, a few miles outside of Thompson Falls. He’s gotten used to being alone since the end of the world, and has everything he needs. Everything but someone to talk to. Nathan is a younger man on a cross-country trek, searching the country for someone... anyone still alive. Saddled with a ghost from his old life and a case of OCD, he stumbles upon Thompson Falls and a pack of rabid dogs. Rescued by Zeke, he has to figure out how to be human again. And with Christmas just a week away, both men have to figure out if there’s something left to be hopeful for, and if they might have a future together.

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Summary: In Zero-Day Rising, the third book of the BetterWorld trilogy, Kiyoko resolves to free her sister and bring down President Rand and MediaCorp. However, MediaCorp unleashes its ultimate plan: direct mind control with cerebral implants. Can Kiyoko and Waylee’s team stop them? Can they penetrate MediaCorp’s networks and end the company’s grip over humanity? All while eluding the biggest manhunt in history, in a country where everyone and everything is under surveillance?