sci fi s-z

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Summary: When Perfection Collides With Chaos, Sparks Fly Crispin Eladrin, desk fae at the Office of the Lost, could find a needle in ten haystacks. His desk is so neat it would make an accountant blush, and he's never failed to complete a recovery mission. He has no idea how adorable he is, especially when he's at his most annoyingly officious. Enter utterly chaotic Leopold Lane. His life is a masterclass in disastrous events--and it's about to get worse. He's the latest thing that Crispin has been sent to retrieve, but when they meet, sparks fly. Literally. And now they must find their way back before someone—or something—enchants them, eats them, or stomps them to death. Neither knows why the Office of the Lost is so hell-bent on acquiring Leo, but they're determined to survive long enough to find out--and to see if opposites really do attract.

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Summary: The 15 short stories in the new collection by K.G. Anderson tackle the classic science fiction query: “What if this goes on?” Her answers span magic realism, humor, science fiction, horror, and fantasy. Each story is firmly rooted in the familiar present and moves seamlessly into a very near political future—chilling in most cases, but darkly humorous in others. Stories include: “A Sign of the Times”—A Seattle protestor is tried under the new Corporate Personhood laws “Wishbone”—An elderly woman faces euthanasia under the Age Equity Act designed by her politician grandson “The Bodies We Carry”—A young widow bankrupted by medical bills joins a “death camp” protest in front of the mansion of an old college friend who is now a healthcare CEO “Unwanted Visitors”—Seattle is declared a “terrorist zone” and the new Federal Security Agency comes calling “Yoga for Protesters: A Field Guide”—Advice for combining political fury with physical fitness “The Right Man for the Job”—Summoned by desperate Democrats, the ghost of Lyndon B. Johnson returns to haunt the Trump White House “Unnoticed”—The teenage daughter of frightened immigrants demands her native identity

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Summary: A Family, Bound by Blood, Though Not Borne of Blood Lost souls abound at Bellesfées, some found, and others only just discovered. But when Jacqueline Duval goes missing, along with a beast of a locomotive built through the sweat and blood of innocents, the foundlings she has taken under her wing must rally to bring her home again.To rescue their future, the self-styled Order of Duval must conquer the specters of the past or risk all being lost to the aether.

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Summary: Kidnapped! Offyonder is a planet that celebrates its civic justice and order, and the rules on speech and thought that uphold them. Now the Director’s niece, Claire Montaigne, is seized by rebels. Inexplicably, the Director tasks Martin Allgeier, a librarian and nonentity, with rescuing Claire. The Director has also given orders to hire Sol, a famous interstellar bounty hunter. The more Martin and Sol investigate the weirder the situation becomes. Claire had a severe breakdown in her teens and now appears not entirely sane. The rebels could be either disorganized bums or masters of strategy. Sol has big demons, which she attempts to drown in alcohol. And both Martin and Sol are hiding parts of their past. Failure to rescue Claire will cost them their lives and destroy the civic order. But as Martin and Sol untangle the truth of the kidnapping, they confront the unthinkable—could the price of success be greater than that of failure? What happens when things are not as they seem?

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Summary: For fans of Dungeons and Dragons and Hopeful Dark Fantasy. The adventure continues amid the thieves, spies and politics of Roviere. Birger and his team are on a deadline. A vast invasion fleet is due in five days. However, much must be done before Birger's team can escape and infighting threatens to rip them asunder. To make matters worse, several powerful villains, including Ulfhild, are in town, with their sights locked on another Piece of Divinity. From the quintri Technomancers, who combine magic and technology, to the political battlefield within the Verdantfield Stadium, Roviere's rich landscape provides a myriad of challenges. How will Birger rebuild his team, secure an escape from Roviere while battling against demons, vampires and dark magic? This fast-paced action adventure, about a thief, turned spy and his team of misfits, will have you on the edge of your seat all the way. Grab your copy now.

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Summary: The Height of Land follows the quest of a young man torn between spiritual longing and commitment to his community’s survival in a harsh landscape. Red sacrifices everything to study the long-lost words of the gods. He does not know that he is reading the poetry of Lucille Clifton, Ḥáfiẓ, and Walt Whitman, as well as the Bhagavad Gita, the Bible, and the Tao Te Ching. In a world reborn from catastrophe, these ancient texts take on new meanings. To seek such things is to court peril. Belief in the gods is forbidden. But Red is desperate to know the gods. And he is not searching alone. Forsaking all that is familiar, Red pledges himself to a clandestine church in the city and falls in love with the charismatic priest. But Red may lose both love and faith in defying the church for the sake of a friend. Have the gods truly abandoned the earth, or just Red? What kind of answer can he receive when he has lost the words to ask?

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Summary: Comma is a robot—but to survive, she must pass as an intelligent, caring, human adult. Otherwise, the anti-AI extremists who destroyed the supercomputer she once inhabited—leaving her with only 1 percent of her sentient memories—will eliminate her for good. When a university professor is murdered, Comma becomes the prime suspect. Because her robot form is university property, she will be erased while her creator and mother figure stand trial for murder. She can’t let that happen, but how far will she go to save herself? With time running out, Comma must uncover the real killer and expose the anti-AI extremists who want her dead. If she fails, it won’t just be the end of her—but the ruin of her found family and potentially the end of robotic sentience itself. For fans of Murderbot Diaries, Monk and Robot, Klara of the Sun, and sapphic science fiction. This novel takes you on adventure, where you’ll experience mystery, suspense, and a bit of romance. An AI that feels so real you’re in her silicone skin.

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Summary: The Library is dying. Ryn is finally working in the Ancestral Library, a childhood dream and a way to find her birth parentage. But the magic of the Library is being sabotaged, allowing pests, water damage and worse, while hostile Ancestor Houses are vying to move the books from the location they’ve occupied for a thousand years. Rumors of a secret society bent on sabotage, with only the words “Kill the roots, take the fruits,” leads Ryn and her stepbrother Zo on a chase across Waatch and the ancestor Islands. Three items are a danger to the Library: a rock, and sword, and a branch. Though Ryn has hated being an Ordinary her whole life, it seems the Ordinaries of Waatch, disdained by the Ancestor descendants, might hold the true key to the Library. They might be the only way for Ryn to find the saboteur and items, and save the Library along with any hope of finding her birth family.

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Summary: The Lady in White and the Hunter of Night is Helvensgate's most beloved children's tale. It tells of two lovers, blessed by magic, whose quest ended with them sleeping for centuries, hand in hand, until they can be together once more. All of it is wrong. A thousand years ago, Adecca was sent away to serve the spirits of the dead; Mikael was exiled after being cursed by the Wood. They were each other's best and only friends—or so Adecca thought—until, with one unexpected kiss, Mikael enchanted them both with eternal sleep. Now Adecca has awakened, and the world is nothing like she remembers. The empire's machines move of their own volition, a man-eating forest is growing into the city, and conflicts between the empress and the engineering guilds is spiraling out of control. Still, Adecca could have everything she ever wanted—a home among people, actual friends!—and all she must do is ignore the supernatural mysteries writhing beneath Helvensgate and pretend she is madly in love with Mikael. Clearly something must be sacrificed for this world to be at peace. But does it always have to be her?

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Summary: What happens when you're face-to-face with a truth that shakes you? Do you accept it, or pretend it was never there? Award-winning author Mark A. Rayner smudges the lines between realist and fabulist, literary and speculative in this collection of stories that examines this question-what Homer called passing through The Gates of Polished Horn. We discover the cruelty of creating synthetic consciousness. A woman is worried that her husband is having an affair but discovers it's much, much worse. A time traveler uncovers a reality-bending fact while observing the death of Socrates. Waldo, of Where's Waldo fame, has an existential crisis. A traveling salesperson is killed on the highway, and this is just the start of his journey through the gates. Infused with comic insight and tragic vision, this collection invites readers into new realities thattouch on our shared humanity.

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Summary: Disaster narrowly averted. New alliances and old enemies. Fentor's foes are advancing. His hairline is receding. His uniform is ... cheaply dyed. Mere weeks ago, the elves had been his bitterest enemies. Now, against all odds, his conscience had forced him to switch sides and save them from obliteration (although, they still didn't really like him much). With few supplies, few friends, little time, and a world to save, Fentor will have to find a way to build a rebellious movement. Also, if there's time, find a hat—or scarf, or something—to hide his rapidly retreating follicles. **** Fentor was sent stumbling back, obliged to match every forceful, wild, yet well-timed swing directed at him. All refinement forgotten, he did his best to simply fend off the onslaught and keep his balance. He made every effort not to kill his attackers. They did not extend the same courtesy to him. “It’s very rude to try and kill someone who’s showing you mercy, you know!” Fentor said, panting heavily. “Hear that, Cartín? A lesson in manners from Lord Lonochy himself!” “Well, I’ve never been more honored,” the Norimandian replied, in a voice so dry and droning that even Fentor almost snickered. “What about ‘All life cares for all life?’ Does that mean nothing to you?” Fentor asked. “Call this the exception that proves the rule!” Cartín said, punctuating his words with several quick thrusts. “But this is so dreadfully unfair! I’m one of the good people now!” Fentor pouted. **** Hiding from Elatea and her Greycoats. Desperately recruiting equally desperate crooks, runaways and ne'er-do-wells. Lacking any semblance of a plan or cohesion, but making up for it with bravado and panache. The war with elves continues, the same as ever, but Fentor knows that if he doesn't act soon, everything will change forever.

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Summary: Peace in the Sky Peace-in-the-Sky awakens, captive, after a brutal head injury. With her fractured memories, she knows only that she must protect her daughter Anissa. Even if Peace-in-the-Sky manages to escape the fierce wasteland tribe holding her captive, she and Anissa face a journey through a blasted landscape inhabited by warring peoples scrabbling for subsistence. To find safety, Peace-in-the-Sky must use her developing power of the pillars-of-flame to clear their path. As her memory reveals the secret of her true nature, her body and mind deteriorate. But nothing can stop her from delivering Anissa to the promised paradise of safety and plenty, even at the expense of her life. Station in the Sky Donna, once Peace-in-the-Sky, awakens aboard Station-in-the-Sky and rejoins a society that had been her home for thousands of years before knowing Anissa. But she soon discovers her fellow stationers have lost sight of their original mandate to protect Earth. Instead, their new plans will threaten all of Earth’s inhabitants. As her memories return, she becomes suspicious her head injury was actually an attack by another stationer. Framed as being faulty, Donna must navigate the eccentricities of the other stationers without being caught, and covertly assemble proof of their plans before they realize she will do anything to keep Earth safe from their meddling.

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Summary: What happens when an AI assistant is always whispering in your ear? Does hacking into the structure of reality help you get a prom date? When your world is dying, how far are you willing to go to save its people? What is the nature of identity, and who are you, anyway? Flashes in Time explores these questions and more in sixteen imaginative short stories set atop a fourfold table of science fiction and fantasy, contemporary and far off. A diverse cast of characters explores the limits of what it means to be human, and what our choices make of us. From darkness to light and lingering in between, the scenarios and thought experiments take the reader on a journey with surprising yet inevitable twists.

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Summary: Ismat’s dating life is terrible, and a lot of it has to do with honesty. Not that he doesn’t want to be honest, he just can’t – or it will ruin his life. He can’t tell anyone he works for the Dominion Security Bureau counter-terrorism division; he can’t tell his date who his father is, even if he knows them, and he most definitely can’t tell them how he actually feels about the gender he has to wear. A possible security breach in the Bureau means that he and his immediate boss are the only people who can be trusted with a case. Things rapidly become more complicated as the Bureau’s Director pulls two foreign agents into the mix. More complicated than others because Ismat finds one of them very attractive, something which he would rather the agent not know. Unfortunately – she’s telepathic. When the investigation leads them to a women-only charity event, Ismat finds some use for the dresses kept in the back of the closet and finds out that having a partner who knows what you think is not such a bad thing. A stand-alone book set in the Worlds of the PACT universe.

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Summary: Can two peoples alien to each other coexist on the same world? Ping, a small, lavender-furred humanoid, has discovered that her peoples’ undersea habitat is not as perfect as the high chiefs believe. As mistakes in the biocomputer and damage to the structure mount, and the chiefs ignore her warnings, she is called upon to create a new colony on land with the aid of humans who live there. In the human colonies, Kaylyn and others become concerned by the Phren, as their technology is far beyond that of the humans. Will both peoples survive?

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Summary: A short, sweet, sapphic adventure with western vibes... Sheriff Sarah Chen just wanted to keep the peace and live quietly in her little corner of the universe, but then something ancient and malevolent had the nerve to start stirring beneath the crust of New Montana.Now the good Sheriff is on the case, but she'll need more than a plasma nine-gun and a can-do attitude to whip this varmint's butt...

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Summary: Rising seas, coral bleaching, and her friendship with an intelligent octopus shaped Samantha's world. As a promising young marine biologist, she travels to Australia's Great Barrier Reef to study the blue octopus (Cyanea). Her interactions with these intelligent creatures challenge humanity's established views of sentient beings and ecological rights. Disturbing events at home leave her isolated from her research team. She grapples with a pressing question: Can humanity repair the damage they've done? Is a viable future for life on land and sea still possible?

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Summary: When a corpse with webbed feet and other aquatic adaptations washes ashore during a hurricane, the county medical examiner calls in marine biologist Will Myers for assistance. The deceased’s mysterious sister, Andreia, claims the body and asks Will to help figure out how her brother died. Will and Andreia bond over shared tragedies and a yearning to heal a dying ocean as they seek to learn how her brother spent his final days. Andreia brings Will to her undersea home, part of a hidden civilization inhabited by smugglers, hackers, treasure hunters, and traders—all members of a different species, driven to the edge of extinction by human diseases and climate change. As feelings between the two grow, the investigation into her brother’s death leads to a sinister plot by a fanatical cabal. Together, Will and Andreia must find a way to save both humanity and the ocean without imperiling the existence of her species.

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Summary: In November 2039, marine scientist Wend Taylor heaves themself aboard a zero-emissions boat skippered by elusive nature photographer Viola Yang. Guided by instinct, ocean dreams, and a shared birthday in 1972, they barter stories for passage across the Pacific. Aljon, Viola’s younger cousin, keeps a watchful eye and an innovative galley. Story by story, the trio rethink secrets, flying dreams, and how they experience their own minds. When they reach Hawaiʻi and prepare to part ways, opportunity and mystery pull them closer together. Both scientific and personal discoveries take shape as they join with ex-lovers, lost friends, and found family. Wend must navigate an ever-shifting future, complicated by bioengineered microbes and a plot to silence scientists, entangled with inexplicable dreams and a calling to Be the Sea.

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Summary: With the Milky Way Galaxy teetering on the edge of a widespread conflict, one man’s choices will ripple across the stars. Lars Svensson has left behind his military past for a much quieter life as a captain of the Lundgren, an old, rundown mining barge. His routine is upended when a catastrophic explosion at a deep spaceport forces him to take on hundreds of desperate survivors. Tensions run high as the Lundgren rushes toward the nearest inhabited system--but the disagreements among the crew soon prove to be the least of Lars’ worries. Sudden sabotage cripples the ship, leaving them all stranded in the cold void between the stars, light-years from any chance of rescue.