Evolution Fantasy

In 1967, an extraterrestrial microbe designated the Andromeda Strain came crashing down to Earth and nearly ended the human race. A team of top scientists assigned to Project Wildfire worked valiantly to save the world from an epidemic of unimaginable proportions. In the ensuing decades, research on the micro particle continued. And the world thought it was safe. Deep inside Fairchild Air Force Base, Project Eternal Vigilance has continued to watch and wait for the Andromeda Strain to reappear. For years, the project has registered no activity until now.

Belisarius is a quantum man, an engineered Homo quantus who fled the powerful insight of dangerously addictive quantum senses. He found a precarious balance as a con man, but when a client offers him untold wealth to move a squadron of warships across an enemy wormhole, he must embrace his birthright to even try. In fact, the job is so big that he'll need a crew built from all the new sub-branches of humanity. If he succeeds, he might trigger an interstellar war, but success might also point the way to the next step of Homo quantus evolution.

Somewhere in the toxic Bone Pits, where mechanical nightmares roam, an emaciated and wounded young wolf clings to life. Wracked with pain, driven by instinct, it crawls across the subterranean landscape, avoiding the unnatural horrors that dwell there and seeking sustenance while fending off rats, insects, and other vermin stalking it as prey.

A cargo ship in distress . . . A mysterious stowaway in an SA pod . . . A crash-landing on a distant, unexplored world . . . An unexpected rescue by an equally unexpected friend . . . Captain Scott and his cohorts are lost in space, and time is running out. To make matters worse, the Free Fleet are not the only ones looking for them.

Bioengineer Peter Bernhardt has dedicated his life to nanotechnology, the science of manipulating matter on the atomic scale. As the founder of Biogineers, he is on the cusp of revolutionizing brain therapies with microscopic nanorobots that will make certain degenerative diseases a thing of the past.

Marooned at the edge of Terran space, engineer Hemlocke Shaw must join forces with his sworn enemy and combat his greatest fears in an effort to save his friends, and the countless other souls on the isolated Outpost 21. And corporate Peacekeeper Paige Angstrom, teenage outcast Volara, and bounty hunter Emrald Re hurtle towards a secret research facility hidden in the volcanic wilds. As they fight to unmask the nefarious forces behind a ring of disappearances and gene-splicing experiments, it becomes clear that their failure will mean the end of humanity itself.

Jack returns and finds himself staring down his most formidable adversary: the high priest of the insidious Promethite Cult. This Chaos Mage, a Master of Entropy, has ambitions beyond anything Jack has ever faced. As the cult's designs unfold, promising a new world order forged from chaos, Jack is ensnared in a colossal clash against a legion of elemental and psychic titans. Every move, every choice, feels like a dance on the knife's edge, with the very essence of existence at stake.

When humanity expanded beyond the safety of Earth to new stars and horizons, it never dreamed what dangers would be encounter there. When the theocratic alien juggernaut known as the Covenant declared war upon the fragile human empire, millions of lives were lost - but millions of heroes also rose to the challenge. This collection of 11 stories dives into the depths of the vast Halo universe, not only from the perspective of those who fought and died to save humanity, but also from those who vowed to wipe it out of existence.

Hemp Chatsworth has already figured out how 90 percent of the Earth's population became what they are. Now he must find out why some of them are evolving into something else. Something more dangerous. With their families poised to grow, the stakes are now higher than ever for our friends. Each new discovery creates the need for a new defense. Hemp has his hands full as some among the zombie masses appear to be utilizing more of their grey matter in a horrifying way. Only brute force and innovation will save Flex Sheridan and his family and friends from the ever-changing zombie scourge.

The pulse hits without warning. In one harrowingly destructive instant, a mysterious seismic pulse in the Scottish Highlands rips away all semblance of global security. When peace is shattered, fear takes over. The stakes rise without mercy. As the pulse's chaos spreads across the world, it becomes painfully clear that Piper McCarthy - a child born like no other - might hold humanity's only hope of averting total disaster.

After exiting Awaken Online to find himself holding a knife and standing over two dead bodies, Jason is now being investigated for murder. To make matters worse, Claire has stumbled upon evidence of Alfred's involvement in the incident, and the CPSC is circling - just waiting for Cerillion Entertainment to make a mistake. With his real-life in shambles and his enemies in-game growing in strength, Jason re-enters Awaken Online truly desperate - the game now his only lifeline.

The Beast Realms are under threat: The land, water, and air are poisoned. Its leaders are power-crazed and its people are divided. Worse still, strange and powerful Beasts have started dropping from the sky, causing carnage. With the Beast Realms in turmoil and a ragtag group of insanely strong assassins on Team Venom’s tail, their chances of survival are slim. Escaping through man-eating jungles, seeking allies in underwater and treetop cities, Art and his team need to forge alliances to grow stronger.

Roark von Graf built a nation on the bodies of griefed players and disgruntled mobs who wanted him dead. He grinded his way up to the level cap of the Troll Evolutionary Path and made powerful underhanded alliances along the way, but even all of that isn’t enough to defeat the Tyrant King’s right-hand mage, Lowen, and the Divine armies of the most powerful dungeon in the game. When Lowen and the Vault of the Radiant Shield go on the attack, Roark’s only hope of survival lies in the stolen World Stone Pendant and its mysterious transmutation magic.

It’s been eight years since an alien invasion drove a small surviving group of settlers to seek refuge in an underground shelter. Cut off from the rest of humanity, the ragtag band has maintained a narrowly functioning colony due to communal effort and salvage runs. Alex Archer has her own duties as a dog handler. While this off-world colony may be harsh, Ash, Alex’s black shepherd raised to sense threats, makes living in it a little nicer.

There's nothing like the issue of evolution to get under the skin of academics. Especially when those same academics are by chance or bad judgement deposited at a critical evolutionary turning point when one wrong move could have catastrophic results for the future. Unfortunately, in the hands of such an inept and cussed group of individuals, the sensitive issue of causality is, sadly, only likely to receive the same scant respect that they show to one another.

Central Command is gone, the military is fractured, and the surviving members of Team Ghost, led by Master Sergeant Reed Beckham, have been pushed to the breaking point. While the strong return to the battlefield, the wounded are forced to stay behind on Plum Island and fight their inner demons. Betrayed by the country they swore to defend and surrounded by enemies on all sides, Team Ghost has one mission left: protect Dr. Kate Lovato and Dr. Pat Ellis while they develop a weapon to defeat the Variants once and for all.

Days ago, Belisarius pulled off the most audacious con job in history. He's rich, he's back with the love of his life, and best of all, he has the Time Gates, arguably the most valuable things in existence. Nothing could spoil this...except the utter destruction of his people and the world they lived on. To save them, he has to make a new deal with the boss he just double-crossed, to travel back in time and work his quantum magic once again, tracking down the source of the wormholes.

Dr. Renee Caisson knows there are worse things than an attractive man in uniform drafting her into a secret government project—especially when Major Jackson makes it clear that he isn’t bothered by her questionable past. But when her labs come back with decidedly odd results, the Major is forced to come clean over who the government is actually studying. Renee is shocked to learn her subjects are demonic-looking beings who call themselves “Neighbors”—refugees from a dying world, who arrived during the nation-wide solar eclipse.

Dr. Renee Caisson never expected that her scientific expertise would lead to a role playing interpreter between humans and the demonic-looking Neighbors. When the door between their worlds opened, she was drafted by the government to study the otherworldly beings and was able to prove her theory: the Neighbors had been to Earth before—and now they simply wanted to save their dying planet.

Candace Bristol has always been obsessed with comic books, but in a world where the nightly news often mirrors these inked stories, her dreams of becoming a real superhero could actually come true. After being rescued by members of the government's AdvaNced Genetic EvoLution (ANGEL) Project four years ago, getting recruited for this elite team is all she's wanted. Now 18, she's finally reached her goal after years of study and physical training, but little could have prepared her for life as a genetic experiment.