THE EVENTS OF EARTH'S PAST MAY HOLD THE KEY TO EARTH'S SALVATION IN THE FUTURE

Marty Cohen was a gifted linguist and student of ancient military strategy who stepped away from academic Egyptology and opened a woodworking shop. Away from the bitter politics and petty rivalries, he’s happy to take care of his people, play the occasional war game, and try to make a good life.

Then mysterious visions begin to rob him of sleep. Soon after they start, he gets summoned back to Egypt: an off-the-grid dig funded by an eccentric financier has discovered texts that may be the earliest Egypt has produced, and they’ll pay Marty silly amounts of cash just to fly out and take one little look.

Marty turned his back on the academia game, but he’s a small business owner who has to make payroll, and he can’t say no to the money.

But the texts open doors to more visions and to an astonishing journey: his ragtag team of archaeologists finds itself in protohistoric North Africa, a drying land dominated by monsters, where humanity is badly in need of champions.

And behind the war against the monster overlords lies a greater struggle: Marty and his team have been chosen to be champions of all Earth and to run a gauntlet on humanity’s behalf.

Failure will mean extinction.

What would it really take to make the Six Million Dollar Man? A medical thriller on earth and in space!

Glenn Armstrong Shepard had his sights set on going to Mars as a flight surgeon, but a training accident on the Moon left him crippled. Now he has a new plan: to be fitted with bionic prosthetics and come back even stronger.

Fate and the Space Force have other plans, and Glenn is grounded. Another doctor—his ex-fiancée—takes his place, and Glenn will have to fight to prove he can be an astronaut once more. . . .

A STUNNING BAEN BOOKS DEBUT. A brilliant Americana flintlock fantasy novel set in a world of Appalachian magic that works.

Sarah Calhoun is the fifteen‑year‑old daughter of the Elector Andrew Calhoun, one of Appalachee’s military heroes and one of the electors who gets to decide who will next ascend as the Emperor of the New World. None of that matters to Sarah. She has a natural talent for hexing and one bad eye, and all she wants is to be left alone—especially by outsiders.

But Sarah’s world gets turned on its head at the Nashville Tobacco Fair when a Yankee wizard‑priest tries to kidnap her. Sarah fights back with the aid of a mysterious monk named Thalanes, who is one of the not‑quite‑human Firstborn, the Moundbuilders of the Ohio. It is Thalanes who reveals to Sarah a secret heritage she never dreamed could be hers.

Now on a desperate quest with Thalanes to claim this heritage, she is hunted by the Emperor’s bodyguard of elite dragoons, as well as by darker things—shapeshifting Mockers and undead Lazars, and behind them a power more sinister still. If Sarah cannot claim her heritage, it may mean the end to her, her family—and to the world where she is just beginning to find her place.

HORROR IN THE TRENCHES

The war between Almacia and the Empire of Kolakolvia is in its hundredth year. Casualties heap even higher on both sides as the conflict leaves no corner of the world untouched.

Illarion Glaskov’s quiet life on the fringes of the empire is thrown into chaos when tragedy strikes his village. When he is conscripted into the Tsarist military, he is sent to serve in The Wall—an elite regiment that pilots suits of armor made from the husks of dead golems.

NEW FANTASY FROM BEST-SELLING AUTHOR JANE LINDSKOLD

Instead of mentors, they got monsters . . .

That’s what Xerak, Vereez, and Grunwold think when three strange creatures shimmer into being within the circle of Hettua Shrine. Their conclusion is reasonable enough. After all, they’ve never seen humans before.

As for Margaret Blake, Peg Gallegos, and Tessa Brown—more usually known as Meg, Peg, and Teg—they’re equally astonished but, oddly enough, better prepared. Age and experience have accustomed them to surprises. A widely varied course of reading material has intellectually prepared them for the idea that other worlds, even worlds where people with traits more commonly ascribed to “animals” may exist.

Then there is the mysterious verse that Teg speaks as they arrive, words that seem to indicate that the Shrine must have been at least partially responding to the request made of it.

Despite doubts on all sides, the three unlikely mentors join forces with the three young “inquisitors” and venture out into the world Peg dubs “Over Where.” First they must find the Library of the Sapphire Wind, destroyed years before.

Will they find answers there, or is this only the first stage in their search?

A CLASSIC OF THE LIADEN UNIVERSE^®

All of her life, Aelliana Caylon has lived by the rules of her overbearing brother, the head of the Caylon family. Though she is a brilliant mathematician, he has convinced her that she has no worth beyond what value she might have in an arranged marriage.

Then, on a dare, she plays a game of chance—and wins a starship. It is her way to escape her home, her planet, her drab life—if she can qualify as a pilot.

Enter the accomplished Scout and Master Pilot known only as Daav. Aelliana hires him as her instructor. She finds him a gifted teacher. He finds her a quick study.

And they also find an unexpected attraction, one that could have dangerous repercussions for them both . . .

A RACE AGAINST TIME AND A GATEWAY TO THE UNKNOWN AWAITS

Thrilling space adventure from a Marine vet

Five years ago, astronaut Jack Templeton took the spacecraft Magellan to the farthest reaches of our solar system, never to be heard from again.

Until now.

When the Magellan suddenly reappears where an undiscovered planet was suspected to be, it poses more questions than answers. How did Jack survive all this time? Can he be rescued before his life support runs out? And what is the object long thought to be the elusive “Planet Nine?”

In a race against time, Jack’s former crewmate Traci Keene spearheads a desperate effort to outfit a rescue mission. But she has competition. Agencies of both American and foreign governments have their own agendas, and rescuing rogue astronauts isn’t among them.

And at the edge of all that is known, a gateway to the unknown awaits. . . .

EPIC FANTASY BY A RISING STAR OF FANTASY

Since he was a boy, Rae Kelthannis has dreamed of being a stormbinder like his father, with an air elemental stitched into the fabric of his soul and the winds of heaven at his command. Those dreams died when his father, through no fault of his own, fell into disgrace and was banned by the justicars of the Iron Council. The family fled to the edge of the Ordered World, to live in fear in the shadow of encroaching Chaos.

When Rae defies his father’s orders and attempts to stitch an air elemental to his soul, he instead binds himself to a mysterious wraith. That’s when things get complicated and the world starts to fall apart around him. Literally.

THE NEW WORLD FALLS INTO THE RING OF FIRE. All new stories set in the Ring of Fire series, edited by New York Times best-selling series creator Eric Flint.

Europe, 1632. It is a time of upheaval and great change, but none so great as when an unexplained temporal and spatial phenomenon known as the Ring of Fire transports the blue collar town of Grantville, West Virginia, smack dab in the middle of the Thirty Years War. When the dust settles, it becomes clear that the town of Grantville isn't going anywhere, and the can-do Americans of the twenty-first century begin altering the course of history forever.

It is now five years later, and the effects of the Ring of Fire reach from the Old World to the New. But the course of exploration and colonization will look much different than it did in our timeline. The French bought the English possessions in North America way back in 1633, but have never done much with the uncivilized backwater. Until the new king of France, Gaston I, decides that it's time to seize the territory and establish French control over it.

Here then, a new anthology, edited by Ring of Fire series creator Eric Flint, chronicling the exploits of the citizens of Grantville, their allies, and their enemies, as they venture forth onto a new continent.

This short novel plus 7 bonus stories in the Ring of Fire!

NEW YORK TIMES BEST-SELLING AUTHOR JOHN RINGO AND USA TODAY BEST-SELLING AUTHOR LYDIA SHERRER JOIN FORCES ON A NEW SF NOVEL OF ALIEN INVASION. Ender's Game meets Mean Girls meets Pokemon Go.

Lynn Raven may be the boss master of WarMonger 2050 with her online persona of "Larry the Snake," but when the CEO of Tsunami Entertainment personally asks her, as a favor, to beta test a new augmented reality game, she has to face her greatest fear: Going outside and dealing with, ugh, people.

As she becomes more immersed in the game, the stakes rise and so do the obstacles. Strife between teammates, a ruthless rival team, and these strange glitches that make it seem like the game algorithm (or maybe “game AI”?) has it in for her. Now she has to face a new fear: is she willing to step into the real to win the future she’s always wanted?

What do you do when a game and real life merge?

AN AGENT OF KNIGHT WATCH, TASKED TO PROTECT HUMANITY FROM SUPERNATURAL ENEMIES, MUST GO TO HELL AND BACK TO CLEAR HIS NAME AND SAVE THE WORLD

When John Rast signed up for Knight Watch, he expected it to be all fighting dragons and rescuing maidens. You know, hero stuff. But instead he’s stuck patrolling game conventions and cosplayer competitions, looking for dangerous anachronisms and the villains who may be trying to exploit them. Fortunately, all that changes when an honest-to-goodness necromancer shows up wielding a weapon created by Nazi occultists and accompanied by some badass evil valkyries, hell-bent on kicking off the end of the world.

John and the team will go to great lengths—even Minnesota—to prove find out who’s responsible for all this and foil their plans. Also, there’s a giant dog who thinks the moon is a ball. It’s epic.

HUMANITY’S HOPE FOR A BETTER FUTURE AT A NEW STAR

A bold journey into a future where humanity and its children travel to a new star where they must overcome the unexpected challenges on the exoplanets that await them—or die trying.

Traveling to the stars will be difficult, but not, perhaps, the most difficult part. What about when we get to another star? What then? Will the planets be immediately habitable? Not likely. Will those who undertook the journey be able to easily turn around and come home if they don’t find “Earth 2.0”? Almost certainly not. Therein lies the challenge: Finding worlds that are potentially habitable and then taking the time, perhaps centuries, to make them compatible with Earth life. They will encounter mysteries and unexpected challenges, but the human spirit will endure. Join this diverse group of science fiction writers and scientists as they take up the challenge of The Ross 248 Project.

Contributors:

USAF (Ret) General Steven Kwast
Patrick Chiles
Stephanie Osborn
Brent Ziarnick
Laura Montgomery
Daniel M. Hoyt & E. Marshall Hoyt
Matthew Williams
D. J. Butler
Robert E. Hampson
Monalisa Foster
J. L. Curtis
K. S. Daniels
Les Johnson & Ken Roy

New York Times Bestseller John Ringo's Epic Zombie Series, Adapted by Comics Legend Chuck Dixon!

A THRILLING ADAPTATION OF THE BEST-SELLING BLACK TIDE RISING SERIES

The media calls it the Pacific Flu. The CDC calls it H7D3, and it spreads like wildfire. The virus combines the worst symptoms of rabies and the common flu, and is suspected to be man-made. The first reports of feral, cannibalistic “zombie-like” symptoms were met with disbelief and skeptical amusement, but nobody’s laughing now. Scientists, backed by the world’s governments and its wealthiest institutions, race against the clock to develop a cure as infections rise and cities fall.

A glimmer of hope appears as a vaccine is discovered, but its production requires harvesting the spinal tissue of the infected, a grim task that tests the limits of human morality. With no other choices apparent, time is quickly running out before hordes of infected overwhelm the last remaining bastions of civilization.

In the first days of the outbreak, a college history professor receives a cryptic warning from a trusted source. Its baffling, yet unmistakable message translates as: “PACK UP, GET OUT, AND GO NOW!”

Steve Smith and his family don’t waste any time; they leave their normal, comfortable lives behind to get ahead of the inevitable panic and survive the end of the world!

BLACK TIDE RISING SERIES:
Under a Graveyard Sky
To Sail a Darkling Sea
Islands of Rage and Hope
Strands of Sorrow
Black Tide Rising
Voices of the Fall
We Shall Rise
At the End of the World
At the End of the Journey
The Valley of Shadows
River of Night

There’s the new treecat adoptee who needs to be kept from becoming a risk to the carefully guarded secret of just how smart the arboreal inhabitants of Sphinx really are.

There’s the overeager journalist whose campaign to protect the treecats from exploitation as the newest, coolest pet on any planet could threaten the very creatures he seeks to defend.

And there’s the mysterious rash of weird accidents that are plaguing Sphinx’s younger inhabitants—including some of those nearest and dearest to Stephanie.

In trying to get enough proof to get the understaffed authorities of her pioneer planet to act, Stephanie will be called upon to attempt things she never imagined doing—including going undercover into the wilds of the late-night club scene, a realm where her faithful treecat guardian, Lionheart, cannot follow. . . .

Selei City is the capital of the Imerialte and one of the most desired locales in all of the Skolian Empire. But its thin veneer of civilization is cracked when a series of brutal crimes implicates those in political power in a vast conspiracy. Three prominent scientists have lost their lives to a serial killer—and notes at the scenes of the crimes lead to a connection to the Royalist political party.

Major Bhaajan, former military officer turned private detective, is called back to Selei City to solve the crime. Bhaaj and her crew of Undercity Dust Knights plunge into the Byzantine world of Imperial politics—a jigsaw world where none of the pieces seem to fit. As the assassination plot becomes more and more convoluted, Bhaaj is kidnapped, threatened with death, and must fight for her life against the growing number of people threatened by her investigation. Bhaaj has faced all this and more, but now she must deal with something far deadlier—interstellar politics.

NEW FANTASY FROM BEST-SELLING AUTHOR JANE LINDSKOLD

Can it get any stranger? Absolutely!

When Peg, Meg, and Teg were first summoned Over Where, vast and varied life experience (along with wide reading choices) helped them adjust to a world where they were the only humans, magic was real, ships could fly, and reincarnation was a confirmed fact.

In the company of the “inquisitors,” Xerak, Grunwold, and Vereez, the three newly appointed mentors rediscovered the Library of the Sapphire Wind, and, within it, revelations that transformed the young people’s pasts into a vast tangle of lies and half-truths.

But there are still questions to be answered. Before they are done, Meg the retired librarian, Teg the archeologist-turned-mage, and the multi-talented, ever surprising Peg will deal with kidnappings, betrayal, arcane artifacts, romantic intrigues, and the inescapable reality that past lives cast long shadows.

Together, the three mentors and their young allies will uncover the startling truth about what lies on the other side of the Aurora Borealis Bridge—a truth that holds the secret of Over Where, and that will change all their lives forever.

Thomas the Rhymer, legendary 12th century figure of traditional Scottish balladry, as you've never seen him before.

Rhymer brings to life Thomas the Rhymer, legendary 12th century figure of traditional Scottish balladry, as a champion who must battle the diabolical Yvag—an alien race thought to be elves and faeries—hellbent on conquering our world. This saga pits Thomas against the near-immortal elves, first with only his wits, then with powers of his own that enable him to take on these evil creatures throughout the centuries. He’s known by many names over time—Tam Lin, Robin Hood, and numerous other incarnations reaching into the present—but at his heart he is still True Thomas, one man doing all he can to save us all from a powerful foe.

When his brother is snatched right before his eyes, Thomas hunts for justice and discovers that not only do these “elves” steal people, but they also are skinwalkers who occupy humans in positions of power. Their goal: to obliterate humanity and take over our world. When Thomas is dragged into their alien realm, he’s imprisoned and barely escapes alive, but in the process he gains near-immortality and the ability to transform himself. Will it be enough to protect his loved ones and defeat this powerful foe?

In December 2012, the U.S. government launched a secret program to create superhumans called Ascendants. In July 2018, the U.S. government lost control over them. Now, America enters a new era in which ordinary men and women can become the heroes we need . . . or the monsters we fear.

TIME TO ASCEND!

When firefighter Bill Goddard raced into a blazing building to rescue trapped children, he expected to die. Instead, he became something more than human—the nation's first ascendant. Now known as American Eagle, Bill must assemble a team of other ascended heroes to defend the country from villainous forces intent on wreaking chaos and destruction. But the process of ascension is fraught with peril, and not everyone emerges with their mind and morality unscathed.

In America's hour of need, who will answer the call? And can they do what it takes to protect the nation without sacrificing the values they’ve sworn to uphold?

Jethri Gobelyn has risen far: from despised youngest on a Terran family Loop ship to second trader on premier Liaden tradeship Elthoria under the guidance of his unlikely foster-mother Norn ven’Deelin Clan Ixin. Master Trader ven’Deelin has taught Jethri much, and she expects great things from him. Indeed, one might say she demands them.

Jethri has inherited a mission from his father, a plan that will allow family Loop ships like the one he grew up on to survive the encroachment of Rostov’s Dust. In this, he’s backed by several prominent Looper families who are scheduled to meet and plan at the South Axis Trade Fair.

In what seems to be a fortunate pairing of missions, Master Trader ven’Deelin sees Jethri become lead trader on his own small ship, which is scheduled to arrive at the South Axis Fair.

Unfortunately, that “fortunate coincidence” may instead be a test of Jethri’s loyalties, as he’s thrust into a tangle of gray-trading, mistaken identity, misinformation, and galactic politics . . .

John Abbott is all in.

He’s up to his eyeballs in debt to pay for school, and he’s just moved his small family forty light-years from Earth for a plum job with the wealthy interstellar corporation, The Sarovar Company. John’s first assignment is to discreetly investigate possible corruption at the remote Arrowhawk Station, where Company traders buy the famous Sarovari Weave from the three-sided, crablike Weavers.

John finds evidence of theft and worse, but when the guilty parties realize he’s getting close, they come after him and his family. Can John catch the thieves and end their corrupt trade? Can he head off a war between the Company and the Weavers? Can he make a life for his family in this remote wilderness without corrupting himself?

With no way back to Earth, the only direction for John Abbott and his family to go is forward—into danger.

NEW AND CLASSIC STORIES OF TIME TRAVEL MILITARY SF

BATTLEZONE: ETERNITY

Once, military actions were entirely two dimensional, confined to the surface of land and sea, but then submarines and aircraft added a third dimension, vastly extended by spaceflight. Now, consider that if time travel is possible, the fourth dimension of time opens up new possibilities for combat, necessitating new defenses, new strategies and tactics. A battle that was once decisively won might be refought, or a narrow victory might be subtly tilted to the other side. Never mind the history books, they’re only works in progress. There might be even more than four dimensions involved, if parallel universes and alternate realities exist and can be accessed. Imagine a universe where Rome never fell and its troops want to do something about our universe, where it did fall. Or another where more recent wars turned out very differently. Battle is a recurrent motif in the Earth of this universe, and would alternate realities be different or all too similar, with the tune the same, but different lyrics. Supplying the lyrics for spacetime combat in these pages is an all-star general staff including Robert Silverberg, Poul Anderson, Fritz Leiber, John C. Wright, H. Beam Piper and more. It’s zero hour, in whatever time stream, so grab your time-appropriate weapon, be it sword or ray blaster, buckle on your general issue timeporter belt, and follow the Time Troopers into action across strange aeons!

THEY WANT TO RESCUE DAMSELS IN DISTRESS. THEY HAVE TO PAY THE BILLS.

The continuing adventures of Indrajit and Fix.

WELCOME TO KISH

Indrajit and Fix are the founding partners of the Protagonists, a jobber company in Kish. Since the seven great families of Kish farm out all tasks they and the city need doing, a jobber might one day unblock a well; the next, man a tollgate for the fair; and on the third, hunt down a murderer on the loose, all in a corrupt old city that isn’t so much governed as kept barely in bounds.

Indrajit is a poet of a dying race, looking for his successor. Fix is a failed monk, pining for his lost love. They’re swordsmen and thinkers, heroes in their hearts and in their deeds. They also recover stolen documents, unravel financial fraud, escort shipwrecked diplomats, and hunt in the ruins beneath the city for missing academics. Meanwhile, the criminals they investigate, rival jobbers, sorcerers, spies, assassins, and other mysterious parties get more and more reason to want the Protagonists dead.

Welcome to Kish.

Beginning a New Series by a New York Times Best-Selling Author.
Will the People of Earth Bow Down to
Alien Overlords—or Will They Live Free or Die?

First Contact Was Friendly

When aliens trundled a gate to other worlds into the solar system, the world reacted with awe, hope and fear. But the first aliens to come through, the Glatun, were peaceful traders and the world breathed a sigh of relief.

Who Controls the Orbitals, Controls the World

When the Horvath came through, they announced their ownership by dropping rocks on three cities and gutting them. Since then, they've held Terra as their own personal fiefdom. With their control of the orbitals, there's no way to win and Earth's governments have accepted the status quo.

Live Free or Die

To free the world from the grip of the Horvath is going to take an unlikely hero. A hero unwilling to back down to alien or human governments, unwilling to live in slavery and with enough hubris, if not stature, to think he can win. Fortunately, there's Tyler Vernon. And he has bigger plans than just getting rid of the Horvath.

The Troy Rising series is a story in three parts—Live Free or Die being the first part—detailing the freeing of Earth from alien conquerors, the first steps into space using off-world technologies and the creation of Troy, a thousand-trillion-ton battlestation designed to secure the Solar System.

There wasn’t much money to be made as a Trailblazer, searching out new worlds for possible development. Still, it was safer than the bounty hunter career that had cost Gregory Roarke his left arm six years ago. And thanks to his Kadolian partner Selene’s ultrasensitive sense of smell, they occasionally discovered a medically promising seed or spore they could sell under the table. It was a quiet life, uneventful and mostly legal.

Until Roarke was approached by two men with a proposal: track down a mysterious woman named Tera and, through her, locate a secret project called Icarus.

The challenge was intriguing. The unlimited budget was tempting. But Roarke had a more personal reason to accept the job.

The chance for long-delayed payback.

A search for a missing woman exposes a conspiracy that could threaten an entire planet.

Cassandra Blake, an employee for the Ascension Planetary Holdings Group—the largest and most powerful corporation in Nova Columbia—has gone missing. And her sister wants to know why. When questions need answering on Nova Columbia, Detective Ezekiel “Easy” Novak is the man folks turn to. But what begins as a routine missing person case quickly turns into something much bigger and more sinister, with implications that could affect the entire planet. It seems Cassandra wasn’t just investigating her employer. She had uncovered a secret effort to excavate and exploit an ancient alien artifact known only as The Seraph. Soon, Easy finds himself trying to unravel a conspiracy that may implicate not only Ascension but the highest echelons of the Terran Confederation itself.

A VAST EMPIRE'S GREATEST FOE. A CONQUERED PEOPLE'S LAST HOPE. HIS NAME IS HANUVAR, AND HE WILL SET HIS PEOPLE FREE!

The Dervan Empire has at last triumphed over Volanus, putting the great city to the torch, its treasures looted, temples defiled, and fields sown with salt. What little remains of Volanus is scattered across the empire, its wealth plundered and its survivors sold into slavery. It is an absolute victory for the Dervans in every way but one.

Hanuvar, last and greatest general of Volanus, still lives. He now travels the length of the Dervan Empire which conquered his homeland, driven by a singular purpose—to find what remains of his people who were carried into slavery across the empire, and free them from subjugation by any means necessary.

Against the might of a vast empire, he had only an aging sword arm, a lifetime of hard-won wisdom, and the greatest military mind in the world, set upon a single goal. No matter what the empire musters against him, no matter what man or monster stands in his way, from the empire’s festering capital to its furthest outposts, Hanuvar would find his people, every last one of them.

And he would set them free.

SOMEONE IS KILLING THE TWELVE MOST IMPORTANT PEOPLE IN THE WORLD. AT LOCH NESS.

Ishmael Jones travels to the Scottish Highlands on a mysterious dual mission in this intriguing, genre-blending mystery.

The Organisation has despatched Ishmael and his partner Penny to Coronach House on the shores of Loch Ness where the secretive but highly influential Baphamet Group are holding their annual meeting. The Organisation believes an imposter has infiltrated the Group and they have instructed Ishmael to root him—or her—out. It’s not Ishmael’s only mission. The first agent sent by the Organisation has been found dead in her room, murdered in a horribly gruesome manner. Ishmael must also discover who killed his fellow agent, Jennifer Rifkin—and why.

Dismissive of rumours that the legendary “Coronach Creature” is behind Jennifer’s death, Ishmael sets out to expose the human killer in their midst. But he must act fast—before any more Very Important People are killed.

THE ALIENS ARE AMONG US!

“Where is everybody?” Nobel Prize–winning physicist Enrico Fermi once asked after a discussion about the possibility of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. To sum up the Fermi Paradox, if the billions of stars in our galaxy have planets with intelligent life on them, why hasn’t anyone visited us?

But maybe they have, and we just haven’t noticed—and that’s the way they want it. And if they are here in secret, why are they here? Are they tourists? Anthropologists, perhaps? Or journalists sending stories back about the quaint habits of the primitives? Or maybe the extraterrestrial equivalent of hunters or fishermen? (Any odd disappearances in your neighborhood lately?) An enemy already within the gates? Or a refugee seeking sanctuary? Gourmets looking for exotic foreign food? Alien criminals hiding out? Alien cops looking for those alien criminals? No missionaries—at least not yet—and there doesn’t seem to be a Galactic Peace Corps. They might happen to look close enough to human to pass, or they might be masters of disguise. Or they might be so incomprehensibly different that we don’t even notice that they’re here.

The secret visitors are revealed by such luminaries as Larry Niven, Poul Anderson, Spider Robinson, William Tenn, and more. And if any alien visitors want to check out the local natives’ speculations herein, feel free. Please pay with local currency, of course.

Behind enemy lines and displaced in time!

Before the Battle of Trenton, George Washington reputedly threw a coin across the river. What if that coin was a bicentennial quarter?

When a squad of ROTC cadets training at Fort Dix, New Jersey, in November 2008 find themselves transported to December 1776 in the days before the Battle of Trenton, they find a Continental Army in disarray and General George Washington contemplating the potential of a bleak future. To make matters worse, they’ve lost a modern M-16 rifle to a roving Hessian patrol. Understanding the ramifications of such a discovery, the cadets have no choice but to report to General Washington. Without ammunition or their own meager supplies, can Cadet Sergeant Jameel Mason and his friends steel Washington’s courage and set the infancy of the United States of America back on track?

A Russian ICBM site is attacked just north of the Ukraine border. The nuclear warheads are missing! A Special Operations and Intelligence Community Task Force is rapidly put together to respond, but where it should deploy is unclear. A fire ravages a cosmonaut training facility in which five spacesuits disappear. And the Task Force finds a cache of detailed schematics of highly complex rocketry systems. The Task Force reaches out to Dr. Amy Sue Harrington of the Missiles and Space Intelligence Center in Huntsville, Alabama. To Dr. Harrington, it all adds up to the unthinkable: someone—someone extremely well funded—is taking aim at the International Space Station.

But Colonel Vladimir Lytokov and his team of mercenaries aren’t planning to bring the ISS crashing to Earth. They’re taking the fight to orbit, boarding the station and hijacking it. As the ISS traces its path across the heavens, Lytokov rains down destruction from above, effectively holding the entire globe hostage.