In this science fiction classic, a recurring environmental disaster sets the native population of a distant planet at war with itself—and human colonists from Earth are trapped in the middle Firetime is coming to Ishtar. This once-in-a-millennium event occurs when one of the planet's three suns encroaches on Ishtar's surface, to disastrous effect. The nightmare rapidly approaching, barbaric tribes have declared war on their more civilized brethren in hopes of avoiding a natural extermination. Standing between the opposing forces are the colonists who settled on Ishtar after abandoning their home planet, Earth. But in this time of chaos and destruction, there is little the humans can do to aid their Ishtarian allies in the desperate fight for survival. The Terran powers, engaged in their own terrible conflict with a hostile alien race, will offer no help to the endangered planet. With a fiery doomsday on the way, the humans can do nothing but watch and...

Leon and his younger sister, Grace, have recently moved to London from New York and are struggling to settle into their new school when rumors of an unidentified plague in Africa begin to fill the news. Within a week, the virus hits London. The siblings witness people turning to liquid before their eyes, and they run for their lives. A month after touching Earth's atmosphere, the virus has wiped out most of the population. Desperate to stay alive, Leon and Grace are reluctantly taken in by a tight-knit group of survivors. But as they struggle to win their trust, the siblings realize that the virus isn't their only enemy, and survival is just the first step...

IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A STANDARD RESCUE MISSION Private Travis Buckley and his friends from Bandit Company were strictly rear echelon types—a support platoon for the Alpha Elite Commandos of the Stellar Armada. When an orbital disaster destroys their ship, Travis and fellow survivors Ernie “Struts” McCaskey and Private Numbnuts go from being “in the rear with the gear” to the forefront of an improbable rescue mission that could plunge the entire Confederation into intergalactic war with the mysterious Machai Legion. Dr. Arnac has been kidnapped by terrorists in black rumored to be a Machai death squad, only the Machai vanished into the depths of interstellar space centuries ago. Arnac is carrying a secret in his head that can’t be allowed to fall into enemy hands. Alpha Elite’s orders are clear: reacquire Dr. Arnac, or make sure he doesn’t leave Askura alive. The survivors of the crash landing must mount a desperate rescue and fight their way across trackless jungles filled with ancient civilizations, exotic beauties, and deadly predators. If they can survive becoming bullet bait, they must lay siege to the lost city and halt the diabolical Machai plan to conquer Earth. The enemy didn’t count on one thing: Travis and the Bandits are determined not to fail!

Book 1 of the Keystones Superhero Series A Chronicle of the Rise of Superhumans in the Year 2159 A.D. Deklan’s life is irrevocably changed by an event known as “The Sweep.” Billions of mammals in the solar system are simultaneously imbued with super powers, becoming once-rare “Keystones.” Keystone traits range from the near-unnoticeable to god-like. In a matter of days the situation on Earth deteriorates and people are swept up in an all-encompassing need to flee the planet. One of the first to realize the danger posed in the new world Deklan abandons his old life in the pursuit of one simple goal, survival. keystone species (kē′stōn) A species whose presence and role within an ecosystem has a disproportionate effect on other organisms within the system. A keystone species is often a dominant predator whose removal allows a prey population to explode and often decreases overall persity. Other kinds of keystone species are those, such as coral or beavers, that significantly alter the habitat around them and thus affect large numbers of other organisms. keystone (kē′stōn) n. 1. Architecture The central wedge-shaped stone of an arch that locks its parts together. Also called headstone. 2. The central supporting element of a whole. 3. Modern A super-powered inpidual.

In Thomson’s The Color of Distance (1995), Dr. Juna Saari was accidentally abandoned on the planet Tiangi. Despite life-threatening allergic reactions to that world’s life-forms, she managed to survive thanks to the biological wizardry of the Tendu, Tiangi’s intelligent native species, who radically altered her body to thrive in their environment. Now, returned to human form, Juna comes back to Earth accompanied by two Tendu. They must learn aboard ship, while visiting a series of Earth orbital habitats, and then on Earth to adapt to a human environment, but it isn’t clear whether humanity will accept them in return. Despite the great biological gifts the Tendu can offer an environmentally distressed Earth, many humans find the aliens frightening. Escorting the Tendu through Earth society, Juna finds her life spun upside down when she discovers that she is accidentally pregnant, an illegal act on an Earth struggling to overcome critical overpopulation. Much of the novel’s tension stems from attempts to force Juna either to abort or to give up her baby attempts stemming, in part, from the father’s refusal to allow his child to be raised with aliens. Thomson is an excellent prose stylist with an obvious love for the kind of wild country that is the Tendu’s preferred habitat. Her major characters are well developed, though her secondary characters, particularly the good guys, are not properly differentiated. Overall, this is an amiable, unusually thoughtful novel of first contact that should boost Thomson’s growing reputation.

Becoming a vampire guardian was Dawn Fairchild’s ticket out of the Scarlet House. Fresh off a successful mission, life in Angel Creek should have been great. But when her sort-of-maybe-boyfriend, Sebastian, disappears on a quest to help a beautiful vampire from his past, Dawn finds herself amidst a web of danger, lies, and deceit.Joining forces with Razor, an enigmatic rebel lacking both a verbal and a physical filter, and her band of Misfits—Brooke, Sophie, Hunter, and Seth—Dawn is thrust into a race against the clock to solve the mystery surrounding brutal Born kidnappings and come to terms with the sudden discovery of her own unique powers. With time ticking away and Born vampires’ lives in jeopardy, it quickly becomes evident that someone—or something—desperately wants her and is willing to shed any amount of blood to get her.Dawn has only one chance to face her demons and overcome all obstacles standing in her way as she embarks on the biggest mission of her life—one that threatens a deadly outcome for all involved.

Victor Pelevin is "the only young Russian novelist to have made an impression in the West" (Village Voice). With A Werewolf Problem in Central Russia, the second of Pelevin's Russian Booker Prize-winning short story collections, he continues his Sputnik-like rise. Like the writers to whom he is frequently compared––Kafka, Bulgakov, Philip K. Dick, and Joseph Heller––he is a deft fabulist, who finds fuel for his fire in society's deadening protocol. In "The Tarzan Swing," a street wanderer converses with a stranger who could be his own reflection; in the title story, a young Muscovite, Sasha, stumbles upon a group of people in the forest who can transform themselves into wolves; in "Vera Pavlova's Ninth Dream," the attendant in a public toilet finds her researches into solipsism have dire and diabolical consequences. As Publishers Weekly noted about this collection, "Pelevin's allegories are reminiscent of children's fairy tales in their fantastic depictions of worlds within worlds, solitary souls tossed helplessly among them." Pelevin––whom Spin called "a master absurdist, a brilliant satirist of things Soviet, but also of things human"––carries us in A Werewolf Problem in Central Russia to a sublime land of black comic brilliance.