We will take back the red planet. No one knows what happened to the Vong. The mysterious alien race lived on Mars millennia before humans even existed. Perhaps they perished in some planetary cataclysm or perhaps they left the system. Only faint traces of their civilization still exist. But when humans begin colonizing Mars, the Vong suddenly…

At first it seems it is an eight-foot tall monster with a mouth full of needle-like teeth, giant antlers sprouting from its head, green blood, and pale, waxy skin that is not quite flesh and not quite wood. The soldiers fleeing defeat at the hands of the Pecheneg calvary that slaughtered their king and smashed the Russian army end up in a ancient forest that is home to this dark being. And mostly they die — horrible, bloody, awful deaths.

Jason MacNeil isn’t a 500 year-old genetically modified supersoldier named Brigadier Fenris. He’s really just a teenager who escaped from a HappyPlace(tm) software coder workhouse, optimistically termed an orphanage. But he has to act like he is, because his uncle Max is the one who broke him out and needs a hand with his latest gig: guarding archeologists doing research on remote planets. Then again Uncle Max, isn’t a seedy, washed-up mercenary with crappy gear only interested in easy…

Sometimes the worst really does happen. The Kuiper Belt is a long way from Earth. But nobody lives on Earth anymore. After the Exodus, what’s left of humanity has a made a home on the moon. It’s not an easy place to live, though: there aren’t enough resources. And so people go where they can find…

But telepathic robot birds aren’t even the coolest tech you’ll find in this book. A conduit can look like anything: a necklace, a bracelet, a wristwatch. People use them to store the blueprints for things: clothes, guns, toothbrushes. When you need something, your conduit materializes it and there you have it. Everyone uses conduits. Aidan Rennick doesn’t need one. He can make things materialize…

On Planet X19, the air is poisonous and the rain is acid. The plants are all carnivorous and the animals are worse. The bacteria are very unfriendly. Also there are active volcanoes everywhere. And lava worms. And dinosaurs. Did we mention that a rogue AI (with a very cheerful disposition)…

In a few days, things are going to get better for Orrville. In a few days, Orrville will be eighteen and he can leave home. Home is where Henry Lee is, Orrville’s drunk stepdad who steals all his money and gambles it away. …

It’s too hot for anyone to go outside anymore. Definitely not in the direct sunlight. The sun will kill you in less than an hour. You can get a melanoma in minutes. As society begins to collapse, dark-colored people start disappearing. White vans come out of the night, and men in white suits go into the houses and bring out limp bodies. They say they these are just welfare checks. Everybody’s suffering from the heat.

Unfortunates, romeos, zeds, zombies…no matter what you call ’em, you get to be one when you die. Clio’s lost her faith. She tries to be good. She spends time in prayer. She even hears the voice of God, but she can’t figure out what God is babbling about. The zombie apocalypse isn’t helping, either. Charlie, on the other hand, doesn’t worry about faith, or jobs, or money…