MW

Dylan Townsend stands on the beach watching commercial jets fall out of the sky like oak leaves twirling in the wind. A wing shears off the one closest to the shore just before it splashes down in the sea. Why was she telling him this outlandish story? What sort of tourist agency would offer people a front row seat to the end of the world? More importantly, why would anyone book such a vacation if there wasn't any way home afterward?

Author Chris Pike's debut novel Unexpected World is a gritty and compelling survival tale about human courage and steadfast determination to live, to endure, and to persevere against all odds. Assistant District Attorney Dillon Stockdale is on the phone with his daughter when an EMP obliterates the entire electrical grid of the United States. Anything relying on a computer is fried, including the plane his daughter is on.

When prospector Bob Broadhead went out to Gateway on the Heechee spacecraft, he decided he would know which was the right mission to make him his fortune. Three missions later, now famous and permanently rich, Robinette Broadhead has to face what happened to him and what he is...in a journey into himself as perilous and even more horrifying than the nightmare trip through the interstellar void that he drove himself to take!

Humanity left Earth a long time ago. They had treated their home planet poorly, and the deteriorating environment forced them to leave. They traveled 189 light years to a faraway world and named it Horizon, respecting the new lives they intended to build. Fortunately, they learned their lessons and treated their new world much better. After over 100,000 years away from Earth, they still revered her and taught their children her beauty.

After robbing a bank, the Colter Gang stumble on the scene of the massacre of a Cherokee hunting party by cavalry soldiers intent on "pacification". The sole survivor of the raid is a young Indian baby. Even with a posse hot on their trail, young outlaw, Frank Palmer, refuses to simply leave the child to die from exposure to the cold. He pledges to join up with the gang as soon as he can find a place to drop off the child.

The omnibus edition of Prepper's Crucible is a compilation of the first three books of the series. It begins when our group of preppers flee Phoenix, Arizona, in route to their ranch in Prescott, in the wake of an EMP that wipes out all power, transportation, and telecommunications networks. Once there, they hunker down until the threat of violence forces them to defend themselves and their neighbors. In a series of battles, culminating with and attack on the town by over 200 gang members, they manage to survive the first month following the EMP.

A corporate jet, or even her own private jet, would have been within easy reach for her. However, Sally McPhearson always flew commercial; it was sort of her trademark. When she boarded the small commuter plane that day to travel to a business meeting in Toronto, she had no idea that her life was about to abruptly change. Sally was about to depart on a journey that would result in months full of pain, suffering, hunger, desperation, and fear. She certainly would have not been able to comprehend that the experiences she was about to endure would forever change her life for the better.

Tanner Scott, a RIM confederacy naval officer, has fought many battles against both humans and aliens. Years ago he proved victorious against a band of aliens. His ongoing fight with his own alcoholism, however, remains a stalemate.