Alternate Universe Fiction

London 1888. His Majesty's airships troll the sky powered by antigrav liftwood as a cabal of Iron Lords tightens its hold on a Britain choked by the fumes of industry. Mars has been colonized, and clockwork assassins stalk the European corridors of power. And somewhere far to the east, the Old Man of the Mountains plots the end of the world with his Forever Engine. Enter Jack Fargo. Scholar. Former special forces operator in Afghanistan. A man from our own near future thrust back in time - or to wherever it is that this Brave Victorian World actually exists.

Phoenix was becoming a pressure cooker nearing bursting open, as the sequestered group of savant scientists and soldiers in the glass-domed pods in Antarctica were buzzing with sexual tension. Brad McCormick figured since the limbic system associated with sexual desire is linked to libido and the part of the brain responsible for higher-level functions, like planning and thinking, he had a problem he couldn’t solve without his leadership team. To put it more explicitly, the men were extremely sexually eager.

One night in Lagos, two former friends reunite. Obinna is a dutiful and unsophisticated stay-at-home husband and father married to a powerful businesswoman. Eze is single, a cautious rebel from his university days whose arrival soon upsets the balance in Obinna’s life. In a world where men are constantly under surveillance and subject to the whims of powerful women, more than Obinna’s ordered and accustomed routine might be on the line.

In Kingsley Amis’s virtuoso foray into virtual history, it is 1976, but the modern world is a medieval relic, frozen in intellectual and spiritual time ever since Martin Luther was promoted to pope back in the sixteenth century. Stephen the Third, the king of England, has just died, and Mass (Mozart’s second requiem) is about to be sung to lay him to rest. In the choir is our hero, Hubert Anvil, an extremely ordinary ten-year-old boy with a faultless voice.

As summer comes to an end, Evie Von Rathe is determined to begin the search for her parents in earnest. Armed with her knowledge of the otherworldly, her mom’s violet glasses, and a pendant full of doors, Evie begins to piece together clues. When she realizes her mother’s bedtime story might be a roadmap to finding them, Evie follows it back to the Dark Sun Side.

Operating a piece of heavy machinery, for example, a time machine under the influence of tainted human blood, is never a good idea, especially if my oldest friend and onboard computer, Lasitor, vowed to protect not only me but my bloodline for eternity. This is my story. If you haven't figured that out by now, I feel sorry for you and your parents. Anyhow, this is how I found my soulmate by accident in a time and place not written down in your human history books.

Eryn brings aboard a stranger, an eight-foot-tall, mysterious male with golden Khopesh blades and the strangest yellow eyes. He may or may not be a friend, but Cian isn’t wasting his time on him. He wants his mate with webbed toes, and he wants the ache in his chest to disappear. But now Cian has his hands full and must save a group of humans from the moon before he can finally woo his oblivious mate.

Mighty Greyboar, the world's greatest professional strangler, is dissatisfied with his lot in life. The work is steady and the pay is good, but what, he wonders, is the point of it all. But when he learns that there is a Supreme Philosophy of Life, Greyboar the Strangler is born again! Still, just how can a professional man in good standing pay the bills with all this philosophical exploration getting in the way.

Sixteen-year-old Winnie Schulde has always seen splits - the moment when two possible outcomes diverge, one in her universe and one in another. Multiverse theory, Winnie knows, is all too real, though she has never been anything but an observer of its implications - a secret she keeps hidden from just about everyone. But her physicist father, wrapped up in his research and made cruel by his grief after the loss of Winnie’s mother, believes that if he pushes her hard enough, she can choose one split over another and maybe, just maybe, change their future and their past.

Dazzling, paranoid literary sci-fi for fans of Blake Crouch and Philip K. Dick: Vin, a down-on-his-luck young tech entrepreneur forced out of the software company he started, takes a job house-sitting an ultra-modern Seattle mansion whose owner has gone missing. There he discovers a secret basement lab with an array of computers and three large, smooth caskets. Inside one he finds a woman in a state of suspended animation. When Vin decides to climb into one of the caskets to see what happens, his reality begins to unravel....

Billy Boustany had the adventure of a lifetime. Now, all he wants to do is to go back to the amazing universe he discovered. But the power brokers over there warned him to stay away and keep his mouth shut. At the same time, Diyami Red Hawk, an idealistic young man from that universe, has connected with Billy’s daughter and is on a mission to build a modern Native American city in our world. But he’s getting nowhere—until he finds support in unexpected places.

Pulled from his world by an experiment gone wrong, Darwin Lloyd is one of the few who can see the Threads - quantum strings that can be manipulated to change or control reality. On an alternate Earth ravaged by war, Darwin is torn between the Qabal and SafeHaven, his only goal to find a way back home and stop the same fate from happening in his time line. Threads - thought of as a gift from the machine he helped his father create - and Threaders are both loved and hated, treated as gods by some and as criminals by others.

Universe One created the technology to travel the multiverse long ago, closed their borders, and nobody knows why. The cultists have taken over HQ, and the Tuners are in hiding. While Jon and the team try to rebuild, they meet a mysterious bounty hunter with information that could help change the tide of the war. The answers they need are locked away in Universe One. Time is running short. The High Priest sends a message to the multiverse: convert or die.

As a new president takes the White House, Just Cause returns to New York City for the first time in eight years, under the command of its newest leader: Mustang Sally. But not everyone is excited about the expansion of Just Cause. Senator Christine Goodwin, slighted by the team's leadership years before, has made it her mission to put all para-humans on a very short leash while, at the same time, creating her own super-powered militia.

In the void between universes, a secretive organization called the Tuners works to maintain peace in the multiverse. The stability is threatened when a group of religious radicals seek to burn all those who do not believe. Jon Xiong, a 17-year-old from Montana, gets caught up in much bigger problems when the cult members appear at his home. The order wants him because he can distinguish the subtle differences of the cosmic background noise between universes.

Billy Boustany uncovers a mystery that transforms his sleepy midwestern city into a vibrant metropolis of iridescent skyscrapers, wild parties, and eccentric characters. He has the adventure of a lifetime, but it comes with a perilous secret. When Billy shares his discovery with his college student daughter, they explore together until they reach a magnificent city of Native Americans at an ancient site. However, they also encounter a formidable foe—the Knights, a secret society bent on keeping outsiders away.

The most brilliant mind in a thousand years has been tortured and twisted by human cruelty. His solution: Burn the world down and start from scratch. Almost no one can stop him. A single obstacle stands in his way. He must destroy the BrainTrust and its medical researcher extraordinaire, Dr. Dash. With millions dying, nuclear war in the offing, and the BrainTrust under siege, the fight for the very soul of humanity hinges on a last desperate question: Who remains to defy the darkness?

Seventh-grade Superheroes! It's not easy being a 12-year-old superhero, but the five kids of the neighborhood watch are doing the best they can. La Capitána: super-strong flier. Wheels: brilliant inventor. Hothead: catches on fire. Breezy: controls wind. Rascal: super-skateboarding. From their headquarters built into a repurposed Winnebago, they patrol the streets and alleys of their small hometown and dream of being big time heroes like Mustang Sally and the rest of Just Cause.

When Russell's dog, Rodney Rodent, jumps at a strange mural to get at a creepy-looking gnome and disappears into the painting, the Flint Future Detectives are on the case. This time they have a new president, Richelle. A secret password leads Steven, Russell, and Richelle to the mysterious Mr. Chickee, who's living in a whole different universe!

Why wasn't Porsche Gain, Punk Cats bass player, charged in her almost unbelievable felony background? How did Blunderbusted, nautical rock band, raise the money to go from zero to hero without heading to prison? Why do Doctor Faraday, Oscar Shinsplint, and The Subhuman (the Electronica Triumvirate) claim that they don't have souls? Get the answers to these and many other questions in this rock and roll exposé.