Susan Kaye Quinn

Sixteen-year-old Kira Moore is a zero, someone who can't read thoughts or be read by others. Zeros are outcasts who can't be trusted, leaving her no chance with Raf, a regular mindreader and the best friend she secretly loves. When she accidentally controls Raf's mind and nearly kills him, Kira tries to hide her frightening new ability from her family and an increasingly suspicious Raf. But lies tangle around her, and she's dragged deep into a hidden underworld of mindjackers, where having to mind control everyone she loves is just the beginning of the deadly choices before her. --cover

The Metamorphosis, first published in 1915, is the most famous of Kafka's works, along with The Trial and The Castle. The story begins when a traveling salesman, Gregor Samsa, wakes up to find himself transformed into a giant insect. Curiously, his condition does not arouse surprise in his family, who merely despise it as an impending burden. As with all of Kafka's works, The Metamorphosis is open to a wide range of interpretations. Most obvious are themes relating to society's treatment of those who are different, the loneliness of isolation, and the absurdity of the human condition.

Tom, recently released from a mental institute, is living under house arrest under the watchful eye of a hard-boiled parole officer. With the help of medication, Tom enjoys his freedom in the vacant home, until he finds mysterious passages to hidden rooms, receives mysterious calls, and sees horrifying visitors. Tom faces down his demons as he attempts to figure out if these happenings are real.

A.I.: Artificial Intelligence. Even today, machines that mimic human thinking surround us. As the intellectual feats of computing machines grow more and more astounding, will there be a day when their apparent intelligence approaches, or even surpasses, that of human beings? And what if these machines then become conscious, self-aware? In this latest title in the acclaimed Future Chronicles series of speculative fiction anthologies, thirteen authors confront the question of the Singularity: that point of time when A.I. becomes more than simply a human construct. From machine awareness to omniscience, these original short stories explore that territory where human intelligence comes face-to-face with what is either its greatest hope, or its greatest threat. The A.I. Chronicles features stories by bestselling author David Simpson (the Post-Human series), Prix Aurora winner Julie Czerneda (In the Company of Others), plus eleven more of today's top authors in speculative and science fiction.

For better, for worse. In sickness and in health. It's a legal vow of care for families in 2050, a world beset by waves of climate-driven plagues. Power engineer Lucía Ramirez long ago lost her family to one-she'd give anything to take that vow. The Power Islands give humanity a fighting chance, but tending kelp farms and solar lilies is a lonely job. The housing AI found her a family match, saying she should fit right in with the Senegalese retraining expert who's a force of nature, the ex-Pandemic Corps cook with his own cozy channel, and even the writer who insists everything is stories, all the way down. This family of literal and metaphorical refugees could be the shelter she's seeking from her own personal storm. She needs this one to work. Then an unscheduled power outage and a missing turtle-bot crack open a mystery. Something isn't right on Power Island One, but every step she takes to solve it, someone else gets there first-and they're determined to make her unsee what she's seen. Lucía is an engineer, not a detective, but fixing this problem might cost her the one thing she truly needs: a home. When You Had Power is the first of four tightly-connected hopepunk novels in a near-future climate-fiction series. It's about our future, how society will shift and flex like a solar lily in the storms of our own making, and how breaks in the social fabric have to be expected, tended to, and healed. Because we're in this together, now more than ever before.

"With plans for a second skyship exposed, the Third Daughter of the Queen must rescue her love-torn sister, the Second Daughter, who is married to the First Son of Samir-- a country with whom they may soon be at war."--Title page verso.

What if you could paint with reality? Elijah Brighton can bring a girl back from the dead, travel outside his body, and absorb a lifetime of memories from anyone he touches in the fugue state. Everyone seems to think he’s the prophet they’re waiting for... including the girl he’s falling in love with. The truth is, the fugue is bleeding over into reality, bringing his sketches to life and haunting him with visions of a girl in metal armor. She stabs him with her blade and denounces him as any prophet worth the name—and it’s not like he disagrees. People who change the world generally aren’t losing their minds. He just wants to hide out in his tent and kiss Kamali, but a vision of his death and an attack on the Human Resistance Movement convince him something bigger is coming. Maybe Augustus—the power-mad ascender he barely defeated. Maybe the Makers, a tinkering cult with their own kind of ascendance. But when his best friend Cyrus disappears, questions of destiny and prophethood will have to wait—because the fugue is always showing a version of the truth, and Eli must discover that truth before his terrifying visions become reality.

Four months have passed since Kira left home to join Julian's Jacker Freedom Alliance, but the hole in her heart still whistles empty where her boyfriend Raf used to be. She fills it with weapons training, JFA patrols, and an obsessive hunt for FBI agent Kestrel, ignoring Julian's worries about her safety and repeated attempts to recruit her for his revolutionary chat-casts. When anti-jacker politician Vellus surrounds Jackertown with the National Guard, Kira discovers there's more to Julian's concerns than she knew, but she's forced to take on a mission that neither want and that might be her last: assassinating Senator Vellus before he can snuff out Julian's revolution and the jackers she's come to love.

"When you control minds, only your heart can be used against you. Eight months ago, Kira Moore revealed to the mindreading world that mindjackers like herself were hidden in their midst. Now she wonders if telling the truth was the right choice after all. As wild rumors spread, a powerful anti-jacker politician capitalizes on mindreaders' fears and strips jackers of their rights. While some jackers flee to Jackertown - a slum rife with jackworkers who trade mind control favors for cash - Kira and her family hide from the readers who fear her and jackers who hate her. But when a jacker Clan member makes Kira's boyfriend Raf collapse in her arms, Kira is forced to save the people who loves by facing the thing she fears most: FBI agent Kestrel and his experimental torture chamber for jackers."--Page 4 of cover.

Synchronic: 13 Tales of Time Travel introduces 13 varied and original takes on the pitfalls and paradoxes of time travel-from some of today's most talented voices. From Michael Bunker's story of a father, a son, and the legendary Santa Anna Gold, to Jason Gurley's heart-wrenching tale of an astronaut forever torn from his young wife and daughter, these stories will keep you on the edge of your seat, and often have you guessing right up until the final word. You'll meet a prison therapist who treats his patients by going back and preventing their crimes; a woman who can't stop reliving her life, no matter how much it hurts; a space marine suffering from a time-altering brain injury; a woman who will betray the man she loves to correct a horrible mistake; a vengeful soul from ages past; and a time cop charged with preserving the timelines of multiple universes. You'll experience a world where time travel is so common, reality itself hangs by a thread; a love story that overcomes the unforgiving barriers of time; a thrilling encounter with a pack of T-rex; a historian's efforts to alter Roman history; and the first manned mission to the Red Planet-or is it? So sit back and enjoy. Just be sure you've got plenty of time.