Search Worlds Without End

In his confident debut, Greg Bechtel offers ten magnetically charged stories of physics, paranoia, sex, conspiracies, and magic -- our world distilled and transmuted. Carjacking amnesiacs, small-town cabbies, and accidental gunrunners, all struggling to make sense of the strange, often surreal events that overtake them. Here, on the boundaries between the possible and the impossible, lie fear and wonder, transcendence and obsession... and perhaps even a hint of grace.

Paradigms Shift, Worlds Collide!

A daring and resourceful paleontologist uncovers something at the infamous K-T boundary marking the end of dinosaurs in the fossil record - something big, dangerous, and absolutely, categorically impossible. It's a find that will catapult her to the Martian moon Phobos, then down to the crater-pocked desert of the Red Planet itself. For this mild-mannered fossil hunter may just have become Earth's first practicing xenobiologist!

When the strange fossil she'd discovered had ended up giving her a trip to Mars, Helen Sutter thought she'd gone about as far as any paleontologist would ever go in her lifetime. But when you've also married A.J. Baker, overconfident super- sensor expert for the only private agency in space--the Ares Corporation--and your best friend Madeline Fathom Buckley is a former secret agent who's just signed on as the chief of security for the newly created and already embattled Interplanetary Research Institute of the United Nations, there's always somewhere farther to go.

The newest discoveries will take her, A.J., and their friends Jackie, Joe, and Madeline to the mysterious asteroid Ceres--and beyond, in a desperate race to Jupiter's perilous miniature system of radiation- bombarded moons. The next gold rush is on--for alien technology, hidden in lost bases around the system. And there are people willing to do anything to get it--even plan the first interplanetary war, four hundred million miles from home!

HELL FROZEN OVER

Madeline Fathom had miraculously landed the crippled Nebula Storm on Europa. She joined on that frozen moon of Jupiter the stranded crewmembers of the ill-fated EU vessel Odin. The Nebula Storm's reactor was ruined in the landing, the Odin's shuttle can't make the trip back home, and the only vessel that could have make the journey to save them has just been destroyed by a renegade crewman, bad luck, and the remorseless forces of nature.

But Madeline, Helen Sutter, A.J. Baker and the team have one card left to play. All they have to do... is survive lethal radiation, vacuum, and ice as hard as steel while they figure out how to make Nebula Storm fly again.

But even as they prepare to make the journey home, Europa has one more discovery waiting for them... a discovery that might be the deadliest trap in the Solar System!

Lost in the dark, half a year into their journey to the colony world of Tantalus, Sakura Kimei, her family, and her best friend, the alien "Bemmie" nicknamed Whips, are torn from the safety of their colony ship. In a crippled lifeboat, they had one chance to find a habitable world. But even then, they would find that their apparent salvation was a world of a thousand secrets.

Worst-Case Scenario:

Sergeant Samuel Morgan Campbell had been in plenty of tight spots before, but nothing like this. It had happened in a few terrifying seconds: the starship he and his crew travelled on, the Outward Initiative, shattered to pieces before their eyes and disappeared, leaving them stranded in the endless night of deep space on Lifeboat LS-88--all systems dead, light-years from any known colony.

Somehow, Sergeant Campbell and his crew of half-trained children--ranging from freshly graduated Xander Bird down to eight-year-old Francisco--have to repair systems with no tools, navigate with no computers, and--if they could find a planet they could live on--land a shuttle whose controls were more than half-destroyed.

And if they manage all of that, then the real challenge begins; the only planet in range has secrets that even Sergeant Campbell cannot imagine!

After her twin sister's brutal murder, former US Army Sergeant Allison "Lex" Luther vowed to protect her niece, Charlie. So when two vampires try to kidnap the baby, it quickly turns into a fight to the death--Lex's death, that is.

She wakes up to two shocking discoveries: she has miraculously survived the fight, and baby Charlie is a "null," gifted with the ability to weaken supernatural forces... and a target for creatures who want to control that power. Determined to guarantee her niece's safety, Lex makes a deal with the local vampires. She sets out with the mysterious--and undead--"fixer" Quinn to track down whoever's responsible for the kidnapping, sharpening her newfound magic skills along the way. But the closer she gets to the truth, the more dangerous her powers become.

Boundary Crossed is a dark, thrilling journey into a world where the line between living and dead isn't nearly as solid as it appears...

Fitting into the Old World isn't going very well for Boulder boundary witch Allison "Lex" Luther: she may have earned a place in a vampire's service, but now it seems as if every supernatural creature in town has found a reason to hate her. And when Lex and her partner are assigned to investigate the suspicious disappearance of two vampires during the night of the full moon, they find themselves with more questions than answers.

Was it murder... or mutiny?

The crusade for answers will lead Lex all over the Colorado Old World, from a prison cell for a broken werewolf to a haunted Denver brothel. And when Lex determines the responsible party, the hunt is just beginning: something has been awakened in Boulder, something as old and powerful as it is terrifying. Only the woman with death in her blood can stop what's coming.

Something wicked is at work in Colorado's supernatural community. Vampires are being paralyzed or killed with poison... a weapon favored by witches. This offense threatens to break apart the already-fractured alliance between witches and the undead.

The state's cardinal vampire, Maven, summons boundary witch Allison "Lex" Luther to stop the killing before it ignites a war. Lex has barely started investigating when she gets another surprise: the biological father she's never met arrives on her doorstep. He has answers to all of Lex's questions about her bloodline, but getting those answers could mean betraying the life she's already built.

Then the next vampire is poisoned--and this time it's Maven herself. The new evil that hunts Lex is powerful and ruthless enough to stop the strongest supernatural creature in the state. In order to find such a killer, Lex will have to face down her own birthright and call on every ally--both living and dead.