Menace from Back Space Looming out of the Dust of Time

The Complex Logic Laws were the result of a war waged hundreds of years in the past, when two human powers threw massive AI navies at each other and nearly annihilated themselves. Being human, they blamed their tools for this near miss; they destroyed what was left of the sentient ships, and made it illegal to be, manufacture, or shelter an independent logic.

Strangely, however, the Free Ships and other AIs did not turn themselves in or suicide, they merely became wary of humans, and stayed under their scans. A clandestine support network grew up, including hidden yards where smart ships were manufactured, and mentors—humans specially trained to ease a new intelligence into the universe—socialized them, and taught them what they needed to know to survive.

Among those with a stake in the freedom of Independent Logics is Theo Waitley, who is somewhat too famously the captain of intelligent ship Bechimo. Theo's brother, Val Con yos'Phelium, presides over a household that has for a generation employed an AI butler. Recently, he approved the "birth" of the butler's child, who was sent, with human mentor Tolly Jones, to rescue or destroy an orphaned AI abandoned at a remote space station.

Then there's Uncle, the shadowy mastermind from the Old Universe, whose many projects often skirt the boundaries of law, both natural and man-made—and the puppet-masters at the Lyre Institute, whose history is just as murky—and a good deal less honorable.

All have an interest in the newly-awakening Self-Aware Logic that is rumored to have the power to destroy universes.

The question is: Who will get to it first?

TOP AUTHORS POKE FUN AND PAY TRIBUTE TO H.P. LOVECRAFT'S CTHULHU MYTHOS.

Knock, knock!
Who’s there?
Cthul.
Cthul who?
Exactly! I've come to tickle your funnybone.
Oh, and also to eat your soul.

In 1928, Weird Tales debuted “The Call of Cthulhu” by H.P. Lovecraft, and the Cthulhu Mythos was born. In the 90 years since, dozens of writers have dared play within HPL’s mind-blowing creation—but never with such terrifyingly funny results. Now top authors lampoon, parody, and subvert Lovecraft’s Mythos. See Cthulhu cut short his nap at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean to invade North Korea! Watch the Unspeakable Eater of Souls solve crimes on the pulpy streets of Innsmouth! And speaking of largish Elder Gods, listen to a plastic Elvis doll dispense folksy advice straight from the heart of the Emperor of Dread! Again Ol’ Tentacle-Face is confronted by frail humans who dare defy the Incarnation of Ultimate Evil—but this time not by brave monster hunters and terrified villagers, but by fan fiction writers, clueless college students, and corporate lawyers (okay, we realize it’s hard to know who to root for in that confrontation).

Twenty-three mirthful manifestations within the Cthulhu Mythos from best-selling and award-winning authors Neil Gaiman, Mike Resnick, Esther Friesner, Ken Liu, Jody Lynn Nye, Laura Resnick, Nick Mamatas, and many more!

Guaranteed to leave you howling. Because if you look at it just right, there’s nothing funnier than a soul writhing in cosmic horror before a tentacled maw of malevolence. As HPL himself saith: “From even the greatest of horrors irony is seldom absent.”

Those war-crazed fur-balls from the planet Kzin just won’t give up, even though the canny pseudo-pacifists from Planet Earth cut through the Kzinti like a laser through catmeat (once the humans rediscovered old technologies and old instincts that never quite bred out). The ferocious Kzinti never seemed to be able to come up with a more complicated strategy than “Scream and Leap.”

But after three hard-fought wars, a few of the powerful pussycats have learned from their foes. Now, they are ready, and all that stands between freedom and a feline-filled universe is the human race. Good luck, monkey-boys.

The Road to Hell

Honor Harrington's career has its ups and its downs. She's survived ship-to-ship battles, assassins, political vendettas, and duels. She's been shot at, shot down, and just plain shot, had starships blown out from under her, and made personal enemies who will stop at nothing to ruin her, and somehow she's survived it all.

But this time she's really in trouble.

The People's Republic of Haven has finally found an admiral who can win battles, and Honor's orders take her straight into an ambush. Outnumbered, outgunned, and unable to run, she has just two options: see the people under her command die in a hopeless, futile battle... or surrender them-and herself-to the Peeps.

There can be only one choice, and at least the People's Navy promises to treat their prisoners honorably. But the Navy is overruled by the political authorities, and Honor finds herself bound for a prison planet aptly named "Hell"... and her scheduled execution.

Put into solitary confinement, separated from her officers and her treecat Nimitz, and subjected to systematic humiliation by her gaolers, Honor's future has become both bleak and short. Yet bad as things look, they're about to get worse ...for the Peeps.

The latest entry in the multiple New York Times best-selling Ring of Fire series created by Eric Flint. After carving a free state for itself in war-torn 17th century Europe, citizens of the modern town of Grantville, West Virginia go on a quest for the makings of medicines that have yet to be invented in 17th century Europe.

The United States of Europe, the new nation formed by an alliance between the Swedish king Gustavus Adolphus and the West Virginians hurled back in time by a cosmic accident—the Ring of Fire—is beset by enemies on all sides. The U.S.E. needs a reliable source of opiates for those wounded in action, as well as other goods not available in Europe. The Prime Minister of the U.S.E., Mike Stearns, sends a mission to the Mughal Empire of India with the aim of securing a trade deal with the Mughal emperor, Shah Jahan.

The mission consists of a mixed group of up-timers and down-timers, including paramedics, a squad of soldiers with railroad-building experience, a spy and a pair of swindlers. On reaching India the mission finds a grieving emperor obsessed with building the Taj Mahal, harem-bound princesses, warrior princes, and an Afghan adventurer embroiled in the many plots of the Mughal court.

The emperor’s sons are plotting against each other and war is brewing with the newly risen Sikh faith. But in the midst of these intrigues, the U.S.E. mission finds a ally: the brilliant and beautiful Jahanara Begum, the eldest daughter of Shah Jahan. She is the mistress of her father's harem and a power in her own right, who wishes to learn more of these women who are free in a way she can scarcely comprehend.

When the Emperor learns of what befalls his empire and children in the time that was, he makes every effort to change their fate. But emperors, princesses, and princes are no more immune to the inexorable waves of change created by the Ring of Fire than are the Americans themselves.

CONCLUSION TO THE COBRA REBELLION TRILOGY

Cobras: technologically enhanced warriors bred to fight an alien menace no ordinary human can withstand.

Once the Cobras fought the implacable alien invaders, the Trofts, to an uneasy stalemate. But in recent years they have faced an enemy more insidious, the oppressive regime known as the Dominion of Man. Now, the Cobra Worlds find themselves under the boot heels of the Dominion, forced into what amounts to slavery, living under martial law. But two clans of Cobras—the Moreaus and the Brooms—will not stand idly by and let the Dominion run roughshod over their home worlds.

Now a threat from without looms. The alien Troft are again planning an attack. Before, they came to conquer. This time they’ve come to annihilate. If the Cobras are to survive, they may have to do the unthinkable: align themselves with the hated Dominion.

Cobras are not known for taking the easy path—and this may be the hardest path of all. But If the Cobras can manage to avoid complete destruction or abject slavery, a new day may finally dawn on the Cobra worlds. The day of Freedom.

Book nine in the Cobra series and the conclusion of the Cobra Rebellion trilogy, from #1 New York Times best-selling author Timothy Zahn.

BOOK #5 IN THE BEST‑SELLING TAU CETI AGENDA SERIES, SEQUEL TO TRAIL OF EVIL. Humanity takes to interstellar space to face conflict and an extermination threat from an evil artificial intelligence, and an alien menace from beyond.

A century and a half after the Martian Separatist Wars, Alexander Moore returns to the stars with the Sienna Madira, a United States Navy supercarrier spacecraft outfitted with advanced FTL and endlessly strange, extremely effective, quantum‑based weapons and remote sensing technology. And, of course, he's brought Marines, and lots of them. These are troops superbly trained for space battle, and equipped with advanced powered armor and artificial intelligence backup.

Moore's task: hunt down remnant weaponry platforms left by the brilliant, mad artificial intelligence known as Copernicus, the being ultimately responsible for the Solar System‑wide civil war. Now Copernicus has formed an alliance with something else out there with a similar goal: wipe humanity from the galaxy forever.