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Jon Ryan has some unfinished business. Since he caused the universe to reboot, well, he can't seem to find his wife of two billion years. That's one great big oops. He also can't find the massive time ship Aramthella and her human crew. Double oops. And then there's the matter of not knowing whey why there are several copies of key people in the new reality he must navigate. Triple oops. He actually knows one whole heck of a lot less about his current situation than seems healthy. But he's Jon Ryan, former fighter pilot turned android warrior for humankind.

Captain Jack Hale and his crew of ragtag scavengers live by a code. They do the job, get paid, and keep their heads down. Salvaging a distant section of the asteroid belt seemed like the perfect job. But when he and his crew stumble across a mining camp filled with dead bodies, their plans for a quick payday quickly go out the airlock. Especially when they find a scared little girl who knows the truth about the massacre.

Hugh Howey is known for crafting riveting and immersive tales of boundless imagination. Now comes Machine Learning, an impressive collection of Howey's science fiction and fantasy short fiction, including three stories set in the world of Wool, two never-before-published tales written exclusively for this volume, and 15 additional stories collected here for the first time. These stories explore everything from artificial intelligence to parallel universes to video games, and each story is accompanied by an author's note.

I wasn’t supposed to survive. The station has been hit. Everyone around me is dead. I have 11 hours of life support left and no way of contacting Earth. I’m alone. I’m stranded. I’m desperate. But I’m alive. The more of the station I explore, the surer I get that this was no accident. Someone did this, and I don't think they're finished yet.

Xyándor, a figure of immense evil and depravity, wants all of those creatures dead. But without the whales, there will be no more time. Our universe will cease to exist. Now the whales are decidedly huge—as large as an average galaxy. But with the application of sufficient cruelty and technology, they can be killed. Existence, once again, hangs in the balance.

En route to London from New York, Flight 305 suddenly loses power and crash-lands in the English countryside, plunging a group of strangers into a mysterious adventure that will have repercussions for all of humankind. Struggling to stay alive, the survivors soon realize that the world they've crashed in is very different from the one they left. But where are they? Why are they here? And how will they get back home?

The problems in Dirk Cooper's life were ghosts, money and the Mob. The solution was real estate. Join notable hobo Dirk Cooper as he lies, cheats and steals his way through life, desperate to recover the things he lost during the housing crash of 2008. When he is approached by a wealthy and powerful man with haunted houses to sell, Dirk thinks his troubles are over. Things are not as they seemed, however, and soon he is caught up in a web of dark magic and danger the likes of which he has never encountered before.

Hanna is devastated when just a few weeks before her wedding, her fiancé drops the bomb that he doesn’t want to marry her. With the wedding bought and paid for (and completely non-refundable!), she decides to give it away to a deserving couple. Hanna chooses a pair of strangers that fate seems to put in her path, and then embarks on rearranging the wedding details with the help of the new bride-to-be’s brother.

Jon Ryan had lived long enough to know better. But with age does not automatically come wisdom. He has saved mankind many times. He even resurrected Earth and all its inhabitants from never-having-existed. But he's still haunted, and haunted people do crazy things.

Endless fighting. Hopeless odds. Then things got worse. Jon Ryan has beaten the odds so far. He saved humanity from a sinister alien threat, and he stopped the insane android president of the United States three separate times. But the president won't stay dead, and a super race threatens to end Jon's hopes for a peaceful future. Jon's mind-boggling alien technology has been enough to keep everyone alive. But, just when there's reason for hope, a new, more deadly race sets its sights on him. This threat may just be unstoppable.

Escaping wrongful imprisonment wasn't something Connor had in mind, but being put into stasis aboard Earth's first interstellar colony ship was something he couldn't have prepared for. For 300,000 colonists, the new colony brings the promise of a fresh start...a second chance. Connor might be the wrong man for the colony, but he's the right man to see that it survives what's coming.

Hal Bregg is an astronaut who returns from a space mission in which only 10 biological years have passed for him, while 127 years have elapsed on Earth. He finds that the Earth has changed beyond recognition, filled with human beings who have been medically neutralized. How does an astronaut join a civilization that shuns risk?

As a sci-fi author with a hit TV show, I have a few ideas about what alien invaders are supposed to look like. In my stories, they’re technologically advanced monsters, with tentacles, and no faces. Turns out I was right about the technology. And about how angry they’d be. But the way they look…that’s more terrifying than even I could have imagined. They look exactly like us. Because they are us.

Jon Ryan was supposed to be dead. He wanted to be dead. But Jon wakes up in the far future with an alien burrowing in his chest for salvage. Someone was going to pay for this. Check that. Lots of people were going to pay for this. Jon was the first astronaut to download to an android host to find the population of doomed Earth a new home. But that was so long time ago. He is now literally lost in time.

Contains books three and four of Time Wars Last Forever. Fragmented Time: Time is tearing apart. The Earth and every soul on it are not just gone; they never even existed. Jon Ryan's hopes of pulling off yet another miracle are evaporating like drops of rain on hot desert sands. Shattered Time: Time has not been kind to Jon Ryan. It almost seems personal between the two of them. His mission to resurrect a lost Earth gets more complicated, more dangerous, and less likely to succeed with each new barrier thrown in his path.

When your fairy godmother threatens to enslave you with a curse - when a malevolent piper solves your rat problem but steals your children - when you seek revenge on the prince who turned you into a frog - who can you turn to in your hour of need? The band of scoundrels known far and wide as the Bastard Champions - the swashbuckling trio who travel a world of legend, seeking adventure and righting wrongs - as long as there's enough gold to be earned.

The longer Everett Cole was on the planet Astrild, the more he understood the nature and mission of the Federation of Planets agency he had signed up with. Unfortunately, at the same time, understanding seemed to be associated with more people trying to shoot him. The new knowledge included that Astrild was more than the innocuous, developing colony planet it should be. Outside forces were using the planet and its unique ecosystem for purposes that must be stamped out.

Clarity came on the colony planet Astrild after teaming with an enigmatic colleague named Edgar Millen. Their agency employer works to influence colony planets to eventually join the Federation, the largest human political entity. But there are opponents: individuals, parties, criminal enterprises, and competing interstellar dominions. Astrild lacked the planetary government needed for development in preparation for Federation membership. Although the agency used various strategies, Cole and Millen were tasked with removing obstacles hindering that development.

Contains books five and six of the Rise of the Ancient Gods series: Fury of the Ancient Gods and Fall of the Ancient Gods.

As a horrific war with the ruthless Berrillians heats up, a new, more deadly threat arises - a mythical race known as the Last Nightmare, intent on destroying the universe. Once more, fate calls upon Jon Ryan. An alliance is made between old friends and bitter enemies. Cooperation is the only thing that might just save them all. But all the fighting, all the death, and all the suffering are changing Jon. With each passing crisis, his humanity ebbs further and further away.