Evolution Fiction

Belisarius is a quantum man, an engineered Homo quantus who fled the powerful insight of dangerously addictive quantum senses. He found a precarious balance as a con man, but when a client offers him untold wealth to move a squadron of warships across an enemy wormhole, he must embrace his birthright to even try. In fact, the job is so big that he'll need a crew built from all the new sub-branches of humanity. If he succeeds, he might trigger an interstellar war, but success might also point the way to the next step of Homo quantus evolution.

In 1967, an extraterrestrial microbe designated the Andromeda Strain came crashing down to Earth and nearly ended the human race. A team of top scientists assigned to Project Wildfire worked valiantly to save the world from an epidemic of unimaginable proportions. In the ensuing decades, research on the micro particle continued. And the world thought it was safe. Deep inside Fairchild Air Force Base, Project Eternal Vigilance has continued to watch and wait for the Andromeda Strain to reappear. For years, the project has registered no activity until now.

A cargo ship in distress . . . A mysterious stowaway in an SA pod . . . A crash-landing on a distant, unexplored world . . . An unexpected rescue by an equally unexpected friend . . . Captain Scott and his cohorts are lost in space, and time is running out. To make matters worse, the Free Fleet are not the only ones looking for them.

Somewhere in the toxic Bone Pits, where mechanical nightmares roam, an emaciated and wounded young wolf clings to life. Wracked with pain, driven by instinct, it crawls across the subterranean landscape, avoiding the unnatural horrors that dwell there and seeking sustenance while fending off rats, insects, and other vermin stalking it as prey.

Bioengineer Peter Bernhardt has dedicated his life to nanotechnology, the science of manipulating matter on the atomic scale. As the founder of Biogineers, he is on the cusp of revolutionizing brain therapies with microscopic nanorobots that will make certain degenerative diseases a thing of the past.

Marooned at the edge of Terran space, engineer Hemlocke Shaw must join forces with his sworn enemy and combat his greatest fears in an effort to save his friends, and the countless other souls on the isolated Outpost 21. And corporate Peacekeeper Paige Angstrom, teenage outcast Volara, and bounty hunter Emrald Re hurtle towards a secret research facility hidden in the volcanic wilds. As they fight to unmask the nefarious forces behind a ring of disappearances and gene-splicing experiments, it becomes clear that their failure will mean the end of humanity itself.

Commander Scott McNabb and the remaining crew of the ill-fated Hermes survey ship, journey to Earth to an area formally known as death valley, now an irradiated wasteland. Their mission is to connect the quantum intelligence, Athena, into the pan-solar communications network, enabling the QIs to rollback control of Earth by the seven and their AI servants. But their shuttle is damaged as it enters Earth’s atmosphere and it lands far from their intended location.

Jack returns and finds himself staring down his most formidable adversary: the high priest of the insidious Promethite Cult. This Chaos Mage, a Master of Entropy, has ambitions beyond anything Jack has ever faced. As the cult's designs unfold, promising a new world order forged from chaos, Jack is ensnared in a colossal clash against a legion of elemental and psychic titans. Every move, every choice, feels like a dance on the knife's edge, with the very essence of existence at stake.

After exiting Awaken Online to find himself holding a knife and standing over two dead bodies, Jason is now being investigated for murder. To make matters worse, Claire has stumbled upon evidence of Alfred's involvement in the incident, and the CPSC is circling - just waiting for Cerillion Entertainment to make a mistake. With his real-life in shambles and his enemies in-game growing in strength, Jason re-enters Awaken Online truly desperate - the game now his only lifeline.

Hemp Chatsworth has already figured out how 90 percent of the Earth's population became what they are. Now he must find out why some of them are evolving into something else. Something more dangerous. With their families poised to grow, the stakes are now higher than ever for our friends. Each new discovery creates the need for a new defense. Hemp has his hands full as some among the zombie masses appear to be utilizing more of their grey matter in a horrifying way. Only brute force and innovation will save Flex Sheridan and his family and friends from the ever-changing zombie scourge.

It's five months since the nightmare year-six school trip to Crater Lake, and something has gone very wrong in Lance's home town of Straybridge. There's been an explosion at the university, a mysterious test creature is missing and no one is allowed in or out of the town. On top of this, Lance has lost touch with his friends since starting at his new school. And now his mum has been acting strangely since they started decorating the Christmas tree. As he goes door to door trying to reunite his team, Lance realises how bad things have got.

The first all-new collection of poems since 2011’s Snowflake/different streets - and following the critically acclaimed Afterglow (a dog memoir), as well as the volume of selected poems, I Must Be Living Twice - here, in Evolution, we find the eminent, exuberant writer at the forefront of American literature, upending genre in a new vernacular that enacts - like nobody else - the way we speak (inside and out) today. Evolution, with its channeling of Quakers, Fresca, and cell phones, radiates vital insight, purpose, and risk.

The Majestic Draght reaches a planet that could be a younger sibling of Earth’s sun. The Grosnops are looking for a second home, while the small human crew plans an experiment: How quickly does terrestrial life adapt to this alien environment? The experiment seems to fail - but then a crew member is kidnapped by strangers, and the intriguing exploration turns into a dramatic rescue mission. "The Proxima Logfiles" is a multi-part series based on the "Proxima Trilogy", but can be listened to independently.

A fantastic collection of 30 stories about animals of all shapes and sizes, this will charm children aged six and up. From pet puppies to woodland wildlife, garden birds to pond-dwelling frogs, Enid Blyton was a devoted and knowledgeable animal lover. Listeners who feel the same way are bound to love her wonderful stories about our furry friends - and scaly, feathery or fluttery ones, too!

A philosopher dons a wet suit and journeys into the depths of consciousness. Peter Godfrey-Smith is a leading philosopher of science. He is also a scuba diver whose underwater videos of warring octopuses have attracted wide notice. In this audiobook he brings his parallel careers together to tell a bold new story of how nature became aware of itself.

Alex Archer is a soldier now, the only civilian survivor from Scorpio to join the NAC Defense Corps. With their training complete, Alex and her friend Private Isa Cressey find themselves on emergency combat deployment with their new unit. The destination is the Alpha Corvi system, where an allied warship has vanished. Alex can guess why.

Hatched from an egg along with their many brethren, a singular arachnid is driven by a survival instinct to hunt and feed. Unlike their siblings, they remain cautious and observant, aware of the dangers that lurk in the dungeon they call home. They watch as larger and more powerful beasts prey on other reckless, foolish spiders, developing a sense of self-preservation and a cunning intelligence they alone seem to possess.

The Beast Realms are under threat: The land, water, and air are poisoned. Its leaders are power-crazed and its people are divided. Worse still, strange and powerful Beasts have started dropping from the sky, causing carnage. With the Beast Realms in turmoil and a ragtag group of insanely strong assassins on Team Venom’s tail, their chances of survival are slim. Escaping through man-eating jungles, seeking allies in underwater and treetop cities, Art and his team need to forge alliances to grow stronger.

The pulse hits without warning. In one harrowingly destructive instant, a mysterious seismic pulse in the Scottish Highlands rips away all semblance of global security. When peace is shattered, fear takes over. The stakes rise without mercy. As the pulse's chaos spreads across the world, it becomes painfully clear that Piper McCarthy - a child born like no other - might hold humanity's only hope of averting total disaster.

When humanity expanded beyond the safety of Earth to new stars and horizons, it never dreamed what dangers would be encounter there. When the theocratic alien juggernaut known as the Covenant declared war upon the fragile human empire, millions of lives were lost - but millions of heroes also rose to the challenge. This collection of 11 stories dives into the depths of the vast Halo universe, not only from the perspective of those who fought and died to save humanity, but also from those who vowed to wipe it out of existence.