Tall Tales: Volume Two by Tim McLaughlin

With the consequences from Volume One still reverberating in their lives, the cast of Tall Tales must face growing challenges in their own way. Jackie's trust for Hecate wanes as she learns more about her divine patron's intentions. Benedict and Akshainie's crusade against the Brood of Nachash brings them into contact with Matteson, who is dealing with significant changes to the people in his life. But when lives are on the line, the group must decide what risks they're willing to take to stop the cult once and for all.

What Mattered Most by Quill Holland

At the end of the world, you must choose: survive and succeed or make peace with your failure – which will it be? A.R.C Project Rebirth: a simple mission to outlive and outlast an inhospitable Earth and repopulate it once it has recovered. Yet, for Chloe, a cyborg member of the project, the operation is anything but simple. Extending well beyond its original completion date and with no signs of recovery, Chloe spends her days living in the past, avoiding her hot, dry, and barren reality, just waiting on the world to change. When events take a sudden and disastrous turn for the worst, Chloe must compete against herself, her fellow project members, and even time itself, to keep herself and her precious cargo alive; humanity’s fate depends on it. Faced with the possibility of not surviving, Chloe must reconcile between her past and present to decide – what mattered most?

The Last of Her Kind by Quill Holland

What would it feel like, to be the last? She is alone and on the run: from whom, she doesn’t know – it could be any one of the many alien travellers moving through the crowded spaceport. All she wants is to go unobserved and to continue living. But when an alien xenologist spots her, he sees the opportunity of a lifetime: a chance to speak with a surviving member of the Rav’ian race, and he is driven to engage with her – but she doesn’t want to be engaged with. For both the observed and the observer know the same, terrible truth: that she is the last of her kind!

Hurricanes 2007 by Darío Aguilar Peregrina

A long time ago, a meteorite fell in the middle of a hurricane killing several researchers from the National Hurricane Center, swallowing up the entire storm. While investigating the incident, scientists experimented with the remains of the space rock, discovering that it had the capacity to manipulate the hurricanes or any other natural phenomenon, including the earth's subsurface, being these reasons why the project was titled "Hurricanes 2007". Subsequently, a highly gifted mercenary called Katrina Fernandez, popularly known in her country as "Hurricane Katrina," heard that there was a reward for stealing the project, but in doing so and being surrounded by police, decided to commit suicide.... 10 years later, the Doctor Dominic Carson Phoenix, who was a member of the project, kept a complete sample finding that it had healing powers and after suffering an accident with his wife and daughter, dying the former, Dominic decided to inject the entire substance to his little girl named Darcy Ember Phoenix, who miraculously recovered from all her injuries ... Meanwhile, in the country known as Mexico, a young lesbian navy cadet called Rio Pedroza was fighting every day for a better nation that lately was filled with corruption, violence, unemployment and crime. But when one day she was called to bring help to the Drayson Martle Harbor, things would change... A story filled with violence, darkness, hope, solidarity and love would begin…

Narmer and the God Beast by JD Weber

SFFOasis

“Had I anything in my heart but hate for my brother and pity for myself . . . I may have suspected I was about to meet a god.” Broken and bleeding into the cool Nile waters – shattered by his brother’s cruelty – young Narmer pays the crocodile no heed as it enters the stream. Let it come. But the hunter swims on, and only then does Narmer know its aim, the defenseless god-beast drinking and playing up-river. Dinosaurs will again roam the desert sands, uniting the disparate Two Lands into one great Egypt, if Narmer can drive off the crocodile, if he can endure his brother’s malice. If he can save this sacred creature and be saved by it . . .

Toadstones by Eric Williams

Sixteen stories from the Bowels of Hell. You can’t chear death, but death can still cheat you. Gods are real. Monters too. Like sheepoids, creepoids, and landlords. Take the ghost bus to a showing of a haunted film; it really is to die for. Keep your distance from the uncanny residents of a picturesque wasteland. If you forget your wallet at some sketchy jobsite in the middle of nowhere, just leave it. Some things are better lost. Stepped in the history of Time, Earth, and B-Movies, Eric Williams creates worlds where nothing is what it seems, and be you graverobber, podcaster, or small-town veterinarian, there are no magic charms to protect you. A collection where Weird is the norm, where the unreal is all too real, Toadstones is a reminder that we don’t know everything, actually.

Light Beyond the Glass by K. J. Harrowick

Jàden's on the run from Enforcers with only one shot to flee to the stars with the man she loves. But between the surface of the moon and starship Hàlon is a predator on the hunt.... one she can't seem to escape.

I Am Not Brad Pitt and Other Stories by Ross Dreiblatt

I AM NOT BRAD PITT is the first of three riotously absurd tales in Ross Dreiblatt’s debut short-story collection sending up America’s sometimes-fatal celebrity obsessions. “I Am Not Brad Pitt” opens in a prison cell in which Mr. Pitt’s clone-like doppelganger, Tobey Crawford, remorsefully recounts the sequence of unlikely events that resulted in his wrongful conviction for murder. The second story, “Please Allow Me To Introduce Myself,” considers the possibility that Keith Richards (along with, for good measure, Dolly Parton) is, indeed, a vampire. Nobel-Prize laureate Bob Dylan, the story’s vampire-killer, is equipped with more than just a harmonica and tambourine. The final work in the collection, “Keeping Compliant With The Kardashians,” examines whether Kardashian family members are, in fact, aliens from another galaxy and what precisely is their interest on Earth. Each of the stories are told with engaging humor, and each pokes fun more at American culture than they do, generally, of the celebrities themselves.

Pretend to read this book to avoid talking to strangers by Cassie Bailey

Description ‘Pretend to read this book to avoid talking to strangers’ is the new e-book by Cassie Bailey. Six short stories explore love, loneliness, and the human search for connection. ABOUT THIS BOOK: We all seek to belong somewhere. But what does it mean to really feel that sense of belonging? To feel truly connected – to our Earth, and to each other? Wires doesn’t mind being alone when the world ends, but she’d rather be with the girl she loves. Sharon connects with others through her daydreams, even when she can’t talk to them in person. Kelly and Adam seek connection through their art, but is it at the expense of their relationship? And somewhere, deep at the bottom of the ocean, a woman speaks to the sea and stars, as they help her remember where she belongs. Each tale was written at a different point in the author’s 20s, and the scattered but reflective story structures explore the inner workings of her neurodiverse brain. At times humorous, other times devastating, this debut collection fuses poignant poetry and open dialogue. ‘Pretend to read…’ will leave you thinking a little deeper about how the human mind experiences and searches for connection. 24,968 words ADVANCED READER REVIEW: ‘From the moment I began reading dizzy & wires, I was awed by Cassie’s ability to turn her heartfelt thoughts into poetry. Her neurodiverse brain is an absolute gift and the magic, depth, and originality she produces within these pages is a thing to behold. Raw, vulnerable, at times quirky and at other times thought-provoking, these short stories are the kind you’ll want to come back to again and again and you’ll keep discovering fresh delights you missed the first time around.’