Richard Levesque

Take Back Tomorrow

Bryce Anderson

J.S. Morin

Karpov Kinrade

Becca Mills

Misha Burnett

Russ Linton

Van Allen Plexico

Jefferson Smith

Dave Higgins

Christopher Ruz

Brett Adams

Regina Richards

Graham Storrs

Belinda Mellor

The 2016 ImmerseOrDie Anthology. What do you get when you ask 34 of today's top indie authors to each submit a story and then ask a team of ruthless judges to scour that ore and pick out the gems? You get All These Shiny Worlds: A world of today, divided, black from white, good from evil, and held apart by the taste of a cookie. A world of griffons and glimmer bunnies, wise old mothers, sassy llamas, and the magic of beer. A world of contemplation and serenity, of service and devotion, ruled by a jewel and guarded by children. Plus 12 more, for a total of 15 worlds to explore. From the brutal curators at ImmerseOrDie.com comes this collection of indie short stories, each a distinct jewel forged in the fires of judgment, and all carrying one simple promise: Guaranteed not to suck.

The 2016 ImmerseOrDie Anthology

All These Shiny Worlds

Her fight begins the day the world ends. Scarlett Fisher is an average California teenager. She likes hanging out with her friends and talking on the phone. She does all right at school, and she's made the best of her parents' divorce. But in one way, she's special: on her fifteenth birthday, fast-moving plague wipes out almost everyone she's ever known, yet somehow it passes her by. Her family dead, alone in a corpse-strewn metropolis, she has no choice but to survive. She needs food, shelter, a safe place to sleep. She discovers that an ordinary girl is capable of extraordinary things, and that she's more resilient than she imagined. Even so, she wishes more than anything that she could just find another survivor. Unfortunately for Scarlett, not everyone who survived the plague is looking for companionship. And she's about to find out just how difficult survival really is.

The Girl at the End of the World

The Blacktop Blues A Dieselpunk Adventure

Walk a Mile

After her research mission goes awry, Lespeth is desperate to go home and put the nightmare behind her. Unfortunately for her, home is light years away. Trapped in 1921 Hollywood, all she can do is find a way to blend in with the aliens who surround her until she can get back to her native planet. And that's going to mean dealing with the hoodlums, drug dealers and dope fiends who dwell on the city's dark edges. She doesn't know that her journey is about far more than a safe homecoming. By the time Lespeth discovers that the fates of both her species and all of humanity are tied to the choices she makes-and the ones that more powerful entities have made for her-the path back to her planet may be closed to her forever.

The Unhuman Condition

Derek Chandler had it all—the education, the promising future, the beautiful wife—but a tragic accident changed everything and his life now stands in ruins. Haunted by the ghosts of what might have been, Derek tries to lose himself in his new job, but what begins as a minor academic mystery soon unravels, leaving him with the burden of a second truncated life: that of long-vanished science fiction writer, Kichiro Nakamura. Convinced that finding Kichiro is somehow the key to finding his own peace, Derek is drawn into a frantic search of modern and post-war Los Angeles as he tries to reconstruct the shattered kaleidoscope of American and Japanese cultures. And the key to everything just might be the beautiful—and very suspicious—tattoo artist, Yuki Kamikaze.

Foundlings

G. Bruce Doern

Institute of Public Administration of Canada

The authors show how the NRC's history is interwoven with the evolution of Canada's economic and industrial development and with the fostering of science at Canada's universities, in industry, and within the federal government.

Changing Hierarchies, Networks and Markets

The National Research Council in the Innovation Policy Era

Fans of William Gibson, Jonathan Letham, and Richard K. Morgan will enjoy Strictly Analog by Richard Levesque.What's a private detective to do in a future where nothing is private any more?For Ted Lomax, the answer is to find clients who need their info kept off the grid, and that's what Ted has done for years, skirting the high tech that runs the new California and living on the fringes of society. But when his daughter is accused of murdering her boyfriend-an agent in the Secret Police-Ted has to dig himself out of the hole he's been in for years in order to save her.Before long, he's pulled into a shadow world of underground hackers, high-end programmers, and renegade gear-heads, all of whom sebuyem to have a stake in California's future. The further he digs into the case, the clearer it becomes that it's about more than one dead agent. Solving it might save his daughter. And it might get him killed. And it just might open the door to secrets that reach back to the attack that almost killed him eighteen years before. At any rate, Ted Lomax will never be the same."...fast-paced futuristic thriller..."-Publishers Weekly*"The main character, Ted Lomax, is strong and believable while the writing style, brisk and no-nonsense fits perfectly with the premise."-Amazon Expert Reviewer*This review was of the manuscript version submitted to Amazon's Breakout Novel Awards competition in 2012.Because of injuries sustained during California's border war, Ted is locked out of the technological culture that surrounds him. But that's his edge: his business card reads "Strictly Analog," and he markets himself as a man able to skirt the technological landscape without leaving a trail. It works nicely for him until he gets the most important case of his life. When his daughter Amy is accused of killing her boyfriend, Ted knows he has to do whatever he can to help her. It won't be easy. The bullet in the boyfriend's head matches Amy's gun. To make matters worse, the dead boyfriend was an agent with California's secret police.Now Ted has to dig himself out of the hole he's been buried in since the war. Before long, he's pulled into a shadow world of underground hackers, high-end programmers, and renegade gear-heads, all of whom seem to have a stake in California's future. The further he digs into the case, the clearer it becomes that it's about more than one dead agent. Solving it might save his daughter. And it might get him killed. And it just might open the door to secrets that reach back to the attack that almost killed him eighteen years before. At any rate, Ted Lomax will never be the same.

Strictly Analog

Richard Levesque

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