His friends are either missing, in danger, or altered. Hired killers shadow his every move. And Jade, the mysterious, cyber-enhanced woman watching over him, will give no answers. Thrust into a blind search for the truth, Michael needs allies. Yet whom can he trust when once loyal friends may have turned against him? Meanwhile, an intelligence thought trapped within Paragon has escaped to Northgate. Driven to fulfill the goals of the mysterious “Planners,” it, too, seeks allies. When it finds them, it will transform the face of Northgate, the world, and the entire human race. The year 2051 draws to a close, and nothing will be the same.

Altered States II doesn't just have cyberpunk in it! Cyberpunk seeps from its pores. Cyberpunk forms its building blocks like DNA forms ours.

The U.S. political leaders of 2016 abandon the radioactive planet they've destroyed and harness the power of humanity's last hope: The Splitter, a colossal machine designed to manufacture a bright new reality for them to infiltrate and corrupt.

A military pilot from a radioactive, alternate future has arrived in Berlin 1945, and the corrupt officials from his world want him stopped. Though he won't reveal the details of his mission, he's made one thing clear: our entire reality is at stake.

Mr. Baby—a bizarre looking, dangerous man—is the sole survivor of Berlin's prewar nightlife. Play by his rules, and he can get you anything, but he's not one to be crossed. A hard lesson for our inter-dimensional pilot… and the corrupt officials from his world who want him dead.

Time is running out. Corrupt, otherworldly political powers threaten to hijack our reality, and they have the nuclear capabilities needed to alter the course of our history forever. One lone pilot and those who dare to trust him are all that stand in the way of a radioactive future.

Los Angeles in 2050 is a city of open doors, as long as you have the right connections. One of those connections is a djinni—a smart device implanted right in a person’s head. In a world where virtually everyone is online twenty-four hours a day, this connection is like oxygen—and a world like that presents plenty of opportunities for someone who knows how to manipulate it.

When Boris Chong returns to Tel Aviv from Mars, much has changed. Boris’s ex-lover is raising a strangely familiar child who can tap into the datastream of a mind with the touch of a finger. His cousin is infatuated with a robotnik—a damaged cyborg soldier who might as well be begging for parts. His father is terminally-ill with a multigenerational mind-plague. And a hunted data-vampire has followed Boris to where she is forbidden to return. Rising above them is Central Station, the interplanetary hub between all things: the constantly shifting Tel Aviv; a powerful virtual arena, and the space colonies where humanity has gone to escape the ravages of poverty and war. Everything is connected by the Others, powerful alien entities who, through the Conversation—a shifting, flowing stream of consciousness—are just the beginning of irrevocable change. At Central Station, humans and machines continue to adapt, thrive...and even evolve.

Play the Game. Play to Win. Play to Survive. Most people play the game: total immersion VR with full neural sync. But Hank lives it. In Unlimited Combat, he's one of the best. He makes his own luck. And he plays solo. Until now. When a player offers Hank fame and fortune, it's too good to pass up. To succeed, Hank must fight harder than ever before, pushing past the game's safety protocols. His life is on the line, and when he's captured, he knows he's in too deep. Can he escape? And who can he trust? Join Hank in the game—if you dare. CHEATC0DE is a perfect read for fans of cyberpunk, technothrillers, and LitRPG. It's a fast-paced page-turner of a tale. Please note that CHEATC0DE is a stand alone novel, not a serial. Although there will be further adventures for these characters in future books, each book will stand on its own.

In the not-so-distant future, economic inequality and persistent surveillance push Oakland to the brink of civil war. Lilly Miyamoto is a passionate analog photographer striving to pursue an ever more distant dream. Huian Li is preeminent among the Silicon Valley elite as the founder and CEO of the pervasive tech giant Cumulus. Graham Chandler is a frustrated intelligence agent forging a new path through the halls of techno-utopian royalty. But when Huian rescues Lilly from a run-in with private security forces, it sets off a chain of events that will change their lives and the world.

Cybernetics. Neuroscience. Nanotechnology. Genetic engineering. Hacktivism. Transhumanism. The world of tomorrow is already here, and the technological changes we all face have inspired a new wave of stories to address our fears, hopes, dreams, and desires as Homo sapiens evolve—or not—into their next incarnation. Cyber World presents diverse tales of humanity’s tomorrow, as told by some of today’s most gripping science fiction visionaries.

Sean McQueen rewrites and re-envisions Gilles Deleuze's and Jean Baudrillard's relationship with Marxism and with each other, from their breakdowns to their breakthroughs. He theorises shifts in and across critical approaches to capitalism, science, technology, psychoanalysis, literature and cinema and media studies. He also brings renewed Marxian readings to cyberpunk texts previously theorised by Deleuze and Baudrillard, and places them at the heart of the emergence of biopunk and its relation to biocapitalism by mapping their generic, technoscientific, libidinal and economic exchanges.

Young robot boy TIM-21 and his companions struggle to stay alive in a universe where all androids have been outlawed and bounty hunters lurk on every planet. DESCENDER is a rip-roaring and heart-felt cosmic odyssey, pitting humanity against machine and world against world to create a sprawling epic.

The year is 2029, and the shining promise of a new age of human augmentation is in ruins in the wake of the devastating ‘Aug Incident’ – a horrific catastrophe triggered by a cabal of shadowy power brokers, where millions of cybernetically enhanced people suffered a forced psychotic break.

With society still reeling from the Aug Incident - the Illuminati orchestrated event which caused augmented individuals to mindlessly attack their 'natural' counterparts - anti-aug sentiment is at an all-time global high. Task Force 29 - an Interpol-funded coalition, created to quash the rising tide of terrorist activity - stands as the world's main defence against total anarchy. In the city of Prague, where tension is especially high, the team's latest recruit, Adam Jensen, readies for his first mission with the unit. But being augmented himself, how will the former SWAT officer handle himself when faced with the grim reality of the mechanical apartheid? Welcome to the darker side of Deus Ex in this thrilling prologue to the upcoming new instalment, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided.

Two convicted cyborgs guilty of the highest crime. An expression of love that could save them or be their end. A cyberpunk romance for the ages.

Shock Pao is the best. In the virtual world the Slip there’s nothing he can’t steal for the right price. Outside the Slip, though, he’s a Fail – no degree, no job. So when his ex offers him a job, breaking into a corporate databank, he accepts—it’s either that, or find himself a nice bench to sleep under. Amiga works for psychotic crime lord Twist Calhoun so when Shock’s war comes to her, it’s her job to bring him to Twist, dead or alive.

It’s 2050, and LAPD Detective Terri Pastuzka has drawn the short straw with her first assignment of the new decade. Someone has executed one of the city’s countless immigrants, and no one (besides the usual besieged advocacy groups) seems to much care. Even Terri herself is already looking ahead to her next case before an unexpected development reveals there’s far more to this corpse than meets the eye. And a lot already meets the eye. In a city immersed in augmented reality, the LAPD have their own superior network of high-tech eyewear—PanOpts, the ultimate panopticon—allowing Terri instant access to files and suspects and literal insertion into the crime scene using security footage captured from every angle the day the murder occurred. What started as a single homicide turns into a string of unsolved murders that tie together in frightening ways, leading Terri down a rabbit hole through Los Angeles’s conflicting realities—augmented and virtual, fantastically rumored and harrowingly true—towards an impossible conclusion.

Four years have passed since Bobbi January learned about the existence of the Yathi race and its plans for humanity. Since then, she ‘s become more than a career data thief or anticorporate provacateur - she’s the leader of a force of humans and reformed Yathi hosts dedicated to fighting the aliens wherever they can be found. Hers is a war fought in the dark, and like all wars, it has been costly. Friends have died, others have soured, and the rebellion that started out so strongly has broken into two embittered camps. When Bobbi is nearly killed by a surpise strike after a successful mission, it looks as though the Yathi may be the least of her problems.

Manchester, 2025. Local mechanic Sol steals old vehicles to meet the demand for spares. But when Sol’s partner impulsively jacks a luxury model, Sol finds himself caught up in a nightmarish trans-dimensional human trafficking conspiracy.

Nate Graft and Edward Hiccox were the young, brilliant co-founders of the social networking company YourLife while secretly running .sve_urs3lf, a hacker collective enabling revolutions around the globe. It’s been six months since Ed was killed by a drone on national television while fighting for freedom. It's been six months since Nate lost his company, his best friend, and his mission. Now in charge of the government organization VIGIL, the front line of America’s ongoing cyber operations, Nate has started to pick up the pieces of his life when the government comes under attack from a new breed of hacker...working under the name .sve_urs3lf. Using Nate and Ed’s former handle, they want to know the truth of what happened six months ago by any means necessary. This time, war is the home front and Nate will have to look to his past if he’s going to save the future.

Hypercage is a cyberpunk techno-thriller that features gripping and tense action, dark and vivid horror and a slice of future technology.

Louis Berker likes to think of himself as a hard-boiled private investigator. He has a trench coat, cigarettes, frosted glass door with his name on it, and most importantly; incisive eyes that see all three levels of C-City as they really are, full of crime, injustice, and invasive advertising. When a murder investigation comes crashing into his life (that's actually a really macabre pun!), his meagre experience and anachronistic affectations will be put to the test. Can Louis clear up the conspiracies that crouch at the core of this convoluted case, or will he merely become its next casualty?

It's been twenty years and two election cycles since Information, a powerful search engine monopoly, pioneered the switch from warring nation-states to global micro-democracy. The corporate coalition party Heritage has won the last two elections. With another election on the horizon, the Supermajority is in tight contention, and everything's on the line. With power comes corruption. For Ken, this is his chance to do right by the idealistic Policy1st party and get a steady job in the big leagues. For Domaine, the election represents another staging ground in his ongoing struggle against the pax democratica. For Mishima, a dangerous Information operative, the whole situation is a puzzle: how do you keep the wheels running on the biggest political experiment of all time, when so many have so much to gain?

Hannah Stander is a consultant for the FBI—a futurist who helps the Agency with cases that feature demonstrations of bleeding-edge technology. It’s her job to help them identify unforeseen threats: hackers, AIs, genetic modification, anything that in the wrong hands could harm the homeland.

What if you could live multiple lives simultaneously, have constant, perfect companionship, and never die? That’s the promise of Join, a revolutionary technology that allows small groups of minds to unite, forming a single consciousness that experiences the world through multiple bodies. But as two best friends discover, the light of that miracle may be blinding the world to its horrors. Chance and Leap are jolted out of their professional routines by a terrifying stranger—a remorseless killer who freely manipulates the networks that regulate life in the post-Join world. Their quest for answers—and survival—brings them from the networks and spire communities they’ve known to the scarred heart of an environmentally ravaged North American continent and an underground community of the “ferals” left behind by the rush of technology.

Narcissist, sociopath, and shameless backstabber Jubal Van Zandt is the best damn thief in the history of the Revived Earth...and he won't shut up about it. But not everybody in the swampy, soggy, feudal future approves of Jubal's vocation. The Guild—the religious fanatics who helped rebuild civilization after the collapse—in particular are waiting for their opportunity to slip the noose around his neck.

In a world ruled by Big Data and BigPharma, society’s only hope falls into the hands of neophyte data jockeys known as Somnambulace. While the human race was jacking in and sucking down a few ones and zeros to ride the Lament, Somnambulous discovered something big and dark on the horizon.

It’s cyberpunk re-imagined—science fiction meets the detective thriller in an ever-rainy world of colossal skyscrapers. Hover-cars fly above in the dark, bustling skies and gray people walk below on the grimy, flashy streets of this “neon jungle.” Metropolis isn’t a bad place, but it isn’t a good one either. Uber-governments and mega-corporations fight for control of the super-city, but so does crime.

Metal Made Flesh is a cyberpunk space opera that has been likened to "Bladerunner meets Game of Thrones." Chased to the brink of extinction by an unrelenting foe called the “Veul” humanity is forced to take refuge in Tuaoni, a sprawling city on the black market trading hub Equan Yas.

Metal Made Flesh is a cyberpunk space opera that has been likened to "Bladerunner meets Game of Thrones." Chased to the brink of extinction by an unrelenting foe called the “Veul”, Humanity is forced to take refuge in Tuaoni, a sprawling city on the black market trading hub Equan Yas. Reduced to extreme poverty, and treated as second class citizens by the planet’s inhabitants, humans must do whatever it takes to survive.

Nick Hall has revolutionary electronics implanted in his brain that allow him to read minds--including thoughts, memories, and even intent. He can know the passwords, future strategies, and innermost secrets of anyone he chooses, making him the most formidable man alive. But his status as the only mind reader in the world is about to change...

Street thug Riko has some serious issues — memories wiped, reputation tanked, girlfriend turned into a tech-fueled zombie. And the only people who can help are the mercenaries who think she screwed them over. In an apathetic society devoid of ethics or regulation, where fusing tech and flesh can mean a killing edge or a killer conversion, a massive conspiracy is unfolding that will alter the course of the human condition forever. With corporate meatheads on her ass and a necro-tech blight between her and salvation, Riko is going to have to fight meaner, work smarter, and push harder than she’s ever had to. And that’s just to make it through the day.

No sooner had incorrigible romantic and brilliant coder Lexy Ryan been united with her long-dead dream lover-poet Lord Byron-then she lost him again. Now, while Lexy searches for the famous rhymer and the New Romancer dating site teeters on the brink of oblivion, Lexy’s beautiful but dangerous successor at Incubator takes an unhealthy interest in the libertine Lord. Meanwhile, a crazed Casanova seeks a perverse type of love in Silicon Valley...

Romantic and brilliant coder Lexy Ryan finally gets her wish: a St. Valentine’s dinner with her dream lover, Lord Byron. But dreams rarely work out the way we want, and when Mata Hari leads her army of cheating husbands onto the Golden Gate Bridge, jaded fantasy quickly turns to full-scale nightmare. Taken prisoner, Lexy and her father clash as the horrible truth about Lexy’s mother’s death is revealed, while Incubator ice-queen Angel gives Byron a terrible ultimatum.

Awkward and adorable coder Lexy saved romantic poet Byron from a miserable death. Now, can he forget about his quiff long enough to return the favor? Meanwhile, dancer, courtesan and spy Mata Hari puts her ultimate scheme in motion-while the New Romancer web team discovers their “love algorithm” is having a terrifying impact on America’s lonely hearts.

Byron has asked adorable geek Lexy to marry him-but is it true love, or just part of Incubator’s cruel A.I. experiment? Meanwhile, what has Mata Hari planned for Lexy’s dad? And will computer genius Ada Lovelace ever escape from cyber space? These and other questions will be answered, just make sure you’re at the church on time for the conclusion to this strangest of modern romances!

The malevolent corporation called Nightstorm Industries designs and manufactures the N-51 bioform, or ‘cartoon character’ as it’s called. The neon-ghetto city of its namesake will become the battleground for their rights to exist as sentient beings. Remy and Angela are siblings headed to the west. After their ship crashes into a forest, they happen onto a terrifying discovery. Mass graves of mutilated bodies piled high over the trees. Tortured by the sight of the dead, Remy seeks guidance from a designer to make a heart wrenching decision. He either must keep it within himself and let the suffering continue. Or will he tell the world and watch as fragile peace collapses into bloody conflict? Nightstorm City takes us into a colorful derelict world where man and machine fight for dominance.

When Adam Dearden, a foresight strategist, arrives at Normal Head, he is desperate to unplug and be immersed in sylvan silence. But then a patient goes missing from his locked bedroom, leaving nothing but a pile of insects in his wake. A staff investigation ensues; surveillance becomes total. As the mystery of the disappeared man unravels in Warren Ellis's Normal, Dearden uncovers a conspiracy that calls into question the core principles of how and why we think about the future—and the past, and the now.

A source found dead—his skull sawed open by NeuroChip vandals in a Dallas back alley. The sole witness? Reporter Ryker Morris, whose stubborn resistance to a different kind of chip—the globally mandated IDChip—cost him his job, apartment, and credibility. Ryker flees the gruesome scene, a young, homeless technophobe disappearing into a fast-paced city of augmented working stiffs and sexy chipped socialites.

Paragon.EXE is the prequel novella to the Absolute Knowledge trilogy. Fueled by the Cold War, the development of the technology that led to the Absolute Knowledge project began with very different objectives than are present in the year 2146, over two hundred years in the future from the start of the Omniscient project. Created as a project to aid leadership in the case of catastrophe, the Omniscient project was morphed by corruption and the pursuit of the unknown. These changes were hidden through time only to resurface when the stakes were much higher. Paragon.EXE takes place in the 1960s and 2020s and follows the chilling development of the Absolute Knowledge project from its cryptic roots.

Five years ago, the artificial intelligence known as DANA declared war on humanity. In the last remaining refuge of the Seven Cities, humans are facing extinction. A desperate mission is set in motion. One that will either end the war... or end humanity. Apollo may have already failed. One of his team is dead, and he's sent the remaining members ahead with Eve, the android that he still isn’t sure if he can trust. Alone and dying, Apollo has no choice but to turn to a group of resistance fighters in order to find his team. But, the resistance fighters might be just as dangerous to them as the machines. If Eve is revealed as the android she is, none of them will get out alive. While dealing with that threat, another is forming around them. The machines are preparing to eliminate this last pocket of resistance fighters. The team’s path to the Core is becoming more unlikely by the minute. The resistance group’s numbers have been reduced to practically nothing. It’s a suicide mission to stay and fight, but they have little hope of escaping the attack. Unknowingly, Apollo may have led his team into a situation they can’t get out of. With the mission on the line, Apollo is faced with some hard choices. He’ll have to make sacrifices if there is any hope of getting to the Core.

The Minerva Sierra Challenge is a grueling spectacle, the cyborg's Tour de France. Rich thrill-seekers with corporate sponsorships, extensive support teams, and top-of-the-line exoskeletal and internal augmentations pit themselves against the elements in a day-long race across the Sierra Nevada. Marmeg Guinto doesn’t have funding, and she doesn’t have support. She cobbled her gear together from parts she found in rich people’s garbage and spent the money her mother wanted her to use for nursing school to enter the race. But the Minerva Challenge is the only chance she has at a better life for herself and her younger brothers, and she’s ready to risk it all.

An unhappy cyborg with a forbidden dream. A society that punishes change. A dangerous quest that could change Amy’s future… or ruin it entirely.

Forces are moving in the high-tech rat race of New White Sands City and one low-level transporter has an opportunity to make it big if he can survive the dangerous backwaters of corporate espionage.

It’s a post-modernistic society. Globalisation of companies has pre-occupied lives, individualism and has eliminated the cultural and artistic artefacts as well. Information is recycled through past philosophy and styles within the world’s history and culture.

Ever since his partner was killed, Rico struggled to walk a fine line in his hunt for answers. With Internal Affairs determined to prove he’s a better shot than a cop, he’s one infraction away from losing it all to a permanent suspension. Then his latest case gets yanked by the corporation that buried his partner’s murder eight years ago. It’s a case he’s willing to risk his career on but it might cost him more than he’s willing to pay.

In a future exo-planet city, the escorts of Synthetic Affections pleasure club work their trade through android avatars. The escort Charlotte -real name Ruth- has an enviable reputation and a secret: she remains a devout virgin serving the poor of the city. Don’t judge her for the men and women she sleeps with.

In the oppressive city of Kindred, circa 2052, Lance Canela tries a little too hard to fulfill the classic image of a private detective. Living in the shadow of the enormous Arcology and barely scraping by, he's happy to sit in his office all day, reliving the adventures of his hardboiled heroes from a century past. But when the wealthy Fiona, a woman he thinks is the femme fatale he's always waited for, knocks on his door, Lance gets a taste of life-or-death reality as he faces off against ruthless goons for the first time.

ive years ago, the artificial intelligence known as DANA declared war on humanity. In the last remaining refuge of the Seven Cities, humans are facing extinction. A desperate mission is set in motion. One that will either end the war... or end humanity. DANA's revelations are threatening to fracture Apollo's team. The AI knows that they're coming, and they each struggle with what that means for the mission. Apollo tries to keep them moving forward. Some members want to give up, some decide to flee, and others want answers. The sudden presence of Pandy from out of the drone forced Apollo to reveal that he is the Betrayer, the Eraser infamous for working with the machines. Now he must try to regain their trust, while another may have earned more than they deserve.

Los Angeles of 2039 is a baffling and bifurcated place. After the Collapse of 2028, a vast section of LA, the Disincorporated Zone, was disowned by the civil authorities, and became essentially a third world country within the borders of the city. Navigating the boundaries between DZ and LA proper is a tricky task, and there's no one better suited than eccentric private investigator Erasmus Keane. When a valuable genetically altered sheep mysteriously goes missing from Esper Corporation's labs, Keane is the one they call.

Kris Ballard is a motorcycle courier. A nobody. Level 2 trash in a multi-level city that stretches from San Francisco to the Mexican border, where corporations make all the rules. A runaway since the age of 14, Kris struggled to set up her life, barely scraping by, working hard to make it without anyone’s help. Witnessing the murder of one of her clients changes everything. Now she’s stuck with a mysterious package that everyone seems to want.

He is a government experiment. She is a shy artist. Together they will discover the magic and pain of first love.

Elijah Brighton can bring a girl back from the dead, travel outside his body, and absorb a lifetime of memories from anyone he touches in the fugue state. Everyone seems to think he’s the prophet they’re waiting for… including the girl he’s falling in love with. The truth is, the fugue is bleeding over into reality, bringing his sketches to life and haunting him with visions of a girl in metal armor. She stabs him with her blade and denounces him as any prophet worth the name—and it’s not like he disagrees.

Easytown’s robotic pleasure clubs are a serial killer’s playground. The futuristic slum in eastern New Orleans is a violent place where any vice can be satisfied—for a price. As long as the taxes are paid and tourists continue to flock to the city, businesses are allowed to operate as they see fit. But a string of violent murders threatens to upset the delicate balance between pleasure and safety. As homicide detective Zach Forrest tries to unravel the mystery and prevent the next murder, he embarks on a mind-bending investigation that will change his perception of reality forever.

Kris Ballard’s life changed irrevocably when, a year ago, she was targeted for termination by the Meridian corporation, one of the mega-conglomerates that controls the government in this dystopian future. She hid amongst the underground resistance—but now, right as her training with the anti-corporate movement is nearing its end, their compound is destroyed. Ready or not, Kris and the other trainees are recalled to the dangerous metropolis of San Angeles. But their transport is shot down and Ian Miller, the man she loves, is captured. Someone, it seems, is using him to get to Kris.

Five years ago, the artificial intelligence known as DANA declared war on humanity. In the last remaining refuge of the Seven Cities, humans are facing extinction. A desperate mission is set in motion. One that will either end the war... or end humanity. Officially, Apollo Jones is one of the finest machine killing soldiers in the world. Unofficially, he’s suspended from his unit and awaiting punishment for his crimes. Instead, the Council offers him one last chance at redemption. Never one to back down from a challenge, Apollo gladly accepts. Tasked with leading a dangerous mission that will hopefully end the war, Apollo soon discovers that the team he’s been assigned to lead is a group of untrained, misfit civilians and an android who promises she’s on their side. Though he wants nothing more than to abandon them and complete the mission on his own, he’s been told that the success of the mission depends on the entire team. As they start their journey, the team quickly realizes they must figure out a way to trust each other if they have any hope of completing the mission and coming out of it alive.

Vance seals his own fate with a clever hack at the University that even Solar Eye can't fish.

A corrupt businessman called Andrew Vaughan is resurrected after his death by Eyelight Industries, a 22nd century megacorporation with no guiding principle except profit. Vaughan is offered a second life in an android body, on the condition that he take over as CEO of the company. In the year 2118, virtually everyone is hooked up to Eyelight, a system that began as a search engine and social network but which now controls almost every aspect of human life. A growing religious organisation called the Church of Sagacity opposes the technology, encouraging its followers to disconnect, to throw off the shackles of digital oppression.

William Shepherd is a cynical, near broken detective looking for absolution in a city built atop of the ashes of New York City decades after a massive war. His fierce determination to find who murdered his brother is only equal to his wanting to be left alone, and with no entanglements from the family business; Shepherd Cybernetics, the leading cybernetics corporation in the country. Yet he has one small problem: William is no longer simply human. Augmented with cybernetic implants that help keep him alive after a near fatal accident following the murder of his brother, William is different. He has been “upgraded” and this helps him in his unrelenting search for the truth.

In 2089 Los Angeles, a city teeming with screens streaming endless content, two constables—a free spirit who revels in her freedom from technology and her partner, a muscly berserker who’s consumed by it—are tracking down a drug kingpin, a job that takes them as far as Tokyo, the only place on Earth not overtaken by technology.

Following the destruction of the Garden Nation of Japan, Constable Led Dent returns to his brutal beat, having succumbed to his inner demons. But as he stalks the streets of the Isles of Los Angeles, enforcing the corporate new world order, he's haunted by a ghost from Tokyo.

Xero knows what she wants: absolute rule over Southern Arizona, a cure for the superbug that’s killing her best friend, and a decent bar of soap. Some are easier to get than others. At least, that’s what she thought. To save her friend, she needs antibiotics. Not just any antibiotics: Ketacillin. The dreaded Zaps are dissolving Trina’s lungs, and only the rare medication can save her. No problem: Xero is an expert smuggler. You want it, she ships it. As the ruler of the Tucson Exiles, she works as a double agent, hustling supplies for the government and pumping the desert full of designer drugs on the sly.

Humanity is split into the App World and the Real World—an extravagant virtual world for the wealthy and a dying physical world for the poor. Years ago, Skylar Cruz’s family sent her to the App World for a chance at a better life.

Thorvald Spear, resurrected from his death over a hundred years earlier, continues to hunt Penny Royal, the rogue AI and dangerous war criminal on the run from Polity forces. Beyond the Graveyard, a lawless and deadly area in deep space, Spear follows the trail of several enemy Prador, the crab-like alien species with a violent history of conflict with humanity.

Bob Johansson has just sold his software company and is looking forward to a life of leisure. There are places to go, books to read, and movies to watch. So it's a little unfair when he gets himself killed crossing the street. Bob wakes up a century later to find that corpsicles have been declared to be without rights, and he is now the property of the state. He has been uploaded into computer hardware and is slated to be the controlling AI in an interstellar probe looking for habitable planets. The stakes are high: no less than the first claim to entire worlds. If he declines the honor, he'll be switched off, and they'll try again with someone else. If he accepts, he becomes a prime target. There are at least three other countries trying to get their own probes launched first, and they play dirty. The safest place for Bob is in space, heading away from Earth at top speed. Or so he thinks. Because the universe is full of nasties, and trespassers make them mad - very mad.