Introduction: Pebble in the Sky (Galactic Empire #3) One moment Joseph Schwartz is a happily retired tailor in Chicago, 1949. The next he's a helpless stranger on Earth during the heyday of the first Galactic Empire. Earth, as he soon learns, is a backwater, just a "pebble in the sky", despised by all the other 200 million planets of the Empire because its people dare to claim it's the original home of man. And Earth is poor, with great areas of radioactivity ruining much of its soil—so poView Details>

Introduction: Clementine (The Clockwork Century #1.1) Maria Isabella Boyd’s success as a Confederate spy has made her too famous for further espionage work, and now her employment options are slim. Exiled, widowed, and on the brink of poverty…she reluctantly goes to work for the Pinkerton National Detective Agency in Chicago. Adding insult to injury, her first big assignment is commissioned by the Union Army. In short, a federally sponsored transport dirigible is being violently pursued across the RockiView Details>

Introduction: The Inexplicables (The Clockwork Century #4) Rector “Wreck ’em” Sherman was orphaned as a toddler in the Blight of 1863, but that was years ago. Wreck has grown up, and on his eighteenth birthday, he’ll be cast out out of the orphanage. And Wreck’s problems aren’t merely about finding a home. He’s been quietly breaking the cardinal rule of any good drug dealer and dipping into his own supply of the sap he sells. He’s also pretty sure he’s being haunted by the ghost of a kid he used to knowView Details>

Introduction: Halo: Evolutions, Volume I (Halo) by Tobias S. Buckell , Jonathan Goff, Nicolas Bouvier (Illustrator), Robert McLees, Karen Traviss , Kevin Grace, Eric Raab, Frank O'Connor , Fred Van Lente , Tessa Kum, Gabriel Garza (Illustrator), Eric S. Nylund , Jeff VanderMeer , B.K. Evenson, Robt McLees … When humanity expanded beyond the safety of Earth to new stars and horizons, they never dreamed what dangers they would encounter there. When the alien juggernaut known as the CovenantView Details>

Introduction: Halo: The Cole Protocol (Halo #6) In the first, desperate days of the Human-Covenant War, the UNSC has enacted the Cole Protocol to safeguard Earth and its Inner Colonies from discovery by a merciless alien foe. Many are called upon to rid the universe of lingering navigation data that would reveal the location of Earth. Among them is Navy Lieutenant Jacob Keyes. Thrust back into action after being sidelined, Keyes is saddled with a top secret mission by ONI. One that will take him deep beView Details>

Introduction: Halo: Ghosts of Onyx (Halo #4) Continuing the saga of the award-winning Xbox™ game! The Spartan-II program has gone public. Tales of super-soldiers fending off thousands of Covenant attacks have become the stuff of legend. But just how many Spartans are left? While the Master Chief defends a besieged Earth, and the myriad factions of the Covenant continue their crusade to eliminate humanity, an ultrasecret cell of the Office of Naval Intelligence known as "Section Three" devises a View Details>

Introduction: Have you ever worried about your memory, because it doesn't seem to recall exactly the same past from one day to the next? Have you ever thought that the whole universe might be a crazy, mixed-up dream? If you have, then you've had hints of the Change War. It's been going on for a billion years and it will last another billion or so. Up and down the timeline, the two sides--"Spiders" and "Snakes"--battle endlessly to change the future and the past. Our lives, our memorieView Details>

Introduction: Walden (first published as Walden or, Life in the Woods) by Henry David Thoreau is one of the best-known non-fiction books written by an American. Published in 1854, it details Thoreau's sojourn in a cabin near Walden Pond, amidst woodland owned by his friend and mentor Ralph Waldo Emerson, near Concord, Massachusetts. Thoreau lived at Walden for two years, two months, and two days, but Walden was written so that the stay appears to be a year, with expressed seasonal divisions. Thoreau View Details>

Introduction: This sequel to FORREST GUMP follows the protagonist of that book on his adventures in the 1980s. As in is predecessor, Gump manages to be present at momentous events his impressions of them, leavened by his naivete, make up this book.View Details>

Introduction: The Stupidest Angel: A Heartwarming Tale of Christmas Terror Sleepy Pine Cove, Calif., is abuzz with Christmas spirit, but Lena Marquez is fed up with her despicable ex-husband, Dale Pearson. On his way home from playing Santa Claus at the local lodge, Dale spies sneaky Lena uprooting his Monterey pines he pulls a gun on her, she lashes out with a shovel and-oops!-kills him. Seven-year-old Josh Barker, thinking he's just seen the murder of Santa, prays for a miracle to save Christmas. To LenaView Details>