Timeweb Trilogy Omnibus (175 page)

by Kevin J. Anderson

Alternitech

“Alternitech” sends prospectors into alternate but similar timelines where tiny differences yield significant changes: a world where the Beatles never broke up, or where Lee Harvey Oswald wasn’t gunned down after the Kennedy assassination, where an accidental medical breakthrough offers the cure to a certain disease, where a struggling author really did write the great American novel, or where a freak accident reveals the existence of a serial killer. Alternitech finds those differences—and profits from them.

Alien Landscapes 1

Collection of four science fiction tales from the mind of Kevin J. Anderson, each with a short introduction by the author. Includes: “Landscapes,” “Fondest of Memories,” “Controlled Experiments,” and “Human, Martian—One, Two, Three.”

Alien Landscapes 2

Four science fiction tales from the mind of Kevin J. Anderson, each with a short introduction by the author. Includes: “Collaborators” (written with Rebecca Moesta), “Good Old Days,” “Job Qualifications,” and “Prisoner of War.”

Assemblers of Infinity
(Kevin J. Anderson & Doug Beason)

Nebula Award Nominee
. The crew of Moonbase Columbus make an amazing discovery on the far side of the Moon—a massive alien structure is erecting
itself
, built up atom by atom by living machines, microscopically small, intelligent, and unstoppable, consuming everything they touch. The mysterious structure begins to expand and take shape, and its creators begin to multiply.

Is this the first strike in an alien invasion from the stars? Or has human nanotechnology experimentation gone awry, triggering an unexpected infestation? As riots rage across a panicked Earth, scientists scramble to learn the truth before humanity’s home is engulfed by the voracious machines.

Blindfold

Atlas is a struggling colony on an untamable world, a fragile society held together by the Truthsayers. Parentless, trained from birth as the sole users of Veritas, a telepathy virus that lets them read the souls of the guilty. Truthsayers are Justice—infallible, beyond appeal.

But sometimes they are wrong.

Falsely accused of murder, Troy Boren trusts the young Truthsayer Kalliana … until, impossibly, she convicts him. Still shaken from a previous reading, Kalliana doesn’t realize her power is fading. But soon the evidence becomes impossible to ignore. The Truthsayers’ Veritas has been diluted and someone in the colony is selling smuggled telepathy. Justice isn’t blind—it’s been
blinded
.

From an immortal’s orbital prison to the buried secrets of a regal fortress, Kalliana and Troy seek the conspiracy that threatens to destroy their world from within. For without truth and justice, Atlas will certainly fall.…

Climbing Olympus

They were prisoners, exiles, pawns of a corrupt government. Now they are Dr. Rachel Dycek’s
adin
, surgically transformed beings who can survive new lives on the surface of Mars. But they are still exiles, unable ever again to breathe Earth’s air. And they are still pawns.

For the
adin
exist to terraform Mars for human colonists, not for themselves. Creating a new Earth, they will destroy their world, killed by their own success. Desperate,
adin
leader Boris Tiban launches a suicide campaign to sabotage the Mars Project, knowing his people will perish in a glorious, doomed campaign of mayhem—unless embattled, bitter Rachel Dycek can find a miracle to save both the Mars Project and the race she created.

Craig Kreident 1: Virtual Destruction
(Kevin J. Anderson & Doug Beason)

At the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California—one of the nation’s premier nuclear-weapons design facilities—high-level physicists operate within heavy security to model and test new warhead designs. But politics can be just as dangerous as the weapons they design, and with gigantic budgets on the line, scientific egos, and personality clashes, research can turn deadly.

When a prominent and abrasive nuclear-weapons researcher is murdered inside a Top Security zone, FBI investigator Craig Kreident is brought in on the case—but his FBI security clearance isn’t the same as a Department of Energy or Department of Defense clearance, and many of the clues are “sanitized” before he arrives. Kreident finds that dealing with red tape and political in-fighting might be more difficult than solving a murder.

Written by two insiders who have worked at Lawrence Livermore,
Virtual Destruction
is not only a gripping thriller and complex mystery, but a vivid portrayal of an actual US nuclear-design facility.

Craig Kreident 2: Fallout
(Kevin J. Anderson & Doug Beason)

They call themselves Eagle’s Claw, one of the most extreme militia groups in the United States. They have infiltrated the Device Assembly Facility at the Nevada Nuclear Test Site, and the most frightening display of nuclear terrorism is about to unfold.

Only the Nebula-nominated collaboration of Kevin J. Anderson and Doug Beason could masterfully blend hard-as-nails high-technology with hard-driving intrigue to deliver such an explosive thriller. FBI Special Agent Craig Kreident—the unforgettable hero from
Virtual Destruction
—returns in this breathtaking tour de force of terrorism, cutting-edge technology, and raw emotional power.

Written by two insiders who have worked at the nation’s nuclear design laboratories and high-security research facilities, including the Nevada Nuclear Test Site,
Fallout
is a pulse-pounding thriller of an extremist group and stolen nuclear weapons, as well as a detailed portrait of what happens behind the fences of government facilities.

Craig Kreident 3: Lethal Exposure
(Kevin J. Anderson & Doug Beason)

At Fermilab near Chicago, researchers use the world’s largest particle accelerator to unlock the secrets of the subatomic universe. While working late one night, Dr. Georg Dumenico—candidate for the Nobel Prize in physics—is bombarded with a lethal exposure of radiation. He will die horribly within days.

FBI Special Agent Craig Kreident knows it was no accident—but he has to prove it, and the clock is ticking. The nation’s most valued research is at stake, and only Dumenico himself knows enough to track down his own murderer … if he survives long enough to do it.

Dark Labyrinth 1

Four dark fantasy tales from the mind of Kevin J. Anderson, each with a short introduction by the author. Includes: “Final Performance,” “Special Makeup,” “Much at Stake,” and “The Sum of His Parts.”

Dark Labyrinth 2

Four dark fantasy tales from the mind of Kevin J. Anderson, each with a short introduction by the author. Includes: “New Recruits,” “Santa Claus is Coming to Get You,” “Splinter” (written with Rebecca Moesta), and “Redmond’s Private Screening.”

“Drumbeats”
(Kevin J. Anderson & Neil Peart)

A chilling story cowritten with
Rush
drummer and lyricist Neil Peart. A rock drummer bicycling through the African wilderness encounters a village that makes very special drums. This one will make your heart skip a beat. Includes essays by Neil Peart and by Kevin J. Anderson.

Fantastic Realms 1

Four fantasy tales from the mind of Kevin J. Anderson, each with a short introduction by the author. Includes: “Loincloth” (written with Rebecca Moesta), “Frog Kiss,” “Short Straws,” and “Technomagic.”

Fantastic Realms 2

Four fantasy tales from the mind of Kevin J. Anderson, each with a short introduction by the author. Includes: “The Old Man & the Cherry Tree,” “The Ghost of Christmas Always,” “Sea Wind,” and “Sea Dreams” (written with Rebecca Moesta).

Five by Five
(Kevin J. Anderson, Aaron Allston, Loren L. Coleman, B.V. Larson, Mike Stackpole) [also in trade paperback]

Five short novels by five masters of military science fiction. Edited by Kevin J. Anderson. Based on a concept by Loren L. Coleman.

It’s a war out there.

In these pulse-pounding tales, the best (or worst) soldiers in the galaxy are pitted against powerful aliens on distant battlefields. Never before published stories about monsters, deadly combat tech, treachery, and honor:

Big Plush
by Aaron Allston (a novella from the Action Figures series)—The Dollgangers, artificial people made in mankind's image, take up arms in a desperate bid to win their freedom.

Comrades in Arms
by Kevin J. Anderson—A damaged cyborg soldier and an enemy alien fighter turn their backs on the war and try to escape. But the human and alien governments can't tolerate the two deserters working together, so they join forces to hunt them down.

Shores of the Infinite
by Loren L. Coleman (a novella from the ICAS File series)—Separated from command & control, Combat Assault Suit troopers force a beachhead to liberate a new planet from the cyborg threat.

The Black Ship
by B.V. Larson (a mech novella from the Imperium Series)—A human settlement on the deadliest planet ever colonized clings to life … but today new invaders are coming down from the stars.

Out There
by Michael A. Stackpole—The Qian have discovered humanity and welcomed them into their star-spanning empire. The benefits they offer humanity are many, and they don't want much in return: just the best human pilots available to take apart a most diabolical enemy.

Gamearth Trilogy Omnibus

Gamearth
—It was supposed to be just another Sunday night fantasy role-playing game for David, Tyrone, Scott, and Melanie. But after years of playing, the game had become so real that all their creations—humans, sorcerers, dragons, ogres, panther-folk, cyclops—now had existences of their own. And when the four outside players decide to end their game, the characters inside the world of Gamearth—warriors, scholars, and the few remaining wielders of magic—band together to keep their land from vanishing. Now they must embark on a desperate quest for their own magic—magic that can twist the Rules enough to save them all from the evil that the players created to destroy their entire world.

Gameplay
—It was written in the Rules: Save the World! Over the past two years, a group of four players had given so much to their role-playing world that it had developed a magic of its own. The creatures, warriors, sorcerers, thieves—all had come alive. And now there is an odd connection between the gamers and their characters, splitting into factions to determine the fate of the Game itself and both the inside and the outside worlds.

Game’s End
—It’s all-out war between the players and characters in a role-playing game that has taken on a life of its own. The fighter Delrael, the sorcerer Bryl, and famed scientists Verne and Frankenstein, use every trick in the Book of Rules to keep the world of Gamearth intact while the outside group of players does everything possible to destroy it.

Gamearth Trilogy 1: Gamearth

It was supposed to be just another Sunday night fantasy role-playing game for David, Tyrone, Scott, and Melanie. But after years of playing, the game had become so real that all their creations—humans, sorcerers, dragons, ogres, panther-folk, cyclops—now had existences of their own. And when the four outside players decide to end their game, the characters inside the world of Gamearth—warriors, scholars, and the few remaining wielders of magic—band together to keep their land from vanishing. Now they must embark on a desperate quest for their own magic—magic that can twist the Rules enough to save them all from the evil that the players created to destroy their entire world.

Gamearth Trilogy 2: Gameplay

The Gamearth Trilogy continues. It was written in the Rules—Save the World! Over the past two years, a group of four players had given so much to their role-playing world that it had developed a magic of its own. The creatures, warriors, sorcerers, thieves—all had come alive. And now there is an odd connection between the gamers and their characters, splitting into factions to determine the fate of the Game itself and both the inside and the outside worlds.

Gamearth Trilogy 3: Game’s End

The finale to the Gamearth Trilogy. It’s all-out war between the players and characters in a role-playing game that has taken on a life of its own. The fighter Delrael, the sorcerer Bryl, as well as famed scientists Verne and Frankenstein, use every trick in the Book of Rules to keep the world of Gamearth intact while the outside group of players does everything possible to destroy it.

Ill Wind
(Kevin J. Anderson & Doug Beason)

A supertanker crashes into the Golden Gate Bridge, spilling oil. Desperate to avert environmental & PR disaster, the oil company uses an oil-eating microbe to break up the spill. But the microbe, becomes airborne … and mutates to consume petrocarbons: oil, gas, synthetic fabrics, plastics. When all plastic begins to dissolve, it’s too late.…

Ignition
(Kevin J. Anderson & Doug Beason)

NASA—you have a problem. In this high-tech action adventure from Kevin J. Anderson and Doug Beason, terrorists seize control of the Kennedy Space Center and hold the shuttle
Atlantis
and its crew hostage on the launchpad. But astronaut “Iceberg” Friese, grounded from the mission because of a broken foot, is determined to slip through the swamps and rocket facilities around Cape Canaveral and pull the plug on the terrorists. With their years of experience in the field, Anderson and Beason have packed
Ignition
with insider information to create an extremely plausible, action-packed thriller.

Magnetic Reflections
(Kevin J. Anderson & Doug Beason)

Three collected tales from Kevin J. Anderson and Doug Beason: “Reflections in a Magnetic Mirror”—Gripping science fiction story set at a Magnetic Mirror Fusion Facility. “Rescue at L-5”—The short story that became the basis for their novel
Lifeline
. “Prisons”—On a harsh prison planet, the warden and the staff are as much prisoners as the convicts, but a risky prison break might free them all. Bonus material includes deleted chapters from their eco-thriller novel
Ill Wind
.