An IT whiz at the Babylon Casino is enlisted to upgrade security for the game of keno and its random-number generator. The new quantum computer system is foolproof. But someone on the inside is no fool. For once the odds may not favor the house - unless human ingenuity isn’t entirely a thing of the past.

Equipped with the entirety of human knowledge, a sentient ship is launched on a last-ditch journey to find a new home for civilization. Trillions of miles. Tens of thousands of years. In the space between, the AI has plenty of time to think about life, the vastness of the universe, everything it was meant to do, and—with a perspective created but not limited by humans—what it should do.

You were on your way home when you died. It was a car accident. Nothing particularly remarkable, but fatal nonetheless. You left behind a wife and two children. It was a painless death. The EMTs tried their best to save you, but to no avail. Your body was so utterly shattered you were better off, trust me. And that’s when you met me." A short story about the universe.

The ex-planet Pluto has a few choice words about being thrown out of the solar system. A listing of alternate histories tells you all the various ways Hitler has died. A lawyer sues an interplanetary union for dangerous working conditions. And four artificial intelligences explain, in increasingly worrying detail, how they plan not to destroy humanity. Welcome to Miniatures: The Very Short Fiction of John Scalzi.

The planet of Kiln is where the tyrannical Mandate keeps its prison colony, and for inmates, the journey there is always a one-way trip. One such prisoner is Professor Arton Daghdev, xeno-ecologist and political dissident. Soon after arrival, he discovers that Kiln has a secret. Humanity is not the first intelligent life to set foot there. In the midst of a ravenous, chaotic ecosystem are the ruins of a civilization, but who were the vanished builders and where did they go?

In a corporate-dominated spacefaring future, planetary missions must be approved and supplied by the Company. Exploratory teams are accompanied by Company-supplied security androids, for their own safety. But in a society where contracts are awarded to the lowest bidder, safety isn’t a primary concern. On a distant planet, a team of scientists are conducting surface tests, shadowed by their Company-supplied ‘droid—a self-aware SecUnit that has hacked its own governor module, and refers to itself (though never out loud) as “Murderbot.”

Wanda and Wumble are a small pair with vast ambitions. One an aspiring alchemist, and the other her faithful hound, the pair bond as wizard and familiar to begin their pursuit of magic. As a newly made wizard without any training, resources, or even a home to return to, Wanda will have to forge her own way on a path where constant dangers lurk. Even the simple act of furthering her alchemy education swiftly becomes a harrowing ordeal.

The question is, how can you tell the President's brain is missing? And are we sure we need it back?

Jon Ryan is irreverent, cocky, funny, and walks with a swagger. The cocky fighter pilot turned astronaut is also Earth's only chance for survival. The planet Jupiter, thrown off orbit, will destroy Earth in less than a century. Jon volunteers for the most ambitious, desperate mission ever conceived: His consciousness must be transferred into an experimental android host, where he'll live an immortal - and lonely - life. Jon's only companion on his 50-year voyage is his ship's irritable AI.

Dr. Katheryn Newton has dedicated her brilliant mind to groundbreaking medical research. She’s attempting to save lives and hoping to start a family when a catastrophic twist turns her world upside down. Suddenly, Kate finds herself with the power to invisibly end any life. Within hours, Kate is caught in a moral conundrum and trapped in a web of deception. She fights on, fiercely determined to help her country and the planet, but it’s tough when doing good means being bad—and dangerous when someone knows your secret.

Not too long from today, a new, highly contagious virus makes its way across the globe. Most who get sick experience nothing worse than flu, fever, and headaches. But for the unlucky one percent - and nearly five million souls in the United States alone - the disease causes "Lock In": Victims fully awake and aware, but unable to move or respond to stimulus. The disease affects young, old, rich, poor, people of every color and creed. The world changes to meet the challenge.

Zack Lightman has never much cared for reality. He vastly prefers the countless science-fiction movies, books, and videogames he's spent his life consuming. And too often, he catches himself wishing that some fantastic, impossible, world-altering event could arrive to whisk him off on a grand spacefaring adventure.

Dr. Tyson Klein is a quantum physicist who has dedicated his entire life to his research. At CERN, he analyses data generated by the Large Hadron Collider, the world's biggest and most powerful particle accelerator. Now, Ty believes he's found a pattern in its output. It looks like an organised data stream, being broadcast over what he calls a quantum radio. Could it be a signal from another universe? A message sent from the future? Or something else entirely?

For dinosaurs, it was a big rock. For humans: Coronal Mass Ejection (CME). When the Earth is hit by the greatest CME in recorded history (several times larger than the Carrington Event of 1859), the combined societies of the planet's most developed nations struggle to adapt to a life thrust back into the Dark Ages. In the United States, the military scrambles to speed the nation's recovery on multiple fronts including putting down riots, establishing relief camps, delivering medical aid, and bringing communication and travel back on line. Just as a real foothold is established in retaking the skies (utilizing existing commercial aircraft supplemented by military resources and ground control systems), a mysterious virus takes hold of the population, spreading globally over the very flight routes that the survivors fought so hard to rebuild.

In a crumbling world plagued by natural disasters, collapsing infrastructure, and mass panic, bizarre billboards and advertisements appear throughout town: “Charles Krantz. Thirty-nine great years. Thanks, Chuck!” Marty Anderson, a schoolteacher, becomes obsessed with these messages as the world, inexplicably linked to Chuck’s life, seems to be approaching its end.

If the past is prologue - what if the prologue never happened? When a team of scientists attempts to rewrite history, the story of the present turns out to have an ending they didn’t see coming. Over and over.

Rhonda’s dream of becoming a best-selling author has turned into a nightmare of shattered hopes and writer’s block. But when a free-spirited young teacher candidate named Emi offers her a chance to ghostwrite her shocking memoir, Rhonda sees an opportunity for redemption. Little does she know, this project will plunge her into a dark web of secrets, lies, and deadly consequences. When Emi’s body is discovered and Rhonda’s husband is accused of having an affair with the victim, Rhonda finds herself unearthing a trail of dark secrets that someone is willing to kill to keep buried.

Jack Kernigan is having a bad day...a bad year...a bad life. After being booted out of MIT, he’s back in his Ohio hometown, working for the family business, facing a life of mediocrity. Then one day, out on a delivery, his truck hits...something. Something big...something furry...something invisible. And, it turns out, something not of this Earth. Fate can play funny tricks. Which is why Jack suddenly finds himself the planet’s best hope to unravel a conspiracy of galactic proportions that could spell the end of the human race.

The only life Tress has known on her island home in an emerald-green ocean has been a simple one, with the simple pleasures of collecting cups brought by sailors from faraway lands and listening to stories told by her friend Charlie. But when his father takes him on a voyage to find a bride and disaster strikes, Tress must stow away on a ship and seek the Sorceress of the deadly Midnight Sea. Amid the spore oceans where pirates abound, can Tress leave her simple life behind and make her own place sailing a sea where a single drop of water can mean instant death?

Earth is dying, and humanity is scrambling to set up colonies in other star systems. But the search process for habitable planets is not perfect, as the crew of the Ouroboros discover on arrival at their new home.

On a planet shrouded in darkness, a stranded crew must fight for survival. But, the darkness may have plans of its own in this wildly original story from Adrian Tchaikovsky, Hugo and Arthur C. Clarke Award–winning author of Children of Time.

In a world where power is everything, Aleks and Vaira Kercheval have rejected their magical heritage. When the siblings cross the threshold, a long-dormant magic awakens, thrusting them into a world of ancient feuds and twisted powers. As Vaira embraces her magical heritage, determined to claim her rightful place among the Mage Houses, the powerless Aleks accidentally summons Ilea, a monstrous prince from the Void, thereby binding himself to a creature of immense power and insatiable hunger.

When an experiment to study quantum uncertainty goes spectacularly wrong, physics student Bill Rustad and his friends find that they have accidentally created an inter-dimensional portal. They connect to Outland - an alternate Earth with identical geology, but where humans never evolved. The group races to establish control of the portal before the government, the military, or evildoers can take it away. Then everything changes when the Yellowstone supervolcano erupts in an explosion large enough to destroy civilization and kill half the planet.

When NASA's Sentinel I satellite detects an impossible reflection and a mysterious signal from Shackleton Crater, the world is thrown into chaos. The discovery points to one chilling truth: an alien artifact lies hidden beneath the lunar surface—and it wants to be found. As China scrambles to exploit the revelation, a new moon race ignites, pushing humanity to the brink.

Marla Lindberg’s memories are crystal clear: of the strange message that lured her years ago to a disused maternity clinic. Of the figure who tried to kill her. The strange whistling cough of the psychopath during the fight to the death. After years of psychotherapy, the highly intelligent young woman has learned that these are all false memories. And on top of that, Marla suffers from face blindness. Her brain plays tricks on her in extreme situations when it tries in vain to recognize people by their faces.

Amber is a young videographer who has landed her dream job. She is to produce a web series based on a late-night talk radio show dealing with the unexplained. She is a huge fan of the show, and its host, Jack Owens, who she hopes to help reveal the world’s most cryptic secrets. The first secret she reveals is Jack’s. He doesn’t believe any of this crap. To him, the show is just a cushy job that allows him to support himself and his wife without having to try very hard.

Dennis E. Taylor, author of the best-selling Bobiverse trilogy, explores a whole different, darker world in this sci-fi stand-alone. Determined to give his wife and children a better life back home, Ivan Pritchard ventures to the edge of known space to join the crew of the Mad Astra as an asteroid miner. He's prepared for hard work and loneliness—but not the unthinkable. After coming into contact with a mysterious alien substance, Pritchard finds an unwelcome entity sharing his mind, and a disturbing physical transformation taking place.

On a little-known planet, Archmage Varic Vallenar casts a grand spell to empower himself with the magical abilities of his alternate selves. The ritual works too well, granting Varic not only the magic but also the memories from six lives. Including their gruesome deaths. Now, Varic has power greater than any wizard in galactic history, but he knows that won’t be enough. The enemies he faced in those alternate lives were apocalyptic in scale. Terrors of technology and magic. Nothing that he, or anyone, can defeat.

When her husband goes missing, Marissa Creighton fears the worst. Tell me you trust me was the last thing Ethan said to her, and she’d shrugged it off. Now she can’t get those words out of her head. Marissa’s family has always been her rock. But when they come to help her with eighteen-month-old Logan, their overprotectiveness borders on oppression—occupational hazard of the family’s surveillance business, or is it? Seeking comfort in the playlist she and Ethan share, Marissa is shocked to find a new song there: “Trust Me.” She’s certain it’s a message.

After his parents died, Alex Roth had one desire: become a wizard. Through hard work, he was accepted into the University of Generasi, the world’s greatest academy of wizardry.... Fate, however, had another plan. On his 18th birthday, he is Marked by prophecy as one of his kingdom’s five Heroes, chosen to fight the Ravener, his land’s great enemy. But his brand is "The Fool". Worst of the marks.