Science Thriller

When Steve's friends, Max, Lucy, and Henry, get their hands on a map with the location of the legendary Mine Mountain, Steve questions if the map is a fake. Going to this fabled mountain, rumored to contain an endless supply of diamonds, is every treasure hunter's dream. Many believe the mountain doesn't exist, and although Steve is doubtful about the map's authenticity, the gang convinces Steve and Kyra to embark on a journey to find this magical mountain.

The best-selling Extinction Cycle series by Nicholas Sansbury Smith first introduced listeners to a world ravaged by an engineered virus that turned men into monsters. Humanity's only hope was not a cure, but another bioweapon. When deployed it killed 90 percent of the infected, but the remaining 10 percent transformed into even more terrifying creatures called Variants. Here's a collection of Extinction Cycle short stories that explore the human spirit and the fight for survival in the face of overwhelming odds from some of the leading voices in the post-apocalyptic genre.

One catastrophic event. A desperate race for survival. When a massive solar storm wipes out power and communication across the globe, the world plunges into chaos. In the remote Oregon mountains, military veteran Rex Hays thought he was prepared to weather the collapse. But nothing could prepare him for what’s coming. While hunting, Rex saves a teenage girl, Zoe Mills, from a mountain lion attack. Injured and with no memory of why she was in the wilderness, Zoe becomes the center of a deadly mystery. Strangers from out of town are searching for her, and they’ll stop at nothing to find her.

When the grain crop failed in Kansas it seemed like an isolated incident and no one took much notice. Except Ed Hardesty. Then the blight spread to California's fruit harvest, and from there, like wildfire, throughout the nation. Suddenly America woke up to the fact that her food supplies were almost wiped out. Her grain reserves lethally polluted. And botulism was multiplying at a horrifying rate.

What I’m about to tell you is going to be hard to believe… The truth has been hidden for a long, long time… Do you have what it takes to find the truth? I wasn’t looking for anything. You might be the kind of person who wants to know what’s going on around you, but I was content just doing my job and being left alone. But sometimes life gets messy and the curtain that hides reality from most of us gets pulled back. All I can tell you is… there are some things you can’t unsee. So tread carefully. What you have in your hands is the true account of Hank Downes. I thought of ...

A controversial, frightening bio-thriller that blurs the line between truth and fiction, Upon A Pale Horse raises disturbing questions about the man-made origin of nightmare epidemics, and posits a conspiracy so plausible that it will linger long after the novel's shocking conclusion. When young attorney Jeffrey Rutherford's brother is killed in a plane crash minutes after takeoff from JFK, his life is turned upside down - especially when he discovers that his brother's career wasn't what it seemed. Jeffrey's staid existence is upended as he races to unravel a Gordian knot of deceit and ...

A winter storm has buried North Dakota in snow and ice. With accidents being reported across the region, Deputy Ron Weller must patrol along the main road through a normally tranquil forest in Beeman County. The night grows menacing as he discovers vehicles that have been run off the road, their drivers mysteriously missing. Strange tracks lead through a region of thick forest known as Devil's Rock. There, Weller makes a horrifying discovery. A monster has awakened. Its hunger is insatiable, and its ferocity has no limits.

Stevie has been having repeated nightmares about the mysterious figure known as Herobrine. Some say Herobrine is an old ghost story. Some say he's a virus. But no one believes he is real...except maybe Stevie, whose nightmares are telling him that Herobrine is going to take over the Overworld.

Bob Arctor is a dealer of the lethally addictive drug Substance D. Fred is the police agent assigned to tail and eventually bust him. To do so, Fred takes on the identity of a drug dealer named Bob Arctor. And since Substance D, which Arctor takes in massive doses, gradually splits the user's brain into two distinct, combative entities, Fred doesn't realize he is narcing on himself.

Warlock Holmes may have demons in his head, but now Dr. John Watson has a mummy in his bloodstream. Specifically that of the sorcerer Xantharaxes, who when shredded and dissolved in an 8 percent solution, results in some extremely odd but useful prophetic dreams. There's also the small matter of Watson falling for yet another damsel-du-jour, and Warlock deciding that his companion needs some domestic bliss....

As a deadly Ebola outbreak tears through Africa, a new, horrifying strain emerges—one with nightmarish side effects. When containment efforts crumble, the virus spreads like wildfire across the globe, plunging humanity into chaos. But the true horror isn’t just the sickness—it’s what comes after. The dead aren’t staying dead. In the heart of Charlotte, NC, a small group of survivors is left behind as the city collapses into an undead nightmare. Abandoned by the authorities and surrounded by flesh-hungry hordes, they embark on a desperate journey toward a rumored refugee camp on ...

In Wyoming, a little girl reads people’s darkest secrets. In New York, a man sensing patterns in the stock market racks up $300 billion. In Chicago, a woman can go invisible. They’re called "brilliants," and since 1980, one percent of people have been born this way. Nick Cooper is among them; a federal agent, Cooper has gifts rendering him exceptional at hunting terrorists. His latest target may be the most dangerous man alive, a brilliant drenched in blood and intent on provoking civil war. But to catch him, Cooper will have to violate everything he believes in.

Sherlock Holmes is an unparalleled genius who uses the gift of deduction and reason to solve the most vexing of crimes. Warlock Holmes, however, is an idiot. A good man, perhaps; a font of arcane power, certainly. But he’s brilliantly dim. Frankly, he couldn’t deduce his way out of a paper bag. The only things he has really got going for him are the might of a thousand demons and his stalwart flatmate. Thankfully, Dr. Watson is always there to aid him through the treacherous shoals of Victorian propriety...

Amelia Scarcliffe’s monstrous brood, harbingers of Cthulhu, will soon spawn. Her songs spell insanity, death...and illimitable wealth. And Moriarty will do anything to get his hands on gold, even if it means tearing down the walls between this world and a realm of horrors. Meanwhile, after Sherlock Holmes’s last tangle with the Order of Dagon, horrifying monsters haunt the Thames, and madness stalks the streets of Whitechapel. Gang war between Moriarty’s thugs and the powerful cult can only bring more terror - unless Holmes and Dr. Watson can prevent it.

The United States government is given a warning by the preeminent biophysicists in the country: current sterilization procedures applied to returning space probes may be inadequate to guarantee uncontaminated re-entry to the atmosphere.

The NPCs of Minecraft barely had time to celebrate their victory over the spider queen and the king of the skeletons before terrible new crimes broke the hard-earned peace. Inexplicable fires are breaking out under mysterious circumstances, the flames destroying more and more land with every tick of the CPU. Gameknight999 knows something is terribly wrong but has no idea who is responsible or how to stop them.

The new director at Camp Lone Wolf seems like a nice guy. But when the kids learn the legend of a local boy who disappeared and the wolf that prowls the campgrounds howling in the night, they start to wonder if Camp Lone Wolf is more than just a name. Mr. Jenkins is covered in hair, eats his meat almost raw, and has an obsession with wolves. But could he really be a werewolf?

Twenty years ago, it was as if someone turned on a light. The future blazed into existence with each deliberate word that William Gibson laid down. The winner of Hugo, Nebula, and Philip K. Dick Awards, Neuromancer didn't just explode onto the science fiction scene - it permeated into the collective consciousness, culture, science, and technology.Today, there is only one science fiction masterpiece to thank for the term "cyberpunk," for easing the way into the information age and Internet society.

A man. His ex-girlfriend's cat. A sadistic game show unlike anything in the universe: a dungeon crawl where survival depends on killing your prey in the most entertaining way possible. In a flash, every human-erected construction on Earth - from Buckingham Palace to the tiniest of sheds - collapses in a heap, sinking into the ground. The buildings and all the people inside have all been atomized and transformed into the dungeon: an 18-level labyrinth filled with traps, monsters, and loot.

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.