Showing results for "dark matter" in Science Fiction & Fantasy

Fell times have come to the galaxy. Cadia has fallen, destroyed by the onslaught of Chaos. A Great Rift in the warp has opened, and from its depths spew daemons and the horrors of Old Night. But all hope is not lost… A hero, long absent, has returned, and with him comes the wrath of the Ultramarines reborn. Roboute Guilliman has arisen to lead the Imperium out of darkness on a crusade the likes of which has not been seen since the fabled days of the Emperor. But never before have the forces of Ruin amassed in such numbers, and nowhere is safe from despoliation.

For a decade, Darrow led a revolution against the corrupt color-coded Society. Now, outlawed by the very Republic he founded, he wages a rogue war on Mercury in hopes that he can still salvage the dream of Eo. Lysander au Lune, the heir in exile, has returned to the Core. Determined to bring peace back to mankind at the edge of his sword, he must overcome or unite the treacherous Gold families of the Core and face down Darrow over the skies of war-torn Mercury. But theirs are not the only fates hanging in the balance.

Jace Seren, Tier 10 Ascendant, the only person who wields both Dark Matter and Void through The Cosmic System, delved into the Astral Verge. A journey outside of his Universe that took him through the realm wrought from the shared dreams and nightmares of all Universes.

29 Brand-New Sci-Fi Horror Stories. The future is now, and it's not what we were promised. The optimistic science fiction of old was wrong. Progress is not linear, technology creates as many problems as it solves, and the concept of a better tomorrow has become an abstraction that is in no way guaranteed. When looking at the future now, we no longer ask what is possible, we wonder how we'll cope. Contained within this anthology are 29 never-before-published works by supremely talented authors.

One week. If you survive, you choose a Cosmic Power ... If you survive. Jace isn’t one to give up. Not when his sister dies. Not when he loses his legs. And definitely not when The Cosmic System takes over Earth. With nothing more than his street smarts, the clothes on his back, and a river otter companion, he must survive a planet full of vicious predators that see him as an easy meal. If he can survive? He gets to choose a Cosmic Power and a Class. A path to ascension. A way to bring his sister back.

In April 2020, the world faced imminent lock-down, so a group of filmmakers started a virtual support group. Once a week, these diverse voices would assemble to do what they do best: tell each other stories. Campfire horror tales, emotional cosmic mysteries, and anything else that either made them take their minds off what was happening to the world, or help them understand it. HAUNTED REELS is the best of those stories.

31 Brand-New Dark Fantasy Horror Stories. Bloody corridors of ancient rock. A castle surrounded by poisonous thorns. A lost temple of traps and corpses. A subaqueous cave at the bottom of a cursed lake. These are the places where secrets are buried, where ancient evils are summoned, where beasts are imprisoned, where the insane lie in wait. These are tombs of darkness and nightmare, where if you stare into the abyss, the abyss will stare back. Heed the warnings of your elders and return from whence you came. Ahead lie monster lairs.

In the wake of a devastating global pandemic, sixty-million people take refuge in fortified bunkers across the Quarantine Zone. While their physical bodies lie frozen in cryostasis, their virtual avatars populate a sprawling cyber-colony known as the Hive; but this “New Reality” is no utopia. Rival gangs wage war on the streets. Religious zealots manipulate the masses. A corrupt ruling class pulls the strings behind the scenes. Veteran cop Luke Duncan-Epsilon sends money to the daughter he left back in Reality Prime.

After achieving Tier 3 as a Dark Matter Aspirant, Jace Seren and his allies—Priam Westerfold, Greg Bhastal, and Quinn Cipher—are on their way to Earth. Their mission is dangerous: take down all five megacorporations to clear the way for the Star Council to instill their control over the world and lift Earth’s civilization to its pinnacle of possibility. Corpo-mercs, cybered-up soldiers, lingering Aspirants, and Ascendants? That’s only the start of it. For the Nebula Alliance already has agents on Earth, and they do not take kindly to hostile takeovers.

Lucy Harris is on the run, not sure where she can turn to for help, or if help is even available. But even as her abductors chase her down, she realizes they don't just want to recapture her, they want to erase her. When your very existence puts a planet at the risk of war, there's no choice but to do everything in your power to stay out of your enemies' hands.

The X-Files meets Gone Girl, in which a man claiming to be a missing child from nineteen years ago returns to the small town from where he famously vanished, but the town's retired police sergeant who failed to solve the boy's missing persons case two decades prior doesn't buy the man's claim and suspects that something much more sinister is at work.

Jace Seren has been assigned his next task for the Dark Between Stars: visiting a rogue planet that was flung out of its orbit millennia past. Many Complexes await completion—promising Stardust, Boons, and danger. Jace will come up against many threats; Black Hole Conclave cultists seeking to drive the world into oblivion, Astral Demons from a different layer of reality who seek his destruction, and mercenaries chasing the bounty placed upon his head by the leader of the Nebula Alliance.

Jace Seren has achieved what no others have before: become a Tier 10 Ascendant within The Cosmic System. As part of this achievement, he is now permanently infused with it and can never lose the phenomenal powers he has gained. Even better, he can no longer die to old age—though a violent end is still quite possible. Having placed a gate upon Oblivion—the singularity at the center of his universe—Jace must gear up and go into another layer of reality: the Astral Verge. A realm of chaos wrought from the emotions and thoughts of countless universes.

Un soir, en rentrant chez lui, Jason Dessen, professeur de physique, est agressé et kidnappé par un inconnu masqué. Quand il reprend connaissance, tout a changé : Daniela n'est plus sa femme, leur fils Charlie n'est jamais né, et Jason lui-même est un physicien de premier plan à l'aube d'une découverte fondamentale.

Co-Pilot returns with answers. Red faces her future self. Hutch ends up in a life-or-death situation. A crew member vanishes — and all that’s left is a message on the wall. No warning. No plan. Is Libfonic at war?

A decade ago Darrow led a revolution, and laid the foundations for a new world. Now he’s an outlaw. Cast out of the very Republic he founded, with half his fleet destroyed, he wages a rogue war on Mercury. Outnumbered and outgunned, is he still the hero who broke the chains? Or will he become the very evil he fought to destroy? In his darkening shadow, a new hero rises. Lysander au Lune, the displaced heir to the old empire, has returned to bridge the divide between the Golds of the Rim and Core. If united, their combined might may prove fatal to the fledgling Republic.

On a return visit to Dal'no'nuuur to aid its inhabitants and get some upgrades, the crew of the Junkyard finds themselves ambushed by a Bastet intent on capturing them. Before meeting his 'unfortunate' end, Dax and Kane manage to extract a name from their assailant: Tussanu. Retreating to Tachyon, they discover Tussanu is an enigma wrapped in a mystery. This reclusive individual, whose race, age, and appearance remain unknown, invites his contractors to his home once a month to contribute to his extensive collection.

Rudolph "Rudy" Dersch is the newly minted CEO of the world's largest, multi-trillion-dollar corporate conglomerate. But the job comes with an unexpected twist - an invitation to join the Consortium, a small, secretive group of global elites who effectively decide what's best for the rest of humanity. How does Rudy's struggle to reconcile business and family impact the world's future? And who, if anyone, can break the Consortium's iron grip on the status quo?

"Bist du glücklich?" Das sind die letzten Worte, die Jason Dessen hört, bevor ihn ein maskierter Mann niederschlägt. Als er wieder zu sich kommt, begrüßt ihn ein Fremder mit den Worten: "Willkommen zurück, alter Freund." Denn Jason ist in der Tat zurückgekehrt - doch nicht in sein eigenes Leben, sondern eines, das hätte sein können. Seine Frau hat er nie geheiratet, sein Sohn wurde nie geboren. Und Jason ist kein einfacher College-Professor, sondern ein gefeierter Wissenschaftler. Doch ist diese Welt real?

Despite the tragic events at Hanssen Scientific, Monique Durand and her newfound companions continue their search for the source of her compelling visions. Are they somehow linked to the secrets of dark matter, as Professor Hanssen is so desperate to believe? Or does the truth reach even deeper - into our Universe's past, and our planet's ultimate future? To find out, they'll need to outwit the Consortium, a secretive group of trillionaires who now have what they need to achieve their own, long-awaited end-game.