Welcome to CROOKED V.2, the second volume of sci-fi crime stories edited by Jessie Kwak.In this volume you'll find 18 stories of mayhem and tangled loyalties. Bounty hunters chase targets who aren't what they seem. Private eyes hunt wrongdoers in mean, futuristic streets—and are hunted in return. Easy jobs go wrong. Hunted bounties get wily. Mysteries are solved, only to lead to more horrifying mysteries.Sometimes the bad guys win, sometimes the good guys do. And, hey. It's...

Before email,before the world wide web,before hackers,Before sexting,before always-on GPS,before titanium implants,before Alexa, Cortana, and Siri,before the computer in your pocket was more powerful than the one that sent astronauts to the moon,there was cyberpunk.And science fiction was never the same.Cyberpunk writers—serious, smart, and courageous in the face of change—exposed the naiveté of a society rushing headl...

What is new is old, and what is old is new again. Six stories that distort, warp, reconstruct, and reimagine the spookiest time of the year. This is NEU GOTHIK.This volume of the on-going Space Cocaine project features works by Erik Grove, Jessie Kwak, Andrew McCollough, Kate Ristau, Jeb R. Sherrill, and Mark Teppo.

The Brethren of Perpetual Silence were a monastic order who sought to build a sanctuary within the Sprawl. A place where people could escape from the noise and chaos that was life in the city. Until death came to their sanctuary and killed them. All but one, who was transformed into an unholy instrument.Now, Mistral, an ex-cop with an unnatural connection to the streets of the city, must find their killers, and learn why some fear silence so much that they must destroy those who em...

The Earth is dying. Humanity — over-breeding, over-consuming — is destroying the very planet they call home. Multinational corporations despoil the environment, market genetically modified crops to control the food supply, and use their wealth and influence and private armies to crush anything, and anyone, that gets in the way of their profits. Nothing human can stop them. But something unhuman might. Once they did not fear the sun. Once they could breathe the air and sleep where they chos...

The Night Office never sleeps. For more than a hundred and fifty years, the Night Office has worked in the shadows, keeping all manners of tentacled beasties, gibbering madnesses, and slavering six-eyed goats from devouring you, your neighbor, and your neighbor's dog. And now, the Night Office needs you.This Advanced Psychological Strategies assessment is meant for field operatives who have just returned from a mission. It will validate your mental integrity, verifying that you hav...

What's the most annoying thing about writing a novel? They don't write themselves.What's the second most annoying thing about writing a novel? No, really, they don't write themselves.What the hardest thing about writing a novel? Actually turning your sexy outline into a real book. With words, and stuff.Sure, you've got a really awesome outline, a notebook full of character sketches, and your work space is overflowing with "research" materials, but that blank page is...

When you hear of claw machines, what do you picture?In this anthology, claw machines aren't just beacons for lost dollars and frustration, filled with cheap toys that rarely make it home with us. The claw machine is a game, a curse, a tool, even a drug-induced metaphor. It gives omens of death, portals to other dimensions, plushies that aren't what they seem, eggs filled with things you'd never imagine, and so much more.Claw Machine is a collection of stor...

For more than a hundred and fifty years, the Night Office has stayed up late, fighting off all sorts of whistling horrors, shrieking monstrosities, and drooling frog monsters. One of the secrets to their success is lots and lots of coffee.This Education Assessment Exercise is meant to introduce you to the perils of working for the Night Office. Instead of throwing you into the field, where all kinds of terrible things could happen to you, the Night Office wants to know if you can m...

Welcome to Crooked, the first volume of a new anthology series from Bad Intentions Press.You'll find Teppo's retrieval job gone very, very wrong (or has it?). You'll find Eric Warren's gunrunner getting a second chance and Greg Dragon's smuggler surviving on the edge. Jessie Kwak's bodyguard dealing with a simple job that got quite complicated, Kate Sheeran Swed's unlikely bounty hunter getting her feet underneath her, and Wade Peterson's fighting bot showing its fiercely loyal hea...

The frontier continues to move west, and what was a booming railroad town less than a year ago is little more than a dying company town now. In the desperate town of Citrine Springs, Elmore Stonebrook and Judge Willard Vernon Wallace encounter the Longspur Mining Company, which keeps the town alive by moving dirt from one hole in the ground to another.This is the sort of fool's effort that always hides corruption and malfeasance, and the Judge is eager to discover the true purpose ...

1872: The shattered South is struggling under the yoke of Reconstruction; the North has turned its attention to lands west of the mighty Mississippi. The United States is haunted by the blood that has been spilled, and only a few are ready to stand against the coming darkness.During the War, Elmore Stonebrook was a celebrated Sharpshooter for the Army of the Potomac. Known as God's Finger for the deadly accuracy of his rifle, Stonebrook fought for freedom for all men, but lost his ...