Accustomed to being an only child, adoptee Brian “Gumbo” Guillemot’s teenage hobby was searching for his birth parents. After years without a lead, when he finally finds his birth mother, Kim, he’s unprepared for the boisterous instant family that comes with her.No one, besides Kim, knows anything about Gumbo's birth father. With Kim refusing to answer any questions, Gumbo must choose whether to continue the search, even if it means alienating his few friends and both his families....

Accustomed to being an only child, adoptee Brian “Gumbo” Guillemot’s teenage hobby was searching for his birth parents. But when he finally finds his birth mother, Kim, he’s unprepared for the boisterous instant family that comes with her.Besides Kim, no one knows anything about Brian’s birth father. With Kim refusing to answer any questions about him, Brian must choose whether to continue the search, even if it means alienating his few friends and both his families. But the more h...

Tropical adventures. A rag-tag sailing crew. Running off-grid data servers? Sounds legit.Devi Jones is nearly done her internship for Really Remote Desktop, a cloud data storage company that keeps their servers in odd places, like the bilge of the sailing vessel Byte Bucket. Like any sea voyage, her time on board has had its ups and downs, but she is finally starting to feel like she belongs — maybe too much.As the reality of returning to the munda...

This collection showcases a wide variety of plans gone sideways — private eyes getting stuck on cases they really don't want to take, petty criminals getting in over their heads, law enforcement professionals on the wrong side of the bars, and upstanding citizens finding themselves to be not so law-abiding after all.These stories are as varied as they are excellent — there are light-hearted tales to make you smile, literary pieces that challenge the definition of crime writing, and...

Taking something away from others — their possessions, their dignity, their liberty, their lives — is the root of taboo.All the stories in this, the fourth collection of tales from Plan B Magazine, touch on what happens when one person puts their will above that of others. Sometimes it's amusing, other times heartbreaking, but it no matter what, someone's day won't be going according to plan.Table of Contents"Old Friends" by Frank Byrns"Write Your Epitaph" by...

Desperation is the same in any language. Madness respects no borders. Greed and revenge transcend cultural differences.In this third collection of stories from Plan B Magazine, we find tales from all the corners of the crime world. From Cold War espionage to small town stick-ups, high-powered diplomacy to the opportunism of poverty, these are stories of the darkness of the human heart. And once in a while, how the light of our common humanity can transcend that darkness."Si...

After settling into a new job, new home and new living arrangements, Andersson Dexter has finally found a comfortable life in both the physical and virtual worlds. But that sense of security is blown apart when an explosion rocks Dex's real-life Nice neighbourhood.He and his colleagues begin an investigation into a string of seemingly senseless and random vandalism attacks, that remind them all of similar assaults in the simulated world Marionette City. While at first the attacks s...

Alien detectives stumble across a mystery that could tear apart their patchwork planet, the Crucible, in this riotous science fantasy novel from the smash hit game, KeyForgeWibble & Pplimz, the Crucible's most unusual private investigators, must set off from their office in Hub City to clear the name of a former client. Along the way, their investigation broadens from a simple accusation of theft to include a missing person, a potential murder, and a highl...

Something is rotten in the state of cybernetics.Elsinore Robotics is on the cusp of a breakthrough—the company is poised to create the first humanoid androids powered by true artificial intelligence. Their only rival, Norwegian Technologies, lost a publicly streamed contest between their flagship model, Fortinbras, and Elsinore's HAM(let) v.1.But when the first Hamlet model is found irreparably deactivated, the apparent victim of wild malware, the field of ...

Intergalactic civilization emerges from its war-torn ruins for the first time in generations to explore the galaxy, in this stunning new anthology from the bestselling world of Twilight ImperiumA terrible war destroyed a vast empire and left its survivors shattered and isolated. Millennia of history, technology, and the ever-expanding imperial grip were lost. From the secretive Naalu and the proud Hacan to the piratical Mentak Coalition, these factions and...

Intergalactic civilization emerges from its war-torn ruins for the first time in generations to explore the galaxy, in this stunning new anthology from the bestselling world of Twilight ImperiumA terrible war destroyed a vast empire and left its survivors shattered and isolated. Millennia of history, technology, and the ever-expanding imperial grip were lost. From the secretive Naalu and the proud Hacan to the piratical Mentak Coalition, t...

After a century of struggle, the terraforming of Mars was intended to bring peace and prosperity to the colonists of the Red Planet, but while the planet may be livable, humans bring their own chaos.On Mars, terraforming breakthroughs leave citizens dreaming of a transformed planet. However, when a contaminated ice asteroid puts water supplies in peril, the dream quickly shatters. Professor Zambrotta "Zammi" Kaspar is tasked to investigate a fatal crash on a remote...