Humorous

Mitch's mediocre life has just taken a turn for the worse, so his buddy tries to cheer him up by showing him a secret starship. Unfortunately, everything goes south when hostile aliens arrive. In an effort to save his buddy and the starship from the aliens, Mitch does the obvious thing: he accidentally warps hundreds of light-years away. Marooned in a distant star cluster, Mitch is forced to deal with a snarky teenage AI, a rogue auto-pilot, and a beautiful alien soldier who's ready to steal his ship at any moment—so she can fight an oppressive military faction, of course.

Ominous obelisks land on Earth with a single message: Join the games to give humanity a fighting chance to survive... Or roll over and die. Too bad for them, Warren isn't the rolling-over type. Cancer may be kicking Warren's a$$, but he's not about to let aliens destroy his home and everything he loves (which is mostly just his dog, Buck). Besides, what does he have to lose? Better to die with sword in hand, bleeding out from a head wound than in some hospital bed...

Dalton Greaves is a hero. He’s one of humankind’s first representatives to Unity, a pan-species confederation working to bring all sentient life into a single benevolent brotherhood. That’s what they told him, anyway. The only actual members of Unity that he’s ever met are Boreau, a giant snail who seems more interested in plunder than spreading love and harmony, and Boreau’s human sidekick, Neera, who Dalton strongly suspects roped him into this gig so that she wouldn’t become the next one of Boreau’s crew to get eaten by locals while prospecting.

Alison’s dentist is not happy with her. It’s not that she hasn’t been brushing, it’s the constant stress that’s completely overwhelmed Alison’s body and mind. She’s grinding her teeth, and it’s getting bad. The dentist’s advice: take a vacation. When Alison tries to break free from her daily grind, however, she’s greeted with some pushback from the sentient physical manifestation of her own stress, a living concept named Sophie.

Ben Ashwood is losing at life—big time. Broke, single, and stuck with the world’s worst boss, he’s just about given up. But when his overenthusiastic best friend hands him a golden ticket—a chance to enter the most advanced VR game ever created—he hesitates. Because knowing Ben’s luck, even fantasy worlds won’t cut him a break.