Cycle Thriller

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.

The future of democracy is about to implode. After the last controversial global election, the global infomocracy that has ensured 30 years of world peace is fraying at the edges. As the new Supermajority government struggles to establish its legitimacy, agents of information across the globe strive to keep the peace and maintain the flows of data that feed the new world order.

Scrap Allenbach is a living legend to the Steel Bones MC. A vigilante hero. Ten years ago, he gave up his freedom for me. I never asked him to. Now he's back, with some idea about how it's gonna be. He's wrong. Things are different now. I'm not the same girl he knew. After what happened, I'll never be that person again. Not with the baggage I carry and the secrets I keep.

The end of the world begins at dawn, when the sun rises later than it should. Then the holes appear. The first forms in Central Park, within sight of an apartment where Repairman Jack and a man as old as time watch with growing dread. Gaping holes, bottomless and empty…until sundown, when the first unearthly, hungry creatures appear.

Jace is a brother, now turned president, of the Cerberus Legends Motorcycle club. It wasn't by choice. The presidency came at the cost of his best friend's, Fork's, life. Fork was shot by a rival motorcycle gang, the Chiron Knights. Jace is forced to finish the job. It tears holes inside of him bigger than any bullet could do.

After a dozen years of practicing medicine as a family physician, Dr. Alan Bulmer discovers one day that he can cure any illness with the mere touch of his hand. At first his scientific nature refuses to accept what is happening to him, but there is no rational explanation to be found. So Alan gives himself over to this mysterious power, reveling in the ability to cure the incurable, to give hope to the hopeless - for one hour each day. Although he tries to hide his power, word inevitably leaks out, and soon Alan's life begins to unravel.

The Change is coming, and the world as we know it is ending. Sixteen-year-old Ellie has changed. She looks the same, but her mother detects someone else looking out through her blue eyes. Ellie builds a "shelter" in her room with an entrance that leads...elsewhere. And what of the convoy of tractor trailers Hari Tate watches drive up a mountain road and return without the trailers...leaving nothing on the mountain. What are they shipping? And the writer who finds a hole in the floor of his NYC apartment and tumbles through into...elsewhere.

Richard "Richie" Harrison is willing to endure a lot of unspeakable torment at the hands of a prison guard just to keep his boyfriend, Diego "Dragon" Murphy, from making a huge mistake trying to defend his honor. Unfortunately, Dragon discovered his secret and flew into a rage, attacking the correctional officer who is hurting his man. Now, Richie has no idea what might happen next. Will he ever see Dragon again? Will he ever get to tell him his true feelings? Will he ever be able to feel Dragon beside him at least one more time?

In November 2002, a special US Navy SEAL team is sent to Antarctica to locate and rescue a film crew that has become lost. No trace of them is found, except for film footage of strange artifacts buried under the ice. Everyone who saw the film is warned to never talk about what they have seen - ever again. More than a decade later in Boulder, Colorado, Professor Charles Summers is intrigued by the discovery of a 16th century map showing the coastline of Antarctica.

For thousands of years, the truth about human history has intentionally been suppressed and exploited. For decades, scholars have been saying that the truth about human history will be found inside the Great Pyramid of Giza, but up till now no one has ever been able to find it. Those who tried have been ridiculed and persecuted. The Tenth Cycle is a provocative technothriller about human history, conspiracies, and an ancient society with power and money that will stop at nothing to reach their sinister goals.

When journalist Daniel Rossler and researcher Dr. Sarah Clarke stumble upon a fascinating secret encoded within the Great Pyramid of Giza, they become entangled in a web of intrigue that threatens to unravel the very fabric of our understanding of the past. As Daniel and Sarah delve deeper into the enigmatic truth hidden within the ancient structure, they face a gauntlet of challenges, from the skepticism of the academic community to the malevolent intentions of the mysterious Orion Society.

"Who am I? Why, I'm you. Or parts of you. The best parts. I'm the touch of Richard Speck, Ed Gein, John Wayne Gacy, Ted Bundy, and Bin Laden in all of you. I am the thousand tiny angers and fleeting rages of your day - at the car that cuts you off on the freeway, at the kid who sneaks ahead of you in line at the movies, at the old fart with the full basket in the eight-items-only express checkout at the supermarket. I'm the nasty glee in the name-callers and the long-suffering pain, the self-loathing, the smoldering resentment, the suppressed rage, and the never-to-be-fulfilled promises of revenge in their targets.

The town of Northfall, Minnesota, will never be the same. Meteors cratered hardwood forests and annihilated homes, and among the wreckage a new metal was discovered. This “omnimetal” has properties that make it world-changing as an energy source…and a weapon. John Frontier returns for his sister’s wedding to find his family embroiled in a cutthroat war to control mineral rights and mining operations. His father rightly suspects foreign leaders and competing corporations of sabotage, but the greatest threat to his legacy might be the US government.

The last time Information held an election, a global network outage, two counts of sabotage by major world governments, and a devastating earthquake almost shook micro-democracy apart. Five years later, it's time to vote again, and the system that has ensured global peace for 25 years is more vulnerable than ever. Unknown enemies are attacking Information's network infrastructure. Information's best agents question whether the data monopoly they've served all their lives is worth saving or whether it's time to burn the world down and start anew.

Dr. Roderick Hanley, Nobel Prize-winning geneticist, dies in a plane crash. His last words: "The boy! They’ll find out about the boy! He’ll find out about himself!" When Jim Stevens, an orphan and struggling writer, learns that he is the sole heir to the Hanley estate, he is sure he has at last found his biological father. But he’s only half right. The true nature of his inheritance - and the truth about his conception - will crush him. In New York City a group of Charismatics has been drawn together - without invitation, simply showing up at a Murray Hill brownstone - with a sense of great purpose. Satan is coming....

Major Crimes Detective Samantha Reilly prefers to work alone - she’s seen as a maverick, and she still struggles privately with the death of her partner. The only person who ever sees her softer side is Michael Turcotte, a teenager she’s known since she rescued him eleven years ago from the aftermath of his parents’ murder-suicide.

Dahlia Cole is jilted at the altar and kidnapped by the fearsome leader of The Sicilian Brotherhood, Giacomo Valducci. He's desperate to make her pay for the sins of her ex-fiancé...Giacomo convinces her to go on the quest of a lifetime in exchange for her survival...The unexpected pushes them together, and a devious plot threatens to tear them apart forever. Passionate nights in secret safe houses and Sicilian beaches won't keep them safe. In the world of gangsters, it's near impossible to make it out alive.

Mackinac Island is a peaceful summer resort town where everyone coasts through the streets on bicycles. But after someone sends a prominent local on her final ride, it's up to one resourceful visitor to get things running again.

The comet, Cain, came from beyond our solar system, its debris containing elements unknown. Now, in the isolated region of Fairbanks, Alaska, the skies shift and stretch as an interstellar dust cloud seeds the atmosphere. When a plane shudders its way through pulpy, swirling, bruise-shaped clouds, lit with sudden cracks of lightning, the sky opens and the aircraft vanishes…but only for a minute. When the flight lands, everyone on board and in the community will be changed forever.

Captains Skyler Luiken and Gloria Tsandi (and their respective crews) have smashed through the deadly Swarm Blockade but now find themselves scattered around the planet Carthage and the space stations she holds in her orbit. Their mission is now twofold: destroy the military compounds of a race of nefarious alien overlords and find a way back home to Earth. Standing in their way are a race of horrifying, technologically advanced aliens armed with incredible weapons.