Science Mysteries

Being a mercenary has made Sophia an expert at kicking butt, and her heritage has made her a professional at hiding in plain sight. Sophia is Fireborn, the supernatural community's public enemy number one. Fireborns have the ability to absorb magic - a gift that turns them into insane, power-hungry murderers. After years on the run, Sophia and her sister have finally found a home for themselves and jobs at the Mercenary Guild. Killing monsters may be hard work, but she doesn't need magic to do it. And as long as she keeps her powers under wraps, they're safe.

Victoria Emerson is a congressional member of the US House of Representatives for the state of West Virginia. Her aspirations have always been to help her community and to avoid the ambitious power plays of her peers in Washington, DC. Then Major Joseph McCrea appears on her doorstep and uses the code phrase Crimson Phoenix, meaning this is not a drill. The United States is on the verge of nuclear war. Victoria must accompany McCrea to a secure bunker. She cannot bring her family.

Michael Mace, head of security at a top-secret research facility, opens his eyes in a makeshift morgue twenty-four hours following an event in which everyone perished—including him and his best friend, Shelby Shrewsberry. Having awakened with an extraordinary ability unlike anything he—or anyone else—has ever imagined, Michael is capable of being as elusive as a ghost. He sets out to honor his late friend by helping Nina Dozier and her son, John, whom Shelby greatly admired.

After a long and bloody battle, legendary Hell Diver Xavier Rodriguez reigns as the dutiful but reluctant new king of the islands. Advised by a council of former sky citizens as well as Cazadores, he works to assimilate the two societies peacefully. But not all Cazadores have accepted the new order. While X tries to ease tensions at home, a rookie team of divers, led by Michael Everhart, returns to the skies in Discovery, formerly the ITC Deliverance. Their mission: To locate other human survivors throughout the world and rescue them.

More than half of American adults and more than 75 percent of young Americans believe in intelligent extraterrestrial life. This level of belief rivals that of belief in God. American Cosmic examines the mechanisms at work behind the thriving belief system in extraterrestrial life, a system that is changing and even supplanting traditional religions.

Warlock Holmes may have demons in his head, but now Dr. John Watson has a mummy in his bloodstream. Specifically that of the sorcerer Xantharaxes, who when shredded and dissolved in an 8 percent solution, results in some extremely odd but useful prophetic dreams. There's also the small matter of Watson falling for yet another damsel-du-jour, and Warlock deciding that his companion needs some domestic bliss....

Eleven-year-old Harry Mancini is not Harry Houdini - the famous escape artist who died in 1926. But Harry does live in Houdini's old New York City home, and he definitely knows everything there is to know about Houdini's life. What is he supposed to do, then, when someone starts texting him claiming that they're Houdini, communicating from beyond the grave? Respond, of course.

Callis Rose is a girl blessed with a gift from above or cursed with a ruthless power she barely understands; it's really just a matter of degrees. As her family life is turned asunder she is thrown into an indifferent Social Services program where she defends herself the only way she knows how. Callis is moved from home to home until she finally settles at the Lowries. As she starts her first day of high school she meets both her favorite and least favorite person. Both happen to be part of the same household.

It was a warm summer day in 1951 when Rose Pottinger and Mrs. Zimmermann entered the tunnel. When they had emerged, it was snowing...and the year was 1828. Mrs. Zimmermann had felt that the ghost of Granny Wetherbee, who had taught Mrs. Zimmermann witchery, was in trouble and needed help. So she and Rose Rita had traveled to Pennsylvania where Granny had lived. They never dreamed that they would also journey back to a time long ago where they would encounter a sorcerer more terrifying than either could have imagined.

Mattie can't remember a time before she and William lived alone on a mountain together. She must never make him upset. But when Mattie discovers the mutilated body of a fox in the woods, she realizes that they’re not alone after all. There’s something in the woods that wasn’t there before, something that makes strange cries in the night, something with sharp teeth and claws. When three strangers appear on the mountaintop looking for the creature in the woods, Mattie knows their presence will anger William. Terrible things happen when William is angry.

The deadly dimensions over London have been sealed, and the monsters have departed. But word has come to Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson of a more terrifying creature still - the great Cthulhu has been sighted off the waters of Innsmouth, Massachusetts. Only Holmes can defeat him. And in the muddy village of Innsmouth, surrounded by villagers who are more sea-monster than human, Holmes meets again his nemesis, Moriarty, and yet greater foes: Amelia Scarcliffe and Maria Fitzgerald, harbingers of Dagon, who have called forth Cthulhu.

For more than 40 years, the US government has researched extrasensory perception, using it in attempts to locate hostages, fugitives, secret bases, and downed fighter jets, to divine other nations' secrets, and even to predict future threats to national security. The intelligence agencies and military services involved include CIA, DIA, NSA, DEA, the navy, air force, and army - and even the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Now, for the first time, New York Times best-selling author Annie Jacobsen tells the story of these radical, controversial programs.

This second novel in the acclaimed Greywalker series finds PI Blaine Harper investigating a chilling case as Halloween approaches. After university researchers create an artificial poltergeist, the team leader suspects someone is faking the phenomena. When a student is murdered, Blaine is asked to investigate. Stepping into the spirit world, she realizes the haunting may be very real. But that doesn't necessarily mean a ghost did the killing.

Shawn Muller is a prodigy and he knows it. It is 2051 and the militarized AI he created to hunt terrorists has begun to dominate the network that controls everything from traffic to climate. Fearful of the power of the AI he calls “Lazy Jack” and the politicians who will use it, Shawn installs an algorithm to give his creation a system of ethics. But when that very ethical standard causes Lazy Jack to declare Shawn a profound threat to society, he is forced into terrified flight to avoid summary execution as a terrorist.

In The Universe, today's most influential science writers explain the science behind our evolving understanding of The Universe and everything in it, including the cutting-edge research and discoveries that are shaping our knowledge. Lee Smolin reveals how math and cosmology are helping us create a theory of the whole universe. Neil Turok analyzes the fundamental laws of nature, what came before the big bang, and the possibility of a unified theory. And much more.

The Martian meets Gravity when Army Pilot Vaughn Singleton, Earth’s last man, rushes to Area 51 in search of a spaceplane after he discovers the last woman is stranded on the International Space Station and barely alive - thus beginning a race against time. The event that wiped life from the planet started at the supercollider. It created a rift in space-time. The astronaut stranded aboard the space station, Commander Angela Brown, is a theoretical physicist who used to work at the collider.

Fourteen-year-old Mona isn't like the wizards charged with defending the city. She can't control lightning or speak to water. Her familiar is a sourdough starter, and her magic only works on bread. She has a comfortable life in her aunt's bakery making gingerbread men dance. But Mona's life is turned upside down when she finds a dead body on the bakery floor. An assassin is stalking the streets of Mona's city, preying on magic folk, and it appears that Mona is his next target. And in an embattled city suddenly bereft of wizards, the assassin may be the least of Mona's worries.

After finding a compass and clues left by Kallista's father, Leo Babbage, Trenton and Kallista head west aboard their homemade mechanical dragon to search for the missing inventor. The two teenagers hope to find answers about their mountain city of Cove, but instead, they find only a blackened forest, ruined buildings, and a small underground city. Almost immediately, Trenton and Kallista get caught up in a civil war between a clan of scavengers called Whipjacks and the Order of the Beast.

Being a beta tester for Radical Interactive was not the dream job Will had envisioned, but he had hoped it would get his foot in the door to one day becoming a graphic designer for the company. As he filled out his new-hire paperwork, he never realized he was literally signing his life away. Now a phenomenally successful company, Radical Interactive was secretly working on something behind closed doors that would change both the medical and gaming industries forever. The Realm was reborn. The only problem was that it wasn't a game - at least not to those trapped inside.

Facing down an unprecedented malevolent enemy, the government responds with a nuclear attack. America as it was is gone forever, and now every citizen - from the President of the United States to the homeless on the streets of New York City - will fight for survival. In a wasteland born of rage and fear, populated by monstrous creatures and marauding armies, earth's last survivors have been drawn into the final battle between good and evil, that will decide the fate of humanity.