Night Lights: An Anthology of Short Fiction: First Contact, Conspiracy, and Space Opera

"But just then, a strange thing happened. The easy chair floated off the floor and jettisoned across the room. The Nazi gunman froze, which was perfectly fine with me. I aimed just below his slick blond hair, right at his pretty Aryan face. Without going into the details, it wasn't so pretty anymore..." From Well, Haruki, Looks Like It's Just You and Me, Kid, by Daniel P. Douglas. "Hang tight, Commander. I've got everything under control." "No--Captain, wait!" Quasar jerked his head to terminate the transmission via the comm link in his collar. Activating his desktop intercom, he announced, "Attention all decks, this is your captain speaking. As if you didn't already know." He winked at no one in particular. Because he was alone. From Captain Bartholomew Quasar and the Devious Powers of Persuasion by Milo James Fowler. "We've been trying to tell people about what really happened on 9/11 for years!" Raymond grunted. "If they won't listen to us now with all the proof right in front of them, do you really think those sheep would have listened to a bunch of folks claiming to be time travelers from the future?" From Destructive Theories by Nick Nafpliotis. The short stories in Night Lights are populated with aliens, high and low technology, spaceships,--including one with divine aspirations and one helmed by an otter--humans and not-so-human artificial intelligences, Earth locales, and far-off new worlds. There's more too, and in each tale, the characters' struggles will stretch your imagination and sense of reality, while posing profound questions about morality, society and justice, and raising uncertainties of the unknown and unchecked technological evolution. With 21 original stories from talented, new authors about extraterrestrials, conspiracies, and space exploration, Night Lights is full of moments that will make you gasp, shudder, laugh, and wonder.