Bøger af Kevin McLaughlin

What can you do when the thing you hate most in the world is also the only thing which might keep you alive? ★★★★★Ryan Blackwell never wanted to have magical abilities. He'd rather leave them as far behind him as possible - and never look back! Arriving at the military college of Northshield University was supposed to be a chance to start over and build a new life for himself. One without magic, thank you very much!But Northshield holds a secret: a powerful nexus of ley lines. Where these converging lines of raw magical force intersect, strange things can happen and even stranger beings are attracted to the site. Almost overnight Ryan is faced with a choice: accept his magic or die.But even that may not be enough, because as the threats grow stronger and students begin dying, even Ryan will find his power tested to the limit.Giving up isn't an option, and flight is impossible. That only leaves one path to survival...fight back!

Summer break is supposed to be relaxing for college students, but not for Ryan Blackwell.Leaving campus means heading back home and potentially having to deal with his Dad, which is enough all by itself to make him wish he could be anyplace else. But then he runs into a hellcat: a magical creature capable of stripping the magic away from a victim. The hellcat might not even be the most dangerous enemy prowling out there, either!He's alone. Without backup or support. When Ryan finds himself cut off from his magic he must rely on his wits and will to survive.Beating his foes will require him to recover his powers, but that's easier said than done. He'll have to evade assassins and defeat a hellish creature that was created to hunt down spell-casters like himself.No one said life was easy. But for Ryan, it's going to be almost impossible to escape the Claws That Catch!

Earth is dying.The damage done to Earth's biosphere by the supernova is extensive and ongoing. Humanity's only chance of surviving is to deepen their tenuous alliance with the alien race, also fleeing the supernova's devastation.Repair the alien ship and build a duplicate for human evacuation. It should be easy enough.But not every human is agreed on the best course of action. Someone would rather take control of the ships for their own purposes, and if Jackson and King can't figure out who it is and stop them, humanity's odds of surviving slip from slim to none.

When the alien Naga attacked Earth, they took everything from Owen McInness. His home was destroyed, his parents killed in front of him. He hated the invaders with every fiber of his being and dedicated his life to making them pay for what they'd done. But that anger was burning him up from the inside. Soon his Academy career was in tatters. Owen is offered one final chance to make a difference - if he can conquer the hate boiling inside him. But redemption is never easy, especially when one's heart is clad in steel.

The crew races against time to learn more about the deadly Naga, an enigmatic race of alien predators who will stop at nothing to find the starship Satori. A risky mission is put together: a return to the dead world where they first encountered the Naga. There the crew will try to wrest the information they so desperately need directly from the satellite defenses the aliens placed to blockade the planet. It should be a simple scouting run. They'll be in and out before the Naga have any idea they are even there. But no plan survives contact with the enemy.

Nothing is meaner than a hungry dragon. Except maybe a newly-hatched dragon, so when Valeria found herself scooped up and deposited into a dragon nest as snack-food, she figured it was all over but the munching. But what she thought was the end was actually the beginning of a saga which would bring two warring species together as partners. Can a dragon and a human form a bond strong enough to survive a world which will do anything to drive them apart? Excerpt: Valeria felt again like she couldn't move. The red dragon snorted, smoke boiling from its nose. Then it stalked toward her and the baby dragon she held. The dragonet struggled free from her hold and took a step toward the massive red. It opened its mouth and gave a short but loud squawk. The red dragon eyed the baby then all at once its head rushed in, jaws wide, teeth snapping shut. Valeria thought the little one was done for, but the red hadn't struck to kill. Its teeth closed only inches away from the dragonet. It wanted the dragonet's fear, not just its flesh. Somehow that got past the terror locking Valeria's limbs in place. She knew about people who wanted others to fear them. There were always human beings like that in the world. Probably always had been. Valeria guessed that perhaps the same was true of dragons. But she hadn't tolerated that from people, and she was damned sure not going to put up with it from a dragon, either! In one fluid motion, she nocked an arrow and fired. A second arrow was on its way to her bow before the first impacted. The first shot deflected off the red's scaled snout, but that got it to turn its head, veering away from her, which exposed the wounded around near its right eye. Valeria's second shot sank into the scales just under the eye. The red dragon opened its mouth and roared, the volume enough to break through her hearing loss and shake the very stones beneath her feet. It clawed at its face and hammered its tail against the cliff face. Rocks rained down. She'd hurt it! Good enough. Maybe it shouldn't have picked on someone helpless. Valeria doubted it would learn the intended lesson, but it was worth giving anyway. She readied another arrow.

A nearby supernova...and an impending first contact...will change humanity forever. From the multiple USA Today bestselling author of Accord of Honor, Ad Astra, and more than sixty other books, and debut author Elizabeth McLaughlin comes a spellbinding sci-fi thriller about two people's desperate struggle to save humanity from extinction. In the near future, a supernova erupts unexpectedly in a nearby star. There was no warning, no evidence that the star could ignite in such a way. Humanity stands on the brink of extinction as Earth is bombarded with particles from the stellar explosion, wreaking havoc. An alien ship has arrived near Earth's moon only hours before light from the supernova. Have they come to help, or are they mortal enemies who plan to take advantage of the supernova's EMP to stage an invasion? Doctor Alexandra King never knew that the paper she once wrote about theoretical xeno-psychology would lead the US government to consider her their foremost expert on the subject. Ace pilot David Jackson has been assigned a mission which might save humanity - or doom it - and he won't know which until after he's done the job. Join them as they struggle to make sense of a changed world and do whatever it takes to ensure the human race has a shot at surviving the Supernova Cycle!

Earth is in danger, and we have no 'planet b' to retreat toward if the enemy strikes at our home.But there is one planet so remote that even the Kkiktchikut might not be able to find it.Using their star-drives together, The Satori and Independence can reach the extra-galactic star that Beth accidentally discovered. Scans of the solar system showed a planet humans might be able to colonize.But space exploration is never without surprises.The team sets out on a mission of exploration - which quickly turns into a desperate fight for survival!

A wild jump into uncharted space saves the starship Satori and her crew from their near brush with death. With a badly damaged ship and injured crew, the planet with breathable air they find on the far side of their jump seems like a stroke of luck. But they quickly learn that they've only gone from one danger into another far greater threat. The planet they find is ruined, abandoned, and devastated by some long ago war. Was it once the home of the civilization that built the wormhole drive? What happened to them? As the crew begin their search for clues, they stumble across the remnants of a war a thousand years old and an enemy more terrifying than anything mankind has ever faced. Excerpt: "Oh," Beth said in a distracted voice. 
"Beth, what the heck is up with you?" Dan went beside her to see what she was looking at. She was watching a radar screen, showing the airspace around them. It was pretty easy to read. Satori was dead center on the screen, and everything in the air nearby showed up with a number next to it showing relative altitude. When he'd last looked at the screen, there was nothing except the occasional satellite passing overhead. That had changed. 
That had changed a lot.
 Something very large was flying into radar range, about thirty miles above them and coming down fast. As he watched, the object broke apart, smaller bits flying off.
 "Majel, what is it? Asteroid?" Dan asked. The larger object was still showing as about five hundred meters long and nearly half as wide. If it was a rock, it was going to make one hell of a crater, and they'd need to be long gone before it came down. 
"Negative," came the computer's answer. "Object is decelerating." This book is a heavily revised second edition of the original volume. The story length has been increased by about 20%, adding enormously more background to the characters and deepening of the personality of the world and crew. If you've already read the first edition, you won't need to read this version to catch up - but fans of the series are sure to enjoy this expanded and improved "Author's Preferred Edition"!

In this anthology, containing 455 haiku, editor Kevin McLaughlin presents 132 haikuists. 125 of the haiku are new and have not been previously published. Most were published in Better Than Starbucks issues 2016-2020.