Six-year-old Allie Sturmroz won't speak, and her recently broken suburban Colorado family has no idea what to do. When she comes upon flashcards from a West African language, she tries to use the new words to express herself. It isn't until she's introduced to a Ghanaian immigrant named Kwabena and her language skills begin to develop that the truth of her trauma steps into the light. Both heartbreaking and hope-filled, "The Bad Hand Fan" explores the healing power of bilingualism and how to find the words when your mother tongue has betrayed you.

**CURRENTLY A FEATURED STORY** highest ranking: #11 in Science fiction ❝true happiness is only achieved without freedom. There is a girl who wakes to a world that she was supposed to protect. Instead, she fights it. There is a man who is cursed with the ability to dream. A glass city is their cage, a city filled to the brim with unanimity and order, a paradise on an earth laid to waste by an artificial snowstorm. Sunlight filters through the glass buildings and through glass walls, pierces glass floors. It illuminates the city square when it is strongest at noon, surrounded by a huddled mass of citizens, all as perfect as the city they inhabit. And they all think: everything is as it should be. And it is. Or, it was. -- long live perfection.❞ (c)sarahgaier2016 #diverselit | #LoveEqualsLove | #helpfightcliches | #freethelgbtq | #badassreads check out my Science Fiction novella, Sector-33, here! https://www.wattpad.com/story/62174094-sector-33

Max Niekro, the undead juggernaut that brought the Risen into space to war against Earth's enemies, is gone. Left behind are the tattered remnants of the once-mighty force that defeated the Velkin and brought the Vanguard of the Blood to its knees, staring across the Abyss at two old foes that have raised their heads to focus their malevolence on Earth once more. Can Max's neo-shell clone, Two take up the reins that his progenitor carried and lead the Risen once more to victory? Or will two universes burn as a mad god and a K'ethik swarm try to consume the universe whole?

Enter a world where Humanity and her mutant offspring, the Dark Edge, live side by side, separated only by an elaborate conspiracy to keep the Dark Edge secret known simply as the Shield. A conspiracy that's about to fall as a group of psionics called the Brotherhood of Advanced Intellects plots to destroy mundane Humanity and supplant them with a super race of their own! Join Mordecai, a Lone Gunman, a powerful psionic tasked with preserving the Shield, Ingamon Lash, his vampire companion, and Tragedy McMaster, a human detective as they struggle to stop the Brotherhood from launching an all out war between Humanity and the Dark Edge.

A collection of short stories aimed at entertaining, electrifying and illustrating the various types of sci-fi genres as entries in the Pub's Sci-Fi Smackdown, ver 6.0

A collection of science fiction short stories written for Smackdowns or inclusion in Tevun-Krus, Oorah's monthly sci-fi e-zine. I just wanted to let you guys have access to them, since most of these stories end up in some contest anthology somewhere, getting dusty. Hope you enjoy them. If you see text high-lighted, that was done deliberately for the sake of a contest.

When May Alana's wish on a star brings a stranger to her remote island home, the pair must survive a deadly magical conflict in order to be together. ***** When May Alana, a scorned and anxiety-ridden young woman, finds a stranger on the beach of her remote island home, she wonders if this is the adventurous, accepting, and loving answer to her otherwise cloistered life. But as the pair grow closer, the stranger entrusts May with her brilliant secret: that she is half-Star in possession of otherworldly powers, and that a violent group of Star worshippers are out to destroy her. So if they want any chance of being together, they'll have to survive a deadly conflict between humans and mythological creatures first. THE STAR AND THE OCEAN is Book 1 in the Starborn Series Book 2: THE WIND AND THE HORIZON Book 3: THE FIRE AND THE SKY Cover illustration by Brittany Willows (@BrittanyMWillows) [[Watty Winner]] [[Wattpad LGBT Book of the Month]] [[word count: 70,000-80,000 words]]

Ty, a shift manager with an alcoholic wife, creates a female replicant in a dystopia veering toward full mechanization. For Ty, the surreal drudgery of working in a retail environment is interrupted when robotic interfaces are installed at his job. Any protest of the machines will prompt Prominents to place him in a re-education program, and that's if he's lucky. In an effort to distract himself from a failing marriage, Ty becomes obsessed with the idea of a printing a live composite. In a botched job, he ends up printing a female version of himself. Thanks to his clone, Samantha (or Sam as she insists being called), Ty and his family are in danger of being jailed by Prominent forces. A dangerous life of hiding in plain sight is nearly impossible to pull off, especially when Sam strays from simple Prominent edicts by dating a woman. Ty's reality begins to unravel and he is forced to new truths, all while coming to terms with the full-force of mechanization and violence that surrounds him. [Previously FEATURED] [WON FIC AWARD FOR BEST SCI-FI NOVEL] (EDITING, FEEL FREE TO POINT STUFF OUT) [FEATURES CHARACTERS FROM "THE DARK"] ***One of four Honorable Mentions for the Diverse Writer and Diverse World Grants from The Speculative Literature Foundation***

If the colonies at L5 represent the pinnacle of human existence, then L4 is the grittier reality upon which it is built. What does it take to survive there? In 2095 the Lagrange colony at L4 has a dark side. Kimiko is an Operational Supervisor in the light, but in the shadow she is Sayoko, a master of the cyberscape, a fixer with an edge. Thanks to her associate James she has tokens that create colourful costumes with great powers. But in this twilight world can even these be enough? This is the complete first draft. I won't be marking it complete until I have had a chance to clean it up. Current Chapter 5. Nothing Special (10 parts - double figures) Everything is calm after recent events. But is it really as peaceful as it seems? Current Part 10 of 10 Can the Kimiko stop Kervin escaping, and what about the VE and Sanderheim?

In KINGDOM OF THE NANOSAURS (book one of the trilogy THE KINGDOMS OF TIME AND SPACE), Morgan Lane’s phenomenal memory is used by the Guardians, the spiritual protectors of the animal kingdom, to memorise and protect The Cosmic Algorithm – the source code of all creation. The Guardians, who inhabit a breath propelled starship deep inside Mount Everest, have magically transported the animal kingdom to a new Eden. That’s when poetry loving, witty but shy, Morgan, who only believes in science and scorns magic and spirituality, suddenly becomes the most important person on Earth and finds his life in danger at the hands of fallen angels, cosmic parasites and a crazed scientist seeking world domination. Together with his friend Lin Rainbow, a Chinese-American girl who has the gift of prophecy, and Winston, his pet orangutan, transformed into a genius with the power of speech, Morgan embarks on a life threatening quest to save the world from cataclysmic events. These include the utter disappearance of all animal life on earth, the arrival of a legion of fallen angels known as the Shadix and the plans of a billionaire scientist, Marius Natzler (controlled by the Shadix), who has replaced the animal kingdom with a ‘Pandora’s Box’ of artificial, indestructible creatures called nanosaurs, to establish the ultimate New World Order and enslave mankind. The knowledge stored in Morgan’s astounding memory and the secret of Winston’s amazing transformation are coveted by Natzler who will stop at nothing to acquire them. Captured and imprisoned Morgan and friends must escape and stay alive long enough to locate the Guardians and enter the gateway to a parallel dimension where Morgan can use The Cosmic Algorithm to reprogram the Continuum and return the world to the Eden it was always supposed to be.