Being abducted by aliens was the best thing to ever happen to Carla. She was failing at being an adult: no job, no love life, and on the brink of eviction. But her luck changed the night the aliens snatched her. Now she’s on an outlaw planet filled with the worst people the universe has to offer. Is it tough? Absolutely, but Carla isn’t merely surviving. She’s thriving. She has a nice little con going. While she plays the weak and frightened human, her partner in crime robs the marks. Simple. Easy. Profitable. Until that gargoyle got involved. Ari fancies himself some type of do-gooder, swooping in to rescue her when she’s doing just fine, thanks. So what if he’s charming and good looking for a guy with skin that can turn to stone? Not to mention the pair of wings he’s sporting or the crown of horns that makes her wonder what it’d be like to grab, yank him down to look him right in the eyes and kiss him… Nope. She’s not attracted to him. Be quiet. One wrong roll of the dice and a job goes wrong. Now she’s stuck with the infuriatingly cocky gargoyle. If this rock-headed alien thinks she’ll make this easy, well, his luck just ran out. Alien's Luck is a stand alone adventure in on an outlaw planet with an HEA and no cheating.

A New York Times bestseller • A New York Times Notable Book “The tale of how Konnikova followed a story about poker players and wound up becoming a story herself will have you riveted, first as you learn about her big winnings, and then as she conveys the lessons she learned both about human nature and herself.” —The Washington Post It's true that Maria Konnikova had never actually played poker before and didn't even know the rules when she approached Erik Seidel, Poker Hall of Fame inductee and winner of tens of millions of dollars in earnings, and convinced him to be her mentor. But she knew her man: a famously thoughtful and broad-minded player, he was intrigued by her pitch that she wasn't interested in making money so much as learning about life. She had faced a stretch of personal bad luck, and her reflections on the role of chance had led her to a giant of game theory, who pointed her to poker as the ultimate master class in learning to distinguish between what can be controlled and what can't. And she certainly brought something to the table, including a Ph.D. in psychology and an acclaimed and growing body of work on human behavior and how to hack it. So Seidel was in, and soon she was down the rabbit hole with him, into the wild, fiercely competitive, overwhelmingly masculine world of high-stakes Texas Hold'em, their initial end point the following year's World Series of Poker. But then something extraordinary happened. Under Seidel's guidance, Konnikova did have many epiphanies about life that derived from her new pursuit, including how to better read, not just her opponents but far more importantly herself; how to identify what tilted her into an emotional state that got in the way of good decisions; and how to get to a place where she could accept luck for what it was, and what it wasn't. But she also began to win. And win. In a little over a year, she began making earnest money from tournaments, ultimately totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars. She won a major title, got a sponsor, and got used to being on television, and to headlines like "How one writer's book deal turned her into a professional poker player." She even learned to like Las Vegas. But in the end, Maria Konnikova is a writer and student of human behavior, and ultimately the point was to render her incredible journey into a container for its invaluable lessons. The biggest bluff of all, she learned, is that skill is enough. Bad cards will come our way, but keeping our focus on how we play them and not on the outcome will keep us moving through many a dark patch, until the luck once again breaks our way.

A busboy with the power to kill with a glance, and a vendetta against the President. The guy in the next cubicle has launched The Revolution, and his first target - the marketing department! Joan of Arc is back, and she's blogging! Edgar Allan Poe, another poor sap dead thanks to Election Day. A girl with the power to destroy the universe...once she gets out of rehab. Three weeks after the Singularity, it's up to the planet's last psychotherapist to solve the mystery of the first posthuman murder. And, of course, Joey Ramone saves the world. You might sleep, but after reading these stories you'll never dream in quite the same way again.

Reazus Prime is a hard planet. Once a prison, it was abandoned once the mines dried up and the Overlords could no longer turn a profit off the prisoners. Now it’s a haven for outlaws, pirates, and anyone holding a grudge against authority. It’s isolated, alone, and the only ships coming are the worst sort. One such ship carrying a cargo of abducted human women, explodes in orbit. A lucky few were ejected in pods, only to crash on the outlaw planet. Now the race is on to find and claim the human females. Aliens and Outlaws contains three complete novels: Alien's Challenge, Alien's Heart, and Alien's Luck. Each story is packed with adventure, humor, and steam.

Originally published in Great Britain by Profile Books Ltd, 2016.

More than a book, more than a non-fiction read, more than a memoir, CONFESSIONS OF A SURVIVING ALIEN will engage the reader like most have never experienced. It will take them through a maze of lifes pathos, and elicit the emotions of sadness, joy, pain, regret, guilt, remorse, pride, fear, revenge, happiness, forgiveness, evil, good, and much uniquely intertwined with humor, often times outrageously so. Although defined by the premise of Vietnam, it is much more than another war account, to the contrary. It is more often the dredge of a neophyte Marine trying to get more into the war and action, than out of it. It is more about his disillusionment in practically every aspect of that officially declared police action, but not in ways one might expect. It is more about his evolution and regression as a human being and inner torment, including feelings of alienation. The book starts at the end, and ends with the start, with a chronological account in between, covering four parts: Before Vietnam (BV), During Vietnam (DV), After Vietnam (AV), and finally, After Marines (AM). The story covers the life of a young American, and follows his incredible journey through the decades to find himself, to explore every possibility of livingand nearly dyingand reach some hopeful level of success, however that is defined. From having a unique tour in Vietnam, to escorting deceased Marines to their families and final resting place, to his life threatened by a mob guy, to learning about a deeply held family secret concerning his father, to experiencing a profound spiritual experience in the unlikely locale of Beverly Hills, California, and much more, author Jon Meades biggest challenge may be getting readers to believe his surreal story. He merely shrugs and says, I am just a very ordinary guy, with an extraordinary life to convey. It is nothing less, nor more than that. Maybe, he admits, in the end analysis, success in life is merely surviving life, failures and all. With that admission and a very personal and engaging approach and writing style, the genre of Memoirs may never be the same.

"Hollywierd" comes to Middletown! Wally's a superstar! A movie company has chosen our hero to be eaten by their mechanical "Mutant from Mars!" It's a close race as to which will consume Wally first - the disaster-plagued special-effects "monster" or his own out-of-control pride. . . Until he learns the cost of true friendship and of God's command for humility.