Alien artificial intelligence has brought humanity onto a galactic tunnel network Finding a match for the top human diplomat on Union Station is another story... Kelly Frank is EarthCent's top diplomat on Union Station, but her job description has always been a bit vague. The pay is horrible and she's in hock up to her ears for her furniture, which is likely to end up in a corridor because she's behind on rent for her room. Sometimes she has to wonder if the career she has put ahead of her personal life for fifteen years is worth it. When Kelly receives a gift subscription to the dating service that's rumored to be powered by the same benevolent artificial intelligence that runs the huge station, she decides to swallow her pride and give it a shot. But as her dates go from bad to worse, she can only hope that the supposedly omniscient AI is planning a happy ending.

"Good SciFi comedy is as rare as hen's teeth. This was a fun read."Kelly Frank is EarthCent's top diplomat on Union Station, but her job description has always been a bit vague. The pay is horrible and she's in hock up to her ears for her furniture, which is likely to end up in a corridor because she's behind on rent for her room. Sometimes she has to wonder if the career she has put ahead of her personal life for fifteen years is worth it.When Kelly receives a gift subscription to the dating service that's rumored to be powered by the same benevolent artificial intelligence that runs the huge station, she decides to swallow her pride and give it a shot. But as her dates go from bad to worse, she can only hope that the supposedly omniscient AI is planning a happy ending.

You can't hold a book fair without physical books. The Stryx offer EarthCent help in reaching out to the wide-spread human communities, but as usual, it comes with a catch or two. Kelly see an opportunity to increase her book hoard, just as publishing on Union Station begins to take off and Donna's daughters enter a friendly competition. But who will publish the most expensive book of all?

Can humanity remain an independent species or are we ripe for a takeover? Kelly heads to Earth for the first ever Conference of EarthCent Ambassadors in Manhattan, but while the cat's away, the mice will play. The cat has its own problems, as some of the people remaining on Earth don't believe in aliens, unless they're the blue type that appear in romance novels.

The alien diplomats are finally willing to talk to the ambassador. They must want something. Five years after the events of Date Night on Union Station, Kelly has settled into married life and her job as the EarthCent ambassador. The only fly in the ointment is that most of the aliens on Union Station refuse to talk to her. But a mysterious new game is sweeping the galaxy, changing the balance of power between species and bringing game-savvy humans front-and-center. As the invitations to diplomatic functions pour in, Kelly finds herself struggling to understand exactly what's going on, not to mention finding babysitters on short notice. Fortunately, diplomats and alcohol go together like, well, diplomats and alcohol, and Joe has started micro-brewery business in Mac's Bones. The only thing left that could go wrong is a visit from her mother.

"Show me a dragon. Show me a dragon." Meghan paused the mumbled incantation long enough to reach for the stone bottle and take a sip of watery beer for her parched throat. Most mages could get magical results without vocalizing their wishes, but despite years of practicing in secrecy, she still needed to shape and expel the words to get any action. "Show me a dragon. Show me a dragon." The bronze relic gripped in Meghan's left hand was her most precious possession, but it was so worn from handling that only the closest examination would reveal the outline of a dragon in flight. Once the emblem had stood out in proud relief from the surrounding metal and could be pressed into hot wax to create a seal. Now, worn around her neck on a leather cord, the medallion served a more important purpose as a lens and a reservoir for magic. Every day she worked with it for hours, using it to focus her search, while at the same time storing up her excess magical energy for what would be the turning point of her young life. "Show me a dragon. Show me a dragon." Her mind soared above Dark Earth like a bird of prey,watching for a hint of the pattern that would trigger an all-or-nothing effort. When she had embarked on the quest for a dragon in her fifteenth year of life, each outing had required nearly an hour of preparatory meditation to sharpen her concentration and awaken her senses. After two years of practice, Meghan was able to launch into the extra-dimensional search like slipping on an old dress, which, coincidentally, was the only sort of dress she owned. "Show me a dragon. Show me a dragon." The dragon pendant began to glow softly and vibrate in her hand, like a crystal that was tuning a sympathetic source of energy. Horrific scenes of battle and villainy danced before the girl's tightly shut eyes as she allowed every intense emotion rising from Dark Earth to sift through her consciousness. Before too long she'd have to break off and leave for work, but there was just enough time left to investigate the brightest death vision she had ever encountered. "Send me a dragon. Bring me the dragon!" For the first time in more astral outings than she could count, everything fell into alignment. With a muffled cry that expressed more pain than triumph, Meghan opened the floodgates and allowed her stored up magical energy to begin coursing from the relic clenched in her left hand, through her slight body, and into her outstretched right arm and hand. "You must come with me. NOW!"

Hugo Award Winner: In backwoods Wisconsin, an ageless hermit welcomes alien visitors—and foresees the end of humanity . . . Enoch Wallace is not like other humans. Living a secluded life in the backwoods of Wisconsin, he carries a nineteenth-century rifle and never seems to age—a fact that has recently caught the attention of prying government eyes. The truth is, Enoch is the last surviving veteran of the American Civil War and, for close to a century, he has operated a secret way station for aliens passing through on journeys to other stars. But the gifts of knowledge and immortality that his intergalactic guests have bestowed upon him are proving to be a nightmarish burden, for they have opened Enoch’s eyes to humanity’s impending destruction. Still, one final hope remains for the human race . . . though the cure could ultimately prove more terrible than the disease. Winner of the Hugo Award for Best Novel, Way Station is a magnificent example of the fine art of science fiction as practiced by a revered Grand Master. A cautionary tale that is at once ingenious, evocative, and compassionately human, it brilliantly supports the contention of the late, great Robert A. Heinlein that “to read science-fiction is to read Simak.”