Toby Frost

Sharks - the ultimate predators, masters of their watery domain, a world that is entirely alien and inhospitable to man. So many aspects of the shark are associated with humankind's most primal fears. The tell-tale dorsal fin slicing through the water, the dead eyed-stare, the gaping jaws full to unforgiving teeth, the remorseless drive to kill and feed...Inspired by such classic pulp movies as Jaws and Deep Blue Sea - as well as such ludicrous delights as Sharknado and Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus - the stories contained within are rip-roaring page-turners and slow-build chillers that celebrate all things savage, pulp and selachian. Covering the whole range of speculative fiction genres, from horror and Steampunk, through to SF and WTF, these are stories with bite! Come on in. The water's fine...

The lemming men of Yullia are rushing headlong towards the cliffs of destiny, and they intend to take the British Space Empire with them. When moral fibre clashes with lemming spirit, only one thing is certain – surrender is no longer an option. In the back-streets of Ravnavar, greatest planet of the Space Empire, revolution stirs. Someone will have to go deep undercover, take on the robot underworld and reveal what lies behind the mysterious Popular Front. Worst of all, Major Wainscott – commando and nudist – has gone renegade in the most dangerous jungle in the galaxy. Someone will have to travel upriver, terminate Wainscott’s command and make him put some trousers on. That someone is Isambard Smith. Once more, Smith and his crew must leap into action, civilise the galaxy and force legions of angry rodents to stop their nonsense at once. Smith is destined to topple a mighty empire. The only question is – whose empire will it be?

From the depths of Space a new foe rises to do battle with mankind: the British Space Empire is threatened by the lemming-people of Yull, ruthless enemies who attack without mercy, fear or any concept of self preservation. At the call of their war god, the Yull have turned on the Empire, hell bent on conquest and destruction in their rush towards the cliffs of destiny. When the Yullian army is forced to retreat at the battle of the River Tam, the disgraced Colonel Vock swears revenge on the clan of Suruk the Slayer, Isambard Smith's homicidal alien friend. Now Smith and his crew must defend the Empire and civilise the stuffing out of a horde of bloodthirsty lemming-men - which would be easy were it not for a sinister robotics company, a Ghast general with a fondness for genetic engineering and an ancient brotherhood of Morris Dancers - who may yet hold the key to victory.

Tea… a beverage brewed from the fermented dried leaves of the shrub Camellia sinensis and imbibed by all the great civilisations in the galaxy’s history; a source of refreshment, stimulation and, above all else, of moral fibre - without which the British Space Empire must surely crumble to leave Earth at the mercy of its enemies. Sixty per cent of the Empire’s tea is grown on one world – Urn, principal planet of the Didcot system. If Earth is to keep fighting, the tea must flow!When a crazed cult leader overthrows the government of Urn, Isambard Smith and his vaguely competent crew find themselves saddled with new allies: a legion of tea-obsessed nomads, an overly-civilised alien horde and a commando unit so elite that it only has five members. Only together can they defeat the self-proclaimed God Emperor of Didcot and confront the true power behind the coup: the sinister legions of the Ghast Empire and Smith’s old enemy, Commander 462.

In the 25nd Century the British Space Empire faces the gathering menace of the evil ant-soldiers of the Ghast Empire hive, hell-bent on galactic domination and the extermination of all humanoid life.Isambard Smith is the square-jawed, courageous and somewhat asinine new commander of the clapped out and battle damaged light freighter John Pym, destined to take on the alien threat because nobody else is available. Together with his bold crew – a skull collecting alien lunatic, an android pilot who is actually a fugitive sex toy and a hamster called Gerald – he must collect new-age herbalist Rhianna Mitchell from the laid back New Francisco orbiter and bring her back to safety in the Empire. Straightforward enough – except the Ghasts want her too. If he is to get back to Blighty alive, Smith must defeat void sharks, a universe-weary android assassin and John Gilead, psychopathic naval officer from the fanatically religious Republic of New Eden before facing his greatest enemy: a ruthless alien warlord with a very large behind…