USA Today bestselling writer Dean Wesley Smith weaves a tale of survival in a devastated future world. When Carey Noack returns to the ruined Portland, Oregon, hoping to meet other survivors after three years of living alone, she doesn’t expect the man of her dreams. At first, Matt Ladel, the only person living in the old city, thinks he imagined the beautiful woman weaving through dead cars. Then he finds the reality behind the fantasy. Suddenly, the two experts in survival and living alone must learn to work together, and trust again, in the face of an even greater danger. A novel of hope and a new future, Dust and Kisses is the prequel novel to Dean Wesley Smith’s popular Seeders Universe series.

About a year ago I had an assignment from editor John Helfers to write a story for his Fiction River: How to Save the World anthology. Now understand, I am one of the executive editors on the Fiction River line of anthologies. But the editors of each volume have the final call on the stories in each volume (within reason). John had been pretty clear on what he wanted, but I had written “The Lady and the Seeders” a month before, starting it from the title and hadn’t done anything with it. And it was about saving the world, after all. So I sent it to John just to see if he was going to expand out his directions enough to include it. He wasn’t. He liked the story, though, and Kris liked the story, and I was kind of fond of it as well. But in his rejection letter to me, he said it felt like a novel. Now, as an editor, I say that to writers at times myself. Often frustrating to the poor writer, but in this case, John was right. It did feel like a plot of a novel. Sort of. So I put the story away and as I started into this Smith’s Monthly, I decided to write the novel from the short story. It’s called Against Time and it was in Smith’s Monthly #3. There are tiny parts of the story in the novel, and characters have shifted around, but the core of the book is similar to the short story. So here in this fourth issue, I thought it would be fun and interesting to readers to show the short story that started the novel you read last month. Enjoy.

Paleontologist Callie Sheridan spent a few days deep in the Oregon Caves on a dig with three students from the University of Oregon. When they emerged, they found almost everyone in the world dead. Survival became her only thought. Mathematician and galactic explorer Vardis Fisher dropped into orbit over a planet where almost all of the human life had been recently killed for no obvious reason. Suddenly, hundreds of other ships, all human, appear in orbit and start working to save the planet’s remaining population. Together, Callie and Fisher work to discover the secrets of a galaxy that has been hidden in plain sight, even from the powerful humans who rescued millions. And in the process, they just might change everything.

USA Today bestselling author Dean Wesley Smith returns to a not-so-distant future in his acclaimed Seeders Universe series. Mattie Silks must team up with the most unlikely of partners to save the sector from a ruthless dictator. But her problem with Red Simms stems from more than just his work with Innocence Incorporated. She can’t keep her hands off him. And he can’t seem to keep his hands off her either. With or without love, the two of them must save the galaxy. USA Today bestselling author Dean Wesley Smith published more than a hundred novels in thirty years and hundreds and hundreds of short stories across many genres. He wrote a couple dozen Star Trek novels, the only two original Men in Black novels, Spider-Man and X-Men novels, plus novels set in gaming and television worlds. Writing with his wife Kristine Kathryn Rusch under the name Kathryn Wesley, they wrote the novel for the NBC miniseries The Tenth Kingdom and other books for Hallmark Hall of Fame movies. He wrote novels under dozens of pen names in the worlds of comic books and movies, including novelizations of a dozen films, from The Final Fantasy to Steel to Rundown. He now writes his own original fiction under just the one name, Dean Wesley Smith. In addition to his upcoming novel releases, his monthly magazine called Smith’s Monthly premiered October 1, 2013, filled entirely with his original novels and stories. Dean also worked as an editor and publisher, first at Pulphouse Publishing, then for VB Tech Journal, then for Pocket Books. He now plays a role as an executive editor for the original anthology series Fiction River. For more information go to www.deanwesleysmith.com, www.smithsmonthly.com or www.fictionriver.com.

USA Today bestselling writer returns to the world of his latest novel, Dust and Kisses, the first of many books that span time and space in his Seeders’ Universe. In this heartfelt story, Tammy works with her best friend and love, Hal, to help in the formal discovery and burial of the dead lost in the Big Death. The survivors call the task The Respect Project. On a Portland, Oregon, suburban street, Tammy discovers from the tragedy of a family that the future can be a hopeful place.

USA Today bestselling author Dean Wesley Smith returns to his fan-favorite Seeders Universe series with a third novel, Morning Song. A massive ship powers toward the Milky Way Galaxy, threatening to destroy entire worlds. The rogue ship, the size of a moon, seems to have no entrance. With little time before millions die, Maria Boone and Roscoe Mundy must somehow take a small team into the massive ship to stop it. A galaxy-spanning tale of adventure and suspense and the humanity that can exist in a vast culture.

USA Today bestselling author Dean Wesley Smith returns to his fan-favorite Seeders Universe series with a fifth novel, The High Edge. Benny Slade lives in New York City. One moment the city around him (and everyone he knows) seems normal. The next moment, everyone dies. Working to survive among the dead (and plan for a future) feels impossible, but Benny doesn’t give up easily. Especially when he meets the woman of his dreams, and she offers to help him and others survive. And then she offers him an even a bigger job, a job that could take him out into the stars.

A dead alien ship appears close to human space. But in millions of years, no alien race managed to leave its own galaxy.The alien ship originated in a galaxy over two hundred thousand years of travel away. But the Seeders need to know about the alien race, in case they are a threat. Star Mist takes on the vast scale of the Seeders Universe and expands it even more.Galaxy-spanning science fiction at its very best.

The fight with the genetically engineered aliens seems impossible. Benny and Gina, both Seeders, stand on the bridge of their massive mother ship knowing they needed miracles to win. They both know that if they work long enough and hard enough, miracles might happen. Centuries worth of work. A massive-scale Seeders Universe story that started in the novel Star Mist.

Most of humanity died one ugly day four years before. Now the survivors wanted to rebuild. Angie Park’s job consisted of telling survivors outside of Portland, Oregon, of the plans to rebuild. But some survivors wanted nothing to do with civilization. And some thought killing worth the price to pay to stay alone. In the galaxy-spanning Seeders Universe, “A Bad Patch of Humanity” focuses down on an early event in Angie Park’s life, an event that starts her on her path to becoming a woman of legend in a hundred galaxies.

A single Seeder scout ship trapped on the edge of a distant, uncharted galaxy. Chairman Peter German holds the fate of the three thousand people on the Pale Light. Main drives mysteriously not working, the ship hobbles along at sub-light speed with not enough supplies to reach the nearest Earth-like planet The Chairman faces a hard, hard choice. He must find the solution. Galaxy spanning ships, billions of civilizations, the Seeders Universe stories and novels cover it all. But “A Matter for a Future Year” brings it all down to a single human choice. And the price paid by those who risk to explore outward.

The Dreaming Large, a Seeders mother ship, vanishes without a trace while approaching the edge of a galaxy. Chairman West and his crew on the Rescue One must find out what happened to the huge mother ship. And the over half-million lives on it. But as they approach the galaxy’s edge, the last known position of the big moon-sized mother ship, what they find surprises them all. They find nothing. Absolutely nothing. A galaxy-spanning science fiction story of the unknowns in space.

Seeders never do anything in a small way, including their sports. Matt and Carey, the chairmen of the Starburst ship Star Fall started a yearly relay race from the very front of their ship to the tail and back again. An extreme relay of over nine thousand kilometers run by ten-member teams. But before the race could start, a scout ship vanishes inside a shielded galaxy. Who could put a shield around an entire galaxy? And why? A galaxy-spanning tale of adventure, suspense, and the vast possibilities of space.

Exploring the vastness of The mission of the massive Starburst ships. Chairmen Cole and Echo of the Starburst ship Star Trail get wrapped up in finding lost ancient cultures. And in the process find far more than they ever could imagine. Starburst takes the vast Seeders Universe and expands it yet again beyond where humans dare go.

USA Today and New York Times bestselling writer Dean Wesley Smith offers up five fantastic space opera stories in his bestselling Seeders Universe series. The people of Earth thought they alone represented humankind. But when Earth falls, the truth about the origin of the universe shatters that myth. And sometimes one answer only leads to more questions… These five stories show different parts of the massive Seeders Universe and offer a taste of the Billion Earths that can be found in all the Seeders novels.

In deep space, bubbles of void space form to keep a balance between matter, space, and time. Inside these bubbles, time barely exists. Five days for a ship trapped in a bubble might be equal to millions of years in real time. For seven million years, Seeders did not know these bubbles existed and ships kept just vanishing until Chairman Evan West discovered the Void Space Bubbles and learned how to free trapped ships. Now Chairman West, his wife Tammy, and the thirty-five-thousand crew of the Rescue Two must find and free the ancient Seeder ships. A galaxy-spanning rescue mission like no other before it.

Seeders ship Rescue Two rescues lost ships trapped in Void Space Bubbles. Often trapped for millions of years. While in search of an ancient lost ship, Rescue Two discovers something in a bubble they can hardly imagine. This short story was a chapter in the Rescue Two Seeders novel.