This was my first self-published ebook, back in 2013. Since then, I've made it about twenty times longer, with dozens of stories in it now, and it's available for free (a downloadable pdf) from https://self.gutenberg.org/, in an expanded edition, here. All my free ebooks are at https://self.gutenberg.org/Authors/KevinWadeJohnson.
* * *
Why does the hunter have a crossbow instead of a gun? Why do he and his people hate those on the other side of an interdimensional Gate? Why do they feel they "got a pig in a poke"? He's not hot with rage though; he's Ice Cold.
Hurt...damaged...trudging through snow, a banished soldier makes a surprising discovery. Maybe there's hope. Maybe there's no need to just fade away and die. Maybe there's return from Exile.
A bustling multidimensional civilization; expansion based on Explorers, Experts, and Enforcers. A man who is one of the foremost Experts takes his uncanny talents to a nexus of tremendous possibility. But things go badly wrong at Majoros-Taff Vale. Will he overcome the reasons the nexus and its development site are called Emptyville?
* * *
Expanded Edition table of contents:
The Original Ice Cold
Ice Cold
Exile
Emptyville
Libertarian Worlds
Glamour Angel
Numb
Run
Cinnamon Girl
Love? I Can Get It for You Wholesale
Unauthorized Intrusion
Body Guard
You've Seen the Video, Now Read the Story
Parallel Worlds
The Only One in the World
Exit Ramp
A Friend in Need
Reflective Phase
Time Travel
About Time
One More Time
Time Change
Science Fiction
Warrior of Empire
Free! (Dark)
Free!
First Contact
The Alien Woman
Fantasy
A World of Dream and Nightmare
Devil of a Storm
North Woods Werewolf
Princess Katana
Invincible
Horror
Botnet
Half Seen
Surly Bonds
Vampire Country
If Psychic Powers Are Real, Where Are They?
Resistance
Doctor
A Door Closed
Hector
Superheroes
Nightwatch: Dusk and Dawn
The Environment
Knightside
Rising
+Blinded by the—
Humor
Another Friday Night in the Multiverse
Immortality at Last!
Roman in Time
Bugs
Suddenly Ninjas Came Through the Window
The Lost Heir of Generica
The Bureaucracy of the Rings
Early Efforts
Not…Human
Death of a Captain
Riven
City of the Dead
A Time to Remember
Young Adult
The Enchanted Treehouse
Sam's Tale: The Girl Who Fought
Pets/Tearjerkers
Old Abby
Percival's Thanksgiving
Mainstream/Holiday
Christmas Is Just Another Day
"Christmas Is All a Lie!"
Christmas Storm
The Christmas Sweater
Christmas Alone
Goblin Hound
Hosanna Hound
Et in Arcadia Ego