The Escape From 2026 Bundle - curated by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
If time travel existed, everyone would target 2026. Or maybe 2016. Or maybe 1980—or heck, 1875—depending on when you believe the seeds of this nightmare year were sown.
I proposed this bundle in late 2025, expecting 2026 to be bad…but holy mackerel! I didn't expect this. I think we've lived an entire century in the first six months of this year.
We definitely need an escape. And yes, all escapist fiction is good, but as I thought of this bundle, I thought about books that would take us out of 2026 and let us imagine a world different than the one we're in. Just a little tweak of the timestream, and we're somewhen else.
What unites the books in this bundle is their look at alternate history or at time travel itself. Because time travel can be a dicey proposition (she writes, as if time travel really exists), not every story in this bundle ends happily.
In fact, if you had to slap genres on these books, you'd find a cornucopia of differences. We have time travel romance courtesy of renown romance writer Kathryn Kaleigh, time travel romance with a Western flair from bestselling writer Dean Wesley Smith, and romantasy mixed with time travel from Lisa Silverthorne.
We have even more Westerns. Some, like Annie Reed's time travel Westerns, are historically accurate. Some, such as DeAnna Knippling's Weird West stories, not so much.
Courtesy of Ron Collins, we have a heart-of-the-game sports story. (What if someone steals baseball itself?)
We have alternate history. What if, for example, the summer vacation season was filled with monsters. Actual monsters. We have a plethora of them in Amazing Monster Tales, edited by DeAnna Knippling and Jamie Ferguson.
Story collections from Douglas Smith, Kari Kilgore, Leslie Claire Walker, and Michael Warren Lucas give us traditional time travel—the kind that posits what might happen if one small detail changes. Those collections also touch on the occasional alternate history.
Some of the monster tales border on light-hearted. Or just plain strange. We have a lot of strange here, thanks to Robert Jeschonek and Jason A. Adams. Those two men do not look at the world the way that the rest of us do.
Not even close.
And finally, my contribution. It's a minibundle of two related novels. The first novel is actual time travel/alternate history with a whole bunch of subgenres mashed into something that ends somewhat happily. The second novel, its forefather, is pure noir.
In other words, we can give you escapes that will meet your every mood—from light comedy to the darkest of dark visions. We promise different perspectives on the world we live in now and some wish fulfillment for life as it could have been.
This bundle contains twelve exclusive ebooks—books you can't find anywhere else. It also contains a classic writing workshop should you feel inspired to create your own time travel tale.
As with every StoryBundle, we ask that you contribute a small amount of your proceeds to our charity. We've chosen World Central Kitchen who, fortunately for the rest of us, actually live in the real world. They feed people in crisis, and heaven knows, there's a lot of crisis right now.
So pick up your escapes from 2026, donate a little to people who have no opportunity to escape even for a few hours, and earn our gratitude.
Here's how you do it. – Kristine Kathryn Rusch
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For StoryBundle, you decide what price you want to pay. For $5 (or more, if you're feeling generous), you'll get the basic bundle of three books in .epub format—WORLDWIDE.
If you pay at least the bonus price of just $30, you get all three of the regular books, plus TWELVE more books, for a total of 15! That's including twelve StoryBundle exclusives!
This bundle is available only for a limited time via http://www.storybundle.com. It allows easy reading on computers, smartphones, and tablets as well as Kindle and other ereaders via file transfer, email, and other methods. You get a DRM-free .epub for all books!
It's also super easy to give the gift of reading with StoryBundle, thanks to our gift cards – which allow you to send someone a code that they can redeem for any future StoryBundle bundle – and timed delivery, which allows you to control exactly when your recipient will get the gift of StoryBundle.
Why StoryBundle? Here are just a few benefits StoryBundle provides.
StoryBundle was created to give a platform for independent authors to showcase their work, and a source of quality titles for thirsty readers. StoryBundle works with authors to create bundles of ebooks that can be purchased by readers at their desired price. Before starting StoryBundle, Founder Jason Chen covered technology and software as an editor for Gizmodo.com and Lifehacker.com.
For more information, visit our website at storybundle.com, tweet us at @storybundle and like us on Facebook.
