Humanity has moved on after the Benson Disaster. In the decades following the loss of the space station along with almost its entire crew a new kind of life has been forged out even further into the Veil Nebula aboard a new type of habitat: The Barringer. But a connection back to Jake Dixon, the man who sacrificed everything to stop a nameless horror reaching Earth, now pulls back those few survivors and an all-new crew to face fresh monsters and familiar terror. From Earth to the cold vacuum of space light years away, from the fragile artificial environment of space stations to the frozen terror of a dead planet... brace yourself. Mankind believes it has tamed the organism freed from the dark years ago. Survivors believe they have seen the last of that horror and those that died stopping it. What they don't know is that they're in John Carpenter's universe and all bets are off. The tendrils are back! The heroics are bigger! The monsters are nastier! And the ride is far from over as the VORTEX reopens.

From the mind of John Carpenter and the heart of Sandy King, the monthly anthology series, John Carpenter's Tales of Science Fiction was born. The definitive collection of stories at the crossroads of horror and sci-fi, each mini series explores the universal fears of the unknown, from the outer reaches of space, to the inner depths of the human mind. Follow us into dark futures with tales of alien encounters, interstellar travel, mind control, and a good hard look into the abyss. This first collection includes the first five Tales of Science Fiction story arcs, from some of the greatest horror writers of our time, from film, television, novels and comics, and features artists from around the globe. We hope you enjoy these tales as much as we do.

Since college, Steven Allard and Benjamin Raines have competed to be the first to make genuine alien contact. Corporate mega-science versus home-grown improvisation. Now they both apparently succeed at the same time -- but one such contact is a transmission, and the other seems to be a ghost. What Steven calls "the Envoy" offers enormous benefits to humankind on Earth. But Ben receives another, more sinister Creature who warns against the Envoy's generosity. It's all a false handshake as a prelude to stripping Earth of every single consumable resource ... but how do you say no to an instant cure for cancer? Ben Raines must race time and go to war against his best friend to try and stop the Earth from being ravaged. And how can he prove the Creature is not just another greedy invader?

Noted scientist Dr. Jordan Correll has discovered an amazing new mineral power source, but he had to crawl up out of the depths of the Earth to bring it back. Convicted murderer Marion Marshall Dix claims to have returned from the same Hell after being deposited there by an earthquake. Multinational conglomerate CalEx wants the discovery first ... so a bad-ass team is organized to go get it, pronto. Except the subsurface labyrinth known as the Underneath is not without its own civilization -- not a Biblical Hell, but a practical one, which has just begun to send emissaries topside after years in shadow. One of these, a half-human, half-gargoyle named Kartkas, also acts as a "guide" for the exploratory sortie. But this first contact isn't so civilized. The Underneath teems with real monsters and double-crosses to challenge both our firepower, and the occult expertise of team lead Stephanie Billings, who has to tell the entire story of a "first contact" that actually dates back centuries -- to our oldest fears, to our most classic nightmares of demons, devils and the battle to survive against them.

When the moon-bound crew of Gaia stumbles across an enormous alien vessel, more technologically advanced than their own, priorities change. The mystery deepens when the crew discovers the name of the vessel along the hull... written in English: VAULT. John Carpenter's Tales of Science Fiction: VAULT is the entire first story of John Carpenter's monthly anthology series collected for the first time in Trade Paperback.

Marnie Young, an executive assistant in San Diego, is a sweet girl who wouldn't hurt a fly. She's also super lonely. But one night, without warning, Marnie has a violent seizure; co-workers recoil in horror as she writhes on the floor. Two days later, Marnie wakes up in a hospital room. As her vision comes into focus, she sees 17 doctors and nurses dead on the floor, blood splattered everywhere. Soon she discovers the shocking truth: Marnie has become lethal, and everyone who comes within three feet of her dies instantly! Which is really going to mess up her dating life (if she had one). Is there a cure? Will anyone ever get close enough to find out?

From the mind of John Carpenter and the heart of Sandy King, the monthly anthology series, John Carpenter's Tales of Science Fiction was born.In Volume 1 of Vortex, Space Station Benson, deep in the Veil Nebula, is a small slice of humanity almost 1,500 light years from Earth. When it receives a distress call from a mining asteroid, a rescue team is dispatched lead by Jake Dixon, a man who is to some a hero but to others a murderer. When the rescue goes horrifically wrong an investigation sets out to discover what happened on the asteroid and how so many people came to die. What they discover threatens not only to overwhelm and destroy them, but ultimately could devour all life back home on Earth.VORTEX 2.0 picks up the threads of the first volume many years later as the few who survived are pulled back together, along with a new crew on a new kind of deep space habitat that once again is in danger of falling to the darkness that Dixon and his team faced down two decades before. Those that were heroes once are now branded criminals as terror and horror begins to unfold on an unprecedented scale. This is the kind of story that could only exist in the John Carpenter universe so strap in and brace yourself. It's going to be a HELL of a ride.