What if you had the power to rewind time? Make a scene in a restaurant, give your boss the finger, rob a bank just to see how it feels - you could satisfy any whim, fulfill any desire, make any wish you'd ever had come true. The man who wanders into Father Holder's Las Vegas confessional says he has just such a power. The ultimate in wish fulfillment, he calls it. And if something goes wrong? No problem. He just rewinds. He's the man who never makes mistakes.
Until, in a moment of weakness, he succumbs to the darkest impulse he's ever had - and can't find a way to undo it.
This remarkable tale leads off Scott William Carter's latest short story collection. A dragon addicted to eating humans, a robot on a devastated planet with a spellbinding story to tell, Abraham Lincoln in a world of one-eyed dragons and drafty castles - hopping across time and space, genre and style, Carter offers up eleven provocative tales that are sure to please his growing number of fans as well as win him new ones.

Everybody dies. Nobody leaves.
After narrowly surviving a near-fatal shooting, Portland detective Myron Vale wakes with a bullet still lodged in his brain, a headache to end all headaches, and a terrible side effect that radically transforms his world for the worse: He sees ghosts. "Lots of them."
By some estimates, a hundred billion people have lived and died before anyone alive today was even born. For Myron, they're all still here. That's not even his biggest problem. No matter how hard he tries, he can't tell the living from the dead.
Despite this, Myron manages to piece together something of a life as a private investigator specializing in helping people on both sides of the great divide - until a stunning blonde beauty walks into his office needing help finding her husband. Myron wants no part of the case until he sees the man's picture . . . and instantly his carefully reconstructed life begins to unravel.
""The Sixth Sense meets Spenser For Hire in Scott William Carter's magnificent Ghost Detective.""- Michael J. Totten, author of Taken
""Scott is one of those rare writers who can and does cross genres, and do it well. You never know what kind of story you'll get from him, but you do know that it'll be good."" - Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Hugo award-winning author of The Disappeared

An old flame.
A killer on the loose.
A crazy cult on the rise.
Nearly a year has passed since Garrison Gage became the reluctant guardian of a troubled teenage girl, but neither fatherhood nor the the intervening months has improved his mood. His right knee is still mostly worthless. He still prefers to drink his bourbon alone. And even with a certain blonde bombshell a persistent part of his life, he still can't be bothered to buy a cell phone. Or any phone, for that matter. Why? Then somebody might call him.
But grumpy as Gage can be, he still finds that life on the Oregon Coast has settled into a comfortable if not happy routine - until the man who murdered his wife shows up in town.
That's just for starters. A desperate plea from an old flame - his first love, in fact - soon entangles Gage in a high profile case involving a famous and brazenly outspoken lecturer on evolution and atheism, a crazy fundamentalist cult that uses all means necessary to silence its critics, and a brutal local murder of a far more personal nature.
Before the mystery can be unraveled, Gage's abilities and beliefs will be put to the ultimate test. And the man who claims he doesn't need anyone will discover he may just lose everything.

You don't have to be tall to be a giant.
They meet on a rainy night, penniless and alone, both of them without a friend in the world. He's a disgraced, down-on-his luck giant, short for his kind, banished forever from his tribe. He just wants to be left alone - and pity the poor person who annoys him.
She's a stubborn human girl whose mother has been kidnapped by an evil dictator - and she's determined to get her back. No matter how long it takes. No matter who gets in her way.
Together they take on an empire.
"Grade 4-9;" In this intriguing fantasy about two outcasts on a remarkable journey, Carter offers up a riveting adventure that should appeal to fans of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series or Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson books. Although this book stands on its own, readers may want also want to try Carter's first foray into his Lost Lands of Rymadoon series, Drawing a Dark Way.

Seventeen-year-old Trevor can't catch a break. Just when he finds out that Janna, the girl of his dreams, is finally available, his mom tells him he's being shipped off to a boarding school because of his awful grades. A desperate call to his dad, who owns a rubber chicken factory in Las Vegas, gets him nowhere. His father is more interested in enlisting Trevor's aid writing what he sees as the perfect gag gift - a how-to manual about rubber chickens. That's Trevor's life for you. Everyone around him is totally and utterly insane. But there's still Janna. He's had a crush on her since sixth grade. Can he get himself to say the words to her that he's been rehearsing for years? He finally musters the courage to visit her house and find out. That's when everything goes crazy. ***** Grade 10 Up - "My dad owns a rubber chicken factory." With this zany first line, readers are launched on a surprisingly poignant coming-of-age journey. Part buddy story, part road trip adventure, and part ruminations on the difference between love and infatuation, Carter offers up a vivid portrait of a young man - Trevor Livingston - who blunders into a thousand-mile quest to tell the girl of his dreams how he really feels about her. Although the book is appropriate for more mature young adult readers, adults may find even greater enjoyment in Trevor's distinctive voice and abundant references to popular culture - Star Trek and The Princess Bride, for example, are favorite targets. Fans of Carter's award-winning first novel, The Last Great Getaway of the Water Balloon Boys, are certain to find this heartfelt look at the angst and insanity of modern adolescence an equally riveting read.

In the world of Rymadoon, he has an amazing power. Jason Rosewood loves to draw. In fact, he'd rather draw than do anything else. But when his sister is kidnapped by three black demon creatures with glowing white eyes and huge wings, Jason must pursue her into the dangerous world of Rymadoon to save her. It isn't long before he discovers that in Rymadoon he's not just a great artist . . . He has the power to bring his drawings to life. SCOTT WILLIAM CARTER's first novel, The Last Great Getaway of the Water Balloon Boys, was hailed by Publishers Weekly as a "touching and impressive debut" and won the prestigious 2011 Oregon Book Award for Young Adult Literature. His fantasy chronicling the untold story of Pinocchio, Wooden Bones, is due out from Simon and Schuster in the summer of 2012. His short stories have appeared in dozens of popular magazines and anthologies. He lives in Oregon with his wife, two children, and thousands of imaginary friends. Read more about his books for kids at www.rymadoon.com.

It was a simple plan. She would help him pass algebra. He would help her win the student election. What could go wrong? ***** Take one geeky sixteen-year-old girl deathly afraid of speaking to any crowd larger than one, but who desperately needs something on her application other than perfect grades to get her into Stanford. Add in a star basketball player who's Mr. Popular to everyone else, but who's hiding more than a few startling secrets. Throw in a crisis of identity, a scheming girlfriend, and troubled family lives. Oh, and make sure everything that can go wrong does. Then count the votes. The result is PRESIDENT JOCK, VICE PRESIDENT GEEK, the story of two mixed up teenagers struggling to find themselves and the craziest student election ever to hit the halls of Rexton High.