Studies have shown that reading fiction can heighten and increase empathy in people. Empathy is the ability for someone to understand and share the feelings of others, typically by having the capacity to place themselves within that person's frame of reference or point of view.
Research has shown that cognitive empathy in a person has predicted helping behavior towards victims in natural disasters.
One might then extrapolate that one way to save the world might be to get more people to read.
The more people who read fiction, the more empathy within a society can grow, and the more likely it is to generate a hero who can save the day, or save the world.
Okay, maybe I'm stretching things a little, but perhaps it's not a bad way to suggest that grabbing this awesome limited time
Saving the World StoryBundle can not only be good for you, but good for the world in general.
Dean Wesley Smith, the curator of this bundle, set off to create it with a goal to find as many ways to save the world as possible, as well as having as many worlds to save as possible.
What he came up with was eight novels and two collections of short stories - four of which are exclusive to this limited time bundle, which is available for less than a month.
I compiled a short story collection exclusively for this bundle called
Nocturnal Saves. It's a riff on the short story series
Nocturnal Screams and collects together more than 40,000 words from seven different stories, that each explore the theme in different ways, from people with superpowers to those in the midst of an apocalypse, to everyday people wanting to make some small positive difference in their way.
Is a hero someone who puts on a mask and costume and rushes to the rescue to save the day? Is a hero someone whose exploits results in the discovery of a miraculous cure to a life-threatening disease or plague? Is a hero someone who employs their supernatural ability for good and to assist others? Is a hero someone who loves another person or a cause so much that they risk life and limb in order to protect or save them from peril? Is a hero someone who stops in the midst of hustle and bustle to listen to those who no longer have a voice?
All of those things, can, of course, make a hero.
Heroes come in all kinds of shapes, sizes, and personas.
Saving the world can come in an epic and dramatic, world-shattering event; but it often can happen in small ways, in the one-on-one interactions people have with one another; in the subtle ways one small action can have a dramatic impact.
The stories in this collection, collected exclusively for this StoryBundle theme, explore all that and more.
Open your mind, heart, and imagination to these seven nocturnal saves.
- Some Are Born to Save the World
- Collateral Damage
- The Zombie Whisperer
- This Time Around
- A Murder of Scarecrows
- From Out of the Night
- Memento Mori
But that's just my own addition to this wonderful collection. You also get novels and stories from some of the most amazing imaginative writers working today.
The way this works is that you decide what price you want to pay.
For $5 (or more, if you're feeling generous), you'll get the
basic bundle of four books in any ebook format—WORLDWIDE.
- Earthbreaker by Robert Jeschonek (StoryBundle Exclusive)
- Meteor Attack! by Robert J. McCarter
- Recombinant by Lisa Silverthorne (StoryBundle Exclusive)
- How to Save the World by Fiction River
If you pay at least the bonus price of just $15, you get
all four of the regular books, plus SIX more books!
- Chasing the Setting Sun by Ron Collins
- Nocturnal Saves by Mark Leslie (StoryBundle Exclusive)
- Broken Gears by Louisa Swann (StoryBundle Exclusive)
- Searching for the Fleet by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
- Destroyer of Worlds by J.F. Penn
- The Taft Ranch by Dean Wesley Smith
This bundle allows easy reading on computers, smartphones, and tablets as well as Kindle and other ereaders via file transfer, email, and other methods. You get multiple DRM-free formats (.epub and .mobi) for all books!
The bundle also includes support for
AbleGamers - they use the power of video games to bring people together, improving quality of life with recreation and rehabilitation by giving people with disabilities custom gaming setups including modified controllers and special assistive technology, like devices that let you play with your eyes, so they can have fun with their friends and family. Any purchase allows you to assign a portion to this cause, at no extra cost to you.
Which kind of ties back to saving the world one book at a time.
