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With this brilliant novel, the bestselling author of The Mysteries of Pittsburgh and Wonder Boys gives us an exhilarating triumph of language and invention, a stunning novel in which the tragicomic adventures of a couple of boy geniuses reveal much about what happened to America in the middle of the twentieth century. Like Phillip Roth's American Pastoral or Don DeLillo's Underworld, Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay is a superb novel with epic sweep, spanning continents and eras, a masterwork by one of America's finest writers.

It is New York City in 1939. Joe Kavalier, a young artist who has also been trained in the art of Houdini-esque escape, has just pulled off his greatest feat to date: smuggling himself out of Nazi-occupied Prague. He is looking to make big money, fast, so that he can bring his family to freedom. His cousin, Brooklyn's own Sammy Clay, is looking for a collaborator to create the heroes, stories, and art for the latest novelty to hit the American dreamscape: the comic book. Out of their fantasies, fears, and dreams, Joe and Sammy weave the legend of that unforgettable champion the Escapist. And inspired by the beautiful and elusive Rosa Saks, a woman who will be linked to both men by powerful ties of desire, love, and shame, they create the otherworldly mistress of the night, Luna Moth. As the shadow of Hitler falls across Europe and the world, the Golden Age of comic books has begun.

The brilliant writing that has led critics to compare Michael Chabon to John Cheever and Vladimir Nabokov is everywhere apparent in The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay. Chabon writes "like a magical spider, effortlessly spinning out elaborate webs of words that ensnare the reader," wrote Michiko Kakutani of The New York Times about Wonder Boys, and here he has created, in Joe Kavalier, a hero for the century.

A Superhero, who happens to be Queer and from an Asian American background.

First Published by Uncanny Magazine in 2022 & winner of the Nebula for Best Novelette in 2022.

John Chu deftly blends real world anti-Asian racism into a clever story about superheroics. "Tom of Finland Guy," what our narrator calls the handsome, well-built man flying around the city saving the day, is beloved for his bravery... that is until people realize he's not the white American Dream. Chu does not pull his punches (pun intended), delivering an incisive story that deconstructs the contemporary superhero mythos.

Paul Cornell has written Doctor Who for the BBC, Batman & Robin for DC, and Wolverine for Marvel. He has won the BSFA Award for his short fiction, the Eagle Award for his comics, and shares a Writer's Guild Award for television. He is one of only two people to be Hugo Award nominated for all three media.

A Better Way to Die is his first ever short story collection, providing a comprehensive overview of his work. Featured here are both his contributions to George RR Martin's Wildcards series and all the Jonathan Hamilton stories, including "One of Our Bastards is Missing", shortlisted for the Hugo Award in 2010, and "A Better Way to Die", winner of a BSFA Award in 2011.

With an introduction by John Scalzi, the eBook edition contains 21 stories, representing almost all of Paul's published short fiction to date.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - essay by John Scalzi
• The Deer Stalker - (2005) - shortfiction
• Michael Laurits Is: DROWNING - (2008) - shortstory
• Global Collider Generation: an Idyll - (2009) - shortfiction
• Secret Identity - (2010) - shortstory
• The Occurrence at Slocombe Priory - (2011) - shortfiction
• The Sensible Folly - (2011) - shortfiction
• More - (2011) - shortfiction
• The Elephant in the Room - (2013) - novelette
• A New Arrival at the House of Love - (2012) - shortfiction
• The Ghosts of Christmas - (2012) - novelette
• Tom - (2013) - shortstory
• Ramesses on the Frontier - (2013) - shortstory
• Zeta Reticuli - (2014) - shortfiction
• Catherine Drewe - (2008) - shortstory
• One of Our Bastards Is Missing - (2009) - novelette
• The Copenhagen Interpretation - (2011) - novelette
• A Better Way to Die - (2014) - novelette

This Novelette was first puiblished in the 2020 May/June issue of Uncanny Magazine and can be found here for free.

Uncanny - Burn

(Superhero) Sam's ability is modest, but he's still excited to be accepted into the Super Team. Now he just has to figure out how he can make the biggest difference--assuming he can do more good than harm.

This novelette originally appeared in the anthology Eclipse Two: New Science Fiction and Fantasy (2008), edited by Jonathan Strahan, and was reprinted in Clarkesworld Magazine, #82 July 2013. It can also be found in the anthologies The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Sixth Annual Collection (2009), edited by Gardner Dozois, and Year's Best Fantasy 9 (2009), edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Kramer. The story is included in the collection Unpossible and Other Stories (2011).

Read the full story for free at Clarkesworld.

Doctor Impossible--evil genius, would-be world conqueror--languishes in prison. Shuffling through the cafeteria line with ordinary criminals, he wonders if the smartest man in the world has done the smartest thing he could with his life. After all, he's lost every battle he's ever fought. But this prison won't hold him forever.

Fatale--half woman, half high-tech warrior--used to be an unemployed cyborg. Now, she's a rookie member of the world's most famous super-team, the Champions. But being a superhero is not all flying cars and planets in peril--she learns that in the locker rooms and dive bars of superherodom, the men and women (even mutants) behind the masks are as human as anyone.

Soon I Will Be Invincible is a wildly entertaining first novel, brimming with attitude and humor--an emotionally resonant look at good and evil, love and loss, power and glory.

Even though Thom Creed's a basketball star, his high school classmates keep their distance. They've picked up on something different about Thom. Plus, his father, Hal Creed, was one of the greatest and most beloved superheroes of his time until a catastrophic event left him disfigured and an outcast. The last thing in the world Thom wants is to add to his father's pain, so he keeps secrets. Like that he has special powers. And he's been asked to join the League -- the very organization of superheroes that disowned Hal. But joining the League opens up a new world to Thom. There, he connects with a misfit group of aspiring heroes:

* Scarlett, who can control fire but not her anger
* Typhoid Larry, who can make anyone sick with his touch
* Ruth, a wise old woman who can see the future

Together these unlikely heroes become friends and begin to uncover a plot to kill the superheroes.

This groundbreaking and widely acclaimed novel tells an unforgettable story about love, loss, and redemption.

Ella has a Thing. She sees a classmate grow up to become a caring nurse. A neighbor's son murdered in a drive-by shooting. Things that haven't happened yet. Kev, born while Los Angeles burned around them, wants to protect his sister from a power that could destroy her. But when Kev is incarcerated, Ella must decide what it means to watch her brother suffer while holding the ability to wreck cities in her hands.

Rooted in the hope that can live in anger, Riot Baby is as much an intimate family story as a global dystopian narrative. It burns fearlessly toward revolution and has quietly devastating things to say about love, fury, and the black American experience.

Ella and Kev are both shockingly human and immeasurably powerful. Their childhoods are defined and destroyed by racism. Their futures might alter the world.

The New York Times bestselling graphic novel sensation from Noelle Stevenson, based on her beloved and critically acclaimed web comic. Kirkus says, "If you're going to read one graphic novel this year, make it this one."

Nemeses! Dragons! Science! Symbolism! All these and more await in this brilliantly subversive, sharply irreverent epic from Noelle Stevenson. Featuring an exclusive epilogue not seen in the web comic, along with bonus conceptual sketches and revised pages throughout, this gorgeous full-color graphic novel has been hailed by critics and fans alike as the arrival of a "superstar" talent (NPR.org).

Nimona is an impulsive young shapeshifter with a knack for villainy. Lord Ballister Blackheart is a villain with a vendetta. As sidekick and supervillain, Nimona and Lord Blackheart are about to wreak some serious havoc. Their mission: prove to the kingdom that Sir Ambrosius Goldenloin and his buddies at the Institution of Law Enforcement and Heroics aren't the heroes everyone thinks they are.

But as small acts of mischief escalate into a vicious battle, Lord Blackheart realizes that Nimona's powers are as murky and mysterious as her past. And her unpredictable wild side might be more dangerous than he is willing to admit.

The lives of six female superheroes and the girlfriends of superheroes. A ferocious riff on women in superhero comics

From the New York Times bestselling author Catherynne Valente comes a series of linked stories from the points of view of the wives and girlfriends of superheroes, female heroes, and anyone who's ever been "refrigerated": comic book women who are killed, raped, brainwashed, driven mad, disabled, or had their powers taken so that a male superhero's storyline will progress.

In an entirely new and original superhero universe, Valente subversively explores these ideas and themes in the superhero genre, treating them with the same love, gravity, and humor as her fairy tales. After all, superheroes are our new fairy tales and these six women have their own stories to share.

What is there to do, when you have the power to do anything? John can fly, he can see through solid objects, he can take over the world and give it back again, but what he's looking for is something else...

This short story can also be found in the anthology Worlds Seen in Passing: Ten Years of Tor.com Short Fiction (2018), edited by Irene Gallo.

Read the full story for free at Tor.com.

Five ordinary girls discover magical powers in this new series of interconnected short stories from Isabel Yap

When Alex, Ria, Aiko, Natalie and Selena met at summer camp, they never expected the goddess would ask for their help, enlisting them as soldiers to protect the world from the forces of darkness. Gifting them each with a different object of power--a bracelet, a ring, a watch, earrings, a necklace--the goddess's grace grants the friends the weapons to fight, the ability to heal, and the magic to strike back against the Grey.

Now, over a decade later, the five best friends are still fighting. But the burden of secrecy, the inevitability of pain, and the magnitude of their responsibility to keep saving the world has left them questioning their goddess.

How much longer can they keep saving the world? Can their friendship survive if one of them leaves their fold? And can they keep it together just long enough to get through Selena's wedding?

It's not easy being a superhero's daughter....

Carrie Vaughn has captured legions of fans with her wildly popular Kitty Norville novels. Now she uses her extraordinary wit and imagination to tell a sensational new story about superhuman heroes--and the people who have to live with them.

Most people dream of having superheroes for parents, but not Celia West. The only daughter of Captain Olympus and Spark, the world's greatest champions, she has no powers of her own, and the most exciting thing she's ever done is win a silver medal in a high school swim meet. Meanwhile, she's the favorite hostage of every crime boss and supervillain in Comemrce City. She doesn't have a code name, but if she did, it would probably be Bait Girl, the Captive Wonder.

Rejecting her famous family and its legacy, Celia has worked hard to create a life for herself beyond the shadow of their capes, becoming a skilled forensic accountant. But when her parents' archenemy, the Destructor, faces justice in the "Trial of the Century," Celia finds herself sucked back into the more-than-mortal world of Captain Olympus--and forced to confront a secret that she hoped would stay buried forever.

From the award-winning author of Cookie Cutter Superhero and Kid Dark Against the Machinecomes a brand new novella about girl reporters, superheroes, and interdimensional travel

In a world of superheroes, supervillains, and a machine that can create them all, millennial vlogger and girl reporter Friday Valentina has no shortage of material to cover. Every lottery cycle, a new superhero is created and quite literally steps into the shoes of the hero before them--displacing the previous hero. While Fry may not be super-powered herself, she understands the power of legacy: her mother is none other than the infamous reporter Tina Valentina, renowned worldwide for her legendary interviews with the True Blue Aussie Beaut Superheroes and her tendency to go to extraordinary lengths to get her story.

This time, Tina Valentina may have ventured too far. Alongside Australia's greatest superheroes--including the powerful Astra, dazzling Solar, and The Dark in his full brooding glory--Friday will go to another dimension in the hopes of finding her mother, saving the day, maybe even getting the story of a lifetime out of the adventure. (And possibly a new girlfriend, too.)

When last seen, the singularly inept wizard Rincewind had fallen off the edge of the world. Now magically, he's turned up again, and this time he's brought the Luggage.

But that's not all....

Once upon a time, there was an eighth son of an eighth son who was, of course, a wizard. As if that wasn't complicated enough, said wizard then had seven sons. And then he had an eighth son -- a wizard squared (that's all the math, really). Who of course, was a source of magic -- a sorcerer.

Being a superheroine is hard. Working for one is even harder.

Evie Tanaka is the put-upon personal assistant to Aveda Jupiter, her childhood best friend and San Francisco's most beloved superheroine. She's great at her job--blending into the background, handling her boss's epic diva tantrums, and getting demon blood out of leather pants.

Unfortunately, she's not nearly as together when it comes to running her own life, standing up for herself, or raising her tempestuous teenage sister, Bea.

But everything changes when Evie's forced to pose as her glamorous boss for one night, and her darkest secret comes out: she has powers, too. Now it's up to her to contend with murderous cupcakes, nosy gossip bloggers, and supernatural karaoke battles--all while juggling unexpected romance and Aveda's increasingly outrageous demands. And when a larger threat emerges, Evie must finally take charge and become a superheroine in her own right... or see her city fall to a full-on demonic invasion.

Once upon a time, Aveda Jupiter (aka Annie Chang) was demon-infested San Francisco's most beloved superheroine, a beacon of hope and strength and really awesome outfits. But all that changed the day she agreed to share the spotlight with her best friend and former assistant Evie Tanaka--who's now a badass, fire-wielding superheroine in her own right. They were supposed to be a dynamic duo, but more and more, Aveda finds herself shoved into the sidekick role. Where, it must be said, she is not at all comfortable.

It doesn't help that Aveda's finally being forced to deal with fallout from her diva behavior--and the fact that she's been a less than stellar friend to Evie. Or that Scott Cameron--the man Aveda's loved for nearly a decade--is suddenly giving her the cold shoulder after what seemed to be some promising steps toward friendship. Or that the city has been demon-free for three months in the wake of Evie and Aveda's apocalypse-preventing battle against the evil forces of the Otherworld, leaving Aveda without the one thing she craves most in life: a mission.

Bea Tanaka joins her sister, Evie, and diva Aveda Jupiter in their quest to free San Francisco from its demon portal problem...

If there's one thing Beatrice Tanaka never wanted to be, it's normal. But somehow, her life has unfolded as a series of "should haves." Her powers of emotional projection should have made her one of the most formidable superheroes of all time. And she should have been allowed to join her older sister Evie as a full-fledged protector of San Francisco, pulverizing the city's plethora of demon threats.

But Evie and her superheroing partner, Aveda Jupiter, insist on seeing Bea as the impulsive, tempestuous teenager she used to be--even though she's now a responsible adult. And that means Bea is currently living a thoroughly normal life. She works as a bookstore lackey, hangs out with best friends Sam Fujikawa and Leah Kim, and calms her workplace's more difficult customers. Sure, she's not technically supposed to be playing with people's mental states. But given the mundanity of her existence, who can blame her?

When a mysterious being starts communicating with Bea, hinting at an evil that's about to overtake the city, she seizes the opportunity, hoping to turn her "should haves" into the fabulous heroic life she's always wanted. But gaining that life may mean sacrificing everything--and everyone--she holds dear...

Evie Tanaka, Aveda Jupiter, and Bea Tanaka combat a new supernatural threat...

Everything in Evie Tanaka's life is finally perfect. As a badass superheroine, she defends San Francisco from demon invasion on the regular. Her relationships with superhero partner Aveda Jupiter, little sister Bea, and hot, half-demon husband Nate have never been stronger. Maybe it's possible for a grad school dropout turned put-upon personal assistant turned superhero to have it all?

Just when she thinks life can't get any better, Evie learns she's pregnant. Everyone around her is overjoyed...but Evie has major doubts about whether she's cut out for motherhood. Before she can dwell on her dilemma, a local women's college reports a string of mysterious "hauntings," and Evie and Aveda are called in to investigate, going undercover as grad students during the creepiest time of the year: Halloween.

As she confronts terrifying ghosts and lives out a bizarre version of the grad school life she left behind, Evie can't help but wonder about the road not taken: what would her life be like if she'd stayed here instead of pursuing superheroing with Aveda? And can an overwhelmed pregnant superhero truly have it all?

She's about to find out.

Over the years, the adventures of superheroines Aveda Jupiter and Evie Tanaka have become the stuff of legend--and now they'll be immortalized in their very own TV show!

The pair head to LA for filming, but Aveda struggles to get truly excited. Instead, she's preoccupied wondering about the fate of the world and her role in it. You know, the usual. Now that Otherworld activity has been detected outside the Bay Area, Aveda can't help but wonder if the demon threat will ever be eradicated.

When the drama on set takes a turn for the supernatural, Evie and Aveda must balance their celebrity commitments with donning their superhero capes again to investigate. And when the evil they battle reveals a larger, more nefarious plot, it's time for the indomitable Aveda Jupiter to rise to the occasion and become the leader she was meant to be on a more global scale--and hopefully keep some semblance of a personal life while doing so.

Nobody loves Christmas like Bea Tanaka--so when her family visits her for a special holiday celebration, she's beside herself with joy.

After years of chaos, questionable decisions, and flirtations with the supervillain path, Bea is finally thriving. She's got a sweet, new gig hunting demons in Maui, she's working hard to hone her powers, and her big sister Evie is proud of her at last. In fact, everyone is soproud of her that she can't tell them the truth: she's feeling lost and adrift. She and her boyfriend Sam Fujikawa are struggling to make their long-distance love work, and her powers are displaying some intriguing new elements--elements that could lead her down an evil, mind-controlling path once more.

When her family's holiday visit is disrupted by otherworldly monsters rising out of the Maui ocean, Bea throws herself into the battle--until she's suddenly and mysteriously transported to the perfect Christmas back in San Francisco, surrounded by her family and an excess of merrymaking.

As she finds herself trapped in the bizarre holiday rom-com of her nightmares, Bea must unravel a treacherous demon plot, save the world from unspeakable evil, and resist the siren song of a supervillain destiny. And hey, maybe she'll find time for a little holiday cheer after all....

The boys of Huaxia dream of pairing up with girls to pilot Chrysalises, giant transforming robots that can battle the mecha aliens that lurk beyond the Great Wall. It doesn't matter that the girls often die from the mental strain.

When 18-year-old Zetian offers herself up as a concubine-pilot, it's to assassinate the ace male pilot responsible for her sister's death. But she gets her vengeance in a way nobody expected--she kills him through the psychic link between pilots and emerges from the cockpit unscathed. She is labeled an Iron Widow, a much-feared and much-silenced kind of female pilot who can sacrifice boys to power up Chrysalises instead?

To tame her unnerving yet invaluable mental strength, she is paired up with Li Shimin, the strongest and most controversial male pilot in Huaxia?. But now that Zetian has had a taste of power, she will not cower so easily. She will miss no opportunity to leverage their combined might and infamy to survive attempt after attempt on her life, until she can figure out exactly why the pilot system works in its misogynist way--and stop more girls from being sacrificed.

Monsters are real.
But so are heroes.

Sparks are champions of weird science. Boasting capes and costumes and amazing super-powers that only make sense if you don't think about them too hard, they fight an eternal battle for truth and justice... mostly.

Darklings are creatures of myth and magic: ghosts, vampires, were-beasts, and the like. Their very presence warps reality. Doors creak at their approach. Cobwebs gather where they linger.

Kim Lam is an ordinary college student until a freak scientific accident (what else?) transforms Kim and three housemates into Sparks?and drafts them into the never-ending war between the Light and Dark. They struggle to master their new abilities?and (of course) to design cool costumes and come up with great hero-names.

Turns out that "accident" was just the first salvo in a Mad Genius's latest diabolical scheme. Now it's up to four newbie heroes to save the day, before they even have a chance to figure out what their team's name should be!

Award-winning author James Alan Gardner returns to the superheroic fantasy world of All Those Explosions Were Someone Else's Fault with They Promised Me The Gun Wasn't Loaded.

Only days have passed since a freak accident granted four college students superhuman powers. Now Jools and her friends (who haven't even picked out a name for their superhero team yet) get caught up in the hunt for a Mad Genius's misplaced super-weapon.

But when Jools falls in with a modern-day Robin Hood and his band of super-powered Merry Men, she finds it hard to sort out the Good Guys from the Bad Guys--and to figure out which side she truly belongs on.

Especially since nobody knows exactly what the Gun does....

The Avengers journey into deep space, where they unite the intergalactic races against the Builders--deadly aliens who seek to destroy the known galaxy. While the heroes are gone, Thanos sets his sights on Earth, sending the Black Order to launch the assault.

It falls to the other heroes of Earth--the Inhumans, the Black Panther, Namor the Sub-Mariner, Doctor Strange, the X-Men, and more--to defend Attilan, Wakanda, Atlantis, and the rest of the planet. To defeat Thanos, the defending forces will need to employ a new weapon--one that may be as deadly as the invading force.

Morrigan Crow may have defeated her deadly curse and joined the mystical and prestigious Wundrous Society, but her journey has only just begun....

The people of the secret, magical city of Nevermoor have a long memory of the monstrous attacks orchestrated by the only other known Wundersmith, Ezra Squall-and they seem to think Morrigan's own knack for Wunder makes her just as deadly.

And so it's no surprise that when citizens of the Wundrous Society begin to go missing, Morrigan is the number one suspect.

Now it's up to Morrigan and her friends, new and old, to prove her innocence-before she's expelled from the Wundrous Society, her only home, for good.

Welcome to Andover... where superpowers are common, but internships are complicated. Just ask high school nobody, Jessica Tran. Despite her heroic lineage, Jess is resigned to a life without superpowers and is merely looking to beef-up her college applications when she stumbles upon the perfect (paid!) internship only it turns out to be for the town s most heinous supervillain. On the upside, she gets to work with her longtime secret crush, Abby, who Jess thinks may have a secret of her own. Then there's the budding attraction to her fellow intern, the mysterious 'M,' who never seems to be in the same place as Abby. But what starts as a fun way to spite her superhero parents takes a sudden and dangerous turn when she uncovers a plot larger than heroes and villains altogether.

Bells Broussard thought he had it made when his superpowers manifested early. Being a shapeshifter is awesome. He can change his hair whenever he wants, and if putting on a binder for the day is too much, he's got it covered. But that was before he became the country's most-wanted villain.

After discovering a massive cover-up by the Heroes' League of Heroes, Bells and his friends Jess, Emma, and Abby set off on a secret mission to find the Resistance. Meanwhile, power-hungry former hero Captain Orion is on the loose with a dangerous serum that renders meta-humans powerless, and a new militarized robotic threat emerges. Everyone is in danger. Between college applications and crushing on his best friend, will Bells have time to take down a corrupt government?

Sometimes, to do a hero's job, you need to be a villain.

Cas Russell is good at math. Scary good.

The vector calculus blazing through her head lets her smash through armed men twice her size and dodge every bullet in a gunfight. She can take any job for the right price and shoot anyone who gets in her way.

As far as she knows, she's the only person around with a superpower... but then Cas discovers someone with a power even more dangerous than her own. Someone who can reach directly into people's minds and twist their brains into Moebius strips. Someone intent on becoming the world's puppet master.

Someone who's already warped Cas's thoughts once before, with her none the wiser.

Cas should run. Going up against a psychic with a god complex isn't exactly a rational move, and saving the world from a power-hungry telepath isn't her responsibility. But she isn't about to let anyone get away with violating her brain -- and besides, she's got a small arsenal and some deadly mathematics on her side. There's only one problem...

She doesn't know which of her thoughts are her own anymore.

Cas Russell is back -- and so is her deadly supermath.

Cas may be an antisocial mercenary who uses her instant calculating skills to mow down enemies, but she's trying hard to build up a handful of morals. So when she's hired by an anguished father to rescue his kid from an evil tech conglomerate, it seems like the perfect job to use for ethics practice.

Then she finds her client's daughter... who is a robot.

The researchers who own the 'bot will stop at nothing to get it back, but the kid's just real enough for Cas to want to protect her -- even though she knows she's risking everything for a collection of metal and wires. But when the case blows up in her face, it plunges Cas into the crossfire of a massive, decades-long corporate espionage war.

Cas knows logically that she isn't saving a child. She's stealing a piece of technology, one expensive and high-stakes enough that spiriting it away is going to get innocent people killed. But she has a distraught father on one hand and a robot programmed to act like a distraught daughter on the other, and she's never been able to sit by when a kid is in trouble -- even a fake one.

Screw morals and ethics. All Cas wants to do is save one little girl.

For ages, Eddie Drood and his family have kept humanity safe from the things that go bump in the night. But now one of his own has convinced the rest of the family that Eddie's become a menace, and that humanity needs to be protected from him. So he's on the run, using every trick in the book, magical and otherwise, hoping he lives long enough to prove his innocence...

In Nova City, there are extraordinary people, capable of feats that defy the imagination. Shadow Star protects the city and manipulates darkness, and Pyro Storm is determined to bring the city to its knees using his power over fire.

And then there's Nick who... well, being the most popular fanfiction writer in the Extraordinaries fandom is a superpower, right?

Instead of fighting crime, Nick contends with a new year at school, a father who doesn't trust him, and a best friend named Seth, who may or may not be the love of Nick's short, uneventful life. It should be enough. But after a chance encounter with Shadow Star, Nova City's mightiest hero (and Nick's biggest crush), Nick sets out to make himself extraordinary. And he'll do it with or without Seth's reluctant help...

Through bravery, charm, and an alarming amount of enthusiasm, Nick landed himself the superhero boyfriend of his dreams. Now instead of just writing stories about him, Nick actually gets to kiss him. A lot. But having a superhero boyfriend isn't everything Nick thought it would be - he's still struggling to make peace with his own lack of extraordinary powers.

When new Extraordinaries begin arriving in Nova City - siblings who can manipulate smoke and ice, a mysterious hero who can move objects with their mind, and a drag queen superhero with the best name and the most-sequined costum anyone has ever had - it's up to Nick and his friends Seth, Gibby, and Jazz to determine who is virtuous and who is villainous.

And new Extraordinaries aren't the only things coming to light. Long-held secrets and neglected truths are surfacing that challenge everything Nick knows about justice, family, and being extraordinary. Which is a lot to handle when Nick really just wants to finish his self-insert bakery AU fanfic.

Will it all come together in the end or will it all go down in flames?

School's out for the summer and a raging heat wave has blanketed Nova City. Still, Nick's life is pretty much perfect, as he finally gets to team up with his superhero boyfriend to bring justice, protection, and disaster energy to the world.

Meanwhile, Seth, Jazz, and Gibby are setting up headquarters for Lighthouse, their hero team, Nick's dad's private investigation agency is taking off, and Nick's mother, the superhero known as TK, is right there at Nick's side. Where she's always been. Hasn't she?

But something's off. It's not just Simon Burke campaigning to 'cure' Extraordinaries. And it's not the rumours of Nick's ex-boyfriend and villain-in-the-making's escape. Something isn't right and Nick will need all his loved ones together to uncover the truth - a truth that will reveal a traitor in their midst and burn through their lives like a wild fire.

On the island of Kekon, the Kaul family is locked in a violent feud for control of the capital city and the supply of magical jade that endows trained Green Bone warriors with supernatural powers they alone have possessed for hundreds of years.

Beyond Kekon's borders, war is brewing. Powerful foreign governments and mercenary criminal kingpins alike turn their eyes on the island nation. Jade, Kekon's most prized resource, could make them rich - or give them the edge they'd need to topple their rivals.

Faced with threats on all sides, the Kaul family is forced to form new and dangerous alliances, confront enemies in the darkest streets and the tallest office towers, and put honor aside in order to do whatever it takes to ensure their own survival - and that of all the Green Bones of Kekon.

Ten years ago, Calamity came. It was a burst in the sky that gave ordinary men and women extraordinary powers. The awed public started calling them Epics.

But Epics are no friend of man. With incredible gifts came the desire to rule. And to rule man you must crush his will.

Nobody fights the Epics... nobody but the Reckoners. A shadowy group of ordinary humans, they spend their lives studying Epics, finding their weaknesses, and then assassinating them.

And David wants in. He wants Steelheart--the Epic who is said to be invincible. The Epic who killed David's father. For years, like the Reckoners, David's been studying, and planning--and he has something they need. Not an object, but an experience.

He's seen Steelheart bleed. And he wants revenge.

Brandon Sanderson, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Words of Radiance, coauthor of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series, and creator of the internationally bestselling Mistborn Trilogy, presents the second book in the Reckoners series: Firefight, the sequel to the #1 bestseller Steelheart.

Newcago is free.

They told David it was impossible, that even the Reckoners had never killed a High Epic. Yet Steelheart--invincible, immortal, unconquerable--is dead. And he died by David's hand.

Eliminating Steelheart was supposed to make life simpler. Instead, it only made David realize he has questions. Big ones. And no one in Newcago can give him answers.

Babylon Restored, the city formerly known as the borough of Manhattan, has possibilities, though. Ruled by the mysterious High Epic Regalia, Babylon Restored is flooded and miserable, but David is sure it's the path that will lead him to what he needs to find. Entering a city oppressed by a High Epic despot is risky, but David's willing to take the gamble. Because killing Steelheart left a hole in David's heart. A hole where his thirst for vengeance once lived. Somehow, he filled that hole with another Epic--Firefight. And now he will go on a quest darker and even more dangerous than the fight against Steelheart to find her, and to get his answers.

A masterful tale of ambition, jealousy, desire, and superpowers.

Victor and Eli started out as college roommates--brilliant, arrogant, lonely boys who recognized the same sharpness and ambition in each other. In their senior year, a shared research interest in adrenaline, near-death experiences, and seemingly supernatural events reveals an intriguing possibility: that under the right conditions, someone could develop extraordinary abilities. But when their thesis moves from the academic to the experimental, things go horribly wrong.

Ten years later, Victor breaks out of prison, determined to catch up to his old friend (now foe), aided by a young girl whose reserved nature obscures a stunning ability. Meanwhile, Eli is on a mission to eradicate every other super-powered person that he can find--aside from his sidekick, an enigmatic woman with an unbreakable will. Armed with terrible power on both sides, driven by the memory of betrayal and loss, the archnemeses have set a course for revenge--but who will be left alive at the end?

In Vicious, V. E. Schwab brings to life a gritty comic-book-style world in vivid prose: a world where gaining superpowers doesn't automatically lead to heroism, and a time when allegiances are called into question.

Magneto and Professor X. Superman and Lex Luthor. Victor Vale and Eli Ever. Sydney and Serena Clarke. Great partnerships, now soured on the vine.

But Marcella Riggins needs no one. Flush from her brush with death, she's finally gained the control she's always sought?and will use her new-found power to bring the city of Merit to its knees. She'll do whatever it takes, collecting her own sidekicks, and leveraging the two most infamous EOs, Victor Vale and Eli Ever, against each other once more.

With Marcella's rise, new enmities create opportunity--and the stage of Merit City will once again be set for a final, terrible reckoning.

A fiery spirit dances from the pages of the Great Book. She brings the aroma of scorched sand and ozone. She has a story to tell....

The Book of Phoenix is a unique work of magical futurism. A prequel to the highly acclaimed, World Fantasy Award-winning novel, Who Fears Death, it features the rise of another of Nnedi Okorafor's powerful, memorable, superhuman women.

Phoenix was grown and raised among other genetic experiments in New York's Tower 7. She is an "accelerated woman" - only two years old but with the body and mind of an adult, Phoenix's abilities far exceed those of a normal human. Still innocent and inexperienced in the ways of the world, she is content living in her room speed reading e-books, running on her treadmill, and basking in the love of Saeed, another biologically altered human of Tower 7.

Then one evening, Saeed witnesses something so terrible that he takes his own life. Devastated by his death and Tower 7's refusal to answer her questions, Phoenix finally begins to realize that her home is really her prison, and she becomes desperate to escape.

But Phoenix's escape, and her destruction of Tower 7, is just the beginning of her story. Before her story ends, Phoenix will travel from the United States to Africa and back, changing the entire course of humanity's future.

The X-Men--mutant protectors of a world that fears and hates them. The Avengers--Earth's Mightiest Heroes, the greatest super-team ever assembled. When the Scarlet Witch of the Avengers and Rogue of the X-Men both disappear under mysterious circumstances, each team's search leads them to more questions than answers. Desperate to recover their missing teammates, they must join forces to uncover the truth. But their efforts will bring them up against a foe with the deadliest power of all: to make them turn on each other!

Contents:

• Lost and Found - [X-Men & the Avengers: Gamma Quest - 1] - (1999) - novel
• Search and Rescue - [X-Men & the Avengers: Gamma Quest - 2] - (1999) - novel
• Friend or Foe? - [X-Men & the Avengers: Gamma Quest - 3] - (2000) - novel

MAGNETO'S EMPIRE WILL RISE...

They live as outcasts, hated and feared by the very humanity they protect. They are mutants, born with strange and wonderful powers that set them apart from the rest of the human race. Under the tutelage of Professor Charles Xavier, they are more than mutants. They are--the X-Men.

Magneto--the X-Men's oldest, deadliest foe--has taken over a top-secret government installation that houses the Sentinels, powerful mutant-hunting robots. The X-Men must fight to keep this deadly technology out of Magneto's hands and stop him from carrying out his grand plan: establishing a global Mutant Empire. The X-Men must join forces with old enemies to stop him--but in Magneto's brave new world, who can they trust?

Contents:

• Siege - [Mutant Empire - 1] - (1996) - novel
• Sanctuary - [Mutant Empire - 2] - (1996) - novel
• Salvation - [Mutant Empire - 3] - (1997) - novel

When research uncovers a way to reverse the genetic mutation responsible for mutant powers, the government tries to use the procedure to eliminate the X-Men, who soon discover that the procedure's true source is their enemy, Sinister.

In the fourth instalment of Pocket's new series of Marvel novels the mutant superhero team could be the future's only hope.

Jean Grey awakens in an unfamiliar room. She is weak, disoriented, stripped of her telepathic and telekinetic powers- and trapped in someone else's body. Also prisoner are her teammates Cyclops, Wolverine, Rogue, and Nightcrawler- each of their minds held hostage within the bodies of strangers as well. Who has brought them here, and for what purpose? The answers lead to a terrifying plan that threatens not only the X-Men, but all of mutant-kind.