Search Worlds Without End

The never-before-seen history of Westeros and the lands beyond. With hundreds of pages of all-new material from George R.R. Martin.

If the past is prologue, then George R.R. Martin's masterwork--the most inventive and entertaining fantasy saga of our time--warrants one hell of an introduction. At long last, it has arrived with THE WORLD OF ICE AND FIRE.

George R.R. Martin, in collaboration with Elio M. García, Jr. and Linda Antonsson, has written a comprehensive history of the Seven Kingdoms, featuring the epic battles, bitter rivalries, and daring rebellions that lead up to the events in the bestselling A Song of Ice and Fire series.

Collected within this volume is the accumulated knowledge, scholarly speculation, and inherited folk tales of maesters and septons, maegi and singers, including over 170 full-colour illustrations and maps, family trees for the Houses Stark, Lannister and Targaryen, and in-depth explanations of the history and culture of Westeros.

This is the definitive companion volume to George R.R. Martin's dazzlingly conceived universe; THE WORLD OF ICE AND FIRE is indeed proof that the pen is mightier than a storm of swords.

Backed by the power of the world's mightiest sorcerers, the forces of the Empire marched on the Kingdom of York. But York had its own wizardry... including the telepathic gift of young Hawk, who could control every kind of bird--and more, see through their eyes. The key to York's survival was an alliance with Sylvan--mysterious forest dwellers who mistrusted all humans--and to win their friendship, Hawk embarked on a quest deep into Empire territory, where only his mastery of his winged comrades could bring him through alive.

In the days of the Great War between the Eastern Kingdoms and S'Shegan, the evil wizard Shaltus had been brutally punished for an unspeakable crime. Now he had returned, seeking vengeance from the void of hell. The black soul of Shaltus lived again!

Battling for survival, cast out by her own people, the sorceress Leah had to marshal the forces of might and magic. For she alone could banish the barbarous evil that had invaded the castle of the S'Carltons and had sworn not to rest until the house of s'Carlton had been annihilated.

In the year 1740, with the whole of Europe balanced on the brink of war, a company of Austrian soldiers is sent to the village of Narutsin to defend the border with Prussia. But what should be a routine posting is quickly revealed to be anything but. The previous garrison is gone, the great house of Pokoj, where they're to be billeted, a dilapidated ruin, and the people of Narutsin sullen and belligerent. Convinced the villagers are keeping secrets - and possibly consorting with the enemy - the commanding officer orders his junior lieutenant, Klaes, to investigate.

While Klaes sifts through the villagers' truths, half-truths and lies, Drozde, the quartermaster's woman, is making uncomfortable discoveries of her own - about herself, her man, and the house where they've all been thrown together. Because far from being the empty shell it appears to be, Pokoj is actually teeming with people. It's just that they're all dead. And the dead know things - about Drozde, about the history of Pokoj, and about the terrible event that is rushing towards them all, seemingly unstoppable.

The ghosts of Pokoj, the soldiers of the empress and the villagers of Narutsin are about to find themselves actors in a story that has been unfolding for centuries. It will end in blood - that much is written - but how much blood will depend on Klaes' honour, Drozde's skill and courage, and the keeping of an impossible promise...

This is the tale of a city - like any other city, to begin with - and how it was lost and won, and lost again.

This is the tale of an unusual army and its extraordinary leaders: Rem, the librarian, whose tears are ink; wise Gursoon, who defines their conscience; and the silver-tongued thief, Anwar Das, who knows when to ignore that conscience. And it is the tale of the mysterious Zuleika, with her unexpected gift for violence. Without her, the city could not have been taken; because of her, it could not be held.

Most of all, this is the tale of Bessa, the city of silk and steel, as much legend as truth: its fate will haunt you for as long as stories are told...

This short story originally appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, October-November 2004. It can also be found in the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Second Annual Collection (2005), edited by Gardner Dozois. It is included in the collection Tall Tales on the Iron Horse (2008).

Young accademic meets one of her literrary heroines in the flesh. Jane Austin's Elizabeth Bennet does not turn out to be what she imagined at all.

Read the full story for free at the author's website.

They named the planet La Femme and called it a paradise and refused to leave it. Now Julia 9561 is heading up the mission to retrieve the errant crew and establish meaningful Contact with the inhabitants. Are the inhabitants really all female, as the first crew claimed? Why don't the men want to return to Earth? What happened to the women on the crew? And why did Paul 22423 warn the First Council to send only male crew members?

Sturgeon Award nominated novelette. It originally appeared in Bending the Landscape: Science Fiction (1998), edited by Stephen Pagel and Nicola Griffith. The story is included in the collection Love's Body, Dancing in Time (2004).

Nebula Award nominated novella. It originally appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, February 1999. There are no other known publications available at this time.

Love's Body, Dancing in Time offers five love stories by critically acclaimed author L. Timmel Duchamp. Carnal and queer, intricate and involved, they range from the heart-breaking Sturgeon Award finalist "Dance at the Edge," to the historically authentic, Tiptree short-listed "The Apprenticeship of Isabetta di Pietro Cavazzi," to the subtle, original "The Heloise Archive," in which the rewriting of the eleventh-century abbess's life story dramatically alters the course of European history. Like all of Duchamp's work, this fiction is passionate, feminist, and intelligent.

Table of Contents:

• Dance at the Edge - (1998) - novelette
• The Gift - (2004) - novella
• The Apprenticeship of Isabetta di Pietro Cavazzi - (1997) - novelette
• Lord Enoch's Revels - (2004) - shortstory
• The Héloïse Archive - (2004) - novella

Men respond to a woman with a crucial difference.

This story can be found in the following anthologies:

• Full Spectrum 4
• Flying Cups and Saucers: Gender Explorations in Science Fiction and Fantasy (1998)
• Aliens Among Us (2000)

Never At Home is L. Timmel Duchamp's second collection. It includes stories previously published in the acclaimed Bending the Landscape and Paraspheres series and in Asimov's SF, as well as one hundred pages of previously unpublished work, all of them emotionally intense explorations of the difficulties of belonging.

Karen Joy Fowler, author of The Jane Austen Book Club, writes: "L. Timmel Duchamp has become a major voice as an editor, publisher, and critic. Her new collection Never at Home confirms her importance as a writer as well. The stories within are strange and heady, original and surprising. In them, the Duchamp heroine often finds herself pulled into some fascinating new world. The Duchamp reader is in the same position, though much happier to be there. Highly recommended."

Table of Contents"

• Explanations Are Clear - (2001) - novelette
• The Tears of Niobe - (2006) - novelette
• The Nones of Quintilis, Somewhere on the Southwest Slope of Monte Albano - (2011) - novelette
• A Question of Grammar - (1998) - novella
• The World and Alice - (2006) - novelette
• Sadness Ineffable, Desire Ineluctable - (2011) - novella
• And I Must Baffle at the Hint - (1995) - novelette

This story can be found in the collection Love's Body Dancing in Time.

Read this story online for free courtesy of the author.

The protagonist of "The Nones of Quintilis, Somewhere on the Slopes of Monte Albano" is Brooke, a woman who discovers that the women in her family can only become pregnant by performing a magic ritual, which takes place in Italy on a particular day each year.

This story can be found in the collection Never at Home.

Humans have been struggling to live on Frogmore for almost five centuries, adapting themselves to punishing gravity and the deadly mistflowers that dominate its ecology. Financier Inez Gauthier, patron of the arts and daughter of the general commanding the planet's occupation forces, dreams of eliminating the mistflowers that make exploitation of the planet's natural wealth so difficult and impede her father's efforts to crush the native insurgency.

Fascinated by the new art-form of waterdancing created by Solstice Balalzalar celebrating the planet's indigenous lifeforms, Inez assumes that her patronage will be enough to sustain Solstice's art even as she ruthlessly pursues windfall profits at the expense of all that has made waterdancing possible.

This story can be found in the Spring/Summer/Fall 1996 issue of Tales of the Unanticipated.

Sibling Rivalry was first published in the Anthology Infinite Loop: Stories About the Future by the People Creating It, in 1993.

ISFDB indicates this story only had the one publication.

Sibyl Johnson is a graduate student in classical archeology. She is just this side of her Ph.D., when an anachronism at her dig in Italy causes her career to take a sudden lurch in time--and suddenly she's a slave in the very society she is studying. She, along with two others are castaways in time, victims of the same evil hand--and now they are out for vengeance.

What SAS Captain Trevor Stirling doesn't know may kill him--along with every man, woman, and child alive. Stirling thinks his mission is simple: follow a terrorist into the year AD 500 to stop a Northern Irish fanatic bent on murder. If the terrorist succeeds in killing Artorius, the Briton Lord of Battle and the most revered icon of British history, before his greatest military victory, the time-space continuum will fracture, destroying the British nation. And, coincidentally, the rest of the world.

Only one angry and determined G.I. stands between the fiery death of the world and the survival of the human race. Our hero begins a quest, not for gold nor glory, but for vengeance... vengeance against the gods themselves. But in the end, he must save the gods from Ragnarok.

This short story originally appeared in Realms of Fantasy, June 2007, and was reprinted in Lightspeed, June 2013. I can also be found in the anthologies Year's Best Fantasy 8 (2008), edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer, and Beyond the Woods: Fairy Tales Retold (2016), edited by Paula Guran.

Read the full story for free at Lightspeed.

She was caught in a war of supernatural forces--and only love could save her.

An enchanted banquet deep in the forest. Two surprise guests appear at a fairy feast one cold, rainy night: Oberon, the noble King of Fairies and Ian James, one of the human kind, an actor who had picked up a chestnut - and vanished into their utterly charming, sometimes exasperating world. Ian's blunder almost costs him his life, but Oberon spares him in return for a sacred pledge to save their dwindling race by finding a willing mortal bride for the last fairy prince. The daring scheme calls for the magic of the oldest and most powerful wizard of them all - and for a fairy to enter the perilous world of man. Mompen, the lastborn of Elvinwood, bravely volunteers.

This short story originally appeared in Uncanny Magazine, Issue 26, January - February 2019.

Read the full story for free at Uncanny.

This short story originally appeared in Uncanny Magazine, September-October 2017.

Read the full story for free at Uncanny.

This novelette originally appeared in the anthology Foretold: 14 Tales of Prophecy and Prediction (2012), edited by Carrie Ryan, and was reprinted in Ligthspeed, February 2018. It can aloso be found in the anthology Heiresses of Russ 2013: The Year's Best Lesbian Speculative Fiction, edited by Steve Berman and Tenea D. Johnson.

Read the full story for free at Lightspeed.

Contains:

• A Visitor from Egypt - (1930) - short story
• The Refugees - (1942) - short story
• Fisherman's Luck - (1940) - short story
• Death-Waters - (1924) - short story
• Grab Bags Are Dangerous - (1942) - short story
• The Elemental - (1939) - short story
• The Peeper - (1944) - short story
• Bridgehead - (1944) - novelette
• Second Night Out - (1933) - short story (variant of The Black, Dead Thing)
• The Dark Beasts - (1934) - short story
• Census Taker - (1942) - short story
• The Ocean Leech - (1925) - short story
• The Space-Eaters - (1928) - novelette
• It Will Come to You - (1942) - short story
• A Stitch in Time - (1940) - short story
• Step Into My Garden - (1942) - short story
• The Hounds of Tindalos- (1929) - short story
• Dark Vision - (1939) - short story
• The Flame Midget - (1936) - short story
• Golden Child - (1945) - novelette
• The Black Druid - (1930) - short story

When the witch built the forty-flight tower, she made very sure to do the whole thing properly. Each flight contains a dreadful monster, ranging from a diamond-scaled dragon to a pack of slavering goblins. Should a prince battle his way to the top, he will be rewarded with a golden sword - and the lovely Princess Floralinda.

But no prince has managed to conquer the first flight yet, let alone get to the fortieth.

In fact, the supply of fresh princes seems to have quite dried up.

And winter is closing in on Floralinda...

This short story originally appeared in Lightspeed, August 2012.

Read the full story for free at Lightspeed.

Nebula Award winning novella. It originally appeared on Sci Fiction, July 5, 2000. The story can also be foundin the anthology Nebula Awards Showcase 2002, edited by Kim Stanley Robinson. It is included in the collection Goddesses & Other Stories (2011).

Light and Shadow collects eight stories by award-winning author Linda Nagata. Visit high-tech future battlefields, surreal other worlds, an orbital habitat, and a distant moon. Embrace action, and harrowing adventure. Half of these stories have appeared in various best-of-the-year anthologies, and each is introduced with brief notes from the author.

Table of Contents:

• "Through Your Eyes" (2013) - short story
• "Halfway Home" (2013) - short story
• "Codename: Delphi" (2014) - short story
• "Attitude" (2014) - novelette
• "A Moment Before It Struck" (2012) - short story
• "Light and Shadow" (2014) - short story
• "Nightside on Callisto" (2012) - short story
• "The Way Home" (2015) - short story

Virgil Copeland, Randall Panwar, and Gabrielle Villanti are all brilliant young biotechnologists, working together on an artificial life-form affectionately known as "LOVs," an acronym for Limit Of Vision, because in size LOVs are just at the boundary of what the human eye can easily see.

LOVs contain bioengineered human neurons. They enhance brain function when implanted in test animals. Experimentation on humans is, of course, highly illegal. But it's the nature of brilliant and ambitious young minds to ignore the rules. Believing the LOVs to be perfectly safe, Virgil, Panwar, and Gabrielle experiment on themselves, using implanted LOVs to enhance their own cognitive abilities.

But there is a limit of vision, too, when we try to foresee the consequences of technology--especially of a living, thinking technology that can evolve into new forms in a matter of hours.

When the experiment goes terribly wrong, the consequences are bizarre and unforeseeable. Virgil finds himself on the run, riding the whirlwind of a runaway biotechnology that could lead to the next phase of human evolution.

Acclaimed hard-SF author Linda Nagata introduces a new world: a human colony whose people have forgotten their past, on a tremendous structure that forms a great ring around the sun... where the sky is bisected by an arch of light and the mysterious "silver" rises from the ground each night to completely transform the landscape-and erase from existence anything it touches.

Young Jubilee is devastated when her brother Jolly is caught and taken by the silver. But when a forbidding stranger with the incredible power to control the silver comes seeking Jolly-and claiming that Jolly knows him-Jubilee first distrusts the man, then fears him and flees. For she has learned an impossible secret: Jolly may still be alive... and may somehow become the catalyst for the annihilation of everything she knows if she does not find him first.

Jubilee's flight will lead her to discoveries she could never have imagined, from the secret history of her civilization and her people's origins to the true nature of the silver, to the awesome forgotten memories within her. And with these she will forever alter her world's future... unless the dark stranger, relentless in his pursuit, achieves his goal of destroying it. One way or another, Jubilee's final confrontation will change everything....

Ava Arnett is a Honolulu cop, captain of the night shift in the autonomous Waikiki District. Nine years ago a massive hurricane hit the island. Ava remains haunted by the mistakes she made and the lives she failed to save during that disaster. Since then, she relies on HADAFA, an AI designed to observe, analyze, and predict human behavior. HADAFA monitors her actions, and its assessments guide her decisions.

Now, another Category 5 hurricane is approaching Honolulu... In the hectic hours before landfall, Ava stumbles into a terrorist conspiracy - and HADAFA begins to glitch. She can no longer rely on the AI. She must decide on her own whether or not to trust a mysterious federal agent named Lyric Jones - knowing the wrong choice could lead to greater devastation... and a war no one will win.

Scarred by war, in pursuit of truth.

Army veteran True Brighton left the service when the development of robotic helicopters made her training as a pilot obsolete. Now she works at Requisite Operations, a private military company established by friend and former Special Ops soldier Lincoln Han. ReqOp has embraced the new technologies: robotics, big data, and artificial intelligence are all tools used to augment the skills of veteran warfighters-for-hire.

But the tragedy of war is still measured in human casualties, and when True makes a chance discovery during a rescue mission, old wounds are ripped open. She's left questioning what she knows of the past, and resolves to pursue the truth, whatever the cost.

A powerful science fiction story about an architect on Earth commissioned to create (via long distance) a masterwork with materials from the last abandoned Martian colony, a monument that will last thousands of years longer than Earth, which is dying.

This story can be found in the anthologies The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Twelve (2018), edited by Jonathan Strahan, The Year's Best Science Fiction: Thirty-Fifth Annual Collection (2018), edited by Gardner Dozois, The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume 3 (2018), edited by Neil Clarke, and The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy, 2018, edited by Rich Horton.

Read the full story for free at Tor.com.

This short story originally appeared in the anthology Operation Arcana (2015), edited by John Joseph Adams, and was reprinted in Lightspeed, March 2015.

Read the full story for free at Lightspeed.

For all of Corey's life, it's been Bree and Corey, Corey and Bree. Best friends, the girls are inseparable--until a devastating betrayal leaves Corey shattered and alone. Corey is sure nothing could hurt more, until Bree suddenly dies. Now Corey is heartbroken and furious. How can she mourn her one-time friend when she is still so angry at her?

Yet Corey and Bree's tale is far from finished. When Corey accidentally catches a glimpse of Bree's spirit passing into the afterlife, she finds herself face to face with a god pulled from the darkest myths of her girlhood: Hades, lord of the dead.

Turns out, the legends are real. But Hades is different from what Corey imagined--and so are the Furies, terrifying and beautiful creatures who encourage Corey to embrace her rage. The more Corey discovers about the Underworld, the more her own power stirs. But can she resist the lure of the darkness within?

William, Prince of Orange, learns that it is not political machinations but black magic that is keeping him from the throne, and he enlists the powers of The White Goddess to stem the rising tide of darkness.

The Nazis are beginning their diabolical plans for conquest. And three prisoners of the Reich will be forced to help them. They've been commandeered for an expedition to the frozen heart of Greenland - to recover Odin's Spear!

According to the Pentagon-owned-and-operated Past-Scan Device, Leonardo da Vinci and Thomas Aquinas were both women in drag. Jane Pendler's advisor says that's impossible, that the technology must be bogus, and pulls the plug on Jane's dissertation research on Leonardo. What a feminist graduate student to do? What else, but do the research behind her advisor's back, of course...

Talking Back showcases the epistolary fantasies of eighteen writers, among them Carol Emshwiller, Leslie What, Eileen Gunn, and Rosaleen Love. Invited to "talk back," the authors penned love letters, fans letters, angry letters, thoughtful letters, letters to dead people, letters to fictional characters, letters to corporations. Carol Emshwiller writes to her beloved Ledoyt; Eileen Gunn, provoked by a New York Times review of Lady Windermere's Fan, addresses Oscar Wilde; Heather Lindsley tenders friendly advice to Citibank; and Nisi Shawl explains to Jack Kerouac that the joke is on both of them. "Lovely Madame," writes James Trimarco to Charles Dickens's infamous Madame Defarge, "you whose eyes flash as your knitting needles click-clack at the table, I spit on the death your father has written for you and burn those pages from my book..."

These are letters that will never be sent, intimate and personal, fantasies the authors have agreed to share with their readers.

Table of Contents:

• from Victoria Elisabeth Garcia to Mrs. Sarah Winchester
• from Eileen Gunn to Oscar Wilde
• from Wendy Walker to Guy Davenport
• from Anne Sheldon to a Scribe
• from Ada Milenkovic Brown to Sofia
• from Rosaleen Love to a Dead Man, John Dalton Hooker, Written on the Occasion of a Visit to Kew Gardens, London, July 2003
• from Nisi Shawl to Jack Kerouac
• from Heather Lindsley to Citibank, R.S.V.P.
• from C.G. Furst to Chandler
• from Leslie What to Timmi Duchamp
• from James Trimarco to Madame Defarge
• from Cat Rambo to William S. Burroughs
• from Carol Emshwiller to Abiel/Beal Ledoyt
• from E.C. Myers to Superman
• from Nancy Jane Moore to Lula Mae Cravens
• from Rachel Swirsky to A Fellow Ugly Girl
• from L. Timmel Duchamp to Alice Sheldon
• from Sarah Coats to the People of the World

The Grand Conversation, the first volume of the Conversation Pieces series, collects four essays by L. Timmel Duchamp that explore her conceptualization of feminist sf as a conversation. These essays, which have been previously published in the scholarly journals Foundation and Extrapolation, lay out the thinking behind the Conversation Pieces series.

Table of Contents:

• For a Genealogy of Feminist SF: Reflections on Women, Feminism, and Science Fiction, 1818-1960 - (2002) - essay
• The Cliché from Outerspace: Reflections on Reports of a Death Greatly Exaggerated - (2003) - essay
• What Can Never Be: The Ancient Dream of a Transparent--Universal--Language - (2003) - essay
• Old Pictures: The Discursive Instability of Feminist SF - (2004) - short fiction

Sarah Minnivitch, an actor sentenced to prison for acts of civil disobedience, wreaked havoc at the for-profit medium-security facility she was first sent to. When Penco transfers her to a high-security facility, the facility's director assigns Dr. Eve Escher the task of rehabilitating Minnivitch and recovering the corporation's losses. Escher believes she is on the verge of a scientific breakthrough that will not only rehabilitate the prisoner but also win the physician fame and glory. But the stakes for both Escher and Minnivitch prove to be higher than either of them imagined.

It's an old, old story: the King loses what passes for his mind and accuses his perfect trophy wife of adultery and prepares to have her put to death. Temporary insanity, right? Often in such cases, there's collateral damage, and that's the case in this story. But who, in a monarchy like Ararat, can oppose the King? Enter, Paulina, stage left, a sculptor with a hidden talent, a dea ex machina with her own ideas about how this story should end.

Zombies in Japan? You bet your life! Dead Love is an artful supernatural thriller that follows a cast of nefarious characters—both human and otherworldly—as they foul one another's plans and power plays in a conspiracy of global proportions. It begins when Clément, a lovesick ghoul, falls for beautiful young Erin. Unfortunately, she is marked for death by the Japanese mob (the yakuza). Using secrets learned from a Haitian witch doctor, and taking us to Tokyo, Amsterdam, and Malaysia, Clément finds a way to rescue and possess her—but not at all in the manner he expected.

Reese can't remember anything from the time between the accident and the day she woke up almost a month later. She only knows one thing: She's different now.

Across North America, flocks of birds hurl themselves into airplanes, causing at least a dozen to crash. Thousands of people die. Fearing terrorism, the United States government grounds all flights, and millions of travelers are stranded.

Reese and her debate team partner and longtime crush David are in Arizona when it happens. Everyone knows the world will never be the same. On their drive home to San Francisco, along a stretch of empty highway at night in the middle of Nevada, a bird flies into their headlights. The car flips over. When they wake up in a military hospital, the doctor won't tell them what happened, where they are—or how they've been miraculously healed.

Things become even stranger when Reese returns home. San Francisco feels like a different place with police enforcing curfew, hazmat teams collecting dead birds, and a strange presence that seems to be following her. When Reese unexpectedly collides with the beautiful Amber Gray, her search for the truth is forced in an entirely new direction—and threatens to expose a vast global conspiracy that the government has worked for decades to keep secret.

The triangular spaceship hovered motionless in the sky above Reese Holloway's house, as inscrutable as a black hole. It had seemed like a good idea when they were inside: to tell the truth about what happened to them at Area 51. It didn't seem like such a good idea now.

Reese and David are not normal teens—not since they were adapted with alien DNA by the Imria, an extraterrestrial race that has been secretly visiting Earth for decades. Now everyone is trying to get to them: the government, the Imria, and a mysterious corporation that would do anything for the upper hand against the aliens.

Beyond the web of conspiracies, Reese can't reconcile her love for David with her feelings for her ex-girlfriend Amber, an Imrian. But her choice between two worlds will play a critical role in determining the future of humanity, the Imria's place in it, and the inheritance she and David will bring to the universe.

In this gripping sequel to Adaptation, Malinda Lo brings a thoughtful exploration of adolescence, sexuality, and "the other" to a science fiction thriller that is impossible to put down.

Cinderella retold

In the wake of her father's death, Ash is left at the mercy of her cruel stepmother. Consumed with grief, her only joy comes by the light of the dying hearth fire, rereading the fairy tales her mother once told her. In her dreams, someday the fairies will steal her away, as they are said to do. When she meets the dark and dangerous fairy Sidhean, she believes that her wish may be granted.

The day that Ash meets Kaisa, the King's Huntress, her heart begins to change. Instead of chasing fairies, Ash learns to hunt with Kaisa. Though their friendship is as delicate as a new bloom, it reawakens Ash's capacity for love-and her desire to live. But Sidhean has already claimed Ash for his own, and she must make a choice between fairy tale dreams and true love.

Entrancing, empowering, and romantic, Ash is about the connection between life and love, and solitude and death, where transformation can come from even the deepest grief.

Nature is out of balance in the human world. The sun hasn't shone in years, and crops are failing. Worse yet, strange and hostile creatures have begun to appear. The people's survival hangs in the balance.

To solve the crisis, the oracle stones are cast, and Kaede and Taisin, two seventeen-year-old girls, are picked to go on a dangerous and unheard-of journey to Tanlili, the city of the Fairy Queen. Taisin is a sage, thrumming with magic, and Kaede is of the earth, without a speck of the otherworldly. And yet the two girls' destinies are drawn together during the mission. As members of their party succumb to unearthly attacks and fairy tricks, the two come to rely on each other and even begin to fall in love. But the Kingdom needs only one huntress to save it, and what it takes could tear Kaede and Taisin apart forever.

The exciting adventure prequel to Malinda Lo's highly acclaimed novel Ash is overflowing with lush Chinese influences and details inspired by the I Ching, and is filled with action and romance.

When a ruthless political regime, led by the charismatic and ambitious Vittori Santorini, seizes control of a planet still struggling to recover from an alien invasion, Kafari Khristinova must take on her former colleagues and the Bolo she once called friend to free the world from the evil Santorini, who has also brainwashed Kafari's young daughter, Yalena.

Table of Contents:

• The Farmer's Wife - novelette by Linda Evans
• Little Red Horn - novella by Linda Evans and Robert R. Hollingsworth
• Little Dog Gone - novella by Linda Evans
• Miles to Go - novel by David Weber
• Technical Notes (The Triumphant) - short fiction by David Weber

The setting is the moon, where newfound industrial strength gives the frontier communities a chance to show independence from the Earth nations that established them. A leading constitutionalist and friend of the U.S. president, Justice Cabot Huntington is sent in to regain control. The stiff-necked judge looks forward to writing precedents for space law, but when his first decision leads to the death of Soviet miners he must reevaluate his position and acknowledge his own complicity in the deadly power struggle that comes to implicate both the Russian and American leaders in the miners' murders.

Snodgrass's idealistic portrait of the spacers is appealing if broad and rather simple, and the protests against martial law, the courtroom theatrics and the spacegoing shootouts keep the action boiling.

Judge Cabot Huntington becomes caught in the middle of a conflict between ruthless, corrupt industrial powers on Earth and a group of proud, determined colonists over newly discovered diamond mines on Mars.

Judge Cabot Huntingdon, dodging impeachment, is hiding among the Belters. The Fifteenth Circuit Court has been suspended, leaving those who live in the belt, on Mars, or on the Moon, on their own. In those territories there is no judicial system approved by Earth, and therefore no judicial buffer against Earth's assaults.

Now terrorists in the Belt have hijacked a spaceship carrying antimatter and are threatening the Earth with it.

It's clearly going to be tough for Judge Cabot to keep the Earth and the Belt from each other's necks, notwithstanding the dubious "help" of his well-connected family.

A deadly race across 1,001 planets will determine more than just the fate of the empire.

Alyssa Farshot has spent her whole life trying to outrun her family legacy, even leaving behind the Kingship and her uncle, the emperor, for a life of exploring.

But when her dying uncle announces a crownchase--a search for the royal seal hidden in the empire that will determine the next ruler--Alyssa is thrust into her greatest, most dangerous adventure yet.

Alyssa Farshot never wanted to rule the empire. But to honor her uncle's dying wish, she participated in the crownchase, a race across the empire's 1,001 planets to find the royal seal and win the throne. Alyssa tried to help her friend Coy win the crownchase, but just as victory was within their grasp, Edgar Voles killed Coy - and claimed the seal for himself.

Broken-hearted over her friend's death, Alyssa is hell-bent on revenge. But Edgar is well protected in the kingship. Alyssa will have to rally rivals, friends, and foes from across the empire to take him down and change the course of the galaxy.

The Castor, a vast starship, seemingly deserted and spinning slowly in the void of deep space. Martha and the Doctor explore the drifting tomb, and discover that they may not be alone after all...

Who survived the disaster that overcame the rest of the crew? What continues to power the vessel? And why has a stretch of wooded countryside suddenly appeared in the middle of the craft?

As the Doctor and Martha journey through the forest, they find a mysterious, fogbound village - a village traumatised by missing children and tales of its own destruction...

"It is said that this city rests over the great menagerie. Men who felt tempted to meddle in science were cursed and turned into beasts."

A nameless city on a primitive, rain-sodden planet. The ruling Knights of Kuabris strive to keep order as hideous creatures emerge from the sewers to attack the populace. It seems that there might be some truth in the prophecies after all.

While Jamie languishes in the castle dungeons, the Doctor is forced to lead an expedition beneath the city to search for the fabled Menagerie of Ukkazaal. Meanwhile Zoe has been sold as a slave to a travelling freak show -- and one of the exhibits is coming to life.

A journey into peril.

Cyrsania, high priestess of the Temple of Paladine, is blind to the beauty of the world but not to the joy of her faith. Lately, though, her communion with the god of light has become distant. Now a mysterious stone has come into her possession. Its power compels her to undertake a merilous quest, accompanied by a strange band of companions.

Together they endure the burning heat of Kyrnn's most violet summer as they struggle toward their destination: the Temple at Neraka.

If they reach it, their world will be transformed forever.

This novel, set in the time of the Chaos War, brings to life the story of Crysania, a Revered Daughter of Paladine, and Dalamar, the dark elf.

In the Beginning...

Given life by gods, the Ogres were the most intelligent and beautful of the early races on Krynn, and they reigned supreme in their perfect kingdom...

Until that fabled race was weakened by clan rivalries and evil ambition, their downfall orchestrated by the hand of the Dark Queen, Takhisis...

Until the once-proud Ogres were cursed by their own mistakes and transformed into one of Krynn's most ugly, despised, and villainous species...

All except a small group, the Irda, who learned to accept goodness, fight for their freedom, and escape to build a utopian civilization of their own on a paradise island in the Dragon Isles.

The Irda

The Lost Histories Series probes the historical roots and epic struggles of the heretofore little-known peoples of Krynn. Author Linda P. Baker sheds light on thelegendary origins of this mysterious race, The Irda.

The latest in a long line of suicide attempts sees Caroline 'Laska' Darnell admitted to the Retreat, a groundbreaking medical center surrounded by woodland. To her horror, she recognizes the Retreat from her recent nightmares of an old building haunted by ghostly dogs with glowing eyes. But who will believe her stories of an evil from the past that has already made one attempt to destroy the building and all its inhabitants? The mysterious Dr. Smith seems curiously aware of the Retreat's past, and is utterly fascinated by Laska's waking dreams and prophetic nightmares. But if Laska is unable to trust her own perceptions, can she trust Dr. Smith?

Before he knew about the Roses, 16-year-old Jack lived an unremarkable life in the small Ohio town of Trinity. Only the medicine he has to take daily and the thick scar above his heart set him apart from the other high-schoolers. Then one day Jack skips his medicine. Suddenly, he is stronger, fiercer, and more confident than ever before. And it feels great-until he loses control of his own strength and nearly kills another player during soccer team tryouts.

Soon, Jack learns the startling truth about himself: He is Weirlind; part of an underground society of magical people who live among us. At the head of this magical society sit the feuding houses of the Red Rose and the White Rose, whose power is determined by playing The Game-a magical tournament in which each house sponsors a warrior to fight to the death. The winning house rules the Weir.

As if his bizarre magical heritage isn't enough, Jack finds out that he's not just another member of Weirlind-he's one of the last of the warriors-at a time when both houses are scouting for a player.

Sixteen-year-old Seph McCauley has spent the past three years getting kicked out of one exclusive private school after another. And it's not his attitude that's the problem. It's the trail of magical accidents-lately, disasters-that follow in his wake. Seph is a wizard, orphaned and untrained--and his powers are escalating out of control.

After causing a tragic fire at an after-hours party, Seph is sent to the Havens, a secluded boys' school on the coast of Maine. At first, it seems like the answer to his prayers. Gregory Leicester, the headmaster, promises to train Seph in magic and initiate him into his mysterious order of wizards. But Seph's enthusiasm dampens when he learns that training comes at a steep cost, and that Leicester plans to use his students' powers to serve his own dangerous agenda.

In this companion novel to the exciting fantasy The Warrior Heir, everyone's got a secret to keep: Jason Haley, a fellow student who's been warned to keep away from Seph; the enchanter Linda Downey, who knew his parents; the rogue wizard Leander Hastings, and the warriors Jack Swift and Ellen Stephenson. This wizard war is one that Seph may not have the strength to survive.

The covenant that was meant to keep the wizard wars at bay has been stolen, and Trinity must prepare for attack. Everyone is doing their part -- Seph is monitoring the Weirwalls; Jack and Ellen are training their ghostly army; even Anaweir Will and Fitch are setting booby traps around the town's perimeter. But to Jason Haley, it seems like everyone wants to keep him out of the action. He may not be the most powerful wizard in Trinity, but he's prepared to fight for his friends.

When Jason finds a powerful talisman --a huge opal called the Dragonheart--buried in a cave, his role takes on new importance. The stone seems to sing to Jason's very soul -- showing him that he is meant for more than anyone guessed. Trinity's guardians take the stone away after they realize that it may be a weapon powerful enough to save them all. Without any significant power of his own, and now without the stone, what can Jason possibly do to help the people he cares about -- and to prove his mettle?

They called it the Thorn Hill Massacre-the brutal attack on a once-thriving Weir community. Though Jonah Kinlock lived through it, he did not emerge unscathed: like the other survivors Jonah possesses unique magical gifts that set him apart from members of the mainline guilds. At seventeen, Jonah has become the deadliest assassin in Nightshade, a network that hunts the undead.

Emma Claire Greenwood grew up worlds away, raised by a grandfather who taught her music rather than magic. An unschooled wild child, she runs the streets until the night she finds her grandfather dying, gripping a note warning Emma that she might be in danger. The clue he leaves behind leads Emma into Jonah's life-and a shared legacy of secrets and lingering questions.

Was Thorn Hill really a peaceful commune? Or was it, as the Wizard Guild claims, a hotbed of underguild terrorists? The Wizards' suspicions grow when members of the mainline guilds start turning up dead. They blame Nightshade, bringing tensions between the groups to a head.

Racing against time, Jonah and Emma work to uncover the truth about Thorn Hill, amid increasing concern that whoever planned the Thorn Hill Massacre might strike again.

The delicate peace between Wizards and the underguilds (Warriors, Seers, Enchanters, and Sorcerers) still holds by the thinnest of threads, but powerful forces inside and outside the guilds threaten to sever it completely.

Emma and Jonah are at the center of it all. Brought together by their shared history, mutual attraction, and a belief in the magic of music, they now stand to be torn apart by new wounds and old betrayals. As they struggle to rebuild their trust in each other, Emma and Jonah must also find a way to clear their names as the prime suspects in a series of vicious murders. It seems more and more likely that the answers they need lie buried in the tragedies of the past. The question is whether they can survive long enough to unearth them.

Old friends and foes return as new threats arise in this stunning and revelatory conclusion to the beloved and bestselling Heir Chronicles series.

They thought they knew how the universes worked. They were wrong!

In the almost two centuries since the discovery of the first interuniversal portal, Arcana has explored scores of other worlds--all of them duplicates of their own. Multiple Earths, virgin planets with a twist, because the "explorers" already know where to find all of their vast, untapped natural resources. Worlds beyond worlds, effectively infinite living space and mineral wealth. And in all that time, they have never encountered another intelligent species. No cities, no vast empires, no civilizations, and no equivalent of their own dragons, gryphons, spells, and wizards.

But all of that is about to change. It seems there is intelligent life elsewhere in the multiverse. Other human intelligent life, with terrifying new weapons and powers of the mind...and wizards who go by the strange title of "scientist".

It began with two men. They came from very different worlds--entirely different universes, in fact--one using sorcery and the other using mental powers and steam-age technology. They met in a virgin forest on a duplicate planet Earth. Neither side knows who shot first, but each blames the other, and it doesn't really matter, now, because war has begun.

War between the universes is the last thing responsible leaders on either side want. But the fury of their respective populations, xenophobic fear of the unknown, and cries for "justice" (or vengeance), are all driving both sides towards the brink. And unscrupulous, power-hungry men--and Arcana and Sharona alike--have agendas of their own.

The fuse has been lit, and a war stretching across the universes, fought between dragons, spells, and crossbows and repeating rifles, machine guns, and artillery is erupting in white-hot rage and fury. Where it will end--and how--no one knows.

The Emperor's daughter Mercedes is the first woman ever admitted to The High Ground, the elite training academy of the Solar League's Star Command, and she must graduate if she is to have any hope of taking the throne. Her classmate Tracy has more modest goals -- to defy his humble beginnings and rise to the rank of captain. But in a system rocked by political division, where women are governed by their husbands and fathers, the poor are kept in their place by a rigid class system, and the alien races have been conquered and subjugated, there are many who want them to fail.

A civil war is coming, and the political machinations of those who yearn for power threaten the young cadets. In a time of intrigue, class conflict, and alien invasion, they will be tested as they never thought possible...

Thracius "Tracy" Belmanor and the Infanta Mercedes de Arango have graduated from The High Ground and have become officers in the Orden de la Estrella. Tracy's posting aboard a battleship leads him to further doubt the intentions of the Solar League, as he and his comrades are required to "assimilate" the settlers of a Hidden World.

Meanwhile, Mercedes' own posting -- and her difficult marriage to Beauregard "Boho" Cullen, made to assure her succession of the throne -- divides her loyalties. In a society where most humans and all aliens are second-class citizens, the two young officers will have difficult choices to make...

Fourteen years have passed since he was framed for theft to cover up an imperial atrocity, and disgraced military officer Thracius "Tracy" Belmanor has built a new life for himself. Living under an assumed name as the captain of a small trading vessel crewed primarily by aliens, he and his crew engage in both legal and illegal deals just under the radar of the Solar League authorities.

At the other end of the social hierarchy, Princess Mercedes de Arango has her own problems -- the major one being the lack of an heir. Meanwhile her philandering husband Boho Cullen has ably proved the problem isn't him. With rumors of a coup swirling around the throne, Mercedes makes the desperate decision to undertake a military campaign and gain her people's allegiance through a victory. But when things go badly wrong and her future lies in the hands of the man she betrayed, Tracy has a choice to make -- can he ever forgive her?

The Solar League, humanity's empire, has existed since mankind reached for the stars. While the humans considered it the pinnacle of human achievement, for the subjugated alien races it seemed only to endorse humanity's worst impulses. But the worst of humanity pales in comparison to an alien onslaught that is on the verge of bringing mankind down into death and subjugation.

Thracius "Tracy" Belmanor helps lead the Solar League's desperate defense against this new alien threat while the Empress of the Solar League, Mercedes, tries to keep the League from tearing apart.

However, neither is prepared for the questions that need to be answered to save mankind and all of the human and non-human citizens of the League. Is humanity redeemable? Can the League reform into something better?

Tracy and Mercedes must ask these questions of themselves and then decide the future of humanity while facing betrayals, ambition, and secrets that may bring about a dark age for the galaxy.

It's been two hundred years since the Solar League faced an alien threat. Now aliens have attacked with horrific force. And only the Empress Mercedes de Arango can inspire and lead her people, even as the alien menace rains death on the League worlds.

She desperately needs competent military officers to battle the aliens, so Mercedes reaches out to her secret love Thracius "Tracy" Belmanor. She begs Tracy to return to active duty -- taking the risk that Tracy will uncover the truth about her son and a long ago encounter she and Tracy agreed to forget.

In the midst of a losing war against outside invaders with no mercy, civil war looms. Mercedes' son and her youngest sister face execution and worse as pawns in this game of thrones.

Unable to save them, Mercedes once again calls upon Tracy and his unorthodox smuggler's skills to rescue her sister and her son. But can any of them survive the revelation of a devasting secret, one that will forever undermine the stability of the throne?

Indevan Algara-Vayir was born the second son of a powerful prince, destined to stay at home and defend his family's castle. But when war threatens, Inda is sent to the Royal Academy where he learns the art of war and finds that danger and intrigue don't only come from outside the kingdom.

Attending the King's Military Academy had been Inda's greatest dream. But Academy reality is far from what he'd imagined-for by defending the second son of the king, Inda becomes embroiled in a vicious political struggle among the nobility that he has no hope of winning.

But these petty squabbles are only a faint shadow of what is to come. His future holds betrayals he cannot even imagine, and before growing to manhood, his fate will sever him from all he holds dear, thrusting him away from friends, family, and the life he thought he'd been meant to live, onto the perilous decks of pirate ships and beyond...

Inda, on the verge of adulthood, is at last coming home. At age eleven he'd been exiled from his kingdom, but when he learns that his homeland is about to be invaded, he ends his exile to report the imminent attack. Pressed into service as the king's "royal shield arm," Inda must now defend the kingdom--for his reputation as the captain who defeated the most dangerous pirate fleet in history makes him the only man who stands a chance to defeat his country's ancient enemy.

Inda, fresh from his triumph on the battlefield against the Venn, takes his place beside King Evred as Harskialdna, the King's Shield. But the Venn are far from defeated and only Inda's fame is strong enough to inspire all the squabbling kingdoms to unite and raise a force mighty enough to protect the strait and repel the enemy. Evred has also ordered Inda to take over the strait once the battle is won, but Inda, a former pirate, knows that this is a very bad idea. Now Inda must choose between obeying his liege - or committing treason.

It is the most powerful technology known to humanity, microscopically small, allowing its user to control and change other's moods and emotions, and even to reprogram his or her own genetic structure. Its potential as the ultimate weapon or an instrument of peace has led to its ban by the Commonwealth.

Someone has stolen this outlaw technology, the Bohr Maker, from the secret files of the Commonwealth Police, at the command of a man with a genetic time bomb coded into his DNA. Nikko Jiang-Tibayan has only weeks to live, and he will do anything to stay only weeks to live, and he will do anything to stay alive, even if it means the end of life as we know it.

But then the Bohr Maker falls into the hands of a beautiful young woman in the poverty-stricken slums of Sunda. Its technology will make her both fugitive and messiah. The object of frantic searches by a walking dead man and a high-tech police force, the Maker holds the key to the total destruction of humanity -- or its miraculous rebirth....

In a war of belief, faith is a virus, and it's spreading fast. Remnants of an alien nanotechnology infest the surface of the planet, Deception Well, giving rise to deadly plagues that make the Well uninhabitable-or so most believe.

Jupiter Apolinario saw it differently. He believed the planet was host to an ancient, alien mechanism of transformation meant to embrace all life forms in an ecstatic communion. Jupiter disappeared on the planet along with a handful of followers, though whether they were taken by death or transcendence, no one could say.

Ten years later, Jupiter's son, Lot, stands at the center of conflict. Like his father, Lot has a seductive presence, and a charismatic nature that seems more-than-human. People are helplessly drawn to him. Their faith in him is strong and their numbers are growing, but Lot is beset with doubts about his father's teachings. So he sets out to learn the truth about Jupiter, about his own powerful calling as a prophet, and about the real nature of Deception Well, where a razor-thin line divides bliss from damnation.

Enjoy all four books of the Nanotech Succession, a collection of stand-alone novels exploring the rise of nanotechnology and the strange and fascinating future that follows.

Aboard Null Boundary, a giant starship thousands of years old, four survivors of an ancient alien war are making a desperate journey: Lot, son of a fiery prophet and carrier of an insidious virus that spreads a cultlike religious mania among those it infects; Urban, Lot's boyhood friend from the city of Silk, and a man in search of challenge and adventure; Clemantine, cast adrift when her world was destroyed, and yearning for revenge; and Nikko, sometimes a living man, but always the ship's disembodied mind.

They are bound for unknown territory. Ahead of them loom vast, lightless clouds of dust and gas where stars are born, and where the alien Chenzeme are believed to live. The Chenzeme are an enigmatic race whose automated warships have ravaged the living worlds of the galaxy's Orion arm for millions of years. But why? Null Boundary's crew is driven to find out--though in their quest to discover the source of the Chenzeme, they must also explore the terrible truth of their own past, the meaning of revenge, and the price each one of them is willing to pay for survival. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

For Katie Kishida, the nanotechnology revolution begins with an act of love. Katie is a young mother with a successful career and a loving marriage, when her perfect life is shattered by the sudden death of her husband, Tom. Putting her faith in a science that hasn't been invented yet, Katie has Tom's body placed in cryonic suspension-frozen in liquid nitrogen against a time when advances in nanotechnology might heal his injuries and restore his life. Katie never suspects the consequences that will follow.

Tom's death and his costly entombment spark immediate political controversy. It's a debate that only grows more passionate as the years go by. Katie's life is taken over by the need to defend her husband's future and to shepherd into existence the controversial technologies that might let him live again . . . even as she's haunted by the question: Does Tom really want to come back?

Tech-Heaven is a compelling story of devotion and unyielding determination set amid the tumultuous politics of our time, in a world that is teetering on the cusp of a technological revolution like no other in history. Enjoy all four books of the Nanotech Succession, a collection of stand-alone novels exploring the rise of nanotechnology and the strange and fascinating future that follows-beginning tomorrow and reaching far into time.

Deception Well is a world on the edge, home to an isolated remnant surviving at the farthest reach of human expansion. All across the frontier, other worlds have succumbed to the relentless attacks of robotic alien warships, while hundreds of light years away, the core of human civilization--those star systems closest to Earth, known as the Hallowed Vasties--have all fallen to ruins. Powerful telescopes can see only dust and debris where once there were orbital mega-structures so huge they eclipsed the light of their parent stars.

No one knows for sure what caused the Hallowed Vasties to fail, but a hardened adventurer named Urban intends to find out. He has the resources to do it. He commands a captive alien starship fully capable of facing the dangers that lie beyond Deception Well.

With a ship's company of explorers and scientists, Urban is embarking on a voyage of re-discovery. They will be the first in centuries to confront the hazards of an inverted frontier as they venture back along the path of human migration. Their goal: to unravel the mystery of the Hallowed Vasties and to discover what monstrous life might have grown up among the ruins.

A Lost Ship - A New World

Urban is no longer master of the fearsome starship Dragon. Driven out by the hostile, godlike entity, Lezuri, he has taken refuge aboard the most distant vessel in his outrider fleet.

Though Lezuri remains formidable, he is a broken god, commanding only a fragment of the knowledge that once was his. He is desperate to return home to the ring-shaped artificial world he created at the height of his power, where he can recover the memory of forgotten technologies.

Urban is desperate to stop him. He races to reach the ring-shaped world first, only to find himself stranded in a remote desert, imperiled by a strange flood of glowing "silver" that rises in the night like fog - a lethal fog that randomly rewrites the austere, Earthlike landscape. He has only a little time to decipher the mystery of the silver and to master its secrets. Lezuri is coming - and Urban must level up before he can hope to vanquish the broken god.

"Tanjiri is not for you. You are not ready to encounter what exists there."

So Lezuri spoke in warning, long ago. Urban still possesses the strange gift--the impossible puzzle--Lezuri gave him that day. A needle, ultra-thin and twelve centimeters long, with a silvery surface that slices light into rainbow glints. All Lezuri's knowledge lies locked within that needle. Urban has only to discover the trick of opening it, to gain that knowledge for himself--but the needle remains an enigma.

Now Dragon and its fleet of outriders has reached the periphery of Tanjiri system. The belt of ruins lies ahead: a chaos of remnant megastructures from a fallen civilization. Farther in, an Earthlike world orbits in the company of a miraculous living moon created less than 4,000 years ago. An entity--one greater even than Lezuri--must have made that moon. And yet the system is silent. No one, nothing, has answered Dragon's hails.

Perhaps the entity is gone? But Urban doesn't believe that. He is sure that when the fleet enters Tanjiri system, he will meet this maker of worlds--with the lives of everyone he loves at stake. Better, safer, to encounter this entity from a position of strength, armed with all the knowledge and power contained within the needle.

The starship Dragon, accompanied by its fleet of outriders, is faring ever deeper into that region known as the Hallowed Vasties. Here, at the shattered heart of ancient human civilization, once-living worlds were ripped apart by the dimensional intrusions of a Blade. Yet despite the apocalyptic-scale destruction, the fleet's telescopes have picked out signs of life among the ruins and the ship's company is eager to go on--but should they?

From his post on Dragon's high bridge, Urban looks ahead to the smaller starship, Griffin, now far, far in front of the fleet. The mind that pilots that ship--a stern and colder version of his lover, Clemantine--has gone silent. The implication chills him. Like Dragon, Griffin was an alien warship, designed to destroy without mercy all living worlds, and it still has a mind of its own. The question that haunts Urban: Has that alien mind somehow reclaimed control of Griffin?

It's a question he must answer, and soon. Every wonder that lies ahead--and every ambition hidden within his heart--is at risk while Griffin's true nature remains unknown.

Peace, prosperity, and happiness are the rule in the marvelous Land of Oz, but in a faraway corner of this magical domain dwell two tribes--the Flatheads and the Skeezers--who have declared war on each other. Determined to keep her subjects from fighting, the Ruler of Oz, Princess Ozma, along with her dearest friend, Princess Dorothy Gale (formerly of Kansas), embarks on a quest to restore peace.

When the Supreme Dictator of the Flatheads refuses to cooperate with Ozma, she and Dorothy seek out Queen Coo-ee-oh of the Skeezers, hoping she will be more reasonable. But the queen imprisons Ozma and Dorothy in her grand city and then traps them by submerging the whole city under water. Now it is up to Glinda the Good to save the day. She assembles all of Ozma's counsellors--including such beloved Oz friends as the Scarecrow, Tin Woodman, Cowardly Lion, Patchwork Girl, Shaggy Man, Tik-Tok, and Wizard of Oz--and they set out to rescue their friends. Will the magic powers of Glinda and the Wizard combined be enough to free Ozma and Dorothy?

As a soldier in the jungle of Vietnam, Chris Stiles learned how to fight against a deadly enemy. Now the war is over, but when his brother is slaughtered in Central Park, Chris finds himself called back into action, this time to battle a different kind of foe: an army of the undead!

His quest for the creature that killed his brother brings him to Isherwood, Indiana, home to 800 people--and one ancient vampire. As all hell breaks loose and the townspeople are turned one by one into blood-sucking monsters, will Chris's tactical skills and his arsenal of automatic weapons be enough to stop the vampire menace?

The Brigadier is pursued across the world from seeming traitors within UNIT, his own organization. The Third Doctor and Liz deal with an alien invasion that started with an extraterrestrial mass exploding in the atmosphere.

The village was cursed centuries ago, but only now is the alien evil beginning to revive ...The children of Hexen Bridge are gifted and clever, but insanity and murder follow in their wake. The Doctor has a special interest in the village, but on his return to England in the early twenty-first century events seem to be escalating out of control.

Kidnapped and taken to Liverpool, the Doctor realises that developments in Hexen Bridge have horrifying repercussions for the rest of the country. Ace is left in the village, where small-minded prejudices and unsettled scores are flaring into violence. As scarecrows fashioned from the bodies of the recent and ancient dead stalk the country lanes around Hexen Bridge, a sinister dark stain is spreading over the surrounding fields. And as the fierce evil grows ever stronger, can the Doctor and Ace prevent it from engulfing the entire world? Featuring the Seventh Doctor and Ace, this adventure takes place between the TV stories The Curse of Fenric and Survival.

A fireball crash lands in the forests of the Ukraine and when the locals investigate, they find what appears to be a metal coffin at the center of the devastation. They superstitiously conclude that the casket contains the body of an angel sent to Earth to give hope to the people.

Centuries later the First Doctor and his companions, Stephen and Dodo, find themselves trapped in Kiev, 1240 -- a city under attack by the Mongols. They are enforced guests of the governor, Dmitri, whose assistant Yehven believes that if the coffin is desecrated, then "all who threaten us will be destroyed".

When the coffin is opened by a group of men, a terrifying, skull-faced creature is freed, and kills a member of the group before fleeing. A spate of violent deaths ensue -- but this creature certainly isn't killing indiscriminately. How is this creature choosing its victims? Where has it come from -- and most importantly, can the Doctor do anything to halt its murderous trail of destruction?

Since the dawn of consciousness, a secret war has been fought between the forces of magic and religious fanaticism, and the cause of reason, understanding, and technology. On one side are the Old Ones, malign entities that feed on the suffering of mankind. On the other are the Lumina, an ancient order dedicated the liberation of the human spirit.

Officer Richard Oort of the Albuquerque Police Department is caught in the middle of this primal battle when he rescues a mysterious teenage girl from a trio of inhuman hunters. Recruited by the Lumina to serve as their latest paladin, Richard ends up fighting beside a handful of unlikely allies, including an adolescent sorceress, an enigmatic philanthropist, a sexy coroner, and a homeless god with multiple personalities.

The Old Ones and their mortal pawns are determined to destroy Richard–or subvert him to their cause. And they have all powers of magic and organized religion at their disposal. As the gates between the universes shred apart, it may be up to Richard to save humanity from the endless horror of a new Dark Age.

Provocative as The Golden Compass or the Illuminatus! trilogy, The Edge of Reason dramatizes the fundamental conflict behind the hot-button issues of today...and the future of the human race.

A novel of the eternal battle between science and superstition

I'm Richard Oort. I'm a cop.

Two months ago I had learned there were unseen worlds on the borders of our reality. Dimensions filled with horrific, nightmare creatures. Things that viewed humans as prey. Things that drove us to acts of unspeakable violence.

I had to fight them. To defend the people I loved, and to find out who I was. And am.

I'm still a cop. But now I'm also CEO of Lumina Enterprises, a mysterious, globe-girdling operation even I don't know the full extent of. Replacing the previous guy, who appears to have also been Prometheus, really and truly. Now Prometheus is bound, and the job of taking the fight to the next level is mine.

Because the horrors aren't over. And they'll use any human weakness they can get hold of. This is a fight for the world. For keeps.

What do you do when the Earth is under assault from monstrous creatures by alternate dimensions and you're the only person who can wield the weapon that can destroy them? That's the situation facing Richard Oort, hero of the Melinda Snodgrass's Edge of Dawn.

Lonely and overwhelmed after a series of terrifying, catastrophic global and personal events, Richard is still determined to save the world from the horrific Old Ones. He goes undercover in a Christian fundamentalist compound, playing house with an attractive FBI agent. At first, this only serves to increase his loneliness, missing his real family, but against all odds discovers another unique human who can use the paladin's weapon, one who might be able to join him and lighten the burden of responsibility. There's only one problem - Mosi is a nine year old Navajo girl.

Their enemies are trying to kill both Richard and Mosi-and have already killed Mosi's family. To keep her safe Richard becomes her guardian, but an error in judgement leads to disaster and betrayal, and now the odd pair will need to summon all their strength to survive the coming battle. From the American southwest to a secret society in Turkey, the paladin and his ward try to stay in front of their enemies, but the world is at stake-and time is running short.

Set in the world of the New York Times bestselling Seven Realms series, a generation later, this is a breathtaking story of dark magic, chilling threats, and two unforgettable characters walking a knife-sharp line between life and death. This dazzling beginning to a new series is indispensable for fans of Cinda Williams Chima and a perfect starting point for readers who are new to her work.

Adrian sul'Han, known as Ash, is a trained healer with a powerful gift of magic--and a thirst for revenge. Ash is forced into hiding after a series of murders throws the queendom into chaos. Now he's closer than ever to killing the man responsible, the cruel king of Arden. With time running out, Ash faces an excruciating choice: Can he use his powers not to save a life but to take it?

Abandoned at birth, Jenna Bandelow was told that the magemark on the back of her neck would make her a target. But when the King's Guard launches a relentless search for a girl with a mark like hers, Jenna assumes that it has more to do with her role as a saboteur than any birth-based curse. Though Jenna doesn't know why she's being hunted, she knows that she can't get caught.

Eventually, Ash's and Jenna's paths will collide in Arden. Thrown together by chance and joined by their hatred of the ruthless king, they will come to rescue each other in ways they cannot yet imagine.

From New York Times bestselling author Cinda Williams Chima, this is a thrilling story of the unfathomable costs of war, the allure of dark magic, and two principled and conflicted characters drawn together despite everything they stand to lose.

Alyssa ana'Raisa, the reluctant princess heir to the Gray Wolf throne of the Fells, feels more comfortable striking with a sword than maneuvering at court. After a brush with death, Lyss goes on the offensive, meaning to end the war that has raged her whole life. If her gamble doesn't pay off, she could lose her queendom before she even ascends to the throne. Across enemy lines in Arden, young rising star Captain Halston Matelon is being sent on ever more dangerous assignments. Between the terrifying rumors of witches and wolfish warriors to the north and his cruel king at home, Hal is caught in an impossible game of life and death.

Lyss and Hal's intricately linked fates become inseparable when they fall under the shadow of a new enemy--a force that threatens to extinguish the last rays of hope in the Shattered Realms.

Sorrow all but rules the Court of Tears, in a land gripped by perpetual grief, forever mourning her brother who died just days before Sorrow was born. By day she governs in place of her father, by night she seeks secret solace in the arms of the boy she's loved since childhood. But when her brother is seemingly found alive, and intent on taking control, Sorrow has to choose whether to step aside for a stranger who might not be who he claims to be, or embark on a power struggle for a position she never really wanted.

Sorrow Ventaxis has won the election, and in the process lost everything...

Governing under the sinister control of Vespus Corrigan, and isolated from her friends, Sorrow must to find a way to free herself from his web and save her people.

But Vespus has no plans to let her go, and he isn't the only enemy Sorrow faces as the curse of her name threatens to destroy her and everything she's fought for.

Ravaged by a killer virus, the Romulans enter Canara, where the only antidote can be found. Desperate, they incite a victorious Enterprise attack on one of their vessels -- but Kirk discovers their ruse. Meanwhile the central computer has fallen in love with him severly cripling the Enterprise. Now Kirk must bring the antidote to the Romulans -- before the galaxy crashes over the brink of war!

Captain Kirk and the USS Enterprise join the Klingons to avert disaster in the Taygeta V system - where a time/space warp has swallowed a spaceship without a trace. Spock suspects a link between the anomaly and the inhabitants of Taygeta, semi-aquatic creatures killed for the jewel-like tears secreted at the moment of death.

But a mutinous Klingon officer threatens the vital mission, as a desperate Kirk and Spock race to save the Taygetians, the Federation -- and the entire universe!

In the aftermath of a cataclysmic civil war known as the Sequel, ideological divisions among the states have hardened. In the Homestead Territories, an alliance of plantation-inspired holdings, Black labor is imported from the Cradle, and Biracial "Muleseeds" are bred.

Raised in captivity on Planting 437, kitchen-seed Jellybean "Ji-ji" Lottermule knows there is only one way to escape. She must enter the annual Freedom Race as a runner.

Ji-ji and her friends must exhume a survival story rooted in the collective memory of a kidnapped people and conjure the voices of the dead to light their way home.

Dreams are promises your imagination makes to itself.

In the disunited states, no person of color--especially not a girl whose body reimagines flight--is safe. A quest for Freedom has brought former Muleseed Jellybean "Ji-ji" Silapu to D.C., aka Dream City, the site of monuments and memorials?where, long ago, the most famous Dreamer of all time marched for the same cause.

As Ji-ji struggles to come to terms with her shocking metamorphosis and her friends, Tiro and Afarra, battle formidable ghosts of their own, the former U.S. capital decides whose dreams it wants to invest in and whose dreams it will defer. The journeys the three friends take to liberate themselves and others will not simply defy the status quo, they will challenge the nature of reality itself.

When homicide detective Alexandra Jarvis is assigned a new partner in Aramael, a Guardian Angel who doubles as a hit man, they have only one thing in common: a fallen angel hell-bent on triggering the apocalypse. Now they have no choice but to work together-relentlessly, fearlessly, intimately. Because only they can stop the rogue angel from ushering in the end of days.

When homicide detective Alexandra Jarvis sees a photo of Seth Benjamin on a police bulletin, she knows that Heaven's plan to halt Armageddon has gone terribly wrong. As the only mortal who knows of Seth's true nature, only she can save him. Aramael was a hunter of Fallen Angels until a traitor forced him into earthly exile. Now, with no powers and only a faint memory of Alex, his mortal soulmate, he will stop at nothing to redeem himself-even if it means destroying Seth in the name of the Creator...

From the author of Sins of the Angels and Sins of the Son comes the newest novel in the "electric, thrilling and extremely intelligent" (Ex Libris) Grigori Legacy series.

Heaven and Hell are on the brink of war as Lucifer builds his Nephilim army and waits for his new weapon to be born -- a Nephilim child of his own bloodline to lead his forces to cataclysmic victory.

With rumors of the pending war rampant on Earth, Alex Jarvis fights to save humanity from its own panic -- leaving little time for her fledgling relationship with Seth, the man with heavenly origins who has captured her heart. But when Nephilim children begin to disappear, along with Alex's own vulnerable niece, the inevitable war between Heaven and Hell becomes personal.

Heaven has its own plans to fight the coming apocalypse, but first it needs Seth back. Asked to betray the man she loves, Alex must turn for help to the soulmate she thought she'd given up -- the Archangel Aramael, who may be her last chance to save her family and humanity from the ashes of Lucifer's Armageddon.

Seattle, February 2076. The Marq'ssan bring business as usual to a screeching halt all over the world, and Professor Kay Zeldin joins Robert Sedgewick, US Chief of Security Services, in his war against the invaders. Soon Kay is making, rather than writing, history.

But as she goes head-to-head against the Marq'ssan, the long-buried secrets of her past resurface, and her conflicts with Sedgewick and Security Services multiply. She faces terrifying choices. Her worldview — her very grip on reality — is turned inside out. Whose side is she really on? And how far will she go in serving that side?

Renegade, the second of the five-novel Marq'ssan Cycle, opens in August 2077 as the Pacific Northwest Free Zone, having survived the first year of its existence, faces both internal and external challenges. The US's Security Services has deployed a paramilitary covert action team to capture Kay Zeldin, Security's most wanted renegade, and destabilize the Zone's civil order. Nevertheless, Kay ventures outside the Free Zone to search for her spouse and dozens of other scientists who have disappeared, traveling through a war-torn American landscape she barely recognizes. When she encounters Security's formidable Elizabeth Weatherall, each woman risks all she has become in no-holds-barred, mortal combat.

Renegade is a passionate novel of love, trust, and betrayal as well as matters of life and death. It poses vital questions about political morality that resonate powerfully with the most significant issues of our day. With this novel, L. Timmel Duchamp, best known for her "provocative," "daring" short fiction, moves into new territory, mapping largely invisible connections between how humans negotiate the most intimate and the least intimate of relations.

Tsunami, the gripping third volume of the five-novel Marq'ssan Cycle, opens in early 2086, immediately after the signing of the Madrid Accords at the conclusion of the Global War. Many countries, including the US, have been devastated by war, and some of them turn to the Free Zones and the Marq'ssan for assistance in rebuilding their infrastructure.

In the US, the Executive, which has turned its attention to reconsolidating its power, meets with growing resistance to executive rule; and in the Pacific Northwest Free Zone, the Co-op faces an internal crisis when ugly, long-buried secrets are dragged into the light of day. Meanwhile, the lives of three very different women -- executive Elizabeth Weatherall, anarchist Martha Greenglass, and human rights lawyer Celia Espin -- become entangled as each strives to bring about the change she so passionately desires.

Blood in the Fruit, the hard-hitting fourth volume of the five-novel Marq'ssan Cycle, focuses sharp, analytical attention on human rights issues. The novel opens in October 2086. After ten years' absence, the Marq'ssan Fleet returns to Earth to determine whether humans should be quarantined, and a young alien, unprepared for the shock of human culture, becomes a dangerous loose cannon taking violent, unilateral action.

In the Free Zone, a flood of renegades led by Elizabeth Weatherall establish a fortress; even Hazel Bell, Weatherall's lover, doesn't know what they're up to. In the US, when the government responds to increasing dissent and civil disorder by ratcheting up its repressive tactics, brave and dedicated human rights activists like Celia Espin join forces with the Free Zones in a global challenge that threatens to undermine governments around the world.

Blood in the Fruit offers a grand, sweeping story through the eyes of four individuals with markedly contrasting perspectives and experience.

Stretto, the grand finale of the Marq'ssan Cycle, weaves together the major threads of the Marq'ssan story and encourages readers, as Joan Haran says, "to write beyond the ending." The novel, like the series as a whole, inquires Whose world is it? and shows several possible ways of answering the question through the respective perceptions and perspectives of the novel's five viewpoint characters: Alexandra Sedgewick, heir to the Sedgewick estate; Anne Hawthorne, Security operative; Hazel Bell, subversive activist; Celia Espin, human rights lawyer; and Emily Madden, star pupil of the maverick Marq'ssan, Astrea l Betut san Imu.

As always, never predictable, never finished, the consequences of all that has gone before continue to play out.

After years as a Ranger's apprentice, Will is now the protector of his first fief. Not long into his service, everything that can go wrong does: Keren, a renegade knight, has taken over Castle Macindaw, a strategic gateway to the North--poisoning the royal family in the process--and is holding Will's friend Alyss captive. The situation grows direr when Will uncovers Keren's secret alliance with the Scotti, who have plans to plunder Araluen. Time is of the essence, and Will must recruit a motley crew to rescue Alyss and reclaim Castle Macindaw--before the Scotti can make it their own.

This short story originally appeared in Lightspeed, April 2014. It can also be found in the anthology The Year's Best Military SF & Space Opera: First Annual Edition (2015), edited by David Afsharirad.

Read the full story for free at Lightspeed.

This stort story in Nagata's The Red series originally appeaared in Lightspeed, May 2012. It can also be found in the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction: Thirtieth Annual Collection (2013), edited by Gardner Dozois.

Read the full story for free at Lightspteed.

There Needs To Be A War Going On Somewhere.

Lieutenant James Shelley commands a high-tech squad of soldiers in a rural district within the African Sahel. They hunt insurgents each night on a harrowing patrol, guided by three simple goals: protect civilians, kill the enemy, and stay alive - because in a for-profit war manufactured by the defense industry there can be no cause worth dying for. To keep his soldiers safe, Shelley uses every high-tech asset available to him - but his best weapon is a flawless sense of imminent danger... as if God is with him, whispering warnings in his ear.

In the wake of nuclear terrorism, a squad of elite soldiers must combat artificial intelligence and seek justice in this military political thriller, a sequel to The Red: First Light.

Lieutenant James Shelley and his squad of US Army soldiers were on a quest for justice when they carried out the unauthorized mission known as First Light. They returned home to America to face a court-martial, determined to expose the corruption in the chain of command that compelled their actions. But in a country still reeling from the nuclear terrorism of Coma Day, the courtroom is just one battlefield of many.

A new cycle of violence ignites when rumors of the elusive, rogue AI known as the Red go public - and Shelley is, once again, pulled into the fray. Challenged by his enemies, driven by ideals, Shelley feels compelled to act. But are the harrowing choices he makes really his own, or are they made for him, by the Red? And with millions of lives at stake in a game of nuclear cat-and-mouse, does the answer even matter?

In the third book in The Red Trilogy, former Army Lt. James Shelley becomes a black ops sniper working for the Red--a suspected rogue artificial intelligence that is ripped from today's headlines.

James Shelley has left his lover, Delphi, and his companion-in-arms, Jayne Vasquez, with a fortune acquired from a fallen oligarch. They believe him to be dead, and he doesn't try to set the record straight. His long-running question has been answered: There are other soldiers like him who have served the purposes of the Red--and he has accepted his place among them. As a soldier of the Red he pursues covert missions designed to nudge history away from existential threats--but that doesn't mean the world is growing more orderly. It's only in the froth of a "managed chaos" that human potential can grow and thrive. Shelley's missions eventually take him into orbit--and into conflict with those he loves--Delphi and Jaynie--who are determined to escape the influence of the Red.

Times are hard in the mountain city of Fellsmarch. Reformed thief Han Alister will do almost anything to eke out a living for himself, his mother, and his sister Mari. Ironically, the only thing of value he has is something he can't sell. For as long as Han can remember, he's worn thick silver cuffs engraved with runes. They're clearly magicked--as he grows, they grow, and he's never been able to get them off.

While out hunting one day, Han and his Clan friend, Dancer catch three young wizards setting fire to the sacred mountain of Hanalea. After a confrontation, Han takes an amulet from Micah Bayar, son of the High Wizard, to ensure the boy won't use it against them. Han soon learns that the amulet has an evil history--it once belonged to the Demon King, the wizard who nearly destroyed the world a millennium ago. With a magical piece that powerful at stake, Han knows that the Bayars will stop at nothing to get it back.

Meanwhile, Raisa ana'Marianna, Princess Heir of the Fells, has her own battles to fight. She's just returned to court after three years of relative freedom with her father's family at Demonai camp--riding, hunting, and working the famous Clan markets. Although Raisa will become eligible for marriage after her sixteenth name-day, she isn't looking forward to trading in her common sense and new skills for etiquette tutors and stuffy parties.

Raisa wants to be more than an ornament in a glittering cage. She aspires to be like Hanalea--the legendary warrior queen who killed the Demon King and saved the world. But it seems like her mother has other plans for her--plans that include a suitor who goes against everything the Queendom stands for.

The Seven Realms will tremble when the lives of Han and Raisa collide in this stunning new page-turner from bestselling author Cinda Williams Chima.

Haunted by the loss of his mother and sister, Han Alister journeys south to begin his schooling at Mystwerk House in Oden's Ford. But leaving the Fells doesn't mean that danger isn't far behind. Han is hunted every step of the way by the Bayars, a powerful wizarding family set on reclaiming the amulet Han stole from them. And Mystwerk House has dangers of its own. There, Han meets Crow, a mysterious wizard who agrees to tutor Han in the darker parts of sorcery-but the bargain they make is one Han may regret.

Meanwhile, Princess Raisa ana'Marianna runs from a forced marriage in the Fells, accompanied by her friend Amon and his triple of cadets. Now, the safest place for Raisa is Wein House, the military academy at Oden's Ford. If Raisa can pass as a regular student, Wein House will offer both sanctuary and the education Raisa needs to succeed as the next Gray Wolf queen.

Everything changes when Han and Raisa's paths cross, in this epic tale of uncertain friendships, cut-throat politics, and the irresistible power of attraction.

Han Alister thought he had already lost everyone he loved. But when he finds his friend Rebecca Morley near death in the Spirit Mountains, Han knows that nothing matters more than saving her. The costs of his efforts are steep, but nothing can prepare him for what he soon discovers: the beautiful, mysterious girl he knew as Rebecca is none other than Raisa ana'Marianna, heir to the Queendom of the Fells. Han is hurt and betrayed. He knows he has no future with a blueblood. And, as far as he's concerned, the princess's family killed his own mother and sister. But if Han is to fulfill his end of an old bargain, he must do everything in his power to see Raisa crowned queen.

Meanwhile, some people will stop at nothing to prevent Raisa from ascending. With each attempt on her life, she wonders how long it will be before her enemies succeed. Her heart tells her that the thief-turned-wizard Han Alister can be trusted. She wants to believe it--he's saved her life more than once. But with danger coming at her from every direction, Raisa can only rely on her wits and her iron-hard will to survive--and even that might not be enough.

The Gray Wolf Throne is an epic tale of fierce loyalty, unbearable sacrifice, and the heartless hand of fate.

A thousand years ago, two young lovers were betrayed-Alger Waterlow to his death, and Hanalea, Queen of the Fells, to a life without love.

Now, once again, the Queendom of the Fells seems likely to shatter apart. For young queen Raisa ana'Marianna, maintaining peace even within her own castle walls is nearly impossible; tension between wizards and Clan has reached a fevered pitch. With surrounding kingdoms seeking to prey on the Fells' inner turmoil, Raisa's best hope is to unite her people against a common enemy. But that enemy might be the person with whom she's falling in love.

Through a complicated web of lies and unholy alliances, former streetlord Han Alister has become a member of the Wizard Council of the Fells. Navigating the cut-throat world of blue blood politics has never been more dangerous, and Han seems to inspire hostility among Clan and wizards alike. His only ally is the queen, and despite the perils involved, Han finds it impossible to ignore his feelings for Raisa. Before long, Han finds himself in possession of a secret believed to be lost to history, a discovery powerful enough to unite the people of the Fells. But will the secret die with him before he can use it?

A simple, devastating truth concealed by a thousand-year-old lie at last comes to light in this stunning conclusion to the Seven Realms series.

The Wild existed in beautiful and ruthless perfection--until the people came.

Generations past, disaster drove the people to seek a new home on a wild continent that had never before known a human presence. Spirits of wind, stream, forest, and mist inhabit this land, but these beings care nothing for the people, and some are cruel and hostile.

Siddél is a power among these spirits. He is thunder and lightning, he is the storm--and he despises all people. He has resolved to drive them from the land and for this purpose he created the arowl--mad, ravening beasts with an unquenchable hunger. Arowl are abominations. They hunt all creatures, while craving human flesh above all else.

Bennek is a young warrior, skilled at hunting arowl and eager to slay any that dare venture into the Protected Lands. But he longs for greater deeds. One morning, in the cold blue hour before sunrise, an owl spirit visits, urging Bennek, along with his brother and cousin, to take on a perilous quest. The three youths must find the Snow Chanter--an ancestral spirit that they had thought long gone from the world. History teaches that the Snow Chanter was an enemy of Siddél. If she still exists, might her power help to bring him down?

Bennek is determined to find out. With his kin, he sets off to seek for her. But other forces are stirring. As the trio ventures north into a dangerous land overrun by arowl, they chance to meet a strange young woman--a sorceress, with ambitions even greater than their own.

An end must be made--and soon.

The future of the people hangs in the balance as Lanyon continues her journey north. She must find the Storm Lair, home of the Inyomere Siddél, where she'll have one more chance to slay the great spirit of storm. But her journey grows ever more perilous and strange, and even her devoted companions cannot keep her safe.

Bennek, meanwhile, has been taken south to Habaddon. Through Lanyon's magic he has survived terrible injury, yet he still needs time to heal. But time is short--and Siddél is resolved to destroy Habaddon. As the great Inyomere sends ever more arowl south towards the city, Bennek finds himself swept up in a relentlessly brutal war.

Never before have the people warred against the people.

Bennek senses change flooding the world. Dread weighs on him, and he fears what is to come. But Jahallon sees hope.

Gifted with foresight, Jahallon is certain it won't be much longer before Lanyon returns, bringing the talisman with her. Determined to distract and weaken Lanyon's enemies before they have a chance to waylay her, he launches a great offensive against both the Inyomere Siddél and the sorcerer Édan.

With his growing skills, Bennek serves at Jahallon's side, directing Habaddon's army--but his skills are not enough to contend against Édan, while Siddél remains an even greater enemy. All the while, time is running short.

TWO NOVELS OF TIME-TRAVELING ADVENTURE. Includes Time Scout and Wagers of Sin.

When an experiment on an orbiting space station went wrong--bad wrong--ripples in time washed over the Earth bringing global disaster. The survivors, beginning to rebuild, learned that they were now able to travel into the past, utilizing the remnant time strings. But first, the time strings had to be mapped.

That was the job of the brave pioneers known as time scouts. Their occupation was only slightly less dangerous than front line combat, and when it was discovered that a time traveler who wasn't extremely careful could zap himself out of existence, elaborate rules to prevent that evolved, and it was the job of the time scouts to enforce them.

Time Scout:

Kenneth "Kit" Carson was one of the best, if not the best, time scouts in the business. But he has collected more than a few scars, both physical and mental, while poking around back in time, and trying not to draw the dangerous attention of the natives, not always successfully. Nowadays, he runs a small hotel at Time Terminal 86, and just wants to be a hotelier renting rooms to tourists on their way to see the Roman Circus Maximus or Victorian London firsthand . . . until a cartain red-headed girl flounces out of his life through an illicit gate that may collapse and leave her lost eternally in the corridors of time . . .

Wagers of Sin:

Time Travel stations have become big business, with wealthy tourists taking vacations back in time. For Skeeter Jackson, one of Time Terminal 86's least honest residents, scamming those tourists is a way of life. A man's got to follow his calling, even a con man, and Skeeter might be a dyed-in-the-wool thieving scoundrel, but he freely admits it and relishes the crisp, cool feel of cash in hand--until one of his scams went terribly wrong, and he was in more trouble than even his quick wits and crooked tricks could get him out of again.

TWO NOVELS OF TIME-TRAVELING ADVENTURE. Includes Ripping Time and The House That Jack Built.

Ripping Time:
When terrorists gun down Jenna Caddrick's fiancee, the only daughter of Senator John Caddrick is trapped in a desperate struggle to stay alive. With a pack of killers on her trail, Jenna plunges through Shangri-La Station's time touring gates-and lands in London of 1888, just in time to meet Jack the Ripper.

And Skeeter Jackson, newly reformed con artist, finds himself caught up in the biggest mystery of the century. All Skeeter has to do is find the Senator's missing daughter, track down lanira Cassandra's kidnappers, stop a cult of killers and survive Ripping Time.

The House That Jack Built:
Jack the Ripper's killing spree spreads from Victorian London to Time Terminal Eighty-Six in this breath stopping sequel to Ripping Time, retired time scout Kit Carson and ex-con man Skeeter Jackson enter an unholy alliance that surprises everyone--including Skeeter and Kit.

All they have to do is track down Senator Caddrick's missing heiress, lost somewhere in history, rescue Ianira Cassandra from the clutches of a madman, and keep the most famous time-touring station in the world open for business while avoiding death in The House that Jack (the Ripper) Built.

A rundown apartment in Koreatown. A Los Angeles winter. A strung out, worn out, wrecked and used government agent is scraped up off the pavement, cleaned up, and reluctantly sent out into battle one last time.

Ellison Nicodemo has seen and done terrible things. She thought her only remaining quest was for oblivion. Then the Signalman comes calling. He wants to learn if she can stop the latest apocalypse. Ellison, once a unique and valuable asset, can barely remember why she ever fought the good fight.

Still, you don't say no to the Signalman, and the time has come to face her fears and the nightmare forces that almost destroyed her. Only Ellison can unleash the hound of Tindalos.

In 1946, an alien virus that rewrites human DNA was accidentally unleashed in the skies over New York City. It killed ninety percent of those it infected. Nine percent survived to mutate into tragically deformed creatures. And one percent gained superpowers. The Wild Cards shared-universe series, created and edited since 1987 by New York Times #1 bestseller George R. R. Martin ("The American Tolkien"-Time magazine) along with Melinda Snodgrass, is the tale of the history of the world since then-and of the heroes among the one percent.

Ranging from New York and New England to ravaged Africa and New Orleans, encompassing war, devastation, and stubborn hope, Suicide Kings advances the story of the Wild Cards, and their struggle to be fully human in a world that fears and mistrusts them.

Decades after an alien virus changed the course of history, the surviving population of Manhattan still struggles to understand the new world left in its wake. Natural humans share the rough city with those given extraordinary—and sometimes terrifying—traits. While most manage to coexist in an uneasy peace, not everyone is willing to adapt. Down in the seedy underbelly of Jokertown, residents are going missing. The authorities are unwilling to investigate, except for a fresh lieutenant looking to prove himself and a collection of unlikely jokers forced to take matters into their own hands—or tentacles. The deeper into the kidnapping case these misfits and miscreants get, the higher the stakes are raised.

Edited by #1 New York Times bestselling author George R. R. Martin and acclaimed author Melinda M. Snodgrass, Lowball is the latest mosaic novel in the acclaimed Wild Cards universe, featuring original fiction by Carrie Vaughn, Ian Tregillis, David Anthony Durham, Melinda M. Snodgrass, Mary Anne Mohanraj, David D. Levine, Michael Cassutt, and Walter John Williams.

Perfect for old fans and new readers alike, Lowball delves deeper into the world of aces, jokers, and the hard-boiled men and women of the Fort Freak police precinct in a pulpy, page-turning novel of superheroics and mystery.

Perfect for old fans and new readers alike, High Stakes (Wild Cards) delves deeper into the world of aces, jokers, and the hard-boiled men and women of the Fort Freak police precinct in a pulpy, page-turning novel of superheroics and Lovecraftian horror.

After the concluding events of Lowball, Officer Francis Black of Fort Freak, vigilante joker Marcus "The Infamous Black Tongue" Morgan, and ace thief Mollie "Tesseract" Steunenberg get stuck in Talas, Kazakhstan. There, the coldblooded Baba Yaga forces jokers into an illegal fighting ring, but her hidden agenda is much darker: her fighters' deaths serve to placate a vicious monster from another dimension. When the last line of defense against this world weakens, all hell breaks loose, literally....

The Committee in New York sends a team of aces to investigate. One by one, each falls victim to evil forces--including the dark impulses within themselves. Only the perseverance of the most unlikely of heroes has a chance of saving the world before utter chaos erupts on Earth.

Edited by #1 New York Times bestselling author George R. R. Martin, High Stakes features the writing talents of Melinda M. Snodgrass, John Jos. Miller, David Anthony Durham, Caroline Spector, Stephen Leigh, and Ian Tregillis.

For decades, George R.R. Martin -- bestselling author of A Song of Ice and Fire -- has collaborated with an ever-shifting ensemble of science fiction and fantasy icons to create the amazing Wild Cards universe.

In the aftermath of World War II, the Earth's population was devastated by an alien virus. Those who survived were changed forever. Some, known as jokers, were cursed with bizarre mental and physical mutations; others, granted superhuman abilities, became the lucky few known as aces.

Queen Margaret, who came to the English throne after the death of her sister Elizabeth, now lies on her death-bed. Summoning the joker ace Alan Turing, she urges him to seek the true heir: Elizabeth's lost son. He was rumoured to have died as a baby but, having been born a joker, was sent into hiding.

Margaret dies and her elder son Henry becomes king and at once declares he wants to make England an 'Anglo-Saxon country' and suggests jokers be sent 'to the moon'. Dangerous tensions begin to tear the country apart. The Twisted Fists -- an organization of jokers led by the Green Man - are becoming more militant. And Babh, goddess of war, sees opportunities to sow strife and reap blood...

This marvellous mosaic novel, featuring the talents of Mary Anne Mohanraj, Peter Newman, Peadar Ó Guilín, Melinda M. Snodgrass and Caroline Spector, follows KNAVES OVER QUEENS -- the first ever Wild Cards novel set in the UK.

Once an assassin and spy, superpowered ace Noel Matthews confronts unexpected enemies after discovering a dead body on the job.

Read the full story for free at Tor.com.

Sturgeon Award nominated novelette. It originally appeared in Analog Science Fiction and Fact, October 2012 and has been reprinted in Clarkesworld, Juli 2016. The story can also be found in the anthologies The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Seven (2013), edited by Jonathan Strahan, The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2013, edited by Rich Horton and Year's Best SF 18 (2013), edited by David G. Hartwell. It is included in the collection Two Stories: "Nahiku West" & "Nightside on Callisto".

Read the full story for free at Clarkesworld.

This short story originally appeared in Analog Science Fiction and Fact, June 2013. It can also be found in The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2014, edited by Rich Horton.