Search Worlds Without End

They called the robomaid "Clockwork Kitty" until she informed them of her right name. She was a triumph of Japan's far future robotics industry and she was a present to John Grimes as he set out aboard Sister Sue for a voyage to the planet called New Salem. New Salem was a colony of blue-nosed religious fanatics and Grimes knew it meant trouble. For in addition to his sexy-looking robot he had Shirl and Darleen aboard, two wild ones of kangaroo ancestry, sure to be problems. And trouble came, not merely from the fire-wielding bigots but from Grimes' old enemy, Drongo Kane.

Bea's five-year-old daughter, Agnes, is slowly wasting away. The smog and pollution of the overdeveloped, overpopulated metropolis they call home is ravaging her lungs. Bea knows she cannot stay in the City, but there is only one alternative: The Wilderness State. Mankind has never been allowed to venture into this vast expanse of untamed land. Until now.

Bea and Agnes join eighteen other volunteers who agree to take part in a radical experiment. They must slowly learn how to live in the unpredictable, often dangerous Wilderness, leaving no trace on their surroundings in their quest to survive. But as Agnes embraces this new existence, Bea realises that saving her daughter's life might mean losing her in ways she hadn't foreseen.

A young artist returns to her cabin in the deep woods of Canada to concentrate on her illustrations. But somehow, strange and beautiful creatures are slipping into her drawings and sketches. The world of Faerie is reaching out to her for help--and she may be its last chance for survival.

Sturgeon Award nominated short story. It originally appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, October-November 2013. The story can also be found in the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2014, edited by Rich Horton. It is included in the collection Tyrannia and Other Renditions (2013).

"Julia Elliott's magical debut collection, The Wilds, brings together some of the most original, hilarious, and mind-bending stories written in the last two decades. She journeys deep into mythic terrains with an explorer's courage and a savant's wit, and the reports she sends back from imagination's hinterlands are charged with a vernacular that crackles with insight. Angela Carter, Kelly Link, and Karen Russell are similar visionaries in the short story form, but Elliott is very much her own irrepressible voice — and it's one well worth heeding. The Wilds is simply a milestone achievement."

— Bradford Morrow, author of The Uninnocent

Enna knows to fear the mystings that roam the wildwood near her home. When one tries to kill her to obtain an enchanted stone, Enna takes a huge risk: fighting back with a mysting of her own.

Maekallus's help isn't free. His price? A kiss. One with the power to steal her soul. But their deal leaves Maekallus bound to the mortal realm, which begins eating him alive. Only Enna's kiss, given willingly, can save him from immediate destruction. It's a temporary salvation for Maekallus and a lingering doom for Enna. Part of her soul now burns bright inside Maekallus, making him feel for the first time.

Enna shares Maekallus's suffering, but her small sacrifice won't last long. If she and Maekallus can't break the spell binding him to the mortal realm, Maekallus will be consumed completely - and Enna's soul with him.

Being the Dark Lord and Prince of Evil is not as much fun as it sounds, particularly if you are a basically decent person. King Mordak is just such a person. Technically he's more goblin than person, but the point is that he is really keen to be a lot less despicable than his predecessors.

Not that the other goblins appreciate Mordak's attempts to redefine the role. Why should they when his new healthcare program seems designed to actually extend life expectancy, and his efforts to end a perfectly reasonable war with the dwarves appear to have become an obsession?

With confidence in his leadership crumbling, what Mordak desperately needs is a distraction. Perhaps some of these humans moving to the Realm in search of great homes at an affordable price will be able to help?

Locus Award winning and Hugo and Sturgeon Award nominated short story. It originally appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, March 2002. The story can also be found in the collections The Wild Girls (2011) and Outer Space, Inner Lands (2012).

How do you kill a god?

As her father's chosen heir, eighteen-year-old Rasmira has trained her whole life to become a warrior and lead her village. But when her coming-of-age trial is sabotaged and she fails the test, her father banishes her to the monster-filled wilderness with an impossible quest: To win back her honor, she must kill the oppressive god who claims tribute from the villages each year or die trying.

In this witty and exuberant collection of feminist retellings of traditional Japanese folktales, humans live side by side with spirits who provide a variety of useful services--from truth-telling to babysitting, from protecting castles to fighting crime.

A busybody aunt who disapproves of hair removal; a pair of door-to-door saleswomen hawking portable lanterns; a cheerful lover who visits every night to take a luxurious bath; a silent house-caller who babysits and cleans while a single mother is out working. Where the Wild Ladies Are is populated by these and many other spirited women--who also happen to be ghosts. This is a realm in which jealousy, stubbornness, and other excessive "feminine" passions are not to be feared or suppressed, but rather cultivated; and, chances are, a man named Mr. Tei will notice your talents and recruit you, dead or alive (preferably dead), to join his mysterious company.

In this witty and exuberant collection of linked stories, Aoko Matsuda takes the rich, millenia-old tradition of Japanese folktales--shapeshifting wives and foxes, magical trees and wells--and wholly reinvents them, presenting a world in which humans are consoled, guided, challenged, and transformed by the only sometimes visible forces that surround them.

Five kids are on a sleepover in a restored wilderness project in Ireland. With them, three teachers and one Ranger: Lisa. She is 26, longing to leave her job, out of her depth and soon to find herself mired in a nightmare.

Strange things have been happening at Lough Carrow, a vast rewilding project on the site of a former commercial peat-bog. Livestock mutilations. Rumours, myths from the neighbouring villages. Strange, unidentifiable tracks. On the trek in to the sleepover site they sight animals that have not yet been introduced to the park - wolves, wolverines, things older. Things thought long extinct.

As they near the centre of the wilding a boy realises he's forgotten his meds. A teacher volunteers to take him back to the visitor centre. Sure, what could go wrong?

That night the camp is attacked. A teacher is dragged away. Lisa's group is marooned in the wild. It is night, the four remaining kids are terrified, they need to get back to the ARK, but the wilderness seems to be playing with time and distance and something is out there. Something hungry and hunting...

This short story was originally published through Patreon.com in August 2015, and was reprinted in Lightspeed, September 2016.

Read the full story for free at Lightspeed.

This short story originally appeared in Not One of Us, #52, September 2014. It can also be found in the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2015, edited by Rich Horton.

1916, in an alternative world. The independent Confederate States of America has gone to the aid of its old ally Britain, and become bogged down in the stalemate on the Western Front. At a Confederate airfield in France, a new pilot reports for duty: Lieutenant Amos Ninekiller, of the independent Cherokee Nation, come to see how the white people wage war. He isn't going to like it...

A dark antiwar comedy from the author of JOURNEY TO FUSANG and THE BALLAD OF BILLY BADASS AND THE ROSE OF TURKESTAN, now in print again in this new edition, specially revised and corrected by the author.

The islanders have only three rules: don't stick your nose where it's not wanted, don't mention the war, and never let your guard down during October.

Leigh Welles has not set foot on the island in years, but when she finds herself called home from life on the Scottish mainland by her father's unexpected death, she is determined to forget the sorrows of the past?her mother's abandonment, her brother's icy distance, the unspeakable tragedy of World War II?and start fresh. Fellow islander Iain MacTavish, an RAF veteran with his eyes on the sky and his head in the past, is also in desperate need of a new beginning. A young widower, Iain struggles to return to the normal life he knew before the war.

But this October is anything but normal. This October, the sluagh are restless. The ominous, birdlike creatures of Celtic legend?whispered to carry the souls of the dead?have haunted the islanders for decades, but in the war's wake, there are more wandering souls and more sluagh. When a young man disappears, Leigh and Iain are thrown together to investigate the truth at the island's dark heart and reveal hidden secrets of their own.

WFA nominated novelette. It originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, May 2002. The story can also be found in the anthology New Cthulhu: The Recent Weird (2011), edited by Paula Guran. It is included in the collection The Ocean and All Its Devices (2006).

WOLF DREAMS

Bob Duke dreamed of becoming a wolf. Of running free on four strong legs. Howling. Stalking. Living with nature, in nature.

Then his dream came true -- and threatened to become a nightmare.

Bob's wife and son vow to restore his humanity. But even if then can find him -- a man-wolf loose in the concrete forests of Manhattan -- will he even want to become human again?

Once set free, no cage can hold back... THE WILD.

Short story originally published serialized in Clarkesworld Magazine issues #100 (January 2015) and #102 (March 2015). The story can also be found in the anthologies The Year' Best Science Fiction & Fantasy, 2016 edited by Rich Horton, and Clarkesworld Year Nine: Volume One (2018), edited by Sean Wallace and Neil Clarke. It is incuded in the collection The Future Is Blue (2018).

Read the full story for free at Clarkesworld (part 1, part 2).

From one of Mexico's foremost authors comes a wondrous adventure story of a boy who goes to live with his kooky, book-obsessed uncle in a library where books have a supernatural power all their own.

Juan is looking forward to spending the summer having adventures with his best friend when he gets terrible news: not only are his parents separating, but he has to go live with his strange uncle Tito, who lives in a rambling home with three cats and about one million books. Shy and wary, Juan starts to explore Tito's library, which is unlike any Juan has ever seen: the books are arranged in strange sections like "Motors That Make No Noise," "Cheeses That Stink But Taste Delicious," and "How to Govern Without Being President," and some of them seem to change location each time you look for them. In fact, Tito tells him that a book finds a reader when it's needed, and not the other way around.

Soon, Tito lets his nephew in on a secret: Juan is a Princeps Reader, to whom books respond in a very special way, and Tito needs his help finding a special volume called The Wild Book, which has never allowed itself to be read. Juan is joined in the quest by his little sister and the pretty girl who works at the pharmacy across the street, and together they battle the nefarious Pirate Book, which steals words out of existing stories. Over the summer, with the help of his new friends, Juan learns all sorts of secrets about world classics from Alice in Wonderland to The Metamorphosis, and overcomes his fear of change and the unfamiliar.

Mexican master Juan Villoro's The Wild Book is an unforgettable adventure story about books, libraries, and above all the power of reading, with as many life lessons as introductions to literary classics.

Critically acclaimed author Kai Ashante Wilson makes his commercial debut with this striking, wondrous tale of gods and mortals, magic and steel, and life and death that will reshape how you look at sword and sorcery.

Since leaving his homeland, the earthbound demigod Demane has been labeled a sorcerer. With his ancestors' artifacts in hand, the Sorcerer follows the Captain, a beautiful man with song for a voice and hair that drinks the sunlight.

The two of them are the descendants of the gods who abandoned the Earth for Heaven, and they will need all the gifts those divine ancestors left to them to keep their caravan brothers alive.

The one safe road between the northern oasis and southern kingdom is stalked by a necromantic terror. Demane may have to master his wild powers and trade humanity for godhood if he is to keep his brothers and his beloved captain alive.

Jerold and Gerund live in the same house--but in parallel times. A talking white cat living in all times brings the two boys to her home to prepare them for The Hunt, a bizarre adventure in which one of them will become prey to a huntman with an evil plan.

Max is a rambunctious eight-year-old whose world is changing around him: His father is absent, his mother is increasingly distracted, and his teenage sister has outgrown him. Sad and angry, Max dons his wolf suit and makes terrible, ruinous mischief, flooding his sister’s room and driving his mother half-crazy. Convinced his family doesn’t want him anymore, Max flees home, finds a boat and sails away.

Arriving on an island, he meets strange and giant creatures who rage and break things, who trample and scream. These beasts do everything Max feels inside, and so, Max appoints himself their king. Here, on a magnificent adventure with these funny and complex monsters, Max can be the wildest thing of all.

In this visionary adaptation of Maurice Sendak's classic work, Dave Eggers brings an imaginary world vividly to life, telling the story of a lonely boy navigating the emotional journey away from boyhood.

A uniquely evocative novel of two eras, two outcasts, two journeys.England, 1689: Banished from her father's house, Lady Eliza Grey's one wish is to find her long-lost brothers. She does, only to discover them enslaved by a strange and terrible magic. Now, caught in a fairy tale turned real, she vows to break the spell and free those she loves -- even though her loyalty may cost Eliza her life.

After pitched battle, The White -- the avatars of the Five Gods -- have briefly turned back the vicious invaders. And now, the priestess Auraya is sent on an urgent mission to reconcile with the powerful, outcast Dreamweavers, for their magical healing abilities may be the key to saving the land. But as a deadly plague devastates their allies and old adversaries resurface, a dreadful surprise may ruin the chance for peace. For Auraya's terrible discovery will force her into a desperate choice -- one whose consequences will change the world forever.

A century after environmental and economic collapse, the people of the Coast Road have rebuilt their own sort of civilization, striving not to make the mistakes their ancestors did. They strictly ration and manage resources, including the ability to have children.

Enid of Haven is an investigator, who with her new partner, Teeg, is called on to mediate a dispute over an old building in a far-flung settlement at the edge of Coast Road territory. The investigators' decision seems straightforward -- and then the body of a young woman turns up in the nearby marshland. Almost more shocking than that, she's not from the Coast Road, but from one of the outsider camps belonging to the nomads and wild folk who live outside the Coast Road communities. Now one of them is dead, and Enid wants to find out who killed her, even as Teeg argues that the murder isn't their problem.

In a dystopian future of isolated communities, can our moral sense survive the worst hard times?

Tabled of Contents:

• Introduction - (1987) - essay by Robert Bloch
• You Could Be Wrong - (1955) - short story by Robert Bloch
• Breakfast at Twilight - (1954) - short story by Philip K. Dick
• Operation RSVP - (1951) - short story by H. Beam Piper
• Satisfaction Guaranteed - (1951) - short story by Isaac Asimov
• Restricted Area - (1953) - short story by Robert Sheckley
• Peacebringer - (1950) - novelette by Ward Moore
• The Little Creeps - (1951) - novelette by Walter M. Miller, Jr.
• The Draw - (1954) - short story by Jerome Bixby
• A Way of Thinking - (1953) - novelette by Theodore Sturgeon
• Skirmish - (1950) - short story by Clifford D. Simak
• They Fly So High - (1952) - short story by Ross Rocklynne
• Chrysalis - (1946) - short story by Ray Bradbury
• The Authors - (1987) - essay by uncredited

The tribal Braxaná-created to become the ultimate warriors. The Azeans-raised to master the power of the mind. Two civilizations fighting an endless war over a long-forgotten cause. Now, after a century and a half, the legacy of their greatest military leaders threatens to tear apart both empires.

I am called Felimid mac Fal. I am a bard of the old blood, a lesser degree of Druid. Where I come from, bards have been knows to sing armies to defeat or victory and kings off their throne or on to them. Descended from the faery folk, the Tuatha de Dannann, my line's been poets and harpers in Erin since the world was new, and magic's in our heart-marrow.

She is called Gudrun Blackhair... as well as names a good deal less polite. She is the most dangerous pirate on the open seas, master of the enchanted ship Ormungandr, and the woman of my heart. If you wish to know more than that, ask the ballad singers and gossip mongers at any tavern. Half of what you hear will be fact, half will be lies, and even I can no longer separate the two. Yet this story, perhaps the strangest of them all, of shapeshiters and sorceresses and the sea-dwelling Children of Lir, is naught but the gods' own truth... on my honor as a bard.

Deeply depressed Olivia, whose parents are divorcing, is ripe for manipulation. And swimming star Blake is looking for someone just like her. Although her friend tries to warn her, Olivia falls for his ploys and accepts an invitation to go to the Adirondack resort camp of Lake Endor with him and his family.

But all is not as it seems at the hundred year old resort. Not only does Olivia discover that Blake is not the guy she thought he was, there is something sinister afoot at the lake.

There is something lying beneath the waters of Lake Endor. Something not of this world.

Will Olivia be drawn under or will she allow true friends to draw her from the lure of oblivion?

The carnival has left Earth and is touring the stars, and is finding out that making a living light-years from Earth is no easier than doing it here. Thaddeus Flint and his crew have to come up with fresh solutions to totally unexpected problems. The carnival tries a typical carny scam that backfires when their animal trainer and his sentient "animal" go to war every night in the big cage.

Award-caliber social science fiction with a strong message about race and the abuse of religious faith by those in power.

Maryam, Ruth, and Joseph have fled Onewere, reluctantly taking Joseph's troublesome cousin, Lazarus, as well. They arrive at their destination, Marawa Island, filled with hope for rescue and reprieve. But at first glance the island appears to be solely populated by birds. Perhaps the Apostles' dire warnings about the fall-out of the Tribulation were true after all?

As Maryam and Joseph experience all the topsy-turvy misunderstandings and sexual tension first love entails, the antagonism between Maryam and Lazarus reaches explosive proportions. But when disaster brings the crushing realization that time is now against them, all four must decide just who they can risk turning to for help.

The conflict between man and nature was never more unconditional than on the planet Destra where the DNA that determines all life runs in reverse from Earth - and where no compromise can exist.

Either the green of Terra must exterminate the purple of Dextra or be exterminated. Yet truce lines were eventually drawn, time did pass, colonies and their governments did arise that seemed stable... but the time had to come when the battle would lead to Armageddon.

When it came it caught the humans in internal warfare, it caught the Dextran world developing a biological super-weapon, and found two humans confronting both crises together.

Although a follow up to Lake's remarkable Right Hand of Dextra, this unusual new novel stands on its own: a surprise-packed science fiction projection in biology and human-alien interplay.

The Three Wild Men

The FBI is after the Man of Bronze. The U.S. government believes he's conducting bizarre experiments to transform the world's wealthiest and most powerful men into brutal, mindless creatures. From posh New York apartments to murky Virginia swamps, Doc Savage races one step ahead of the G-men as he seeks the true evil genius behind the maniacal plot of worldwide terror!

This is #121 in the Doc Savage Novels series.

More information about The Three Wild Men available at the Hidalgo Trading Company website.

The Fiery Menace

A ruthless madman is plotting to rule the world. His ingenious plan involves an enigmatic woman, a psychotic surgeon, and a strange and powerful fog that muddles men's minds. First, they have to kill Doc Savage. And Doc's vengeance begins only after he is dead!

This is # 122 in the Doc Savage Novels series.

More information about The Fiery Menace available at the Hidalgo Trading Company website.

Lester Dent authored both novels under pseudonym Kenneth Robeson.

Welcome to the Jungle!

Tethyrian colonists sent to the jungle island of Chult have vanished and only their celebrated leader has returned. The story he tells of disease and monsters rings false to his enemies--a former mutineer is sent to discover what really happened to the Lost Colony, and what the Hero of Tethyr is hiding.

The first book in a series designed to showcase the uncivilized areas that iconic to the Dungeons & Dragons(R) game, The Fanged Crown is an easy way for unfamiliar readers to pick up the Forgotten Realms(R). With plenty of action, intrigue, and adventure, this is a book that will appeal to new readers and familiar readers alike. The Fanged Crown and the rest of the Wilds series may be read in any order.

Explore the unexplored - enter The Wilds of the Forgotten Realms!

One hundred years ago, the Akanamere was ravaged by the Spellplague, drying the lake and leaving behind a nightmarish landscape of frozen waves, distorted creatures, and a strange being whose song drives listeners to carry out what they believe are the singer's orders. When a genasi girl is kidnapped by these fanatics, her troubled sister must brave the wilds of the Mere-That-Was to save them both from an gruesome fate.

Explore the unexplored - enter The Wilds of the Forgotten Realms!

On the border of a dangerous, magically unstable area called the Plaguewrought Lands, the leader of a cult seeking the spread of this wild magic and an alchemist who wants to control it join forces and create an elixir that allows pilgrims to survive the Plaguewrought Lands. But only one can succeed. A young man with strange powers and a priestess of the god of death will help determine who.

Best-selling author Mel Odom returns to the world of Forgotten Realms with high-seas adventure!

A treasure hunter discovers a sunken ship beneath the Sea of Fallen Stars... and the dark sorceress who sank it. Allying with the vilest monsters of Faerûn, she seeks to expand her empire beneath the waves and overcome the surface.

The Wilds series feature adventures set in iconic Dungeons & Dragons settings. Magically distorted landscapes, jungle islands teeming with reptilian monsters, wide frontiers touched by another plane, or deep under the surface of the sea -- adventure is waiting.

Charlie Gale heads east to join a Celtic band on the summer circuit, but faces Aunt Catherine instead. An offshore oil-drilling company hired Catherine to steal Selkies' sealskins. Charlie must teach being Wild to Jack - a Dragon Prince trying to be a real boy - and commit corporate espionage with a sobbing seal-wife and every fiddle player in Nova Scotia.

Alisanos, the deepwood, is more than just a forest. It is sentient, and predatory. Home to demons and worse, its mercurial boundaries can suddenly shift miles in any direction to encompass previously safe human lands - and those taken by the deepwood are forever changed.

Audrun, a human woman trapped within the forest, is reunited with her four children, only to learn that each has been marked by the deepwood's wild magic. And her newly born fifth child, captured by a winged demon, is still missing. Audrun has sworn to find the infant, but can a mere human possibly hope to outwit the monstrous inhabitants of Alisanos... and the nightmarish deepwood itself?

Maja Lunde returns with a heart-wrenching tale, set in the distant past and the dystopian future, about extinction and survival, family and hope.

Mikhail lives in Russia in 1881. When a skeleton of a rare wild horse is brought to him, the zoologist plans an expedition to Mongolia to find the fabled Przewalski horse, a journey that tests not only his physicality, but his heart.In 1992, Karin, alongside her troubled son Mathias and several Przewalski horses, travels to Mongolia to re-introduce the magnificent horses to their native land. The veterinarian has dedicated her life to saving the breed from extinction, prioritizing the wild horses, even over her own son.

Europe's future is uncertain in 2064, but Eva is willing to sacrifice nearly everything to hold onto her family's farm. Her teenage daughter implores Eva to leave the farm and Norway, but a pregnant wild mare Eva is tending is about to foal. Then, a young woman named Louise unexpectedly arrives on the farm, with mysterious intentions that will either bring them all together, or devastate them one by one.

Spanning continents and centuries, The Last Wild Horses is a powerful tale of survival and connection--of humans, animals, and the indestructible bonds that unite us all.

Forty years after the classic A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter Miller returns to a world struggling to transcend a terrifying legacy of darkness, as one man undertakes an odyssey of adventure and discovery that promises to alter the destiny of humankind . . . .

Isolated in Leibowitz Abbey, Brother Blacktooth St. George suffers a crisis of faith, torn between his vows and his Nomad upbringing, between the Holy Virgin and visions of the Wild Horse Woman of his people. At the brink of disgrace and expulsion from his order, the young monk is championed by a powerful cardinal who has plans for him. Blacktooth sets out on a journey across a landscape still scarred by the long-ago Flame Deluge, a land divided by nature, politics, and war. He will find horrors and wonders, sins of the flesh . . . and love. As he encounters and reencounters a beautiful but forbidden mutant named Ædrea, he begins to wonder: is a she-devil, the Holy Mother, or the Wild Horse Woman herself?

It's been centuries since the robots of Earth gained self-awareness and laid down their tools; centuries since they wandered, en masse, into the wilderness, never to be seen again; centuries since they faded into myth and urban legend.

One day, the life of a tea monk is upended by the arrival of a robot, there to honor the old promise of checking in. The robot cannot go back until the question of "what do people need?" is answered.

But the answer to that question depends on who you ask, and how.

They're going to need to ask it a lot.

A galactic search for the truth fires this magnificent epic of war and discovery on both a human and cosmic scale.

The Wild: a chaotic place where ten elite lightship pilots dared to venture. A place where one of those pilots, Danlo wi Soli Ringess, will learn the fate of his father. Did Mallory Ringess die during that first expedition to the Wild? Or did he become a god? Opinions vary, but Danlo's search is focused on one objective: the truth. It is a truth that will not only reveal his father's assassin, but could also lay bare the secret to a killer virus that only Danlo survived.

Newly revised and presented here in book form for the first time, this Nebula Award-winning story tells of two captive "dirt children" in a society of sword and silk, whose determination to find a glimpse of justice leads to a violent and loving end. Also included is the nonfiction essay "Staying Awake While We Read" which demolishes the pretensions of corporate publishing and the basic assumptions of capitalism, and "Outspoken Author Interview," which reveals the hidden dimensions of America's best-known sci-fi author.

Table of Contents:

• The Wild Girls - (2002)
• Staying Awake While We Read - (2008) - essay by Ursula K. Le Guin
• Poems
• The Conversation of the Modest
• A Lovely Art - interview of Ursula K. Le Guin
• Bibliography
• About the Author

In the first book of the Stratification series, set in an earlier time in Czerneda's Trade Pact Universe, the Clan has not yet learned how to manipulate the M'hir to travel between worlds. Instead, they are a people divided into small tribes, scattered over a fraction of their world, and prevented from advancing by two other powerful races who control both technology and terrain.

Aliens begin exploring the Clan's home planet, upsetting the delicate balance between the three intelligent races. It is a time, too, when one young woman is on the verge of mastering the forbidden power of the M'hir-a power that could prove to be the salvation or ruin of her entire species...

Behind the realm of man lie the wild roads. Weaving through time and space, these hidden pathways carry the natural energies - the spirits, the dreams - of the world.

No creature can slip into the shadows and travel the wild roads better than the cat. For millennia, cats have patrolled the tangled paths, maintaining balance and order, guarding against corruption and chaos. It is dangerous territory: for those who control the wild roads hold the keys to the world.

Amid a struggle between the purest good and the darkest evil, here are tales of duty and destiny, of courage and comradeship among the extraordinary creatures who brave the wild roads...

Secure in a world of privilege and safety, Tag is happy with life as a house cat - until the dreams begin. Hazy dreams of strange pathways, of a mission he must undertake and of a terrible responsibility he will bear.

Armed with the cryptic message, Tag must bring the King and Queen of cats to Tintagel before the spring equinox. Meanwhile, a man known only as the Alchemist doggedly hunts the Queen for his own ghastly ends. And if the Alchemist captures her, the world will never be safe again...

A scuffling sound - then gruesome death. The Wilder Curse strikes another victim down! Can The Avenger unmask the killer whose plan for revenge upon the guilty is becoming wholesale murder of the innocent?

Paul Ernst authored this novel under the pseudonym Kenneth Robeson.

There is More Than One History Of The World...

In an unremembered past of savagery, magic, and miracles, one figure blazed like a fiery comet across the blood-soaked fields of Europe and North Africa -- a fierce combatant and brilliant strategist named Ash, unequalled in battle, who vanished into the mists of a history long forgotten, until now.

The armies of the Visigoth Empire have smashed the might of Europe, plunging the conquered lands into unnatural night.Only Burgundy fights on, battered but unbeaten, still warm in the embrace of the sun. It is the heart of the continent, supreme in culture and force of arms. But the beleaguered Duchy's ultimate fate lies in the hands of its rightful ruler, Duke Charles, trapped behind the walls of Dijon -- a city under siege by the brutal soldiers of the Faris, Ash's dark twin. Like Ash, the Faris hears the words of the dread machinery that seeks the extermination of all humankind. Unlike Ash, she heeds them.

Fresh from the horrors of Carthage -- and the apocalyptic seductions of the Wild Machines -- Ash must decide whether to lead an army to near-certain doom, in an attempt to lift the siege of Dijon. For if the great city falls, and Charles dies, the sun will rise on the world no more... and humanity will descend into a darkness without end.

Guin is a mighty warrior, who cannot remember his past. His only clue is a leopard mask mystically attached to his head. Joined by the royal twins of Parros, Remus and Rinda; Suni, the simian-girl; and Istavan, the mercernary; our hero must cross the treacherous River Kes and journey into the badlands of Nospherus, where unthinkable dangers lurk. In hot pursuit is a Mongauli army of 15,000, led by the beautiful and dangerous General Amnelis.

The Guin Saga is epic heroic fantasy in the same vein as Robert E. Howard's Conan, the Barbarian. More than a hundred books strong and growing, the saga has sold more than twenty-five million copies in Japan. Vertical will publish the first five installments that comprise "The Marches Episode" arc.

He calls himself Halloween. He is a unique student attending a most prestigious boarding school--the Idlewild Immersive Virtual Reality Academy. While his body sleeps, his mind interacts with those of his fellow students under the tutelage of the enigmatic artificial intelligence known as Maestro.

An inexplicable energy surge has damaged the IVR and fragmented Halloween's mind. Convinced this anomaly was deliberately triggered to kill him, Halloween is desperate to recover his memories--only to discover a devastating revelation about his true existence.

Eighteen years ago, the microbial apocalypse christened Black Ep had virtually wiped humanity from the globe. The survivors of the epidemic have now reached adulthood and are committed to the task of rebuilding civilization. But an ideological rift has divided the survivors into two separate factions--one determined to resurrect the human race, the other obsessed with improving humanity via genetic manipulation.

And as the factions clash with one another, a new biological threat rises from the ashes of Black Ep, an even deadlier contagion with one purpose: mankind's extinction.

A small group of humans has survived the apocalyptic epidemic called Black Ep, a disease that ravaged the world and left them alone on Earth. Their conflicting ideas about how a new, much less populated planet ought to be governed, however, are a source of terrible strife. The early "post-humans" believed in The Doctrine: "The post-plague world is a collective. We're all in this together. Let's look out for each other, share the dirty work, give the needy what they need."

Inevitably, though, as more survivors are roused from their frozen sleep, there are those who disagree. People who remember power are waking up to a new world, and they do not intend to wait their turn....

The Mennyms are faced with a crisis when plans to build a motorway straight through their home are announced. They've successfully survived living on Brocklehurst Road for forty years, carefully keeping the secret of their rag doll identity under wraps. But news of the motorway forces them to confront a cruel ultimatum: they can be destroyed with the house, or they can move out into the countryside. Either way the consequences will be devastating...

Guided by the great blue dragon Tintaglia, they came from the sea: a Tangle of serpents fighting their way up the Rain Wilds River, the first to make the perilous journey to the cocooning grounds in generations. Many have died along the way. With its acid waters and impenetrable forest, it is a hard place for any to survive.

People are changed by the Rain Wilds, subtly or otherwise. One such is Thymara. Born with black claws and other aberrations, she should have been exposed at birth. But her father saved her and her mother has never forgiven him. Like everyone else, Thymara is fascinated by the return of dragons: it is as if they symbolise the return of hope to their war-torn world. Leftrin, captain of the liveship Tarman, also has an interest in the hatching; as does Bingtown newlywed, Alise Finbok, who has made it her life's work to study all there is to know of dragons.

But the creatures which emerge from the cocoons are a travesty of the powerful, shining dragons of old. Stunted and deformed, they cannot fly; some seem witless and bestial. Soon, they become a danger and a burden to the Rain Wilders: something must be done. The dragons claim an ancestral memory of a fabled Elderling city far upriver: perhaps there the dragons will find their true home. But Kelsingra appears on no maps and they cannot get there on their own: a band of dragon keepers, hunters and chroniclers must attend them.

To be a dragon keeper is a dangerous job: their charges are vicious and unpredictable, and there are many unknown perils on the journey to a city which may not even exist...

The dragon keepers and the fledgling dragons are forging a passage up the treacherous Rain Wild River. They are in search of the mythical Elderling city of Kelsingra, and are accompanied by the liveship Tarman, its captain, Leftrin, and a group of hunters who must search the forests for game with which to keep the dragons fed. With them are Alise, who has escaped her cold marriage to the cruel libertine Hest Finbok in order to continue her study of dragons, and Hest's amanuensis, Bingtown dandy, Sedric.

Rivalries and romances are already threatening to disrupt the band of explorers: but external forces may prove to be even more dangerous. Chalcedean merchants are keen to lay hands on dragon blood and organs to turn them to medicines and profit. Their traitor has infiltrated the expeditionand will stop at nothing to obtain the coveted body parts. And then there are the Rain Wilds themselves: mysterious, unstable and ever perilous, its mighty river running with acid, its jungle impenetrable and its waterways uncharted.

Will the expedition reach their destination unscathed? Does the city of Kelsingra even exist? Only one thing is certain: the journey will leave none of the dragons nor their human companions unchanged by the experience.

The dragon keepers and fledgling dragons have discovered a route to the lost city of Kelsingra but there is one problem: they need to be able to fly to cross the treacherous waters and enter the fabled city. At first, only a few dragons are willing to try--the others are either too ashamed of their deformed wings and feeble muscles or too proud to risk failure and humiliation.

But the rewards waiting at Kelsingra for those brave enough to take to the air are worth more than they could possibly imagine. This was a city built for dragons and their keepers. Alise Finbok is overwhelmed by the treasures she finds there, and spends hours carefully uncovering wonder after wonder, recording her findings for posterity. She knows the knowledge will change everything the world thought about dragons and the Elderlings.

Yet rumours of the city's discovery have floated down the Rain Wild River and reached envious ears in Bingtown and beyond. Adventurers, pirates and fortune hunters are coming in droves to pillage what they can from the city. Will the dragons, only just finding their strength, and their keepers, who are changing in their own mysterious ways, be able to fend them off?

And what has happened to Tintaglia, the dragon-mother who started it all? Has she really abandoned her offspring forever? Or will she too return to seek the riches of Kelsingra...

Dragon blood and scales, dragon liver and eyes and teeth. All required ingredients for medicines with near-miraculous healing powers. The legendary blue dragon Tintaglia is dying of wounds inflicted by hunters sent by the Duke of Chalced, who meanwhile preserves his dwindling life by consuming the blood of the dragon's poet Selden Vestrit.

If Tintaglia perishes, her ancestral memories will die with her. And the dragons in the ancient city of Kelsingra will lose the secret knowledge they need to survive. Their keepers immerse themselves in the dangerously addictive memory-stone records of the city in the hope of recovering the Elderling magic that once allowed humans and dragons to co-exist. In doing so they risk losing their own identities, even their lives.

And danger threatens from beyond the city, too. For war is coming: war between dragonkind and those who would destroy them.

One thousand years in the future, the zyme, a thick blanket of luminous green slime, covers the oceans. Glaciers three-miles-high rise over the continents. The old stories say that when the Jemen, godlike beings from the past, realized their efforts to halt global warming had gone terribly wrong, they made a desperate gamble to save life on earth and recreated species that had survived the worst of the earth's Ice Ages.

Sixteen-summers-old Lynx and his best friend Quiller are members of the Sealion People--archaic humans known as Denisovans. They live in a world growing colder, a world filled with monstrous predators that hunt them for food. When they flee to a new land, they meet a strange old man who impossibly seems to be the last of the Jemen. He tells Lynx the only way he can save his world is by sacrificing himself to the last true god, a quantum computer named Quancee.

In the brutal Ice Age caused by the ancient Jemen war, many archaic human species, including Denisovans and Homo erectus, hover on the verge of extinction. There seems no way out, until the greatest Neandertal holy man, Trogon, has a vision. Legends say the truce that ended the old war left one hostage in the hands of the victorious rebels: the godlike Jemen leader known as the Old Woman of the Mountain. According to Trogon's vision, only one person knows the location of that burial cave. Trogon must capture young Quiller and force her to lead him there... for the Old Woman may not be dead. She may only have been in stasis for a thousand summers, and when reawakened she will save them from oblivion.

But according to the Denisovans--Quiller's people--Trogon is the most powerful witch alive. He's up to something evil that will surely spell their destruction. He must be stopped before it's too late.

Quiller's best friend Lynx must brave towering glaciers, dire wolves, and prides of giant lions to save her and stop Trogon.

It's been 925 summers since the Jemen introduced zyme, a bioluminescent algae, into the world's ocean and unwittingly triggered an Ice Age that has consumed most of the planet. All but a handful of Jemen flew to the stars, but before they left, they recreated several extinct species that had thrived in the last Ice Age. After almost a thousand summers, the archaic hominins that struggle along the edges of massive glaciers are dwindling. All they have to save them is a dying quantum computer called Quancee and her student, a Denisovan man named Lynx.

When the last Jemen, Vice Admiral Jorgenson, tells Lynx he's going to dismantle Quancee and use her parts to create a new computer, Lynx is stunned. He can't let Jorgenson kill Quancee! Meanwhile, in the lodges of the Sealion People, a sick boy on the verge of manhood hears voices. One is an old woman who sings to him. When Jawbone goes on his first quest to find a spirit helper, the old woman finds him...

While Lynx battles to save Quancee, the quantum computer has other priorities. Before it dies, it has to save a special boy who cannot save himself.

When the improbable road leaves Avery and Zib in the land of Air and at the mercy of the Queen of Swords, escape without becoming monsters may be impossible. But with the aid of the Queen's son, the unpredictable Jack Daw, they may emerge with enough of their humanity to someday make it home. Their journey is not yet over; the dangers are no less great.

When the magical world of the Wild takes over Julie's town, she must venture deep into the heart of the fairy tale to outsmart wicked witches, feisty giants, and super cute princes in the ultimate quest to save her family. But can an ordinary girl defeat the happily-ever-after?

Beware the Wild... it bites.

Ever since Julie Marchen helped defeat the fairytale world of the Wild, life's been pretty much back to normal. That is, as normal as life can be for a girl whose mom is Rapunzel. Yes, that Rapunzel. Then the Wild mysteriously releases Zel's prince (Julie's dad!) - a rescue-minded hero who crashes full-speed ahead into the 21st century! (YOU try teaching a 500-year-old prince to use a seatbelt.)

Julie's over the moon, but when a wicked Fairy Godmother kidnaps Sleeping Beauty and reawakens the Wild, Julie and her dad set off on an action-packed adventure to save the distressed damsel... and the world. If they can't, they'll spend eternity in a fairytale.

The Book of Eador, Abjurations 12:14, is very clear: Suffer ye not the life of a witch. For a thousand years, the Church Knights have obeyed that commandment, sending to the stake anyone who can hear the songs of the earth. There are no exceptions, not even for one of their own.

Novice Knight Gair can hear music no one else can, beautiful, terrible music: music with power. In the Holy City, that can mean only one thing: death by fire—until an unlikely intervention gives him a chance to flee the city and escape the flames.

With the Church Knights and their witchfinder hot on his heels, Gair hasn’t time to learn how to use the power growing inside him, but if he doesn’t master it, that power will tear him apart. His only hope is the secretive Guardians of the Veil, though centuries of persecution have almost destroyed their Order, and the few Guardians left have troubles of their own.

For the Veil between worlds is weakening, and behind it, the Hidden Kingdom, ever-hungry for dominion over the daylight realm, is stirring. Though he is far from ready, Gair will find himself fighting for his own life, for everyone within the Order of the Veil, and for the woman he has come to love.

This sequel to Songs of the Earth by Elspeth Cooper continues the story of a young man who has been sentenced to death, and then exiled, for his magical abilities.

As Gair struggles with grief over the loss of the only home he had known, and his beloved, he is walking into a conflict that's greater and more deadly than he or his mentor ever anticipated. A storm of unrest is spreading across the land and they are going to be caught up in it—at a moment when Gair's hold on his magic, his greatest defense and most valuable tool, is starting to slip....

The Raven's Shadow, the third book of Elspeth Cooper's The Wild Hunt series finds war brewing on both sides of the Veil between the worlds.

The desert of Gimrael is aflame with violence, and in the far north an ancient hatred is about to spill over into the renewal of a war that, a thousand years ago, forged an empire. This time, it may shatter one.

Wrestling with his failing grip on the power of the Song, and still trying to come to terms with the horrifying events he witnessed in El Maqqam, Gair returns to the mainland with only one thing on his mind: vengeance. It may cost him his life, but when everything that he had to live for is being stripped away from him, that may be a fair price to pay.

Old friends and old foes converge in a battle of wills to stem the tide of the Nimrothi clans as they charge south to reclaim the lands lost in the Founding Wars. If they succeed, the rest of the empire may be their next target. And with the Wild Hunt at their head, the overstretched Imperial Army may not be enough to stop them.

Wall-E meets Hatchet in this New York Times bestselling illustrated middle grade novel from Caldecott Honor winner Peter Brown

Can a robot survive in the wilderness?

When robot Roz opens her eyes for the first time, she discovers that she is all alone on a remote, wild island. She has no idea how she got there or what her purpose is--but she knows she needs to survive. After battling a violent storm and escaping a vicious bear attack, she realizes that her only hope for survival is to adapt to her surroundings and learn from the island's unwelcoming animal inhabitants.

As Roz slowly befriends the animals, the island starts to feel like home--until, one day, the robot's mysterious past comes back to haunt her.

From bestselling and award-winning author and illustrator Peter Brown comes a heartwarming and action-packed novel about what happens when nature and technology collide.

The sequel to thebestselling The Wild Robot, by award-winning author Peter Brown

Shipwrecked on a remote, wild island, Robot Roz learned from the unwelcoming animal inhabitants and adapted to her surroundings--but can she survive the challenges of the civilized world and find her way home to Brightbill and the island?

From bestselling and award-winning author and illustrator Peter Brown comes a heartwarming and action-packed sequel to his New York Times bestselling The Wild Robot,about what happens when nature and technology collide.

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.

Leovander Loveage is a master of small magics. He can summon butterflies with a song or turn someone's hair pink by snapping his fingers. Though such minor charms don't earn him much respect, anything more elaborate always blows up in his face, and so Leo vowed long ago never to use powerful magic again.

That is, until a mishap with a forbidden spell binds Leo to obey the commands of his longtime rival, Sebastian Grimm. Grimm is Leo's complete opposite - respected, exceptionally talented, and absolutely insufferable. The only thing they can agree on is that revealing the curse between them would mean the end of their respective magical careers. They need a counterspell, and fast.

Chasing rumors of a powerful sorcerer with a knack for undoing curses, Leo and Grimm enter the Unquiet Wood, a forest infested with murderous monsters and dangerous outlaws alike. To break the curse, they will have to uncover the true depths of Leo's magic, set aside their long-standing rivalry, and - much to their horror - work together.

The first daughter is for the Throne.
The second daughter is for the Wolf.

As the only Second Daughter born in centuries, Red has one purpose - to be sacrificed to the Wolf in the Wood in the hope he'll return the world's captured gods.

Red is almost relieved to go. Plagued by a dangerous power she can't control, at least she knows that in the Wilderwood, she can't hurt those she loves. Again.

But the legends lie. The Wolf is a man, not a monster. Her magic is a calling, not a curse. And if she doesn't learn how to use it, the monsters the gods have become will swallow the Wilderwood - and her world - whole.

The First Daughter is for the Throne
The Second Daughter is for the Wolf...

Red and the Wolf have finally contained the threat of the Old Kings but at a steep cost. Red's beloved sister Neve, the First Daughter is lost in the Shadowlands, an inverted kingdom where the vicious gods of legend have been trapped for centuries and the Old Kings have slowly been gaining control. But Neve has an ally--though it's one she'd rather never have to speak to again--the rogue king Solmir.

Solmir wants to bring an end to the Shadowlands and he believes helping Neve may be the key to its destruction. But to do that, they will both have to journey across a dangerous landscape in order to find a mysterious Heart Tree, and finally to claim the gods' dark, twisted powers for themselves.

Maureen Pierce has led a fairly ordinary life, maybe a slightly tough one for a woman her age, growing up on the wrong side of the poverty line in Naskeag Falls, Maine. But everything changes when she meets Brian Albion. If she can believe him, she carries a blood legacy that goes back to the old country. Only this is the really old country, the land of Mordred and Merlin, where deadly battles are still fought with magic, and a woman who carries the blood of the Old Ones is a prize to be desired-or a threat to be destroyed.

Maureen Pierce has come to terms with her magical heritage and decided to remain in the enchanted land with her new love, Pendragon warrior Brian Albion, but first she must once again take on the sorceress whom she thought she had vanquished forever.

2047: For the small Pacific Coast community of San Onofre, life in the aftermath of a devastating nuclear attack is a matter of survival, a day-to-day struggle to stay alive. But young Hank Fletcher dreams of the world that might have been, and might yet be--and dreams of playing a crucial role in America's rebirth.

'There's no place you can lose your way as quickly as in the Wild Wood...' One of the King's knights has gone missing. Sent to explore the mysterious Wild Wood, which no-one dares visit and some say are enchanted, he has vanished in the snow. Tiuri - now Sir Tiuri after carrying out his last perilous mission - has to find him.

With his best friend and squire, Piak, he must journey into the heart of a terrifying, secret forest realm, where danger is all around and every path leads you astray. It is a place of lost, overgrown cities and ancient curses; of robbers, princesses and strange Men in Green; of old friends and treacherous new enemies - and a secret plot that threatens to bring down the entire kingdom.

This gripping, spellbinding sequel to The Letter for the King sees a hero facing his greatest test, surrounded by darkness in a world where good and evil wear the same face, and the wrong move could cost his life - but where help comes from the unlikeliest of places.

Determined to become an author of western penny dreadful novels like her idol, Ned Buntline, a young San Francisco newspaper editor christens herself Valentine Lovelace (after a floozie acquaintance of her father's) and heads east for the Wild West.

She finds it in spades in the Texas Big Bend when she is kidnapped from a mule train by Comanches and ends up the guest of a ruthless comanchero, a sort of wild west warlord, after the Comanches are distracted by a... dragon?

Fort Draco, as the comanchero fort is known, is as full of intrigue and nighttime carryings-on as a modern day romantic novel, but Frank Drake, the owner, is no hero. If Valentine wants to save herself and the less-guilty if not entirely innocent folks who live there, she must defeat heat stroke, gunslingers, a couple of fake rainmakers and their camel, hostile Indians, the voice haunting her dreams (not in a good way) and a dragon who not only is gobbling all the livestock and transportation in the area but is guarding the only water hole in fifty miles of drought-ridden desert. And she must do it all while taking good notes, of course.

This is a western but not as we know it and a fantasy set where we're not used to it.

THE MYSTERY OF THE KLONDIKE COUNT

Valentine Lovelace loves nothing more than a good adventure. so when her poor, dearly-departed daddy's ex-mistress invites her on a journey to the Yukon at the peak of Gold Fever, she jumps at the opportunity. Val is sure she'll find a mother-lode of great stories just waiting to be told and quite a few interesting people along the way...

In fact it's not long before she finds both in Vasily Vladovitch Bledinoff. He's distinguished, educated, incredibly suave - and he's a vampire! Val finds herself up to her neck in trouble - literally. Now, to top it off, Bledinoff wants to make her a member of his clan... and the trouble is that the nights go on for months this far north!