Ruling with an iron hand, the Church has eliminated the ancient pagan ways. Yet demonic gheists terrorize the land, hunted by the Inquisition, while age-old hatreds rage between the north and the south. Three heroes - Malcolm and Ian Blakeley and Gwendolyn Adair - must end the bloodshed before chaos is unleashed.

The Far Stars are facing the final battle. The Imperials seem unstoppable. But if Blackhawk somehow survives--and can come to grips with the horror deep within him--he just might be able to save the Far Stars from the iron hand of empire.

As a dechet - a breed of humanoid super-soldiers almost eradicated by the war - Tiger has spent her life in hiding. But when she risks her life to save a little girl on the outskirts of Central City, she discovers that the child is one of many abducted in broad daylight by a wraith-like being - an impossibility with dangerous implications for everyone on earth. Because if the light is no longer enough to protect them, nowhere is safe...

Companion to LIFE AFTER LIFE : the story of Ursula Todd's beloved younger brother Teddy - would-be poet, RAF bomber pilot, husband, and father - as he navigates the perils and progress of the 20th century. For all Teddy endures in battle, his greatest challenge is facing the difficulties of living in a future he never expected to have.

Two RED QUEEN novellas. Queen Coriane, first wife of King Tiberias, recounts her heady courtship with the crown prince, the birth of a new prince, Cal, and the potentially deadly challenges that lay ahead for her in royal life. Diana Farley was raised to be strong, but being tasked with planting the seeds of rebellion in Norta is a tougher job than expected. As she travels the land recruiting black market traders, smugglers, and extremists for her first attempt at an attack on the capital, she stumbles upon a connection that may prove to be the key to the entire operation - Mare Barrow.

On a mission to the distant Jenarus system, Lt. Commander Peter Cochrane and the crew of the Starbound are drawn to a mysterious abandoned space station where they discover the remnants of a terrible, centuries-old battle. However, something is waiting for them, and this is only the beginning of Peter's troubles...

Late 19th century Seattle, when airships plied the trade routes bringing would-be miners heading up to the gold fields of Alaska, and steam-powered mechanicals stalked the waterfront. Karen is a "soiled dove", a young woman making the best of her orphaned state by working in Madame Damnable's high-quality bordello. Trouble erupts into her world one night when a badly injured girl arrives, seeking sanctuary, followed by the man who holds her indenture, who has a machine that can take over anyone's mind and control their actions. And as if that wasn't bad enough, the next night brings a body dumped in their rubbish heap - a streetwalker who has been brutally murdered.

When Elyse MacAllister's great-aunt Eleanora, the woman who raised her, becomes deathly ill, Lyse puts her comfortable life in Georgia on hold to rush back to Los Angeles. And once she returns to Echo Park, Lyse discovers her great-aunt has been keeping secrets - extraordinary secrets - from her. Not only is Lyse heir to Eleanora's Victorian estate; she is also expected to take her great-aunt's place in the Echo Park coven of witches. But to accept her destiny means to place herself in deadly peril - for the world of magic is under siege, and the battle the witches now fight may be their last...

Lyse MacAllister faces a deadly new threat. A group of fanatics intent on bringing about the end of times has invaded the witches Council - but the Council is turning a blind eye to the danger growing in its midst. Only one witch is prophesied to be able to stop the encroaching darkness. And if Lyse and her blood sisters are to have any chance at protecting all we know from being lost forever, they must keep her safe - no matter what the cost.

17 hard science fiction tales by today's top authors. Includes stories by Ben Bova, Gregory Benford, Robert Reed, Aliette de Bodard, Jack McDevitt, Howard Hendrix, Daniel H. Wilson, and many others.

MERCURY and the short story collection PROMETHEANS in a single omnibus edition.

Agent Samantha Rose has already died once and knows the exact date she'll die again. Now, as senior agent in a Florida district, her life is back on track. Until a scientist is found dead. And then an eco-terrorist. And then a clone of herself again. As the pieces start to fall together, they paint a picture that seems to defy everything they know about time and physics.

David Sarella is a medium, a lucid dreamer who dives into his dreams to retrieve ectoplasms, sticky blobs with curiously soothing properties that are the only form of art in the world. In his dream identity as a professional thief he breaks into jewelry stores and museums, lifts precious diamonds, and when he wakes, the loot turns into ectoplasms to be sold and displayed. But as he ages, the dives become more difficult. And his dream world - or is it the real world - grows unstable.

Winner of the 2015 Hugo Award for Best Novel. Set against the backdrop of China's Cultural Revolution, a secret military project sends signals into space to establish contact with aliens. An alien civilization on the brink of destruction captures the signal and plans to invade Earth. Meanwhile, on Earth, different camps start forming, planning to either welcome the superior beings and help them take over a world seen as corrupt, or to fight against the invasion.

It was named Bringer of Battles, three hundred worlds orbiting a single artificial star, three hundred battlefields where different species vie for mastery and triumph. It is a cage where war is a game - brutal, savage and sudden. In this arena, all must bend the knee to the Lords of Permutation and the ancient sentient weapons with which they have merged. Or suffer indescribable agonies. Trapped in this draconian crucible of death, Brannan Pyke, captain and smuggler, must fight his way to freedom. Because in the Bringer of Battles, the game of war is played to the death and beyond.

These stories from SF greats answer the question, "Are we alone in the universe?" with a resounding, "No, but we wish we were!" With stories by such science fiction masters as Poul Anderson, David Drake, William Tenn, Sarah A. Hoyt, Tony Daniel and more.

16-year-old Randy Knox has dim memories of a time of electric lights, laptop computers, television screens and above all, plenty of food at every meal. But now he is in the military, fighting the alien Creepers. But just as the war reaches a turning point, he is asked to escort a secret representative from the Governor of New Hampshire to the nation's capital, to meet with the President. Randy learns that all of his skills in combating aliens may not be enough to survive the dark conspiracies of his fellow humans.

Can & Can'tankerous gathers ten previously uncollected tales from the fifth and sixth decades of Harlan Ellison's professional writing career.

The ice is melting, and the menacing and inaccessible land of Assail is at last yielding its secrets. The Crimson Guard arrives there, drawn by the promise of answers to mysteries, answers that Shimmer, second in command, wonders should even be sought. Arriving also, part of an uneasy alliance of Malazan fortune-hunters and Letherii soldiery, is the bard Fisher kel Tath. And with him is a Tiste Andii who was found washed ashore and who cannot remember his past life, yet who commands far more power than he really should. Also venturing north is said to be a mighty champion, a man who once fought for the Malazans, the bearer of a sword that slays gods: Whiteblade.

When the diplomatic embassy from the United States of Europe was freed from the Tower of London during the Baltic War, most of its members returned to the continent. But some remained behind in Britain, including notorious enemy to the crown Oliver Cromwell. Now, the hunt for Cromwell is on, with King Charles himself demanding Cromwell's head.

When Lauren has a disturbing vision of an Oregon forest, she is drawn back to the familiar woods of the misty Pacific Northwest to investigate. Locals had long whispered about an abandoned logging camp known as Jericho - of the strange disappearances and eerie sounds heard in the woods deep in the night. But these ghost stories only hint at the true evil lurking within the camp's dilapidated buildings, a primeval malevolence far more terrifying than Lauren's darkest imaginings.

Ten short stories featuring the dangerous denizens of the Nightside - including a brand-new novella where John Taylor, the P.I. with a knack for finding lost things, confronts Sir Francis Vamey, King of the Vampires.

Waylaid in their quest for the orb of the Air, Magiere, Leesil, Chap and Wayfarer have all been wrongly imprisoned. But it is Magiere, the dhampir, who suffers the most as a cloaked interrogator employs telepathic torture.

With much relief, Magiere, Leesil, and Chap prepare to hide the last two of the powerful orbs. Once this last great task is completed, Magiere can take Leesil home to a life of peace. Then, rumours reach them that a horde of undead creatures, slaughtering everything in their wake, are gathering in the far east regions of the Suman desert. This gathering could only be caused by the Ancient Enemy awakening.

Finn Gramaraye was framed for the crime of dark necromancy at the age of 15, and exiled to the Other Realm for twenty five years. But now that he's free, someone - probably the same someone - is trying to get him sent back. Finn has only a few days to discover who is so desperate to keep him out of the mortal world, and find evidence to prove it to the Arcane Enforcers.

Michigan librarian Isaac Vainio must delve into the darker side of black-market magic, where he will confront beings better left undisturbed, including the sorcerer Juan Ponce de Leon. With his loyal fire-spider Smudge, dryad warrior Lena Greenwood, and psychiatrist Nidhi Shah, he races to unravel a mystery more than a thousand years old. His choices will determine the fate of his friends, the Porters, the students of Bi Sheng, and the world. Only one thing is certain: even if he finds a way to restore his magic, he can't save them all.

Now that the Salik's ruthless war has begun, the fate of the galaxy is in the hands of two strange companions: Li'eth, a prince under siege and his rescuer, Jacaranda MacKenzie. A beautiful ambassador from the Motherworld, Jackie possesses more than the holy powers of a goddess. She brings a secret weapon a strange, wondrous, and dangerous new technology that could be her and Li'eth s last and only hope to save their people from extinction...

A lone man, driving a stolen Mercedes, plows through a crowd lined up for a spot at a job fair. Eight are left dead, fifteen wounded, and the driver escapes. In another part of town, months later, a retired cop named Bill Hodges is still haunted by the unsolved crime. When he gets a crazed letter from someone who self-identifies as the "perp" and threatens an even more diabolical attack, Hodges wakes up from his depressed and vacant retirement, hell-bent on preventing another tragedy.

Reunited after their quests to discover the contours of their newfound immortality, Audun and Ulfar have a new sense of purpose: to ensure that the North remains in the hands of those who keep to the old ways of Odin, Thor, and Loki. To do so, they must take on a powerful adversary who will stop at nothing to put an end to age-old traditions in the name of the White Christ.

To Joy Charmand, who has been a Hunter in her tight-knit mountain community since she was a child, every Cit without a magic deserves her protection against the dangerous Othersiders. Then she is called to Apex City, where the best Hunters are kept to protect the most important people. But then, when an act of sabotage against Joy takes an unbearable toll, she discovers a terrifying conspiracy in the city. There is something much worse than the usual monsters infiltrating Apex. And it may be too late to stop them.

After a happy and innocent childhood, Joss was on the cusp of becoming a man when the Gaels slaughtered the kings and queens of the Tuatha De Danann. Left without a mother and father, he must find a way to unite what is left of his people and lead them into hiding. But even broken and scattered, Joss and his people are not without strange powers.

There aren't many sane, well-adjusted human beings left in San Francisco, but facing the end of the world, Billy's found his vocation trepanning the undead, peddling his one and only published short story, and drinking himself to death. Until he discovers that both his girlfriends are homicidal revolutionaries and he collides with a gang of Berkeley scientists gone berserker. Finally, the long-awaited Big One shakes the foundation of San Francisco to its core, and the crumbled remains of City Hall can no longer hide the awful secret lurking deep in the basement.

One snowy night a famous Hollywood actor slumps over and dies onstage during a production of King Lear. Hours later, the world as we know it begins to dissolve. Moving back and forth in time from the actor's early days as a film star to fifteen years in the future, when a theatre troupe known as the Travelling Symphony roams the wasteland of what remains, the novel charts the strange twists of fate that connect five people: the actor, the man who tried to save him, the actor's first wife, his oldest friend, and a young actress with the Traveling Symphony, caught in the crosshairs of a dangerous self-proclaimed prophet.

Someone very powerful is trying to destroy Sorren and everyone he cares about. That puts Cassidy, Teag and Trifles and Folly in the cross-hairs, against an unknown enemy with strong magic and significant resources.

Field Marshal Tamas returns to his beloved country to find that for the first time in history, the capital city of Adro lies in the hands of a foreign invader. His son is missing, his allies are indistinguishable from his foes, and reinforcements are several weeks away. With the Kez still bearing down upon them and without clear leadership, the Adran army has turned against itself. Inspector Adamat is drawn into the very heart of this new mutiny with promises of finding his kidnapped son. And Taniel Two-shot, hunted by men he once thought his friends, must safeguard the only chance Adro has of getting through this war without being destroyed.

Hitman Don Drake owes a gambling debt to a demon. Forced to carry out one more assassination to clear his debt, Don unwittingly kills an innocent child and brings the Furies of Greek myth down upon himself. Rescued by an almost-fallen angel called Trixie, Don and his magical accomplice, the Burned Man, an imprisoned archdemon, are forced to deal with Lucifer himself whilst battling a powerful evil magician.

In a remote house on a hilltop, a lonely boy witnesses a profoundly traumatic event. He tries - and fails - to flee. Left alone with his increasingly deranged parent, he dreams of safety, of joining the other children in the town below, of escape. When at last a stranger knocks at his door, the boy senses that his days of isolation might be over. But by what authority does this man keep the meticulous records he carries? What is the purpose behind his questions? Is he friend? Enemy? Or something else altogether?

Two people, brought together by a horrific act, are united in a common cause by the powers of the Silver Box. The two join to protect humanity from destruction by an alien race, the Laz, hell-bent on regaining control over the Silver Box, the most destructive and powerful tool in the universe. The Silver Box will stop at nothing to prevent its former master from returning to being, even if it means finishing the earth itself.

It starts when two Rogues vanish without a trace. Someone is targeting Chicago's vampires, and anyone could be next. With their House in peril, Merit and her Master, Ethan Sullivan, must race to stop the disappearances. But as they untangle a web of secret alliances and ancient evils, they realize their foe is more familiar, and more powerful, than they could have ever imagined.

In the oasis city of Aransa con-man Detan Honding and his companion Tibs attempt to heist the gorgeous airship of the exiled commodore Thratia. But then a doppel, a face changer, starts murdering key members of Aransa's government. Heightened security complicates Detan's plans. And with the growing power vacuum, Thratia can solidify her power and wreak havoc against the Empire. But the doppel isn't working for Thratia and has her own agenda.

A string of gruesome paranormal accidents in Brooklyn's Von King Park that has already taken the lives of several locals has put Kia on edge. When she first met Carlos Delacruz, he was the weird guy who came to Baba Eddie's botanica,where she worked. But the closer they've gotten, the more she's seeing the world from Carlos's point of view. In fact, she's starting to see ghosts. And the situation is far more sinister than that - because whatever is bringing out the dead, it's only just getting started.

Scott and Madeline Madden return to the eerie, decaying mansion in the Hollywood hills in which they were raised, and where their decadent and reclusive cousins still live. There, a collection of hypnotic eight-limbed abstract images inked on paper allows the Maddens to briefly fragment and flatten time--to transport themselves into the past and future in addictive visions. As Madeline falls more completely under the mansion's spell, Scott discovers that to protect his sister, he must use the perilous spiders himself. But will he unravel the mystery of the Madden family's past and finally free them - or be pulled deeper into their deadly web?

As populations flee Datum Earth to myriad Long Earth worlds in the years after the cataclysmic Yellowstone eruption, Sally is asked by her father to help trace an advanced alien technology. Meanwhile U. S. Navy Commander Maggie Kauffman has embarked on an expedition to the outer limits of the far Long Earth. And Joshua has become embroiled in the plight of the Next: the super-bright post-humans who are beginning to emerge from their 'long childhood' in the community called Happy Landings.

The Renshai have won back Fields of Wrath. As the survivors limp homeward, wounded in body and spirit, craving only the mundane comforts of home, Tae Kahn becomes ever more certain that a far larger and fiercer wave of enemy soldiers is headed toward them. This time, Tae is certain, the ranks will include hundreds of the strong, magical, Island-dwelling giants. The only hope for the peoples of the Continent is to remuster their war-weary troops and find a way to convince the few magical beings of their own world to assist them.

A hardened group of survivors fights back against a zombie plague that has brought down civilization. With the world consumed by a devastating plague that drives humans violently insane, what was once a band of desperate survivors bobbing on a dark Atlantic ocean has now become Wolf Squadron, the only hope for the salvation of the human race. Banding together with what remains of the US Navy, Wolf Squadron and its leader, Steve Smith, not only plan to survive - Smith plans to retake the mainland from the infected, starting with North America.

In the labyrinthine alleys and ruins of Nizamuddin, an old neighbourhood in Delhi, India, lives a small band of cats. Unfettered and wild, these and the other members of the tribe fear no one, go where they will, and do as they please. Until one day, a terrified orange-coloured kitten with monsoon green eyes and remarkable powers lands in their midst - the first in a series of extraordinary events that threatens to annihilate them and everything they hold dear.

As Prefect Cato and Centurion Macro tramp the hillsides of western Britannia dreaming of their eventual return to Rome, the officers face daily threats that will test their courage to the full as they fight to protect their men and the Empire

The Fant are anthropomorphic elephants ostracized by other races, and long ago exiled to the rainy ghetto world of Barsk. There, they developed koph, a drug that allows a small number of users to interact with the recently deceased and learn their secrets. To break the Fant's control of koph, an offworld shadow group attempts to force the Fant to surrender their knowledge. Jorl, a Fant Speaker with the dead, is compelled to question his deceased best friend, who years ago mysteriously committed suicide. In so doing, Jorl unearths a secret the powers that be would prefer to keep buried forever.

Officially, Kell is the Red Traveler, personal ambassador and adopted Prince of Red London, carrying the monthly correspondences between the royals of parallel London. Unofficially, Kell is a smuggler, servicing people willing to pay for even the smallest glimpses of a world they'll never see - a dangerous hobby, and one that has set him up for accidental treason. Fleeing into Grey London, Kell runs afoul of Delilah Bard, a cut-purse with lofty aspirations. She first robs him, then saves him from a dangerous enemy, and then forces him to spirit her to another world for a proper adventure.

In the near future, a fluke of quantum mechanics renders Nat Morgan utterly forgettable. No one can remember he exists for more than a minute after he's gone. It's a useful ability for his career as a CIA agent, even if he has to keep reminding his boss that he exists. Nat's attempt to steal a quantum chip prototype is thwarted when a former FSB agent, Yelena Semyonova, attempts to steal the same technology for the Russion mob. Along with a brilliant Iranian physicist who wants to defect, Nat and Yelena must work together to stop a ruthless billionaire from finishing a quantum supercomputer that will literally control the fate of the world.

"Bluebeard" (1987) is the memoir of a phenomenally gifted realist painter who, in the 1950s, betrayed his artistic vision for commercial success and now, at seventy-one, plots revenge on the worldly forces that conspired to corrupt his talent. "Hocus Pocus" (1990), is the prison memoir of a Vietnam vet and disgraced academic. "Timequake" (1997), the author's last completed novel, is part science fiction (starring perennial protagonist Kilgore Trout), part diary of the mid-1990s (starring the author himself), and a literary magician's fond farewell to his readers and his craft.

Caught between life and death, Skylan Ivorson must lead those who journeyed with him to battle the evil god and the vast army of the god and his human emperor. He must fight as never before to win back his life and his love, while seeking the last Spiritbone - the key to summoning the ultimate victory - before it can be snatched away by the forces of evil.

Marius Winter doesn't walk the road of the shaman-warrior alone. He has powerful allies in the Other Realms and in ordinary reality. His spirit guides are a Lakota war-chief and medicine man, First In Front; Tigre, a powerful feminine spirit who appears as a white tiger; and Burt, a spirit raven who channels an old Jewish bookie from the Bronx. Now Marius is targeted by a powerful sorcerer. In the battle for the souls of his friends and lover, he must storm the gates of the underworld and fight through the Seven Demi-Demons of Hell to the deepest dungeons to confront Belial himself.

A collection of Zahn's short fiction.

An anthology of post-apocalyptic literature - an eclectic mix of tales that explores famine, death, war, pestilence, and harbingers of the biblical apocalypse - from some of the most renowned science fiction and fantasy authors in the field today including George RR Martin, Hugh Howey, Junot Diaz, David Brin and many more.

Childhood friends Patricia Delfine and Laurence Armstead didn't expect to see each other again, after parting ways under mysterious circumstances during middle school. But now they're both adults, Laurence is an engineering genius, and Patricia a magically gifted adept. Little do they realize that something bigger than either of them, something begun years ago in their youth, is determined to bring them together - to either save the world, or plunge it into a new dark ages.

Amy Peterson is a self-replicating humanoid robot known as a von Neumann. For the past five years, she has been grown slowly as part of a mixed organic/synthetic family. She knows very little about her android mother's past, so when her grandmother arrives and attacks her mother, Amy wastes no time in eating her alive. Now she carries her malfunctioning granny as a partition on her memory drive, and she's learning that her failsafe has failed and she alone can kill humans...

Acquel Galenus, former thief and now monk of no particular skill, indifferent scribe and even worse chorister, uncovers a terrible secret under the Great Temple at Livorna that could shiver the one faith to its core. Pirate princeling Nicolo Danamis, mercenary to the King and captain of the largest fleet in the island kingdom of Valdur, has made one deal too many, and enemies are now closing in to destroy him. And Citala, fair-haired and grey-skinned, the daughter of the chieftain of the Merfolk who inhabit the waters of Valdur, finds herself implacably drawn to the affairs of men.

Ross Tremayne, widowed, cross-dressing privateer captain and unregistered witch, likes her life on the high seas, accompanied by a boatload of swashbuckling pirates and the possessive ghost of her late husband, Will. When she pays a bitter deathbed visit to her long-estranged mother she inherits a half brother she didn't know about and a task she doesn't want: open the magical winterwood box and right an ancient wrong if she can. Enter Corwen. He's handsome, sexy, clever, and capable, and Ross doesn't really like him; neither does Will's ghost. Can he be trusted? Whose side is he on?

The city of Voortyashtan was once the stronghold of the god of war and death, the birthplace of fearsome supernatural sentinels who killed and subjugated millions. General Turyin Mulaghesh, foul-mouthed hero of the battle of Bulikov, rumoured war criminal, ally of an embattled Prime Minister, has been exiled there until she can draw her pension and be forgotten. That's the cover story. The truth is that the general has been pressed into service one last time, dispatched to investigate a discovery with the potential to change the world - or destroy it.

In desperate need of answers, Simon Wolfgard, a shape-shifter leader among the Others, has no choice but to enlist blood prophet Meg Corbyn's help, regardless of the risks she faces by aiding him. Meg is still deep in the throes of her addiction to the euphoria she feels when she cuts and speaks prophecy. She knows each slice of her blade tempts death. But Others and humans alike need answers, and her visions may be Simon's only hope of ending the conflict.

First in the three volumes of collected best stories of Ben Bova.

Six years after her perilous exploits in Eriga, Isabella embarks on a two-year trip around the world to study all manner of dragons -- from feathered serpents sunning themselves in the ruins of a fallen civilization to the mighty sea serpents of the tropics. As she copes with storms, shipwrecks, intrigue, and warfare, she is accompanied not only by her young son Jake, but also by a chivalrous foreign archaeologist whose interests converge with Isabella's in ways both professional and personal.

In the south, Inevera, Jardir's first wife, must find a way to keep their sons from killing one another and plunging their people into civil war as they strive for glory enough to make a claim on the throne. In the north, Leesha Paper and Rojer Inn struggle to forge an alliance between the duchies of Angiers and Miln against the Krasians before it is too late. Caught in the crossfire is the duchy of Lakton - rich and unprotected, ripe for conquest. All the while, the corelings have been growing stronger, and without Arlen and Jardir there may be none strong enough to stop them.

For once, mated werewolves Charles Cornick and Anna Latham are not traveling because of Charles's new role as his father's enforcer. This time, their trip to Arizona is purely personal, as Charles plans to buy Anna a horse for her birthday. Or at least it starts out that way. Charles and Anna soon discover that a dangerous Fae being is on the loose, replacing human children with simulacrums. The Fae's cold war with humanity is about to heat up, and Charles and Anna are in the crossfire.

Selene DiSilva is walking her dog along the banks of the Hudson when she finds the body of a young woman washed ashore, gruesomely mutilated and wreathed in laurel. Her ancient rage returns. With the NYPD out of its depth, Selene vows to hunt the killer on her own. But when classics professor Theo Schultz decodes the ancient myth behind the crime, the solitary Huntress finds herself working with a man who is her opposite in every way. Together, they face a long-forgotten cult that lies behind a string of murders, and they'll need help from the one source Selene distrusts most of all: the city's other Immortals.

Darrow and his comrades-in-arms face powerful enemies without scruple or mercy. Among them are some Darrow once considered friends. To win, Darrow will need to inspire those shackled in darkness, break their chains, unmake the world their cruel masters have built, and claim a destiny too long denied and too glorious to surrender.

Original military themed high fantasy anthology featuring hard-hitting stories from Elizabeth Moon, Larry Correia, Sarah A. Hoyt, Glen Cook, David Farland, Seanan McGuire, John Helfers and Robin Wayne Bailey.

Three years after her famous husband's death, Cordelia Vorkosigan, widowed Vicereine of Sergyar, stands ready to spin her life in a new direction. Oliver Jole, Admiral, Sergyar Fleet, finds himself caught up in her web of plans in ways he'd never imagined, bringing him to an unexpected crossroads in his career. Meanwhile, Miles Vorkosigan, one of Emperor Gregor's key investigators, this time dispatches himself on a mission of inquiry, into a mystery he never anticipated: his own mother.

The first two books of the ALVIN MAKER series in one volume.

When Prudence Alessandra Maccon Akeldama (Rue to her friends) is given an unexpected dirigible, she does what any sensible female would under similar circumstances - names it the Spotted Custard and floats to India in pursuit of the perfect cup of tea. But India has more than just tea on offer. Rue stumbles upon a plot involving local dissidents, a kidnapped brigadier's wife, and some awfully familiar Scottish werewolves. Faced with a dire crisis and an embarrassing lack of bloomers, what else is a young lady of good breeding to do but turn metanatural and find out everyone's secrets, even thousand-year-old fuzzy ones?

Shironne Anjir's status as a sensitive is both a gift and a curse. Determined to use her abilities as best she can, Shironne works tirelessly as an investigator for the Larossan army. A member of the royal family's guard, Mikael Lee also possesses an overwhelming power - he dreams of the deaths of others, sometimes in vivid, shocking detail, and sometimes in cryptic fragments and half-remembered images. Shironne and Mikael must work together when a killer brings a reign of terror to the city, snuffing out his victims with an arcane and deadly blood magic.

Utopia is the brand-new frontier of theme parks, a fantastic collection of Worlds each so authentic it takes the average visitor's breath away. Teeming with cutting-edge holographic and robotic technology, it has captured the nation's imagination. But it has also attracted a group of ruthless criminals. After infiltrating the park and its computer systems, their leader - calling himself John Doe - sets the parameters. If their shocking demands are met, none of the visitors to the park that day will be harmed; if not, then all hell will rain down.

Paul Kerr has been sent to fight at the edges of the growing Illyri Empire. His beloved Syd Hellais is the first alien child born on Earth, a creature of two worlds - and a being possessed of powers beyond imagining. Now both must endure the terrible exile that Syl's race has deemed just punishment for their love. But the conquest of Earth is not all it seems. There is another species involved, known only as the Others, and the Illyri will kill to keep their existence secret.

A treasured toy box of all-original dark stories about dolls of all types, including everything from puppets and poppets to mannequins and baby dolls, from bestselling and critically acclaimed authors such as Joyce Carol Oates, Seanan McGuire, Carrie Vaughn, Pat Cadigan, Tim Lebbon, Richard Kadrey, Genevieve Valentine, Jeffrey Ford, and Mary Robinette Kowal.

LAPD detective Cassandra Lee's pursuit of the Bonebreaker, the man who murdered her father, is derailed when LA comes under attack. The Aztec Empire, a Central American group determined to take back the U.S. territories that their Spanish ancestors once controlled, has led a mutant army into California. Suddenly caught in the middle of a war, Lee must put all her energy into keeping her city safe while unearthing the political secrets of LA's shady mayor.

You'd have to be mad to steal from the feared International Patent Office. But that's what Elizabeth Barnabus is about to try. A one-time enemy from the circus has persuaded her to attempt a heist that will be the ultimate conjuring trick. Hidden in the vaults of the Patent Court in London lie secrets that could shake the very pillars of the Gas-Lit Empire. All that stands in Elizabeth's way are the agents of the Patent Office, a Duke's private army and the mysterious Custodian of Marvels.

Lost in the dark, half a year into their journey to the colony world of Tantalus, Sakura Kimei, her family, and her best friend, the alien 'Bemmie' nicknamed Whips, are torn from the safety of their colony ship. In a crippled lifeboat, they had one chance to find a habitable world. But even then, they would find that their apparent salvation was a world of a thousand secrets.

Agatha Heterodyne returns to her ancestral home, the warped little town of Mechanicsburg. There she must claim her inheritance by convincing the artificial intelligence that animates her family's castle that she is, in fact, the new Heterodyne. But this apparently simple task is made complicated in several ways. An imposter claiming to be the legitimate heir appears. The Empire is convinced that Agatha is the person responsible for the Long War (and to be fair, they are not entirely incorrect). And, worst of all, the Castle itself is insane.

As the Demon Lord Shadow Wing creates his own sinister version of the Keraastar Knights - the guardians of the spirit seals - to destroy the portals and free himself from the Sub Realms, his ally, the necromancer Telazhar, leads an assault from Otherworld into the streets of Seattle. And the D'Artigo sisters are caught dead center.

The vampires, led by power-mad pain-in-the-neck Theophilus, have become a huge problem requiring a solution. But Atticus's allies have problems of their own. Ornery archdruid Owen Kennedy is having a wee bit of troll trouble. Turns out when you stiff a troll, it's not water under the bridge. Meanwhile, Granuaile is desperate to free herself of the Norse god Loki's mark and elude his powers of divination - a quest that will bring her face-to-face with several Slavic nightmares. As Atticus globetrots to stop his nemesis Theophilus, the journey leads to Rome.

In Dson Faimon, the realm of the alfar, the warriors are planning a military campaign. Caphalor and Sinthoras are looking to enlist a powerful demon to strengthen their army - but the two alfar have very different goals. While Caphalor is determined to defend the borders of their empire and no more, the ambitious Sinthoras is intent on invasion: and he has the kingdoms of dwarves and the elves firmly in his sights.

Finn has figured out how to use the Kinfinder device created by his half-mad father to find people's True Love, and he'd like to convert that into an Arcane Dating Service. It's a great idea. Everyone wants True Love! Unfortunately, trouble always seems to find Finn, and when he agrees to help his friend, the Bigfoot named Sal, they walk right into a Feyblood rebellion against the Arcane Ruling Council, a rebellion being fomented by unknown forces and fueled by the drug created by Finn's own grandfather.

London, 1882: Harold Spire and Special Branch Division Omega must find the Eterna Compound, which grants immortality. Catastrophe destroyed the hidden laboratory in New York City where Eterna was developed, but Queen Victoria is convinced someone escaped - and has a sample of Eterna. Also searching for Eterna is an American, Clara Templeton, who helped start the project after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln nearly destroyed her nation.

The Vlast stands two hundred feet tall, four thousand tons of steel ready to be flung upwards on the fire of atom bombs. Ready to take the dream of President-Commander of the New Vlast beyond the bounds of this world. But not everyone shares this vision. Vissarion Lom and Maroussia Shaumian have not reached the end of their story, and in Mirgorod a woman in a shabby dress carefully unwraps a sniper rifle. And all the while the Pollandore dreams its own dreams.

Manchester, 2025. Local mechanic Sol steals old vehicles to meet the demand for spares. But when Sol's partner impulsively jacks a luxury model, Sol finds himself caught up in a nightmarish trans-dimensional human trafficking conspiracy. Hidden in the stolen car is a voiceless, three-armed woman called Y. She's had her memory removed and undertaken a harrowing journey into a world she only vaguely recognises. And someone waiting in the UK expects her delivery at all costs.

An organization known as Vanguard, made up of magical creatures and ex-Porters, wants open war with the mundane world. Isaac's own government is incarcerating "potential supernatural enemies" in prisons and internment camps. And Isaac finds himself targeted by all sides. It's a war that will soon envelop the world, and the key to victory may lie with Isaac himself, as he struggles to incorporate everything he's learned into a new, more powerful form of libriomancy.

As orphaned, monk-raised Caldan and his companions flee the fallen city, horrors from the time of the Shattering begin to close in. With Miranda's mind broken by forbidden sorcery, Caldan does the unthinkable to save her. He breaks the most sacrosanct laws of the Protectors. But when the emperor's warlocks arrive to capture him, Caldan realizes that his burgeoning powers may be more of a curse than a blessing, and the enemies assailing the empire may be rivaled by more sinister forces within.

In the twenty-third century, the lighthouse keeper job has moved into outer space. A network of beacons allows ships to travel across the Milky Way at many times the speed of light. These beacons are built to be robust. They never break down. They never fail. At least, they're not supposed to...

19 stories from the world of vampire-hunter Jane Yellowrock.

Someone has tried to kill Death, ripping the heart right out of him or rather, the body he's inhabiting. Sandman Slim gets the task of solving the murder of someone who can't die, following a sordid trail deep into L.A.'s subterranean world, from vampire-infested nightclubs to talent agencies specializing in mad ghosts, from Weimar Republic mystical societies to sleazy supernatural underground fight and sex clubs. Along the way he meets a mysterious girl distinguished by a pair of graveyard eyes as badass as Slim. She happens to be the only person who ever outwitted Death. But escaping her demise has had dire consequences for the rest of the world.

Sisters Sky and Phee, interred in the Red Allies prisoner of war camp that was once Manhattan, set a series of events in motion that end in the death of one of the camp guards. Now they're outlaws, forced to join strange Englishmen on an escape mission through Manhattan. Their flight takes them into subways haunted by cannibals, into the arms of a sadistic cult in the city's Meatpacking District and, through the pages of their mom's old journal, into the island's dark and shocking past.

Two young sorcerers experiment with magic and mobsters in 1920s Prohibition when a new elixir is created that turns their lives upside down.

Jake Epping, a 35-year-old English teacher in Lisbon Falls, Maine, learns that his friend Al, who owns the local diner, has a storeroom which is a portal to the past, a particular day in 1958. And Al enlists Jake to take over the mission that has become his obsession - to prevent the Kennedy assassination. So begins Jake's new life as George Amberson, in a different world of Ike and JFK and Elvis, of big American cars and sock hops and cigarette smoke everywhere.

MAGIC'S PAWN, MAGIC'S PROMISE and MAGIC'S PRICE in one volume.

Vazkor, who assumed the name of the warrior father he had never known, seeks his mother, a survivor of the hated Old Race known as the White Witch. He has sworn to kill her, to avenge his father and all the humans who had suffered at the hands of the Old Race. But as he searches, his own powers his fearful heritage grow. Can Vazkor rid the world once and for all of his own creator?

2074. Getting shipped off to the Hanover School for Expecting Teen Mothers was not how Elvie imagined spending her junior year, but she can go with the flow. That is, until a team of hot commandos hijacks the ship and one of them turns out to be Cole. She hasn't seen him since she told him she's pregnant, and now he's bursting into her new home to tell her that her teachers are aliens and want to use her unborn baby to repopulate their species. Nice try, buddy. You could have just called.

Having escaped the Island - a wasteland that housed those no longer able to contribute to society - Clancy thought his fight was over. But they have returned to the mainland to find that it is not the haven they anticipated. With the punishment satellites that kept them on the Island gone, hell has been unleashed. Clancy is about to discover that his work is far from over. The fires of hell don't burn much hotter than this.

Among Grayharbor backstreets, an orphan boy falls afoul of dark forces. On the Wall, a Daughter of Blood must be married off to the Earl of Night, a pawn in the web of her family's ambition. On the Field of Blood, Kalan fights for a place in the bride's honour guard, while Malian dodges Darkswarm pursuers in a hunt against time for the fabled Shield of Heaven, which all accounts agree was shattered.

Galvan's mind is infested with the soul of El Cucuy, a fearsome, 500 year old Aztec priest and major crime kingpin determined to bring about hell on earth. Despite the superhuman strength and endurance this earns him, Galvan is estranged from his daughter, Sherry, and from his own body as he battles constantly to keep the evil priest at bay. And in the bowels of Ojos Negros prison, a territory once controlled by the ancient priest, the drug cartels are at war with one another and on the hunt for Galvan - who must find a way to exorcise his inner demon in time to save the world from annihilation.

Veranix Calbert is the Thorn, the street vigilante-turned-legend determined to stop Willem Fenmere, the drug kingpin of Dentonhill and the Red Rabbits gang. But Veranix is also a magic student at the University of Maradaine, and it's exam week. With his academic career riding on his performance, there's no time to go after Fenmere or the Red Rabbits. But when a series of pranks on campus grow deadly, it's clear that someone has a vendetta against the university, and Veranix may be the only one who can stop them...

Lilywhite Abernathy is a criminal - she's half human, half fae, and since the time before she was born, a war has been raging between humans and faeries. The Queen of Blood and Rage, ruler of the fae courts, wants to avenge the tragic death of her heir due to the actions of reckless humans. Lily's father has always shielded her, but when she's sent to the prestigious St. Columba's school, she's delivered straight into the arms of a fae sleeper cell - the Black Diamonds.

Hidden away from the world by his mother, the powerful sorceress Heloise Oliver, Pierce has grown up working in her restaurant in Desolation Point. But now, lured by a future far away from the bleak northern coast, Pierce makes his way to Severluna. But things are changing in that kingdom. Oldmagic is on the rise. The immensely powerful artifact of an ancient god has come to light, and the king is gathering his knights to quest for this profound mystery, which may restore the kingdom to its former glory or destroy it...

Facing her greatest challenge yet, Rook Myfanwy Thomas must broker a deal between two bitter adversaries: the Checquy - the centuries-old covert British organization that protects society from supernatural threats, and...the Grafters - a centuries-old supernatural threat. But as bizarre attacks sweep London, threatening to sabotage negotiations, old hatreds flare. Surrounded by spies, only the Rook and two women who absolutely hate each other, can seek out the culprits before they trigger a devastating otherworldly war.

Liz Huntington feels increasingly uneasy in her lavish new home. Huntington House and its staff still seem to be in the thrall of David's first wife. Though Dominique drowned in a yachting accident, Liz still senses her spirit in the house. But Liz's fears are more than insecurity. Two young women connected to Huntington House have already met terrible deaths. More will die - and soon. Because behind the house's polished facade is an unimaginable secret and a love turned to twisted, unnatural obsession.

In 1960, Henry Lytten is an Oxford don who dabbles in espionage and fiction writing. Rosie Wilson is the quick-witted, curious 15-year-old girl who feeds Professor Lytten's cat. Several hundred years in the future, living in a dystopian society on the Isle of Mull, is Angela Meerson - a brilliant psychomathematician who has discovered the world-changing potential of a powerful new machine. Somewhere, sometime, is Jay - a scholar's apprentice in an idyllic, pastoral land.

Dr. Bond's hopes that his long-held affections for the recently widowed Juliana Harrington might finally be reciprocated are threatened when a new suitor arrives in London. Worse, it seems the evil creature that Dr. Bond had wrestled with during the Ripper and Torso Killer investigations is back and stronger than ever. As the corpses of murdered children begin to turn up in the Thames, the police surgeon finds himself once again in a life-and-death struggle with an uncanny, inexorable foe.

Fae can't survive without a tie to Faerie, and now that Alex's true nature has awoken, she's no exception. She must align herself to a court and soon. To retain as much freedom as possible, she makes a deal to track the source of a new glamour-infused street drug which causes hallucinations that kill - and not just the user. Her investigation entangles Alex in a conflict brewing in Faerie, and she must find answers before she's dragged so deep that she loses not only her freedom, but her life.

N8-C, better known as Nate, has been Manhattan Hasbro Hospital's resident robot for more than twenty years. But now one of the hospital's physicians has been found brutally murdered with Nate standing over the corpse, a blood-smeared utility bar clutched in his hand. Lawrence Robertson, designer and programmer of Nate's positronic brain, is arrested for his creation's crime. Susan Calvin knows the Three Laws make it impossible for Nate to harm a human being, but she has to consider the possibility that someone somehow manipulated the laws to commit murder...

The Colony is a race of intelligent ants who for millenia have been silently building an army that would forever eradicate the destructive, oppressive humans. The final step in the Colony's war effort is transforming the surface animals into high-functioning two-legged beings who rise up to kill their masters. Former housecat turned war hero, Mort(e) is famous for taking on the most dangerous missions and fighting the dreaded human bio-weapon EMSAH. But the true motivation behind his recklessness is his ongoing search for a pre-transformation friend - a dog named Sheba.

The cryptic message originated seventy light-years away from the planet Crucible, where Ndege Akinya lives under permanent house arrest for her role in the catastrophe that killed 417,000 people. Could it be from her mother, Chiku, who vanished during a space expedition decades earlier? Ndege's daughter Goma, a biologist, joins the crew of the Travertine, dispatched to Gliese 163 to uncover the source behind the enigmatic message.

With the Apocalypse looming and the very barriers of our world crumbling, Erin must again join forces with Army Sergeant Jordan Stone and Father Rhun Korza to search for a treasure lost for millennia, a prize that already has fallen into the hands of their enemy. But the forces of darkness have crowned a new king, a demon named Legion, who walks this Earth wearing many faces, whose reach is beyond measure, where even the walls of the Vatican fall before him.

1954. When his father Montrose goes missing, 22 year old Army veteran Atticus travels to the manor of Mr. Braithwhite - heir to the estate that owned one of Atticus's ancestors. Atticus discovers his father in chains, held prisoner by a secret cabal named the Order of the Ancient Dawn - led by Samuel Braithwhite and his son Caleb - which has gathered to orchestrate a ritual that shockingly centers on Atticus.

Robin Ragged has revenge to wreak and redemption to steal. As for Jeremy Gallow, the poison in his wound is slowly killing him, while old friends turn traitor and long-lost enemies return to haunt him. In the dive bars and trailer parks, the sidhe are hunting. War looms, and on a rooftop in the heart of the city, the most dangerous sidhe of all is given new life. He has only one thought. Where is the Ragged?

Hardly anyone thinks that the Bands of Mourning, the mythical metalminds owned by the Lord Ruler, really exist. But a kandra researcher has returned to Elendel with images that seem to depict the Bands, as well as writings in a language that no one can read. Waxillium Ladrian is recruited to travel south to the city of New Seran to investigate. Along the way he discovers hints that point to the true goals of his uncle Edwarn and the shadowy organization known as The Set.

As Scion turns its allseeing eye on Paige, the mimelords and mimequeens of the city's gangs are invited to a rare meeting of the Unnatural Assembly. Jaxon Hall and his Seven Seals prepare to take center stage, but there are bitter fault lines running through the clairvoyant community and dark secrets around every corner. Then the Rephaim begin crawling out from the shadows. But where is Warden? Paige must keep moving, from Seven Dials to Grub Street to the secret catacombs of Camden, until the fate of the underworld can be decided.

A new designer drug called Brimstone has hit the streets. After the first few hits, you'll see every supernatural beast sharing the sidewalk, train, or office with you. After that, you'll start seeing the really scary stuff. For Makenna Fraser, seer for the SPI, the collateral damage caused by Brimstone is something she'd like to unsee: dead drug dealers missing their hearts - and souls. Because your local pusher doesn't stand a chance against the new cartel muscling its way into New York. And since the drug can only be produced with magic and molten brimstone fresh from Hell, that means a rift to the underworld is open somewhere in the city.

A group of teenagers wake up in a mysterious corridor with no knowledge of who they are or how they got trapped. Their only hope lies with an indomitable young woman who must lead them not only to answers but to survival.

As Yelena Zaltana desperately searches for a way to reclaim her magic, her enemies are closing in, and neither Ixia nor Sitia are safe for her any more. Valek is determined to protect Yelena, but he's quickly running out of options. The Commander suspects that his loyalties are divided, and he's been keeping secrets from Valek...secrets that put him, Yelena and all their friends in terrible danger.

A wide-ranging collection of Straub's most chilling, intense, and compelling tales from the past twenty-five years.

The theft of a book giving its wielder power over the dead has drawn the attention of Shroud, lord of the underworld. But others are also attracted. Among them is a reluctant Guardian who is commissioned by the Emperor to find the stolen book, a troubled prince who battles enemies both personal and political, and a young girl of great power, whose past uniquely prepares her for an encounter with Shroud. The greatest threat to each of their quests lies not in the horror of an undead army but in the risk of betrayal from those closest to them.

In order to retain leadership of the Storm Lords, Emira Imerle Polivar hopes to release dozens of dragons into the Sabian Sea and eliminate her rivals while she launches an attack on the Storm Lord capital, Olaire. But as the Storm Lords assemble in Olaire in answer to a mysterious summons, they become the targets of assassins working for an unknown enemy. When Imerle initiates her coup, that enemy makes use of the chaos created to show its hand.

A man is found dead, murdered in a horrific manner - even by Hell's standards - and he is merely the first of many. Unfortunately, these deaths coincide with a political visit from a Heavenly delegation, so the pressure is on Thomas Fool, an Information Man, to track down and identify the murderer. It's critical that Fool solves these crimes, but how can he find a killer in a place where murder is common currency? With no memory of his past but an irresistible drive to discover the truth, Fool will follow the trail of clues straight into the heart of a dark and chaotic conspiracy.

Haunted by memories of children he could not save, Jon Moore is so increasingly self destructive that even his best friend, the hyper intelligent Predator Class Assault Vehicle, Lobo, is worried. When Jon risks meeting a woman from his distant past and undertakes a high-stakes mission, Lobo fears this will be their last. The job is illegal. They have to take on one of the oldest, most powerful men alive. Two different security forces are tracking them. And Jon is falling in love.

2050. Marisa Carneseca knows how to manipulate the djinni, the smart implants. She might spend her days in Mirador, the small, vibrant LA neighborhood where her family owns a restaurant, but she lives on the net - going to school, playing games, hanging out, or doing things of more questionable legality with her friends Sahara and Anja. And it's Anja who first gets her hands on Bluescreen - a virtual drug that plugs right into a person's djinni and delivers a massive, nonchemical, completely safe high. But in this city, when something sounds too good to be true, it usually is...

Arthur Wallace and the MI37 team confront their complex personal relationships as well as robots originally created to aid the Nazi invasion of Russia, leading to a trip for the team to the Himalayas, which takes them to a Nepalese death cult, then back to London for the final assault - amidst assorted relationship break-ups, hangovers and pregnancy scares...

Father Yarvi has walked a long road from crippled slave to king's minister. But now the ruthless Grandmother Wexen has raised the greatest army since the elves made war on God, and put Bright Yilling at its head - a man who worships only Death. Sometimes one must fight evil with evil. Some - like Thorn Bathu and the sword-bearer Raith - are born to fight, perhaps to die. Others - like Brand the smith and Koll the wood-carver - would rather stand in the light. But when Mother War spreads her iron wings, she may cast the whole Shattered Sea into darkness.

Schism and revolt begin to erode the foundations of Lord Regent Geder Palliako's empire, and the great conquest threatens to collapse into a permanent conflict of all against all. In Carse, with armies on all borders, Cithrin bel Sarcour, Marcus Wester, and Clara Kalliam are faced with the impossible task of bringing a lasting peace to the world. Their tools are traitors high in the imperial army, the last survivor of the dragon empire, and a financial scheme that is either a revolution or the greatest fraud in the history of the world.

Toby Greene has been reassigned. The Department: Section 37 Station Office, Wood Green. The Boss: August Shining, an ex-Cambridge, Cold War-era spy. The Mission: Charged with protecting Great Britain and its interests from paranormal terrorism. The Threat: An old enemy has returned, and with him Operation Black Earth, a Soviet plan to create the ultimate insurgents by re-animating the dead.

Toby Greene is part of the Clown Service, a mostly forgotten branch of British Intelligence tasked with fighting paranormal threats. However, the Rain-Soaked Bride is no ordinary assassin. Relentless, inexorable and part of a larger game, merely stopping this impossible killer may not be enough to save the day.

When Kate Daniels and her mate, former Beast Lord Curran Lennart, learn that their friend Eduardo has gone missing, they go looking. Eduardo was a fellow member of the Mercenary Guild, so Kate knows the best place to start looking is his most recent jobs. As Kate and Curran dig further into the merc's business, they discover that the Guild has gone to hell and that Eduardo's assignments are connected in the most sinister way An ancient enemy has arisen, and Kate and Curran are the only ones who can stop it before it takes their city apart piece by piece.

Javier is a self-replicating humanoid on a journey of redemption. Javier's quest takes him from Amy's island, where his actions have devastating consequences for his friend, toward Mecha where he will find either salvation... or death.

Las Vegas Water Knife, Angel Velasquez, "cuts" water for his boss, Catherine Case, ensuring that her lush, luxurious arcology developments can bloom in the desert, so the rich can stay wet, while the poor get nothing but dust. When rumors of a game-changing water source surface in drought-ravaged Phoenix, Angel is sent to investigate. There, with bodies piling up, bullets flying, and Phoenix teetering on collapse, it seems like California is making a power play to monopolize the life-giving flow of a river.

A cynical, paraplegic screenwriter with borderline personality disorder gets recruited to join a secret organization that oversees relations between Hollywood and Fairyland.

When Tokyo falls victim to a deadly terrorist attack, Detective Sergeant Mariko Oshiro knows who is responsible, even if she doesn't have proof. She urges her commanding officers to arrest the perpetrator, but when her pleas fall on deaf ears, she loses her temper and then her badge. Left on her own, Mariko must now work outside the system to stop a terrorist mastermind, armed with only her cunning and her famed Inazuma blade...

Jimmy Aussapile is a Knight of the Brotherhood of the Wheel, an offshoot of the Templars. He's driving a big rig down South when a promise to a ghostly hitchhiker sets him on a quest to find out the terrible truth behind a string of children gone missing all across the country. The road leads him to Lovina Hewitt, a skeptical Louisiana State Police investigator working the same case and, eventually, to a forgotten town that's not on any map - and to the secret behind the eerie Black-Eyed Kids said to prowl the highways.

Some, like Simon Wolfgard, wolf shifter and leader of the Lakeside Courtyard, and blood prophet Meg Corbyn, see the new, closer companionship between the Others and the "cassandra sangue" as beneficial both personally and practically. But not everyone is convinced. A group of radical humans is seeking to usurp land through a series of violent attacks on the Others. What they don't realize is that there are older and more dangerous forces than shifters and vampires protecting the land that belongs to the Others and those forces are willing to do whatever is necessary to protect what is theirs...

Lucifer is enjoying his retirement when he learns of a plot by Gabriel, the current ruler of Hell, to use a reality game-show 'Who Wants To Be The Prince Of Darkness?' to repopulate Hell with unwitting mortal souls. Now Lucifer must find a living champion to seize control of Hell and free millions of stolen mortal souls before the theft becomes permanent. But who would ever want to be Hell's champion?

When her crewmate, Danny, is murdered on the colony of Volhynia, Central Corps chief engineer, Commander Elena Shaw, is shocked to learn the main suspect is her lover, Treiko Zajec. She knows Trey is innocent - he was with her when Danny was killed. So who is the real killer and why are the cops framing an innocent man? Retracing Danny's last hours, they discover that his death may be tied to a mystery from the past: the explosion of a Central Corps starship at a wormhole near Volhynia.

Art Thrasher is a man with the driving vision to send humans to Mars. The government has utterly failed, but Thrasher has got the plan to accomplish such a feat. Form a club of billionaires to chip in one billion a year until the dream is accomplished. But it's going to take all his wiles as a captain of industry and master manipulator of business and capital to overcome setbacks and sabotage and get a rocket full of scientist, engineers, visionaries, and dreamers on their way to the Red Planet.

[CANADIAN AUTHOR]. Kris Ballard is a motorcycle courier, Level 2 trash in a multi-level city that stretches from San Francisco to the Mexican border, a land where corporations make all the rules. But then she walks in on the murder of one of her clients. Now she's stuck with a mysterious package that everyone wants. It looks like the corporations want Kris gone, and are willing to go to almost any length to make it happen. Hunted, scared, and alone, she retreats to the only place she knows she can hide, the Level 1 streets.

When coyote shapeshifter Mercy Thompson and her Alpha werewolf mate, Adam, are called upon to stop a rampaging troll, they find themselves with something that could be used to forestall out-and-out war with the fae: a human child stolen long ago by the fae. Mercy, Adam, and their pack choose to protect the boy no matter what the cost. But who will protect them from a boy who is fire touched?

In London Jani attempts to rescue the imprisoned alien Mahran - the only person who might help her save the Earth from the invasion of the merciless Zhell, the self-styled Masters of the Cosmos. But will she escape London and reach Tibet before the forces of evil capture her - and before she is betrayed by someone she considers loyal to her cause?

[Local author]. Alix Hiboux, better known now as Owl, international antiquities thief for hire, is settling into her new job as a contract thief for Vegas mogul Mr. Kurosawa, a red dragon with a penchant for ancient, supernatural artifacts. And now he has his sights set on a collection from the mysterious and recently discovered Syrian City of the Dead.

Special Agent Von Kodiak uncovers a conspiracy that stretches from the slums of Salt City to the floating gas mines of Jupiter. There, deep in the roiling clouds of the planet, the Jovian Mining Corporation is hiding something, a secret that will tear the Fleet apart and that the Morning Star, a group of militarized pilgrims searching for their lost god, is determined to uncover. But there is something else hiding in the Jovian system. Something insidious and intelligent, machine-like and hungry. The Spiders are near.

Five years after the events of City of Heavenly Fire. Julian's brother Mark - who was captured by the faeries five years ago - has been returned as a bargaining chip. The faeries are desperate to find out who is murdering their kind - and they need the Shadowhunters' help to do it. But time works differently in faerie, so Mark has barely aged and doesn't recognize his family. Can he ever truly return to them? Will the faeries really allow it?

Far out in the California desert, a team of DARPA scientists has invented a device they affectionately call the Albuquerque Door. Using a cryptic computer equation and magnetic fields to fold dimensions, it shrinks distances so that a traveler can travel hundreds of feet with a single step. The invention promises to make mankind's dreams of teleportation a reality. And, the scientists insist, traveling through the Door is completely safe. Yet evidence is mounting that this miraculous machine isn t quite what it seems and that its creators are harbouring a dangerous secret.

With the seditionists in power, Caeli-Amur has begun a new age. Or has it? The escaped House officials no longer send food, and the city is starving. When the moderate leader Aceline is murdered, the trail leads Kata to a mysterious book that explains how to control the fabled Prism of Alerion. But when the last person to possess the book is found dead, it becomes clear that a conspiracy is afoot.

All the AIs, except one, have left Earth and humanity behind to create their own world. Dr. Easy remains, researching a single human life from beginning to end. Theodore's life. Theodore is a destructive, a recovering addict to weirdcore, keeping his head down lecturing at the university of the moon. One day, he is approached by freelance executive Patricia to investigate an archive of data retrieved from just before the appearance of the first AI. The secret living in that archive will take him on an adventure through a stunted future of asylum malls, corporate bloodrooms and a secret off-world colony.

Maren Yearly doesn't just break hearts, she devours them. Ever since her mother found Penny Wilson's eardrum in her mouth when Maren was just two years old, she knew life would never be normal for either of them. Love may come in many shapes and sizes, but for Maren, it always ends the same-with her hiding the evidence and her mother packing up the car. But when her mother abandons her the day after her sixteenth birthday, Maren goes looking for the father she has never known, and finds much more than she bargained for along the way.

War was coming, a war that the colonies had to win if they were ever to be more than prison camps and a dumping ground for incompetent noblemen. The experience that had caused Allen Allenson to hate war made him the only man who could lead the colonial army. Allenson knew that he wasn't really a general, but he understood his fellow colonists better than any homeworld general could. He would free the Cutter Stream, or he would die trying. What Allen Allenson would not do, what he would never do, was quit.

After the New Alliance of Worlds rebuild Captain Selma Kari Wang's broken body, they send her to captain one of the new alien ships, teaming her up with Ean, the only one who can understand the alien lines. Kari Wang and Ean are poised on the threshold of discoveries that could change the world. But not everyone wants the New Alliance to control the secrets they uncover - and those who oppose won't hesitate to do whatever it takes to stop them...

When Gin Blanco's foster brother Finnegan Lane's suddenly not-dead relative comes back into the picture, all of her instincts are telling her that beneath the syrupy sweet demeanor and old-fashioned charm, this sudden interloper is planning something. This person might have avoided the grave once, but Gin will put anyone who hurts Finn in the ground for good.

When Princess Rakaia of Fardohnya discovers she is not of royal birth, she agrees to marry a much older Hythrun noble in a chance to escape her father's wrath. Rakaia takes nothing but her jewels and her base-born half-sister, Charisee, who has been her slave, handmaiden and best friend since she was six years old. And who can pass as Rakaia's double. These two sisters embark on a Shakespearian tale of switched identities, complicated love triangles, and meddlesome gods.

Authors S. M. Stirling, Mercedes Lackey, Eric Flint, and Jody Lynn Nye return with four novellas. The cat-like Mrem, our heroes, battle the deep reptilian intelligence of humanoid dinosaurs in a Bronze Age world. Sequel to Exiled: Clan of the Claw.

A young newspaperman accidentally turns up the biggest story of his career. On a certain date in the not too distant future, there are no reservations in the maternity wards of any hospitals in New York. When the journalist's AP office checks other cities, he discovers that this alarming state of affairs is not just in the United States, but in the entire world.

While Sofia is struggling to understand her miraculous pregnancy, the City of Towers grows wealthy. But it's not long before the people of Rasenna start arguing again, and as the city falls apart once more, Sofia realises she must escape Etruria to save her baby. When prophecy leads her to another cesspit of treachery, the decadent Crusader kingdom of Oltremare, Sofia begins to despair, for this time she can see no way out.

In the years since Carolyn was taken in by the man they called Father, she and her adopted siblings have been raised according to Father's ancient customs. They've studied the books in his Library and learned some of the secrets of his power. Now, Father is missing, perhaps even dead, and the Library that holds his secrets stands unguarded. And with it, control over all of creation. As Carolyn gathers the tools she needs for the battle to come, fierce competitors for this prize align against her, all of them with powers that far exceed her own.

A revolution has taken over the government of the United States and the environment has been saved. All pollution has been banned and reversed. But now this bright, green new world is ruled by a dictatorship and the corporations are fighting back. Joining them are an increasing number of rebels. Cracks are beginning to show in the dictatorship of Chairman Rahma's absolute power as new weapons are developed by the old corporate powers and strange reports of mutants filter through the government's censorship.

Lily McCain is cursed. With just one touch she can see a person's future, whether it's a good fortune or a terrible fate. Afraid of the potent visions she foresees, she distances herself from the world, succumbing to a life of solitude. But at the touch of a mysterious stranger - who has powers of his own - Lily sees a new, chilling future for herself, one where she is fated to make a terrible choice.

Latest in the series of anthologies of modern takes on Lovecraftian cosmic horror.

For more than sixteen hundred years, Nick Medea has followed and guarded the Gate that keeps the mortal realm and that of Feirie separate, seeking in vain absolution for the fatal errors he made when he slew the dragon. The gang war brewing between Prohibition bootleggers may be the least of his concerns. If Nick cannot prevent an old evil from opening the way between realms...then not only might Chicago face a fate worse than the Great Fire, but so will the rest of the mortal realm.

Vincent receives word that his estranged father has passed away on one of his properties in the West Indies. The sea voyage is long and Jane spends enough time unable to perform glamour that towards the end of the trip she discovers that she is with child. They are overjoyed, but when they finally arrive at the estate to complete what they expect to be routine legal tasks, they realize that nearly everything they came expecting to find had been a lie.

Pregnancy was pretty rough for Elvie Nara, what with the morning sickness, constant food cravings, and the alien race war she found herself in the middle of. But if she thought giving birth to an extraterrestrial's baby would be the hard part, she was sorely mistaken. After Elvie's baby is not what was expected, the Almiri completely freak out. Suddenly Elvie's supposed allies have shipped her along with her father, her best friend, Ducky, and her maybe-boyfriend, boneheaded Almiri commando Cole Archer off to a remote retention facility (aka alien jail) in Antarctica.

Colin Doyle is a young Irish-American musician from Chicago, whose interest is traditional Irish music. Maeve Gallagher is an Oileanach, an "Islander" from Ireland's west coast. Islanders are outcasts treated with suspicion by the locals, who think them responsible for wild and strange happenings in the area. Colin soon discovers that he's connected to Maeve in ways he never could have imagined.

This collection of Liu's short work features all of his award-winning and award-finalist stories.

Wily, charming Kuni Garu, a bandit, and stern, fearless Mata Zyndu, the son of a deposed duke, seem like polar opposites. Yet, in the uprising against the emperor, the two quickly become the best of friends after a series of adventures fighting against vast conscripted armies, silk-draped airships, and shapeshifting gods. Once the emperor has been overthrown, however, they each find themselves the leaders of separate factions - two sides with very different ideas about how the world should be run and the meaning of justice.

In a remote mountain village, a young mother sells the prophesies of her sister, Amarta, in order to keep them and her infant child from starving. It's a dangerous game when such revelations draw suspicion and mistrust as often as they earn coin. Now in a tapestry of loyalty, intrigue, magic, and gold, Amarta has become the key to a ruler's ambitions. But is she nothing beyond a tool? As Amarta comes into her own as a seer, she realizes she must do more than predict the future. She must create it.

Bizarre earthquakes are rumbling over the long-dormant tectonic plates of the planet, disrupting its trillion-dollar mining operations and driving scientists past the edges of theory and reason. However, when rocks shake off their ancient dust and begin to roll, seemingly of their own volition, carving canals as they converge to form a towering structure amid the ruddy terrain, Lt. Jain and her JSC team realize that their routine geological survey of a Martian cave system is anything but.

Verity Price is rescuing cryptids from bad situations, protecting them from monster-hunters, and generally risking life and limb for the greater good, with her ex-Covenant partner/husband, Dominic, by her side. Her ballroom dance career is behind her - or so she thinks. When Verity gets the call from the producers of Dance or Die, the reality show she almost won several years before, she finds the lure impossible to resist, and she and Dominic are off to L.A. for one last shot at the big time. Of course, nothing is that simple. When two contestants turn up dead, Verity will need every ally she can find for the investigation, without blowing her cover...

When the Indigo Kingdom conquered her homeland, Princess Wilhelmina and other orphaned children of nobility were taken to Skyvale, the capital. Ten years later, they are the Ospreys, experts at stealth and theft. With them, Wilhelmina means to take back her throne.

The dying Maitre summons Alastar, an obscure but talented senior Imager from Westisle far to the south who has little knowledge of politics in the capital, to become his successor. But Alastar arrives in L'Excelsis to find the Collegium in disrepute. He is immediately embroiled in a power struggle, with Rex Ryen demanding that the Collegium remove the strongest High Holders and the military leadership in turn plotting to topple Ryen and destroy the Collegium. But that, Alastar discovers, is only a fraction of the problems he and the Collegium face.

For Agent Brynner Carson, driving a stake through a rampaging three-week-old corpse is par for the course. Except this cadaver is different. It's talking and it has a message about his father, Heinrich. It seems that Heinrich Carson stole the heart of Ra-Ame, the long-dead god of the Re-Animus. She wants it back. The only problem is Heinrich took the secret of its location to his grave.

The Vagrant is his name. He has no other. Years have passed since humanity's destruction emerged from the Breach. Friendless and alone he walks across a desolate, war-torn landscape. As each day passes the world tumbles further into depravity, bent and twisted by the new order, corrupted by the Usurper, the enemy, and his infernal horde. His purpose is to reach the Shining City, last bastion of the human race, and deliver the only weapon that may make a difference in the ongoing war. What little hope remains is dying. Abandoned by its leader, the Seven, and its heroes, the Seraph Knights, the last defences of a once great civilisation are crumbling into dust. But the Shining City is far away and the world is a very dangerous place.

Two RINGWORLD series novels in one volume.

The villagers must pay a price for protection against the malevolent power of the corrupted Wood. The cold, driven wizard known as the Dragon demands one young woman be handed over to serve him for ten years, a fate almost as terrible as falling to the Wood. Agnieszka is full of dread, knowing - as everyone knows - that the Dragon will take Kasia, beautiful, graceful, brave Kasia, all the things Agnieszka isn't, and her dearest friend in the world. But Agnieska is wrong.

The second volume of this massive biography of Robert Heinlein covers the years 1948-1988.

A few humans have carried on after the collapse, living in outposts such as the Sanctuary-the remains of St. Louis. But then a report is received that west of the Cascades rain falls, crops grow, and civilization thrives. But there is danger too. The rising power of an army pillages and enslaves every community they happen upon. Against the wishes of the Sanctuary, a small group sets out in secrecy. Led by Lewis Meriwether and Mina Clark, they hope to expand their infant nation, and to reunite the States. But the Sanctuary will not allow them to escape without a fight.

Dante Notte has heard it said that love hurts. He just wasn't expecting it to run him over in an RV. Still, a punctured lung and broken ribs are nothing compared to the full body shock he feels whenever he's near the vehicle's driver, Mary Winslow. He needs to keep her safe from their pursuers while he rescues his brother. Most challenging of all, he needs to claim this smart, stubborn woman as his life mate.

Gena and Don often pretended to be cats, purring and playing and taking on pretend roles in their made-up cat-world of Cat-alonia! When they move into their first house and money becomes tight, management of household finances becomes a contention point. And their imaginary world takes a darker turn, with Household becoming an evil that threatens the harmony of their beloved Catalonia. But Catalonia and its feline residents have become so real that they begin to intrude into Gena and Don's world, appearing as stray cats - with a mission of their own. And they aren't going to let the young couple destroy their world, at any cost!

All that stands against the alien menace are the soldiers of the Simulant Operation Programme, an elite military team remotely operating avatars in the most dangerous theatres of war. Captain Conrad Harris has died hundreds of times - running suicide missions in simulant bodies. Known as Lazarus, he is a man addicted to death. So when a secret research station deep in alien territory suddenly goes dark, there is no other man who could possibly lead a rescue mission.

Experimental psychologist Jim Marchuk has developed a flawless technique for identifying the previously undetected psychopaths lurking everywhere in society. But while being cross-examined about his breakthrough in court, Jim is shocked to discover that he has lost his memories of six months of his life from twenty years previously - a dark time during which he himself committed heinous acts.

During the Roman army's struggles against the barbarians in first-century Britannia, the junior officer Figulus faces a series of missions which could bring him honour and promotion - or lead to a dreadful fate at the hands of a ruthless enemy. Amongst the bravest in the heart of the action, Figulus has not sought out leadership but, as the story progresses, must rise to the challenge of bringing his men safely through skirmishes and sabotage as well as brutal face-to-face combat.

Four months have passed since the shadow stone fell into Kell's possession. As Red London finalizes preparations for the Element Game, a certain pirate ship draws closer, carrying old friends back into port. Meanwhile, another London, Black London, is coming back to life, and those who were thought to be forever gone have returned.

Eremul the Halfmage has learned of a race of immortals known as the Fade, and if he cannot convince the White Lady of their existence, all of humanity will be in danger. Far to the north, Brodar Kayne and Jerek the Wolf continue their odyssey to the High Fangs only to find themselves caught in a war between a demon horde and their enemy of old, the Shaman. And in the wondrous city of Thelassa, Sasha must overcome demons of her own. Because the Fade are coming...

Once they were a band of mercenaries who shook the pillars of the world through cunning, alchemical brews, and cold steel. Whoever met their price won.Now, their glory days behind them, scattered to the wind, and their genius leader in hiding, they are being hunted down and eliminated one by one. A lifetime of enemies has its own price.

After the defeat of his legion outside the walls of the great city of Cahokia, Praetor Gaius Marcellinus is the only survivor. He comes to see the Cahokians as his kin. After successfully repelling an invasion by the fearsome Iroqua tribes, Marcellinus realizes that a weak and fractured North America won't stand a chance against the returning Roman army.

Kyri, Tobimar, and Poplock begin their journey back to Kyri's home, Evanwyl, to confront the being their new ally Miri calls Viedraverion, first son of the King of All Hells. But behind that name lies an even more terrible secret, and a plan centuries in the making, a plan that depends on Kyri being who and what she is. Even if the three adventurers can escape the spies and traps within their own adventuring party, their final adversary awaits them eagerly.

The ancient csestriim are back to finish their purge of humanity; armies march against the capital; leaches maneuver on all sides to affect the outcome of the war; and capricious gods walk the earth in human guise with agendas of their own. But the three imperial siblings at the heart of it all - Valyn, Adare, and Kaden - come to understand that even if they survive the holocaust unleashed on their world, there may be no reconciling their conflicting visions of the future.

Nathan Arkwright is a seminal author of the twentieth century. At the end of his life he becomes reclusive and cantankerous, refusing to appear before or interact with his legion of fans. Little did anyone know, Nathan was putting into motion his true, timeless legacy. Convinced that humanity cannot survive on Earth, his Arkwright Foundation dedicates itself to creating a colony on an Earth-like planet several light years distant. Fueled by Nathan's legacy, generations of Arkwrights are drawn together, and pulled apart, by the enormity of the task and weight of their name.

After police detective Flynn Carroll's young wife disappears in the night, never to be seen again, he begins amassing a file of similar cases nationwide. His conclusion is unavoidable: somebody is taking people and making it look like they walked out on their own. As Flynn's case files grow, his work comes to the attention of Special Agent Diana Glass, a member of the most secret police unit on the planet. This police force seeks the most brilliant and lethal criminals who have ever walked free - thieves and murderers from another world.

During the royal anniversary banquet, an elven prince reads a scroll of evil magic and Frank's world is turned upside-down. Again. The scroll's spell causes a murderous rampage in a palace full of noble dignitaries, so it's no surprise Frank's visitors are angry. The Elf-King Timoras threatens war but Frank can't do anything about it. Because of the same bit of scroll magic, the ex-Dragon Lucille has taken over the princess's body, unaware that Frank is still there, locked in her skull.

The Chronicles of St. Mary's tells the chaotic adventures of Max and her compatriots Director Bairstow, Leon Chief Farrell, Mr. Markham, and many more, as they travel through time, saving St. Mary's (too often by the very seat of their pants) and thwarting time-travelling terrorists, all the while leaving plenty of time for tea. From eleventh-century London to World War I, from the Cretaceous Period to the destruction of the Great Library at Alexandria, one thing is for sure, wherever the historians at St. Mary's go, chaos is sure to follow in their wake.

A young girl is estranged from her tribe, as her mother was from a despised rival clan. This is despite the fact that her father is chieftain. Her greatest secret is that she's gained powers from both factions. A child of two worlds, she must escape to survive. But even as her actions trigger war, a greater threat appears on the horizon, which will signal a battle to the death for all the tribes.

Jonathan Barnes, Adrian Tchaikovsky, Emma Newman, Hugo-nominated blogger Foz Meadows and upcoming novelist Kate Heartfield delve into the world Shakespeare created for us to create five stories he never told, but could have. Stories of what happened next or what went before, of the things unseen or simply elsewhere in the world as Shakespeare's own tales unfolded on the stage.

In an excavation site in Mexico, a team of archeologists uncovers the lost tomb of Montezuma - and a deadly strain of anthrax as ancient as the Biblical plagues. One by one, the team falls violently ill, bleeding from their eyes and ears before succumbing to a slow, painful death. Whatever was buried with the Aztec chief is still active, infectious - and now airborne...

The Axis won WWII and now, in the late 1980s, the Japanese Empire rules over the western US states, their power assured by technological superiority (giant mecha, etc.) But when a video game emerges that posits a world where the allies won, a game censor and an Imperial Government agent discover truths about the empire that make them question their loyalty.

On a tiny archipelago, cut off from the rest of the world by a cursed sea, a handful of survivors live a precarious existence, clinging to their memories of the time before magic and their hope that those times will return. As far as he knows, Rory is the only boy left. Then the man comes, weaving his tales of a quest to find a powerful ring, and Rory finds himself embarking on a journey through terrors and marvels, once more in the world of men.

Grand Imperial Princess Andrin bears her family's Talent, the Glimpses, which show flashes of events yet to come. She knows the accords must be secured - and like her brother, she will pay any price, make any sacrifice for her duty to her people. Sharona's soldiers dig in, facing the Arcanans in a tense standoff which cannot last long.

Many among the Arduans' warrior caste have neither accepted defeat, nor the personhood of any of the other intelligence races. Their leader, the ruthless admiral of the second Arduan exodus, Amunsit, is in firm control of the Zarzuela system. As the victors' diplomats attempt to soothe tensions with these warlike neighbours, two heroes of the last war - veteran Admiral Ian Trevayne and young trouble-shooter Ossian Wethermere - suspect they have stumbled upon a deeper Arduan plot, one which could shatter the Pan-Sentient Union, and perhaps interstellar civilization itself.

The official novelization of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, the film directed by J. J. Abrams.

Captain Kira Nerys watches as the nearby wormhole opens and discharges an armada. As she prepares her defences, Iliana Ghemor is indeed considering launching an attack on DS9 and finally ending the life of Kira, the fountainhead of all the ills in her miserable life. Her vengeance demands more than mere death, though - it requires pain. Ghemor refocuses, choosing to follow her plan to mete out her revenge on the captain by first decimating the population of Bajor.

EARTH HIVE, NIGHTMARE ASYLUM and THE FEMALE WAR in one volume.

When an exchange of data with the Nihydron is proposed via a formal meeting, the alien representatives are visibly shaken when Admiral Kathryn Janeway greets them. For the last century two local species have been fighting for control of a nearby planet. But one has been steadily gaining the upper hand -- thanks to the tactics of their current commanding officer: a human woman, who appears to be none other than Kathryn Janeway herself.

On Ryloth, a planet crucial to the growing Empire as a source of slave labor and the narcotic known as "spice," an aggressive resistance movement has arisen, led by Cham Syndulla, an idealistic freedom fighter, and Isval, a vengeful former slave. Emperor Palpatine and his apprentice Darth Vader intend to deal with it personally, but an ambush sends them crashing to the planet's surface, where inhospitable terrain and an army of resistance fighters await them.

The UNSC decides to create a new generation of Spartans to defend humanity from threats both outside and within. When they come to Buck with an extraordinary proposition, he is forced to make a life-altering decision. With the Covenant War finally over, is it time for him to retire to the sidelines for a life he could only dream about or is he prepared to step up and become part of the military's new blood?

When Count Dooku orders the massacre of a flotilla of helpless refugees, the Jedi Council feels it has no choice but to target Dooku himself. So the Council pairs brash Jedi Knight Quinlan Vos with infamous one-time Sith acolyte Asajj Ventress.

Revisiting classic battles, thrilling escapes, iconic characters, game changing plot twists and more, Justin Richards creates a fascinating portrait of the world's longest running science fiction series, and an essential addition to any Doctor Who fan's collection.

The Syhaari have exhibited tremendous technological advances over the past year. And it was a year ago that the Enterprise came across a badly damaged Syhaari explorer vessel drifting in deep space. In collaboration with the explorer's captain, Kirk and his crew were able to restore the ship to full function and send it on its way. Now hard questions must be asked. Did the Enterprise crew leak advanced technology or information to the Syhaari during their first encounter, in total violation of the Prime Directive?