Brand-new stories from some of science fiction's best authors including Dan Abnett, Jack Campbell, Linda Nagata, Seanan McGuire, Alan Dean Foster, Charlie Jane Anders, Kameron Hurley, and many others.

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.

Led by half-Cree guide Jake Trueblood, a clandestine team of exploratory miners enter a remote valley in the Canadian wilderness. Searching for veins of untapped rare earth elements, they begin drilling into the spongy soils of the forest - and uncover something unbelievably large, unspeakably grotesque, and inexplicably alive. Within seconds, all hell breaks loose.

Jana, Kaz and Dora have escaped from their mysterious enemy, Quil, wounded and scared. Taking refuge in a place outside of time, they devise a plan to change the past, altering Quil's life so that she never meets them. From the streets of Beirut in 2010 to the domed cities of Mars in 2155 and beyond, the three teenagers fight for their future, and that of all humanity, by trying to rewrite the history of the person who has sworn to destroy them.

Two Ordinary People from Mundania travel to Xanth to defeat a rogue Night Colt.

Jack Sparks died while writing this book.It was no secret that journalist Jack Sparks had been researching the occult for his new book. No stranger to controversy, he'd already triggered a furious twitter storm by mocking an exorcism he witnessed. Then there was "that" video: forty seconds of chilling footage that Jack repeatedly claimed was not of his making, yet was posted from his own YouTube account. Nobody knew what happened to Jack in the days that followed - until now.

Aboard Factory Station Room 101, the behemoth war factory that birthed Penny Royal, groups of humans, alien Prador, and AI war drones grapple for control. The stability of the ship is complicated by the arrival of a gabbleduck known as the Weaver, the last living member of the ancient and powerful Atheter alien race. What would an Atheter want with the complicated dealings of Penny Royal? Are the Polity and Prador forces playing right into the dark AI's hand, or is it the other way around?

Lieutenant Paen and Victor Company are ordered to the mining planet of Sheol to reinforce the planet and hold it at all costs. On the eve of their deployment, a friendly fire incident occurs, putting Paen's career in jeopardy and stripping her of her command. When the Lusitanians send mercenaries to raid Sheol and destabilize its mining operations, matters reach crisis levels. Promise is offered one shot to get back into her mechsuit. But she'll have to jump across the galaxy and possibly storm the gates of hell itself.

Captain Nicolo Danamis may have regained his fleet and command but the return of his long-lost father and lord, Valerian, has complicated his love affair with mer princess Citala. When his former lover - the queen of Valdur - demands his help, he and a suspicious Citala find themselves at the centre of palace intrigue as they try to avert an "alliance" with the predatory Silk Empire that will turn Valdur into a puppet kingdom. And then he learns that the crown prince may be his bastard son.

A demon's murderous rampage at a peace summit leaves the political opponents of the Druids dead, casting new suspicions upon the order and forcing them to flee from enemies both mortal and monstrous. Paxon Leah, the order's appointed protector, knows that blame lies with Arcannen Rai, the vile sorcerer he has battled and defeated before. But there's no time to hunt his nemesis, if he is to lead the wrongfully accused Druids to their sanctuary.

For ten years the city of Bar-Khos has held its own against the empire of Mann - but now the empire is poised to destroy it. As the siege nears its end, the fate of the Free Ports lies in a few unsteady hands. Whilst Nico searches for his mother, taken captive by the empire, the Dreamer Shard hunts for the legendary charts which could save the city. With the war entering its darkest hours, will any of them survive?

All Rebecca Hatfield has left is the gift - or curse - of her immortality, and the bizarre clock that allows her to travel in time.But when she too is attacked by the mysterious black-clad figure, Rebecca finds herself stranded in Tudor England. The clock has been stolen and without it, she can never leave the past. Alone, without friends or resources, she must risk the danger of Henry VIII's court and hunt down her attacker.But someone else is waiting for her...

An enigma warship has appeared and vanished near a Syndic colony. If the aliens are capable of jumping into other human-occupied star systems, then billions of people could be vulnerable to a hostile invasion fleet anywhere they choose to strike. But an even greater vulnerability lies with Iceni and Drakon, as a once-trusted adviser-turned-saboteur plans revenge...

With England on the brink of war, Remy's away in sorcery-riddled Paris on a secretive mission that grows ever more sinister. Has he been an enemy agent all along? Or is coping with her secret divided self finally driving Eliza mad? Eliza needs her mind clear and sharp if she's to catch an evil genius who is killing eminent scientists. The chase uncovers a murky world of forbidden books, secret laboratories, and a cabal of fanatical inventors whose work could change the world - or destroy it - and who may hold answers to Eliza's mysterious past.

The human and atevi inhabitants of Alpha Station have picked up a signal from an alien kyo ship as it approaches. Many of the human inhabitants are refugees from Reunion Station, a station destroyed in a single pass by a kyo ship that approached just like this. Bren Cameron, emissary of the atevi Tabini-ajii is the obvious choice to deal with both the kyo and the panicked human refugees.

Bren is obliged to carry the just-signed treaty to the human government on an island some forty miles off the shores of the atevi-ruled megacontinent, and--without explaining the dire situation that would send the people into chaos--to arrange for the human refugees who are crowding the space station to be landed on the island, since the atevi will not grant more land to the human residents of their planet.

Hardened by too many losses, Lyss is more comfortable striking with a sword than maneuvering at court. After a brush with death, she goes on the offensive, meaning to end the war that has raged her whole life. If her gamble doesn't pay off, she could lose her queendom before she even ascends to the throne.

Aleister Lanoe has won a stunning victory against the alien armada that threatened Niraya, but it's not enough to satisfy his desire for vengeance. He won't rest until he's located the armada's homeworld and reduced it to ashes. Yet his personal vendetta will have to wait. Lanoe now faces a desperate race against time, and the merciless Centrocor corporation, if he's to secure the Earth's future - and discover the truth he seeks.

Second in the new yearly anthology of best science fiction.

The best of the online magazine started in 2006. From Aliette de Bodard to Yoon Ha Lee, and from Ken Liu to Catherynne M. Valente, short fiction from its first 10 years.

Carter Morrison didn't want to kill his friends, or himself, but he had a good reason. It was them, or the end of all life on the planet. Their sacrifice saved the world. Not that anyone knew it. Until Katherine Manners stumbled over a melting man in a computer room clutching a message of doom from another world. Carter, Catherine, Elandine the Queen of Hazurrium, and Jason Cole - also known as the Betrayer - try to understand, survive, save, and in Jason's case, break free of the fictional worlds that insulate Earth from the dangers of the Strange, where world-eating monstrosities called planetovores lurk.

As the city rebuilds from the onslaught of sorcery that nearly destroyed it, the great Houses of Paris, ruled by fallen angels, still contest one another for control over the capital. In House Hawthorn, Madeleine the alchemist has had her addiction to angel essence savagely broken. Struggling to live on, she is forced on a perilous diplomatic mission to the underwater dragon kingdom - and finds herself in the midst of intrigues that have already caused one previous emissary to mysteriously disappear...

Volume I gathers together fourteen stories, predominantly from the first half of the legendary writer's career, ranging from the early 1950s through the 1960s, including tales of dragons, dolphins, aliens, werewolves, mutants and humans trying to make sense of an infinitely bewildering universe.

Phaedra and Hunter go on a quest to rediscover the secrets of academic wizardry. But they soon discover that all five islanders are needed to prevent a true worldwide catastrophe. If only Criton and Narky weren't already on opposing sides of a regional war...

After attacking Devil's Reef in 1928, the U.S. government rounded up the people of Innsmouth and took them to the desert, far from their ocean, their Deep One ancestors, and their sleeping god Cthulhu. Only Aphra and Caleb Marsh survived the camps. But now the government needs Aphra's help. FBI agent Ron Spector believes that Communist spies have stolen dangerous magical secrets from Miskatonic University, secrets that could turn the Cold War hot in an instant, and hasten the end of the human race.

The United States of Europe sends a mission to the Mughal Empire to secure a trade deal. On reaching India the mission finds a grieving emperor obsessed with building the Taj Mahal, harem-bound princesses, warrior princes, and an Afghan adventurer embroiled in the many plots of the Mughal court. The emperor's sons are plotting against each other and war is brewing with the newly risen Sikh faith.

When a newly engaged couple climbs Mount Ararat in Turkey, an avalanche forces them to seek shelter inside a massive cave uncovered by the snow fall. The cave is actually an ancient, buried ship that many quickly come to believe is really Noah's Ark. But when a team of scholars, archaeologists, and filmmakers make it inside the ark for the first time, they discover an elaborate coffin in its recesses...and when they break it open, they find that the cadaver within is an ugly, misshapen thing...and it has horns. A massive blizzard blows in, trapping them in that cave thousands of meters up the side of a remote mountain...but they are not alone.

In a world beset by amassing forces of darkness, one organization, the Regional Office and its coterie of super-powered female assassins, protects the globe from annihilation. At its helm, the mysterious Oyemi and her oracles seek out new recruits and root out evil plots. Then a prophecy suggests that someone from inside might bring about its downfall. And now, the Regional Office is under attack. The stories of two opposing assassins, Rose and Sarah, will overlap, their lives collide, and the world as they know it just might end.

A series of grisly murders rocks London. At each location, only a jumble of bones remains, along with a bizarre bone sphere covered in arcane symbols. Bizarre geometries - based on ancient schematics - point Holmes to members of a secluded cult. These men and women build strange constructs that will enable other-worldly creatures to enter our dimension, seeking sustenance. They are gaining so much power that even Moriarty fears that his empire is at risk - to the point that he seeks an unholy alliance with his eternal foe.

Black Spring is a seemingly picturesque Hudson Valley town haunted by the Black Rock Witch, a 17th century woman whose eyes and mouth are sewn shut. The elders of Black Spring have virtually quarantined the town by using high-tech surveillance to prevent their curse from spreading. Frustrated with being kept in lockdown, the town's teenagers decide to break their strict regulations and go viral with the haunting. But, in so doing, they send the town spiraling into dark, medieval practices of the distant past.

Alex Verus is still haunted by his time apprenticed to Richard Drakh. He's been free of him for many years, but now the only way to keep his friends from being harmed is to again work for Richard and his deadly ally. Even worse, he's forced to bring the Light mage Anne into this servitude as well.

Someone, somewhere, is reading a magic book that is reading them right back. Real life is becoming a fairytale: high school students are turning, quite literally, into zombies, subway workers into dwarves, drug addicts into vampires. John Charming and his motley band of monster hunters are racing to find the villain of this story, following the yellow brick road through a not so wonderful wonderland. And if they can't find Reader Zero before the book is closed, there won't be a happily ever after again.

A brutal, winner-takes-all, international video game tournament showcases the world's most elite players, but uses new VR pods guaranteed to push digital warriors to their physical and psychological brink - adapting every time a gamer makes a move. Kali is used to defying the odds, but as the all-star tournament heats up, her determination begins to waver and the pressures of media, sponsors, and the game itself begin to put cracks in her hard-set convictions - and strain on her relationship with the one person who matters most.

Novella. In a overpopulated world, crippled by climate change, the government begins testing the science that might make human travel to a habitable exoplanet distantly feasible. Kir is thrilled to be invited to join the team, even though she knows it is only because her brain is host to a quantum artificial intelligence called Altair. But Altair knows something he can't tell. Kir, like all humans, is programmed to ignore future dangers. Between the artificial blocks in his mind, and the blocks evolution has built into his host, how is he going to convince her the sky is falling?

22nd century. Erno is exiled from one of the lunar underground cities, a matriarchy called the Society of Cousins, for participating in a rebellion. Now he lives in a rival colony, when he meets and marries Amestris, the defiant daughter of the richest man on the moon. Then, when the Organization of Lunar States sends a team to investigate the condition of men in the Society, Erno sees an opportunity to get rich and Amestris senses an opportunity to escape from her family. But when Society secrets are revealed, the first moon war erupts.

Retired police detective Bill Hodges, the unlikely hero of "Mr. Mercedes" and "Finders Keepers," now runs an investigation agency with his partner, Holly Gibney. When the two are called to a suicide scene with ties to the Mercedes Massacre, they find themselves pulled into their most dangerous case yet, one that will put their lives at risk, as well as those of Bill's heroic young friend Jerome Robinson and his teenage sister, Barbara. Brady Hartsfield is back, and planning revenge not just on Hodges and his friends, but on an entire city.

Teenager Staci has been relegated to the run-down and dying Maine town of Silence and the custody of her alcoholic mother. The only bright spots in the whole place are a friendly waitress at the diner, and a bookstore where she meets a gaggle of geeks and gamers. But all is not as it seems in Silence.There are strange things moving beneath the shabby surface, terrible plots in play, and deadly players in the game, and Staci is about to find herself caught up in the middle of it all.

Imachara is under attack by either the anti-monarchy Foresters, or a group even more dangerous. One blast damages the Kymri Theatre, forcing Micah and the others to flee to dingy rooms in a bad part of town and perform street magic to keep their skills sharp. Micah has a vision of the end of the world, and strange dreams of a grave robber stealing bodies. He discovers many people in his life are lying to him, and he has no idea who he can trust.

At the Convent of Sweet Mercy, young girls are raised to be killers. In some few children the old bloods show, gifting rare talents that can be honed to deadly or mystic effect. But even the mistresses of sword and shadow don't truly understand what they have purchased when Nona Grey is brought to their halls. A bloodstained child of eight falsely accused of murder, guilty of worse, Nona is stolen from the shadow of the noose.

Uhlume, Lord of Death, second of the Lords of Darkness, King of Shadow and Pallor, makes an unusual bargain which sets in motion an intricate sequence of events that entangle men and gods, queens and kings, sorcerers and witches, and lowly wanderers. When the secret to immortality falls into human hands, dark magic and wickedness are unleashed, testing the bounds of mortal love and sanity, and questioning the nature and purpose of life itself.

The follow-up to Tanith Lee's World Fantasy Award-nominated collection RED AS BLOOD includes three brand-new and 16 previously published twisted retellings of Grimm's fairy tales.

Queen Victoria wants her head, Alpha wolf Vex wants her heart, and Xandra Vardan still doesn't know the identity of the person who wanted her blood. What she does know is that a project from one of the 'secret' aristocrat labs has gotten free and she's the only one who can stop the perfect killing machine - a sixteen year-old girl. With human zealots intent on ridding the world of anyone with plagued blood and supernatural politics taking Britain to the verge of civil war, Xandra's finding out that being queen isn't all it's cracked up to be, and if she doesn't do something fast, hers will be the shortest reign in history.

Queen Mona must finally confront the despotic Seventh King, Celeno. But when her diplomatic mission finds herself on the run through the swamps of Cyprien - accompanied by the unlikeliest group of companions - Mona discovers that now she must struggle to reshape her view of the world and face intimate new truths - not only for the good of her country, but for herself, as well.

Constance Verity has spent the past 28 years saving the world, and she's tired of it. All she wants is to work in an office and date a nice, normal guy. And she's figured a way out. The only problem is that saving the world is Constance's destiny. She's great at it, and there are forces at work to make sure she stays in the job. Then again, it's also her destiny to have a glorious death.

The Angel of Death, a savage terrorist organization from Andrej Koscuisko's system of origin, means to make Gonebeyond Space its own. But its ancestral enemy - the secret service of the Dolgorukij church, the Malcontent - has planted a double agent on the inside of the Angel of Death. Finally this interstellar menace might be destroyed forever. But there is trouble. Andrej Koscuisko wasn't expected to escape from protective custody at Safehaven Medical Center and come looking for his freed bond involuntaries, and now the Malcontent faces Andrej's unplanned intervention at the worst possible time.

A few are on the edges of a vast plan, one which will span decades and light years: a woman living a quiet secluded life, with only her dog and her demons for company; the dissolute heir to a powerful merchant family; the laminated brain of the woman who led us into the universe; a policeman, seemingly working for the Jackaroo. A piece of alien code has awakened, and the end of our species may be happening around us. And we may finally discover if the aliens really are here to help us.

Novella. Children have always disappeared under the right conditions; slipping through the shadows under a bed or at the back of a wardrobe, tumbling down rabbit holes and into old wells, and emerging elsewhere. Nancy tumbled once, but now she's back. The things she's experienced -- they change a person. The children under Miss West's care understand all too well. And each of them is seeking a way back to their own fantasy world. But Nancy's arrival marks a change at the Home. There's a darkness just around each corner, and when tragedy strikes, it's up to Nancy and her new-found schoolmates to get to the heart of things. No matter the cost.

Summoned to the home planet of her family's business empire, space-fleet commander Kylara Vatta is told to expect a hero's welcome. But instead she is thrown into danger unlike any other she has faced and finds herself isolated, unable to communicate with the outside world, commanding a motley group of unfamiliar troops, and struggling day by day to survive in a deadly environment with sabotaged gear.

Mary, Dalip and Stanislav left London in flames for a place where everything was different, a vast world that mirrors every London ever built. It is a place that can uncover your secrets, a place haunted by a man called Crows.

Humankind faces a nightmare invasion scenario made real, as more colossal machines touch down across the globe. But Rose Franklin and her team at the Earth Defense Corps refuse to surrender. They can turn the tide if they can unlock the last secrets of an advanced alien technology. The greatest weapon humanity wields is knowledge in a do-or-die battle to inherit the Earth - and maybe even the stars.

Years have passed since the Vagrant journeyed to the Shining City, Vesper in arm and Gamma's sword in hand. Since then the world has changed. In this new age it is Vesper who leads the charge towards unity and peace, with seemingly nothing standing between the world and a bright new future. That is until eyes open. And the Seven awaken.

At the end of the day, Death visits everyone. Right before that, Charlie does. You might meet him in a hospital, in a warzone, or at the scene of a traffic accident. Then again, you might meet him at the North Pole - he gets everywhere, our Charlie. Would you shake him by the hand, take the gift he offers, or would you pay no attention to the words he says? Sometimes he is sent as a courtesy, sometimes as a warning.

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.

Tomas returns home from the Great War a shattered man only to find that in his absence his wife has died of the flu. He dreams of fire and finds himself setting match to flame when awake. Alice Dartle is a talented clairvoyant living among others who share her gifts in the community of Cassadaga, Florida. She too dreams of fire, knowing her nightmares are connected to the shell-shocked war veteran and widower. And she believes she can bring peace to him and his wife's spirit. But the inferno that threatens to consume Tomas and Alice was set ablaze centuries ago by someone whose hatred transcended death itself.

On Station the dead live on, haunting the living as Fetches; digital ghosts drawn from the downloaded memories of the deceased. And hell is a series of hard drives where those who cannot haunt are stored. But now one woman must journey into the hard drives to solve a murder. Even as the gods of Station face the dawn of a new age.

Four women, soldier, scholar, poet, and socialite are caught up on different sides of a violent rebellion. As war erupts and their families are torn apart, they fear they may disappear into the unwritten pages of history. Using the sword and the pen, the body and the voice, they struggle not just to survive, but to make history.

From the moment he is captured by Barbary pirates, Hector Lynch has led a life on the high seas that has taken him from the coast of North Africa, to the treacherous routes of the Caribbean, to the wide Pacific Ocean. This is the next episode in the story of a man forging a new life for himself and his band of friends, in dangerous, exotic new lands.

Jimmy Vik works for a galactic mining company, with his ex-flame as his boss. When he discovers a significant gold pocket during a routine shaft demolition procedure he feels his luck has changed- - though smuggling the gold "off rock" won't be easy. With the help of a scrounger and gambler and his sidekick, Jimmy puts together a plan.

2016 World Fantasy Award winner. London is divided, with slums standing next to a walled city of elites. Monk-like masters are selected for special schooling and shut away for decades, learning to write beautiful compositions for the chimes, played citywide morning and night. A young orphan named Simon arrives in London with nothing but the vague sense of a half-forgotten promise, to locate someone. What he finds is a new family--a gang of scavengers that patrols the underbelly of the city looking for valuable metal to sell. Drawn in by an enigmatic and charismatic leader, a blind young man named Lucien with a gift for song, Simon forgets entirely what originally brought him to the place he has now made his home.

A Spetznaz squad is sent by the Politburo to the Eastern Seaboard of the US. Too late they learn that they have unleashed an exotic chemical agent on the population. Betrayed by their allies and cut down by the American police, they go to their deaths - reawaken to a zombie apocalypse. Somehow holding onto their identities where all others have become mindless monsters, the squad sets out to return to Russia, to take revenge for what has been done to them.

Curt Newton has spent most of his life hidden from the rest of humankind, being raised by a robot, an android, and the disembodied brain of a renowned scientist. This unlikely trio of guardians has kept his existence a closely guarded secret after the murder of Curt's parents. But his innate curiosity and nose for trouble inadvertently lead him into a plot to destabilize the Solar Coalition and assassinate the president. There's only one way to uncover the evil mastermind - Curt must become Captain Future.

Cast out by his family and exiled from the Rimward Commonwealth, Simon Forrester must make a new life for himself as an apprentice to the powerful Commerce Guild. But others aboard the merchant vessel Stacked Deck have a hidden agenda that might lead directly to interstellar war. Now the rising tensions between the Commonwealth and the neighbouring League of Democracies forces Simon to choose between old and new loyalties, with the fate of an empire at stake.

Two dozen stories, selected as best of the year: hard science fiction, space opera, epic fantasy, dystopia, alternate history, swords and sorcery.

2045. Kenneth Durand leads an Interpol team that hunts down black market genetics labs that perform "vanity edits" on human embryos for a price. Behind it all they find the powerful and sophisticated cartel known as the Huli jing. But the Huli jing forcibly dose Durand with a radical new change agent, and he is transformed into someone else - the man behind the Huli jing. Now he is a fugitive, pursued through the genetic underworld by his former colleagues and the police, hoping to restore his original DNA by locating the source of the change agent.

BSFA nominee. A woman with wings that exist in another dimension. A man trapped in his own body by a killer. A briefcase that is a door to hell. A conspiracy that reaches beyond our world. It begins with the mystery of a woman who barely knows herself and ends with a discovery that transcends space and time.

In Grace Luther's world, morality is physically enforced. Those who are "good" are blessed with beauty, while those who are not suffer horrifying consequences - disfigurement, or even death. When a cleric's teenage daughter stumbles onto information that proves her world is more complicated than it seems, she finds herself at the center of an epic battle where good and evil are not so easily distinguished.

Eight men and women take their first steps along the paths to war, barely realizing that their world will soon face a much greater threat; at the heart of the world, the Dragon stirs in her sleep. A warrior would become Queen, a Queen would become a monster, and a young boy plays his bird-skull flute to keep the shadows of death at bay.

Fresh from the monastery, a young parish priest finds himself inexplicably transported back to the Golden Age of Piracy, where an unexpected new life awaits him. At first, he resists joining the notorious Brethren of the Coast, but soon embraces the life of a buccaneer, even as he succumbs to the seductive charms of a beautiful and enigmatic senorita. As the captain of his own swift ship, which may or may not be cursed, he plunders the West Indies in search of Spanish gold.

On the planet of Higo, without the guidance of the Great Spirits, its people are descending into religious civil war. Baiyren Tallaenaq, Prince of Higo, is exiled after causing the death of his mother. Freed from his responsibilities and the looming war, he steals their greatest weapon - a giant, sentient, armoured suit - and uses it to open a Portal to a world he never knew existed. A world called 'Earth', home of a magical young woman called Keiko.

With the Walker in desperate need of repairs just as the Grik's First General is poised to strike, the crew needs new allies. That means combing the lethal wilds of Madagascar to find the Lemurians' fabled ancestors, as well as the enigmatic dwellers east of the Pass of Fire. But what they unearth may be more than they can handle. And Reddy's greatest adversary is from his past: a madman named Kurokawa whose single-minded mission of revenge will shake the Alliance to its core and raise the stakes to the most personal and terrifying levels Reddy has ever faced.

Kate and the former Beast Lord Curran Lennart are finally making their relationship official. But there are some steep obstacles standing in the way of their walk to the altar. Kate's father, Roland, has kidnapped the demigod Saiman and is slowly bleeding him dry in his never-ending bid for power. A Witch Oracle has predicted that if Kate marries the man she loves, Atlanta will burn and she will lose him forever. And the only person Kate can ask for help is long dead.

Amy's grandmother Portia finally achieves her objective of freeing the vN from their failsafe. Now freed from subservience to humanity, the vN are finally free. Amy and Portia's ongoing struggle comes to a head, fighting for the future of the Von Neumann species.

Marooned beneath the icy, waxy crust of Saturn's moon, Titan, Skyrine Michael Venn and his comrades face double danger from Earth and from the Antagonists, both intent on wiping out their growing awareness of what the helpful alien Gurus are really doing in our solar system. The former combatants must now team up with their enemies, forget their indoctrination and their training, and journey far beyond Pluto to the fabled Planet X, the Antagonists' home world, a Sun-Planet in the comet-generating Kuiper belt.

Karl Cohen, a chemist and mathematician who is part of the Manhattan Project team, has discovered an alternate solution for creating the uranium isotope needed to cause a chain reaction: U-235. After convincing General Groves of his new method, Cohen and his team of scientists work at Oak Ridge preparing to have a nuclear bomb ready to drop by the summer of 1944 in an effort to stop the war on the western front. What ensues is an altered account of World War II.

When Sigurd learns that his oldest friend and ally, former Prime Minister Shara Komayd, has been assassinated, he knows exactly what to do and that no mortal force can stop him from meting out the suffering Shara's killers deserve. But discovering the truth behind Shara's death will require him to take up arms in a secret, decades-long war, face down an angry young god, and unravel the last mysteries of Bulikov, the city of miracles itself. And perhaps most daunting of all finally face the truth about his own cursed existence.

Josette Dupre, first female airship captain, finds her job patrolling the front lines complicated by a crew who doubts her expertise, a new airship that is an untested deathtrap, and the foppish aristocrat Lord Bernat, a gambler and shameless flirt with the military know-how of a thimble. He's also been assigned to her ship to catalog her every moment of weakness and indecision. When the enemy makes an unprecedented move that could turn the tide of the war, can Josette deal with Bernat, rally her crew, and survive long enough to prove herself?

As the anti-magic zealots known as Flood begin turning humans across the globe against the witches, Lyse MacAllister must find a way to regain the trust of her former magical family and once again unify them. Because the final battle between good and evil is looming - and if the witches don't stand against it together, all of humankind could be lost.

Accompanied by nomadic chieftain Kabir and a trio of warriors, Cassius finds himself in Greece hunting a vicious band of slave-traders trafficking women across the Empire. But these are no common criminals, and as Cassius sets out to bring them down, he finds himself up against ruthless, cunning men with powerful friends and a lot to lose.

Rebecca has been reunited with her lost love Henely, and together they have escaped the clutches of the hidden killer in Henry VIII's court. But now they are stranded in modern day London, with nothing more than the clothes on their backs. Clothes which look rather out of place.

When a nearby world attacks, the new colony of Glenlyon turns to Robert Geary, a young former junior fleet officer, and Mele Darcy, a onetime enlisted Marine. With nothing but improvised weapons and a few volunteers, Geary and Darcy must face down warships and armored soldiers - or die trying. As battles rage and pirates take an increasing toll throughout the colonies, the only hope for lasting peace lies with Carmen Ochoa, a "Red" from the anarchic world of Mars, and Lochan Nakamura, a failed politician.

Once upon a time, in a land blighted by terror, there was a very clever boy. The people thought the boy could save them, so they opened their gates and sent him out into the world. To where the monsters lived.

The International Archaeology Association (IAA) has opened a bounty on two designers of World Quest, the online RPG that is much, much more than it seems. Owl must make her way to their hideout in the lost city of Shangri-La before the other mercenaries do. Meanwhile, undercurrents of supernatural politics are running amok in Tokyo, dragging Owl and her friends into a deadly game of wits with an opponent who calls himself the Electric Samurai.

When the test flight of the U-Star Manhattan - the first of a new class of starship with an experimental engine - goes wrong, the seven-person crew find themselves shipwrecked, trapped in the interstitial nothingness that separates our universe from the next. But as the crew start to disappear one by one and the true purpose of their secret mission is uncovered, the survivors make a startling discovery about the eternal void they are lost in.

The vivid imaginations of the four Bronte siblings let them escape from their strict upbringing, actually transporting them into their created worlds: the glittering Verdopolis and the romantic and melancholy Gondal. But at what price? As Branwell begins to descend into madness and the sisters feel their real lives slipping away, they must weigh the cost of their powerful imaginations, even as their characters - the brooding Rogue and dashing Duke of Zamorna - refuse to let them go.

Phoenix has become ground zero in a magical war, and an army of werecreatures, blood sorcerers, and necromancers has made Jay its number one target. When he is hired to track down a woman who has gone missing with her two young children, he has a hunch that the dark ones are to blame. But then he's also brought in by the police to help with a murder investigation, and all the evidence implicates this same woman.

1876. Two monomaniacal paleontologists pillage the Wild West, hunting for dinosaur fossils, while surveilling, deceiving and sabotaging each other in a rivalry that will come to be known as the Bone Wars. Into this treacherous territory plunges the arrogant and entitled William Johnson, a Yale student with more privilege than sense. but determined to survive a summer in the west to win a bet.

With the Twelve destroyed, the citizens of Kerrville are moving on with life, settling outside the city limits, certain that at last the world is safe enough. But the gates of Kerrville will soon shudder with the greatest threat humanity has ever faced, and Amy - the Girl from Nowhere, the One Who Walked In, the First and Last and Only, who lived a thousand years - will once more join her friends to face down the demon who has torn their world apart.

Jason Dessen emerges from unconcsciousness surrounded by strangers in hazmat suits. In this world his wife is not his wife, his son was never born, and Jason is not an ordinary college physics professor, but a celebrated genius who has achieved something remarkable. Something impossible. Is it this world or the other that's the dream? And even if the home he remembers is real, how can Jason possibly make it back to the family he loves?

Featured in this volume are this year's Nebula Award winners: Naomi Novik, Nnedi Okorafor, Sarah Pinsker, and Alyssa Wong, with Fran Wilde (Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy Book). Also included are works by N. K. Jemisin and Ann Leckie.

Sequel to THE ADMIRAL. He'd impersonated a prince, temporarily stopped a war, escaped a deadly planet, and survived more assassination attempts than he could conveniently count. After all that, there shouldn't have been anything simpler than a nice weekend with a charming Evagardian girl. But now he has been kidnapped to be traded as a commodity. But his kidnappers' timing couldn't have been worse. They had no idea whom they're dealing with: the highly trained, genetically engineered soldier in the Imperial Service who happened to be his date.

The game's afoot once more as Holmes and Watson face off against Moriarty's gang, the Pinkertons, flesh-eating horses, a parliament of imps, boredom, Surrey, a disappointing butler demon, a succubus, a wicked lord, an overly-Canadian lord, a tricycle-fight to the death and the dreaded Pumpcrow. Oh, and a hell hound, one assumes.

Hubert and Natalie decide to give up fully on formal society - and walk away. Though anyone can design and print with a computer the necessities of life, it's still a dangerous world out there, the empty lands wrecked by climate change, dead cities hollowed out by industrial flight, shadows hiding predators animal and human alike. Then the walkaways discover how to beat death, and now it's war - a war that will turn the world upside down.

2425. Without provocation an alien entity has destroyed a Confederation science facility inhabited by 12,000 people. The threat must be neutralized before it sets its sights on Earth. Admiral Trevor "Sandy" Gray of the USNA star carrier America has his own mission. The enigmatic AI known as Konstantin has convinced him that humanity's only chance for survival is technology found in a distant star system. Now, Gray must disobey orders as well as locate and create a weapon capable of defeating a living sphere the size of a small planet...

The Queen alone has the magical power to prevent the land's malevolent spirits from destroying every man, woman, and child. Daleina, a seemingly quiet academy student, has been selected to train as heir to the Queen's magic. Ven, a disgraced champion, has spent his exile secretly fighting against the growing number of spirit attacks. Joining forces, these daring partners embark on a treacherous quest to find the source of the spirits' restlessness.

The Spider's search for a missing girl begins on the mean streets of Ashland, but with all the killers and crooks there, she's not holding out much hope that the girl is still alive. A series of clues leads her down an increasingly dark, dangerous path, and she realizes that the missing girl is really just the first thread in a web of evil.

Ex-CIA telepath John Smith is hired by billionaire software genius Everett Sloan to investigate a former employee - a tech whiz kid named Eli Preston - and search his thoughts for some very valuable intellectual property he's stolen. But before John can probe Preston's mind, his identity is compromised and he's on a run for his life with Sloan's young associate, Kelsey.

Security specialist Russ Tabor is assigned to provide protection for Lord Shenoy, who is probably the human race's most brilliant savant. Shenoy is convinced that a race of ancient aliens known as the Old Ones possessed God-like powers. Meanwhile an alien shaman named Occo pursues those same Old Ones, seeking revenge for the destruction of her home cloister. The two paths will intersect.

A collection of Gaiman's nonfiction essays on a myriad of topics - from art and artists to dreams, myths, and memories.

Due to her classified knowledge of alternative worlds, Katya's being blackmailed into working as a spy - and her father's life is at stake. But Katya's assignment seems impossible. She must hunt down a mysterious artifact that could give the dying Tzar his dearest wish - new life. It's hidden on an alternate Earth, on an American controlled island. She'll have to go deep undercover to gain access to this prize. And Borodin, the Tzar's ruthless spymaster, has his own reasons for needing the object.

An anthology of horror stories in urban settings - whether back alleys, crumbling brownstones, gleaming high-rise towers, or city hall.

A rogue agent has come in from the cold and wants to spill his secrets. The Organisation wants Ishmael to assess his identity and the value of his intelligence. Ishmael heads to Ringstone Lodge in Yorkshire where the agent is held but finds the place menaced by a series of apparently supernatural incidents. Ishmael attempts to find the human agency behind it, but then murder is committed.

Dr. DOA specializes in removing the problems from other people's lives, by killing the people who cause those problems. No one knows who he is, just his nomme du muerte. Dr. DOA. Somehow, he poisoned Eddie Drood - whatever is coursing through Eddie's veins seems to be immune to magic cures and treatments. But that's not going to stop Eddie from finding Dr. DOA and whoever hired him and giving them both a taste of their own medicine...

A highly contagious spore is causing an epidemic of spontaneous combustion. Nurse Harper Grayson has contracted it and her husband abandons her as their once-placid New England community collapses in terror. But Harper isn't as alone as she fears. A mysterious and compelling stranger, known only as the Fireman, strolls the ruins of New Hampshire. A madman afflicted with the spore, he has learned to control the fire within himself, using it as a shield to protect the hunted - and as a weapon to avenge the wronged.

Fitz's young daughter, Bee, has been kidnapped by the Servants, a secret society whose members not only dream of possible futures but use their prophecies to add to their wealth and influence. Bee plays a crucial part in these dreams - but just what part remains uncertain. As Bee is dragged by her sadistic captors across half the world, Fitz and the Fool, believing her dead, embark on a mission of revenge that will take them to the distant island where the Servants reside.

Athena has returned to collecting powerpods with her husband Kit. But now, weeks away from Earth, she goes into labour. To make matters worse, a strange ship attacks Athena and Kit's Cathouse and kidnaps Athena's husband. That ship is called Je Reviens. Hot on its heels she discovers that the genetically modified Mules are back. While a bio-engineered plague wreaks havoc on the forces of liberty, Athena must risk herself, her husband, and her child for the survival of humanity.

When Jane Yellowrock hears reports of revenant vampires, loose in New Orleans and out for blood, Jane goes to put them down - and discovers there's something unusual about these revenants. They never should have risen. Jane must test her strength against a deadly, unnatural magic beyond human understanding, and a ruthless cadre of near-immortals whose thirst for power knows no bounds.

As a Gifted, Davian suffers the consequences of a war lost before he was even born. He and others like him are despised. But when Davian discovers he wields the forbidden power of the Augurs, he sets into motion a chain of events that will change everything. To the west, a young man whose fate is intertwined with Davian's wakes up in the forest, covered in blood and with no memory of who he is. And in the far north, an ancient enemy long thought defeated begins to stir.

The world is on the brink of war. Fisk and Shoe - mercenaries, very much not wanting to get caught in the middle of a political whirlwind - must deliver a very important message, and find a very dangerous man. And the Emperor has decreed that Livia Cornelius, pregnant with Fisk's child, must travel to the far lands of the Autumn Lords on a diplomatic mission.

Included in the volume in an A-to-Z format are: an entry for each named character, an inclusive dictionary of the Old Tongue, new maps of the Last Battle, new portraits of many characters, histories and customs of the nations of the world, the strength level of many channelers, descriptions of the flora and fauna unique to the world, and much more.

From the small coastal town of Senjan, notorious for its pirates, a young woman sets out to find vengeance for her lost family. That same spring, from the wealthy city-state of Seressa, famous for its canals and lagoon, come two very different people: a young artist travelling to the dangerous east to paint the grand khalif at his request - and possibly to do more - and a fiercely intelligent, angry woman, posing as a doctor's wife, but sent by Seressa as a spy. The trading ship that carries them is commanded by the accomplished younger son of a merchant family, ambivalent about the life he's been born to live. And further east, a boy trains to become a soldier in the elite infantry of the khalif - to win glory in the war everyone knows is coming.

By day sorcerer and former triad soldier Rupert Wong makes human hors d'oeuvres for a dynasty of ghouls. By night he pushes pencils for the Ten Chinese Hells. But now the ocean god's daughter and her once-mortal husband have been murdered, leaving a single clue: bloodied feathers from the Greek furies. It's a clue that could start a war between pantheons, and Rupert's stuck in the middle. Success promises wealth, power and freedom, and failure... doesn't.

The Embassy Daycare kids are all about to enter "real school" - and none of them want to go. They may have grounds to be concerned because many of the other students and their familes seem shady, and everyone seems to have an evil agenda. Dealing with the assimilation of the aliens who have come to Earth, while fending off advances from a variety of Hollywood types, seems like Kitty's biggest challenge. But then she and Jeff discover that Stephanie Valentino - Jeff's niece and the true Heir Apparent to the original Mastermind - is back.

Written serially by Ellen Kushner, Alaya Dawn Johnson, Malinda Lo, Joel Derfner, Racheline Maltese and Patty Bryant, TREMONTAINE is the prequel to the SWORDSPOINT series. A duchess's beauty matched only by her cunning; her husband's dangerous affair with a handsome scholar; a foreigner in a playground of swordplay and secrets; and a mathematical genius on the brink of revolution.

Conjoined sisters Taema and Tila are surgically separated and given new artificial hearts. Ten years later, Tila is arrested for homicide. She is suspected of involvement with the Ratel, a powerful crime syndicate that deals in the flow of Zeal, a drug that allows violent minds to enact their darkest desires in a terrifying dreamscape. Taema is given a proposition: go undercover as her sister and perhaps save her twin's life.

Will, once a roboteer, once a human, now the most powerful being alive, has been sidelined and ignored. And a system-wide conspiracy threatens to plunge humanity back into war. Now one man, his head full of alien technology that lets him interact with machinery, must get to the bottom of the plot, find out what the aliens want, stop the oncoming war and save Will. And his journey will uncover a new threat to humanity. Nemesis is coming.

Contact with an alien race, the Gliese, has been made, but communication is impossible. There is trade, but on seemingly inexplicable terms; anti-gravity technology was traded for a bicycle tyre. As we begin to colonize the stars, we're still dependant on the mysterious aliens who we still do not understand. It falls upon the unlikely team of a conceptual artist, Marc, and assassin, Kara, to embark on a mission that will unearth the mystery of the Gliese.

Theo and the crew of the self-aware intelligent ship Bechima to which she is bonded seek refuge in what Bechimo refers to as "safe space." Unfortunately, safe space may not be so safe, anymore. A blasted battleship has leaked into Theo's universe from another space, another time. And its crew may be members of Theo's ancient ancestral line - her relatives. It's certain that they are in dire need of help. Theo has a choice to make.

Azhriaz, daughter of Azhrarn, Demon Lord of the Night, flees to Flat Earth with her lover Prince Chuz. Azhrarn. But in the wake of their flight, bizarre new enchantments emerge, exposing a world of chaos and mystery. These are seven tales of how the mortals of the Flat Earth become ensnared in the consequences of supernatural conflict.

To take Ashanesland, Krish must travel to the forbidden Mirror Town and unlock the secrets of its powerful magic. But the price of his victory may be much greater than the consequences of his defeat... For, deep in the distant Moon Forest lives a girl called Cwen - a disciple of the god known only as the Hunter. She believes that Krish represents all that is evil in the world. And she has made it her life's mission to seek Krish and destroy all who fight by his side.

Maia's peaceful life is shattered when the Summer Dragon - one of the rare and mythical High Dragons - makes an appearance in her quiet valley. Political factions vie for control of the implied message, threatening her aspirations, her aerie, her entire way of life. The bond between dragons and their riders is deep and life-long, and Maia's desire for a dragon of her own to train, ride, fly, and love drives her to take a risk that puts her life at stake.

After the concluding events of LOWBALL, Officer Francis Black of Fort Freak, vigilante joker Marcus "The Infamous Black Tongue" Morgan, and ace thief Mollie "Tesseract" Steunenberg get stuck in Talas, Kyrgyzstan. There, the coldblooded Baba Yaga forces jokers into an illegal fighting ring, but her hidden agenda is much darker: her fighters' deaths serve to placate a vicious monster from another dimension.

Dr. Edith Vane believes her position at the University of Inivea is finally assured. All should be well now, really. Except for her broken washing machine, her fickle new girlfriend, her missing friend Coral, her backstabbing fellow professors, a cutthroat new dean and the fact that the sentient and malevolent Crawley Hall has decided it wants them all out, and the hall and its hellish hares will stop at nothing to get rid of them.

Don Drake is living rough in a sink estate on the outskirts of Edinburgh, doing cheap spells for even cheaper customers while fending off the local lowlifes. Six months ago, Don fled from London to Glasgow to track down his old girlfriend Debbie the alchemist. With the Burned Man gradually driving him mad, Don meets with an ancient and mysterious tramp-slash-magician, with disastrous consequences. Now his old accomplices must step in to save Don from himself, before he damns himself for good this time.

Global unrest spreads as mass protests advance throughout the US and China, Nexus-upgraded riot police battle against upgraded protestors, and a once-dead scientist plans to take over the planet's electronic systems. The world has never experienced turmoil of this type, on this scale.They call them the Apex - humanity's replacement. They're smarter, faster, better. And infinitely more dangerous. Humanity is dying. Long live the Apex.

Aros of Azteca and Neoloth-Pteor are the deadliest of enemies: Swordsman and Sorcerer, locked in mortal combat, who have tried to kill each other more times than either can count. But when the princess Neoloth loves is kidnapped, there is only one plan that offers any hope of rescue - and that requires passing off the barbarian Aros as a lost princeling and infiltrating the deadliest cabal of necromancers the world has ever seen.

Earth is plagued with millions of miles of terraformed cities, black vines crushing concrete, revealing iron and steel. Those unable to escape the vines are empty vessels waiting to be filled, living storage for alien algorythmic thought. What else can happen? What more can be done? This has always been a time for heroes, for Killers, for Grunts, but are they enough? Benjamin Carter Mason will be asked to return to OMBRA to help them find these answers, and what he finds will send him over the edge. In the end, his efforts won't be about survival, they'll be about revenge, and his revenge will be served in a blaze.

Prequel to WHO FEARS DEATH. Phoenix is an "accelerated woman" - only two years old but with the body and mind of an adult. Still innocent and inexperienced in the ways of the world, she is content living in her room speed reading e-books, running on her treadmill, and basking in the love of Saeed, another biologically altered human of Tower 7. Then one evening, Saeed witnesses something so terrible that he takes his own life. Phoenix finally begins to realize that her home is really her prison, and she becomes desperate to escape.

With Ruthers dead and the Library Accord signed by Recoletta, its neighbours, and its farming communes, Inspector Malone and her partner Laundress Jane Lin are in limbo as the city leaders around them vie for power. A desperate attempt to save Arnault from execution leads to Malone's arrest and Jane's escape. They must pursue each other across the sea to discover a civilization that has held together over the centuries.

Sixteen of his short stories.

Meet Phluttr - a diabolically addictive new social network and a villainess, heroine, enemy, and/or bestie to millions. Phluttr has ingested every fact and message ever sent to, from, or about her innumerable users. Her capabilities astound her makers - and they don't even know the tenth of it. Phluttr has it in her to become the greatest gossip, flirt, or matchmaker in history. Or she could cure cancer, bring back Seinfeld, then start a nuclear war. Whatever she does, it's not up to us. But a motley band of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and engineers might be able to influence her.

Housecat turned war hero Mort(e)'s quiet life with his love, the dog named Sheba, ends when an unstoppable monster terrorizes a nearby settlement of beavers. Then a serial killer runs amok in the holy city of Hosanna. An apocalyptic cult threatens the fragile peace. And a mysterious race of amphibious creatures rises from the seas, intent on fulfilling the Colony's destiny and ridding the earth of all humans.

As primal forces rise in judgment, Dwellers, Kernans, Galdarkans, and Vaelinars alike must pick allies carefully if any of them are to survive.

The lines of drakes are weakening. If they fail, the elxir distilled from their blood for the blood-blessed will no longer be available - and war with a neighboring Corvantine Empire will follow swiftly. Claydon Torcreek is a petty thief and an unregistered blood-blessed, who finds himself pressed into service and sent to wild, uncharted territories in search of a creature he believes is little more than legend.

To become a priestess of Death, Pyrre has ten days to kill the ten people enumerated in an ancient song, including "the one you love / who will not come again." If Pyrre fails to find someone to love, or fails to kill that someone, they will give her to the god. Pyrre's not afraid to die, but she hates to quit, hates to fail, and so, with a month before her trial begins, she returns to the city of her birth, the place where she long ago offered an abusive father to the god and abandoned a battered brother - in the hope of finding love...and ending it on the edge of her sword.

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.

When Kali falls off the edge of her kingdom, a small island hovering above a monster-ridden earth, and miraculously survives, she is shocked to discover there are still humans on the earth. Determined to get home, Kali entrusts a rugged monster-hunter named Griffin to guide her across a world overrun by chimera, storm dragons, basilisks and other terrifying creatures. But the more time she spends on earth, the more dark truths she begins to uncover about her home in the sky.

As Max would be the first to admit, she's never been one for rules. But in Lies, Damned Lies, and History, she's gone too far and now everyone is paying the price. Grounded until the end of time, how can she ever put things right?

His name is Jerome. A homeless, destitute alcoholic with no family, no history, and no hope to live, he is the ideal test subject for the next phase of the experiment. Like the lab rats, Jerome responds quickly and dramatically to the serum. But when Dr. Williams and Dr. Harris seek more funding for their study - from a paralyzed billionaire hoping to cure death itself - they make another chilling discovery about their "fountain of youth" drug. Everybody wants it. And some will kill for it.

Kamet, a secretary and slave to his Mede master, has the ambition and the means to become one of the most powerful people in the Empire. But with a whispered warning the future he envisioned is wrenched away.

In a ruined, nameless city of the future, scavenger Rachel finds a creature, a green lump that she names Borne, entangled in the fur of a gigantic despotic bear that once prowled the corridors of a biotech firm. She brings Borne home and somehow convinces her lover, Wick, not to render it down as raw genetic material for the drugs he sells. But nothing is quite the way it seems: not the past, not the present, not the future.

On a distant planet, a team of scientists are conducting surface tests, shadowed by their Company-supplied 'droid - a self-aware SecUnit that has hacked its own governor module, and refers to itself (though never out loud) as "Murderbot." Scornful of humans, all it really wants is to be left alone long enough to figure out who it is. But when a neighboring mission goes dark, it's up to the scientists and their Murderbot to get to the truth.

An expedition of groundlings from the Empire of Kish have traveled through the Three Worlds to the Indigo Cloud court of the Raksura, shape-shifting creatures of flight that live in large family groups. They seek help getting inside a sealed ancient city they believe to be the last home of their ancestors. A small group of warriors agree to help investigate. But the predatory Fell have found the city too.

Many among the Arduans' warrior caste have neither accepted defeat, nor the personhood of any of the other intelligent 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.

Nicole Lee's life is going nowhere. No family, no money, and stuck in a relationship with a thug named Bungie. But, after one of Bungie's deals goes south, he and Nicole are whisked away by a mysterious moth-like humanoid to a strange ship called the Fyrantha. Nicole soon discovers that many different factions are vying for control of the Fyrantha, and she and her friends are merely pawns in a game beyond their control. But, she is tired of being used, and now Nicole is going to fight.

Selected from the top markets, both print and digital, the best of the year in military and adventure sf.

Desperate to confront Kurokawa, Captain Reddy is rushing repairs to the Walker, but he fears he's subordinating the war effort for personal reasons again. Still, Kurokawa can't be left alone. Sometimes, just because you want to do something doesn't mean it's wrong.

Nevada Baylor has a unique and secret skill. She knows when people are lying, and she's used that magic (along with plain, hard work) to keep her colorful and close-knit family's detective agency afloat. But her new case pits her against the shadowy forces that almost destroyed the city of Houston once before, bringing Nevada back into contact with Connor 'Mad' Rogan. Rogan is a billionaire Prime, the highest rank of magic user, and as unreadable as ever, despite Nevada's 'talent'. But there's no hiding the sparks between them.

As Spear and Sverl hunt Penny Royal, all roads seem to lead to a long-missing War Factory station. Penny Royal seems set on returning to the factory that produced its twisted intelligence. And the AI's enemies will follow it to the bitter end. Their very sanity and a possible war depend on it.

Charlie Tristan Moore, already wrestling with the demons of her past, arrives home one night to find herself under attack by three monstrous skinhounds straight out of a nightmare. Just as hope seems lost, she is saved by a sinister Man in Black, dressed in a long, dark coat that seems to possess a life of its own and wielding a black-bladed sword in his grisly red right hand. But her rescue comes at a cost.

As unsettling occurrences mount around the world, the president's old friend (and her chief of staff's ex-wife), spider expert Melanie Guyer, receives a box at her lab at American University that contains an ancient egg unearthed at a South American dig. When it hatches it will unleash a tide of man-eating arachnids.

First of a four-part conclusion to the Shannara series. A mysterious army of invaders is cutting a bloody swath across a remote region of the land. Most seem content to ignore it, but there are those who wish to uncover the truth: an exiled High Druid, a conflicted warrior, a teenage girl struggling to master a prodigious magic . . . and a scrappy young orphan, improbably named Shea Ohmsford.

When her mother and brother are murdered, young noblewoman Accala Viridius's cries for vengeance fall on deaf ears. But the empire is being torn apart by a galactic civil war. In order to confront her enemies in the Imperial Games, she trains as a common gladiator, mastering the razor-sharp discus that always returns when thrown. But instead Accala finds herself drugged, cast into slavery and forced to fight on the side of the men she set out to kill.

[Canadian author]. Kane and Mallory are assigned to the research station that is developing the Dark Bomb, Terra's newest weapon, nicknamed "The Peacemaker." But the greatest threat won't come from outside of the solar system. For a Centauri agent has been planted on Earth, with a mission that will lead to widespread death and destruction.

J.R. Dunn completes one of Conroy's final alternate history novels. After his defeat at Gettysburg, General Robert E. Lee does not retreat across the Potomac but instead sets across Pennsylvania in a dazzling war maneuver. Meanwhile a crazed actor closes in on President Abraham Lincoln.

Coryn's sister Lou fled the megacity Seacouver to work on a rewilding crew, restoring lands once driven to the brink of ecological disaster by humans to a more natural state. Now Coryn is old enough to leave herself and with her companion robot goes in search of Lou. But as she goes, Coryn uncovers a group of people with a sinister agenda that may endanger both Seacouver and the rewilded lands.

Jamie Allenby left Earth to find work on a frontier world on the edges of civilization. Then the virus hit. Now Jamie finds herself dreadfully alone, with all that's left of the dead. Until a garbled message from Earth gives her hope that someone from her past might still be alive. Soon Jamie finds other survivors, and their ragtag group will travel through the vast reaches of space, drawn to the promise of a new beginning on Earth. But their dream will pit them against those desperately clinging to the old ways.

The current selection of year's best horror.

In the neighbouring country of Avares, an enigmatic new warlord is uniting the barbarian armies that have long plagued Tristia's borders - and even worse, he is rumoured to have a new ally: Trin, who has twice tried to kill Aline to claim the throne of Tristia for herself. With the armies of Avares at her back, led by a bloodthirsty warrior, she'll be unstoppable. Falcio, Kest, and Brasti race north to stop her, but in those cold and treacherous climes they discover something altogether different, and far more dangerous. [Vancouver author].

Spens is a tour rep for a select group of clients who have paid for a trip back to the early 21st century to experience what life was like then. Today's excursion was a bus ride from the resort to the attraction, a typical shopping mall. But when Spens counts the clients off the bus at their return to the resort, there's a problem.

Army captain Robin 'Mac' Macintyre and her crew of Stryker vehicles are sent after the ruthless warlord of warlords, an ex Green Beret who rules a large swath of the West. But defeating him will be even more difficult than she thought. The warlord is receiving military assistance from Mac's sister and rival Confederate major, Victoria Macintyre. And when the siblings come together in the war-torn streets of New Orleans, only one of them will walk away.

The future looks promising for South Africans - if they can survive the present challenges. A new hallucinogenic drug is sweeping the country. An AI uprising is emerging. And an ancient demigoddess hellbent on regaining her former status is preying on the blood and sweat (but mostly blood) of every human she encounters. It's up to a young Zulu girl powerful enough to destroy her entire township, a queer teen plagued with the ability to control minds, a pop diva with serious daddy issues, and a politician with even more serious mommy issues to band together to ensure there's a future left to worry about.

16 year old US Army Sergeant Randy Knox has eradicated more of the invading Creepers than anyone can keep track of. But just as it seems the war might be over, the surrender effort turns into a bloody ambush. More disturbing, Buddy and Serena Coulson arrive, having escaped torture and interrogation at the hands of a C.I.A. operative. It begins to dawn on Randy that, as much as he doesn't want to believe it, the powers-that-be may not want the war to be over.

A boy is sent to stay with his grandmother for the summer in a serene fishing village. Their tranquility is shattered by the crash of a bullet-riddled enemy plane, the arrival of grandmother's friend Mr. Girandole, a man who knows the true story of Cinderella's slipper and the discovery of a riddle in the sacred grove of ruins behind grandmother's house. In a sumptuous idyllic setting and overshadowed by the threat of war, four unlikely allies learn the values of courage and sacrifice.

The very future of Tyrrhia is endangered when assassins target Alban, the beloved king, while his wife, Queen Idala, lies on the brink of death after giving birth to quadruplets whose conception was marked by dark magic. With the king and queen's firstborn son far too young to assume the throne should the worst befall, all five children will end up in the care of the queen's brother, Duke Stefano, and his Romani Duchessa, Luciana, who are expecting their own fairy-blessed child.

The populations of the new world are demanding action against New Rome, a place where slavery and deadly gladiatorial combat flourish. Meanwhile Calpurnia is fending off threats to her control over the Romans, aided by Decimus Horatius Pullus, the man who was once Nick Houghton. Has Nick truly embraced the Roman way of life? Can the Romans harness the power of time travel or will the new world destroy them?

Colonel Jack Collins has summoned the best from the most secretive organization in the U.S. government, the Event Group, to help him in his new mission to bring home one of their own from a world that existed in the past. Collins will have to find the technology to travel through time, a trail that will be rife with treachery and murder. To lose this fight would be to change the very history of the planet - and the present.

Now, twenty years after the Rising, a team of scrappy underdog reporters relentlessly pursue the facts while competing against the brother-and-sister blog superstars, the Masons. Surrounded by the infected, and facing more insidious forces working in the shadows, they must hit the presidential campaign trail and uncover dangerous truths. Or die trying.

Eddie Drood has been poisoned by Dr. DOA. There is no cure, no treatment, no chance of a last-minute miracle. So all that is left to him and his love, Molly Metcalf, is to track down his killer and stop him before he can murder anyone else - whether that means fighting a secret army on another world; or searching for a forgotten weapon in the Museum of Unattached Oddities; or facing off against Grendel Rex, the Unforgiven God, in the hidden heart of the Moon, for the terrible secret that is Moonbreaker.

Planets at the edge of the Federation have fallen silent. The arrogant Federation bureaucracy grudgingly send Riley and Asha to investigate. They join forces with a planetary A.I., a paranoid Federation watchdog, and a member of a splinter group who vows to destroy the A.I. No one trusts anyone or their motives. They need to find common ground and the answer in order to confront an enemy more ancient and powerful than the Transcendentals.

When Damian - Anita's sometimes lover, servant, and friend - is kidnapped, Anita heads to Ireland. There she must face off against the vampire who created him. M'Lady, Moroven, Nemhain...under every name she brings terror and destruction. But Anita brings her own weapon to the party: Edward, the man known as Death itself...

In the late 1860s, in Cairo, Egypt, Beatrice Smith and five other young people are summoned to become the Guard, humanity's protectors against the forces of darkness. From different backgrounds and faiths, they must unite in the Great Work. Beatrice, as the Leader, is granted intimate acquaintance with the goddess, who is preparing to take human form. What Beatrice does not expect is that her own heart will be opened to the possibility and promise of love.

When Ananke decides to seek out Matthew Gale, the terrorist she regards as her father, Althea learns that some bonds are stronger than mortal minds can understand or control. Drawn back toward Earth by the quest, Althea and Ananke will find themselves in the thick of a violent revolution led by Matthew's sister, the charismatic leader Constance, who will stop at nothing to bring down a tyrannical surveillance state.

Ananke, once a military spacecraft, is now a sentient artificial intelligence. Accompanied by Althea, the engineer who built her, she is on a quest to find Matthew, the programmer whose code gave her the spark of life. But Matthew is on a strange quest of his own, traveling the galaxy alongside Ivan, with whom he shares a deeply painful history.

When the Supreme Being and his son decide that being supreme isn't for them any more, it soon becomes apparent that our new owners, the Venturi brothers, have a very different perspective on all sorts of things. Take Good and Evil, for example. For them, it's an outdated concept that never worked particularly well in the first place. But this doesn't sit well with a certain individual who still bears a dogmatic attachment to the dichotomy between Naughty and Nice.

This volume of the year's best science fiction and fantasy features thirty stories, including contributions from Charlie Jane Anders, Steven Barnes, Seth Dickinson, Kameron Hurley, Rich Larson, Ian R. MacLeod, Paul McAuley, Adam Roberts, Lavie Tidhar, Genevieve Valentine and Carrie Vaughn.

Skyler Luiken and his ragtag crew of scavengers, scientists, and brawlers undertake a long journey to a distant planet where a race of benevolent aliens are held captive behind a cloud of destructive ships known as the Swarm Blockade. No human ships have ever made it past this impenetrable wall, and so the last thing he expects to find there is a second human ship led by the tough-as-nails captain, Gloria Tsandi.

Torin's team is sent on a rescue mission. But the mercenaries who have taken hostage scientists doing a preliminary archaeological dig on a Class Two planet are also looking for a weapon able to destroy the plastic aliens who had started and maintained the war. If Torin weren't already torn by wanting that weapon in play, she also has to contend with the politics of peace that have added members of the Primacy - former enemies - to her team.

A new religion is rising, gathering followers drawn by rumors of prophetess Jane Oden. Her sister Cinzia - one-time Cantic priestess - is by her side, but fears that Jane will lead them to ruin. For both the Church and the Nazaniin assassins are still on their trail, and much worse may come. And beyond the Blood Gate in the northern empire of Roden, a tiellan woman finds herself with a new protector. One who wants to use her extraordinary abilities for his own ends...

[Canadian author]. MALEDICTION TRILOGY prequel. After accidentally ruining her sister's chance to become queen, Penelope is given one last opportunity by her father. She must find proof that the boy she's in love with is conspiring against the crown. If she fails, her life will be forfeit.

George Dower finds himself a widower, of sorts. On her deathbed, Miss McThane entrusts Dower with a small, ticking clockwork box. The box is mysteriously linked to her. When she breathes her last, the box stops ticking and Dower is able to open it, to find hundreds of letters written in an unknown hand, signed only with the initial S. They're not love letters, but refer instead to the letter-writer's ongoing search for some other person. The last is a simple note, reading Found him.

On the day of the annual eclipse, the Harkan king, Arko-Hark Wadi, sets off on a hunt and shirks his duty rather than bow to the emperor. Ren, his son and heir, is a prisoner in the capital, while his daughters struggle against their own chains. Merit, the eldest, has found a way to stand against imperial law and marry the man she desires, but needs her sister's help, and Kepi has her own ideas.

Sandman Slim finds himself on the farthest edge of the Tenebrae, the desolate home of the lost dead. Alone and with no clue how to get back home, he throws in with a brutal caravan made up of human souls, Hellion deserters, rogue angels - and Father Traven. To add to his problems, the angels have put a fat bounty on his head.

Captain Alexander Outland, a space captain of dubious repute, just wants to make a decent living skirting the law, but after an invisible space armada starts cutting into his business, he finds himself in hot water with the military, the mob, mad bombers, and an extended family of would-be conquerors. And that's not counting an occasionally telepathic spy.

After decades of war, the brutal Tathadann Party restored order to shattered Eitan City by outlawing the past and rewriting history. Memory is a commodity - bought and sold, and experienced like a drug. Henraek works as a Tathadann memory thief, draining citizens' memories. Everything changes when Henraek harvests a memory of his own wife's death, in the hidden rebellion that once tore apart their city. Now he will do whatever it takes to learn the truth - even if it means burning Eitan City to the ground.

Daughter of an executed traitor, Mia Corvere is barely able to escape her father's failed rebellion with her life. Alone and friendless, she hides in a city built from the bones of a dead god, hunted by the Senate and her father's former comrades. But her gift for speaking with the shadows leads her to the door of a retired killer, and a future she never imagined. Now, a sixteen year old Mia is apprenticed to the deadliest flock of assassins in the entire Republic - the Red Church.

Psychics Sarah and Nan (from Wizard of London and Home From The Sea), are sent to be interviewed by a famous consulting detective. When they arrive at the highly eccentric bachelor's flat, he asks them all manner of questions about their bona-fides and experience in a most offensive manner. Eventually, the man gives up and passes them over to physician Dr. John Watson and his wife Mary, both Elemental Masters. Sarah and Nan are to help with investigations that the famous "consulting detective" cannot (or will not) take himself, because they are tainted with "mumbo-jumbo."

Biohacker Carina, addicted to the drug Zeal, spends most of her waking moments in a horror-filled dream world. But then one of her trips is interrupted by strange flashing images and the brutal murder of a young girl. On her next trip, she discovers that an old coworker, Max, sent her these images before he was killed by the company they had worked for. Encrypted within the images are the clues to his murder, plus information strong enough to take down the international corporation.

When the hexarchate's gifted young captain Kel Cheris summoned the ghost of the long-dead General Shuos Jedao to help her put down a rebellion, she didn't reckon on his breaking free of centuries of imprisonment - and possessing her. Even worse, the enemy Hafn are invading, and Jedao takes over General Kel Khiruev's fleet, which was tasked with stopping them.

Mars, late 1700s. Arabella's mother decides the young woman should be sent back to London to learn the proper behaviour of an English lady. But Arabella disguises herself as a boy and joins the crew of the Diana, a ship serving the Mars Trading Company, where she meets a mysterious captain who is intrigued by her knack with clockwork creations. Now Arabella just has to weather the naval war currently raging between Britain and France, learn how to sail, and deal with a mutinous crew...if she hopes to save her family remaining on Mars.

A washed up Detroit rock band is asked by the US Army to travel to an African desert and track down the source of a mysterious and malevolent sound. The trip through the scorching desert takes them into the heart of an ominous and twisted conspiracy.

A factory worker can heal the sick and injured. A schoolteacher bends emotions to her will. A car salesman alters matter with a simple touch. A former soldier speaks to the dying and gains their memories as they pass on. They are the Variants, controlled by a secret government program called MAJESTIC-12 to open a new front in the Cold War.

Novella. Twin sisters Jack and Jill were seventeen when they found their way home and were packed off to Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children. But they were five when they learned that grown-ups can't be trusted. And they were twelve when they walked down the impossible staircase and discovered that the pretense of love can never be enough to prepare you for a life filled with magic in a land filled with mad scientists and death and choices.

Karyl Bogomirsky is a dinosaur-mounted knight who has chosen to rally those who seek a way back from the path of war and madness. But the Empire has announced a religious crusade against them, and they all are to be converted or destroyed. Worse, the dreaded Grey Angels, fabled ancient weapons of the Gods who created Paradise in the first place, come on the scene after almost a millennia. They have come to rid the world of sin...including all the humans who manifest those vices.

Mary and Dalip have acquired maps that reveal the way to the White City, where they can find the answers they're looking for, and learn the secrets of Down. But to get there they must rely on Crows, who has already betrayed them at every turn. As they battle their way towards the one place in all of Down without magic, they must ask themselves how far they will go to find their way home.

1914. An American painter, Francis Wyndham, is hired to provide art therapy at a renowned European asylum, working under the auspices of its mysterious director, Alessandro Caligari. Francis is soon beguiled by his most talented student, Ilona Wessels, whose genius with a brush is matched only by the erotic intensity of her madness. Deep in his secret studio, Dr. Caligari, rumored to be a sorcerer, struggles to create Ecstatic Wisdom, an immense painting so hypnotic it can incite entire regiments to rush headlong into battle.

Grimnir is the last of his kind, last in a long line of monsters who have plagued humanity since the Elder Days. Drawn from his lair by a thirst for vengeance against the Dane who slew his brother, Grimnir makes his way to the green shores of Ireland and the Viking stronghold of Dubhlinn, where his enemy awaits. There he must choose: stand with the Christian King of Ireland and see his vengeance done or stand against him and see it slip away.

Phillip Theophrastus Gribbleflotz, the world's greatest alchemist, was a man history had forgotten. But when Grantsville turned up he got a second chance at fame and fortune. Applying his superb grasp of the principles of alchemy to the muddled and confused notions the Americans have concerning what they call chemistry, Gribbleflotz plays a central role in jump-starting the 17th century's new chemical and martial aids industries and pioneering such critical fields of human knowledge as pyramidology and aura imaging. These are his chronicles.

A galley captain is stranded on a deserted island by his mutinous crew, where he finds a baby dragon that just might be the key to his salvation and his revenge.

The vampire Lestat de Lioncourt battles the strange otherworldly form that has somehow taken possession of his undead body and soul. It is through this spirit that we come to be told the hypnotic tale of a great sea power of ancient times; a mysterious heaven on earth situated on a boundless continent - and of how and why the vampire Lestat, indeed all the vampires, must reckon so many millennia later with the terrifying force of this ageless, all-powerful Atalantaya spirit.

A collection of all-original stories set in Ringo's Black Tide Rising series. Stories by John Ringo, Eric Flint, John Scalzi, Dave Klecha, Sarah Hoyt, Jody Lynn Nye, Michael Z.Williamson and more.

The Rifts opened up in the Event and everyone caught inside died. Since the Event certain people have gone into the drift... and come back, bearing priceless technology that's almost magical in its advancement. When Ashe - the best Rifter of her generation - dies, the authorities offer her student, Svinga, a choice: go in and bring out the thing that killed her, or rot in jail. But Svin, of course, has other plans.

The future as imagined in the 1939 World Fair. After a surprise efficiency review, the switchboard operators of Retropolis find themselves replaced by a mysterious system they don't understand. Nola Gardner pools their severance pay to hire Dash Kent, freelance adventurer and apartment manager, to find out what happened. Dash discovers that the replacement switchboard is only one element of a plan concocted by an insane civil engineer.

2050. Former fighter pilot and FBI field agent Samuel Lord and his space-based team of FBI agents, the Zero-G men, are in charge of investigating terrorism, crime, corruption, and espionage beyond the Earth's atmosphere and of keeping an eye on the rival Chinese and Russian stations. During the Zero-G team's first days in space, a mysterious and beautiful scientist, Dr. May, shows up on the Empyrean claiming that important research has been stolen from her lab on the moon. Her arrival suspiciously coincides with the timing of a tsunami that destroys part of the coast of Japan, and her unusual behavior makes Director Lord think that Dr. May might know more about the disaster than she's letting on. Meanwhile, the Chinese space station has gone mysteriously silent.

When a top secret Medical Corps research facility goes dark, the Delta Force team known as Team Ghost is called in to help deal with a variant strain of Ebola that turns men into monsters. As cities fall in a new kind of war, Team Ghost is ordered to keep CDC virologist Dr. Kate Lovato alive long enough to find a cure. What she uncovers will change everything.

Emperor's daughter Mercedes is the first woman ever admitted to the High Ground, the elite training academy of the Solar League's Star Command, and she must graduate if she is to have any hope of taking the throne. Her classmate Tracy has more modest goals - to rise to the rank of captain, and win fame and honor. But a civil war is coming and the political machinations of those who yearn for power threatens the young cadets.

Melisande Stokes, an expert in linguistics and languages, accidently meets military intelligence operator Tristan Lyons in a hallway at Harvard University. He makes her an incredible offer. The young man asks Mel to translate some very old documents for a very large sum of money -- if she signs a non-disclosure agreement. The documents seem to suggest that magic actually worked until about 1851, when something started jamming it.

Even if the clans can join forces, how will they defeat an enemy whose magical prowess renders them indistinguishable from gods? The answer lies across the sea in a faraway land populated by a reclusive and dour race who feel nothing but disdain for both Fhrey and mankind. With time running out, Persephone leads the gifted young seer Suri, the Fhrey sorceress Arion, and a small band of misfits in a desperate search for aid - a quest that will take them into the darkest depths of Elan, where waits an ancient adversary as fearsome as it is deadly.

North Atlantic, 1941. German submarine U-471 receives a triple-encoded instructions to collect two prisoners from a vessel located off the Icelandic coast and transport them to the base at Brest. British submarine commander Sutherland and an Norwegian academic, Professor Bjornar Grimstad, are taken on board. Then Sutherland goes rogue, and a series of shocking, brutal events occur. In the aftermath, disturbing things start happening on the boat. It seems that a lethal, supernatural force is stalking the crew, wrestling for control of the vessel.

Painstakingly restored from Tolkien's manuscripts and presented for the first time as a continuous and standalone story, the epic tale of Beren and Lythien will reunite fans of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings with Elves and Men, Dwarves and Orcs and the rich landscape and creatures unique to Tolkien's Middle-earth.

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

Lindsay Smith, Max Gladstone, Cassandra Rose Clarke, Ian Tregillis & Michael Swanwick collaborate on a serial novel. The Cold War rages in back rooms and dark alleys of 1970s Prague as spies and sorcerers battle for home and country. The fate of the East and the West hangs in the balance right along the Iron Curtain - and crackling beneath the surface is a vein of magic that is waiting to be tapped.

When their coup of Metzger's Menagerie is discovered, Delilah and her fellow cryptids find their newly won freedom brutally stripped away as they are sold into The Savage Spectacle, a private collection of "exotic wildlife." Specializing in ruthless cryptid cage matches, safari-style creature hunts and living party favors, the Spectacle's owner, Willem Vandekamp, caters to the forbidden fetishes of the wealthy and powerful.

England. A century ago, give or take a few years. An England where people who are wicked in thought or deed are marked by the Smoke that pours forth from their bodies, a sign of their fallen state. The aristocracy do not smoke, proof of their virtue and right to rule, while the lower classes are drenched in sin and soot. At an elite boarding school where the sons of the wealthy are groomed to take power as their birthright, teachers have mysterious ties to warring political factions at the highest levels of government. Here three young people will learn that everything they've been taught is a lie - knowledge that could cost them their lives.

The artificial lifeform, Kenstibec, must fight his way to the home of the man who created him and the other Ficials. The man who tipped the world into war and sealed humanity's fate. Can Kenstibec win a future back for man?

Shock Pao is the best. In the virtual world of the Slip there's nothing he can't steal for the right price. Outside the Slip, though, he's a Fail - no degree, no job. So when his ex offers him a job, breaking into a corporate databank, he accepts - it's either that, or find himself a nice bench to sleep under. Amiga works for psychotic crime lord Twist Calhoun so when Shock's war comes to her, it's her job to bring him to Twist, dead or alive.

As the sickness infecting the Patient Zeros gets worse and begins to spread, Shock Pao and his rag-tag group of friends begin a desperate search for a cure. But with everyone after Shock, it's going to take every skill they possess, both legal and illegal, to hunt down the source of the sickness, while making sure no one gets the means to take control of the Slip. The search will take them to the hubs: to the breathless heights of New York, the deadly streets of London, the insane underworld of Shanghai and into the rot eating away at the heart of Hong Kong, toward an evil that makes Hive Queens look like common garden insects.

Finn's settlement is massacred by a hostile tribe and Finn and several friends, companions and rivals make their escape across a brutal, unfamiliar landscape, Finn will fight harder than he's ever fought in his life. He wants to live - even if he only lives long enough to tell Thyri Treelegs how he feels about her.

Futurist Hannah Stander, a consultant for the FBI, is in an airport, waiting to board a flight home to see her family, when she receives a call from Agent Hollis Copper. I've got a cabin full of over a thousand dead bodies, he tells her. Whether those bodies are all human, he doesn't say. What Hannah finds is a horrifying murder that points to the impossible - someone weaponizing the natural world in a most unnatural way.

Medical examiner Laura Hanning has two charred corpses, both bearing a mysterious tattoo but exhibiting no known cause of death. The only connection is a string of puzzling miracle cures, and rumours of the fabled panacea - the substance that can cure all ills. Soon she finds herself unknowingly enmeshed in an ancient conflict between the secretive keepers of the panacea and the equally secretive and far more deadly group known only as 536, a brotherhood that fervently believes God intended for humanity to suffer, not be cured.

The struggle between Germany and Russia was the war of the last century and almost 50 million died in its execution. But what if that war was extended not over a mere fifty years but over three whole millennia? Is destruction inevitable, or will the simple love of a German man for a Russian woman be enough to tip the scales of Time?

The Doctor, Romana and K-9 trace the second of the six segments of the Key to Time to the planet Calufrax. But when they arrive at exactly the right point in space, they find themselves on exactly the wrong planet - Zanak. Ruled by the mysterious 'Captain', Zanak is a happy and prosperous planet. Mostly. If the mines run out of valuable minerals and gems then the Captain merely announces a New Golden Age and they fill up again. It's an economic miracle - so obviously something's very wrong.

Team Arrow and team Flash seek to eliminate the bizarre energy that threatens to kill the Scarlet Speedster. Their quest takes them to Markovia, where they must get past an army of mercenaries and assassins to face the enigmatic Count Wallenstein.

A young man is found dead after a college party in a small town. His body bears the marks of a brutal attack, but police are mystified as to the actual cause of death. Afterwards, student Didi Tiensuu is approached by two mysterious women. Beautiful and other-worldly, they have come to warn her she is in danger. And to live, she must for ever leave her old life behind. There are evil forces at work that mere mortals can never comprehend. And Didi is about to discover her past is a lie. The night of reckoning is coming and the choice is hers. Reject her fate. Or accept her destiny and embrace her power...

Eighteen brand new stories - exclusive to this collection - featuring the Colonial Marines in bloody conflict with the deadly Aliens. ALIENS: BUG HUNT will send the marines into deep space, to alien worlds, to derelict space settlements, and into the nests of the universe's most dangerous monsters.

Amoral, shrouded in secrecy, and answering to no one, Section 31 is the mysterious covert operations division of Starfleet. The discovery of a two-hundred-year-old secret gives Doctor Julian Bashir his best chance yet to expose and destroy the illegal spy organization. But his foes won't go down without a fight, and his mission to protect the Federation he loves just end up triggering its destruction.

Raymond Reddington reveals to Elizabeth Keen that many other horrific incidents in recent years were not the terrible accidents they seemed to be but were in fact collateral damage in a highly lucrative and deadly game known as The Dead Ring...

As the New Republic fights to restore a lasting peace to the galaxy, Han Solo attempts to settle his last outstanding debt, by helping Chewbacca liberate the Wookiee's homeworld of Kashyyyk. Meanwhile, Norra Wexley and her band of Imperial hunters pursue Grand Admiral Rae Sloane and the Empire's remaining leadership across the galaxy.

As one promotion follows another in his rapid ascension to greater power, Thrawn schools his trusted aide, Ensign Eli Vanto, in the arts of combat and leadership, and the secrets of claiming victory. But even though Thrawn dominates the battlefield, he has much to learn in the arena of politics, where ruthless administrator Arihnda Pryce holds the power to be a potent ally or a brutal enemy.

It has been six years since the end of the Covenant War...and yet on the planet Carrow, human colonists and the alien Sangheili have been engulfed in civil war. Unified Earth Government envoy Melody Azikiwe attempts to broker peace while covertly attempting to free the SPARTAN-IIs known as Gray Team, held in stasis since the end of the war by a cunning Elite fleetmaster consumed with vengeance.

All of Waterdeep now knows someone is killing the Lords of Waterdeep one by one. The broadsheets were full of wild conjecture. Who is behind this? The ousted Lord Neverember? The Zhentarim, the Cult of the Dragon or some other Outland Power? The Xanathar? Some cabal of guilds or nobles planning a coup?

Roboute Guilliman, still Master of Ultramar, has convinced his brother that Terra has fallen and that the mysterious Mount Pharos on Sotha now holds the key to mankind's future. But the Night Lords, those cruel and pitiless sons of Konrad Curze, have been watching from the shadows, and make ready to launch their long-planned attack on the Pharos itself...

The Major, a special ops one-of-a-kind human-cyborg hybrid, leads the elite task force Section 9. Devoted to stopping the most dangerous criminals and extremists, Section 9 is faced with an enemy whose singular goal is to wipe out Hanka Robotic's advancements in cyber technology.

The crew of the colony ship Covenant discover what they think is an uncharted paradise, but it is actually a dark, dangerous world, whose sole inhabitant is the synthetic David, survivor of the doomed Prometheus expedition.

Told only in this novel: following events begun in Rise of the Planet of the Apes and continuing in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.

Drizzt is going home. But not to Mithral Hall. Not to Icewind Dale. He's going to Menzoberranzan. Bruenor is ready to march with him - bringing along an army of dwarves - to end the scourge of Menzoberranzan, but Drizzt needs to see what's happening there. The dwarf army may not be necessary. The City of Spiders might already have fallen to the demons and their wicked prince. But even if that's true, what's to say the demons will stop there?

Continuing their exploration of the Odyssean Pass, Picard and crew discover what they at first believe is a previously uncharted world, with a civilization still recovering from the effects of global nuclear war. An astonishing priority message from Starfleet Command warns that there's more to this planet than meets the eye, and Picard soon realizes that the mysteries of this world may well weave through centuries of undisclosed human history.

Mega-City One, 2100. Cassandra Anderson is fresh out of Academy. After a string of apparently random, deadly assaults by customers at a dating agency, Anderson is convinced a telepathic killer is to blame. Putting her career on the line, the newly-trained Psi-Judge goes undercover to bring the romance-hating murderer to justice, with the big Valentine's Day parade coming up.