The London Silver Vaults has more locks than the Bank of England and more cameras than a paparazzi convention. Not somewhere you can murder someone and vanish without a trace--only that's what happened. The disappearing act, the reports of a blinding flash of light, and memory loss amongst the witnesses all make this a case for Detective Constable Peter Grant and the Special Assessment Unit.

In 1986, renowned nuclear scientist, Anna Berkova, is sleeping in her bed in the Soviet Union when Chernobyl's reactor melts down. It's the exact moment she tears through time - and it's an accident. When she opens her eyes, she's landed in 1992 only to discover Molly, her estranged daughter, shot in the chest. Molly, with her dying breath, begs Anna to go back in time and stop the disaster, to save Molly's daughter Raisa, and put their family's future on a better path.

The Muungano Empire - a far-reaching coalition of city-states that stretches from O.E. (original earth) to Titan faces an escalating series of threats. The old powers cannot allow the Mungano to thrive and have now set in motion new plots to destroy all that they've built.

When a bomb goes off at InTech HQ, everything changes for Tanta's corporation. She is tasked with getting to the bottom of the attack before violence and unrest overtake the city. But even though the evidence points towards rival corporation Thoughtfront, Tanta can't shake the feeling that she's missing something.

To be born into a family of royal assassins pretty much guarantees that your life is going to be... rather unusual. Especially if, like Miscellaneous "Lanie" Stones, you also have a vicious allergy to all forms of violence and bloodshed, and an uncanny affinity for bringing the dead back to life.To make matters worse, family debt looms - a debt that will have to be paid sooner rather than later if Lanie and her sister are to retain ownership of the ancestral seat, Stones Manor.

As ancient Irish clans fought to preserve their lands and their way of life, the Queen and her generals fought to tame the wild land and make it English. Hugh O'Neill, lord of the North, dubbed Earl of Tyrone by the Queen, is a divided man. The Queen gives to Hugh her love, and her commandments, through a little mirror of obsidian which he can never discard; and the ancient peoples of Ireland arise from their underworld to make Hugh their champion, the token of their vow a chip of flint.

Cyrus was only 12 years old when his gods were slain, his country invaded, and his royal parents beheaded in front of him. Held prisoner in the invader's court for years, Cyrus is suddenly given a chance to escape and claim his revenge when a mysterious group of revolutionaries comes looking for a figurehead, someone to take up the skull mask and swords and to become the legendary "Vagrant".

With her grandfather assassinated, Ikenna knows two things: that only someone on the Tribunal could have ordered his death, and that only a Praetorian Guard could have carried out that order. Bent on revenge as much as discovering the truth, Ikenna pledges herself to the Praetorian Trials - a brutal initiation that only a quarter of the aspirants survive. She subjects herself to the racism directed against her half-Khanaian heritage and the misogyny of a society that cherishes progeny over prodigy, all while hiding a power that - if found out - would subject her to execution...or worse.

Stories of intertemporal combat from such authors as Robert Silverberg, Poul Anderson, Fritz Leiber, John C. Wright, H. Beam Piper and more.

A collection of short stories set in the world of the Greatcoats.

In a world reeling from an unusual plague, a disease that affects how reality is perceived, Spence is one of the "cured" living at the Ironside rehabilitation facility. Haunted by guilt, he refuses to face the changed world until a new inmate challenges him to help her find her old crew. But if he can't tell the truth from the lies, how will he know if he has earned the redemption he dreams of? How will he know he hasn't just made things worse?

Zhaon's emperor is dead, and its crown prince has fallen to hidden schemes, leaving his most dangerous brother to assume the throne. The imperial court is seething, and whispers of war grow to shouts. Komor Yala, her own position uncertain, finds shelter in marriage to the cunning Third Prince. But death and destruction mount as a blood-drenched summer ends. The winner will claim an empire--if it is not turned to smoking ruins first.

The final work of John M. Ford, an epic fantasy. Enter the halls of Parliament with Varic, Coron of the Corvaric Coast. Visit Strange House with the Archmage Birch. Explore the mountains of Lady Longlight alongside the Palion Silvern, Sorcerer.

Domingos Fernandes Calabar started out as a military advisor for the Portuguese in Brazil. But to his superiors, he was still nothing more than a mameluco, a man of mixed blood. Until, that is, the Dutch arrived and he switched sides. Then the Portuguese had a new label for him: "traitorous dog." Now Calabar has to help engineer a swift Dutch exodus to a safer place before word of Tromp's defeat reaches Spanish ears.

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

The Psi Team find themselves caught in a battle that has been raging across timelines for 2000 years. But, can they trust the Ennoia? Or is she using our timeline for her own purposes? Meanwhile, Bill Stevens has his own agenda, and his goons have already crossed blades with Psi Team. Now they are coming for Alpha, and all the revenge they can get. Because just as things seemed like they could get no worse, Alpha is back. And this time, she's coming for blood.

The girl grows up in the wild, in a cave with her mother, but visions of a faraway lake come to her on the spring breeze, and when she hears a traveler speak of Artos, king of Caer Leon, she knows that her future lies at his court. And so, brimming with magic and eager to test her strength, she breaks her covenant with her mother and, with a broken hunting spear and mended armour, rides on a bony gelding to Caer Leon.

Elvar has sworn to fulfil her blood oath and rescue a prisoner from the clutches of Lik-Rifa and her dragonborn followers, but first she must persuade the Battle-Grim to follow her. Yet even the might of the Bloodsworn and Battle-Grim cannot stand alone against a dragon god. Their hope lies within the mad writings of a chained god. A book of forbidden magic with the power to raise the wolf god Ulfrir from the dead...

Dashryn Cowl, erstwhile sorcerer of the Imperial College is now a fugitive from the Bolgravian Empire. So when he gets his hands on a map showing a place outside the known lands rich in istariol, the mineral that fuels sorcery, he sees a way back to power. There's only one problem. It means masquerading as an Imperial Cartomancer (an instant death sentence) and finding some dupes to help him mine the istariol in secret, no questions asked.

1768. Charlotte, daughter of the Habsburg Empress, arrives in Naples to marry a man she has never met. Her sister Antoine is sent to France, and in the mirrored corridors of Versailles they rename her Marie Antoinette. The sisters are alone, but they are not powerless. When they were only children, they discovered a book of spells - spells that work, with dark and unpredictable consequences. In a time of vicious court politics, of discovery and dizzying change, they use the book to take control of their lives. But every spell requires a sacrifice. And as love between the sisters turns to rivalry, they will send Europe spiralling into revolution.

Jade feels like she's trapped in a slasher film. As tourists go missing and the tension between her community and the celebrity newcomers to the Indian Lake shore heads towards a tipping point, when she feels the killer will rise. Jade watches as the small town she knows and loves begins to head towards catastrophe as yachts compete with canoes and the celebrity rich change the landscape of what was designated park lands to develop what they call Terra Nova.

The story of the original founding of the nation itself by the legendary Baron Valdemar.

Yaz has lost her friends and found her enemies. She has a mountain to climb, and even if she can break the Hidden God's power, her dream of a green world lies impossibly far to the south, across a vast emptiness of ice. Before the journey can even start, she has to find out what happened to the ones she loves and save those that can be saved.

Before they are done, Meg the retired librarian, Teg the archeologist-turned-mage, and the multi-talented, ever surprising Peg will deal with kidnappings, betrayal, arcane artifacts, romantic intrigues, and the inescapable reality that past lives cast long shadows. Together with their mentors they will uncover the startling truth about what lies on the other side of the Aurora Borealis Bridge - a truth that holds the secret of Over Where, and that will change all their lives forever.

The residents of Sycamore River emerge from the Change and the nuclear war to try to build a life from the shattered remains of their town. But for some, the very air has become toxic. The people of Sycamore River have survived the unthinkable. Can they build something new from the ashes?

In a daring and deadly heist, thieves have made away with an artifact of terrible power - the death mask of Louis Charbon. Made by a master craftsman, it is imbued with the spirit of a monster from history, a serial murderer who terrorized the city with a series of gruesome murders. Now Charbon is loose once more, killing from beyond the grave. It is up to Krona Hirvath and her fellow Regulators to enter the mind of madness to stop this insatiable killer while facing the terrible truths left in his wake.

The Eight Immortals have catastrophically failed to stop Kihrin's enemies, who are moving forward with their plans to free Vol Karoth, the King of Demons. Kihrin has his own ideas about how to fight back, but even if he's willing to sacrifice everything for victory, the cost may prove too high for his allies. Now they face a choice. Can they save the world while saving Kihrin, too? Or will they be forced to watch as he becomes the very evil they have all sworn to destroy?

A seemingly disparate array of people come into contact with a time traveller who must resist the pull to change the past and the future. The cast includes a British exile on the West coast of Canada in the early 1900s; the author of a bestselling novel about a fictional pandemic who embarks on a galaxy-spanning book tour during the outbreak of an actual pandemic; a resident of a moon colony almost 300 years in the future; and a lonely girl who films an old-growth forest and experiences a disruption in the recording.

In an alternative present-day Lisbon, a small percentage of the population have been diagnosed as Gifted - having telepathic or telekinetic powers. Along with the power comes a stigma and suspicion that Gifted Inspector Isabel Reis with the Lisbon Police Force knows only too well. When called to investigate a mysterious and violent death which hints at Gifted involvement, she knows it's more than just her personal reputation on the line.

Michael Darling - the youngest of the Darling siblings and former Lost Boy, now all grown up - must return to the life he left behind to save Neverland from the brink of collapse and keep humanity safe from magical and mythological threats, as well as answer the ultimate question - where is Peter Pan?

Apprentice Magician Kyron is assigned to the late Emperor's honour guard escorting his body on the long road back to the capital. Mistrusted and feared by his own people, even a magician's power may fail when enemies emerge from the forests, for whoever is in control of the Emperor's body, controls the succession. Seven lives and seven deaths to seal the fate of the Empire.

On the idyllic summer getaway of Crow Island, people whisper, real magic lurks just below the surface. Magic - the kind that leaves soldiers shell shocked and families heartbroken - has been prohibited since the war ended. But when Annie Mason witnesses a confrontation between Bea and Emmeline at one of Crow Island's extravagant parties, she is drawn into a glittering, haunted world. A world where the boundaries of wickedness are tested, and the cost of illicit magic might be death.

Space: a tycoon's playground. A handful of trillionaires dictate the future of humanity. Outside the reach of Earthly law and with the vast resources of the inner solar system at their disposal, the "Four Horsemen" do exactly as they please. The governments of Earth are not amused. An international team of elite military women, masquerading as space colonists, are set to infiltrate and neutralize the largest and most dangerous project in human history.

Eight stories, all in first person.

For generations, Mia's family has shaped human history to push them to the stars.The year is 1968 and she is on the cusp of destiny, poised to launch the first humans into space. But she cannot take them to the stars, not quite yet. Her adversary is at her heels, the future of the planet at stake, and avoiding confrontation is no longer an option.

It's been over a century since three generation ships escaped an Earth dominated by artificial intelligence in pursuit of a life on a distant planet orbiting Tau Ceti. Now, it's nearly Braking Day, when the ships will begin their long-awaited descent to their new home. Born on the lower decks of the Archimedes, Ravi Macleod is an engineer-in-training, set to be the first of his family to become an officer in the stratified hierarchy aboard the ship. While on a routine inspection, Ravi sees the impossible: a young woman floating, helmetless, out in space. And he's the only one who can see her.

Ben isn't exactly a genius, but he has an immense breadth of knowledge. Whether it's natural science (specifically the intricacies of bug sex), or vintage timepieces, he can spout facts and information with the best of experts. He just can't explain why he knows any of it. Another thing he knows is the location of the Chime. What it is or why it's important, he can't say. But this knowledge is about to get him in a whole heap of trouble, as a trash-talking, flesh construct bounty hunter is on his tail and looking to sell him to the highest bidder. And being able to describe the mating habits of Brazilian bark lice won't be enough to get him out of it.

Rhea and her twin brother, Lexos, have spent an eternity using cunning and magic to help rule their small, unstable country. Reigning over them both is their father, who holds dominion over death, using his most powerful weapon - fear - to keep the people, and his children, in line. Now, with an independence movement gaining ground, other nations jockeying for power, and their father's iron grip weakening, the twins must take matters into their own hands to keep the world from crashing down around them.

Lynn Raven may be the boss master of WarMonger 2050 with her online persona of "Larry the Snake," but when the CEO of Tsunami Entertainment personally asks her, as a favor, to beta test a new augmented reality game, she has to face her greatest fear of going outside and dealing with, ugh, people. As she becomes more immersed in the game, the stakes rise and so do the obstacles. Strife between teammates, a ruthless rival team, and these strange glitches that make it seem like the game algorithm (or maybe "game AI"?) has it in for her.

An interstellar craft is decelerating after its century-long voyage, destined for a now-empty planet dominated by one gigantic megastructure. Meanwhile, in our near future, a neurotoxin has interfered with the memory function of many of the population, leaving them reliant on their phones as makeshift memory prostheses. Ottoline Barragno, a regular kid juggling school and her friends and her beehives in the back garden, finds herself on the run from competing groups, each willing to do whatever it takes to get inside Ottoline's private network and recover the secret inside.

The war against the oni heats to a flashpoint even as Tinker learns that the enemy has a dangerous new weapon, the nactka. What's more, the Stone Clan hassent its most famous warlords, the Harbingers, to take control of the allied war effort. Are these elves friends or foes? Tinker's newfound baby siblings are up for grabs. The babies, though, are wood sprites and aren't going to take things lying down.

The Alanga - the powerful magicians of legend - have returned to the Empire. They claim they come in peace, and Lin will need their help in order to defeat the rebels and restore peace. But can she trust them?

The Fellowship raised Lark to kill monsters. His partner betrayed them to the Feds. But Lark knows his magic is real, and he'll do anything to complete his quest.

Jordan Baker grows up in the most rarefied circles of 1920s American society - she has money, education, a killer golf handicap, and invitations to some of the most exclusive parties of the Jazz Age. She's also queer and Asian, a Vietnamese adoptee treated as an exotic attraction by her peers, while the most important doors remain closed to her. But the world is full of wonders: infernal pacts and dazzling illusions, lost ghosts and elemental mysteries. In all paper is fire, and Jordan can burn the cut paper heart out of a man. She just has to learn how.

First published in 1827. The reanimated mummy of Cheops boards a hot-air balloon and travels to 22nd-century England, where he sets about remedying the ills of a corrupt government. This is a world in which automatons perform surgery, undersea tunnels connect England and Ireland, weather-control devices provide crop irrigation, and messages are transmitted with the speed of cannonball fire.

It's 1923 and at Mordrake Manor, a forbidding house on the Scottish border, the roaring twenties seem not to have arrived. But Simon Christie has - a young man who can't believe his luck when he gets a job cataloguing the infamous art collection of the Mordrake family. Yet from the moment he gets off the train at the deserted village station he can't shift a headache and a sense that there's more to the Manor and its gruesome selection of pictures.

In the wake of World War I, Jonathan Morgan stows away on an Antarctic expedition led by a world-famous explorer, determined to find his rightful place in the world of men. But after disaster strikes in Antarctica's frozen Weddell Sea, the men must take to the land and overwinter in a place that immediately seems both eerie and wrong; a place not marked on any of their part-drawn maps of the vast white continent. Here something terrible has been waiting to lure them out into its deadly landscape...

Loulie al-Nazari is the Midnight Merchant: a criminal who, with the help of her jinn bodyguard, hunts and sells illegal magic. When she saves the life of a cowardly prince, she draws the attention of his powerful father, the sultan, who blackmails her into finding an ancient lamp that has the power to revive the barren land - at the cost of sacrificing all jinn.

When the young half-goblin emperor Maia sought to learn who had killed his father and half-brothers, he turned to an obscure resident of his Court, a Prelate of Ulis and a Witness for the Dead. Thara Celehar found the truth, though it did him no good to discover it.Now Celehar lives in the city of Amalo, far from the Court though not exactly in exile. He has not escaped from politics, but his position gives him the ability to serve the common people of the city, which is his preference. He lives modestly, but his decency and fundamental honesty will not permit him to live quietly.

In a city that lost its magic, an angel falls in a downtown street. His wings are feathered - undeniably magical - the man clearly flew, because he left one hell of a mess when he plummeted into the sidewalk. But what sent him up? What brought him down? And will the answers help Fetch bring the magic back for good?

Created to die, determined to live. Jack Four - one of twenty human clones - has been created to be sold. His purchasers are the alien prador and they only want him for their experimentation program. But there is something different about Jack. No clone should possess the knowledge that's been loaded into his mind. And no normal citizen of humanity's Polity worlds would have this information.

A wedding contest in Gwannland. Guru Dronas, bent on erasing Gwannland from existence, is in attendance. Accompanying him are the Seth and the Krushan Hundred - sons of Adri, emperor of the Burnt Empire - and Jarsun. The five children of Shvate, who was murdered by Jarsun, are also present and eager to avenge their father's death. The stakes are high as the participants put their talents on display. And then the situation escalates into an all-out battle when Jarsun springs a surprise: the greatest army ever assembled is at their doorstep.

Alex Green is a young girl in a world much like ours, except for its most seminal event: the Mass Dragoning of 1955, when hundreds of thousands of ordinary wives and mothers sprouted wings, scales, and talons; left a trail of fiery destruction in their path; and took to the skies. Was it their choice? What will become of those left behind? Why did Alex's beloved aunt Marla transform but her mother did not?

The Rajni Mrithuri stands as the chief claimant to the Alchemical throne now, but she and her empire remain a prize to be taken unless she gets an heir. She has her allies - her cousin Sayeh, a dragon, a foreign wizard, a fearsome automaton, and the Dead Man - but the throne has the final say. And if it rejects her, the price is death.

When the death of Iron Queen Sarelin Brey fractures the realm of Elira, Lysande Prior, the palace scholar and the queen's closest friend, is appointed Councillor. Publically, Lysande must choose the next monarch from amongst the city-rulers vying for the throne. Privately, she seeks to discover which ruler murdered the queen, suspecting the use of magic. While she hides her drug addiction from her new associates, she cannot hide her growing interest in power. She becomes locked in a game of strategy with the city-rulers.

Charlie Hall has left her life working for gloamists - magicians who manipulate shadows to peer into locked rooms, strangle people in their beds, or worse. Bartending at a dive, she's still entirely too close to the corrupt underbelly of the Berkshires. And when a terrible figure from her past returns, Charlie descends into a maelstrom of murder and lies, up against a cast of doppelgangers, mercurial billionaires, gloamists, and the people she loves best in the world - all trying to steal a secret that will give them vast and terrible power.

Kinch Na Shannack's debt to the Takers Guild has driven him to lie in wait by the old forest road, planning to rob the next traveler that crosses his path. But next is Galva - a knight, a survivor of the brutal goblin wars, and handmaiden of the goddess of death. She is searching for her queen, missing since a distant northern city fell to giants. Unsuccessful in his robbery and lucky to escape with his life, Kinch now finds his fate entangled with Galva's.

In a US facing growing food shortages, stark inequality, and a growing fascist government, three perfectly normal young women are about to find out that they share a great deal in common. Their creator, the gifted geneticist Peng, made them that way - before such things were outlawed. Rumors of a virus make their way through an unprotected population on the verge of rebellion, only to have it turn deadly. As the women fight to stay alive and help, Peng races to find a cure - and the cover up behind the virus.

A collection of urban fantasy short stories from such authors as Jim Butcher, Patricia Briggs, Charlaine Harris, Kelley Armstrong, and more...

John Abbott has taken a job with a wealthy interstellar corporation. His first assignment is to discreetly investigate possible corruption at the remote Arrowhawk Station, where Company traders buy the famous Sarovari Weave from the three-sided, crablike Weavers. John finds evidence of theft and worse, but when the guilty parties realize he's getting close, they come after him and his family.

Daslakh is an AI with a problem. Its favorite human, a young man named Zee, is in love with a woman who never existed - and he will scour the Solar System to find her. Daslakh's nicely settled life gets more complicated when Zee helps a woman named Adya escape a gang of crooks. This gets the pair caught up in the hunt for the Godel Trigger, a legendary weapon left over from an ancient war between humans and machines - which could spell the end of civilization. In their search, they face a criminal cat and her henchmen, a paranoid supermind with a giant laser, the greatest thief in history, and a woman who might actually be Zee's lost love.

After the virus 6DM wipes out the human race in November 2022, one woman, a Londoner, appears to have survived. Was she the only one who was immune? With a cowardly golden retriever nicknamed 'Lucky', she sets off on a journey across the country to discover if she is really the last person left alive.

Five sentient digital beings - condemned for over three hundred years to crew the small survey ship by the all-powerful Company - encounter a mysterious black sphere. A ship malfunction leaves the crew with no choice but to approach the sphere and survey it themselves. They have no idea that this object - and the transcendent truth hidden within - will change the fate of all existence, the Company, and themselves.

Ten years ago a pandemic wiped out a huge percentage of the population. But while the world began to heal, Lily locked herself in worlds of her own making. It was only when she was ordered back to work, and given the opportunity to feed the skin hunger she didn't know she had, that she came back to life.

Something malevolent lurks in deep space, something able to pluck starships from their course and cause their crews to vanish. It has an interest: Botharis, the planet where Esen and Paul have established the All Species' Library of Linguistics and Culture. Esen and Paul will need every resource, every friend and even foes, if they're to discover who - or what is behind this before more are lost.

Ferius Parfax has a simple plan: kill every last inhabitant of the spell-gifted nation that destroyed her people, starting with the man who murdered her parents. Killing mages is a difficult and dangerous business, of course, so Ferius undertakes to study the ways of the Argosi, the loosely-knit tribe of tricksters known for getting the better of even the most powerful of spellcasters. But the Argosi have a price for their teachings, and by the time Ferius learns what it is, it may be too late.

Gemma Ripley's quest for answers leads her to a trade summit among the various kingdoms. There the cunning Queen Maeven Morricone of Morta invokes an arcane tradition that threatens the fragile truce between Andvari and the other kingdoms. Then a series of deadly attacks shatters the summit's peaceful negotiations and Gemma realizes that someone wants to tear the royals down from their thrones.

In this sequel to SPUTNIK'S CHILDREN, 'undocumented time immigrant' Debbie Reynolds Biondi and her apprentice Unicorn Girl are taken on a wild ride through alternate worlds, into a possible future where robots rule and humans are banished to the past.

Teagan Frost has enough sh*t to deal with, between her job as a telekinetic government operative and a certain pair of siblings who have returned from the dead to wreak havoc with their powers. But now she's trapped in a hotel by a bunch of gun-toting maniacs. And to make matters worse, her powers have mysteriously disappeared.

The Neanderthal holy man Trogon is led by a vision to attempt the capture of the young Denisovan known as Quiller. Quiller is the only one who knows the location of the burial cave of the Old Woman of the Mountain. Quiller's best friend Lynx must brave towering glaciers, dire wolves, and prides of giant lions to save her and stop Trogon.

Even in a technologically advanced, Kennedy-Didn't-Die alternate 1975, Brooklyn Lamontagne is going nowhere fast. Brooklyn just wants to keep his mother's rent paid, earn a little scratch of his own, steer clear of the cops, and maybe get laid sometime in the near future. Simple pleasures, right? But a killer with a baseball bat and a mysterious box of 8-track tapes is about to make his life real complicated...

The new master vampire of Cincinnati has arrived - and she wants Rachel Morgan out. No matter where Rachel goes, Constance is there - threatening Rachel's allies, causing city-wide chaos, and, to add insult to injury, even forcing Rachel out of her current quarters. A witch-born demon can't stand against the old undead - at least, not alone.

A dark fairy tale against a Victorian backdrop. Ella is forced to work hard as a lowly maid under the unforgiving, lecherous gaze of the man she once called stepfather, her only refuge in the books she reads by candlelight, secreted away in the library she isn't permitted to enter. Then a fairy godmother offer her seven wishes, hers to make as she pleases. But each wish comes at a price and Ella must decide whether it's one she's willing to pay...

The last time Maeve saw her cousin was the night she escaped the cult they were raised in. Now she's regained the only true friend she's ever had and is soon spending more time at Andrea's remote Catskills estate than in her own cramped apartment. The increasing attachment triggers memories Maeve has fought hard to bury. But confronting the terrors of her childhood may be the only way for Maeve to transcend the nightmare still to come...

In the 1990s Kris Pulaski was lead guitarist of Durt Wurk, a heavy-metal band on the brink of breakout success until lead singer Terry Hunt embarked on a solo career and rocketed to stardom, leaving his bandmates to rot in obscurity. Now Kris works as night manager of a Best Western; she's tired, broke, and unhappy. Then a shocking act of violence makes her hit the road, hoping to reunite Durt Wurk and confront the man who ruined her life. Her journey will take her from the Pennsylvania rust belt to a celebrity rehab center to a satanic music festival.

All three children of King Cador fear a life of confinement within the walls of the hold, their people's last bastion of strength against the invading Saxons. However, change comes on the day ash falls from the sky. It brings with it Myrdhin, meddler and magician. And Tristan, a warrior whose secrets will tear them apart.

New York City has been ravaged by the most heinous act of bioterror the world had ever seen, perpetrated by a new brand of extremist bent on pushing humanity to extinction. Detective Jacob Gibson, who lost his wife in the 8/17 attack, is home caring for his sick daughter when his partner summons him to a sprawling shantytown in Central Park, the apparent site of a mass murder. Jake is startled to discover that, despite a life of abject squalor, the victims died in perfect health - and his only hope of finding answers is a twelve-year-old boy on the run from some very dangerous men.

[Local author]. The religion of the Four Tribes has taken over the world, and any who resist it are crushed. They await the return of their prophesised One, who is both male and female, and neither. In each of the four lands of the world, there are mutterings of rebellion. And over the mountains, kept secret from the world, the One has grown into their adulthood. It is time for them to return and see what is being done in their name. And that means going to war.

18 stories from the common world of shape-shifting vampire hunter Jane Yellowrock and the Soulwood series.

The research vessel Gallion's chief engineer Uma Ozakka has always been fascinated with the past, especially the tale of the Fortunate Five, who ended the war with the alien Felen. When the Gallion rescues a run-down junk freighter, Ozakka is shocked to recognize the Five's legendary ship - and the Five's famed leader, Eldric Leesongronski, among the crew. But nothing else about Leesongronski and his crewmates seems to match up with the historical record.

Mike and Beth were strangers before the night of the meteor shower that left widespread destruction in its wake. Then a lost car key leaves them stranded on an empty stretch of Oregon coast. When inhuman screams echo from the dunes, when the rising tide reaches for their car and unspeakable horrors close in around them, these two self-destructive souls must fight to survive a nightmare of apocalyptic scale.

A nanotech plague sweeps the Earth, taking control of its victims' senses and feeding them false realities, slowly taking control of individuals, corporations, and whole societies as it stretches across the globe. Between the plague and the reforming of the pre-Nova-Insanity internet, humanity is communicating again, but the renewal of those connections allows an old danger to resurface: a supernova device so large and powerful, it could annihilate the entire planet.

1944. Meiko and Aiko were taken from their home in Seattle and sent to one of the internment camps in the Midwest. Mother and daughter attempt to hold on to elements of their old life in the camp when a mysterious disease begins to spread among those interned. What starts as a minor cold quickly becomes spontaneous fits of violence and aggression, even death.

On a dark night, along a lonely stretch of coast, a small merchant ship sends two people ashore. Their purpose is assassination. They have been hired by two of the most dangerous men alive to alter the balance of power in the world. One of those arriving on that stony strand is a young woman who had been abducted by corsairs as a child and sold into years of servitude far from her home.

After years of seeing her sisters suffer at the hands of an abusive prince, Marra - the shy, convent-raised, third-born daughter - has finally realized that no one is coming to their rescue. No one, except for Marra herself. Seeking help from a powerful gravewitch, Marra is offered the tools to kill a prince - if she can complete three impossible tasks.

New Liberty City, 2134. Here, Mallory streams Stellaxis's wargame SecOps on BestLife, spending more time jacked in than in the world just to eke out a hardscrabble living from tips. When a chance encounter with one of the game's rare super-soldiers leads to a side job for Mal - looking to link an actual missing girl to one of the SecOps characters, it puts her in the kind of danger she's only experienced through her avatar.

For the past six years, a deadly secret has kept Ryia Cautella in hiding, running from town to town, doing whatever it takes to stay one step ahead of the formidable Guildmaster - the sovereign ruler of the five kingdoms of Thamorr. No matter how far or fast she travels, his servants never fail to track her down... But Ryia's path now leads directly into the heart of the Guildmaster's stronghold.

In the swirling clouds of Venus, the families of la colonie live on floating plant-like trawlers, salvaging what they can in the fierce acid rain and crackling storms. Outside is dangerous, but humankind's hold on the planet is fragile and they spend most of their days simply surviving. But Venus carries its own secrets, too. In the depths, there is a wind that shouldn't exist. And the House of Styx wants to harness it.

Simone is one of the Glitterati, the elite living lives of luxury and leisure. Slave to the ever-changing tides - and brutal judgements - of fashion, he is immaculate. When Simone accidentally starts a new fashion with a nosebleed at a party, another Glitterati takes the credit. Soon their rivalry threatens to raze their opulent utopia to the ground, as no one knows how to be vicious like the beautiful ones.

Ice triber Yaz makes her way to the Convent of Sweet Mercy, where nuns train young girls who show the old gifts. Yaz has much to learn from the nuns - if they don't decide to execute her. The battle to save the moon centers on the Ark of the Missing, buried beneath the emperor's palace. Everyone wants Yaz to be the key that will open the Ark. But sometimes wanting isn't enough.

Jethri Gobelyn finds a conflict of loyalties -- on one hand to the Terran Looper families he grew up among -- on the other to his position as second trader on the premier Liaden tradeship Elthoria under the guidance of his unlikely foster-mother Norn ven'Deelin Clan Ixin. He will find himself thrust into a tangle of grey-trading, mistaken identity, misinformation, and galactic politics...

Ever since she was five, Myrra's life and labour have belonged to the highest bidder on her contract - butchers, laundries, and now the powerful, secretive Carlyles. But when one night finds the Carlyles dead, Myrra is suddenly free a lot sooner than she anticipated - and at a cost she never could have imagined. Burdened with the Carlyles' orphaned daughter and the terrible secret they died to escape, she runs.

Princess Thera, once Empress of Dara, entrusted the throne to her younger brother in order to journey to Ukyu-Gonde to war with the Lyucu. Meanwhile, in Dara, the Lyucu leadership as well as the surviving Dandelion Court bristle with rivalries. Parents and children, teachers and students, Empress and Pekyu, all nurture the seeds of plans that will take years to bloom.

It's the 1980s and Sam Gregory, a substance-abusing war veteran turned insurance investigator, arrives at the galactically elite Danforth Putnam boarding school off the coast of New England to find a stolen manuscript of incalculable value. He soon senses that something far stranger than missing books is afoot - and when students begin vanishing from campus, he realizes how serious it is.

First of two new anthologies of Cthulhu stories. Featuring fiction by many of today's masters of the menacing, macabre, and monstrous, including Laird Barron, Caitlin R.Kiernan, and Thomas Ligotti.

Second collection of new Cthulhu stories. Includes Gaiman, Chabon, Elizabeth Bear & Sarah Monette.

Relos Var and the demon Xaltorath circle each other in their bids for universal power. Neither is paying attention to the third player on the board, Kihrin. Unfortunately, keeping himself classified in the 'pawn' category means Kihrin must pretend to be everything the prophecies threatened he'd become: the destroyer of all, the sun eater, a mindless, remorseless plague upon the land. But though his intentions may be sincere, he's still being forced to grapple with the aftereffects of the corrupted magic ritual that twisted both him and the dragons.

Kagen Vale is the trusted and feared captain of the palace guard, charged with protection of the royal children of the Silver Empire. But one night, Kagen is drugged and the entire imperial family is killed, leaving the empire in ruins. Haunted and broken, Kagen is abandoned by his gods and damned forever. He becomes a wanderer, trying to take down as many of his enemies as possible while plotting to assassinate the usurper, the deadly Witch-king of Hakkia.

October 1815: FBI special agent Kendra Donvovan, still trapped in the 19th century, becomes involved in the investigation of a murder of a Yorkshire mill manager. The Constable is certain the radical-minded Luddites committed the murder. But one look at the crime scene and Kendra knows they did not.

February 1816. Bow Street Runner Sam Kelly investigates the grisly murder of Sir Giles Holbrooke, who was left naked and garroted, with his tongue cut out. Worse, symbols that resemble crosses mysteriously begin to appear across the dead man's flesh during autopsy. Is it a message from the killer? Sam turns to the one person in the kingdom who he believes can answer that question and solve the bizarre murder - the Duke of Aldridge's odd but brilliant ward, Kendra Donovan.

Melanie is dying - now, truly, is the winter of her soul. Harry doesn't want to believe in that destiny, because it means accepting the loss of the one person who gives his life meaning, who brings summer to his world. So, when a new road is laid out in front of them - a road that will lead through untold dangers toward a possible lifetime together - walking down it seems to be the only option. But others are following behind, with violence in their hearts.

In a New York ravaged by climate change and repeat pandemics, Kobo is barely scraping by. He scouts the latest in gene-edited talent for Big Pharma-owned baseball teams, but his own cybernetics are a decade out of date and twin sister loan sharks are banging down his door. Things couldn't get much worse. Then his brother - Monsanto Mets slugger J.J. Zunz - is murdered at home plate.

In the Long Island oceanfront community of Mattauk, three different women discover that midlife changes bring a whole new type of empowerment... The trio of women discover the body of a teenage girl abandoned on a remote beach. The police have written the victim off as a drug-addicted sex worker, but the women's investigation into the girl's murder leads to more bodies, and to the town's most exclusive and isolated enclave, a world of stupendous wealth where the rules don't apply. With their newfound powers, Jo, Nessa, and Harriet will take matters into their own hands...

Steffan Dekkard is an isolate, one of the few who are immune to the projections of empaths. With partner empath Avraal Ysella, he is a security specialist employed by Axel Obreduur, a senior Craft Minister. When a respected Landor Councilor dies of "heart failure" at a social event, Dekkard and Ysella find that not only is their employer a target, but so are they, in a covert and deadly struggle for control of the government and economy.

When a long-expected war breaks out, Nick Prasad's eager to help organize troops and supplies... until he's approached by a spy who claims to possess a secret that could end the reign of the Ancient Ones forever. The first step is jailbreaking a god who has probably been locked up a little too long -- and that's the easy part.

San Francisco, 1947. Someone is murdering the city's drag kings and club owner Jimmy Vasco is sure she's next on the list and wants Sammy to find the killer. Meanwhile, Eddie "Moo Shoes" Shu has been summoned by his Uncle Ho to help save his opium den from Squid Kid Tang, a vicious gangster who is determined to retrieve a priceless relic: an ancient statue of the powerful Rain Dragon that Ho stole from one of the fighting tongs forty years earlier. And if Eddie blows it, he just might call down the wrath of that powerful magical creature on all of Fog City.

Kaikeyi was raised on tales of how the gods vanquish evil and ensure that the land of Bharath prospers, and how they offer powerful boons to the devout and the wise. She calls on the gods for help when her father attempts to arrange her marriage. She tutors herself in magic and transforms herself from an overlooked princess into a warrior, diplomat, and most favored queen -- until her path clashes with the destiny the gods have chosen for her family.

Only two people know that 1930s society man Lamont Cranston has a secret identity as the Shadow. One is his greatest love, Margo Lane, and the other is his fiercest enemy, Shiwan Khan. When Khan ambushes the couple, they must risk everything for the slimmest chance of survival - in the future. A century and a half later, Lamont awakens in a world both unknown and disturbingly familiar. The first person he meets is Maddy Gomes, a teenager with her own mysterious secrets, including a knowledge of the legend of the Shadow. Most disturbing, Khan's power continues to be felt over the city and its people.

Every time Zaxony Delatree falls asleep he wakes up on a new world. Now he learns that he is unknowingly host to a parasitic alien that exists partly in his blood and partly between dimensions. The chemical that the alien secretes is what allows Zax to travel. Every time he does, however, the parasite grows, damaging the fabric of the Universes. Now Zax finds himself caught between those who wish to stop the alien and those who want to collapse all the worlds into one to free the entity known as the Prisoner.

Fresh out of rehab, Mallory Quinn takes a job as a babysitter for Ted and Caroline Maxwell. She is to look after their five-year-old son, Teddy. Teddy loves to draw, and his drawings are the usual fare: trees, rabbits, balloons. Until the day he draws a man in a forest, dragging a woman's lifeless body. Teddy's artwork becomes increasingly sinister, and his stick figures quickly evolve into lifelike sketches well beyond the ability of any five-year-old.

It's the End of Days, and Gabe and Remi - an ex-con biker and a Texas cowboy - have been conscripted to join the heavenly host in a battle against Lucifer's spec ops troops: demons who inhabit characters from fiction, history, myths, legends, and folklore. But Gabe and Remi, still learning their roles, now must deal with one particular demon wearing the body of an infamous murderer, Jack the Ripper.

The This is the new social media platform everyone is talking about. Allow it to be injected into the roof of your mouth and it will grow into your brain, allow you to connect with others without even picking up your phone. For one journalist, hired to do a puff-piece interview with their CEO, it will change the world forever.

A non-fiction celebration of the Sierra Nevadas -- the fruit of the author's life-long passion for those mountains.

A UN relief team in a small village in the Congo makes an alarming discovery. An unknown force is leveling the evolutionary playing field. Men, women, and children have been reduced to a dull, catatonic state. The environment surrounding them - plants and animals - has grown more cunning and predatory, evolving at an exponential pace. The insidious phenomenon is spreading from a cursed site in the jungle known to locals as the Kingdom of Bones.

A powerful artifact, the sword known as "Cutter" has started wars, corrupted its users, and spilled the blood of many, many people. Nonetheless - or maybe because of that - the rogue Jarlaxle and a small group of friends will go on an expedition looking for the weapon's last wielder, Doum'wielle, in the freezing north. She may be the key to unlocking the sword's potential...and perhaps the key to preventing the bloodshed looming over the Underdark.

The Caspian Republic is the last sanctuary for the human race in a world run by artificial intelligence. When a Party propagandist is killed - and is discovered as a "machine" - Agent Nikolai South is assigned to chaperone the widow, Lily, who has arrived to claim her husband's remains. Then South sees that she, the first "machine" ever allowed into the country, bears an uncanny resemblance to his own late wife, and he's thrown into a maelstrom of betrayal, murder, and conspiracy.

Two strangers in a foreign city, Thora and Santi meet in a chance encounter. At once, they recognize in each other a kindred spirit - someone who is longing for more in life than the cards they've been dealt. Before their friendship can blossom, though, a tragic accident cuts their story short. But they will meet again. And again and again -- as husband and wife, teacher and student, caretaker and patient; cynic and believer...

With the return of spring, new life floods into Titanshade. Even pop culture has taken notice, with a high-profile concert only days away. When a band member's murder threatens to delay the show, the diva star performer demands that the famous Detective Carter work the case. But Carter has secrets of his own, and his investigation unearths more victims and dark secrets, triggering a spiral of deceit, paranoia, and nightmarish magical transformations.

When romance is thrown into the mix, time-travel becomes a passionate tool, or heart-breaking weapon. Includes stories by: Harrow, Cho, McGuire, Gailey, Ford, Allan, Hand, Valente, Vaughn & many more.

Temporal tourism is on the rise - highly illegal but highly lucrative. If you're prepared to take the risk. Undercover agents are needed fast and who better than three young officers who don't even look the part? Step forward Jane, Luke and Matthew. Throw in the Versailles time slip, a covert jump to Ancient Egypt and a race against Time itself and you've got yourself an assignment worthy of Team Weird.

Idris has neither aged nor slept since they remade him in the war, a member of the fighting elite, an enhanced human who could communicate mind-to-mind with the enemy. Now he scrapes by on a freelance salvage vessel, to avoid the attention of greater powers. The alien aggressors, the Architects, have disappeared - leaving Idris and his kind obsolete. But now, 50 years later, Idris and his crew have found something strange, abandoned in space.

The last Molly and her sisters built a home together, and thought they could escape the murder that marked their past. But secrets squirm in Molly Southbourne's blood - secrets born in a Soviet lab and carried back across the Iron Curtain to infiltrate the West. What remains of the Cold War spy machine wants those secrets back, and to get them they're willing to unearth the dead and destroy the fragile peace surrounding the last copies of Molly Southbourne.

Luli Wei is beautiful, talented, and desperate to be a star. Coming of age in pre-Code Hollywood, she knows how dangerous the movie business is and how limited the roles are for a Chinese American girl. But the studios want to own everything from her face to her name to the women she loves, and they run on a system of bargains made in blood and ancient magic, powered by the endless sacrifice of unlucky starlets like her. For those who do survive to earn their fame, success comes with a steep price. Luli is willing to do whatever it takes - even if that means becoming the monster herself.

Princess Aurora saw through Alyce's thorny facade, earning a love that promised the dawn of a new age. But it is a love that came with a heavy price. Aurora now sleeps under a curse that even Alyce's vast power cannot seem to break. And the dream of the world they would have built together is nothing but ash. Alyce vows to do anything to wake the woman she loves, even if it means turning into the monster Briar believes her to be.

In the world of IN FURY BORN. Rear Admiral Terrence Murphy is a Heart Worlder, his family part of the Five Hundred. There is no end to how high he can rise in the Republic's power structure. All he has to do is successfully complete a risk-free military "governorship" in the backwater Fringe System of New Dublin without rocking the boat. But the people sending him to New Dublin have miscalculated, because Terrence Murphy is a man who believes in honour.

Stories set in the Freehold world. Contributors include Kevin J. Anderson and Michael Z. Williamson himself.

Celehar has been given an apprentice to teach, and he has stumbled over a scandal of the city - the foundling girls. Orphans with no family to claim them and no funds to buy an apprenticeship. Foundling boys go to the Prelacies; foundling girls are sold into service, or worse. At once touching and shattering, Celehar's witnessing for one of these girls will lead him into the depths of his own losses.

2019: Homicide detective Mallory is in Edinburgh to be with her dying grandmother. While out on a jog one evening, Mallory hears a woman in distress. She's drawn to an alley, where she is attacked and loses consciousness. She wakes in 1869 in the body of a housemaid in the household of a medical examiner. She had been similarly strangled, the victim of a serial killer. Her only hope is that catching the murderer can lead her back to her modern life .. before it's too late.

Felicity Staples is a journalist for a midsize New York City paper who is researching the story of the murder of a young woman, a real estate agent. Then she spots the killer on the subway, right before he vanishes. Soon, Felicity senses her entire universe has shifted - that in her pursuit of Madison's killer, she followed him into a different dimension, one where everything about her existence is slightly altered.

Joey is a Reality Controller in near-future Delhi. Her job is to supervise the multimedia multi-reality livestreams of Indi, one of South Asia's fastest rising online celebrities - who also happens to be her college ex. Rudra is a recluse estranged from his wealthy and powerful family but forced back into the family's orbit by his father's death. When he accepts an impulsive job offer from Joey, the two become enmeshed in multiple conspiracies and their lives start to spin out of control.

One day in the mid-21st century, the sun goes out. Solar panels are useless, and the world begins to freeze. Earth begins to fall out of its orbit.The end is nigh. Someone has sent us a sign.

The vampire Wulfe is missing. Since he's deadly, possibly insane, and his current idea of "fun" is stalking Mercy, some may see it as no great loss. But Mercy discovers that someone is taking people from locked rooms, from the aisles of stores, and even from crowded parties. And these are not just ordinary people but supernatural beings.

It has always been Marca Nbaro's dream to achieve the near-impossible - escape her upbringing and venture into space. All it took to make her way onto the crew of the Greatship Athens was thousands of hours in simulators, dedication, and pawning or selling every scrap of her old life in order to forge a new one. But though she's made her way onboard with faked papers, leaving her old life - and scandals - behind isn't so easy. She may have just combined all the dangers of her former life, with all the perils of the new.

Geary's warships must escort a diplomatic and scientific mission across the dangerous, disintegrating remnants of the Syndicate Worlds empire. But even if he can make it to Midway Star System, the gateway to alien-controlled space, Geary will face former Syndicate officials who have rebelled and regard the Alliance with deep suspicion. And that will be the easy part...

After her young daughter is killed in a tragic accident, CIA intelligence analyst Quinn Mitchell hopes to find a new start in her latest assignment: investigating a series of bizarre international assassinations whose victims have been found with numeric codes tattooed, burned, or carved into their flesh. As Quinn follows the killer's trail across the globe, always one body behind, she begins uncovering disturbing connections between the murders - and herself.

Assigned to the cislunar cruiser U.S.S. Borman as a search-and-rescue officer, Ensign Hunter is resigned to a life of rescuing wayward spacefarers and derelict satellites. But his fortunes appear to change when a billionaire couple goes missing on their way to survey a near-Earth asteroid and the Borman is dispatched to bring them home. But as they approach the asteroid, the Borman itself becomes hopelessly disabled.

Molly and Gene Myers rescued Cory and kept him safe from those who wanted to use his remarkable knowledge and power for their own ends - and in doing so, they rediscovered themselves and fell in love with a remarkable child. Cory and his new family are having to deal with the consequences of fame - but Molly is more concerned about the future, for Cory's people are on their way.

More than 40 science fiction, fantasy, mystery, and horror stories featuring cats - with stories from King, Emshwiller, Lee, Beagle, Hand, Clarke, Gaiman, Link, Martin, Shepard and many more.

It is decades after four young girls - Helena, Leonie, Niamh and Elle - took the oath to join Her Majesty's Royal Coven, established by Queen Elizabeth I as a covert government department. Helena is now the reigning High Priestess of the organization. Elle is trying to pretend she's a normal housewife, and Niamh has become a country vet, using her powers to heal sick animals. In what Helena perceives as the deepest betrayal, Leonie has defected to start her own more inclusive and intersectional coven, Diaspora. And now Helena has a bigger problem. A young warlock of extraordinary capabilities has been captured by authorities and seems to threaten the very existence of HMRC.

Achilles has fled her home and her vicious Myrmidon clan to live as a woman with the kallai, the transgender priestesses of Great Mother Aphrodite. Then Athena transforms her into the woman's body she always longed for, and she sets off to fight the Hittites. But the immortal Helen, denied Achilles' love, prepares to destroy everything and everyone Achilles cherishes, seeking a battle to the death.

1996 - Luca Saracino is thirteen and has been completely blind for eight months when his parents move to a Southern Italian farmhouse they dream of turning into a hotel. As Luca tells his story without sight - experiencing the world solely through hearing, smell, taste and touch - he meets the dauntless Ada Guadalupi, who takes him out to explore the rocky fields and empty beaches. And Luca is preyed upon by the feral Wanderer, who walks the vineyards of his home.

Sylah's dreams of a revolution that would free the empire from the ruling classes was extinguished the day she watched her family murdered before her eyes. When she meets Anoor, daughter of the most powerful ruler in the empire, a fire burns between them that could consume the kingdom. They are joined by Hassa, and as the empire begins a set of trials of combat and skill designed to find its new leaders, the stage is set for blood to flow, power to shift, and cities to burn.

Mercia, 788 AD. King Offa's youngest daughter Eadburh is destined for an arranged marriage, but she loves a Welsh prince she can never be matched with and who is quickly and cruelly taken from her. Offa's Dyke, 2021. In a cottage hidden amongst the misty Welsh hills of Offa's Dyke, Bea Dalloway is called to help Simon Armstrong, who is searching for peace. Instead he finds himself disturbed by unsettling noises and visions. It isn't long before Bea is also swept up by haunting dreams.

Captain Pausert and the witches of Karres roam the spaceways again, this time dealing with a slaver-culture that somehow makes slaves happy to be in servitude, and a quest for a long-lost alien pet, during which the youngest witch, the Leewit, begins to come to her full powers as a healer - and of course generates chaos in her wake. For Pausert, it's all in a day's work. But would it be too much to ask for a vacation?

General Arika Cobane, beloved leader of the worker rebellion, makes a bold - but illegal - move to ensure the people's freedom. When her scheme fails and her co-conspirator hangs for treason, Arika - overworked and overwrought - blacks out.When she awakens, everything has changed.She's been stripped of her rank and power and the new leader of the Kongo, Kira Swan, is a charismatic traitor bent on consigning the Kongo under the guise of peace.

Anja Freydisdottir has always heard whispers of her mother's adventures in Vinland. All she longs for is to spread her wings and follow them but she's trapped by the expectations of 11th-century society. Liberation comes from an unexpected source when her kin show their true colours and she is helped to flee across the Atlantic on a Viking longboat bound for Vinland shores.

Rachel has reached out to a new ally, the demon Hodin, for help with a vampire hell-bent on proving Rachel murdered Cincy's master vampire in order to take over the city. But Hodin has his own agenda. In the end, the only way for Rachel to save herself and the city may be to forge a new understanding with her estranged demon teacher, Al. There's just one problem: Al would sell his own soul to be rid of her...

Just when Zinnia Gray, professional fairy-tale fixer and lapsed Sleeping Beauty, is beginning to think she can't handle one more princess, she glances into a mirror and sees another face looking back at her: the shockingly gorgeous face of evil, asking for her help. Snow White's Evil Queen has found out how her story ends and she's desperate for a better ending. She wants Zinnia to help her before it's too late for everyone.

In horror movies, the final girl is the one who is left standing when the credits roll. The one who fought back, defeated the killer, and avenged her friends. Lynnette Tarkington is a real-life final girl who survived a massacre twenty-two years ago. For more than a decade she's been meeting with five other actual final girls and their therapist in a support group for those who survived the unthinkable, putting their lives back together, piece by piece. Then one of the women misses a meeting...

Nola is a city full of wonders. A place of sky trolleys and dead cabs, where haints dance the night away and Wise Women keep the order, and where songs walk, talk and keep the spirit of the city alive. To those from Far Away, Nola might seem strange. To failed magician, Perilous Graves, it's simply home. Then the rhythm stutters. Nine songs of power have escaped from the magical piano that maintains the city's beat and without them, Nola will fail.

When Gwendy Peterson was twelve, a mysterious stranger gave her a mysterious box for safekeeping. It offered treats and vintage coins, but pushing any of its seven coloured buttons promised death and destruction. Now, many years later, evil forces seek to possess the button box and it is up to Senator Gwendy Peterson to keep it from them at all costs. But where can you hide something from such powerful entities?

New stories of augmented soldiers and the future of warfare from David Drake, Richard Fox, Weston Ochse, Martin L. Shoemaker, T.C. McCarthy, Brad R. Torgersen, and more!.

Harried by Lyucu pursuers, Princess Thera and Pekyu Takval try to reestablish an ancestral dream even as their hearts grow in doubt. The people of Dara continue to struggle against the genocidal Lyucu as both nations vacillate between starkly contrasting visions for their futures. Even the gods cannot see through the Wall of Storms, for only mortal hearts can decide mortal fates.

When failed magician turned cardsharp Valen Quinol is given the chance to play in the Forbearance Game - the invitation-only tournament where players gamble with secrets - he can't resist. Or refuse, for that matter, according to the petty gangster sponsoring his seat at the table. Valen beats the man he was sent to play, and wins the most valuable secret ever staked in the history of the tournament. Now Valen and his motley crew are being hunted by thieves, gangsters, spies and wizards.

Demir Grappo is an outcast, having fled a life of wealth and power. But when his mother is brutally murdered, Demir must return from exile to claim his seat at the head of the family and uncover the truth that got her killed. The very power that keeps civilization turning, godglass, is running out. Now, Demir must find allies, old friends and rivals alike, confront the powerful guild-families, and uncover the invisible hand that threatens the Empire.

2142: 40 years after Earth's near-collision with the asteroid Sessho-seki, Akira Kimura, the scientist responsible for eliminating the threat, feels her safety is under threat. She reaches out to her former head of security, who has since become a police detective. But when the detective arrives at her deep-sea home and finds her methodically dismembered, this detective will risk everything - his career, his family, even his own life - to delve back into the past to find her killer.

In Victorian London, two children with mysterious powers are hunted by a figure of darkness - a man made of smoke. Sixteen-year-old Charlie Ovid, despite a brutal childhood in Mississippi, doesn't have a scar on him. His body heals itself, whether he wants it to or not. Marlowe, a foundling from a railway freight car, shines with a strange bluish light. He can melt or mend flesh. When a jaded female detective is recruited to escort them to safety, all three begin a journey into the nature of difference, and belonging, and the shadowy edges of the monstrous.

Josephine Morrow is Girl One, the first of nine Miracle Babies conceived without male DNA on an experimental commune known as the Homestead. After a devastating fire at the Homestead, the survivors scattered across the US.Years later, upon learning that her mother has gone missing, Josie sets off on a desperate road trip, tracking down the only people who might help: her estranged sisters.

In the Mongol-ruled China of 1345, when the peasant Zhu family's eighth-born son, Zhu Chongba, is given a fate of greatness, everyone is mystified as to how it will come to pass. The fate of nothingness received by the family's clever and capable second daughter, on the other hand, is only as expected. Then, after a bandit attack orphans the two children, Zhu Chongba succumbs to despair and dies, and the girl assumes his identity and enters a monastery as a young male novice.

When black-ops spy Amina Azad saves a Hacan ambassador from assassination, she draws him into her investigation of a vast conspiracy: unseen forces are destabilizing the whole galaxy, at the worst possible time. Pursued by agents from dozens of other factions, they can only make progress by allying with their apparent enemies. But even they might be compromised - duped into action by a secret puppet-master.

Marlinchen and her two sisters live with their wizard father in Oblya, a city shifting from magic to industry. At the recently established ballet theater Marlinchen meets a dancer who quickly captures her heart. And while Oblya flourishes with culture and bustles with enterprise, a monster lurks in its midst, borne of intolerance and resentment and suffused with old-world power.

All-new short stories set in the aftermath of the zombie apocalypse series BLACK TIDE RISING. Includes stories by Kevin J. Anderson, Brendan DuBois, Jody Lynn Nye, Michael Z. Williamson, Kacey Ezell, Mike Massa, and many more.

In a long-ago war, Athena, the all-powerful A.I. ruler of Tennessee, invaded and decimated the American Southeast, using nanotechnology to transform the environment itself into bio-mechanical weapons of war. Now federal troops have shown up in Marcia's tiny isolated town. And they want Marcia's help in locating one of Athena's weapons, believed buried nearby.

Kadou, the shy prince of Arasht, takes responsibility for the investigation of a break-in at one of their guilds, with the help of his newly appointed bodyguard, the coldly handsome Evemer. In Arasht, where princes can touch-taste precious metals with their fingers and myth runs side by side with history, counterfeiting is heresy, and the conspiracy they discover could cripple the kingdom's financial standing and bring about its ruin.

In the Homestead Territories, an alliance of plantation-inspired holdings, Black labour is imported from the Cradle, and Biracial "Muleseeds" are bred. Raised in captivity on Planting 437, kitchen-seed Jellybean "Ji-ji" Lottermule knows there is only one way to escape. She must enter the annual Freedom Race as a runner.

Elaine of Shalott, alone of the participants in the Arthurian myth, carries the burden of knowing what is to come. On the mystical isle of Avalon, she runs free and learns of the ancient prophecies surrounding her and her friends - countless possibilities, almost all of them tragic. And then, when their future comes to claim them, she must decide how far she will go to change destiny - and what she is willing to sacrifice along the way.

Young prince Gal, born to rule the Umber Empire, is captured by the rebellion and faces execution. To save Gal's life, his beloved Ettian does the unthinkable. He reveals himself as the secret heir to the fallen Archon Empire and rightful leader of the rebellion - and, therefore, Gal's sworn enemy. Now Gal must use his limited resources to sabotage the rebellion from within, concoct an escape plan, and return to the empire he's destined to lead. And if that means taking down the man he thought he loved? All the better.

With Gal as a political prisoner, Ettian began the fight to restore his own empire - and to open Gal's eyes to the possibility of a galaxy reclaimed from Umber's greed. But just when Gal was starting to come around, a team of Umber operatives rescued him from Archon's clutches and dragged him home to take up his crown. Now the star-crossed rulers find themselves truly at odds.

Asher Todd comes to live with the mysterious Morwood family as a governess to their children. Asher knows little about being a governess but she is skilled in botany and herbcraft, and perhaps more than that. Asher is intent on a monstrous revenge. However, she becomes fond of her charges, of the people of the Tarn, and she begins to wonder if she will be able to execute her plan - and who will suffer most if she does. But as the ghosts of her past become harder to control, Asher realizes she has no choice.

The kenta gates no longer work for the Kettral. In order to save the disintegrating Annurian empire, one of the surviving Kettral must voyage beyond the edge of the known world through a land that warps and poisons all living things to find the nesting ground of the giant war hawks. Meanwhile, a monk turned con-artist may hold the secret to the kenta gates. But time is running out. Deep within the southern reaches of the empire an ancient god-like race has begun to stir.

Gideon the Ninth meets Black Sun in this queer, Maori-inspired debut fantasy about a police officer who is murdered, brought back to life with a mysterious new power, and tasked with protecting her city from an insidious evil threatening to destroy it.

Novella. January Fifteenth - the day all Americans receive their annual Universal Basic Income payment. For four women, the fifteenth of January is another day of the status quo, and another chance at making lasting change.

After eighty years of fragile peace, the Architects are back, wreaking havoc as they consume entire planets. And they have discvoered a way to circumvent the Originator artifacts. Idris, an Intermediary, may be one of the few who can find a weapon that could push back the Architects and save the galaxy. But to do so, he must return to the nightmarish unspace, where his mind was broken and remade

An alternate 1974, year of Watergate. Marine biology grad student Jerry Stieglitz becomes involved in a top-secret operation to raise a sunken Russian sub from three miles down in the North Pacific, while pretending to be harvesting undersea manganese nodules. But the dead Russian sub, while real, turns out to be a cover story as well. What's down on the ocean floor next to it is the thing that killed the sub: an alien spacecraft.

Former street rat Buc has claimed a seat on the board of Kanados Trading Company, as a first step toward her goal of destroying the gods who make many people's lives miserable. Standing in Buc's way are Servenza's ruler and her mysterious ally, the murderous Sicarii. As the gods and their worshippers search for a missing artifact that holds the key to unending power and people disappear from the streets of Servenza in ever-increasing numbers, Buc faces her enemies.

Software manager Jane Smith receives an envelope containing a key to a storage unit that holds a taxidermied hummingbird and salamander. Alongside the key is a list of five other animals. The list is signed, "Love, Silvina." Jane does not know a Silvina, and she wants nothing to do with the taxidermied animals. But by removing the hummingbird and the salamander from the storage unit, Jane has set into motion a series of events over which she has no control.

War on the mainland is draining Reykjavik. For some, the remote islands off Hrimland's coast are their only hope of survival.Elka, a recovering addict, has fled there with her son Solvi. Kari is a professor of sorcery, recruited for a career-making venture - an excavation of an ancient power. He must go deep into the magical wasteland, find what is buried there, and turn the tide of the war forever. But the world might not be ready for the storm he will unearth - and how far will a grieving woman go to find some peace, and what will she sacrifice?

The unstoppable team that crews the Near-Earth Orbital Guard vessel Zuma's Ghost is being pulled apart. Their commander and Master Chief are both retiring - so Jenks is getting promoted, a new commander is joining them, and a fresh-faced spacer is arriving. At the same time, a seemingly untouchable coalition is attempting to take over trade with the Trappist colonies and start a war with the NeoG. When the crew of Zuma's Ghost gets involved, they end up as targets of this ruthless enemy.

Freshly home from an internship on Manticore, teenaged Stephanie Harrington must deal with a new treecat adoptee who must be kept from becoming a risk to the carefully guarded secret of just how smart the arboreal inhabitants of Sphinx really are. And there's a mysterious rash of weird accidents that are plaguing Sphinx's younger inhabitants--including some of those nearest and dearest to Stephanie.

Red's beloved sister Neve, the First Daughter is lost in the Shadowlands, an inverted kingdom where the vicious gods of legend have been trapped for centuries and the Old Kings have slowly been gaining control. But the rogue king Solmir wants to bring an end to the Shadowlands and he believes helping Neve may be the key to its destruction.

Among the immortal Sithi of Osten Ard, Ineluki (who will one day become the undead Storm King) makes a bold, terrible oath that he will destroy deadly Hidohebhi, a terrifying monster. But instead he drags his older brother Hakarti with him into a disaster that threatens not just their family but all the Sithi - and perhaps all of humankind as well.

Omnibus of the TARGET: TERROR series -- includes SCOPE OF JUSTICE, TARGETS OF OPPORTUNITY, and CONFIRMED KILL.

Trapped in the middle of military conflict on the colony of New Albion are Cher Hunt and Chad Mclaren. Cher is trying to find out who was responsible for the death of her sister, Shy Hunt. Mclaren, accompanied by the synthetic known as Davis, follows in the footsteps of his late wife, Amanda Ripley, seeking to stop the weaponization of Xenomorphs. When a horde of the deadly aliens overwhelms both groups, however, their only hope may lie with Royal Marine Corps unit known as "God's Hammer."

Dr. Chelli Lona Aphra, rogue archaeologist, is in trouble again. A pioneer in the field of criminal xenoarchaeology, Aphra recognizes no law, has no fear, and possesses no impulse control. To her, the true worth of the galactic relics she discovers isn't found in a museum but in an arsenal. This viewpoint has led to a lot of misunderstandings.

"Shy" Hunt and the tech team from McAllen Integrations thought they'd have an easy job - set up environmental systems for the brand new Hasanova Data Solutions colony, built on the abandoned ruins of a complex known as "Charybdis." There are just two problems: the colony belongs to the Iranian state, so diplomacy is strained at best, and the complex is located above a series of hidden caves that contain deadly secrets.

After an explosion devastates Cato Neimoidia, the Jedi dispatch Obi-Wan Kenobi, one of the Order's most gifted diplomatic minds, to investigate the crime and maintain the balance that has begun to dangerously shift. Despite the mandate that Obi-Wan travel alone - nothing can stop Anakin Skywalker from crashing the party. The two knights must learn a new way to work together - and they must learn quickly, to save Cato Neimoidia and its people from the fires of war.

In honor of the fortieth anniversary, forty storytellers re-create an iconic scene from The Empire Strikes Back through the eyes of a supporting character, from heroes and villains, to droids and creatures.

Ex-Starfleet Cristobal Rios is now an independent freighter captain -- who has fallen into debt to a roving gang of hoodlums from a planet whose society is based on Prohibition-era Earth. Teamed against his will with Ledger, his conniving overseer, Rios begins an odyssey that brings him into conflict with outlaws and fortune seekers, with power brokers and relic hunters across the stars.

Fifteen original, never-before-seen short stories set in the expanded Predator universe from the first film, featuring the ultimate hunters, the Yautja from the movie Predator.