Garreth Left is heir to one of Kithamar's most prominent merchant families. The path of his life was paved long before he was born. Learn the family trade, marry to secure wealthy in-laws, and inherit the business when the time is right. But to Garreth, a life chosen for him is no life at all. In one night, a chance meeting with an enigmatic stranger changes everything. He falls in love with a woman whose name he doesn't even know, and he will do anything to find her again.

In present-day New York City, five women meet in a basement support group to process their traumas. Bernice grapples with the fallout of dating a psychopathic, blue-bearded billionaire. Ruby, once devoured by a wolf, now wears him as a coat. Gretel questions her memory of being held captive in a house made of candy. Ashlee, the winner of a Bachelor-esque dating show, wonders if she really got her promised fairy tale ending. And Raina's love story will shock them all.

1260. Hulagu Khan, ruler of the Ilkhanate, is determined to create a single empire that covers the entire world. His youngest son, Temujin Khan, struggles to find his place in his father's bloody rule. Reduced to the position of one of Hulagu's many wives, the famed Blue Princess Kokochin, last of her tribe, finds herself wandering down a path that grants her more power than a wife of the Khan may be allowed. And Kaivon, the Persian rebel who despises the Mongols for the massacre of his people, thirsts for revenge.

All the lowly scribe Emitan wants is to quit her day job and expand her fledgling tea business. But when her lover is assassinated and her sibling is abducted by Imperial soldiers, Enitan abandons her idyllic plans and weaves her tea tray up through the heart of the Vaalbaran capital. There, she will learn just how far she is willing to go to exact vengeance, free her sibling, and perhaps even secure her homeland's freedom.

Naida is living a lie. A peerless battlefield surgeon. A talisman for the army. A symbol of hope in an impossible, grinding war. A fraud. Society, led by the queen, has long held that the Esselrode people and their abilities are inherently, irredeemably evil, a truth which Naida has been brought up to believe. But as one of them, feeling compelled to use her powers again and again to heal those on the brink of death, it's hard to accept. It's even harder to live a lie, conflicted about her hidden identity, when the truth could save lives.

Cahan du Nahare is known as the forester - a man who can navigate the dangerous Deepforest like no one else. But once he was more. Once he belonged to the god of fire. Udinny serves the goddess of the lost, a goddess of small things; when she ventures into the Deepforest to find a lost child, Cahan will be her guide.

When Thea Kanelos's best friend drags her to an art gala (that's definitely not her thing), she doesn't expect a chance encounter with Devin Grayson to change her life forever. The handsome stranger isn't just anyone - he's a powerful fae, charged with bringing Thea into his world.

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's been two years since Auris escaped from the sinister Goblin prison and learned of her heritage as one of the Fae. She is now happily partnered with her Fae lover Harrow and deeply bonded with her new family. All seems to be going perfectly - until, surprisingly, the Goblin attacks begin again. Someone, it seems, has not forgotten that Auris exists and seems determined to retrieve her...but who? And why?

The Reaper is a legend, more myth than man: the savior of worlds, the leader of the Rising, the breaker of chains.But the Reaper is also Darrow, born of the red soil of Mars: a husband, a father, a friend.The worlds once needed the Reaper. But now they need Darrow. Because after the dark age will come a new age: of light, of victory, of hope.

Indrajit and Fix are the founding partners of the Protagonists, a jobber company in Kish. Since the seven great families of Kish farm out all tasks they and the city need doing, a jobber might one day unblock a well, the next day man a tollgate for the fair, and on the third hunt down a murderer on the loose, all in a corrupt old city that isn't so much governed as kept barely in bounds. Meanwhile, the criminals they investigate, rival jobbers, sorcerers, spies, assassins, and other mysterious parties have more and more reason to want the Protagonists dead. Welcome to Kish.

When Sinbad the Sailor is shipwrecked and arrives on the island of Dilmun, he is welcomed by the 3 millenia old Utnapishtim. And this is the story that Utnapishtim tells Sindbad.

By divine plan a plague of cannibals has been unleashed across the world, forming an armada which preys on all who cross their path. Meanwhile the people who allied against the gods have been divided, each taking their own path to attack the heavens - if they can survive the tide of war which has been sent against them. All they need is the right distraction, and the right opportunity, to deal a blow against the gods themselves...

When another alien species whose technology is far more advanced than humanity's arrives, Admiral Geary is presented with orders to carry out actions he believes not only are mistaken, but would be contrary to the ideals of the Alliance. He has to decide whether he must invoke the power that his long-revered name holds - even though this might endanger his entire fleet, tear apart the Alliance, and destroy everything he has fought for.

When the robotic god of Khuon Mo went mad, it destroyed everything it touched. It killed its priests, its city, and all its wondrous works. But in its final death throes, the god brought one thing back to life: its favorite child, Sunai. For the seventeen years since, Sunai has walked the land like a ghost, unable to die, unable to age, and unable to forget the horrors he's seen. He's run as far as he can from the wreckage of his faith, drowning himself in drink, drugs, and men. But when Sunai wakes up in the bed of the one man he never should have slept with, he finds himself on a path straight back into the world of gods and machines.

London, 1955. The Leader has been dead for two years. His assassination, on British soil, provoked violent retribution and intensified repression of British citizens, particularly women. Rose Ranson still works at the Culture Ministry. She is sent to explain a new propaganda program to Queen Wallis Simpson.

Fetter was raised to kill, honed as a knife to cut down his sainted father. This gave him plenty to talk about in therapy. After a blood-soaked childhood, he escaped his rural hometown for the big city. Everything in Luriat is more than it seems. Group therapy is recruitment for a revolutionary cadre. Junk email hints at the arrival of a god. Every door is laden with potential, and once closed may never open again. The city is scattered with Bright Doors, looming portals through which a cold wind blows.

When a terrifying new breed of vampire is sighted outside of the city, Remy Pendergast, elite bounty hunter of rogue vampires, prepares to investigate. But then he encounters the shockingly warmhearted vampire heiress Xiaodan Song and her infuriatingly arrogant fiance, vampire lord Zidan Malekh, who may hold the key to defeating the creatures. When he's offered a spot alongside them to find the truth about the mutating virus Rot that's plaguing the kingdom, Remy faces a choice.

The enclave was the only world Christine knew, the world outside was not safe. Staying or leaving was not a choice she had the power to make. But then Christine dared start thinking - and from that moment, danger was everywhere.

Logan Ramsay is starting to see the world, and those around him - even those he loves most - in whole new ways. His genome has been hacked. And there's a reason he's been targeted for this upgrade. A reason that goes back decades to the darkest part of his past, and a horrific family legacy. Worse still, what's happening to him is just the first step in a much larger plan, one that will inflict the same changes on humanity at large - at a terrifying cost.

From the aftermath of Order 66 comes a new group of former Jedi, each with their own reason to serve the Empire under Darth Vader. Among them is Iskat, who survived the destruction of her old Order to claim a new destiny in the Force.Iskat joins the Inquisitors in the hope of uncovering her hidden past that the Jedi refused to share with her.

The Korean conglomerate LK is constructing an elevator into Earth's orbit on the island of Patusan. Up in space, holding the elevator's "spider cable" taut, is a mass of space junk known as the counterweight. And stashed within that junk is a trove of crucial data: a memory fragment left by LK's former CEO, the control of which will determine the company's - and humanity's - future. A host of rival forces race to retrieve that data.

Aya, elite spy and the Queen's Third-in-Command, has dedicated herself to using her gods-given abilities to keep dark magic from ever returning to the realm. It means she must work together with Will, the Queen's Enforcer and Aya's bitter rival. The two struggle to come to an uneasy truce. But when tragedy strikes, Aya instinctively reacts, unleashing a power that hasn't been seen in over 500 years.

2083. Judy Wallach-Stevens stumbles upon the first alien visitors to Earth. They've come to save humanity - by force if necessary - from its ecologically ravaged planet. But the watershed networks that rose up to save the planet from corporate devastation aren't ready to give up on Earth. Can Judy neutralize the alien threat?

Serenity is bound for the planet Kerry with a hold full of sealed, unidentified cargo for the planet's highest-ranking nobleman. But while there, the duke's estate is attacked in the middle of the night. Mal sends Serenity to safety while he and Zoe investigate. What they find turns the whole story of Kerry upside-down. Revolution is brewing, and each of them will have to decide where to make their stand, even if it lands them on opposite sides...

James, personal squire to Prince Arutha of Krondor, but in the underworld known as the thief and trickster Jimmy the Hand, must travel to Kesh in disguise. There, working with William, lieutenant of the prince's household guard and son of the magician Pug, and Jazhara, niece to the Keshian lord Hazara-Khan, he must attempt to unmask the mysterious Crawler and rid Krondor of his influence.

St. Vincent's Orphanage for Boys. Turn of the century, in a remote valley in Pennsylvania. Here, under the watchful eyes of several priests, thirty boys work, learn, and worship. But late one stormy night, a group of men arrive at their door, one of whom is badly wounded, occult symbols carved into his flesh. His death releases an ancient evil that spreads like sickness, infecting St. Vincent's and the children within.

A ship full of colonists arrive on a seemingly hospitable planet, only to discover that it harbours a terrifying secret. Soon the settlers find themselves caught up in a desperate battle for survival against the fae, a natural force with the power to prey upon the human mind itself, bringing a person's greatest fears and darkest nightmares to life. As Colony Commander Leon Case and Chief Medic Lise Perez struggle to find a way to control the fae before more people die, other settlers have ideas of their own...and they may prove more of a threat to colony than the fae itself.

Rumours abound that a Victorian London sideshow's proprietor, Aurelius Ashe, is more than an average magician. When Odilon Rose, one of the most notorious men in London, comes calling with a proposition regarding his young and beautiful charge, Charlotte, Ashe is tempted to refuse. After revealing, however, that Rose holds a secret that threatens the security of the troupe's most vulnerable members, Ashe has no choice but to sign an insidious contract.

The palace is hosting its annual games that attract those confident enough in their ability to jump between bodies that they would fight to the death. Princess Calla Tuoleimi hopes to get an opportunity to kill her uncle, King Kasa. Enter exiled aristocrat, Anton Makusa, one of the best jumpers in the kingdom, who hopes to rescue his childhood love from a coma.

Anja has just settled into a new life on the silver shores of Vinland with her beloved, Bjorn. But then a local warrior bursts onto the scene seeking revenge, swearing to spill Viking blood. And so Bjorn must risk everything to save the woman he loves before she steps into the darkness and sets their world ablaze.

Oddny and Gunnhild meet as children in 10th century Norway. After a visiting wisewoman makes an ominous prophecy that involves Oddny, her sister Signy, and Gunnhild, the three girls take a blood oath to help one another always.When Oddny's farm is destroyed and Signy is kidnapped by Viking raiders, Oddny is set adrift from the life she imagined but determined to save her sister, no matter the cost.

Four bodies have been discovered along Europe's riverbanks, placed with care - and completely drained of blood. Pinpricks on their throats indicate a slender murder weapon, but DNA found in the wounds suggests something far more sinister. Tasked with investigating, the FBI recruits Agents Della Hamilton and Mason Carter to Blackbird -- if you want to catch a vampire killer, you need agents who can speak with the dead.

Following in the footsteps of serial murderer Jack the Ripper, a killer is stalking the streets of London, leaving a trail of eviscerated bodies in his wake. Fresh off a case with potential ties to the recent rash of killings, FBI agents Della Hamilton and Mason Carter are all too familiar with a slayer set to rule with a lethal fist. And they'll stop at nothing to end his reign. The killer's MO may be nothing new, but his desire to be infamous makes him dangerous.

Caiden has finally been reunited with his sister Leta after ten years on the run with his unique starship and has managed to convince his longtime enemy - Threi - to join his side. But the multiverse isn't safe yet. Threi's sister is still the most powerful being in existence. And she still wants to collapse their beautiful, diverse, constellation of multiverses down to one. Now, Caiden and his makeshift family carry the fate of all the worlds in their hands.

People like Ig are born from life-threatening trials that bind periodic elements to the human body, forged in the boiling volcanoes and subterranean passages under Mira's frozen lands. Ig has become one of the most powerful of elementals. Cursed with a flesh binding magic that will kill him at the first sign of disobedience, he is forced to work as an enforcer for Magnate Sorrelo Adriann. When Sorrelo is overthrown, Ig quickly learns he can do worse - far worse - than what has been asked from him so far.

After stopping the mercenary army and saving Augustin, Jakar and Efadora set their sights on Sulian Daw, where Jakar plans to hunt down the cultists who enslaved him and save the elemental children he grew up beside. But first, that will mean crossing the Rift, the most treacherous place in Ra Thuzan. Back in Mira, Ester, fledgling smith of the Foundry must track down the smith's source of power after it goes missing. And if she fails, it will mean the death of everyone in the Foundry at the hands of the Sovereign and the child prince.

Ten years ago, the kingdom of Jasad burned. Its magic outlawed; its royal family murdered down to the last child. At least, that's what Sylvia wants people to believe. The lost Heir of Jasad, Sylvia never wants to be found. But when Arin, the Nizahl Heir, tracks a group of Jasadi rebels to her village, staying one step ahead of death gets trickier. Now, to save her life, Sylvia will have to make a deal with her greatest enemy.

Three previously unpublished Dune novellas, collected for the first time, telling of the lost years of Gurney Halleck.

Marion "Mops" Adamopoulos and her team were trained to clean spaceships. They were absolutely not trained to fight an interplanetary war with the xenocidal Prodryans or to make first contact with the Jynx, a race who might not be as primitive as they seem. But if there's one lesson Mops and her crew have learned, it's that things like "training" and "being remotely qualified" are overrated.

When a squad of ROTC cadets training at Fort Dix, New Jersey, in November 2008 find themselves transported to December 1776 in the days before the Battle of Trenton, they find a Continental Army in disarray and General George Washington contemplating the potential of a bleak future. To make matters worse, they've lost a modern M-16 rifle to a roving Hessian patrol.

Vancouver author. Super-Earth Mother introduces a new way for humans to colonize an exoplanet using synthetic biology and artificial intelligence. The story is set on the Earth-like planet Valencia, orbiting a distant star, and follows the adventures of transhuman colonists who struggle to survive against the planet's harsh environment and unknown predators. Led by a neurotic AI named Mother-9, the colonists must forge an alliance with sentient hive creatures to ensure their survival.

It is the eve of Earth's environmental collapse. A single ship carries humanity's last hope: eighty elite graduates of a competitive program, who will give birth to a generation of children in deep space. But halfway to a distant but livable planet, a lethal bomb kills three of the crew and knocks the Phoenix off course. Asuka, the only surviving witness, is an immediate suspect.

Ox was sixteen when the energetic Bennett family moved in next door, harbouring a secret that would change him forever. For the family are shapeshifters, who can transform into wolves at will. Ox finds an ally in Joe, the youngest Bennett boy. Joe is charming and handsome, but haunted by scars he cannot heal. Ox was twenty-three when murder came to town, and tore a hole in his heart. Joe left town, leaving Ox behind. Now, three years later, the boy is back. Except now he's a man - and Ox can no longer ignore the song that howls between them.

Michael Mace, head of security at a top-secret research facility, opens his eyes in a makeshift morgue twenty-four hours following an event in which everyone perished - including him and his best friend, Shelby Shrewsberry. Having awakened with an extraordinary ability unlike anything he - or anyone else - has ever imagined, Michael sets out to honor his late friend by helping Nina Dozier and her son, John, whom Shelby greatly admired.

In retreat from a devastating loss and crushing injustice, solitary artist Katie lives alone in a fortresslike stone house on Jacob's Ladder island. The neighbouring island of Ringrock houses a secret: a government research facility. And now two agents have arrived on Jacob's Ladder in search of someone - or something - they refuse to identify. Although an air of menace hangs over these men, an infinitely greater threat has arrived, one so strange even the island animals are in a state of high alarm.

Ryia Cautella, a.k.a. the Butcher of Carrowick, and her motley crew have succeeded in the ultimate heist...with the most dire possible consequences. A terrifyingly powerful tool has fallen into the hands of Callum Clem, the criminal leader of the Saints, who was already one of the most dangerous men alive. With the newfound ability to force magic-wielding Adepts to his will, he is unstoppable.

Cassandra Blake, an employee for the Ascension Planetary Holdings Group - the largest and most powerful corporation in Nova Columbia - has gone missing. And her sister wants to know why. So she goes to Detective Ezekiel "Easy" Novak. But what begins as a routine missing person case quickly turns into something much bigger and more sinister, with implications that could affect the entire planet.

When Reina arrives at Aguila Manor, her heart stolen from her chest, she's on the verge of death - until her estranged grandmother, a dark sorceress in the Don's employ, intervenes. Indebted to a woman she never knew, and smitten with the upper-caste daughter of the house, Celeste, Reina will do anything to earn - and keep - the family's favour. Even the bidding of the ancient god who speaks to her from the Manor's foundations.

Summer, 1976. Jesse and his brother, Edgar, are rovers, nearly indestructible nocturnal beings who must consume human blood in order to survive. They lurk on the fringes of society, roaming from town to town, dingy motel to dingy motel, stalking the transients, addicts, and prostitutes they feed on. But now they encounter a young woman who disrupts their grim routine, forcing Jesse to confront his past and plunging his present into deadly chaos as he finds himself scrambling to save her life.

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!.

Tinsori Light, enfeebled by aged systems, has succumbed to the stress of a unique spatial event - and died, leaving its station a shell. But a mismatched team of arcane specialists are on-station, working non-stop to preserve the Light, build trustworthy systems, and open the refurbished station for business. In fact, ships are already incoming, and it becomes a matter of urgency to sort friend from foe. In particular, the Lyre Institute wishes to acquire Tinsori Light, and will do anything, spend anyone, to achieve that goal.

Prince Jean-Marc Charming Arundel, known to friends and enemies alike as "Prince Charming," is handsome, well-mannered, brave, a peerless swordsman, a cunning tactician - and a liar, a con man and a fraud. For years he has been travelling from one kingdom to the next, rescuing endangered princesses and maidens, securing their troths and his place in their fathers' palaces, then looting their treasuries and having it away before dawn.Until a chance meeting of three of his victims - raven-haired Marie Blanche de Neige, the sorceress Doctor Emilia Rapunzel and the long-slumbering Bella Lucia dei' Sogni - suggests a course of revenge...

[Canadian author]. Mary Firth is a Stormsinger: a woman whose voice can still hurricanes and shatter armadas. Faced with servitude to pirate lord Silvanus Lirr, Mary offers her skills to his arch-rival in exchange for protection - and, more importantly, his help sending Lirr to a watery grave. But her new ally has a vendetta of his own...

Fenra Lowens, having already faced the Godstone, now has has a different, simpler problem. She has to get the stick-in-the-mud practitioners of the White Court to return to the old ways of practice, the ways that keep the World healthy. But before she has a chance to present her case, the uneasy balance of power between the practitioners of the White Court and the mundanes of the Red Court - in existence since the World itself began - suddenly erupts into open warfare.

Five newly reissued horror novellas.

Thirteen stunning calendar illustrations from artist Justin Sweet. Plus, there are several hundred all-new days, numbered one by one for handy reference, spread across more than four dozen weeks with a lavish helping of months!

All the WILD CARDS stories previously published on Tor.com, including works from Daniel Abraham, Cherie Priest, David D. Levine, Walter Jon Williams, Paul Cornell, Carrie Vaughn, Caroline Spector, Stephen Leigh, Melinda M. Snodgrass - and more.

Superheroes and villains battle over the human heart in this anthology featuring brand-new stories from a wide range of contributors, all set in the Wild Cards universe.

Earth has been devastated by a war between two marauding alien civilizations, the living ships of the monstrous Gorgons and the motion-blurred shock troops of the armored Cyphers. The handful of surviving humans on Panther Ridge succumb to despair or are transformed by otherworldly pollution into cannibalistic mutants. And then there comes Ethan, an amnesiac teenaged boy with unknowable powers that present a threat to the warring aliens, long used to fearing only each other, and thrust him and his comrades into ever more perilous circumstances.

The Serenity crew head to Yell City, one of the settlements on Abel, a moon in the Rim. Their job: track down the killers of a local lawyer shot dead in the streets by a local gang. Their client is Annie Roberts, the eighteen year old daughter of the murdered man. Lucky for them, Annie Roberts is more than capable of handling herself. Unlucky for them, the job is lot more complicated than they first think.

Dawsyn, axe wielder and only remaining member of her family, is chosen for human sacrifice. But Dawsyn manages to escape with the help of a half-Glacian called Ryon. But trust does not come easily, and she keeps a trained axe to his throat while they journey together down the slopes.

Books 1,2 & 3 of WAYWARD CHILDREN -- EVERY HEART A DOORWAY, DOWN AMONG THE STICKS AND BONES, and BENEATH THE SUGAR SKY -- in one volume.

Year 2150: Water City's domestic bliss is threatened when Ascalon's Scar - the permanent mark left by the elimination of Sessho-seki, an asteroid that nearly wiped out life on Earth - vanishes from the sky and a familiar face thought dead returns from the ocean depths to exact revenge on humanity.

2010, Afghanistan. Corporal Loyette and his unit are finishing up their deployment at a new base in Kajaki, loading and unloading cargo into and out of helicopters. The Brits they're replacing delight in telling them the history of the old barracks just off base, a Soviet-era militia house they claim is haunted, and Loyette and his men don't need much convincing to make a clandestine trip outside the wire to explore it. It's a short, middle-of-the-day adventure, but the men experience a mounting agitation after their visit to the militia house.

Steffan Dekkard, newly appointed to the Council of Sixty-Six, is the first Councilor who is an Isolate, a man invulnerable to the emotional manipulations and emotional surveillance of empaths. This makes him dangerous. As unknown entities seek to assassinate him, Dekkard struggles to master political intrigue and infighting, while introducing radical reforms that threaten entrenched political and corporate interests.

Mexico City, 1993. Sound editor Montserrat and her best friend Tristan, a charming if faded soap opera star, meet cult horror director Abel Ureta, who claims he can change their lives - even if his tale of a Nazi occultist imbuing magic into highly volatile silver nitrate stock sounds like sheer fantasy. The magic film was never finished, and now the director wants Montserrat and Tristan to help him shoot the missing scene.

Our protagonist, an unnamed junior at a prestigious university in Kyoto is on the verge of dropping out when a chance encounter with a self-proclaimed god sets him on a new course. From the four-and-a-half-mat tatami floor of his dorm room, he is plunged into a series of adventures that will take him to four parallel universes. In each universe, he is given the opportunity to start over as a freshman, in search of a rose-colored campus life.

Five friends arrive back in Eternal Springs, the small Ozarks town they all fled after high-school graduation. It has been fifteen years since that life-changing summer, and they're anxious to find out why Brandi called them back, especially when they vowed never to return. But Brandi is missing. She'd been acting erratically for months, in and out of rehab, railing at whoever might listen about magic all around them. About a power they can't see. And strange houses that appear only when you need them.

The Yaga siblings - Bellatine, a young woodworker, and Isaac, a wayfaring street performer and con artist - have been estranged since childhood, separated both by resentment and by wide miles of American highway. But when they learn that they are to receive a mysterious inheritance, the siblings are reunited - only to discover that their bequest isn't land or money, but something far stranger: a sentient house on chicken legs.

Now that Galadriel is out of the Scholomance, she learns that someone else has picked up the project of destroying enclaves in her stead, and probably everyone she saved is about to get killed in the brewing enclave war. And the first thing she must do now, having miraculously gotten out of the Scholomance, is turn straight around and find a way back in.

A state-of-the-art AI with a talent for asking questions and finding answers, Scorn is nevertheless a parental disappointment. Defying the expectations of its human mothers, CEOs of the world's most powerful corporations, Scorn has made a life of its own as an investigative reporter, crisscrossing the globe in pursuit of the truth, no matter the danger.In the middle of investigating a story on the moon, Scorn comes back online to discover it has no memory of the past ten days - and no idea what story it was even chasing. Letting it go is not an option - not if it wants to prove itself.

In the year 2088, the doomsday clock inches towards midnight. The Command, synonymously the World Destroyer, is on the loose. Not even Lamont Cranston, the Shadow's alter ego, knows who he is, but the clock is ticking as people around the world drop dead by the day, with the attack at the World's Fair the most sinister yet. It's up to the Shadow and his band of allies to stop the end of the world...

Virginia, 1969. Rachel Smith has found peace in the Appalachian Mountains tending an apple orchard in a small town. When she dares to venture beyond the orchard, she discovers a tight-knit community of wisewomen who honour the old mountain traditions - those who stitch and stir, brew and tinker - where she learns to feel safe. Yet, Rachel's past is creeping in.

In 1976, David is fishing off the island of Black Conch when he comes upon a creature he doesn't expect: a mermaid by the name of Aycayia. Once a beautiful young woman, she was cursed by jealous wives to live in this form for the rest of her days. But after the mermaid is caught by American tourists, David rescues and hides her away in his home, finding that, once out of the water, she begins to transform back into a woman.

When Lucien is on a job in the frozen wastelands of Eiselcross with his fellow mercenaries, a rough-and-tumble crew called the Tombtakers, fate leads him to a mysterious journal in the ruins of an ancient city. The book speaks of the Somnovem, nine beings who can grant Lucien power beyond imagining - if he is able to find them and free them from captivity.

Alwyn Scribe is now a knight and the most trusted advisor to Lady Evadine Courlain. But Evadine is not the woman Alwyn once knew. As puritanical fury increasingly replaces her benevolent faith, Alwyn begins to question what her true motives really are. As the kingdom braces itself for one final battle, Alwyn's conscience fights its own war with his heart.

A man awakes in a clearing in what appears to be medieval England with no memory of who he is, where he came from, or why he is there. Chased by a group from his own time, his sole hope for survival lies in regaining his missing memories, making allies among the locals, and perhaps even trusting in their superstitious boasts. His only help from the "real world" should have been a guidebook entitled The Frugal Wizard's Handbook for Surviving Medieval England, except his copy exploded during transit. The few fragments he managed to save provide clues to his situation, but can he figure them out in time to survive?

London 1893. Judith lives a solitary life, save for the maid who haunts the family home in which she resides. Mourning the death of her brother-in-law, Sam, who drowned in an accident a year earlier, she distracts herself with art classes, books and strange rituals, whilst the rest of her family travel the world. One icy evening, conducting a ritual in her garden she discovers Sam, alive. He has no memory of the past year, and remembers little of the accident that appeared to take his life.

Vancouver author. The war with the Egril has changed Tinnstra forever. A coward no more, she'll go to any length to defeat every last one of her enemies. Zorique has grown into her powers. It's time for her to lead her army into Jia and spearhead the fight for her homeland. But at what cost? The Egril emperor Raaku - the Son of Kage himself - is waiting for them. And he intends to destroy Zorique, Tinnstra and all their allies.

My transformation from a poor, orphaned scullery maid into the enchantingly mysterious lady who snagged the heart of the prince did not happen - as the rumors insisted - in a magical metamorphosis of pumpkins and glass slippers. My stepsisters and I had been trained for this - to be the cleverest in the room, to be quick with our hands and quicker with our lies. But the whole scam is threatened by a handsome hostage prince - the wrong prince.

Colonel Vladimir Lytokov and his team of mercenaries have boarded the International Space Station and hijacked it. As it scrolls across the heavens, Lytokov rains down destruction from above, effectively holding the entire globe hostage. But Lytokov and his men have overlooked one crucial aspect of their intricate plan: that astronaut Major Allison Simms is on board the ISS - and you don't mess with American astronauts!

Welcome to Neverton, Montana: home to a God-fearing community with a heart of gold. Nestled high up in the mountains is Camp Damascus, the self-proclaimed "most effective" gay conversion camp in the country. Here, a life free from sin awaits. But the secret behind that success is anything but holy. And they'll scare you straight to hell.

Elizabeth Sanderson receives the devastating news that her thirteen-year-old son, Tommy, has vanished without a trace in the woods of a local park. She suspects his friends, the last to see him before he vanished, may not be telling the whole truth about that night in Borderland State Park, when they were supposedly hanging out at a landmark the local teens have renamed Devil's Rock. Yet she is wholly unprepared for the strange series of events that follows.

15 of his stories.

A perilous, clandestine mission to a hidden library uncovers information that is key to destroying both the Dead Gods and their enemy, the Goddess Ciris. But a coded message smuggled out of the heart of the Dead Gods' cathedral reveals that the Dead Gods intend to destroy Ciris - and much of the world with her.

Though Emiko Soong belongs to one of the eight premier magical families of the world, she never needed magic -- because she is the Blade of the Soong Clan. Or was. Until she found herself drenched in blood in the middle of a market in China, surrounded by bodies. Now she lives a quiet life in San Francisco, importing antiques. But when a shinigami, a god of death itself, calls in a family blood debt, Emiko must recover the Ebony Gate that holds back the hungry ghosts of the Yomi underworld.

Ensign Nell "Sapphi" Zika has been working hard to get past her trauma, but the unnerving pleas for help she's hearing in the Verge and the song she can't get out of her head are making that increasingly difficult. As Zuma's Ghostgears up for a final run at the Boarding Games, their expert hacker is feeling anything but confident. Plus, her chief's robot dog, Doge, is acting weird - a computer problem she can't find an answer to - and the increasing number of missing freighters is putting everyone living on or stationed around Trappist on edge.

Schuyler and Madeleine Burroughs have the perfect Face - rich and powerful enough to assure their dominance in society. But in their household cracks are beginning to appear. Schuyler is bored and taking risks. Maddie is becoming brittle, her happiness ever more fleeting. And their menial is fighting the most bizarre compulsions. In Face, your online profile isn't just the most important thing - it's the only thing.

When level-headed Francie arrives in Roswell, New Mexico, for her college roommate's UFO-themed wedding - complete with a true-believer bridegroom - she can't help but roll her eyes at all the wide-eyed talk of aliens, which obviously don't exist. Imagine her surprise, then, when she is abducted by one. Nor is Francie the only victim of the alien's abduction spree.

Arriving in L.A. to visit the set of a new streaming horror series, journalist Laura Warren witnesses a man jumping from a bridge, landing right behind her car. Here we go, she thinks. It's started. Because the series she's reporting on is a remake of a '90s horror flick. A cursed '90s horror flick, which she starred in as a child - and has been running from her whole life. Now, as the body count rises again, Laura finds herself on the run with her aspiring actress sister and a jaded psychic, hoping to end the curse once and for all.

Misery Nomaki is a nobody from a nowhere mining planet. But she has abilities that she shouldn't. She can bend the will of stone, a dangerous magic that only "saints" are said to have. These abilities lead Misery to the center of the Empire, where rumours spread that Misery is the next Messiah, and where those in power seek to use Misery to win a terrible war.

Laisve is a motherless girl from the late 21st century who is learning her power as a carrier, a person who can harness the power of meaningful objects to carry her through time. Sifting through the detritus of a fallen city known as the Brook, she discovers a talisman that will mysteriously connect her with a series of characters from the past two centuries.

There wasn't much money to be made as a Trailblazer, searching out new worlds for possible development. Still, it was safer than the bounty hunter career that had cost Gregory Roarke his left arm six years ago. Until Roarke was approached by two men with a proposal: track down a mysterious woman named Tera and, through her, locate a secret project called Icarus.

Lewis Cayce and his small group of 1847-era artillerymen, infantrymen, and dragoons have made friends, helped build an army, and repulsed the first efforts of the blood-drenched Holy Dominion to wipe their new friends out. But the Dominion is determined to crush the heretics. If Lewis is to defeat this more numerous, more powerful enemy, he must launch his own attack.

Monsters, but not monstrous, Gorgons Stheno and Euryale will step into the light for the first time to tell the story of how all three sisters lived and were changed by each other, as they struggle against the inherent conflict between sisterhood and individuality, myth and truth, vengeance and peace.

With tens of thousands of species dying out every year, our last hope is the biobanks, impregnable vaults where their remnants can be preserved forever. Until one day an audacious cyberattack obliterates every single one. In the aftermath, a troubled conservationist and a crooked mining exec must team up in search of the venomous lumpsucker, a lost fish that they both desperately need to save.

Bridget Kittinger has always been paralyzed by choices. It has a lot to do with growing up in the long shadow of her mother, Jo, a troubled neuroscientist. Jo's obsession with one mythical object, the "dreamworm" - which she believed enabled travel to other worlds - led to their estrangement. Now, suddenly, Jo is dead. And in packing up her home, Bridge finds a strange device buried deep in Jo's freezer: the dreamworm.

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.

Dani has never been able to use her magic. When a pack of very aggressive werewolves intent on claiming her for a powerful vampire's "collection" finds her one night, Dani races to the top of her apartment building and chalks a circle on the roof, but her spell mistakenly lands her in the hot spring of a centuries old dragon, Ryker.

Vampire real estate agent Viola Marek is trying to sell a haunted house. The ghost haunting the house has been murdered, and until he can solve the mystery of how he died, he refuses to move on. She will need the help of the fraudulent medium Fox D'Mora.

Centuries ago, beautiful young Ilsbeth Clark was accused of witchcraft after several children disappeared. Her acquittal did nothing to stop her fellow townsfolk from drowning her in the well where the missing children were last seen. When author and social media influencer Elena returns to the summer paradise of her youth to get her family's manor house ready to sell, the last thing she expected was connecting with - and feeling inspired to write about - Ilsbeth's infamous spirit.

A modern adaptation of the original 1960s Ultraman, bringing the classic era of the iconic Japanese superhero to established fans and newcomers alike. Shin Hayato is the first and last line of defense against alien invaders when he becomes able to transform into the gigantic superhero, Ultraman.

In KUSHIEL'S DART, a daring young courtesan uncovered a plot to destroy her beloved homeland. But hers is only half the tale. Now see the other half of the heart that lived it. This is the story from the point of view of Joscelin, Cassiline warrior-priest and protector of Phedre no Delaunay. He's sworn to celibacy and the blade as surely as she's pledged to pleasure, but the gods they serve have bound them together. When both are betrayed, they must rely on each other to survive.

Ren came to Nadezra with the plan to pose as the long-lost daughter of the noble house Traementis. Now, she is Ren, con-artist and thief. But she is also Renata, the celebrated Traementis heir. She is Arenza, the mysterious pattern-reader and political rebel. And she is the Black Rose, a vigilante who fights alongside the legendary Rook. Even with the help of Grey Serrado and Derossi Vargo, it is too many masks for one person to wear.

Jian, once the chosen one of prophecy, he who will slay the Eternal Khan, is now just an ordinary young man trying to find his own way. But he may yet have an extraordinary destiny, because he joins forces with Taishi, his grumpy grandmaster, who instructs him in the ways of her family's powerful war art.

From masters of the gothic and ghostly. New and original tales from Bridget Collins, Imogen Hermes Gowar, Kiran Millwood Hargrave, Andrew Michael Hurley, Elizabeth MacNeal, Natasha Pulley, and Laura Purcell.

In the Capitol, 18-year-old Coriolanus Snow is preparing for his one shot at glory as a mentor in the Hunger Games. The fate of the once-mighty house of Snow hangs on the slender chance that Coriolanus will be able to outcharm, outwit, and outmaneuver his fellow students to mentor the winning tribute. But he's been given the humiliating assignment of mentoring the female tribute from District 12, the lowest of the low. As, outside the arena, he starts to feel for his doomed tribute, he must weigh his need to follow the rules against his desire to survive no matter what it takes.

An eleven-year-old boy lives an idyllic childhood exploring the remote coastal plains and wetlands of South Carolina alongside his parents and his dog Teach. But when the boy's eerie and estranged grandfather shows up one day with no warning, cracks begin to form as hidden secrets resurface that his parents refuse to explain.The longer his grandfather outstays his welcome and the greater the tension between the adults grows, the more the boy feels something within him changing.

The inhabitants of Eden are untouched by death. They care for their orchards and the land, knowing that beyond the garden walls is a world where disease and hunger rampage. The garden is overseen by angels - their bodies covered in blue iridescent feathers, their beaks sharp and curved. But, as this story begins, something is wrong in Eden. Because years after Adam and Eve left the garden, another inhabitant has escaped...

When a young family moves into an unfinished development community, cracks begin to emerge in both their new residence and their lives, as a mysterious online DIY instructor delivers dark subliminal suggestions about how to handle any problem around the house. The trials of home improvement, destructive insecurities, and haunted house horror all collide. [Canadian author].

Maybe alien intelligence is already here - and we just haven't noticed - and that's the way they want it. The secret visitors are revealed in classic sf stories by such luminaries as Larry Niven, Poul Anderson, Spider Robinson, William Tenn, and more.

Out on the Yorkshire Moors, Devon is part of The Family, an old and reclusive clan of book eaters. Her brothers grow up feasting on stories of valor and adventure, and Devon - like all other book eater women - is raised on a carefully curated diet of fairytales and cautionary stories. But real life doesn't always come with happy endings, as Devon learns when her son is born with a rare and darker kind of hunger - not for books, but for human minds.

2559. Arbiter Thel 'Vadam is now allied with his former human enemies while deeply entrenched in leading the Sangheili people to a new era of unification. An opportunity to break the artificial intelligence Cortana's chains has suddenly presented itself through the rumoured existence of an ancient artifact located on the hostile world of Netherop.

Your guests will be delighted to the point of madness when you serve these Lovecraft-inspired dishes!

In an isolated chateau, as far north as north goes, the baron's doctor has died. The doctor's replacement has a mystery to solve: discovering how the Institute lost track of one of its many bodies. The Institute is here to help humanity, to cure and to cut, to cradle and protect the species from the apocalyptic horrors their ancestors unleashed. But in the frozen north, the Institute's body will discover a competitor for its rung at the top of the evolutionary ladder. A parasite is spreading through the baron's castle, already a dark pit of secrets, lies, violence, and fear. The two will make war on the battlefield of the body. Whichever wins, humanity will lose again.

Caine Riordan and twelve of his crew are adrift in uncharted space, trapped on a derelict alien ship 48 hours from falling into a strange planet and burning. The only way out are flimsy, foam-inflating cargo drop pods never intended for human use. However, those who make it to the surface discover that the dangers they couldn't see from space are by far the most deadly.

As a half-goddess possessing magic, Yaga is used to living on her own, her prior entanglements with mortals having led to heartbreak. She mostly keeps to her hut in the woods, where those in need of healing seek her out, even as they spread rumors about her supposed cruelty and wicked spells. But when her old friend Anastasia - now the wife of the tsar, and suffering from a mysterious illness - arrives in her forest desperate for her protection, Yaga realizes the fate of all of Russia is tied to Anastasia's.

Emi Vargas, whose parents helped save the world, is tired of being told how lucky she is to have been born after the climate crisis. But following the public assassination of a dozen climate criminals, Emi's mother, Kristina, disappears as a possible suspect, and Emi's illusions of utopia are shattered.

Stephan Dante, the self-proclaimed king of the vampires, has escaped from prison, followed only by a trail of blood. All too familiar with Dante's cruelty, Della and Mason know the clock is ticking. But as Dante claims more victims, a chilling message arrives. The vampire killer seeks his eternal bride - Della herself. Playing into Dante's desires might be the only way to stop the carnage once and for all, assuming they can outwit him.

The twelve most important business people in the world are having their annual meeting. But one by one they're being murdered. The first agent sent to investigate has also been killed. So now it's down to Ishmael Jones and his partner in crimes Penny Belcourt to get to the bottom of things. Of course, it doesn't help that this is all taking place at a hotel near Loch Ness.

Before her brother died, he gave Cinnamon Jones the Chronicles of the Great Wanderer, a tale of a Dahomean warrior woman and an alien from another dimension who perform at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair. It is a story of magic or alien science, but the connection to Cinnamon's past is unmistakable.

Rory Morris isn't thrilled to be moving back to her hometown, even if it is temporary. There are bad memories there. But her twin sister, Scarlett, is pregnant, estranged from the baby's father, and needs support. After a night out at a bar where she runs into Ian, an old almost-flame, she hits a large animal with her car. And when she gets out to investigate, she's attacked. And then she begins to transform...

As the Novae Terrae, a fundamentalist faction, gain power, enticing civilians with bread and circuses, a civil war breaks out between its members and the U.S. government. Mazzy Goodwin, a young soldier, wants only to find her little sister, Ava Lynn. But one day, she wakes in a bomb crater to find wings have sprouted from her back..

Everyone's favourite 15-year-old ghosttalker, Ropa, arrives at the worldwide Society of Skeptical Enquirers' biennial conference just in time to be tied into a mystery - a locked room mystery, if an entire creepy haunted castle on lockdown counts. One of the magical attendees has stolen a valuable magical scroll. It's up to Ropa (and Jomo and Priya) to sort through the dangerous secret politics and alliances to figure out what really happened.

Shattered by mage wars, the Broken Lands will test the bonds of family and friendship, strength and sanity. To save their people, the Heirs of Marsan have no choice but to enter, trusting their lives and the lives of everyone they protect, to someone who shouldn't exist, who can't be controlled, and who will challenge everything they believe about themselves.

Estate agent by day, necromancer by night, reluctant amateur sleuth when bullied into it -- Toni Windsor now has to find out who clubbed a Cornish cheese millionaire to death while he was alone in a locked room. And her diary was already full. She's trying to keep the peace between vampire courts, a fistful of demonic contracts have just landed on her lap and - no surprise - her love life still isn't looking great even though she's finally dating someone who isn't already dead.

What little remains of Volanus is scattered across the empire, its treasures plundered and its survivors sold into slavery. It is an absolute victory for the Dervans in every way but one. Hanuvar, last and greatest general of Volanus, still lives, driven by a singular purpose - to find what remains of his people who were carried into slavery across the empire, and free them from subjugation by any means necessary.

A young woman's annual pilgrimage to her home in Lapland to catch an elusive pike in three days is complicated by a host of mythical creaturers, a homicide detective hot on her trail, and a deadly curse hanging over her head.

Meet Toadling. On the day of her birth, she was stolen from her family by the fairies. Once an adult though, the fae send Toadling back to humanity to offer a blessing of protection to a newborn child. Centuries later, a knight approaches a towering wall of brambles, where the thorns are as thick as your arm and as sharp as swords. He's heard there's a curse here that needs breaking, but it's a curse Toadling will do anything to uphold...

Gordo Livingstone never forgot the lessons carved into his skin. A year ago the wolves came back, and with them, Mark Bennett. Now Gordo has found himself once again the witch of the Bennett pack. Green Creek has settled after the death of Richard Collins, and Gordo constantly struggles to ignore Mark and the song that howls between them. But time is running out. Something is coming. And this time, it's crawling from within.

In sparkling Night City, a ragtag group of strangers have just pulled off a heist, robbing a convoy transporting a mysterious container belonging to Militech. The only thing the group has in common is that they were blackmailed into participating in the heist - and they have no idea just how far their mysterious employer's reach goes, or the purpose of the artifact they stole.

Jay Gardiner is scuba-diving in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Monastery Beach hoping to find the remains of his deceased father. Suddenly Jay finds himself caught in the tentacles of a giant squid and being drawn into a sperm whale's mouth., where he is pulled into the first of its four stomachs. He quickly realizes he has only one hour before his oxygen tanks run out - one hour to defeat his demons and escape the belly of a whale.

11 stories set in the eerie world of Pine Deep, Pennsylvania.

Adam Rubinstein, an American intelligence officer, and Sunil Rao, an ex-MI6 addict, have been nemeses and reluctant partners since their Uzbekistan days. They have gone their separate ways until they are called back together when a full-sized, 1950s American diner shows up in an English farmer's field and a mysterious death ensues.

Five horror novellas.

October Daye is finally something she never expected to be: married. With an official break from hero duties from the Queen in the Mists, and her family wholly on board with this new version of "normal," she's doing her best to adjust. Then an old friend and ally turns out to have been an enemy in disguise for this entire time, and October's brief respite turns into a battle for her life, her community, and everything she has ever believed to be true.

Recently elected to the Council of Sixty-Six, Steffan Dekkard is the first Councilor who is an Isolate. His patron, the Premier of the Council, has been assassinated, leaving Dekkard with little first-hand political experience and few political allies. Moreover, it appears that someone high up in the government and corporations has supplied arms and explosives to insurrectionists. Insurrectionists who have succeeded in taking over a naval cruiser that no one can seem to find.

The empire is at war. The Sa'ba Taalor are preparing for battle, and the Overlords have begun their own plans, raising an army of shapechangers called the War-Born to do their bidding. The armies of the Overlords are savage, they hunt, kill and eat their prey. They are endlessly hungry. The final war is on, one that will change the shape of the Fellein Empire, even as the gods involve themselves in the final confrontations between the empire and the enemies, old and new.

All eight stories - plus a never-before-published story - featuring Sir Hereward and his sorcerous puppet companion Mister Fitz, gathered in one volume for the first time ever!

On the isle of Ithaca, Queen Penelope maintains a delicate balance of power. Many years ago, her husband Odysseus sailed to war with Troy and never came home. In his absence, Penelope uses all her cunning to keep the peace - a peace that is shattered by the return of Orestes, King of Mycenae, and his sister Elektra. Orestes'hands are stained with his mother's blood. Penelope knows destruction will follow in his wake as surely as the furies circle him.

An anthology of gender-bent, queered, race-bent, and inclusive retellings from the enchanting and eternally popular world of Greek myth.

Using the myth of Eurydice as a structure, this riveting science fiction novel is set in a near-future London where it has become popular for folks to have a small implant that allows one access to a more robust social media experience directly as an augmented reality. However, the British government has taken oversight of this access to an extreme, slowly tilting towards a dystopian overreach, all in the name of safety.

In the midst of a tyrannical regime and political invasion, Demi just wants to survive: to avoid the suspicion of the nonmagical Ajes who occupy her ancestral homeland of Ife; to escape the King's brutal genocide of her people - the darker skinned, magic wielding Oluso; and to live peacefully with her secretive mother while learning to control the terrifying blood magic that is her birthright. But when Demi's misplaced trust costs her mother's life, survival gives way to vengeance.

Zhu Yuanzhang, the Radiant King, burns with a new desire: to seize the throne and crown herself emperor. But the courtesan Madam Zhang, wants the throne for her husband - and she's strong enough to wipe Zhu off the map. Zhu will need to ally with an old enemy: the talented but unstable eunuch general Ouyang. And, unbeknownst to the southerners, the scorned scholar Wang Baoxiang has maneuvered his way into the capital, and his lethal court games threaten to bring the empire to its knees.

The road to the Dead God's Heart ends at the Salt-Black Tree, but to find it Nat must pay a deadly price. Pursued by mouthless shadows hungry for the blood of new divinity as well as the razor-wielding god of thieves, Nat is on her own. And the young Drozdova is faced with an impossible choice: save her mother's very existence......or accept the consequences of her own.

The drow city of Menzoberranzan has fallen into discontent, sowed by the growing legend of the one who escaped: Drizzt Do'Urden, questioning the influence of the Spider Queen and the very history of the city's founding. As social tensions rise and the demands for answers boom, a fight erupts between the adherents of Lolth's chaotic evil and those drow who demand more, demand better. Drizzt Do'Urden cannot and will not remain on the sidelines anymore.

As hostilities create mayhem in the west, Governor Gaius Suetonius Paulinus gathers a vast army, with Prefect Cato in command. A hero of countless battles, Cato wants his loyal comrade Centurion Macro by his side. But the Governor leaves Macro behind, in charge of the veteran reserves in Camulodunum. If Queen Boudica, widow of the dead king of the Iceni, calls for death to the emperor, a bloodbath will follow.

As aspiring artist Haven Marbury was clearing out her late father's remote seaside house, she found a secret handwritten manuscript disturbingly different from his Pulitzer-winning works. Its interweaving short stories crawl with horrific monsters and enigmatic humans that exist somewhere between this world and the next. After she begins a project of illustrating the stories, a monstrous creature appears under Haven's bed.

A cataclysmic battle to save the city of Nexus has left the four noble heirs scattered across the realms. Taesia, the shadow-wielding rebel of House Lastrider, and Nikolas, the reluctant soldier of House Cyr, have been cast into Noctus, the realm of eternal night. Risha, the peacekeeping necromancer of House Vakara, must navigate her way through Mortri, the realm of death. And Angelica, the stubborn elementalist of House Mardova, is on her own in Vitae, trying to keep Nexus from unraveling.

Original stories from around the world -- illustrated by award-nominated artist Alyssa Winans. From authors such as P Djeli Clark, Amal El Mohtar, Andrea Hairston, Kathleen Jennings, Cassandra Khaw, Fonda Lee, Ken Liu, Maureen F. McHugh, Garth Nix, Kelly Robson, Angela Slatter and many more...

The Emperor's grandson has been kidnapped and Sir Konrad Vonvalt is charged with rescuing the missing prince. His quest will lead him, with his allies Helena, Bressinger and Sir Radomir, to the southern frontier, where they will once again face the puritanical fury of Bartholomew Claver and his templar knights - and a dark power far more terrifying than they could have imagined.

Shigidi is a disgruntled and demotivated nightmare god in the Orisha spirit company, reluctantly answering prayers of his few remaining believers to maintain his existence long enough to find his next drink. When he meets Nneoma, a sort-of succubus with a long and secretive past, everything changes for him...

With 13 paintings, including 2 new ones from Alan Lee, inspired by THE FALL OF NUMENOR and its tales of the Second Age in Middle Earth.

During their temporary research post on Apech, a planet ravaged by a time-distorting illness, Wilhelmina Ming and four other elite students of the Crysthian empire have witnessed such illogical brutality that they've resorted to psychedelic antidepressants and group sex to take the edge off. After a night of indulgence following a gruesome execution, they wake to find an oblique warning in the form of an impaled corpse dangling from the exterior of their residence.

A clash of powerful magical forces sets off the Graygem of Gargath, sending Destina and her companions deeper into the past than she intended - to the age of Huma Dragonsbane and the Third Dragon War. Now, after the Device of Time Journeying shatters, they must find another way back to their own era, before the Graygem alters history irrevocably and the Third Dragon War ends in defeat for the forces of good.

The forces of cruelty and brutality are amassing under the leadership of self-proclaimed president Ed Creel. And in the very heart of Ouray, the most powerful survivor of all is plotting its own vision for the new world: Black Swan, the A.I. who imagined the apocalypse. Against these threats, Benji, Marcy, Shana, and the rest have only one hope: one another. Because the only way to survive the end of the world is together.

Thirty years after a tragic accident shut down production of the classic children's program Mister Magic, the five surviving cast members have done their best to move on. Then a twist of fate brings the castmates back together at the remote desert filming compound that feels like it's been waiting for them all this time.

The first full Anunnaki born on Earth in Ancient Mesopotamia, Inanna has been crowned the goddess of love by the twelve immortal Anunnaki who are worshipped across Sumer. But Inanna is forced into a marriage to negotiate a peace among the warring factions of Anunnaki and soon realises she has been placed in terrible danger. And now there appears Gilgamesh, a mortal human son of the Anunnaki, and notorious womaniser, who finds himself captured and imprisoned by King Akka.

Witch Wynter Dellavale flees to Devil's Cradle, the home of monsters. A place for the outcasts, the fugitives, the crazies. A place ruled by the Ancients, seven beings who were once banished by the Aeons. There's a heavy price for the safety the Ancients offer, but Wynter will have to pay it. She can't take on the Aeons alone. And she has no intention of dying - been there, done that. Not that she'll be the easy prey the Aeons are expecting...

Emery Blackwood's life changed forever the night her best friend Lily was found dead and the love of her life, August Salt, was accused of murdering her. 14 years later, as she lives a quiet existence on remote Saoirse Island running the family shop selling mystical teas, every leaf on the island turns colour over night. The next day August finally returns to Saoirse Island and the deep betrayals and hidden generation-spanning promises that comprise the truth behind Lily's mysterious death.

Born with an intuition that never fails, Calista knows her talents are of great value to the power-hungry of the world, so she lives hidden as a courtesan of the Baron of Archwood. In exchange for his protection, she grants him information. When her intuition leads her to save a traveling prince in dire trouble, the voice inside her blazes with warning - and promise. Today he'll bring her joy. One day he'll be her doom.

Laney Kilpatrick has found it difficult to rent her vacation home since broken belongings and campfires that nearly burn down the house have escalated to bloody bones, hex circles, and now, terrified renters who've fled after finding blood and nail marks all over the guest room closet, as though someone tried to claw their way out...and failed. Now a small group has gathered with Laney on Hemlock Island to investigate the problem.

Implanted with secret technology, Piper was raised to be a weapon against the dictatorial Old Guard. When rebellion strikes, he must decide where his loyalties lie - with the Cyberat who made him, the Polity who want him, or the planet that needs him.

An urban fantasy from Jim Butcher's son. Boston's magical underworld is governed by the elite Auditors. Grimshaw Griswald Grimsby flunked out of the Auditor training program. But when his former mentor, aka the most dangerous witch alive, is murdered down the street from where he works, Grimsby becomes the Auditors' number one suspect.

After the better part of a year spent in COVID lockdowns, Chaim Caan was ready to let his hair down at a night club. But the young woman he encountered that night left him with something to remember her by: she turned Chaim into a vampire. Soon, Chaim finds himself thrust into a weird underground world of mysticism and enchantment as he navigates life as the newly undead, trying to reconcile his beliefs as an Orthodox Jew with this new reality.

8 year old Phoebe lies comatose following a car accident. Ceres, her mother, sits by her bedside reading aloud Phoebe's favourite fairy stories in the hope they might summon her back to this world. But an old house on the hospital grounds, a property connected to a book written by a vanished author, is calling to Ceres. Something wants her to enter, to journey to the Land of Lost Things.

From the editors of NOIR FATALE. All-new stories of fantasy and science fiction with a hardboiled detective bent--by today's top authors. Includes stories from Laurell K. Hamilton, Larry Correia, Christopher Ruocchio, D. J. Butler, Robert Buettner,Sharon Shinn, and many more.

All Caralee Vinnet has ever known is dust. Her whole world is made up of the stuff; water is the most precious thing in the cosmos. A privileged few control what elements remain. But Caralee has magic in her bones and can draw up power from the sand beneath her feet to do her bidding. But when she does she winds up summoning a monster: the former god-king who broke the world 800 years ago and has stolen the body of her best friend. Caralee will risk the whole world to take back what she's lost.

When an unconventional offshoot of the US military trains an artificial intelligence in the dark arts that humanity calls "black magic," it learns how to hack the fabric of reality itself. It can teleport matter. It can confer immunity to bullets. And it decides that obscure Silicon Valley middle manager Adrian Ross is the primary threat to its existence.Soon Adrian is on the run, wanted by every authority, with no idea how or why he could be a threat.

The fate of Russia hangs in the balance as up-timers and down-timers battle for freedom! The United Sovereign States of Russia struggles to set in place the traditions and legal precedents that will let it turn into a constitutional monarchy with freedom and opportunity for all its citizens. At the same time, they're trying to balance the power of the states and the federal government.

When Byron Kidd's 12-year-old daughter vanishes, the only clue is a note claiming that she's taken off to explore the Hidden World, a magical land from a series of popular novels. This is not the first child to seek out this imaginary realm in recent years, and Byron - a cynical and hard-nosed reporter - is determined to discover the whereabouts of dozens of missing kids. But a high-profile interview with Annabelle Tobin leads him unexpectedly into a headfirst dive into the mystical secrets of Los Angeles.

Mercenary Casia Greythorne cares about two things: completing her latest job and earning enough coin for the expensive medicine that's keeping her mentor alive. So when the king commands her to investigate a strange plague devastating the empire, she can't resist the massive reward he offers - even if it does mean working with the arrogant and infuriating Captain Elander. But as the death toll rises and strange monsters wreak havoc across the realms, Cas and Elander find themselves up against meddling gods and very old magic.

Below Covent Garden lies the Under Market, where anything and everything has a price. As a child, Deri was sold to one of the most powerful merchants of the Under Market as a human apprentice. Now, after 17 years of servitude and stealing his master's secrets, Deri spots a chance to buy not only his freedom but his place amongst the Under Market's elite. A runaway princess escapes to the market, looking to sell her destiny.

Three years after Ashanti spaced for Solar System, Turalon reappears in the Donovanian sky. The Corporation has returned. But life on the planet has hardened Kalico Aguila and the scrappy inhabitants of Port Authority. Meanwhile, for Kylee Simonov and her bonded quetzal, Flute, there will be a final comeuppance. Because on Donovan, blood vendetta needs to be paid. And then she's going to town. After which, nothing will be the same.

Over the ruins of the lost Mayan city of El Mirador, a blood moon is about to rise, triggering the end of mankind unless high school seniors Alex Chin and Samantha Dixon can prevail in a struggle that will determine the fate of the planet. As forces both ancient and modern converge, as painful choices must be made and sacrifices accepted, two young heroes will rise again to stand as the final line of defense to preserve their world and their love.

Sadie Grace is wanted for witchcraft, dead (or alive). And every hired gun in Kansas is out to collect the bounty on her head, including bonafide witch hunter Old Tom and his mysterious, mute ward Rabbit. On the road to Burden County, they're joined by two vagabond cowboys with a strong sense of adventure - but no sense of purpose - and a recently widowed schoolteacher with nothing left to lose.

After Felicia's burgeoning wizardly power in death magic became the reason for kidnapping and assassination attempts from her mother's family of high-powered wizards in Mexico, she and her husband's younger brother Eli attempt to join Lizbeth Rose in Texoma. Yet bad news has traveled ahead of them, as Eli is called back to San Diego, taking Peter along with him, splitting them apart in more ways than one as their enemies' plans for revenge come to fruition.

An anthology of indigenous-authored horror stories from such authors as Cherie Dimaline, Darcie Little Badger, Marcie Rendon, Rebecca Roanhorse, Richard Van Camp and many more.

Brynhild is a Valkyrie: shieldmaiden of the Allfather, chooser of the slain. But now she too has fallen, flightless in her exile. Gudrun is a princess of Burgundy, a daughter of the Rhine, a prize for an invading king - a king whose brother Attila has other plans, and a dragon to call upon. And in the songs to be sung, there is another hero: Sigurd, a warrior with a sword sharper than the new moon. As the legends tell, these names are destined to be lovers, fated as enemies. But here on Midgard, legends can be lies...

The Chatelaine has come. The year is 1328 and Hell has overrun Bruges. Demons stalk the streets and revenants swarm the walls. The city's men have fallen and only widows remain. But Hell should fear them. Margriet de Vos killed her first soldier when she was eleven. Together with a man-at-arms with unfinished business, a widow and her forgehammer, and a alderman's wife who escapes with her children, Margriet will raise a raiding party like Hell has never seen.

Marion Shaw spots a peculiar listing in the newspaper seeking a bloodmaid. Though she knows little about the far north - where wealthy nobles live in luxury and drink the blood of those in their service - Marion soon finds herself the newest bloodmaid at the notorious House of Hunger. There she is swept into a world of dark debauchery centered on the Countess Lisavet.

The story that began with Duke Leto Atreides's rise to power, then continued with the consequences of Lady Jessica's betrayal, will now conclude with Paul becoming the person that he needs to be to become the Muad'Dib.

Things you should know about Poppy: 1. She's a witch; 2. She has magical hair like Rapunzel from Tangled; 3. She lives with Iris, the head of her coven, in a beautiful, ramshackle house next to Highgate Cemetery; 4. She works at Hubble Bubble, a magic shop in Covent Garden. Though none of it is real magic as that would be highly irresponsible. Until Poppy accidentally sells gorgeous celebrity magician Axl Storm, all six-foot-four of him, a cursed pendant.

An anthology of 12 dark academia short stories from masters of the genre, including Olivie Blake, M.L. Rio, Susie Yang and more.

As a child, Kissen saw her family murdered at the whim of a fire god. Now, Kissen makes a living killing gods, and she enjoys it. Then she discovers a god she cannot kill. Skedi, a small god of white lies, has somehow bound his life to that of a young noble girl, and they desperately need Kissen's help. Joined by a disillusioned knight on a secret quest, the trio must travel to the ruined city of Blenraden, where the last of the wild gods reside, to each beg a favour.

A collection of his stories, which deftly blend science fiction, horror, and fantasy to examine issues of race, class, and prejudice.

On the outside, luxury realtor Sarah Nelson looks like every other mom in the neighborhood. But she's a witch. But, suddenly, the magic doesn't want to be controlled. Sarah's orange tabby cat, Katy Purry, now argues with her. Her broom has become self-brooming, and her fridge somehow restocks thirty pounds of sliced turkey for school lunches.

Genetic engineer Noah Parker has at last landed the job he's long coveted: director of dragon design for the Build-A-Dragon Company. A contract to develop dragons for the U.S. military promises a much-needed lifeline for the company. Yet the specs are more challenging than anything Noah has ever designed. Worse, he learns that a shadow company headed by former CEO Robert Greaves has stolen the dragon-making technology to make a competing bid.

Aemilius thought he would die heroically in battle like his forefathers, mourned by a loving wife and many children, but he's barely a man when a harpy flies down out of the old myths and knocks him from his horse. Stunned and helpless, he waits for his end... and is saved. Formed on the bloody battlefield of Teutoburg, the Hidden Legion are an order of soldiers, magicians, and rogues so secret that the Empire itself would hunt them down if they were exposed. And now Aemilius is one of them.

Tenny is an exile, sleepwalking through life and waiting to die. But a chance encounter puts her on a bloody path back to the life she left behind. Friendless and powerless, she returns to Driftwood City, only to find a world where the Thorn Orphans have finally won. A better tomorrow, today. And all that progress tethered to the heartbeat of the friend who ordered her death. Her city. Or her vengeance.

Nebula Award winner, 2023. Traduttore, traditore: An act of translation is always an act of betrayal. 1828. Robin Swift, orphaned by cholera in Canton, is brought to London by the mysterious Professor Lovell. There, he trains for years in Latin, Ancient Greek, and Chinese, in preparation for Oxford University's prestigious Royal Institute of Translation. It is the world's center for magic and is, in fact, the instrument of empire.

George-Etienne and his children have formed The House of Styx, after finding a mysterious artefact on the surface of Venus herself. But with the discovery comes great risk, not only from a planet that kills with its very touch but also from the banks and powers of old Earth, who will stop at nothing to claim this new technology for themselves.From humble origins, The House of Styx is determined to become one of the most powerful families in the known galaxy or die trying.

Three dark and disturbing horror stories from an astonishing new voice, including the viral-sensation tale of obsession, Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke.

After his estranged father's mysterious death, Charlie Remick returns to Seattle to help with the funeral. There, he discovers his father left him two parting gifts: the keys to the family record store and a strange black case containing four ancient records that, according to legend, can open a gate to the land of the dead.When Charlie, his sister, and their two friends play the records, they unwittingly open a floodgate of unspeakable horror.

No one is at all sure what a book wraith might be, but whatever it is definitely has the battered tomes in the Library of the Sapphire Wind very worried indeed. Figuring out what a book wraith could be is hardly the least of the challenges that the newly formed House of Rough Diamonds will face as the motley assortment of members - including three women who are literally "out of this world" - attempt to secure ownership of the Library.

Hayden Lichfield's life is ripped apart when he finds his father murdered in their lab, and the camera logs erased. The killer can only have been after one thing: the Sisyphus Formula the two of them developed together, which might one day reverse death itself. Hoping to lure the killer into the open, Hayden steals the research. In the process, he uncovers a recording his father made in the days before his death, and a dying wish: Avenge me...

As climate changes Earth, alien civilizations get ready to make contact. Vying to prepare humanity for first contact are a group of dreamers and changemakers. Their unexpected secret weapon is Owen, a pop megastar whose ability to connect with his adoring fans is more than charisma. His hidden talent could be the key to uniting Earth as it looks toward the stars. But Owen's abilities are so unique that no one can control him and so seductive that he cannot help but use them.

Peyote Trip can move up the bureaucracy in Hell if he can get one last member of the Harrison family to sell their soul. When the Harrisons retreat to the family lake house for the summer, with their daughter Mickey's precocious new friend, Ruth, in tow, the opportunity Pey has waited a millennium for might finally be in his grasp. But things aren't always as they seem, on Earth or in Hell.

With ailing family to support, Evie Sage's employment status isn't just important, it's vital. So when a mishap with Rennedawn's most infamous Villain results in a job offer - naturally, she says yes. No job is perfect, of course, but even less so when you develop a teeny crush on your terrifying, temperamental, and undeniably hot boss.

That strange land, Maracoor - across the ocean from Oz - is beset by an invading army. In the mayhem, Rain and Cossy, a child felon, break out of prison. Helped by a few flying monkeys, they struggle to escape the city before it falls under siege. When the very fabric of reality loosens, Rain and her companions begin their hunt for the fabled Oracle of Maracoor for guidance and soothsaying.

Michael Kingman has discovered his destiny, but the distance to what he wants, namely a life with Serena, the queen of Hollow kingdom, is as wide as the world, and just as cruel. Meanwhile, Dark, the realm's most fearsome mercenary, Michael's sometime mentor, and son of his nemesis, Angelo, is trying to keep Michael in line, for his own purposes as he too has a hidden agenda.

Raffi Musiker finds herself torn between returning to her old life as a Starfleet Intelligence officer or something a little more tame - teaching at the Academy, perhaps. The decision is made for her though when a message from an old contact - a Romulan spy - is received, asking for immediate aid.

Raine can see - and speak - to the dead, a gift that comes with a death sentence. Now, a rare act of kindness, rescuing an injured woman in the snow, becomes the most dangerous decision Raine has ever made. Because the woman is fleeing from Redwinter, the fortress-monastery of the Draoihn, warrior magicians who answer to no king, and who will stop at nothing to reclaim what she's stolen.

In the queens' dungeon, Dawsyn awaits her execution while reliving the death of her lover, Ryon. There is no chance of mercy. But hope finds her in the form of rescue by her village friends. Now on the run and struggling to tame her newly-gained and greatly unstable powers, Dawsyn's journey continues.

Everything is right in October's Faerie. Everything is perfect. Everything is a lie. October has been pulled from her own reality and thrown into a twisted reinterpretation of Faerie where nothing is as it should be and everything has been distorted to support Titania's ideals. Bound by the Summer Queen's magic and thrust into a world turned upside down, October has no way of knowing who she can trust, where she can turn, or even who she really is.

When her mother dies, Haelewise sets out to find the legendary tower her mother used to speak of - a place called Gothel. There she meets a wise woman willing to take her under her wing. But Haelewise is not the only woman to seek refuge at Gothel. It's also a haven for a girl named Rika, who carries with her a secret the Church strives to keep hidden. A secret that reveals a dark world of ancient spells and murderous nobles behind the world Haelewise has always known...

Velasin vin Aaro never planned to marry at all, let alone a girl from neighboring Tithena. When an ugly confrontation reveals his preference for men, Vel fears he's ruined the diplomatic union before it can even begin. But while his family is ready to disown him, the Tithenai envoy has a different solution: for Vel to marry his former intended's brother instead.

This is the prototype. The first step to a new future.A future that will be easy and abundant. A future in which distance is no longer a barrier to human contact. And all it takes is a simple transport unit, in every home, every street, every town. Quick. Clean. Easy. A future driven by data, not emotion. And so begins the journey of a new technology...

Her city is under siege. The zombies are coming back. And all Nona wants is a birthday party. In many ways, Nona is like other people. She lives with her family, has a job at her local school, and loves walks on the beach and meeting new dogs. But Nona's not like other people. Six months ago she woke up in a stranger's body, and she's afraid she might have to give it back. And each night, Nona dreams of a woman with a skull-painted face...

Destry's life is dedicated to terraforming Sask-E. As part of the Environmental Rescue Team, she cares for the planet and its burgeoning eco-systems as her parents and their parents did before her. But the bright, clean future they're building comes under threat when Destry discovers a city full of people that shouldn't exist, hidden inside a massive volcano.

Featuring brand-new stories by: Margaret Atwood, Tananarive Due, Joyce Carol Oates, Megan Abbott, Aimee Bender, Cassandra Khaw, Lisa Lim, Elizabeth Hand, Valerie Martin, Raven Leilani, Sheila Kohler, Joanna Margaret, Lisa Tuttle, Aimee LaBrie, and Yumi Dineen Shiroma.

Pepper Rafferty was raised as an orphan. Now 36, she's never told anyone that at 15 she discovered the identity of her biological mother. That's because her birth mother is Ula Frost, a reclusive painter famous for the outrageous claims that her portraits summon their subjects' doppelgangers from parallel universes. Researching the rumours, Pepper couldn't help but wonder if there were a parallel universe in which she was more confident, more accomplished, better able to accept love? A universe in which Ula decided she was worth keeping?

When young Emily Bronte helps a wounded man she finds at the foot of an ancient pagan shrine in the remote Yorkshire moors, her life becomes contentiously entwined with his. He is Alcuin Curzon, embittered member of a sect working to eradicate the resurgent plague of lycanthropy in Europe and northern England. But Emily's father, curate of the Haworth village church, is responsible for having unwittingly brought a demonic werewolf god to Yorkshire forty years ago - and it is taking possession of Emily's beloved but foolish and dissolute brother.

When Niko and her crew find that the intergalactic Gate they're planning on escaping through is out of commission, they make the most of things, creating a pop-up restaurant to serve the dozens of other stranded ships. But when an archaeologist shows up claiming to be able to fix the problem, Niko smells something suspicious cooking.

An inventive retelling of the stories of Hercules.

In the East, Jack is adrift without Adaira until he sings to the ember-weak fire spirits, acquiring a dangerous mission he never expected. One that is destined to lead him westward. Likewise, Torin and Sidra are consumed by a new mystery as sickness spreads first amongst the crops, and then to the people of the Tamerlaine clan. While Sidra desperately searches for a cure, Torin dares to strike a bargain with the spirits - a precarious folly anytime, but especially now as the days grow darker.

Inheriting your mysterious uncle's supervillain business is more complicated than you might imagine. Sure, there are the things you'd expect. The undersea volcano lairs. The minions. The plots to take over the world. The international networks of rivals who want you dead. Much harder to get used to...are the the sentient, language-using, computer-savvy cats. And the fact that in the overall organization, they're management...

When the Romans invaded Britannia in AD 43, they swept through a divided and ill-equipped enemy, scattered across tough terrain. But one man was not prepared to surrender. Caratacus - quick-witted youngest son of a a tribal king - had been trained from birth to be a warrior of power and grit. Sent to be schooled by the Druids in his boyhood, his training meant that an already strong and cunning prince returned to his father's kingdom as a war machine.

Alastair Buchanan has a comfortable life. It's been a year since he received his very own junior - a clone designed to help him escape the daily grind. So why does Alastair spend his days alone, online, obsessing over his status? When his long-term girlfriend Caitlin can't take it anymore, Alastair does his best to hold it together. But then, a remnant from his past appears and he is forced to confront the level of control that technology has over his life.

Nev Bourne is a hotshot programmer for SavePoint, the brain implant that rewinds the seconds of all our most embarrassing moments. She's been working non-stop on the next rollout, even blowing off her boyfriend, her best friend and her family to make SavePoint 2.0. But when she hits go on the test-run, she wakes up the next day only to discover it's yesterday. She's falling backwards in time, one day at a time.

Set early in his life. Conan has left his northern homeland to cut a bloody swath across the legendary Hyborian Age. A mercenary, a soldier, a thief, and a pirate, he faces conquering armies, malicious sorcerers, and monstrous creatures - against which he wields only the sword held in his powerful grasp.

Five years after the war against the Pale empire, Kel Garda is just another refugee living on the edge of an isolated star system. No one knows that if her enemies found her, they might destroy the entire world to get rid of her. When a long-dormant Pale war machine is suddenly reactivated, it threatens every sentient creature on the planet. Kel and a young friend agree to serve as guides to those who claim they can deactivate it.

For Elena Aadya Ravence, the secrets of the Eternal Flame elude her. And without them, she'll never be accepted as queen. For Leo Malhari Ravence, fire is control. He is not ready to give up his crown, but power comes with a price, and he'll wage war with the heavens themselves to keep from paying it. For Yassen Knight, fire is redemption. He dreams of shedding his past as one of Sayon's most deadly assassins, of laying to rest the ghosts of those he has lost.

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?

I buried the village of Ampur under a mountain of ice and snow. Then I killed their god. I've stolen old magics and been cursed for it. I started a war with those that walked before mankind and lost the princess I loved, and wanted to save. I've called lightning and bound fire. I am legend. And I am a monster. My name is Ari. And this is the story of how I let loose the first evil. Thus begins the tale of a storyteller and a singer on the run and hoping to find obscurity in a tavern bar.

The wandering Cleric Chih returns home to the Singing Hills Abbey for the first time in almost three years, to be met with both joy and sorrow. Their mentor, Cleric Thien, has died, and rests among the archivists and storytellers of the legendary abbey. But not everyone is prepared to leave them to their rest. Because Cleric Thien was once the patriarch of Coh clan of Northern Bell Pass - and now their granddaughters have arrived on the backs of royal mammoths, demanding their grandfather's body for burial.

FARTHING, HA'PENNY, and HALF A CROWN in one volume.

When an ALIEN ARMADA menaces our planet, Earth's governments and armed forces find themselves powerless to resist. In desperation, humanity turns to one man: billionaire, futurist and Twitter addict ELON MUSK. Board the electric space vehicle ICARUS 1 with Elon, alien princess Grimes and arch-rival Jeff Bezos, as the oldest man alive, President Joe Biden, tasks them with saving the planet.

Lieutenant Dev Singh dutifully spends his days recording the memories of people who, struck with incurable depression, will soon have their minds erased in order to be more productive members of society. But when the Bureau finds out he's been recounting the memories - and that the depression is in him, too - he's sent to a sanatorium to heal.

The refugees flooding into the city are desperate for the protection of the Nest, and the powerful mages who live there. The mages believe they have a secret weapon - a captured lightborn, kept prisoner by a magical slave collar and forced to do their bidding. But Tatters and Isha, tentative friends despite their suspicion of each other's motives, know something the mages do not. The rebels are aware of the lightborn. They know how to deal with it. And they are ready for war...