Adventure Fantasy Fiction

Winter is coming. Such is the stern motto of House Stark, the northernmost of the fiefdoms that owe allegiance to King Robert Baratheon in far-off King's Landing. There Eddard Stark of Winterfell rules in Robert's name. Far to the north, behind the towering Wall, lie savage Wildings and worse - unnatural things relegated to myth during the centuries-long summer, but proving all too real and all too deadly in the turning of the season. Yet a more immediate threat lurks to the south, where Jon Arryn, the Hand of the King, has died under mysterious circumstances....

In the not too distant future, dinosaurs rule the world. Alan is deposited in a grassy field with all signs of humanity replaced. A few hundred of his peers are given a loincloth, spear, a few tools, and a mission: to integrate and survive... if they're not eaten first.

Maulkin didn't know dying would mean a new eternity of dungeon delving, monster slaying, and glory hunting. If he had, he wouldn't have been so worried about kicking the bucket on a date gone even more wrong than usual. Reborn in the wild world of Amaranth, Maulkin finds himself in a hulking demi-human body with a sword of a size to match. Marked as an Eternal, a fledging immortal of boundless potential, Maulkin soon discovers he's been given a mission by the elder pantheon of this new realm.

Kullen is the emperor’s assassin. The sharp hand of justice. The Black Talon. Gifted a soul-forged bond with his dragon, Umbris, Kullen is tasked with hunting any and all who oppose the empire. But when the secretive Crimson Fang murders two noblemen before his very eyes, Kullen must discover the truth of who they are and what they want. What he uncovers is a web of lies and deceit spiraling into the depths of Dimvein.

For nearly a billion years, every known sentient species in the universe has been the result of genetic and cultural guidance - or "uplifting" - by a previously uplifted patron race. Then humans are discovered. Having already uplifted chimps and dolphins, humanity clearly qualifies as an intelligent species, but did they actually evolve their own intelligence, or did some mysterious patron race begin the process, then suddenly abandon Earth?

James Crowley met his mortal end in a hail of gunfire. Now, he finds himself in purgatory, serving the White Throne to avoid falling to hell. Not quite undead, though not alive either, the best he can hope for is to work off his servitude and fade away. His not-so-sacred duty as a Hand of God? Use his new abilities to hunt down demonic beings that have infiltrated the mortal realm. This time, the White Throne has sent him to the middle of nowhere: a Western town called Dead Acre with a saloon, a moldy church, and little else worth talking about. There isn’t even a sheriff.

After container ships carrying black-market nuclear bombs are detonated in American port cities, millions are killed and the country is thrown into panic. In Greenwood, Nebraska, Paul Edwards learns about the devastating terrorist attacks on the news. As the power grid goes down, his fear is magnified by the knowledge that his wife and daughter are a thousand miles away in Atlanta. When his prepper father-in-law, Buck, insists on being part of the rescue, things go from bad to worse. Paul and Buck have hated each other for years.

In AD 2600, the human race is finally beginning to realize its full potential. Hundreds of colonized planets scattered across the galaxy host a multitude of prosperous and wildly diverse cultures. Genetic engineering has pushed evolution far beyond nature's boundaries, defeating disease and producing extraordinary spaceborn creatures. Huge fleets of sentient trader starships thrive on the wealth created by the industrialization of entire star systems, and throughout inhabited space the Confederation Navy keeps the peace.

After the assassination of FDR in the 1930s, the US collapses and is picked off by the UK, Canada, Mexico, and Russia. Gunnie Lizbeth Rose tries to piece out a life, running security on runs from Texoma across the border to Mexico, where work and prospects are stronger. When two Russian magicians come looking for a man named Alex Karkarov, they hire Lizbeth, but there are problems: The man they're looking for is dead, but he has a daughter they now need to find, as an ever-growing set of sorcerers and gunnies do not want them to succeed.

Welcome to the Five Isles, where war has come in the name of the invading army of Sor Sevier, a merciless host driven by the prophetic fervor of the Angel Prince, Aeros, toward the last unconquered kingdom of Gul Kana. Yet Gault, one of the elite Knights Archaic of Sor Sevier, is growing disillusioned by the crusade he is at the vanguard of just as it embarks on his Lord Aeros' greatest triumph. While the eldest son of the fallen king of Gul Kana now reigns in ever increasing paranoid isolationism, his two sisters seek their own paths.

Even as a girl Morgan has always been wild, like the seas which batter the cliffs beneath her home, Tintagel Castle. But she has always been safe, too. Then one day her father is called away to a war from which he does not return. In his place comes the High King, Uther Pendragon, with the sorcerer Merlin lurking in his wake. Uther claims Morgan’s mother, the Lady Igraine as his queen.

After the government publicly praise Dedsec for their role in the Zero Day affair, there is a resetting of relations between the surveillance state and the public. However, the reality is that a brand new clampdown on civil freedom is underway. Responding to an increase in activism and disruptive protest that’s seen mass strikes and huge cost implications to the treasury, SIRS have been directed by the Department of Culture and Media to orchestrate a system of message manipulation, fake news generation and discrediting dissenting voices.

The impossible has been accomplished. The Lord Ruler - the man who claimed to be god incarnate and brutally ruled the world for a thousand years - has been vanquished. But Kelsier, the hero who masterminded that triumph, is dead too, and now the awesome task of building a new world has been left to his young protégé, Vin, the former street urchin who is now the most powerful Mistborn in the land, and to the idealistic young nobleman she loves.

All of the stories you've heard are wrong. They always tell you that starting a new life in a fantasy world is an amazing experience, full of magic, adventure, and true love...but they never tell you what happens when it's over. They don't tell you that it just happens again. And again. By the time you start your third new life in a row, all of that initial amazement wears off. That's where Lux finds himself now: dropped into yet another fantasy world, forced to restart his life all over again. He wants nothing more than to disappear...but it seems the world has other plans for him.

Alex discovers he has been dropped in the middle of an ancient struggle for power, in a land where magic replaces science. If he can survive the near future, he has the potential to become a great wizard, feared by the very people he needs to protect.

Roshar is a world of stone and storms. Uncanny tempests of incredible power sweep across the rocky terrain so frequently that they have shaped ecology and civilization alike. Animals hide in shells, trees pull in branches, and grass retracts into the soilless ground. Cities are built only where the topography offers shelter. It has been centuries since the fall of the 10 consecrated orders known as the Knights Radiant, but their Shardblades and Shardplate remain: mystical swords and suits of armor.

Saff, a determined new doctor in the first year of her internship, had clawed her way out of a tumultuous past, only to be dragged back into it when the zombie outbreak hits. Forced to join her estranged father and his band of raiders, she's confronted with the harsh reality that desperation can make monsters out of anyone—even her.

Hugo Award winner Harry Turtledove is the master of alternate history. In American Front he envisions World War I as it may have been if fought on American soil. The United States and Germany clash with the Confederacy, France, and Britain as the machines of modern warfare litter the landscape with carnage. Meanwhile, oppressed southern blacks head toward a fateful confrontation.

Shelly Laurenston turns up the heat with two sizzling novellas. Christmas Pride: How come all the good-looking ones are insane? That's what runs through NYPD cop Desiree "Dez" MacDermot's mind the minute she hooks up again with her childhood buddy, Mace Llewellyn. Shaw's Tail: Brendon Shaw, hotel owner and lion shifter, has seen better days. He's been beaten, had a gun to the back of his head, and had to be rescued by a Pack of shape-shifting wolves.

Mankind has failed to stop a growing rift for more than a decade. It will destroy all life on Aathon if nothing changes. But when Leo arrives with half of the human army, it seems that every leader is finally intent on stopping this growing rift together. What Leo will find out, however, is that some of these very powerful people don't see the rift as a problem. They intend to use it as an opportunity.