Contemporary Science Fiction

It wasn't the "sex talk" he expected. Phillip Sallinger's dad has told him he's a custodian - a guardian - and his genetically inherited power is telekinesis. He's excited to begin superhero high school until he discovers he's assigned to a "special ed" class for disabled empowered kids; he suddenly feels like an outsider. Bullied, threatened, and betrayed, Phillip struggles, even as he and his friends - calling themselves the Ables - find ways to maximize their powers to overcome their disabilities, and are the first to identify the growing evil threatening humanity.

A call from a distraught wife, and another from Lt. Murphy of the Chicago PD Special Investigation Unit makes Harry believe things are looking up, but they are about to get worse, much worse. Someone is harnessing immense supernatural forces to commit a series of grisly murders. Someone has violated the first law of magic: Thou Shalt Not Kill. Tracking that someone takes Harry into the dangerous underbelly of Chicago, from mobsters to vampires....

Young Elphie is shaped and molded by the behaviors of her promiscuous mother, Melena, and her pious father, Frex. She suffers ordinary childhood jealousies when her sister, saintly Nessarose, and brother, junior felon Shell, arrive. She first encounters the mistreatment of the Animal populations of Oz, which live adjacent to but not intertwined with human settlements, haunted by a Monkey and receiving aid from Dwarf Bears. She thrashes through her first bruising attempts at friendship, a possible lifeline from her tricky family life.

When Erik and Rugrat entered the ten realms they didn’t know what was going on. They only knew that they had contracted the two week curse. When entering the second realm they came to understand their character sheets, and part of the system that is called the ten realms. A place that the strong make the rules and the weak cling to them for protection and hope that they might be left in peace. They passed through the trials of the Beast Mountain Dungeon, taking control of it and becoming the leader of nearly 200 people.

Nine of us came here. We look like you. We talk like you. We live among you. But we are not you. We can do things you dream of doing. We have powers you dream of having. We are stronger and faster than anything you have ever seen. We are the superheroes you worship in movies and comic books—but we are real.

Once, dragons ruled the Rain Wilds, tended by privileged human servants known as Elderlings. But a series of cataclysmic eruptions nearly drove these magnificent creatures to extinction. Born weak and deformed, the last of their kind had one hope for survival: to return to their ancient city of Kelsingra. Accompanied by a disparate crew of untested young keepers, the dragons embarked on a harsh journey into the unknown along the toxic Rain Wild River.

Atticus O’Sullivan, last of the Druids, doesn’t care much for witches. Still, he’s about to make nice with the local coven by signing a mutually beneficial nonaggression treaty - when suddenly the witch population in modern-day Tempe, Arizona, quadruples overnight. And the new girls are not just bad, they’re badasses with a dark history on the German side of World War II.

Loup Garron was born and raised in Santa Olivia, an isolated, disenfranchised town next to a U.S. military base inside a demilitarized buffer zone between Texas and Mexico. A fugitive "Wolf-Man" who had a love affair with a local woman, Loup's father was one of a group of men genetically manipulated and used by the U.S. government as a weapon. The "Wolf-Men" were engineered to have superhuman strength, speed, sensory capability, stamina, and a total lack of fear.

En un éclair, chaque construction humaine érigée sur Terre s'effondre, créant un gigantesque donjon: un labyrinthe infernal de 18 niveaux remplis de pièges, de monstres et de butins. Seulement quelques survivants osent s'aventurer à l'intérieur, mais une fois que vous y pénétrez, impossible d'en ressortir. Vous n'avez que quelques jours pour trouver l'escalier vers le niveau suivant ou c'est game over. Dans ce jeu, ce n'est ni votre force ni votre dextérité qui vous aidera à survivre, mais votre popularité et votre nombre de vues.

Helene Wecker's dazzling debut novel tells the story of two supernatural creatures who appear mysteriously in 1899 New York. Chava is a golem, a creature made of clay, brought to life by a strange man who dabbles in dark Kabbalistic magic. When her master dies at sea on the voyage from Poland, she is unmoored and adrift as the ship arrives in New York Harbor. Ahmad is a jinni, a being of fire, born in the ancient Syrian Desert. Trapped in an old copper flask by a Bedouin wizard centuries ago, he is released accidentally by a tinsmith in a Lower Manhattan shop.

April May and the Carls are back in the much-anticipated sequel to Hank Green's number-one New York Times best-selling debut novel, An Absolutely Remarkable Thing. The Carls disappeared the same way they appeared, in an instant. While they were on Earth, they caused confusion and destruction without ever lifting a finger. Months later, the world is as confused as ever. Andy has picked up April’s mantle of fame; Maya, ravaged by grief, begins to follow a string of mysteries that she is convinced will lead her to April; and Miranda infiltrates a scientific operation.

Modern-day wizard Lily Singer prefers to stay tucked away in her library, studying magic and drinking tea. But with a troublesome witch friend and a past riddled with dangerous secrets, her chances of peace and quiet are slim. Armed with only wits and magic, she must manage her argumentative cat, thwart a plot to steal a powerful artifact, and decide who, amid all this, she can trust.

Years ago, the magnificent dragon queen Tintaglia forged a bargain with the inhabitants of the treacherous Rain Wilds. In exchange for her protection against enemy invaders, the humans promised to protect an unhatched brood of dragons. But when the dragons emerged as weak and misshapen hatchlings unable to fend for themselves, dragonkind seemed doomed to extinction. When even Tintaglia deserted the crippled young dragons, the Rain Wilders abandoned the burden of caring for the destructive and ravenous creatures.

The Carls just appeared. Coming home from work at three a.m., 23-year-old April May stumbles across a giant sculpture. Delighted by its appearance and craftsmanship - like a 10-foot-tall Transformer wearing a suit of samurai armor - April and her friend Andy make a video with it, which Andy uploads Online. The next day April wakes up to a viral video and a new life. News quickly spreads that there are Carls in dozens of cities around the world - everywhere from Beijing to Buenos Aires - and April, as their first documentarian, finds herself at the center of an intense media spotlight.

Percy Jackson n'est pas un garçon comme les autres. Il découvre un jour le secret de sa différence : son père, n'est autre que Poséidon, le dieu de la mer dans la mythologie grecque. Placé pour sa protection dans un camp de vacances pour enfants "sangs mêlés" (mi-humains, mi-divins), Percy se voit injustement accusé d'avoir volé l'éclair de Zeus. Afin d'éviter une guerre fratricide entre les dieux de l'Olympe, il va devoir retrouver l'éclair et démasquer le vrai coupable... au péril de sa vie.

Lucky St. James, orphaned daughter of a bad-ass Métis good-times girl, is barely hanging on to her nowhere life when she finds out that she and her grandmother, Stella, are about to be evicted from their apartment. Bad to worse in a heartbeat. Then one night, doing laundry in the building's dank basement, Lucky finds a tarnished silver spoon depicting a story-book hag over letters that spell out S-A-L-E-M. Which alerts Salem-born Meena Good, finder of a matching spoon and one of the most powerful witches in North America, to Lucky's existence.

My name is Mercedes Athena Thompson Hauptman, and I am a car mechanic. And a coyote shape-shifter. And the mate of the Alpha of the Columbia Basin werewolf pack. Even so, none of that would have gotten me into trouble if, a few months ago, I hadn’t stood upon a bridge and taken responsibility for the safety of the citizens who live in our territory. It seemed like the thing to do at the time. It should have only involved hunting down killer goblins, zombie goats, and an occasional troll. Instead, our home was viewed as neutral ground.

Bleakwood, Oregon—once a sleepy, forgotten town—has become ground zero for an unspeakable horror. When Danielle Pryer’s long-lost brother, Bruce, returns from the Vietnam War carrying a monstrous mutation, reality itself begins to unravel. Vines turn to veins, brick to bone, and the laws of physics become mere suggestions. But Bleakwood’s nightmare is just beginning.

Simon Snow is the worst Chosen One who's ever been chosen. That's what his roommate, Baz, says. And Baz might be evil and a vampire and a complete git, but he's probably right. Half the time, Simon can't even make his wand work, and the other half, he starts something on fire. His mentor's avoiding him, his girlfriend broke up with him, and there's a magic-eating monster running around, wearing Simon's face.

In The Book of Swords, acclaimed editor and best-selling author Gardner Dozois presents an all-new anthology of original epic tales by a stellar cast of award-winning modern masters - many of them set in their authors' best-loved worlds. Join today's finest tellers of fantastic tales, including George R. R. Martin, K. J. Parker, Robin Hobb, Scott Lynch, Ken Liu, C. J. Cherryh, Daniel Abraham, Lavie Tidhar, Ellen Kushner, and more on action-packed journeys into the outer realms of dark enchantment and intrepid derring-do.