Dramatized Science

The labyrinth of tunnels beneath Corvis is home to some of the city’s worst criminals, but now even these hardened thugs have reason to watch their step in the dark, shadowy undercity. Death moves in that darkness, leaving behind a trail of horribly mangled bodies. The identity of the killer is a mystery, although his calling cards - brutally savaged corpses and a distinct, repulsive odor - are constants at each bloody murder scene.

Humanity has been brought to the brink of extinction. Each night, the world is overrun by demons - bloodthirsty creatures of nightmare that have been hunting the surface for over 300 years. A scant few hamlets and half-starved city-states are all that remain of a once proud civilization, and it is only by hiding behind wards, ancient symbols with the power to repel the demons, that they survive. A handful of Messengers brave the night to keep the lines of communication open between the increasingly isolated populace.

The Ghost Finders answer a distress call from the private research center of one of the biggest drug companies in the world, where a team of police enforcement agents have vanished. They have no idea what they're facing — except a deadline that threatens to remove the entire building from existence if they fail to get to the bottom of the mystery.

The worst has happened: Fleet is tearing itself apart. Some of the mutineers see injustice in the unequal spread of the rejuvenation drugs that offer virtual immortality to the rich; others are simply thirsty for power, or for blood. The Loyalists, meanwhile, fight desperately to preserve the rule of law in Familias Regnant space. But when Esmay Suiza-Serrano is unceremoniously booted out of Fleet, the apparent victim of family politics, she has no idea of the whirlwind of conflict into which she is about to be drawn.

In the days leading up to Christmas, struggling actress Esther Diamond is working as a singing-and-dancing elf at Fenster & Co, a major Manhattan department store. As if dealing with hordes of holiday shoppers isn't bad enough, Esther's ex-almost-boyfriend, Detective Connor Lopez, is on the scene investigating a series of mob-related truck hijackings of Fenster's merchandise. Semi-retired hitman Lucky Battistuzzi is also nosing around, since the mob resents being implicated in thefts they didn't commit.

Faced with the looming threat of the Russian pack, Silver and Andrew Dare plan to host an envoy at their wedding. The Russian alpha rejects diplomacy, however, and instead sends Mikhail, an elite assassin. Mikhail begins to ritually murder sub-alphas, leaving them to bleed to death from a thousand shallow cuts. The Roanokes’ only leverage is Mikhail’s reverence for the Lady: He thinks She is reborn in Silver. Playing the Lady goes against all of Silver's beliefs, but she yields to Mikhail’s invitation for her to join him in Russia.

Mankind has ceded the night to the corelings, demons that rise up out of the ground each day at dusk, killing and destroying at will until dawn, when the sun banishes them back to the Core. As darkness falls, the world’s few surviving humans hide behind magical wards, praying the magic can see them through another night. As years pass, the distances between each tiny village seem longer and longer. It seems nothing can harm the corelings, or bring humanity back together.

Rejuvenates fear the backlash caused by bad drugs: they want nothing to interfere with their pursuit of long life - or the profit that comes from promising it to others. Neighbor states fear the aggressive expansion of the Familias Regnant, fueled by population growth and extended lifespan. Within the Regular Space Service, those who have received experimental rejuvenations fear they may have been intentionally given bad drugs. Esmay Suiza's family fears that her marriage to an offworlder will damage their position.

JC, Happy, and Melody are investigating a haunting at the long-abandoned Haybarn Theater, which is being renovated. But work has been thrown off-schedule by some peculiar and unnatural activities and a homeless man who appears to have been scared to death. After the potentially world-altering recent events of their previous assignment at Chimera House, the team thinks that a haunted theater (aren't they all?) will be a walk in the park.

In the realm of Imphallion, there once was a nightmare - a living nightmare known only as the Terror of the East. Nigh invulnerable in his magical black armor and aided by unholy minions, he laid waste to all in his path on his all-consuming quest to bring order to the land. His order. Then, at what should have been his moment of triumph, his will failed. And his army fell. Taking a young noblewoman as hostage, he escaped, vanishing into darkest memory.

A vengeful ghost trapped in a goblin's ear...a flaming spider who must help stop a goddess from conquering a science-fiction convention...a goblin nursery worker who finds herself trapped in the middle of a war. This collection features six humorous short stories that explore the fantasy realm from the perspective of the lowest of the low, the unlikeliest of unheroes: the goblins.

Everything you know about vampires is wrong, as struggling actress Esther Diamond discovers after taking a job as a victim in The Vampyre, an off-Broadway cult hit in Manhattan. Not only is she besieged by fang-wearing vampire groupies, fanatical anti-vampire activists, and the bloodsucking paparazzi, but she also has to put up with broody lead actor Daemon Ravel, who claims to be a real vampire. But when one of Daemon's fan girls turns up dead - and drained of all her blood - Esther is determined to help.

Restored to her former state of health (and determination) Lady Cecelia goes in search of fresh bloodstock - she's had enough of politics. But once again she manages to put herself - and Heris Serrano - at the point where lightning will strike. This time it's invasion from the neighboring empire: The Benignity of the Compassionate Hand. Heris is only a civilian now, with a space yacht - what can she do in the face of a full-scale fleet of warships? But she is also a Serrano - born to lead.

Young Lerris yearns to find a place in the world better suited to his skills and temperament. In Recluce this means taking one of two options: permanent exile from Recluce or the dangergeld, a complex, rule-laden wanderjahr in the lands beyond. Many do not survive. Lerris chooses dangergeld. Lerris will need magic in the lands beyond, where the power of the Chaos Wizards reigns unchecked, and he must learn to use his powers in an orderly way before his wanderjahr, or fall prey to Chaos.

Someone is poisoning San Francisco's foodies. Tony Mandolin, the fog city's only Private Eye with a view into the supernatural, has been retained to find out whom and why. Unfortunately this brings him to the attention of Medb, the Queen of the Unseelie Court and it seems that Tony's only hope of survival lies in the hands of Landau Bain, the alcoholic wizard, and Bain is cranky.

In the year 2058, if you want someone to do the hands-on investigative work that requires a little finesse and sensitivity, not to mention the ability to shrug off a good beating in the process, then Zachary Nixon Johnson, the last freelance private eye on earth, is your man. What starts out as a simple missing-persons case for Zach quickly turns into a convoluted and desperate chase for the most unlikely weapon of unimaginable power ever conceived: the Bionic Bikini.

Vampires don't exist, do they? That is a question Private Detective Tony Mandolin finds himself pondering as the evidence piles up in a case involving a string of dead redheads and the usual dose of weirdness San Francisco has to offer. To complicate things, Mandolin has to deal with the perception that he has become the latest golden boy of the fog city's crime boss. Then there's his cross-dressing friend Frankie.... Just another day in San Francisco.

Heris Serrano - formerly a commander in the Regular Space Service - must take whatever job she can get after her resignation under a cloud. What she can get is the captaincy of a rich old lady's space yacht...a rich old horsewoman, who has little liking for the military, and whose spoiled nephew Ronnie (and his equally spoiled friends) have been foisted on her after his folly embarrassed the family. Lady Cecelia's only apparent interest is horses - she intends to go fox hunting on the private pleasure planet of a friend of hers, Lord Thornbuckle.

After buying her favourite rum distillery and settling down, she thought she'd heard the last of her arch nemesis, Evanrute Saarien. But Saarien, fresh out of prison for his misdeeds in Windswept, has just fabricated a new religion, positioning himself as its holy leader. He's telling his congregation to go on strike, to fight the system. And unfortunately, they're listening to him.

When Knight Commander Cade Williams discovers that his wife, Gabrielle, is not truly dead, but held in some kind of arcane stasis between the lands of the living and the lands of the dead, he vows that nothing will stop him from freeing her soul from the prison surrounding her. But his vow is tested right from the start when an old friend calls on him to help protect the city of Boston from the ancient scourge that threatens to destroy it, leaving Cade with a heart-breaking choice.