Epic Classics

In a galaxy where the fabric of reality can be bent and shaped by a privileged few, and almost any skill desired is a mere injection away, one young man is thrust into the fight of his life. Tane, a hydroponics farmer with some mad cereal crop gene-splicing skills, decides to get chipped. The operation gives him full control over his autonomic nervous and endocrine systems, plus the ability to install custom memories. All seems well until a couple of days later aliens come knocking at his door. And they aren't the friendly type.

As a young woman, Jendara left the cold northern isles of the Ironbound Archipelago to find her fortune. Now, many years later, she's forsaken her buccaneer ways and returned home in search of a simpler life, where she can raise her young son, Kran, in peace. When a strange clan of shapeshifting raiders pillages her home, however, there's no choice for Jendara but to take up her axes once again to help the islanders defend all that they hold dear.

Gwen's barely gotten a taste of normal when her resident god shows up with an assignment. The bridge between the human world and the world of the gods is weakening, and the nine hosts of Heimdall must find each other if they hope to fix it. One small problem - Gwen and the Keens must travel to another world to find Heimdall's remaining hosts. Gwen has always relied on books for her education, but no amount of reading can prepare her for what waits outside the human world.

One of the supreme masterpieces of world literature, the Homeric saga of the shipwrecks, wanderings, and homecoming of the master tactician Odysseus encompasses a virtual inventory of the themes and attitudes that have shaped Western culture. The tale of Odysseus' encounters with such obstacles as Calypso, Circe, Scylla and Charybdis, the Sirens, and the lotus-eaters, and his dramatic return to Ithaca and his patient wife, Penelope, forms a prototype for all subsequent Western epics.

Following a miraculous resurrection, Fred - the half-human/half-dungeon-core hybrid - managed to reunite with Deecy, his helpful dire wolf guide and companion. Not only that, but he was able to perform an equally miraculous resurrection of Eisa, the human woman that had professed her love for him just moments before the tragic event of their deaths. But would she be the same as she was before, or would she be forever changed by the unique process that had brought her back? Accompanied by a friend from Fred’s past, the group journeys to the west in search of the Core Power Guild.

Gerald Dunwoody is a wizard. Just not a particularly good one. He's blown up a factory, lost his job, and there's a chance that he's not really a Third Grade wizard after all. So it's off to New Ottosland to be the new Court Wizard for King Lional. It's a shame that King Lional isn't the vain, self-centered young man he appeared to be. With a princess in danger, a talking bird who can't stay out of trouble, and a kingdom to save, Gerald soon suspects that he might be out of his depth.

The worst thing about a man being led to his execution—aside from the whole impending death bit—was that he immediately tried to figure out what choice had brought him there. Which Dannen thought was ridiculous. The one possible comfort a man could have, when faced with his own death, was that things simply could not get any worse. The problem, of course, was that things could always get worse.

The djinn I unleashed is now my closest ally, and then some. Teamed up with a noble elf, we're all that stands between a dark magician and his quest to unleash the great evil locked away long ago. We're missing one key to stopping him, however, and that's the third in the Elven-Trinity. As we search for the third Sister, our quest pits us against an obsidian hell-hound, more golems, and a greater power than even the elves know how to deal with. Oh, and we might find ourselves a dragon pet along the way.

The spectrum of all of human life, as portrayed in the poem, will unfold with breathtaking variety, drama, thought, and beauty: In the middle of the journey of our life / I found myself in a dark wood, where the straight path was lost. The process of listening to Dante’s Comedy is a journey into not just literature but into the mysteries of human nature and its capacity for unhappiness and happiness, folly and wisdom, rejection and wonder over the miracles of creation and existence.

A broke gamer. A deadly online world. Can Dhalia level up fast enough to keep the debt collectors at bay? Dhalia has to pay off her dead father’s bills or risk her life in the lithium mines. Which...no thank you. Besides, the world is run by tech, and this gamer girl is determined to explore the virtual world her father was so obsessed with and get rich while she’s at it. So, she sells everything and rents a premium VR pod to play Eternal Online. Enter the toughest realm available? Check. Discover the fastest way to loot without dying...in progress.

Forty years after the God Wars, Dresediel Lex bears the scars of liberation - especially in the Skittersill, a poor district still bound by the fallen gods' decaying edicts. As long as the gods' wards last, they strangle development; when they fail, demons will be loosed upon the city. The King in Red hires Elayne Kevarian of the Craft firm Kelethres, Albrecht, and Ao to fix the wards, but the Skittersill's people have their own ideas. A protest rises against Elayne's work, led by Temoc, a warrior-priest turned community organizer....

Parzival is a medieval epic poem written by the knight-poet Wolfram von Eschenbach. It is divided into 16 books, each composed of several 30-line stanzas of rhyming couplets. Regarded as one of the literary masterpieces of the Middle Ages, the romantic poem commonly dated to the early part of the 13th century. The verse narrative focuses on the Arthurian hero Parzival and his long quest for the Holy Grail after his initial failure to achieve it.

After defeating the Shadow King and opening the gateway to the mysterious Labyrinth of Onizoso, Reece's hopes are dashed when a surprise attack leaves his girlfriend's life hanging in the balance. To save her, Reece and his friends must enter the labyrinth in hopes of finding the one person who may be able to bring her back to life, but in a place where players turn into Shard Wraiths, their hopes may already be lost. Now Reece will have to navigate a strange new world fraught with dangers, while fending off a pursuing army and racing against the clock.

In the beginning of Paradise Lost, Satan has ben banished to Hell and is working to organize the angels who fell with him and create his new kingdom. While a constant angelic war rages, Satan begins to wield his influence on the first humans created on Earth, and soon tempts them into defying God by using wit and logic to tempt Eve. The actions get Adam and Eve banished from paradise, and in the aftermath of their sin they get to glimpse the future of humanity based on their actions.

He was driven by violent injustice from his home moon of Callisto - and set forth to claim the epic destiny that would blaze across worlds and time. He saw his family destroyed, his sister carried off into sexual slavery, his beautiful lover killed - and he swore revenge against the murderous pirates who held the Jupiter planetoids in a stranglehold of terror. Fired by raw courage, steeled by young might, he rose in the navy of Jupiter to command a personal squadron loyal to the death.

This story takes place in the Darkness Within Saga world and is book 1 of a spin-off Origins series. After the death of Sokn’s High King and the theft of several volatile bloodstone runes by rebel Ama Taugr necromancers, Jarl Engier War-Blood unites the northern clans in an effort to defend a rundown fortress situated over the last Sokn bloodstone mine. The rare mineral is the only source of power known to raise the dead and when the necromancers come for it, Engier and his allies quickly find themselves cornered and outnumbered by an army of walking dead.

In the remote village of Mandryn, Tessia serves as assistant to her father, the village Healer - much to the frustration of her mother, who would rather she found a husband. Despite knowing that women aren't readily accepted by the Guild of Healers, Tessia is determined to follow in her father's footsteps. But her life is about to take a very unexpected turn.

Step up to the gates. After years in the wilds, Lenk and his companions have come to the city that serves as the world's beating heart. The great charnel house where men die surer than any wilderness. They've come to claim payment for creatures slain, blood spilled at the behest of a powerful holy man. And Lenk has come to lay down his sword for good. But this is no place to escape demons.

Hall had thought he knew everything about the game, but he’s finding every day that things are different in this new, broken version of Sky Realms Online. There are new game elements, new enemies, and even new locations. After just barely surviving his first boss fight, Hall finds himself in one of those new locations. He's become the lord of a ruined and isolated village called Skara Brae, deep in the middle of hostile territory. Hall and his companions must make the long trek to the city of Silverpeak Keep for much-needed supplies, or they'll risk losing everything.

Here are the most exciting and essential parts of two historic, epic poems: the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey". The ancient words of Homer find a new home in today's world - spoken aloud, just as Homer intended. Translated by Stanley Lombardo.