Epic Sorcery

The Beginning After the End: Publisher's Pack 2 contains books 3 and 4 of The Beginning After the End series, Beckoning Fates and Horizon's Edge. Though Arthur Leywin would like nothing more than to pursue his studies at the esteemed Xyrus Academy, where he hopes to push his already potent magical abilities to new plateaus and perhaps discover something more about his reincarnation into this world, he finds the politics of the school’s halls even more challenging to navigate than those of the council chambers he once inhabited as King Grey.

He was Tiger, born of the desert winds, raised as a slave and winning his freedom by weaving a special kind of magic with a warrior's skill. Now he was an almost legendary sword-dancer, ready to take on any challenge - if the price was right…or if the woman pretty enough. She was Del, born of ice and storm, trained by the greatest of Northern sword masters. Now, her ritual training completed and steeped in the special magic of her own rune sword, she had come South in search of the young brother stolen five years before.

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.

Kelvin Wiltshire lives the life of a simple cook in a remote village on the far side of Trendham. The townsfolk think little of the man and his son and believe him to be just another refugee from the Terabinian war. On cold winter nights, they share rumors of the bloody conflict and the mysterious death of Will Cartwright, the mighty mage who had the power to command storms. They like the new cook. They fear the fallen king. But the two men are one and the same.

Will our friends manage to stop the Immortal Dragon? Will the king be able to discover who is behind the conspiracies? Will Norghana be saved? Will Tremia be saved? Will the Royal Panthers be saved? Enjoy adventures full of action, adventure, magic, and romance!

Savaged by the K'Chain Nah'Ruk, the Bonehunters march for Kolanse, where waits an unknown fate. Tormented by questions, the army totters on the edge of mutiny, but Adjunct Tavore will not relent. One final act remains, if it is in her power, if she can hold her army together, if the shaky allegiances she has forged can survive all that is to come. A woman with no gifts of magic, deemed plain, unprepossessing, displaying nothing to instill loyalty or confidence, Tavore Paran of House Paran means to challenge the gods - if her own troops don't kill her first.

Minalan gets medieval! When you defeat the invading goblin army, get knighted on the field of battle, gifted with lands and gold, usually your happily-ever-after is...happy. But now that Minalan the Spellmonger has been ennobled and enfiefed, Sire Minalan has a task cut out for him that makes defeating goblins seem like child’s play: Moving his very pregnant bride and a few thousand refugees from Boval Vale into the remote, sparsely peopled Domain of Sevendor. But when he arrives, he finds the land withered from neglect, filled with superstition and suspicion.

In Darujhistan, the city of blue blue fire, it is said that Love and Death shall arrive dancing. It is summer, and the heat is oppressive, but for the small, rotund man in the faded red waistcoat discomfiture is not just because of the sun. All is not well. Dire portents plague his nights and haunt the city streets like fiends of shadow. Assassins skulk in alleyways, but the quarry has turned, and the hunters become the hunted. Hidden hands pluck the strings of tyranny like a fell chorus.

It's Ruwen’s Ascension Day, and he finally dies for the first time. His newly revived body can learn spells and abilities for the class given him by the Goddess Uru, and dying is no longer permanent. Ruwen’s high intelligence makes becoming a Mage inevitable. With his new powers, he will locate his parents and clear their family name. But nothing goes as Ruwen imagined, and when a rival God tries to kill Ruwen shortly after his disastrous Ascension, his focus turns from his future to just surviving.

Legends speak of wizards with the power to rival Gods. To Hump, it’s just a story. Apprenticed to a wandering wizard, he grew up on the road, following the coin on whatever quest it took them. He always believed his master was just an ordinary hedge wizard, until the old man suddenly died, and his book of spells bound to Hump’s soul. Knowing no other life, Hump takes up his master’s staff and heads out alone into a world of dungeons and monsters. So begins the path of The Wanderer. The White Flame. The Hedge Wizard.

All is not well in the Letherii Empire. Rhulad Sengar, the Emperor of a Thousand Deaths, spirals into madness, surrounded by sycophants and agents of his Machiavellian chancellor, while the Letherii secret police conduct a campaign of terror against their own people. The Errant, once a far-seeing god, is suddenly blind to the future. Conspiracies seethe throughout the palace as the empire edges closer to all-out war with the neighboring kingdoms.

Verdan Blacke is an Imperial Wizard, a researcher by preference but soldier by necessity. Surviving an intense battle, Verdan is cursed by a hex witch in her final moments. Without any good options, Verdan escapes the ever-increasing pain the curse inflicts by performing a self-made stasis ritual.

Millennia in the dark has left these lost and forgotten monsters hungry for war. The people of Illian can do nothing but rely on their peacekeepers, the Dragorn. Are the dragon riders ready for what has been buried under their feet? Gideon Thorn, Master of the Dragorn, can feel the Third Age coming to an ominous end. With Inara Galfrey and her dragon by his side, they must investigate the return of this ancient evil.

From the international best-selling author of the Broken Empire Trilogy comes the first in a brilliant new breakout fantasy series. A searing novel set in a brand-new world, this series follows a young girl who enters a convent where girls are selected to train in religion, combat, or magic. Nona is selected to learn combat and finds herself at the center of an epic battle for empire on the outer reaches of a dying universe.

A summons from the Life Elder sets them on a perilous mission, leading to steaming jungles and blistering islands where ancient secrets will challenge everything they know of magic and dragons.

Author Mark Lawrence has won over audiences everywhere with Prince of Thorns, his exciting debut novel. Nine-year-old Prince Jorg is forced to watch as his mother and brother are slaughtered. Fleeing the palace, Jorg joins a bloodthirsty band of thugs. But he’s determined to take back what’s rightfully his, so he returns to the castle a few years later - unaware of the dark and powerful magic that awaits.

Sword-Singer once again unites Del and Tiger - she among the greatest of Northern sword masters, he a Southern warrior of legendary skills - on a new and perilous journey into the North, to the Place of Swords, where Del must submit to trial-by-combat for the slaying of her sword-master.

Tomkin Thornhewn, youngest son of the Duke of Marshwell, has a problem: He’s not heroic. Regardless of his aspirations, the bookish, untrained young man is better suited to recording the deeds of heroes than being one himself. Which becomes an obvious problem when he finds himself clinging to a ledge above a sleeping dragon. And instead of wielding his family’s great sword with valor and skill, he drops it - onto the dragon. The problem grows immeasurably worse when Tomkin himself falls off the ledge - also onto the dragon.

The Sixth Order wields the sword of justice and smites the enemies of the Faith and the Realm. Vaelin Al Sorna was only a child of 10 when his father left him at the iron gate of the Sixth Order. The Brothers of the Sixth Order are devoted to battle, and Vaelin will be trained and hardened to the austere, celibate, and dangerous life of a Warrior of the Faith. He has no family now save the Order.

Orcs, an ancient fiend thought lost to history, have risen from The Under Realm. Their hunger for total dominance has plunged Illian into war, pushing the survivors to Namdhor, the last refuge of man at the top of the world. For those who stand up to this foe, they do so in darkness. Ash clouds smother the skies, blocking out the sun as the orcs rampage across the land.