Fantasy Anthology

A child’s wish for her father comes true. The end of the world has never been so much fun. Conquering personal demons becomes all too real. It’s not always about winning; sometimes it’s about showing up for the fight. It’s about loving your life’s work, and jobs that make you question everything. In this anthology, 17 authors have woven together brand-new stories that speak to the darkness and despair that life brings while reminding us that good deeds, humor, love, sacrifice, dedication, and following our joy can ignite a light that burns so bright the darkness cannot last.

A Royal Witch: There are new roommates in the Beechwood Manor, and one of them is a royal witch. When tragedy strikes, it's going to take all hands on deck if the paranormal roomies hope to make it out alive. First Place Witch: With her potions shop officially open for business, Holly sets off to the San Francisco Haven to compete with the most elite potions masters in the entire country. Sassy Witch: It's Valentine's Day in Beechwood Harbor, and the town is rolling out the rose-colored carpet to host a group of eager singles in an effort to boost town tourism.

For the first time as an Orbit special edition, Brent Weeks's blockbuster novella Perfect Shadow tells the origin story of the Night Angel trilogy's most enigmatic character: Durzo Blint. Gaelan Starfire is a farmer, happy to be a husband and a father; a careful, quiet, simple man. He's also an immortal, peerless in the arts of war. Over the centuries, he's worn many faces to hide his gift, but he is a man ill-fit for obscurity, and all too often he's become a hero, his very names passing into legend.

Greetings, initiate! Carter Kane, here. Congratulations on reaching Brooklyn House in one piece. This accomplishment signals that you're descended from Ancient Egyptian royalty, and you have magic powers. But what good is power without knowing how to use it? That's where this training manual comes in. Packed with quizzes, stories, and insights about Ancient Egyptian deities, creatures (the friendly and the deadly), the mysterious Duat, and more, this primer will prime those with the blood of the pharaohs to take their first steps down the path of the gods.

A dismembered body in the park.... Grand Rapids Detective Bill DeYoung is an old-timer riding it out until retirement. A ravaged body in the park and a drunken witness are about to change his plans; so is the end of the world. The events happen concurrently with the first novel, End Time, but it can be heard at any point in the series to get exciting additional content on the origin of a main character.

Space pirates! Words that conjure up rousing tales of adventure, derring-do, brave heroes battling the scurvy vermin of the galaxy. Those vermin have taken to pillaging cargo ships and, even worse, space liners, relieving the helpless passengers of their valuables, and worse with the comely women passengers, then spacing the lot - unless one or more of the aforementioned brave heroes arrive in the nick of time, and turn the tables, making the spaceways safe again for the innocent and helpless.

Their hotel was beautifully situated, high on the northern slope of the huge artificial mound known as the paneium that was sacred to the goat-footed god. From here they had a total view of the city: the wide noble boulevards, the soaring obelisks and monuments, the palace of Hadrian just below the hill, the stately and awesome Library, the temple of Poseidon, the teeming marketplace, the royal lodge that Mark Antony had built after his defeat at Actium.

For decades, The Year's Best Science Fiction has been the most widely read short science fiction anthology of its kind. Now, after 35 annual collections comes the ultimate in science fiction anthologies. In The Very Best of the Best, legendary editor Gardner Dozois selects the finest short stories for this landmark collection, including short fiction from authors such as Charles Stross, Michael Swanwick, Nancy Kress, Greg Egan, Stephen Baxter, Pat Cadigan, and any many more.

Sviska is a man of the shadows, an assassin without any one place to call his own. But in the Far North, he discovers a secret. Magic, long thought lost to the world, is alive. The genocide to destroy every elf, wizard, and sacred being of old is not yet complete. Sviska's masters work the strings of the world and he has been sent for a task he does not even fully understand yet. When at last he feels he has what he has always wanted, darkness falls upon the world.

New York Times best-selling author Jonathan Maberry presents a quirky collection of five stories starring a whole cast of the ever-popular undead. Here you will find a semi-sequel to Dead of Night in which four army reservists are assigned to hold a small rural bridge during the early days of the zombie apocalypse; a comedic story involving a couple of idiot moonshiners, a comet, gangsters, zombies, and the Great Chicago Fire; a downbeat psychological drama set in the bleak wastelands a few years after the zombie apocalypse; and more.

Whenever we envision a world without war, without prisons, without capitalism, we are producing speculative fiction. Organizers and activists envision and try to create such worlds all the time. Walidah Imarisha and adrienne maree brown have brought 20 of them together in the first anthology of short stories to explore the connections between radical speculative fiction and movements for social change.

The Horus Heresy is an epic conflict spanning hundreds of worlds and thousands of battles, laced with countless tales of heroism and valour, betrayal and villainy. This anthology collects some of the most memorable, featuring every one of the Loyalist and Traitor Legions. Whether you're a veteran Legionary or exploring the grim setting of the Horus Heresy for the first time, this handpicked collection of 21 existing short stories features gripping tales for each of the Loyalist and Traitor Legions that waged wars of betrayal and destruction on an immeasurable scale.

First published in an 1839 edition of Burton's Gentleman's Magazine, "The Fall of the House of Usher" is the story of the declining physical and psychological health of the residents of the House of Usher - and the way in which the house itself reflects that. Gothic in theme and style, the story is an exemplar of Poe's philosophy of composition, which dictates that literary works should be short and methodological and have a unity of effect wherein all the elements of the story are related and relevant.

The incomparable Ray Bradbury is in the driver's seat, off on 21 unforgettable excursions through fantasy, time, and memory, and there are surprises waiting around every curve and behind each mile marker. The journey promises to be a memorable one.

Unconfirmed accounts of a group of Araluen warriors - tales of adventure, battle, and triumph over evil - have spread for centuries throughout the known world. Most notable is a clan shrouded in mystery, phantom warriors known as the Rangers. Two names pass the lips of every storyteller: Halt, and his apprentice, Will. They and their comrades in arms are said to have traveled throughout the kingdom and beyond its borders, protecting those who needed it most.

When a mysterious photograph leads to a shocking discovery at the Time Displacement Core, Spider-Man joins forces with the X-Men. Together, the heroes must make a perilous journey into the past to prevent Kang the Conqueror from destroying the multiverse and time itself. This audiobook omnibus edition collects the entire trilogy: Time's Arrow: The Past, Time's Arrow: The Present, and Time's Arrow: The Future.

The world ends in a slew of blue notification boxes, bringing with it a game-like existence including monsters and Classes. Now, John has to make his way from Kluane National Park in the Yukon to Whitehorse through monster infested forests. But, that's not enough; because he'll need to help rebuild civilization itself around the System, aliens and monsters. And, as always, humanity will be its own greatest enemy.

Maxine was made to do one thing: die. Except the minor non-player character in the world Riley is building makes her own impossible decision - veering wildly off course and exploring the boundaries of the map. When the curious Riley extracts her code for closer examination, an emotional relationship develops between them. Soon Riley has all new plans for her spontaneous AI, including bringing Max into the real world. But what if Max has real-world plans of her own?

In Matheson's vampire classic I Am Legend, a plague has decimated the world and transformed the unfortunate survivors into bloodthirsty creatures of the night. Robert Neville is the last living man on Earth. Every other man, woman, and child has become a vampire hungry for Neville's blood. By day he is the hunter, stalking the sleeping undead through the abandoned ruins of civilization. By night he barricades himself in his home and prays for the dawn. How long can one man survive in a world of vampires?

Major Sharpe finds himself a fugitive, hunted by enemy and ally alike. Major Richard Sharpe awaits the opening shots of the army's campaign with grim expectancy. For victory depends on the increasingly fragile alliance between Britain and Spain - an alliance that must be maintained at any cost. Pierre Ducos, the wily French intelligence officer, sees a chance both to destroy the alliance and to achieve a personal revenge on Richard Sharpe.