Fantasy Patrick

Let's go back to the night I turned 13, the night Grandpa filleted my finger with his cane sword. I can't say what terrified me more, the cold anger in his eyes or the crazy things in his locked study. A talking trunk. Squirming coats. A bookshelf whose titles shifted before my eyes. And one chilling title in particular: Book of Souls. Ten years later I'm on my way to a Romanian monastery, in search of that lost book. But I'm not the only one. Three others have beaten me to the local village: two researchers and...

When Cha Ming goes to help his friend Wang Jun’s ailing business in the capital, the last thing he expected was to compete with a seer. Their opponent is always one step ahead, and it’s sink or swim in this devil-infested marketplace. To make matters worse, the king has been poisoned. Cha Ming is barely keeping him alive. If they don’t find a cure, a fight for succession is all but certain....

Magic: To some, it's spectacle. To others, it's proof that there's more to life than meets the eye. To Jonah, it means one simple thing: money. A shaman for hire, Jonah knows how to tap into his powers as easily as he can turn on a light switch, but the real money is in putting on a show. That is, until a mysterious woman makes him an offer he can't afford to refuse: $20,000 all if he finds a little thing called the Ledberg runestone, legend of Norse mythology. With debt collectors like the Carver brothers breathing down his neck, the offer should be tempting, but when they threaten his father's life, it becomes a mission Jonah must take.

Eine Intrige zwingt Kvothe, die arkanische Universität zu verlassen. Seine Suche nach den Chandrian, die seine Eltern getötet haben, führt ihn an den Hof von Maer Alveron, und weiter zu den Sturm umwogten Hügeln von Ademre. Schließlich gelangt er in das zwielichtige Reich der Fae, wo er der sagenumwobenen Felurian begegnet, der bisher noch kein Mann widerstehen konnte...

As a boy, Arai Sunaomi was known as the Miracle Child and crossed between the worlds to walk among the dead. Now he has put aside his past to follow the way of the warrior. His aunt, Kaede, is considering making him her heir, and her General, Miyoshi Kahei, hopes to betroth Sunaomi to his daughter, Kinu. But there is one girl whom Sunaomi cannot forget - Utahime, who has been dead for seven years. Will he dare bring her back to life?

Contains Raid (Book 3) and Conflict (Book 4. Earth has nearly completed a second ship, a sister vessel to the Behemoth. This crowning achievement is hampered by a lack of a necessary element called ulem. A lone security guard at the closest mining facility managed to deploy a distress call with a simple message: PIRATES HAVE TAKEN THE STATION. Then, the Behemoth finds itself drifting in an uncharted sector of space.

I was just a cop on my beat when the world ended. My last memory was of an alien death ray ripping me from existence. When I woke up in a strange world, I should have just laid low. Figured out the rules of this place before I got involved. But, when you see a woman running from slavers. Well, let's just say they got what they deserved. Only problem is that makes enemies—demigods with the power to bind the magically gifted women of Timeria to their will.

When legends live, dragons die. Steven Drokharis is on an impossible quest to find the Holy Grail. The Dragonknights came close, but then their ranks were decimated by the mysterious Dragon Slayer, a legend that still fills Primes with terror. Standing in Steven’s way are ancient forces that have been waiting for the Lost Son and Merlin’s Daughter to continue the hunt. And yet, war has come to Steven’s doorstep, and he must balance defending what he’s earned with his greater ambition of bringing revolution to Dragonsouls everywhere.

Locked away for a crime he didn't commit, Patrick spends his days in lockup making sure every hardened criminal behind bars with him knows he's the biggest and baddest of them all. But with the help of his handy little gift of teleportation, his nights are spent watching a certain green-eyed goddess from the shadows. When he discovers a couple of Inheritors stalking her one night, he realizes the obstacle of explaining who and what he is to Emma might not be the biggest battle they face.

Fletcher Moon has never been like other kids. For one thing, he has had to suffer the humiliating nickname "Half Moon" because of his short stature. But the real reason Fletcher is different is that ever since he was a baby, he's had a nose for sniffing out mysteries. And let's just say, it's not a skill that has been appreciated by many people, including his own family.

Edited by best-selling authors and universe creators Mark Wandrey and Chris Kennedy, Tales from the Lyon’s Den includes 18 all-new stories in the Four Horsemen universe by a variety of best-selling authors - and some you may not have heard of...yet.

It's late Thursday night, and Inspector Ross Carver is at a crime scene in one of the city's last luxury homes. The dead man on the floor is covered by an unknown substance that's eating through his skin. Before Carver can identify it, six FBI agents burst in and remove him from the premises. He's pushed into a disinfectant trailer, forced to drink a liquid that sends him into seizures, and is shocked unconscious. When he awakens, Carver works to find out what happened to him, soon realizing he's entangled in a web of conspiracy that spans the nation.

Unfortunately for him, the secrets of the giant machines appear to have been lost to antiquity. Still, he has to try. After returning from a lucrative contract, he secures a base of operation for his Cavaliers in the Karma system, then he sets off toward the galactic core. It’s something he feels he needs to do by himself, so he leaves his overprotective mentor Hargrave behind.

Staff Sergeant Markus ‘Spartan’ Nicolos is one of the Intelligence Department’s best. A hacker who can beat any code, he’s in charge of communications intercepts for the Golden Horde’s Computer Operations section. Spartan used to be a frontline CASPer pilot - until he lost his entire squad in an ambush. He also lost his edge in the attack, and he swore he would never pilot a CASPer in combat again. Everything changed, though, when he came up with an idea for a new type of scout CASPer - one that would prevent what happened to him from ever happening again.

When Xi Bao and her crew of ragtag former prisoners take on an underground enemy, they find numbers far greater than they expected - forcing them to fight for their lives.

From Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, here are the best stories of 2002, written by four of the most respected writers of our day: Robert Silverberg, James Patrick Kelly, Ian Watson, and Gregory Benford. Also try The Best of Analog Science Fiction and Fact Magazine and The Best of Fantasy and Science Fiction Magazine 2002.

A 55 year-old professor of physics at Harvard University, Mark Peterson creates a time machine and uses it to travel back to 1973 and revisit his first love, Lena Mendleson. When traveling to his past, he does not arrive as a double of himself but takes over the body of his younger self which goes into a limbo state.

When millionaire industrialist and scientist Tony Stark puts on his gleaming high-tech armor, he becomes Iron Man! When Stark is kidnapped, his corporation must turn to another armored hero, and Stark's best friend, War Machine, to fulfill the ransom. And War Machine won't just take orders from kidnappers... Meanwhile, Stark is trapped in a cell with no hope of escape, forced to create a new suit of armor for his captor. Stark must use his genius to navigate a cyber-space maze, defeat a virtual-reality trap, and retrieve his own Iron Man armor.

I've spent most of my time on this alien planet alone in the wrecked human ship. Now that I'm living with the other girls and the barbarian warriors at the Cliffs of Uruzai, I'm finding it hard to adjust. These Sea Sand guys are just so... alien. They're nothing compared to the beast that comes stalking out of the shadows of the cliffs one night. He has a snout, claws, and a massive spiked tail. He's more monster than a man, and even worse than that, he claims he has a human mate. When his dark eyes settle on me, I know with a sinking feeling exactly who it is he's been looking for.

One by one, I've seen my friends fall in love with the alien warriors on this planet. More than any other single girl on this planet, I want what they have—a mate. After a childhood in foster care and an adulthood littered with crappy boyfriends, I just want to find my place, my home, love. I want it more than anything, and I'm ready for it. What I'm not ready for? An enemy Gahn from beyond the mountains attacking our settlement in the dead of night. And even more than that? This bleeding Gahn with piercing silver eyes and brutal blades claims that I'm his mate.