Fantasy World

As a child, princess Bryn was saved from a wolf attack by a prince from a rival kingdom that left them both scarred. Rangar's people believe that a life saved is a soul owned, and ten years later, Rangar returns to claim his prize: Bryn. Yet Rangar arrives on the night that Bryn's people rise against their despotic rulers. With Bryn's castle on fire and most of her family dead, she has no choice but to escape with Rangar's help. Was she rescued . . . or kidnapped?

Marlin is not slow or mute; he is a stutterer, and that makes it impossible for him to convince people otherwise. He is also a Rackham: the youngest son of the world-famous explorer Roland Rackham, who is the owner and proprietor of the Zoo at the Edge of the World, a resort where the well to do from all over the world can come to experience the last bit of the wild left in the world at the end of the nineteenth century.

Traditional stories endure generation after generation because, although they are not literal, they resound in truths on a human scale. Folktales remind us of wisdom so elemental it is often lost in the rush of everyday life - sometimes common sense makes no sense at all.

Not long ago, NSLICE-00P—short for Non-Standard Leashed-Intelligence Cybernetic Enforcer—performed her job with cold, calculated, merciless obedience. When she was ordered to destroy something, it got seriously destroyed. Unfortunately, that led her to take out her own creator before he created her, casting the cyborg out of her reality and into a world of magic, levels, and skills, with her very own dungeon core and no one to tell her what to do. As it turned out, fate put NSLICE-00P in the right place at the right time: she's become a legit heroine in this new existence.

You've heard of him. He's Adam Cain, the alien with an attitude. Now he's back...in a series of new adventures as a badass human, showing the galaxy who's the boss. Accompanied by his buddies Riyad Tarazi and Sherri Valentine, Adam is struggling to make ends meet on a distant tropical world running Capt. Cain's Bar & Grill. The problem: They picked the worst place in the galaxy to run a legitimate business...smack dab in the middle of lawless Dead Zone. Comprised of a hundred dead worlds, The Zone is a gold-rush-like region of salvagers, pirates, and scoundrels.

The Goddess Samantha, new domains of deific influence primed for the world below, charges ahead to kindle the fires of a new order. Questions of her true origins and significance abound, but the path forward is the same as it is for any mortal: one foot in front of the other. Buried in the dirt is the call of risk, reward, and sacrifice. Time to dig deep, baby.

World-walking young surgeon Ryn Wilkie is trying to finish her residency here on Earth while also bringing modern medicine and antibiotics to a parallel but somewhat primitive Earth. She wants to improve the plight of women on that world - where they‘re treated as if they're property. It’s a world at about the technological level of our late 1800s. But she can find gold there in the same locations that history tells her they found it on Earth.

September, 1940. Three women of the Checquy, the secret organization tasked with protecting Britain from supernatural threats, stand in the sky above London and see German aircraft approach. Forbidden by law to interfere, all they can do is watch as their city is bombed. Until Pamela breaks all the rules and brings down a Nazi bomber with her bare hands. The three resolve to tell no one about it, but they soon learn that a crew member is missing from the downed bomber. Charred corpses are discovered in nearby houses and it becomes apparent that the women have unwittingly unleashed a monster.

James McGill is called upon for a sabotage mission, one that only a man of his unique talents can handle. Unfortunately, he performs too well, and our enemies from Rigel are enraged. They come for us, and war is declared. When this conflict between the great powers spreads, humanity finds itself swept up in the storm. Can McGill escape this disaster he’s created?

Long before the beginning of recorded time, there stood the world of Azeroth. Every kind of magical being strode the countryside among the tribes of man, and all was at peace - until the arrival of the demons and horrors of the Burning Legion and their baneful Lord Sargeras, dark god of chaotic magic. Now Dragons, Dwarves, Elves, Goblins, Humans, and Orcs all vie for supremacy across the scattered kingdoms - part of a grand, malevolent scheme that will determine the fate of the world of The Guardians of Tirisfal: a line of champions imbued with godlike powers.

Since childhood Nila Carter has been made to spend every weekend at the family cabin. In her teenage years she believes it to be a prison; as an adult it becomes her sanctuary and means to survive. When a mysterious outbreak occurs in India, Nila's brother, Bobby, a virologist with the CDC, places the family on a precautionary alert to be ready to bug out. Unlike anything he's ever seen, the rabies-like virus is not just deadly; it causes extreme violent behavior in those infected.

When a guy tries to roofie her, young surgeon Ryn Wilkie is catapulted onto a parallel Earth that’s at the technological level of the late 1800s. Confronted with a society where women's voices are stifled and medical advancements are non-existent, Ryn's despair turns to determination when she discovers her ability to flip between worlds. Can she leverage her abilities to advance their technology and challenge those deep-seated gender biases, or will the weight of their traditions prove insurmountable? And, can she stop the guy who attacked her before he hurts other women?

Mari is an Earth Walker, heir to the unique healing powers of her Clan; but she has cast her duties aside...until she is chosen by a special animal ally, altering her destiny forever. When a deadly attack tears her world apart, Mari reveals the strength of her powers and the forbidden secret of her dual nature as she embarks on a mission to save her people. It is not until Nik, the son of the leader from a rival dominating clan, strays across her path that Mari experiences something she has never felt before.

The world Between is full of dangers, shadows, and reflections. Athelas knows the dangers, is one with the shadows—and has finally encountered a reflection that could be just a bit too much like himself for comfort. The house master has come back. Nobody will quite say who he is, or why he owns the house. And to Athelas's growing irritation, no one will talk about the oddly powerful influence the house master seems to have over Camellia.

The time has arrived for Max and her winged "Flock" to face their ultimate enemy and discover their original purpose: to defeat the takeover of "Re-evolution", a sinister experiment to re-engineer a select population into a scientifically superior master race...and to terminate the rest. Max, Fang, Iggy, Nudge, Gasman, and Angel have always worked together to defeat the forces working against them—but can they save the world when they are torn apart, living in hiding and captivity, halfway across the globe from one another?

In this concluding volume of Neal Stephenson’s epic work, “Half-Cocked Jack” Shaftoe must escape the noose of Jack Ketch; the rivalry between Newton and Leibniz comes to a head; and Daniel Waterhouse pursues his dream to build the Logic Mill

Northern Morocco: Dr. Kate Warner cured a global pandemic, and she thought she could cure herself. She was wrong. And she was wrong about the scope of the Atlantis conspiracy. Humanity faces a new threat, an enemy beyond imagination. With her own time running out and the utter collapse of human civilization looming, a new hope arrives: a coded message from a potential ally.

Key allies rescued from the darkness, the Goddess of Mirrors and Fate turns to the bright, new future she dreams of. The road ahead is long, but she runs to it all the same. Time is always short. A brand new [Domain] awaits capture, and that there are obstacles in the way is never in question. Sometimes, the best policy was to hit them head-on, the best tactic to take the fight to your enemies first.

With the plot against them foiled and the city of Qi-Katai in safe hands, newlywed and tentative lovers Velasin and Caethari have just begun to test the waters of their relationship. But the wider political ramifications of their marriage are still playing out across two nations, and all too soon, they're summoned north to Tithena's capital city, Qi-Xihan, to present themselves to its monarch.

"Something Passed By", a story by Robert McCammon, was originally published in his short fiction collection Blue World and was selected for inclusion in The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror: Third Annual Collection.