Metaphysical Science

From the realms of prophecy and reincarnation to the reality of ancient dragons, feathered magicians, and Darak Ors, from dreams to the scrying bowl, from thrones to forest clearings, this epic sci-fi/fantasy omnibus edition journeys through, and finely weaves, fact, and fantasy. Part One includes The Kallanon Scales, and The Nemisin Star. A city of stone is discovered in a place forbidden to all. An ancient map leads them there and it changes the future. Ancient kingdoms are exposed, as well as shadowy spheres of influence.

A Year in the Borderlands writer Kevin Candela's wild second excursion into alternate realities includes 17 tales, twelve of which have appeared in previously released anthologies and are collected here for the first time. These short stories combine with five never before released works, including the novella It's Only Funny if You Laugh, to produce a wide-ranging panoramic view of the worlds and realities that exist beyond our own. Playing With Reality is another vividly detailed page in the Atlas of the Unknown.

What happens when hitchhikers conspire to find a missing black box? Surfers wipe out in a parallel Jim Crow universe? An L.A. courier travels to white suburbia for an alternative fuel source? A coffee shop Noah loads up her ark with humans? An infant apparition speaks its truth from a busted skateboard? A court martialed soldier confronts his demons? And two drifters misremember their shared past?

In a time when prisons no longer contain inmates behind concrete and steel, the convicted serve their time while asleep, rehabilitating in virtual reality while blissfully unaware of their crimes. Roger Parker is a professional prison breaker, skilled at navigating these strange penal dream worlds and extracting those imprisoned there - for a price. Parker wants out of the game, but a powerful senator, desperate to save his son, convinces Parker to pull one last job.

For Jacqueline, a second date is as rare as a unicorn. She's beautiful. She's intelligent. So why is she experiencing a string of first dates that leaves her ducking behind bushes and running for buses? Contrary to her nature, trading in her heels and curling iron for an easy chair surrounded by cats sounds appealing. Is she cursed, or can she find the man who will steal her heart?

Nola and Tina are both girls with problems. They don't know each other yet, but they will, because each is a Creator, with the magical ability to turn dreams into reality. It would be a great gift and a great power - if either knew she had it. But this world is hard on dreamers, whether they dream true or not.

Leigh has been married to a Hawthorne for a decade, but never knew the family secret: the Hawthornes are witches. When the dynamic Preacher Cody instigates a new, world-wide witch hunt, Leigh must choose sides. Will she stand with her husband and children, or will she run? This isn't the first witch hunt the Hawthornes have faced, but it could be their last. Will anyone survive?

Hari, a remarkably well-set-up young lad, has spent his entire life in a small village with his pious widowed mother, and the purity of his soul is largely uncorrupted by worldly sophistication. But now, poised on the brink of manhood, he feels himself moved by strange new urgings - urgings that will lead him far from the quiet life he has known. Though these strings are unfamiliar to him, virtuous Hari recognizes them for what they are: a hunger for spiritual enlightenment.

Every moment, every lifetime, every decision - including her choice to erase - has led Maryah to this. Two outcomes are possible: an infinite happy-ever-after with her kindrily or the final severing of her relationship with Nathan. Closer to the enemy than ever before, Maryah unravels the diabolical plan that Dedrick has been manipulating into place for centuries. Revelations, secrets, and lies surface faster than Maryah can process.

Targeted by evil because of her heroism during the great plague, Glory fights back with the help of gutsy young witch Kaia, inexperienced guardian angel Sasha, and her intrepid demon-fighting dog Hallelujah. Complicating everything, a rift in time reunites Glory with an old flame and forces her to pay a huge price for love. A thrilling tale of courage, faith, and fighting the good fight.

Chris Astor is a man in his early forties who is going through the toughest stretch of his life. Becky is Chris's fourteen-year-old daughter, a girl who overcame enormous challenges to become a vibrant, vital young woman - and now faces her greatest obstacle yet. Miea is the young queen of a fantasy land that Becky and Chris created when Becky was little, a fantasy land that has developed a life of its own and now finds itself in terrible, maybe fatal trouble.

In The Blackguard, Alador finds himself in the city of Silverport, the Lerdenian capital. Surrounded by a culture that sees murder as a path to social power, he struggles to find his place.

Sent by his uncle, the High Minister of Lerdenia, to the Blackguard, he begins his training as both a soldier and a water mage. The dragon dreams have not stopped and he learns more of the bloodstone he had harvested and what it means for him.

When Meena finds snakebites on her chest, her worst fears are realized: someone is after her and she must flee India. As she plots her exit, she learns of the Trail, an energy-harvesting bridge spanning the Arabian Sea that has become a refuge for itinerant vagabonds and loners on the run. This is her salvation. Slipping out in the cover of night, with a knapsack full of supplies including a pozit GPS, a scroll reader, and a sealable waterproof pod, she sets off for Ethiopia, the place of her birth.

Sam Sharp has never been what people would call sociable. Affected profoundly by his father's death when Sam was very young, he developed into a solitary and self-sufficient person. When he finds himself transported to Gythe, a world that is completely different from his home, yet strangely familiar, he is forced to seek help. Sam's nature wars with his need to rely on the strangers he meets - a warrior, a scholar, a monk, and a telepathic creature - to help him find a way back to his own world.

Alternating between nineteenth-century Europe and present-day New England, this tale follows the great British painter J. M. W. Turner - and his scene of artists, intellectuals, and lovers - and Henry, a middle-aged family man whose otherwise mundane existence is disrupted by the discovery of The Center of the World, Turner’s controversial painting of Helen of Troy that had been thought lost forever.

A former MMA fighter with a crippling case of insomnia, Jake is finally able to get some shut-eye for the first time in his life. Sort of. As soon as he falls asleep, Jake is transported to a dreamworld known as the Orange Vale. Able to wander his dreamscape at will, Jake sets off to conquer the dungeons of the Orange Vale, facing off against hybrid monsters and eerie shadow dragons. Alongside a beautiful beast tamer named Catriona and his pitbull, Bruno, Jake challenges these dungeons with the hopes of capturing their dungeon cores and freeing the beautiful dungeon maidens within.

Lyla was born to lead the most prosperous kingdom in the multiverse. She has it all: beauty, intelligence, the protection of her royal family, and a legion of supernatural soldiers. To prove herself worthy of her privileges, she goes to Earth on a mission just to find out it is a trap.

A pragmatic human thrown into a world of magic: Lindsey Porter fled from her traumatic past, determined to lay low, but now, someone has framed her for murder. The quest for answers leads her into a parallel realm where magic reigns, and with a hostile sheriff and a shape-shifting assassin on her trail, she must place her life in the hands of a seductive, supernatural man who tempts her like no one else.

A seven percent grasp of the infinite. The universe may be limitless, but our senses are not. Just as the human eye sees but a small percentage of the cosmic wave spectrum, in the same way, most of us are only able to perceive a similar sliver of what we brazenly term “reality”, even with the use of all five of our scientifically acknowledged senses. This month-by-month account of people-supernatural relations spans its own sci-fi/fantasy/horror/comedy spectrum, touring the weird side of the cosmos while leaving the passengers comfy and unscathed in their listening chairs.

She created his world and made him the hero of her story. Now she's living that story with him. Samantha and her twin brother spent their childhood creating an imaginary world beneath the willow tree in their backyard. Two years after her brother's death, Samantha is unexpectedly transported to their fantasy world, where she meets Takeem, the hero of every story she's ever written.