Sword Fantasy

In the ancient city of Lankhmar, two men forge a friendship in battle. The red-haired barbarian Fafhrd left the snowy reaches of Nehwon looking for a new life, while the Gray Mouser, apprentice magician, fled after finding his master dead. These bawdy brothers-in-arms cement a friendship that leads them through the wilds of Nehwon facing thieves, wizards, princesses, and the depths of their desires and fears.

A classic tale featuring two of the most-memorable characters in sword and sorcery, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. Over a span of 50 years, the late Fritz Leiber wrote dozens of adventures, set in the fictional city of Lankhmar, featuring the seven-foot-tall barbarian and the diminuitive thief. The stories were recognized with both the Hugo and Nebula Awards.

Ryana, a worthless girl-child, is sold to a mysterious woman who takes her to the home of the Shadow Sisters who are prized for their abilities as spies and assassins. She survives years of training in spite of being unconventional: adopting poisonous bats as familiars - something no one else would dare to do; choosing the blow dart as her weapon of choice - a weapon the Sisters don't teach; and relying on intuition rather than logic. As she completes her training, the Shadow Sisters are under attack and send Ryana out to find out who is killing Sisters and why.

On the cusp of entering the prestigious Lumina Deck-Building Magic Academy, the young mage Alistair harbors a dark secret: within him dwells Ghost. A reborn master assassin hellbent on revenge. Bound together by fate and magic, Alistair and Ghost embark on a dual journey of vengeance and discovery. As Alistair navigates the arcane halls of the academy, mastering battledeck spells and summoning skills, Ghost seeks to unravel the mysteries of his untimely demise.

The When Swords Fall Silent anthology showcases the imaginations and talents of more than a dozen of the best modern science-fiction and fantasy authors, with each tale centered around one or more characters burdened with a bloody task they will see to completion no matter the cost. Every story takes you for a vicious ride through a world of shadow and death, each as unique in perspective and execution as the contracts carried out within.

Every year on St. Walpurga's Eve, Caldella's Witch Queen lures a boy back to her palace. An innocent life to be sacrificed on the full moon to keep the island city from sinking. Lina Kirk is convinced her brother is going to be taken this year. To save him, she enlists the help of Thomas Lin. But they draw the queen's attention, and Thomas is chosen as the sacrifice. When Lina offers herself to the queen in exchange for Thomas' freedom, the two girls await the full moon together. But Lina is not at all what Eva expected, and the queen is nothing like Lina envisioned.

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.

Kirito has escaped Sword Art Online, the forbidden VRMMORPG of death, and returned to reality. He heads off to find his game partner and lover, Asuna Yuuki. But Asuna never made it back from the nightmare.

Corin Cadence finally has a firm reason to believe his brother, Tristan, is still alive. Unfortunately, finding more information isn’t going to be easy. Tristan appears to be entangled with a clandestine organization that calls themselves Whispers. And Corin’s last brush with the Whispers didn’t exactly end well. As much as he wants to follow that lead, Corin has more pressing problems to deal with.

Breq - the soldier who used to be a spaceship - is serving the emperor she swore to destroy. She's been given her own warship, her own crew, and ordered to the only place in the galaxy she would have agreed to go: to Athoek Station, to protect the family of the lieutenant she murdered in cold blood. Athoek was annexed by the Empire some 600 years ago, and by now everyone is fully 'civilised'. Or should be - but everything is not as tranquil as it appears.

Soulmates, pawns of prophecy and inheritors of an ancient conflict, Richard and Kahlan's destinies have been bound together since their first encounter in Wizard's First Rule. But now Richard lies on a funeral bier - suspended between the worlds of life and death and Kahlan faces her greatest challenge. She must fight for Richard's very existence, and Richard, trapped in the underworld, must fight to keep the world of life from ending.

April 3rd, 3:46 AM. Planet Earth merges with the magical world of Arcadia, and a system gives humanity a choice: 40 years of indentured servitude, or entering a tutorial as a user to fight against the chaos incursion. Will doesn't hesitate—but the system thanks him for stepping into the fight by throwing him into an impossible tutorial. With little chance of survival, Will has a simple response: “Screw it. Might as well fight fire with fire."

In the hotly anticipated ninth installment of the Young Wizards series, Kit Rodriguez and Nita Callahan become part of an elite team investigating the mysterious “message in a bottle,” which holds the first clues to the secrets of the long-lost inhabitants of Mars. But not even wizardry can help them cope with the strange events that unfold when the “bottle” is uncorked and a life form from another era emerges.

Even in death, Skilgannon the Damned's name lives on. Now, as an ancient evil threatens to flood the Drenai heartlands in a tide of blood, he returns.... A thousand years after they fell in battle, two heroes - Druss and Skilgannon - are revered throughout the war-torn lands of the Drenai, where men and women live in abject fear of the dark sorceress known as the Eternal.... But what if the soul of one such hero could be called back from the void, his bones housed again in flesh?

The story continues in the ninth volume of Hiccup's How to Train Your Dragon memoirs read by David Tennant. Bad times have come to the Archipelago. Ever since the woods of Berserk burned down, it is almost as if the world is cursed. Dragons are starting to revolt against their Masters. The waters have risen, flooding fields and washing whole villages away. But worse still, the wicked witch Excellinor has returned.

Everyone in Yaz's village has vanished. The only clue, a strange golden coin marked with mysterious runes. Can Yaz and his friends figure out what the coin means before it's too late? And what are the sinister Dark Sages up to in the northwest? It can't be anything good for our heroes. It's a race against time to rescue the missing villagers.

Holt Cook was never meant to be a dragon rider. He has always served the Order Hall of the Crag dutifully, keeping their kitchen pots clean. Until he discovers a dark secret: dragons do not tolerate weakness among their kin, killing the young they deem flawed. Moved by pity, Holt defies the Order, rescues a doomed egg and vows to protect the blind dragon within. But the Scourge is rising. Undead hordes roam the land, spreading the blight and leaving destruction in their wake. The dragon riders are being slaughtered and betrayal lurks in the shadows.

Once they had been college students playing a roleplaying game. Then, they found that somehow they had become their characters, transported to the Other Side. Now they have chosen the fantasy world for their own, and are fighting for its freedom.

The Sword of the Lictor is the third volume in Wolfe's remarkable epic, chronicling the odyssey of the wandering pilgrim called Severian, driven by a powerful and unfathomable destiny, as he carries out a dark mission far from his home.

Gene Wolfe's "The Book of the New Sun" is one of speculative fiction's most-honored series. In a 1998 poll, Locus Magazine rated the series behind only "The Lord of the Rings" and The Hobbit as the greatest fantasy work of all time.

It seemed the unthinkable had happened. Someone had actually targeted the Ghalian, an order of assassins known and feared across the systems. It was madness. Only a fool would go after the likes of them. But, it seemed, the galaxy had no shortage of fools. Retaliation most bloody was in order, and one man stood ready to spring into action. Hozark was his name, and he was no ordinary man. He was a Master Ghalian, an assassin skilled in the ways of death. Practical, mechanical, magical, to him it made no difference.