Video Game Fantasy

Steve likes to spend his mornings in the NCP village and trade his wheat for emeralds, armor, books, swords, and food. One morning, he finds that Zombies have attacked the villagers. The Zombies have also turned the village blacksmith into a Zombie, leaving Steve without a place to get swords. To protect himself and the few villagers that remain, Steve goes on a quest to mine for 40 diamonds, which are the most powerful mineral in the Overworld.

The robots are here and they're not happy, at all. After accidentally releasing the robot villains from Super Bot World 3 into the real world, Jesse Rigsby's got to figure out a way to make everything right before anyone gets hurt. He'd usually rely on his friend Eric to help him with this sort of thing, but he's gone missing. To find Eric, Jesse will have to survive rickety mine carts, sewer piranhas, mysterious men in suits, and a 100-foot-tall robot named Goliatron. This is Jesse's most dangerous adventure yet because this time the video game is real.

Hygeia, an outer rim colony, is doomed as the moon on which it was built hurtles toward an inevitable collision with the dead planet Hephaestus. When a distress signal arrives from a Weyland-Yutani biowarfare outpost near the colony, a desperate plan is launched to evacuate the trapped scientists and colonists. Their destination: LV-846, a key United Americas colony where high-level talks are scheduled to address the galaxy-wide hostilities between the colonies.

When the Colonial Marines set out after their deadliest prey, the Xenomorphs, it's what Corporal Hicks calls a bug hunt - kill or be killed. Here are fifteen all-new stories of such "close encounters", written by many of today's most extraordinary authors. Set during the events of all four Alien films, sending the Marines to alien worlds, to derelict space settlements, and into the nests of the universe's most dangerous monsters, these adventures are guaranteed to send the blood racing - one way or another.

The car crash was the last thing I remembered...then I woke up here. Where "here" was felt like an impossible nightmare. I died, but this wasn't what I'd expected to find when they said I'd meet my maker. The afterlife is just like a video game, except I didn't start in a noob world like everybody else. I started out on one of the most challenging dungeon worlds meant only for ancient souls who've been dead much longer than I have.... Welcome to Epoc.

An anthology celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Predator franchise, If It Bleeds includes 17 brand new, never-before-seen or heard stories featuring the Predators throughout space and time. Based entirely on the original films, novels, and comics, Predator: If It Bleeds reveals the Predators stalking prey in 12th-century Japan, ninth-century Viking Norway, World War I, Vietnam, the Civil War, Hurricane Katrina, and the modern day, as well as across the far reaches of future space.

Months after Inara leaves Serenity, Mal and the crew finally learn the reason for her sudden departure: She is dying of a terminal illness. Expert Esau Weng is said to have developed a means to treat Inara’s condition, but he has been disgraced and incarcerated for life on a notorious Alliance prison planet. On Atata planet, inmates are abandoned with no guards and left to survive as best they can. What’s more, terraforming the planet did not take properly, so the world is a frozen wasteland. To save Inara, the Serenity crew must infiltrate the prison....

Venture, a direct rival to the Weyland-Yutani corporation, will accept any risk to crush the competition. Thus, when a corporate spy "acquires" a bizarre, leathery egg from a hijacked vessel, she takes it directly to the Venture testing facility on Jericho 3. Though unaware of the danger it poses, the scientists there recognize their prize's immeasurable value. Early tests reveal little, however, and they come to an inevitable conclusion. They need a human test subject.... Enter Zula Hendricks.

In 1878, two young stage magicians clash in the dark during the course of a fraudulent séance. From this moment on, their lives become webs of deceit and revelation as they vie to outwit and expose each other. In the course of pursuing each other's ruin, they will deploy all the deception their magician's craft can command. Their rivalry will take them to the peaks of their careers, but with terrible consequences.

Conan the Barbarian, the world’s most famous fantasy hero, returns in an all-new novel tied directly to the famous works by his legendary creator, Robert E. Howard. Set early in his life, Conan has left his northern homeland to cut a bloody swath across the legendary Hyborian Age. A mercenary, a soldier, a thief, and a pirate, he faces conquering armies, malicious sorcerers, and monstrous creatures—against which he wields only the sword held in his powerful grasp.

In this third installment of the Minecraft Gamer's Adventure series, Steve is invited to participate in an elite building competition on Mushroom Island. His friends - Max, Lucy, and Henry - are impressed and want to join their friend on a journey to the island. Yet not everyone is happy: Steve's neighbor, Kyra, is upset because she wasn't chosen as a contestant.

At 30 years old, Phil is an unemployed gamer who struggles to make ends meet. His only source of income is freelance writing (when he feels inspired enough to add another article to his less-than-popular blog). His wife has just walked out on him, leaving him without money, purpose, or food in the fridge. On the day his wife dumps him, Phil receives a mysterious piece of wetware. A game interface seems to have been implanted in his brain, which allows him to see the world through the eyes of an RPG player. Now that Phil discovers his real-life stats, he can see they're below average.

When Charles Morris is forced into retirement, the old multinational company CEO has to accept that it is all over. The days of running his financial empire have finally come to an end. All because of a stupid heart attack. While Charles is attending a fundraiser, however, something happens and he's transported into a strange medieval world where magic is real and legendary heroes coexist with mythical monsters. Follow him as he builds roads and shops, hires heroes, develops alliances with neighboring villages...but also fights terrible foes.

Grey logs into Battle Royale for the first time, but unlike before, he passes out and wakes up in the virtual lobby, and everything is as real as can be. Four others stand there with him as an admin tells them they are the "new meat" and that their game has been hacked. Their consciousness will be trapped in this version of Fortnite until they can become the top five players for a season. Grey struggles to figure out the tools as people come to kill him. He is eliminated quickly, much to his disappointment. Maybe this won't be as easy as he thought.

Even before the doomed mission to Hadley’s Hope on LV-426, Jenette Vasquez had to fight to survive. Born to an immigrant family with a long military tradition, she looked up to the stars, but life pulled her back down to Earth—first into a street gang, then prison. The Colonial Marines proved to be Vasquez’s way out—a way that forced her to give up her twin children. Raised by Jenette’s sister, those children, Leticia and Ramon, had to discover their own ways to survive.

Fiver could sense danger. Something terrible was going to happen to the warren; he felt sure of it. They had to leave immediately. So begins a long and perilous journey of survival for a small band of rabbits. As the rabbits skirt danger at every turn, we become acquainted with the band, its humorous characters, and its compelling culture, complete with its own folk history and mythos. Fiver’s vision finally leads them to Watership Down, an upland meadow. But here they face their most difficult challenges of all.

Neapolis: a desert city on planet Bethel where all manner of entertainment is found: High-stakes gambling, luxurious hotels, exclusive clubs, and any form of diversion imaginable may be had for a price. It’s the eve of the annual carnival: three days of decadent revelry, and Serenity arrives to take a security job, guarding a costly shipment. But the shipment is stolen, and the wealthy owner kidnaps Zoë and Book, holding them to ransom for the lost shipment’s value. If Mal can’t find the enormous sum of 500 platinum by the next evening, both of them will be killed.

With 15 new and original stories, this first-of-its-kind anthology is inspired by the events of the original Aliens vs. Predators movies, graphic novels, and novels. Includes a new story written by Jonathan Maberry and Louis Ozawa (“Hanzo” from the movie Predators) as Hanzo’s brother faces the eternal threats of both the Yautja and the Xenomorphs.

A brand-new anthology from a diverse lineup of authors, offering taut and dramatic exclusive tales set on Earth and in dark reaches of space, featuring the ultimate hunters known as Predators This session features fifteen never-before-seen original short stories set in the expanded Predator universe from the first film, featuring the ultimate hunters, the Yautja from the movie Predator.

Jesse and Eric have ten minutes to save the world. In those ten minutes, they’re supposed to dive into a massive video game universe, track down an all-powerful madman, and stop his evil plan before it’s too late. Sound impossible? It’s super impossible. There will be fire-breathing pterodactyls, angry green giants, and unicorns that shoot lasers out of their hooves. If Jesse and Eric are going to survive long enough to fight the final boss, they’ll need to rely on each other like never before. Do they have what it takes? The clock is ticking.