Multiverse travel is finally possible, but there’s just one catch: No one can visit a world where their counterpart is still alive. Enter Cara, whose parallel selves happen to be exceptionally good at dying—from disease, turf wars, or vendettas they couldn’t outrun. Cara’s life has been cut short on 372 worlds in total. On this dystopian Earth, however, Cara has survived. Identified as an outlier and therefore a perfect candidate for multiverse travel, Cara is plucked from the dirt of the wastelands.

For Ning, the only thing worse than losing her mother is knowing that it's her own fault. She was the one who unknowingly brewed the poison tea that killed her - the poison tea that now threatens to also take her sister, Shu. When Ning hears of a competition to find the kingdom's greatest shennong-shi - masters of the ancient and magical art of tea-making - she travels to the imperial city to compete. The winner will receive a favor from the princess, which may be Ning's only chance to save her sister's life.

Humanity is running out of options. Habitable planets are being destroyed as quickly as they're found and Naira Sharp thinks she knows the reason why. The all-powerful Mercator family has been controlling the exploration of the universe for decades, and exploiting any materials they find along the way under the guise of helping humanity's expansion. But Naira knows the truth, and she plans to bring the whole family down from the inside.

Sancia Grado is a thief, and a damn good one. And her latest target, a heavily guarded warehouse on Tevanne’s docks, is nothing her unique abilities can’t handle. But unbeknownst to her, Sancia’s been sent to steal an artifact of unimaginable power, an object that could revolutionize the magical technology known as scriving. The Merchant Houses who control this magic - the art of using coded commands to imbue everyday objects with sentience - have already used it to transform Tevanne into a vast, remorseless capitalist machine.

When itinerant cave diver James Tighe receives an invitation to billionaire Nathan Joyce's private island, he thinks it must be a mistake. But Tighe's unique skill set makes him a prime candidate for Joyce's high-risk venture to mine a near-Earth asteroid - with the goal of kick-starting an entire off-world economy. The potential rewards and personal risks are staggering, but the competition is fierce, and the stakes couldn't be higher. Isolated and pushed beyond their breaking points, Tighe and his fellow 21st-century adventurers must rely on each other to survive....

Five years ago, Kelana Gardavros lost everything in the war against the Pale empire. Now Kel Garda is just another refugee living on the edge of an isolated star system. No one knows she was once a member of an Order whose military arm was disbanded and scattered across the galaxy. And no one knows that if her enemies found her, they might destroy the entire world to get rid of her. Kel’s past intrudes in the form of a long-dormant Pale war machine, suddenly reactivated. If the massive automaton isn’t stopped, at best it will carve a swath of devastation that displaces thousands of people.

Jordan McKell has a problem with authority. Unfortunately for him, the iron-fisted authority of the powerful Patthaaunutth controls virtually every aspect of galactic shipping. In order to survive, Jordan ekes out a living dabbling in interstellar smuggling for outlaw concerns that represent the last vestiges of free trade in the galaxy. So when Jordan and his partner, Ixil - an alien with two ferret-like "outhunters" linked to his neural system - are hired by a mysterious gentleman to fly a ship and its special cargo to Earth, they jump at the job.

The Galactic Consensus arrived on ships as large as skyscrapers, crafted from glittering alloys that no human scientist could even begin to understand. They followed the trail of century old television transmissions to welcome us into the galactic community… only to recoil in horror at what they found.

A supernatural swarm. A treacherous scheme. A tinker's apprentice may be the village's only hope. This collection includes Steamborn, Steamforged, and Steamsworn. Grab it and crank up a whimsical thrill-ride today!

New girl Rachel Chavez turns to horror movies for comfort, preferring stabby serial killers and homicidal dolls to the bored rich kids of Manhattan Prep...and to certain memories she’d preferred to keep buried. Then Rachel is recruited by the Mary Shelley Club, a mysterious society of students who orchestrate Fear Tests, elaborate pranks inspired by urban legends and movie tropes. At first, Rachel embraces the power that comes with reckless pranking. But as the Fear Tests escalate, the competition turns deadly, and it’s clear Rachel is playing a game she can’t afford to lose.

Sergeant Gastovsky—Gas to everyone but his superior officers—never wanted to be a soldier. Far from it. But when a con goes wrong and he needs a place to lay low for a while, he finds himself wearing the power armor of the augmented infantry. After three years on a six-year contract, Gas has found his groove running low-level cons and various illegal activities that make him good money on the side. He’s the guy who can get you what you need. But he’s always had his eye out for a big score—the one that might set him up for life after the military.

Once Homo sapiens reigned supreme, spreading from star system to star system in an empire that encountered no alien life and thus knew no enemy.... save itself. As had happened many times before, the most primal human instincts rose up, only this time armed with the advanced scientific knowledge to create a genetically engineered smart virus that quickly wiped out humanity to the last man. That man is Ruslan, the sole known surviving human being in the universe.

In 17th-century London, two forces rule the people: the color powers and the Stone Plague. Brown masks can manipulate wood. Black masks control the night. And red mask...well, red is the color of blood. Thomas Fawkes needs a gray mask so he can remove the stone that has invaded his body and will ultimately take his life. But when he fails his color test, his only hope is to track down his father, the infamous Guy Fawkes, and demand his color mask.

In the midst of a tyrannical regime and political invasion, Dèmi just wants to survive: to avoid the suspicion of the nonmagical Ajes who occupy her ancestral homeland of Ife; to escape the King’s brutal genocide of her people—the darker skinned, magic wielding Oluso; and to live peacefully with her secretive mother while learning to control the terrifying blood magic that is her birthright.

Humans have always been fascinated by darkness. Especially the darkness of a city at night, when the black sky is made ever more inky by the pools of illumination dropped under streetlights. Whether the mean streets be in an alternate past charmed with dark magic or the dirty alleyways of futuristic crowded space stations, the city—and its darkened streets—will always fascinate us. Here then, an anthology of all new stories of science fiction and fantasy with a hardboiled noir twist that acknowledge that the city is a living, breathing entity...and it isn’t always on our side.