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Who Holds the Stone Rules the World!

It could light a path in the dead of night. Fashioned by gods--or demons--it could bring power and untold riches to any who possessed it. But it was lost with the destruction of the fabled city of Thyone.

And now... it may have been found.

Follow Peirol of the Moorlands on an epic adventure across oceans and strange lands filled with mystery and magic. There he will find his true calling - and the Stone!

Nebula Award winning and WFA, Hugo and Sturgeon Award nominated novelette. It originally appeared at Sci Fiction, February 26, 2003. The story can also be found in the anthologies Science Fiction: The Best of 2003 (2004) edited by Karen Haber and Jonathan Strahan, Nebula Awards Showcase 2005, edited by Jack Dann and The Secret History of Fantasy (2010), edited by Peter S. Beagle. It is included in the collection The Empire of Ice Cream (2006).

Mixing the mundane with the metaphysical, the pairings of the everyday and the extraordinary in this collection of short fiction yield supernatural results--a young musician perceives another world while drinking coffee; a fairy chronicles his busy life in a sandcastle during the changing tide; a demonic 16th-century chess set shows up in a New Jersey bar; and Charon, the boatman of hell, takes a few days of vacation. Storylines both conventional and outlandish reveal humdrum routines as menacing and imaginary worlds as perfectly familiar. Allusions to authors such as Edgar Allan Poe and Jules Verne reinforce the fantasy tradition in these tales, while understated humor and moments of sadness add a quirky unpredictability. Each story is followed by a brief afterword that details its genesis, offering insight into the many autobiographical elements found within.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - (2006) - essay by Jonathan Carroll
• The Annals of Eelin-Ok - (2004) - shortstory
• The Annals of Eelin-Ok: Story Notes - (2006) - essay
• Jupiter's Skull - (2004) - shortstory
• Jupiter's Skull: Story Notes - (2006) - essay
• A Night in the Tropics - (2004) - shortstory
• A Night in the Tropics: Story Notes - (2006) - essay
• The Empire of Ice Cream - (2003) - novelette
• The Empire of Ice Cream: Story Notes - (2006) - essay
• The Beautiful Gelreesh - (2003) - shortstory
• The Beautiful Gelreesh: Story Notes - (2006) - essay
• Boatman's Holiday - (2005) - shortstory
• Boatman's Holidy: Story Notes - (2006) - essay
• Botch Town - (2006) - novella
• Botch Town: Story Notes - (2006) - essay
• A Man of Light - (2005) - shortstory
• A Man of Light: Story Notes - (2006) - essay
• The Green Word - (2002) - novelette
• The Green Word: Story Notes - (2006) - essay
• Giant Land - (2004) - shortstory
• Giant Land: Story Notes - (2006) - essay
• Coffins on the River - (2003) - novelette
• Coffins on the River: Story Notes - (2006) - essay
• Summer Afternoon - (2002) - shortstory
• Summer Afternoon: Story Notes - (2006) - essay
• The Weight of Words - (2002) - novelette
• The Weight of Words: Story Notes - (2006) - essay
• The Trentino Kid - (2003) - shortstory
• The Trentino Kid: Story Notes - (2006) - essay

For centuries the Holy Human Empire had stifled change, and it paid dearly for that mistake. The "Empire" was down to one planet and shrinking rapidly. And that was bad news indeed to Colonel Saloman Karff of the Imperial Gestapo. If he stayed behind on the planet Portales, the Rebels would kill him. If he left with the Imperial Fleet, his boss would kill him. Karff feared the Rebels' anger more than General Bloyer's treachery so he left with the Fleet. Soon he was preparing an entire planet for invasion, a mission from which he was not supposed to return.

In the year that Mount Vesuvius destroyed Pompeii, the Roman Centurion Vitellan set off for the twenty-first century as Imperial Rome's last human-powered time machine. He killed an unfaithful lover by just letting her grow old, but her hate pursued him across seven centuries. In 1358 he stood with a few dozen knights against an army of nine thousand to defend the life of a beautiful countess...and earned a love that would conquer death.

Now Vitellan has awakened in the twenty-first century, a bewildered fugitive, betrayed and hunted in a world where minds and bodies are swapped and memories are bought, sold, and read like books. But worst of all, a deadly enemy from the fourteenth century is still very much alive--and closing in.

MAGIC. MURDER. MAYHEM. But keep it in the family.

Shine's life is usually dull: an orphan without magic in a family of powerful mages, she's left to run the family estate with only an eccentric aunt and telepathic cat for company.

But when the family descend on the house for the annual Fertility Festival, Shine is plunged into dark intrigue; stolen letters, a fugitive spy, and family drama mix with murder, sex and secrets, and Shine is forced to decide both her loyalties and future...

Earth is ruled by three mighty empires: The Saracen-Jewish Empire led by the Caliph of Rome, the Mughal-Arab Empire, ferocious in its determination to destroy its neighbor, and the great Sino-Aztec's Crystal Empire, led by a living God.

Little is known about the Crystal Empire, which spans most of western America. But it is the most powerful force surviving on Earth and its might is unchallenged. One man, however, will change that. Sedrich Sedrichsohn, a legendary fallen fighter, has a chance at redemption and nothing will stand in his way to reclaim his life and his purpose, even if he must fight the Sun-God himself.

This book was nominated for the Prometheus Award.

Since the sixteenth century, England has been a land ruled by the Undead. Vampires rule with terror and the darkly-seductive promise of life eternal for the lucky few. Edmund Cordery, member of the cabal pledged to penetrate the mysteries of the vampires and destroy them, strikes the first blow. But it will fall to his son. Noell, to carry on the crusade of human against inhuman. And it will fall to those who come after Noell to keep the struggle alive for over three centuries--from England to Malta to modern-day America, where destiny will decide finally whether the forces of horror or humanity will hold sway over all....

The Ballad of Beta-2

Centuries ago, the Star Folk had left Earth on twelve spaceships on a generations-long mission to colonize the distant stars. Ten of the ships had reached thier destination. Two had failed--and nobody, in the hundreds of years since the disaster, had the slightest inkling of what had happened.

Joneny, a student of galactic anthropology, was assigned the problem. It had seemed routine to him. Just some faster-than-light travel to the two wrecked ships, a bit of poking around and then writing up his findings.

But he was ill-prepared for what he found in space at the site of the two ancient worlds. One, the Sigma-9, was not subject to the laws of time-stasis (the only exception he knew of), and it was covered entirely with a mysterious green fire that shimmered so much that it seemed alive. And the other ship, the Beta-2, was nowhere to be seen.

Empire Star

The dying alien from the ship that crashed onto Rhys gave Comet Jo a jewel, and begged him to take it to the heart of the Galactic Empire. And, seeing no reason to miss an adventure, Comet Jo started out for the fabled Empire Star. But his journey was to have far-reaching consequences - consequences that could disrupt all the known laws of Time and Space...

Table of Contents:

• The Tree Lord of Imeten - novel by Tom Purdom
• Empire Star - novella by Samuel R. Delany

Joe McKinney's debut collection, The Red Empire & Other Stories, brings together eight tales of haunted policemen and cosmic horrors...

A chance encounter with a homeless man one hot summer night opens the doors of perception for a Houston beat cop...

Genetically engineered fire ants threaten to devour a small Texas border town, and the only thing in their way is a grief-stricken county man...

An ex-detective can no longer run from the ghost of his greatest failure...

A rare piece of non-fiction chronicles the author's fifteen year investigation into a century old cold case...

Police work can be hell. But there's no hell like the catacombs of the mind.

Beautiful, daring Anastasia, known as Stacy, is of noble birth. But she discarded a life of suitors and servants to live in the lush forest of the Haven.

Embracing her adventurous nature, she suddenly leaves her life in the Haven to set out on a dangerous journey. Buoyed by the memory of Old One, Stacy travels across vast and dangerous seas to the forbidden land of the white wolves, taking the name Khalea.

In the land of Rhonnda she meets Alryc, a giant and astronomer, and Elias, captain of the ship the Brora. With their help she voyages to the lost city of Satra.

But Satra is besieged from above by barbarian hordes, who constantly strive to protect themselves against those creatures which attack it from below.

These 'things' are half-human, half-baboon.

Stacy and her friends are imprisoned on Satra, while savage wolves lurk in the darkness if they should escape. Stacy must gain the trust of these wolves to survive.

Her training in the Haven is the only way to save herself and her friends.

The sun grew dark. A winter's wind blew out of nowhere... This was an ill omen. The Empire's great fleet had set sail in search of a legendary treasure island, leaving the Haven unprotected. The vision meant the fleet had been tricked by a treacherous enemy. And the purpose? A scheme to force Stacy, the Empire Princess, to confront her archenemy in the faraway and mysterious island of Kuba -- a dark and forbidding place where no one ever went willingly.

The Falcon of Eden is a revered relic of the Russak nation, a bejeweled golden statue that has been lost for centuries.

Stacy, the Lady of the Haven and Princess of the Empire, needs the Russaks as allies. To gain their cooperation, she is forced into a quest for their legendary bird.

But Stacy and her small band of intrepid balloonists do not realize how far their sky journey will lead: to a strange fantasy civilization at the top of the world...

Across icy mountains and frozen caverns they travel - Stacy in search of treasure, and her only chance to gain true power in alliance.

The Haven is doomed...

From the tranquil forests of the Haven, a small and gentle rabbit brings a message.

The peace of the empire is now threatened by vicious creatures, maddened with blood-lust. And in their violent wake, there is an unearthly creature: not animal, not man.

With her trusted wolf at her side, and the small rabbit as a guide, Stacy the Empire Princess begins a hellish descent far beneath the forest.

In a subterranean world of fire and brimstone lives the true enemy.

But their plans do not include either the feeble human race or the many animals that live on the earth's surface in the idyllic land of the Haven.

It is up to Stacy and her animal friends to put a stop to their evil machinations, and end forever their plot to transform the peaceful world into another hell.

The Annurian Empire is disintegrating. The advantages it used for millennia have fallen to ruin. The ranks of the Kettral have been decimated from within, and the kenta gates, granting instantaneous travel across the vast lands of the empire, can no longer be used.

In order to save the empire, one of the surviving Kettral must voyage beyond the edge of the known world through a land that warps and poisons all living things to find the nesting ground of the giant war hawks. Meanwhile, a monk turned con-artist may hold the secret to the kenta gates.

But time is running out. Deep within the southern reaches of the empire and ancient god-like race has begun to stir.

What they discover will change them and the Annurian Empire forever. If they can survive.

The fifth and final volume in Doris Lessing's visionary novel cycle "Canopus in Argos: Archives". It is a mix of fable, futuristic fantasy and pseudo-documentary accounts of 20th-century history.

Jerry Pierce's new assignment... preventing Earth's destruction... will be a challenge even for this most experienced of Intertemporal Agents. Especially since he's now programmed to kill.

Daevabad has fallen.

After a brutal conquest stripped the city of its magic, Nahid leader Banu Manizheh and her resurrected commander, Dara, must try to repair their fraying alliance and stabilize a fractious, warring people.

But the bloodletting and loss of his beloved Nahri have unleashed the worst demons of Dara's dark past. To vanquish them, he must face some ugly truths about his history and put himself at the mercy of those he once considered enemies.

Having narrowly escaped their murderous families and Daevabad's deadly politics, Nahri and Ali, now safe in Cairo, face difficult choices of their own. While Nahri finds peace in the old rhythms and familiar comforts of her human home, she is haunted by the knowledge that the loved ones she left behind and the people who considered her a savior are at the mercy of a new tyrant. Ali, too, cannot help but look back, and is determined to return to rescue his city and the family that remains. Seeking support in his mother's homeland, he discovers that his connection to the marid goes far deeper than expected and threatens not only his relationship with Nahri, but his very faith.

As peace grows more elusive and old players return, Nahri, Ali, and Dara come to understand that in order to remake the world, they may need to fight those they once loved... and take a stand for those they once hurt.

"There is a old Venetian saying," the Doctor murmured. "The council of ten send you to the torture chamber; the council of three send you to the grave."

A strange invitation brings the Doctor, Steven and Vicki to Venice in the year of our Lord 1609: a place of politics and poison, science and superstition, telescopes and terror. Galileo Galilei is there demonstrating his new invention to the Doge, and William Shakespeare is working as a spy for King James I. And there are other visitors too: inhuman ones that lurk in the shadows, watching -- and killing.

Vicki is abducted to a flying island. Steven is accused of murder and challenged to a duel. The Doctor, meanwhile, finds himself at the centre of what looks like an attempted invasion. But who are the invaders? And why can't they proceed without his help?

Empress Celene of Orlais rose to the throne of the most powerful nation in Thedas through wisdom, wit, and ruthless manipulation. Now, the empire she has guided into an age of enlightenment is threatened from within by imminent war between the templars and the mages even as rebellion stirs among the downtrodden elves. To save Orlais, Celene must keep her hold on the throne by any means necessary.

Fighting with the legendary skill of the Orlesian Chevaliers, Grand Duke Gaspard has won countless battles for the empire and the empress. But as the Circle fails and chaos looms, Gaspard begins to doubt that Celene's diplomatic approach Orlais' problems will keep the empire safe. Perhaps it is time for a new leader, one who lives by the tenets of the Chevalier's Code, to make Orlais strong again.

Briala has been Celene's handmaid since the two of them were children, subtly using her position to help improve the lives of elves across Orlais. She is Celene's confidante, spymaster, and lover, but when politics force the empress to choose between the rights of the elves and the Orlesian throne, Briala must decide where her true loyalties lie.

In this thrilling tie-in to the award-winning Dragon Age™ games, alliances are forged and promises broken as Celene and Gaspard battle for the throne of Orlais. But in the end, the elves who hide in the forests or starve in the slums may decide the fate of the masked empire.

The Slow Empire's advanced and complex technology is helping the Vortex Wraiths to materialize. The Empire's pride in its advanced communications systems has invited in a menace that could mean the end of the confederation altogether. But, as the Doctor discovers, this may be no bad thing...

THE TIME OF JUDGEMENT IS AT HAND

The Empire of the Wolf is on its knees, but there's life in the great beast yet.

To save it, Sir Konrad Vonvalt and Helena must look beyond its borders for allies - to the wolfmen of the southern plains, and the pagan clans in the north. But old grievances run deep, and both factions would benefit from the fall of Sova.

Even these allies might not be enough. Their enemy, the zealot Bartholomew Claver, wields infernal powers bestowed on him by a mysterious demonic patron. If Vonvalt and Helena are to stand against him, they will need friends on both sides of the mortal plane - but such allegiances carry a heavy price.

As the battlelines are drawn in both Sova and the afterlife, the final reckoning draws close. Here, at the beating heart of the Empire, the two-headed wolf will be reborn in a blaze of justice... or crushed beneath the shadow of tyranny.

Between the valiant kingdoms of the western Realms and the exotic eastern lands of Kara-Tur lies a vast, unexplored kingdom. For centuries, the "civilized" peoples of the Forgotten Realms have given little notice to these barbarians. Now, a powerful leader has united the wild horsemen into a mighty force--an army powerful enough to challenge the world. The Empires Trilogy: Book One.

New York Times best-selling author Troy Denning pens the 2nd novel in the Empires Trilogy, a saga set in the land of Kara-Tur within the Forgotten Realms.

The barbarbarian horde has breached the ancient Dragonwall and now threatens the oriental land of Shou Lung. Powerful as they are, the Shou army's only hope lies with Batu Min Ho, a young general who is himself a third generation descendant of Tuigan barbarians. But Batu's wife must fight her own battle in the treacherous political terrain of the imperial court, as a psy attempts to undermine the empreror's confidence in her husband. And if Batu is to retain his command and save Shou Lung, it is a battle she must not lose.

Picking up from where Dragonwall left off, the book sheds light on the Cormyrean king, masterminding and then leading the crusade in the defense of the entire continent following the invasion of eastern Faerun, Ashanath, Rashemen, and Thesk, by Khahan Yamun and the Tuigan horsemen. Whereas Horselords looks at the story from the point of view of Koja and the Tuigan, and Dragonwall looks at the continuation of the same story from the point of view of General Batu and the Shou Lung, Crusade is written from King Azoun's and subsequently the West's perspective. In addition, there are two parallel stories running: the king's relations with Alusair, his estranged daughter, and the adventures of John Razor, a fletcher from Suzail, as he takes part in the Crusade.

Gunrunner-turned-Empress Hail Bristol was dragged back to her home planet to take her rightful place in the palace. Her sisters and parents have been murdered, and the Indranan Empire is reeling from both treasonous plots and foreign invasion.

Now, on the run from enemies on all fronts, Hail prepares to fight a full-scale war for her throne and her people, even as she struggles with the immense weight of the legacy thrust upon her. With the aid of a motley crew of allies old and new, she must return home to face off with the same powerful enemies who killed her family and aim to destroy everything and everyone she loves. Untangling a legacy of lies and restoring peace to Indrana will require an empress's wrath and a gunrunner's justice.

Empires do not grow old gracefully. As the edifice of ancient government succumbs to entropy, as civil war reigns, the result is indeed "interesting times," the times of interstellar Huns locked in mortal combat with Imperial storm troopers.

Contents:

• The Crash of Empires - essay by Jerry Pournelle
• Pebble Among the Stars - (1976) - novelette by Gregory Benford (variant of Seascape)
• The Claw and the Clock - [Federation of Humanity] - (1971) - novelette by Christopher Anvil
• The Only Thing We Learn - (1949) - short story by C. M. Kornbluth
• Remembering Vietnam - (1987) - essay by H. J. Kaplan
• Blessed Are the Meek - (1955) - short story by G. C. Edmondson
• Limiting Factor - (1954) - short story by Theodore R. Cogswell
• Triage - (1976) - short story by William Walling
• Hyperdemocracy - [Editorial (Astounding)] - (1958) - essay by John W. Campbell, Jr.
• Chain Reaction - (1957) - novelette by Algis Budrys
• Earthman's Burden - (1954) - short story by Morton Klass
• Blood Bank - (1952) - novella by Walter M. Miller, Jr.
• Here, There Be Witches - [The Philosophical Corps] - (1970) - novelette by Everett B. Cole
• The Buzz of Joy - [Tower to the Sky] - (1989) - short story by Phillip C. Jennings
• Second Contact - (1988) - novella by W. R. Thompson
• The Quest - (1896) - poem by Rudyard Kipling

Our universe is ruled by physics and faster than light travel is not possible -- until the discovery of The Flow, an extra-dimensional field we can access at certain points in space-time that transport us to other worlds, around other stars.

Humanity flows away from Earth, into space, and in time forgets our home world and creates a new empire, the Interdependency, whose ethos requires that no one human outpost can survive without the others. It's a hedge against interstellar war -- and a system of control for the rulers of the empire.

The Flow is eternal -- but it is not static. Just as a river changes course, The Flow changes as well, cutting off worlds from the rest of humanity. When it's discovered that The Flow is moving, possibly cutting off all human worlds from faster than light travel forever, three individuals -- a scientist, a starship captain and the Empress of the Interdependency -- are in a race against time to discover what, if anything, can be salvaged from an interstellar empire on the brink of collapse.

This short story originally appeared in Lightspeed, Issue 103, December 2018.

Read the full story for free at Lightspeed.

This novelette originally appeared in Lightspeed, Issue 104, January 2019.

Read the full story for free at Lightspeed.

This novelette originally appeared in Lightspeed, Issue 105, February 2019.

Read the full story for free at Lightspeed.

This novelette originally appeared in Lighstpeed, Issue 106, March 2019.

Read the full story for fre at Lightspeed.

This short story originally appeared in Lightspeed, Issue 107, April 2019.

Read the full story for free at Lightspeed.

Since time immemorial, humans have worshipped the gods they call Fhrey, truly a race apart: invincible in battle, masters of magic, and seemingly immortal. But when a god falls to a human blade, the balance of power between men and those they thought were gods changes forever. Now, only a few stand between humankind and annihilation: Raithe, reluctant to embrace his destiny as the God Killer. Suri, a young seer burdened by signs of impending doom. And Persephone, who must overcome personal tragedy to lead her people.

The Age of Myth is over; the time of rebellion has begun.

In Age of Myth, fantasy master Michael J. Sullivan launched readers on an epic journey of magic and adventure, heroism and betrayal, love and loss. Now the thrilling saga continues as the human uprising is threatened by powerful enemies from without--and bitter rivalries from within.

Raithe, the God Killer, may have started the rebellion by killing a Fhrey, but long-standing enmities dividing the Rhunes make it all but impossible to unite against the common foe. And even if the clans can join forces, how will they defeat an enemy whose magical prowess renders them indistinguishable from gods?

The answer lies across the sea in a faraway land populated by a reclusive and dour race who feel nothing but disdain for both Fhrey and mankind. With time running out, Persephone leads the gifted young seer Suri, the Fhrey sorceress Arion, and a small band of misfits in a desperate search for aid--a quest that will take them into the darkest depths of Elan. There, an ancient adversary waits, as fearsome as it is deadly.

The alliance of humans and renegade Fhrey is fragile -- and about to be tested as never before. Persephone keeps the human clans from turning on one another through her iron will and a compassionate heart. The arrogant Fhrey are barely held in check by their leader, Nyphron, who seeks to advance his own nefarious agenda through a loveless marriage that will result in the betrayal of the person Persephone loves most: Raithe, the God Killer.

As the Fhrey overlords marshal their army and sorcerers to crush the rebellion, old loyalties will be challenged while fresh conspiracies will threaten to undo all that Persephone has accomplished. In the darkest hour, when hope is all but lost, new heroes will rise... but at what terrible cost?

Each culture has its own myths and legends, but only one is shared, and it is feared by all.

After years of warfare, humanity has gained the upper hand and has pushed the Fhrey to the edge of their homeland, but no farther. Now comes the pivotal moment. Persephone's plan to use the stalemate to seek peace is destroyed by an unexpected betrayal that threatens to hand victory to the Fhrey and leaves a dear friend in peril. Humanity's only hope lies in the legend of a witch, a forgotten song, and a simple garden door.

Winter blankets the land, and more than just hope has died.

Prevented from invading the Fhrey homeland by the tower of Avempartha, the western army seeks a way across the Nidwalden River before the fane obtains the secret of dragons. As time runs out for both humanity and the mystic Suri, the only chance for the living rests with the dead. Having made their fateful choice, can a handful of misfits do the impossible, or are they forever lost to an inescapable grave? Do gods truly exist? Is it possible to know the future? And what lies beyond the veil of death? In the tradition of Virgil's Aeneid, Dante's Divine Comedy, and Milton's Paradise Lost, the most epic of tales transcend the world of the living.

It's time to see what lies in Elan's Age of Death.

A door opens. An army of dragons advance. And the fate of the living rests with the dead.

After obtaining the secret to creating dragons, the leader of the Fhrey has turned the tide of war once more--but gaining the advantage has come at a terrible price. While Imaly plots to overthrow the fane for transgressions against his people, a mystic and a keeper are the only hope for the Rhunes. Time is short, and the future of both races hangs in the balance. In this exciting conclusion to the Legends of the First Empire series, the Great War finally comes to a climactic end, and with it dawns a new era in the Age of Empyre.

There is only the war. Otto Behr is a German agent, fighting his Russian counterparts across three millennia, manipulating history for moments in time that can change everything. Only the remnants of two great nations stand and for Otto, the war is life itself, the last hope for his people. But in a world where realities shift and memory is never constant, nothing is certain, least of all the chance of a future with his Russian love.

Sidewise award nominated novelette. It originally appreared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, October-November 1999. The story can also be found in the anthologies The Year's Best Science Fiction: Seventeenth Annual Collection (2000), edited by Gardner Dozois, and One Lamp: Alternate History Stories from The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction (2003), edited by Gordon Van Gelder.

One man can shape the future... but at what cost?

"In every revolution, there is one man with a vision."

Captain James T. Kirk of the United Federation of Planets spoke those prophetic words to Commander Spock of the Terran Empire, hoping to inspire change. He could not have imagined the impact his counsel would have.

Armed with a secret weapon of terrifying power and a vision of the alternate universe's noble Federation, Spock seizes control of the Terran Empire and commits it to the greatest gamble in its history: democratic reform.

Rivals within the empire try to stop him; enemies outside unite to destroy it.

Only a few people suspect the shocking truth: Spock is knowingly arranging his empire's downfall. But why? Have the burdens of imperial rule driven him mad? Or is this the coldly logical scheme of a man who realizes that freedom must always be paid for in blood?

Spock alone knows that the fall of the empire will be the catalyst for a political chain reaction -- one that will alter the fate of his universe forever.

Darth Vader joins forces with Xizor, an ambitious and ruthless Underlord of a criminal organization called Black Sun, to target the young Jedi knight Luke Skywalker, while Princess Leia launches a desperate campaign to free Han Solo, frozen in a carbonite slab.

Although they had won a significant battle, the war between the Rebels and the Empire had really just begun. Soon, Luke, Han, the princess and their faithful companions were forced to flee, scattering in all directions--the Dark Lord's minions in fevered pursuit....

Kyle Katarn is a decorated graduate from the Imperial Military Academy who would forfeit his life for the Empire. But when he learns of his father's untimely death--and the devastating way in which he was killed--Kyle swears revenge against the very Imperial forces he was about to join. His opportunity comes when the Rebel Alliance offers him a special mission: break into the Imperial Research Facility on Danuta, find the Death Star plans, and bring them out. Any sensible person would call it suicide. Kyle calls it vengeance.

On May 21, 1980, Star Wars became a true saga with the release of The Empire Strikes Back. In honor of the fortieth anniversary, forty storytellers re-create an iconic scene from The Empire Strikes Back through the eyes of a supporting character, from heroes and villains, to droids and creatures. From a Certain Point of View features contributions by bestselling authors and trendsetting artists:

• Austin Walker explores the unlikely partnership of bounty hunters Dengar and IG-88 as they pursue Han Solo.
• Hank Green chronicles the life of a naturalist caring for tauntauns on the frozen world of Hoth.
• Tracy Deonn delves into the dark heart of the Dagobah cave where Luke confronts a terrifying vision.
• Martha Wells reveals the world of the Ugnaught clans who dwell in the depths of Cloud City.
• Mark Oshiro recounts the wampa's tragic tale of loss and survival.
• Seth Dickinson interrogates the cost of serving a ruthless empire aboard the bridge of a doomed Imperial starship.

Plus more hilarious, heartbreaking, and astonishing tales:

The saga that began with the interstellar best seller William Shakespeare's Star Wars continues with this merry reimagining of George Lucas's enduring classic The Empire Strikes Back.

Many a fortnight have passed since the destruction of the Death Star. Young Luke Skywalker and his friends have taken refuge on the ice planet of Hoth, where the evil Darth Vader has hatched a cold-blooded plan to capture them. Only with the help of a little green Jedi Master--and a swaggering rascal named Lando Calrissian--can our heroes escape the Empire's wrath. And only then will Lord Vader learn how sharper than a tauntaun's tooth it is to have a Jedi child.

What light through Yoda's window breaks? Methinks you'll find out in the pages of The Empire Striketh Back!

Contents:

• ix - Introduction: A Galaxy Filled with Stories - essay by Peter Schweighofer
• 1 - First Contact - [Star Wars] - novelette by Timothy Zahn
• 26 - Tinian on Trial - novelette by Kathy Tyers
• 50 - The Final Exit - novelette by Patricia A. Jackson
• 83 - Missed Chance - novelette by Michael A. Stackpole
• 116 - Retreat from Coruscant - novelette by Laurie Burns
• 144 - A Certain Point of View - novelette by Charlene Newcomb
• 166 - Blaze of Glory - novelette by Tony Russo
• 198 - Slaying Dragons - shortstory by Angela Phillips
• 214 - Do No Harm - shortstory by Erin Endom
• 233 - Side Trip [Part One of Four] - novella by Timothy Zahn
• 255 - Side Trip [Part Two of Four] - novella by Michael A. Stackpole
• 278 - Side Trip [Part Three of Four] - novella by Michael A. Stackpole
• 299 - Side Trip [Part Four of Four] - novella by Timothy Zahn
• 321 - About the Authors (Tales from the Empire) - essay by uncredited
• [325] - The World of Star Wars Novels - essay by uncredited

It's five years after Return Of The Jedi: the Rebel Alliance has destroyed the Death Star, defeated Darth Vader and the Emperor, and driven out the remnants of the old Imperial Starlfleet to a distant corner of the galaxy. Princess Leia and Han Solo are married and expecting Jedi Twins. And Luke Skywalker has become the first in a long-awaited line of Jedi Knights.

But thousands of light-years away, the last of the emperor's warlords has taken command of the shattered Imperial Fleet, readied it for war, and pointed it at the fragile heart of the new Republic. For this dark warrior has made two vital discoveries that could destroy everything the courageous men and women of the Rebel Alliance fought so hard to build.

The explosive confrontation that results is a towering epic of action, invention, mystery, and spectacle on a galactic scale -- in short, a story worthy of the name Star Wars.

The undead Emperor has ruled his mighty interstellar empire of eighty human worlds for sixteen hundred years. Because he can grant a form of eternal life-after-death, creating an elite known as the Risen, his power is absolute. He and his sister, the Child Empress, who is eternally a little girl, are worshipped as living gods.

The Rix are machine-augmented humans who worship very different gods: AI compound minds of planetary size. Cool, relentless fanatics, their only goal is to propagate such AIs. They seek to end the Emperor's prolonged rule, and supplant it with an eternal cybernetic dynasty. They begin by taking the Child Empress hostage. Captain Laurent Zai of the Imperial Frigate Lynx is tasked with her rescue.

Separated by light years, bound by an unlikely love, Zai and pacifist Senator Nara Oxham must both face the challenge of the Rix, and both will hold the fate of the empire in their hands.

The final volume of the Gemmell Morningstar Award-shortlisted Swords and Fire fantasy trilogy, in which political scion Amalia and her bound fire warlock Zaira must save the Empire from a ruthless, magical enemy. Perfect for fans of Tamora Pierce, The Queen of the Tearling, and Uprooted.

While winter snows keep the Witch Lord Ruven's invading armies at bay, Lady Amalia Cornaro and the fire warlock Zaira attempt to change the fate of mages in the Raverran Empire forever, earning the enmity of those in power who will do anything to keep all magic under tight imperial control. But in the season of the Serene City's great masquerade, Ruven executes a devastating surprise strike at the heart of the Empire - and at everything Amalia holds most dear.

To stand a chance of defeating Ruven, Amalia and Zaira must face their worst nightmares, expose their deepest secrets, and unleash Zaira's most devastating fire.

Somewhere in the heart of Africa, a young archaeologist disappeared in the remote jungle mountains--Erich von Harben, son of an old missionary friend of Tarzan of the Apes. Now the ape-man seeks to rescue the lost scholar. The trail leads to a mysterious valley where Tarzan discovers two surviving outposts of ancient Rome, virtually unchanged by time. And there, Tarzan is thrust into the bloody gladiatorial arena, doomed to face every peril the cruel and corrupt emperor of Castra Sanguinarius can devise to ensure the ape-man's death. Miles away in Castrum Mare, Erich von Harben also awaits execution upon the sands of another tyrant's arena, destined to die before he can pledge his heart to the fair Favonia, daughter of one of the emperor's favored patricians.

Nicholas van Rijn, the most flamboyant member of the Polesotechnic League of star traders, could see dark times ahead. Fellow league members were using tactics verging on outright piracy, and others were all too eager to sell starships and high-tech weapons to alien barbarians. A planet not previously known for interstellar commerce suddenly revealed a secret fleet of armed starships, and started building an empire. Even if Van Rijn and his right-hand man David Falkayn could find a way to stop this blatant aggression, the glory days of the League were over. Hereafter, for its own protection against well-armed alien marauders the Earth must maintain a strong military fleet, and one charismatic man would found an empire that would learn nothing of the lessons history taught about the fates of other empires as it began annexing other star systems, whether they wanted to join the Terran Empire or not...

This is the third volume in the first complete edition of Poul Anderson's Technic Civilization saga, and it includes a classic novella which appears here in book form for the first time. And the next volume begins the adventures of Poul Anderson's other legendary character, Captain Sir Dominic Flandry.

Table of Content

• Mirkheim (1977)
• "Wingless" (also known as "Wingless on Avalon") (1973)
• "Rescue on Avalon" (1973)
• "The Star Plunderer" (1952)
• "Saragasso of Lost Starships" (1951)
• The People of the Wind (1973)

Contents:

• Tiger by the Tail
• Warriors from Nowhere
• Honorable Enemies
• Hunters of the Sky Cave

Now that Dominic Flandry is of an age more suited to deciding the fate of empires from behind the throne, others must take up the challenge of courting danger on strange planets filled with still stranger creatures. So begins the career of Diana and her faithful Tigery companion.

Forgotten knowledge re-emerging from the distant past now threatens the Empire of the Petal Throne. Harsan, raised among the alien Pe Choi, must take his place among humans when the Emperor summons him to decipher the secret of the Man of Gold. Follow Harsan on his quest as he searches for the knowledge that will change the world.

This is the first electronic publication of Prof. M.A.R. Barker's novel, "The Man of Gold." Originally published in 1984, it has been carefully prepared for a modern audience. You, too, can now enjoy the first of Prof. Barker's novels set in Tekumel, a world where technology is forgotten and replaced by magic.

On the far-off planet of Tékumel®, the Empire of Tsolyánu has enjoyed a comfortable dominance for centuries. However, Baron Áld of the neighboring nation of Yán Kór seeks to bring that dominance to an end by waging a bloody war for vengeance, driven by grievances both old and new.

Trínesh hiKétkolel, an officer in the Tsolyáni army, is charged with defending the empire against the Baron's forces. After capturing a remote fortress, his command is suddenly thrown off-course when he captures enemy agents who know of a weapon that could decide the war for Yán Kór. When his soldiers and prisoners are plunged into the subterranean ruins of the ancients, Trínesh and his enemies must form an uneasy truce if they are to survive. What this means for the war raging above them-and for the fate of Tékumel-not even the gods can tell.

When he was nine, he watched his mother and brother killed before him. By the time he was thirteen, he was the leader of a band of bloodthirsty thugs. By fifteen, he intends to be king...

It's time for Prince Honorous Jorg Ancrath to return to the castle he turned his back on, to take what's rightfully his. Since the day he was hung on the thorns of a briar patch and forced to watch Count Renar's men slaughter his mother and young brother, Jorg has been driven to vent his rage. Life and death are no more than a game to him-and he has nothing left to lose.

But treachery awaits him in his father's castle. Treachery and dark magic. No matter how fierce, can the will of one young man conquer enemies with power beyond his imagining?

The boy who would be king has gained the throne...

At age nine, Prince Honorous Jorg Ancrath vowed to avenge his slaughtered mother and brother—and to punish his father for not doing so. At fifteen, he began to fulfill that vow. Now, at eighteen, he must fight for what he has taken by torture and treachery.

Haunted by the pain of his past, and plagued by nightmares of the atrocities he has committed, King Jorg is filled with rage. And even as his need for revenge continues to consume him, an overwhelming enemy force marches on his castle.

Jorg knows that he cannot win a fair fight. But he has found a long-hidden cache of ancient artifacts. Some might call them magic. Jorg is not certain—all he knows is that their secrets can be put to terrible use in the coming battle...

The boy who would rule all may have finally met his match...

King Jorg Ancrath is twenty now—and king of seven nations. His goal—revenge against his father—has not yet been realized, and the demons that haunt him have only grown stronger. Yet no matter how tortured his path, he intends to take the next step in his upward climb.

Jorg would be emperor. It is a position not to be gained by the sword but rather by vote. And never in living memory has anyone secured a majority of the vote, leaving the Broken Empire long without a leader. Jorg plans to change that. He’s uncovered the lost technology of the land, and he won’t hesitate to use it.

But he soon finds an adversary standing in his way, a necromancer unlike any he has ever faced—a figure hated and feared even more than himself: the Dead King.

In the White Drake's war, the price of freedom is paid in blood and fire...

For hundreds of years, the Ironship Trading Syndicate was fueled by drake blood--and protected by the Blood-blessed, those few who could drink it and wield fearsome powers. But now the very thing that sustained the corporate world threatens to destroy it.

A drake of unimaginable power has risen, and it commands an army of both beasts and men. Rogue Blood-blessed Claydon Torcreek, Syndicate agent Lizanne Lethridge and Ironship captain Corrick Hilemore have been spread to disparate corners of the world, but they are united in their desire to defeat the White Drake and the Spoiled who follow it.

Humanity itself is at stake, but with the aid of ancient knowledge, revolutionary technology and unexpected allies, all hope is not lost. Saving the world will require sacrifice, as Clay, Lizanne and Hilemore will see all they know either consumed by flames or reborn from the ashes.

An exciting new adventure filled with diverse characters, strong heroes and heroines and wild creatures from the bestselling author of White Tiger.

Corporal Jian Choumali is on the mission of a lifetime - security officer on one of Earth's huge generation ships, fleeing Earth's failing ecosystem to colonise a distant planet.

The ship encounters a technologically and culturally advanced alien empire, led by a royal family of dragons. The empire's dragon emissary offers her aid to the people of Earth, bringing greater health, longer life, and faster-than-light travel to nearby stars.

But what price will the people of Earth have to pay for the generous alien assistance?

In this first book in a brand new series, Kylie Chan brings together pacey, compelling storytelling and an all-too-possible imagined future in a tale packed with action, adventure, drama and suspense.

The Dragon Empire is under threat ... Kylie Chan, bestselling author of White Tiger, returns with the follow-up to Scales of Empire - imaginative, epic and a whole lot of fun.

Earth has joined the Galactic Empire, a vast interstellar society ruled by dragon-like aliens where everybody is immortal. Pain, famine and disease have been eradicated, but this doesn't mean the end of conflict.

A cruel alien Republic has been watching from afar and wants to take the Empire's progress for its own. Jian Choumali, ex-British forces and now Colonel in the Imperial space force, must fight to keep her friends, family and fellow citizens in the Empire safe. A brutal battle of skill and wits begins as Jian and her human colleagues attempt to combat the invaders -- but with all their technology, enhancements and weapons in the hands of their enemies, the odds are stacked against them, and there is the very real threat of the destruction of the Empire itself.

Life seems settled for Jian in the Dragon Empire. She's comfortable in her position as Captain of the Imperial Guard and content with her unusual domestic arrangements. But when trouble stirs at the edge of the Empire, they discover that the Cat Republic has been hiding a powerful and dangerous force that could destroy everything the Empire represents. Jian and her family must work together to save the Empire - and travel further than any dragon has ever gone.

Proclaimed the long-prophesied ruler of the Celestial Empire, Princess Ailia escapes her enemies and flees to the world of Arainia, where she joins her trusted companions Damion, Jomar, and Lorelyn. But as Ailia strives to control her growing powers and gather allies, time is running out. The mad tyrant Khalazar is entering into an unholy alliance with the Dragon Prince Mandrake, a shapechanger with the blodd, and magic, of dragons in his veins. Together the villains assemble a fearsome military force for an attack on Arainia. Desperate to strike first, Jomar and Damion muster a brave, though untested, army of their own. Yet as they prepare for what might be their last battle, Ailia must embark alone on a perilous mission, one that will place her in Mandrake's power...

A tale of magic, mystery, and revolution in which the former heir to the emperor will fight to reclaim her power and her place on the throne...

The emperor's reign has lasted for decades, his mastery of bone shard magic powering the animal-like constructs that maintain law and order. But now his rule is failing, and revolution is sweeping across the Empire's many islands.

Lin is the emperor's daughter and spends her days trapped in a palace of locked doors and dark secrets. When her father refuses to recognise her as heir to the throne, she vows to prove her worth by mastering the forbidden art of bone shard magic.

Yet such power carries a great cost, and when the revolution reaches the gates of the palace, Lin must decide how far she is willing to go to claim her birthright - and save her people.

The Emperor is Dead. Long live the Emperor.

Lin Sukai finally sits on the throne she won at so much cost, but her struggles are only just beginning. Her people don't trust her. Her political alliances are weak. And in the north-east of the Empire, a rebel army of constructs is gathering, its leader determined to take the throne by force.

Yet an even greater threat is on the horizon, for the Alanga-the powerful magicians of legend-have returned to the Empire. They claim they come in peace, and Lin will need their help in order to defeat the rebels and restore peace.

But can she trust them?

Lin Sukai has won her first victory as Emperor, but the future of the Phoenix Empire hangs in the balance -- and Lin is dangerously short of allies.

As her own governors plot treason, the Shardless Few renew hostilities. Worse still, Lin discovers her old nemesis Nisong has joined forces with the rogue Alanga, Ragan. Both seek her death.

Yet hopes lies in history. Legend tells of seven mythic swords, forged in centuries past. If Lin can find them before her enemies, she may yet be able to turn the tide.

If she fails, the Sukai dynasty -- and the entire empire -- will fall.

This novelette was anthologized in Swords & Dark Magic: The New Sword and Sorcery edited by Lou Anders and Jonathan Strahan (2010) and The Mammoth Book of Warriors and Wizardry edited by Sean Wallace (2014), reprinted in Clarkesworld Magazine #97, October 2014, and collected in Academic Exercises (2014).

Read this story for free at Clarkesworld Magazine.

World Fantasy Award-winning Novella

This story originally appeared in Subterranean, Winter 2011. It was anthologized in The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Six (2012), edited by Jonathan Strahan, The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2012 (2012), edited by Rich Horton, and The Best of Subterranean (2017), edited by William Schafer, and collected in Academic Exercises (2014).

Read the full story for free at Subterranean Online.

Academic Exercises is the first collection of shorter work by master novelist K.J Parker, and it is a stunner. Weighing in at over 500 pages, this generous volume gathers together thirteen highly distinctive stories, essays, and novellas, including the recent World Fantasy Award-Winner, "Let Maps to Others". The result is a significant publishing event, a book that belongs on the shelf of every serious reader of imaginative fiction.

The collection opens with the World Fantasy Award-winning "A Small Price to Pay for Birdsong," a story of music and murder set against a complex mentor/pupil relationship, and closes with the superb novella "Blue & Gold," which features what may be the most beguiling opening lines in recent memory. In between, Parker has assembled a treasure house of narrative pleasures. In "A Rich, Full Week," an itinerant "wizard" undergoes a transformative encounter with a member of the "restless dead." "Purple & Black," the longest story in the book, is an epistolary tale about a man who inherits the most hazardous position imaginable: Emperor. "Amor Vincit Omnia" recounts a confrontation with a mass murderer who may have mastered an impossible form of magic.

Rounding out the volume--and enriching it enormously--are three fascinating and illuminating essays that bear direct relevance to Parker's unique brand of fiction: "On Sieges," "Cutting Edge Technology," and "Rich Men's Skins."

Taken singly, each of these thirteen pieces is a lovingly crafted gem. Together, they constitute a major and enduring achievement. Rich, varied, and constantly absorbing, Academic Exercises is, without a doubt, the fantasy collection of the year.

Table of Contents:

• A Small Price to Pay for Birdsong (2011) - novella
• A Rich, Full Week (2010) - novelette
• Amor Vincit Omnia (2010) - novelette
• On Sieges (2009) - essay
• Let Maps to Others (2012) - novella
• A Room with a View (2011) - novelette
• Cutting Edge Technology (2011) - essay
• Illuminated (2012) - novelette
• Purple & Black (2009) - novella
• Rich Men's Skins: A Social History of Armour (2010) - essay
• The Sun and I (2013) - novelette
• One Little Room an Everywhere (2012) - short story
• Blue & Gold (2010) - novella

This novelette originally appeared in Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine #45, May 2010, and was reprinted in Subterranean Magazine, Summer 2010. It was anthologized in The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Five (2011), edited by Jonathan Strahan and The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2011, edited by Rich Horton and collected in Academic Exercises (2014).

Read the full story for free at Subterranean Online.

This short story originally appeared in Subterranean Magazine, Winter 2014. It was anthologized in The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Nine edited by Jonathan Strahan (2015) and collected in The Father of Lies (2018).

Read the full story for free at Subterranean Online.

This novelette was originally published in Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine #55, December 2012, and reprinted in Subterranean Magazine, Summer 2013. It was collected in Academic Exercises (2014).

Read this story for free at Subterranean Online.

World Fantasy Award-winning Novella

This story originally appeared in Subterranean Magazine, Summer 2012. It was anthologized in The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Seven (2013) edited by Jonathan Strahan, and collected in Academic Exercises (2014).

Read the full story for free at Subterranean Online.

This novelette was originally published in Beneath Ceaseless Skies #313, September 24, 2020.

Read this story for free at Beneath Ceaseless Skies.

An Imperial legate is called into see his aunt, who just happens to be the empress running the civilized world while her husband's in his sick bed. After some chastisement, she dispatches her nephew to take care of the dreaded Land and Sea Raiders, pirates who've been attacking the realm's monasteries.

So begins a possibly doomed tour of banished relatives and pompous royals put in charge of monasteries like Cort Doce and Cort Malestan, to name a few. While attempting to discover the truth of what the pirates might be after, the legate visits great libraries and halls in each varied locale and conducts a romance of which he knows but doesn't care his aunt will not approve.

As the story begins, the nameless, dying narrator takes us back to his childhood home in a remote corner of the ubiquitous Empire. The second of three sons, he lives there with his mother in a state of unrelieved poverty. Life eventually becomes so dire that the mother -- who can only find work as a prostitute -- is forced to sell one of her children. The oldest son, Nico, volunteers to be sold in order to protect his family, and that decision sets in motion everything that follows. Nico's journey takes him, in time, to the heart of the Empire and the very center of power. Over time, he acquires considerable power of his own and uses it to bring his younger brothers into the circle of his influence, changing their lives forever. Under Nico's guidance, the middle brother -- our nameless narrator -- achieves a destiny that will alter not only his own life, but the life of the Empire itself.

This short story was originally published in Eclipse Online, October 22, 2012. It was collected in Academic Exercises (2014).

Read this story for free at Eclipse Online.

This novelette was originally published in Beneath Ceaseless Skies #287, April 26, 2019.

Read this story for free at Beneath Ceaseless Skies.

When his father, brothers and uncles wiped each other out in a murderous civil war, Nicephorus was forced to leave the University and become emperor.

Seventy-seven emperors had met violent deaths over the past hundred years, most of them murdered by their own soldiers. Hardly surprising, then, that Nico should want to fill the major offices of state with the only people he knew he could trust, his oldest and closest friends.

But there's danger on the northern frontier, and Nico daren't send a regular general up there with an army, for fear of a military coup. He turns to his best friend Phormio, who reluctantly takes the job.

Military dispatches, written in the purple ink reserved exclusively for official business, are a miserable way for friends to keep in touch, at a time when they need each other most. But there's space in the document-tube for another sheet of paper.

This novella was originally published as a chapbook, and was collected in Academic Exercises (2014).

This novelette oriignally appeared in the anthology Fearsome Journeys (2013), edited by Jonathan Strahan, and was reprinted in Clarkesworld #125, February 2017. It was anthologized in The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2014 edited by Rich Horton, and collected in The Father of Lies (2018).

Read the full story for free at Clarkesworld Magazine.

The unnamed narrator of The Long Game is an Adept, a member of an Ecclesiastical order charged, among other things, with opposing a race of immaterial demons, creatures capable of possessing and controlling human minds. Complicating the narrator's life is the fact that, over time, he has developed a cordial "relationship" with one of the demons. Complicating matters further is the unexpected arrival of Amalasomtha, a young woman with impossible abilities who claims to have come from the remote -- perhaps mythical -- country of Idalia. She also claims that, for reasons she does not entirely understand, she has been tasked with capturing one such demon and returning with it to Idalia. The truth, it turns out, is considerably more complex.

Amalasomtha's arrival sets in motion a chain of events encompassing murder, magic, deception, and an array of unintended consequences. By the story's end, this consistently witty account of demonic possession, hidden agendas and Ecclesiastical politics has taken us to some unexpected places and given us a glimpse of a larger story still, the "long game" that lies at the heart of all human history.

World Fantasy Award-nominated Novelette

This story originally appeared in Subterranean Magazine, Summer 2013. It was anthologized in The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Eight (2014) edited by Jonathan Strahan, and collected in Academic Exercises (2014).

Read the full story for free at Subterranean Online.

This novella was originally published in Subterranean Magazine, Summer 2014. It was anthologized in The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy Novellas 2015 edited by Paula Guran (2015) and collected in The Father of Lies (2018).

Read this story for free at Subterranean Online.

This novelette was originally published in Beneath Ceaseless Skies #250, April 26, 2018.

Read this story for free at Beneath Ceaseless Skies.

In a fracturing empire spread across savage seas, a warrior and a thief must come together and find common cause.

Hope, the lone survivor when her village is massacred by the emperor's forces is secretly trained by a master Vinchen warrior as an instrument of vengeance.

Red, an orphan adopted by a notorious matriarch of the criminal underworld, learns to be an expert thief and con artist.

Together they will take down an empire.

A killer adventure fantasy follow-up to HOPE AND RED, set in a fracturing empire spread across savage seas, where two young people from different cultures find common purpose.

Red is being trained as a cold-blooded assassin by the biomancers. As he becomes increasingly embroiled in palace politics, he learns that even life among the nobility can be deadly.

While terrorizing imperial ships as the pirate Dire Bane, Hope stumbles onto a biomancer plot of such horrifying scope that it makes even the massacre of her childhood village seem small in comparison.

With the biomancers tightening their grip of fear over the empire, Hope and Red struggle to fill their new roles and responsibilities, but the cost will be greater than any of them realize.

Two young people from a fracturing empire spread across savage seas must find a way to keep their nation together.

Still reeling from the events at Dawn's Light, Hope struggles to understand what it means to be a warrior who has vowed to never again take up a sword.

Red is enjoying his new role as imperial spy. Perhaps a bit too much. But his loyalties will be tested when his employer, assigns him the one task he's been begging for all along: recruiting Hope and Brigga Lin to help rid the empire of biomancery once and for all.

Fate brought them together; it will tear their empire apart.

Magic and murder engulf the realm of Kelewan. Fierce warlords ignite a bitter blood feud to enslave the empire of Tsuranuanni. While in the opulent Imperial courts, assassins and spy-master plot cunning and devious intrigues against the rightful heir. Now Mara, a young, untested Ruling lady, is called upon to lead her people in a heroic struggle for survival.

But first she must rally an army of rebel warriors, form a pact with the alien cho-ja, and marry the son of a hated enemy. Only then can Mara face her most dangerous foe of all--in his own impregnable stronghold.

An epic tale of adventure and intrigue. Daughter of the Empire is fantasy of the highest order by two of the most talented writers in the field today.

In this thrilling sequel to Daughter of the Empire, Lady Mara faces a vengeful blood enemy who doesn't know Mara has a strategic secret weapon--a rakish Midkemian slave whose real identity will change the rimworld forever.

The world on the other side of the rift: Kelewan, a land seething with political intrigue and deadly conspiracies. Following the opulent panoply of Daughter Of The Empire and the dazzling pageantry of Servant Of The Empire comes the resounding conclusion to the Empire trilogy.

Besieged by spies and rival houses, stalked by a secret and merciless brotherhood of assassins, the brilliant Lady Mara of the Acoma faces the most deadly challenge she has ever known. The fearsome Black Robes see Mara as the ultimate threat to their ancient power. In search of allies who will join her against them, Mara must travel beyond civilization's borders and even into the hives of the alien cho-ja. As those near and dear to her fall victim to many enemies, Mara cries out for vengeance. Drawing on all of her courage and guile she prepares to fight her greatest battle of all--for her life, her home, and the Empire itself.

In a botched demonic extraction, they say the demon feels it ten times worse than the man. But they don't die, and we do. Equilibrium.

The unnamed and morally questionable narrator is an exorcist with great follow-through and few doubts. His methods aren't delicate but they're undeniably effective: he'll get the demon out--he just doesn't particularly care what happens to the person.

Prosper of Schanz is a man of science, determined to raise the world's first philosopher-king, reared according to the purest principles. Too bad he's demonically possessed.

An anonymous representative of the Devil, once a high-ranking Duke of Hell and now a committed underachiever, has spent the last forever of an eternity leading a perfectly tedious existence distracting monks from their liturgical devotions. It's interminable, but he prefers it that way, now that he's been officially designated by Downstairs as "fragile." No, he won't elaborate.

All that changes when he finds himself ensnared, along with a sadistic exorcist, in a labyrinthine plot to subvert the very nature of Good and Evil. In such a circumstance, sympathy for the Devil is practically inevitable.

'Well, let me see,' I said, as the innkeeper poured me a beer. 'In the morning I discovered the secret of changing base metal into gold. In the afternoon, I murdered my wife.'

For a man as remarkable as the philosopher Saloninus, just another day.

Of course, we only have his word for it, and Saloninus has been known to be creative with the truth. Little white lies are inevitable expedients when you're one jump ahead of the secret police and on the brink of one of the greatest discoveries in the history of alchemy. But why would a scientist with the world's most generous, forgiving patron be so desperate to run away? And what, if anything, has blue got to do with gold?

This novella was originally published as a chapbook, and was collected in Academic Exercises (2014).

The greatest philosopher of all time is offering to sell his soul to the Devil. All he wants is twenty more years to complete his life's work. After that, he really doesn't care.

But the assistant demon assigned to the case has his suspicions, because the philosopher is Saloninus--the greatest philosopher, yes, but also the greatest liar, trickster and cheat the world has yet known; the sort of man even the Father of Lies can't trust.

He's almost certainly up to something; but what?

This novella was originally published as a chapbook. It was collected in The Father of Lies (2018).

Saloninus is a man with two distinct professions. In idle moments, he dashes off immortal masterpieces – philosophical treatises, musical compositions, dramas of Shakespearean range and depth – that never manage to turn a profit. His primary profession – that of thief, grifter and itinerant con man – is equally unprofitable, and he spends his life in constant flight from the encroaching forces of the law.

The story opens in the aftermath of Saloninus's own funeral, an act of self-concealment he has staged many times before. Newly risen from the dead, he encounters an old flame – a sort of archetypal femme fatale – with whom he shares a colorful – and highly illegal – history. She has a plan in mind, one that involves both of Saloninus's skill sets: criminality and literary genius. If successful, that plan will lead to the elusive "big score" that will set them free forever. Against his better judgment, and fully aware that failure and betrayal may await him, Saloninus agrees to participate. The result is this ingenious – and very funny – tale.

Pulling the Wings Off Angels is a madcap adventure brimming with the ethical quandaries and sardonic wit of The Good Place by World Fantasy Award-winning author K. J. Parker

Long ago, a wealthy man stole an angel and hid her in a chapel, where she remains imprisoned to this day.

That's the legend, anyway.

A clerical student who's racked up gambling debts to a local gangster is given an ultimatum--deliver the angel his grandfather kidnapped, or forfeit various body parts in payment.

And so begins a whirlwind theological paradox--with the student at its center--in which the stakes are the necessity of God, the existence of destiny--and the nature of angels.

A siege is approaching, and the city has little time to prepare. The people have no food and no weapons, and the enemy has sworn to slaughter them all.

To save the city will take a miracle, but what it has is Orhan. A colonel of engineers, Orhan has far more experience with bridge-building than battles, is a cheat and a liar, and has a serious problem with authority. He is, in other words, perfect for the job.

Sixteen Ways To Defend a Walled City is the story of Orhan, son of Siyyah Doctus Felix Praeclarissimus, and his history of the Great Siege, written down so that the deeds and sufferings of great men may never be forgotten.

This is the history of how the City was saved, by Notker the professional liar, written down because eventually the truth always seeps through.

The City may be under siege, but everyone still has to make a living. Take Notker, the acclaimed playwright, actor, and impresario. Nobody works harder, even when he's not working. Thankfully, it turns out that people enjoy the theater just as much when there are big rocks falling out of the sky.

But Notker is a man of many talents, and all the world is, apparently, a stage. It seems that the empire needs him - or someone who looks a lot like him - for a role that will call for the performance of a lifetime. At least it will guarantee fame, fortune, and immortality. If it doesn't kill him first.

This is the true story of Aemilius Felix Boioannes the younger, the intended and unintended consequences of his life, the bad stuff he did on purpose, and the good stuff that happened in spite of him.

It is, in other words, the tale of a war to end all wars, and the man responsible.

Elizabeth Barnabus lives a double life - as herself and as her brother, the private detective. She is trying to solve the mystery of a disappearing aristocrat and a hoard of arcane machines. In her way stand the rogues, freaks and self-proclaimed alchemists of a travelling circus.

But when she comes up against an agent of the all-powerful Patent Office, her life and the course of history will begin to change. And not necessarily for the better...

In the divided land of England, Elizabeth Barnabus has been living a double life - as both herself and as her brother, the private detective. Witnessing the brutal hanging of someone very close to her, Elizabeth resolves to throw the Bullet Catcher's Handbook into the fire, and forget her past. If only it were that easy!

There is a new charitable organisation in town, run by some highly respectable women. But something doesn't feel right to Elizabeth. Perhaps it is time for her fictional brother to come out of retirement for one last case? Her unstoppable curiosity leads her to a dark world of body-snatching, unseemly experimentation, politics and scandal. Never was it harder for a woman in a man's world...

You'd have to be mad to steal from the feared International Patent Office. But that's what Elizabeth Barnabus is about to try. A one-time enemy from the circus has persuaded her to attempt a heist that will be the ultimate conjuring trick.

Hidden in the vaults of the Patent Court in London lie secrets that could shake the very pillars of the Gas-Lit Empire. All that stands in Elizabeth's way are the agents of the Patent Office, a Duke's private army and the mysterious Custodian of Marvels.

Rod Duncan returns with the climactic volume of the Fall of the Gas-Lit Empire, the breathtaking alternate history series that began with the Philip K Dick Award-nominated The Bullet-Catcher's Daughter.

Every year, each village is required to send a young woman to the Empire's capital--her fate to be burned alive for the entertainment of the masses. For the last five years, one small village's tithe has been the same woman. Gilene's sacrifice protects all the other young women of her village, and her secret to staying alive lies with the magic only she possesses.

But this year is different.

Azarion, the Empire's most famous gladiator, has somehow seen through her illusion--and is set on blackmailing Gilene into using her abilities to help him escape his life of slavery. Unknown to Gilene, he also wants to reclaim the birthright of his clan.

To protect her family and village, she will abandon everything to return to the Empire--and burn once more.

Magic is outlawed in the Krael Empire and punishable by death. Born with the gift of earth magic, the free trader Halani keeps her dangerous secret closely guarded. When her uncle buys a mysterious artifact, a piece of bone belonging to a long-dead draga, Halani knows it's far more than what it seems.

Dragas haven't been seen for more than a century, and most believe them extinct. They're wrong. Dragas still walk among the denizens of the Empire, disguised as humans. Malachus is a draga living on borrowed time. The magic that has protected him will soon turn on him--unless he finds a key part of his heritage. He has tracked it to a group of free traders, among them a grave-robbing earth witch who fascinates him as much as she frustrates him with her many secrets.

Unbeknownst to both, the Empire's twisted empress searches for a draga of her own, to capture and kill as a trophy. As Malachus the hunter becomes the hunted, Halani must risk herself and all she loves to save him from the Empire's machinations and his own lethal birthright.

Siora has been on the run for longer than she cares to remember, from her past and her gift. Born with the ability to see and speak to ghosts, she has heard their desperate pleas as an otherworldly predator stalks the dead amid the fertile killing fields of the collapsing Krael Empire. The creature's power and reach are growing with every soul it consumes, but Siora is preoccupied with her own troubles: namely an assassin who has sworn an oath of vengeance against her.

>Gharek of Cabast was once the right-hand man of the reviled empress but is now a wanted fugitive. Although his reasons for hunting Siora are viscerally personal, what Gharek can't anticipate is that when he finally does find her, she will hold the key to saving his world, or what's left of it. To make good on old debts and protect the vulnerable dead from a malevolent force, Gharek and Siora will both need to make an ally out of an enemy--and trust that will be enough to save each other.

Her magic was stolen. She was left for dead.

Betrayed by those she trusts most and her magic ripped from her, all Sal the Cacophony has left is her name, her story, and the weapon she used to carve both. But she has a will stronger than magic, and knows exactly where to go.

The Scar, a land torn between powerful empires, where rogue mages go to disappear, disgraced soldiers go to die and Sal went with a blade, a gun, and a list of seven names.

Revenge will be its own reward.

An outcast mage caught between two warring empires must either save the world or destroy everything she loves...

Sal the Cacophony -- outlaw, outcast, outnumbered -- destroys all that she loves. Her lover lost and cities burned in her wake, all she has left is her magical gun and her all-consuming quest for revenge against those who stole her power and took the sky from her.

When the roguish agent of a mysterious patron offers her the chance to participate in a heist to steal an incredible power from the famed airship fleet, the Ten Arrows, she finds a new purpose. But a plot to save the world by bringing down empires swiftly escalates into a conspiracy of magic and vengeance that threatens to burn everything to ash, including herself.

Believing Terra has already fallen to the Warmaster, Primarch Roboute Guilliman founds the Imperium Secundus.

The unthinkable has happened – Terra has fallen to the traitor forces of Warmaster Horus! Nothing else could explain the sudden disappearance of the Astronomican’s guiding light at the heart of the Imperium, or so Roboute Guilliman would believe. Ever the pragmatist, he has drawn all his forces to Ultramar and begun construction of the new empire known as Imperium Secundus. Even with many of his primarch brothers at his side, he still faces war from without and intrigue from within – with the best of intentions, were the full truth to be known it would likely damn them all as traitors for all eternity.

Queen Victoria rules with an immortal fist. The undead matriarch of a Britain where the Aristocracy is made up of werewolves and vampires, where goblins live underground and mothers know better than to let their children out after dark. A world where being nobility means being infected with the Plague (side-effects include undeath), Hysteria is the popular affliction of the day, and leeches are considered a delicacy. And a world where technology lives side by side with magic. The year is 2012.

Xandra Vardan is a member of the elite Royal Guard, and it is her duty to protect the Aristocracy. But when her sister goes missing, Xandra will set out on a path that undermines everything she believed in and uncover a conspiracy that threatens to topple the empire. And she is the key-the prize in a very dangerous struggle.

When her brother Val gets in over his head in an investigation of Half-Blood disappearances and goes missing himself, it's up to Xandra, newly crowned Goblin Queen, to get him back and bring the atrocities to light. Xandra must frequent the seediest parts of London, while also coping with what she is, the political factions vying for her favor, and the all too-close scrutiny of Queen Victoria, who wants her head. Add this to a being a suspect in a murder investigation, a werewolf boyfriend with demands of his own, and a mother hell bent on destroying the monarchy, and Xandra barely knows which way is up. One thing she does know is that she's already lost one sibling, she's not about to lose another.

Xandra Varden is the newly crowned Goblin Queen of England. But her complicated life is by no means over. There are the political factions vying for her favor, and the all too-close scrutiny of Queen Victoria, who for some reason wants her head. Not to mention her werewolf boyfriend with demands of his own, and a mother hell bent on destroying the monarchy. Now she's the suspect in a murder investigation --- and Xandra barely knows which way is up.

What she does know is that nothing lasts forever---and immortality isn't all its cracked up to be.

The fantastic conclusion to the Immortal Empire series that started with the spectacular God Save the Queen.

Xandra Vardan thought life would be simpler when she accepted the goblin crown and became their queen, but life has only become more complicated. Everyone -- vampires, werewolves, and humans -- wants the goblins on their side, because whoever has the goblins --wins.

With human zealots intent on ridding the world of anyone with plagued blood and supernatural politics taking Britain to the verge of civil war, Xandra's finding out that being queen isn't all it's cracked up to be, and if she doesn't do something fast, hers will be the shortest reign in history.

WOULD THEY DESTROY EARTH IN ORDER TO SAVE IT

Conquered by the Jao twenty years ago, the Earth is shackled under alien tyranny--and threatened by the even more dangerous Ekhat, who are sending a genocidal extermination fleet to the solar system. Humanity's only chance rests with an unusual pair of allies: a young Jao prince, newly arrived to Terra to assume his duties, and a young human woman brought up amongst the Jao occupiers.

But both are under pressure from the opposing forces--a cruel Jao viceroy on one side, determined to drown all opposition in blood; a reckless human resistance on the other, perfectly prepared to shed it. Added to the mix is the fact that only by adopting some portions of human technology and using human sepoy troops can the haughty Jao hope to defeat the oncoming Ekhat attack--and then only by fighting the battle within the Sun itself.

Sequel to The Course of Empire

When humans and their Jao overlords joined forces in a desperate battle to save the Earth from the malevolent race called the Ekhat, the relationship between the two species was changed forever. Two years later, humans and Jao are learning to work together in an uneasy alliance. Then, in a distant nebula, three Jao ships detect signs of another sentient species during a battle with the Ekhat. Only one of the ships returns, with most of its crew dead or injured.

Earth's Preceptor Ronz suspects the unknown species was actually the Lleix, a name out of the Jao's past, and an ancient shame from the period in their development when they themselves were still ruled by the maniacal Ekhat.

Ronz sends the Lexington, a massive ship built on Earth and crewed by both human and Jao, to investigate. The Lexington dwarfs any ship ever built by the Jao and even outmasses Ekhat ships, which may enable it to survive the attack that destroyed two of the three Jao ships. But if the expedition does find a surviving remnant of the Lleix, will the survivors trust the Jao? And should they?

A space opera adventure set in a distant future where an undercover agent has to go behind enemy lines to recover a lost ship and a possible traitor.

This story is included in the anthologies The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume 3 (2018), edited by Neil Clarke, and The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy, 2018, edtied by Rich Horton.

Read the full story for free at Tor.com.

An ex-Kel art thief has to save the world from a galaxy-shattering prototype weapon...

A general outnumbered eight-to-one must outsmart his opponent...

A renegade returns from seclusion to bury an old comrade...

From the incredible imagination of Hugo- and Arthur C. Clarke-nominated author Yoon Ha Lee comes a collection of stories set in the world of the best-selling Ninefox Gambit. Showcasing Lee's extraordinary imagination, this collection takes you to the very beginnings of the hexarchate's history and reveals new never-before-seen stories.

Table of Contents

• Hexarchate Timeline
• The Chameleon's Gloves (2017) – novelette
• How the Andan Court – short story
• Seven Views of the Liozh Entrance Exam – short story
• Omens – short story
• Honesty – short story
• Bunny – short story
• Black Squirrels – short story
• Silence – short story
• Extracurricular Activities (2017) – novelette
• Gloves – short story
• Hunting Trip – short story
• The Battle of Candle Arc (2012) – novelette
• Calendrical Rot (2016) – short story
• Birthdays – short story
• The Robot's Math Lessons – short story
• Sword-Shopping – short story
• Persimmons – short story
• Irriz the Assassin-Cat – short story
• Vacation – short story
• Gamer's End (2015) – short story
• Glass Cannon – novella

Novelette set in Lee's Machineries of Empire universe. It originally appeared in Clarkesworld Magazine, #73 October 2012. The story can also be found in the anthologies Year's Best SF 18 (2013), edited by David G. Hartwell and Clarkesworld: Year Seven (2015), edited by Sean Wallace and Neil Clarke. It is included in the collection Conservation of Shadows (2013).

Read the full story for free at Clarkesworld.

This novelette originally appeared in the anthology Cosmic Powers: The Saga Anthology of Far-Away Galaxies (2017), edited by John Joseph Adams. It can also be found in the anthology The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Twelve (2018), edited by Jonathan Strahan.

To win an impossible war Captain Kel Cheris must awaken an ancient weapon and a despised traitor general.

Captain Kel Cheris of the hexarchate is disgraced for using unconventional methods in a battle against heretics. Kel Command gives her the opportunity to redeem herself by retaking the Fortress of Scattered Needles, a star fortress that has recently been captured by heretics. Cheris's career isn't the only thing at stake. If the fortress falls, the hexarchate itself might be next.

Cheris's best hope is to ally with the undead tactician Shuos Jedao. The good news is that Jedao has never lost a battle, and he may be the only one who can figure out how to successfully besiege the fortress.

The bad news is that Jedao went mad in his first life and massacred two armies, one of them his own. As the siege wears on, Cheris must decide how far she can trust Jedao--because she might be his next victim.

Captain Kel Cheris is possessed by a long-dead traitor general. Together they must face the rivalries of the hexarchate and a potentially devastating invasion.

When the hexarchate's gifted young captain Kel Cheris summoned the ghost of the long-dead General Shuos Jedao to help her put down a rebellion, she didn't reckon on his breaking free of centuries of imprisonment--and possessing her.

Even worse, the enemy Hafn are invading, and Jedao takes over General Kel Khiruev's fleet, which was tasked with stopping them. Only one of Khiruev's subordinates, Lieutenant Colonel Kel Brezan, seems to be able to resist the influence of the brilliant but psychotic Jedao.

Jedao claims to be interested in defending the hexarchate, but can Khiruev or Brezan trust him? For that matter, will the hexarchate's masters wipe out the entire fleet to destroy the rogue general?

When Shuos Jedao wakes up for the first time, several things go wrong. His few memories tell him that he's a seventeen-year-old cadet -- but his body belongs to a man decades older. Hexarch Nirai Kujen orders Jedao to reconquer the fractured hexarchate on his behalf even though Jedao has no memory of ever being a soldier, let alone a general. Surely a knack for video games doesn't qualify you to take charge of an army?

Soon Jedao learns the situation is even worse. The Kel soldiers under his command may be compelled to obey him, but they hate him thanks to a massacre he can't remember committing. Kujen's friendliness can't hide the fact that he's a tyrant. And what's worse, Jedao and Kujen are being hunted by an enemy who knows more about Jedao and his crimes than he does himself.

Kara is a mercenary - a Diamond warrior, the best of the best, part of the Majat Guild. When her tenure to Prince Kythar comes to an end, he wishes to retain her services, but must accompany her back to her Guild to negotiate her continued protection.

When they arrive they discover that the prince's sworn enemy, the Kaddim, have already paid the Guild to engage her services - to capture and hand over the prince (who she has grown very fond of).

A warrior brought up to respect both duty and honour, what happens when her sworn duty proves dishonourable?

WINTER LIES UPON THE WORLD...

The last Torunnan army stands at bay before the walls of its capital, as the Merduk Sultan's forces muster to crush his insolent neighbour once and for all.

King Abeleyn of Hebrion strives to maintain control of his kingdom, riven by the vying factions he has now suppressed and battered by the battles he wished he'd not had to fight.

Himerius's Church is extending its power across Normannia, rivalling the might of the long-lost Fimbrian Empire, even as a terrible corruption rises within.

Today, truly, the fate of all the Monarchies of God hangs in the balance...

In what would be A.D. 600 in our history, the Empire still stands, supported by the Legions and Thaumaturges of Rome. Now the Emperor of the West, the Augustus Galen Atreus, will come to the aid of the Emperor of the East, the Augustus Heraclius, to lift the siege of Constantinople and carry a great war to the very doorstep of the Shahanshah of Persia. It is a war that will be fought with armies both conventional and magical, with bright swords and the darkest necromancy.

Against this richly detailed canvas of alternate history and military strategy, Thomas Harlan sets the intricate and moving stories of four people. Dwyrin MacDonald is a Hibernian student at a school for sorcerers in Upper Egypt, until he runs afoul of powerful political interests and is sent off half-trained to the Legions. His teacher, Ahmet,undertakes to follow Dwyrin and aid him, but Ahmet is drawn into service with the queen of Palmeyra. Thyatis is a young female warrior, extensively trained by her patron in the arts of covert warfare. And Maxian Atreus is Galens youngest brother, a physician and sorcerer. He has discovered that an enemy of Rome has placed a dreadful curse on the City, which must be broken before Rome can triumph. Woven with rich detail you'd expect from a first-rate historical novel, while through it runs yarns of magic and shimmering glamours that carry you deeply into your most fantastic dreams

The Gate of Fire continues Tom Harlan's remarkable fantasy epic, following the increasingly dangerous conflicts both military and sorcerous. The sorcerer Dahak plots from his hidden citadel to regain the Peacock Throne. Prince Maxian, having raised both Julius Ceasar and Alexander the Great from the dead, now considers how to use them to free Rome from the curse of the Oath. Thyatis has fled with the widowed Queen of Persia to a hidden island; Dwyrin's thaumaturgic unit is shattered as Zoe discovers the destruction of Palmyra and, as its new queen, vows revenge against Rome. And in Mecca, Ahmet's friend and Palmyra's lieutenant Mohammed receives a vision, and a command, and the power to strive against the forces of darkness.

The great three-sided war continues, Rome against Persia against the tribes of the desert now commanded by Mohammed of Mekkah. The tide is turning against the Eastern Empire--the Emperor Heraclius lies bedridden in Constantinople and his brother Theodore has lost a great battle to the tribes. In the West, Rome lies devastated by the long-pent eruption of Vesuvius. And in the hidden valley of Damawand, the Persion sorcerer Dahak plots his revenge.

Among the lost are the Princess Shirin, vanished in the explosion of Vesuvius that wrought so much destruction, and Thyatis, still living but broken in mind and body. Her struggle will mirror the torment of the Empire, as it rebuilds its strength and purpose after so much destruction.

But there is hope for the West. Prince Maxian, horrified at being the cause of so many deaths, has come to realize that the Oath need not be broken; it can be changed by a skilled sorcerer. And in Judea, young Dwyrin is coming into his full powers, honed by sorcerous combat with his friend Odenathus, who now leads the shattered remnants of the army of Palmyra. And among the Goths north of the Danuvius, a new legion is being forged, by a very old general.

Tom Harlan brings his Oath of Empire series to a shattering conclusion in The Dark Lord.

In what would be the 7th Century AD in our history, the Roman Empire still stands, supported by the twin pillars of the Legions and Thaumaturges of Rome. The Emperor of the West, the Augustus Galen Atreus, came to the aid of the Emperor of the East, the Avtokrator Heraclius, in his war with the Sassanad Emperor of Persia. But despite early victories, that war has not gone well, and now Rome is hard-pressed. Constantinople has fallen before the dark sorceries of the Lord Dahak and his legions of the living and dead. Now the new Emperor of Persia marches on Egypt, and if he takes that ancient nation, Rome will be starved and defeated.

But there is a faint glimmer of hope. The Emperor Galen's brother Maxian is a great sorcerer, perhaps the equal of Dahak, lord of the seven serpents. He is now firmly allied with his Imperial brother and Rome. And though they are caught tight in the Dark Lord's net of sorcery, Queen Zoe of Palmyra and Lord Mohammed have not relinquished their souls to evil.

As an empire dies, three warriors will rise. They will have to ride the storm or drown in its blood.

Seventeen years after rebels stormed the streets, factions divide Kisia. Only the firm hand of the god-emperor holds the empire together. But when an unexpected betrayal destroys a tense alliance with neighboring Chiltae, all that has been won comes crashing down.

In Kisia, Princess Miko Ts'ai is a prisoner in her own castle. She dreams of claiming her empire, but the path to power could rip it, and her family, asunder.

In Chiltae, assassin Cassandra Marius is plagued by the voices of the dead. Desperate, she accepts a contract that promises to reward her with a cure if she helps an empire fall.

And on the border between nations, Captain Rah e'Torin and his warriors are exiles forced to fight in a foreign war or die.

War built the Kisian Empire. War will tear it down.

War rages as one empire falls and another rises in its place in the action-packed sequel to Devin Madson's bold epic fantasy, We Ride the Storm.

There is no calm after the storm.

In Kisia's conquered north, former empress Miko Ts'ai is more determined than ever to save her empire. Yet, as her hunt for allies grows increasingly desperate, she may learn too late that power lies not in names but in people.

Dishiva e'Jaroven is fiercely loyal to the new Levanti emperor. Only he can lead them, but his next choice will challenge everything she wants to believe about her people's future.

Abandoned by his Second Swords, Rah e'Torin must learn to survive without a herd. But honor dictates he bring his warriors home--a path that could be his salvation or lead to his destruction.

And sold to the Witchdoctor, Cassandra Marius' desperate search for a cure ties her fate inextricably to Empress Hana and her true nature could condemn them both.

In this bloody epic fantasy, the empire has fallen... but as alliances fracture and hope begins to wane, another powerful empire threatens to rise from the ashes of the old world.

Ambition and schemes have left the Kisian Empire in ashes. Empress Miko Ts'ai will have to move fast if she hopes to secure a foothold in its ruins. However, the line between enemies and allies may not be as clear-cut as it first appeared.

After failing to win back his Swords, former Captain Rah e'Torin finds shelter among the Levanti deserters. But his presence in the camp threatens to fracture the group, putting him on a collision course with their enigmatic leader.

Assassin Cassandra Marius knows Leo Villius's secret--one that could thwart his ambitions to conquer Kisia. But her time in Empress Hana's body is running out and each attempt they make to exploit Leo's weakness may be playing into his plans.

And, as Leo's control over the Levanti emperor grows, Dishiva e'Jaroven is caught in his web. To successfully challenge him, she'll have to decide how many of her people are worth sacrificing in order to win.

There are no gods. Only men.

Betrayed by her closest allies, Empress Miko Ts'ai is thrust from ruler to pawn. But she won't suffer the whims of men. A string of dangerous gambles could win Miko her empire for good, but to take back the throne, she must become everything her ancestors failed to be.

Rah e'Torin leads a herd again. Now he seeks to honor a promise he made a lifetime ago--to safely bring his Swords home. Yet Rah's loyalty to the past may be his ultimate undoing.

Cassandra Marius is lost. Ensnared by memories that aren't her own, Cass must decide who she really is, but the answer lies beyond one final confrontation with Leo Villius.

And trapped in the heart of the Chiltaen army, Dishiva e'Jaroven is handed unexpected power. The dream of a new homeland is within her grasp--if she risks everything and trusts her former enemies.

Hugo and Nebula Award nominted novella. It originally appeared in Analog Science Fiction and Fact, July-August 2000. There are no other known publications available at this time.

Hugo and Nebula Award nominated novella. It originally appeared in Analog Science Fiction and Fact, December 1998. The story can also be found in the anthology The Space Opera Renaissance (2006), edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer. It is included in the collection Aurora in Four Voices (2011).

Nebula Award nominated novelette. It originally appeared in the anthology The Mammoth Book of SF Wars (2012), edited by Ian Whates and Ian Watson.

Hugo and Nebula Award nominated novella. It originally appeared in Analog Science Fiction and Fact, April 2003. There are no other known publications available at this time.

The Skolian Empire, with its well-trained Jagernauts, rules a third of the civilized galaxy through its mastery of faster-than-light communication maintained by members of its Ruby Dynasty. But war with the rival Eubian Empire of the Traders, which thrives on slavery and whose elites are known for their cruelty, seems imminent. Such a war can only lead to slavery for the Skolians, or the destruction of both sides. Destructive skirmishes have already occurred. A desperate attempt must be made to avert total disaster.

Soz Valdoria, a Jagernaut and member of the Ruby Dynasty, is attracted to her supposed "enemy" Jabriol, the son of the ruler of the Eubian empire, or Traders. With hostile forces seeking their capture or death, Soz and Jabriol must work out their own - and hopefully their empires' - salvation.

Called by Booklist "one of the best SF first novels in years", Kirkus Reviews praised Primary Inversion: "An imaginative debut that takes off at a frantic pace, with dazzling technology, stirring battles and mental hijinks... plenty of energy and invention."

The eBook version of Primary Inversion is rewritten from the original and is considered the best version.

In the distant future, the Skolian empire rules one third of the human galaxy, and is the most powerful of all. For the ruling family has the power of telepathy, and through it, the ability to communicate faster than light across the interstellar space. but their most determined enemy, the traders, who thrive on human pain, need to interbreed with a Skolian to gain their powers. And now they have her.

Regarding the Kindle link above: The e-books Lightning Strike, Book I and Lightning Strike, Book II (not yet released) are the same story as told in Catch the Lightning, but substantially rewritten and expanded for the eBook form.

When Kelric, a scion of the imperial family of Skolia, crash-lands his fighter on the off-limits planet of Coba, he figures it will be only a short time before he makes his way home. But he fails to account for the powerful matriarchy of Coba, the mistresses of the great estates who do not want the Empire to know about their recent cultural advances.

First they take him prisoner.

Then, one by one, the most powerful women on the planet fall in love with him!

Living in exile on a deserted planet, Sauscony and Jaibriol, each the heir to an interstellar empire, become entangled in the machinations of the Skolian Empire. Interstellar war erupts, and Jaibriol is snatched away to be the unwilling ruler of the Highton Aristos. Sauscony must lead an invading space fleet to rescue him from his own Empire - without revealing that they are married. With much of interstellar civilization poised on the brink of destruction, it is the devotion of these two lovers, their sacrifices, and their heroism, that might just forge a new order.

Ascendant Sun is the direct sequel to The Last Hawk, in which Kelric, heir to the Skolian Empire, crash-landed his fighter on the Restricted planet of Coba. He was imprisoned by the powerful mistresses of the great estates - women who, over time, fell in love with him. After 18 years of living in their gilded cage, Kelric finally made his escape.

In Ascendant Sun, Kelric returns to Skolian space, only to find the Empire in control of the Allied forces of Earth. With little more than the clothes on his back, Kelric is forced to take work on a merchant vessel. But when that vessel enters Euban space, Kelric finds his worst nightmare realized: he becomes a slave to the cruel Aristos - humans who use torture and sex as the ultimate aphrodesiac.

A New Adventure in the Saga of the Skolian Empire.

Kamoj Argali is the young ruler of an impoverished province on a backward planet. To keep her people from starving, she has agreed to marry Jax Ironbridge, the boorish and brutal ruler of a prosperous province. But before Argali and Ironbridge are wed, a mysterious stranger from a distant planet sweeps in and forces Kamoj into marriage, throwing her world into utter chaos.

Separated for decades by circumstance and political machinations, the Ruby Dynasty, hereditary rulers of Skolia, struggle to bring together the tattered remnants of their family in the shadow of a disastrous interstellar war. Too many have died, others are presumed lost, yet Dyhianna, the Ruby Pharaoh, must move quickly if they are reassume their rightful place as rulers of the Skolian Empire.

At the age of seventeen the young nobleman named Jaibriol Qox became ruler of a vast galactic empire - and lost everything he had ever valued.

Born of a clandestine liaison between a renegade daughter of the Skolian Imperialate and a scion of the genetically engineered Eubian Traders, Jai Qox grew up in exile, unaware of the powers that coursed through his noble blood. In the waning days of the bloody Radiance War, which ravaged the galaxy, Jai was captured, and returned to the Traders to play a role as a puppet Emperor in their scheme to consolidate their domination of space.

Now Jai must walk a razor's edge, to seize the power that is his by birthright, without succumbing to its dark seduction, in order to avert a conflagration which threatens to engulf a thousand worlds.

The Birth of an Empire

Skyfall goes back to the very roots of Skolia, showing how a chance meeting on a backwater planet forges a vast interstellar empire. Eldrinson, a provincial ruler on a primitive planet, is plagued by inner demons. But when he meets Roca, a beautiful and mysterious woman from the stars, he whisks her away to his mountain retreat, inadvertently starting a great interstellar war, and birthing the next generation of rulers for the Skolian Empire.

In 2002, Catherine Asaro won the Nebula Award for The Quantum Rose, the sixth novel in her Saga of the Skolian Empire. This very same novel was also named Best SF Novel by the Romantic Times. Schism: Part One of Triad is the tenth novel in this multiple award-winning series, and represents an excellent entry point into the series.

For Schism harkens back to the early years of the Skolian Empire, back to the beginning of the war between Skolia and the Euban Traders. Twenty-three years have passed since the fateful vote in the Skolian Assembly that Roca missed in Skyfall. It created the first open hostility between Eube and Skolia, which has only deepened over the ensuing years.

Now, Eube senses an opportunity, for strife has riven the first family of the Skolian Empire. Sauscony, the daughter of Roca and Eldrinson, is ready to seek her fortune as an officer-in-training in the Skolian military. When her father forbids her to undertake such a dangerous path, a wedge is formed as Soz chooses duty over family. Eube hopes to make this permanent, a divide that will leave the Skolian Empire ripe for conquest. And they're willing to kill anyone to make it happen.

Catherine Asaro has won numerous awards for her Saga of the Skolian Empire novels, including the Nebula Award and two Romantic Times awards for Best SF Novel. Combining cutting edge scientific theory with grand romantic adventure, this series represents space opera at its finest.

The Final Key is the second half of the story arc known as Triad, which began in Schism. Schism ended with the Skolian Empire torn asunder by personal conflict within the royal family. With The Final Key, the Skolian Empire comes under all-out assault from its nemesis, the Euban Concord, who have undermined the Empire via subterfuge and assassination, leaving it ripe for conquest. The Skolian Empire's only hope? A young woman barely out of her teens who hasn't even complete her training as a cadet.

Two men, two empires. Jaibriol ruled the Eubian Concord: over two trillion people across more than a thousand worlds and habitats. Kelric ruled the Skolian Imperialate. War had come before - and it might come again, devastating vast swathes of the galaxy. Neither Jaibriol nor Kelric wanted war, but neither was complete master of his realm. And each hid a secret that, if revealed, might be his downfall.

Jaibriol was a secret psion, with telepathic abilities, and to be a psion in the Eubian Concord was to be a contemptible slave, eventually to be tortured for the pleasure of the slave's owner.

Kelric, years ago, had disappeared for nearly two decades. He had been a prisoner and slave on the planet Coba, part of neither empire, until he had managed to escape. And if the Skolian Imperialate knew of his captivity, there would be demands for vengeance, ravaging Coba - and killing the wife and children Kelric had left behind when he escaped.

Neither man knew how much longer he could keep his secret - nor how much longer they could hold back the threat of a war that could incinerate hundreds of inhabited worlds.

Del was a rock singer. He was also the renegade son of the Ruby Dynasty, which made his career choice less than respectable, and gave him more to worry about than getting gigs and not getting cheated by recording companies, club owners, or his agent. For one thing, the Ruby Dynasty ruled the Skolian Imperialate, an interstellar Empire, which had recently had a war with another empire, the Eubian Concord. For another, Del was singing on Earth, which was part of a third interstellar civilization, and one which had an uneasy relationship with the Imperialate.

Del undeniably had talent, and was rapidly rising from an unknown fringe artist to stardom. But, with his life entangled in the politics of three interstellar civilizations, whether he wanted that or not, talent might not be enough. And that factor might have much more effect than his music on the lives of trillions of people on the thousands of inhabited worlds across the galaxy.

Diamond Star was made into a rock opera in a collaboration between Asaro and the alternative rock band Point Valid. The rock opera's songs can be heard here, and are also available on audio CD and as mp3 downloads.

Diamond Star Track Listing

1. Diamond Star
2. Boxcar Madness
3. Breathing Underwater
4. Sapphire Clouds
5. Rubies
6. Etch-A-Sketch
7. Carnelians
8. Sound of Silence
9. Starlight Child
10. Emeralds
11. No Answers, with In Paradisum
12. Carnelians Finale
13. Bonus track: Carnelians Finale instrumental

Multiple Nebula-award-winning Catherine Asaro continues her brilliant and intricate Skolian space opera opus. Two galactic emperors attempt to end a multi-generation war of the stars without both getting assassinated in the process.

The leaders of the Eubian empire and Skolian Imperialate have survived political intrigue, military coups and murder attempts as they worked to forge a peace treaty between their two empires. Now comes the hard part--making the treaty a reality.

Assassins are poised on both sides. Their mission: eliminate the leaders for the "crime" of striving to end half a millennia of hatred between empires. And as the main players in the peace process attempt to navigate the Byzantine convolutions surrounding the negotiations, an explosive pop anthem, Carnelians Finale, sweeps across three civilizations, its message inflaming passions. The violence escalates and militaries on both sides are called forth. The hope: to keep both empires alive long enough so that their rulers might somehow achieve peace at last.

A CITY DIVIDED - For centuries The City of Cries - one of the most desired locales in the Skolian Imperialate - has existed by the thinnest of threads. On the dying world of Raylicon, the "haves" live in great luxury in Cries while the "have-nots" scrape by, eking out a marginal existence in the notorious Undercity beneath the desert. Major Bhaajan, formerly of the Pharaoh's Army, knows both worlds. Born into the Undercity, she nevertheless has made a name for herself in the Imperialate. And now, she has the chance to help her people.

HOPE FOR RECONCILIATION - For the first time, a member of the Royal class wants to extend an olive branch to the Undercity. Hoping to build bridges, Colonel Lavinda Majda recruits Bhaaj and her Dust Knights to act as guides and bodyguards on a mission of goodwill to those who live below the surface of their parched world.

THE DOWN DEEP - But the problems of the Undercity run deeper than anyone knows. To help find peace, the Dust Knights must reach the most hidden rungs in that mysterious underground world, a place known only as the Down Deep, where the scars from centuries of distrust are greatest. There they will face an unseen enemy that may destroy the lives of everyone they know--and threaten interstellar civilization.

Major Bhaajan used to be a Skolian military officer with the Imperial Space Command. Retired from active service, she's become a private investigator, a fairly good one. When a mysterious client offers a lot of money for her services, she finds herself returning to Raylicon, the planet of her birth, where a cloistered young man of extremely good family has gone missing.

The Majdas are the second most influential family in the empire, even though the empire's ostensibly democratically ruled, and they're old-fashioned to boot: they keep their men in seclusion, in the tradition of old Skolian matriarchy. The young man who's just disappeared from their carefully-guarded household was in line to marry a member of the most influential family in the empire, and the Majdas are understandably eager to get him safely back home.

Bhaajan must sift through the shadows of dark and dangerous Undercity--the enormous capital of a vast star empire--to find the consort for the royal heir, before it's too late to stop a war.

Major Bhaajan achieved the impossible. Born to the Undercity, the slums below the City of Cries on the planet Raylicon, she broke free from crushing poverty and crime to become a military officer with Imperial Space Command. Now retired from military duty, she walks the mean streets of Undercity as a private investigator. And she is about to embark on her most challenging case yet.

Summoned by no less than the Ruby Pharaoh herself, Major Bhaajan is tasked with finding a killer. But this is no ordinary murderer. The Ruby Pharaoh witnessed a Jagernaut cut down Assembly Councilor Tap Benton--which shouldn't have been possible. The Jagernauts are the elite of the elite soldiers in the Imperial Space Command. What's more, the spinal node implanted in all Jagernauts should have prevented the murder. But the Ruby Pharaoh is sure of what she saw, and she has reason to believe that the Jagernaut will kill again.

Now, Major Bhaajan must hunt down a killer before it is too late. To do so, she must return to the one place on Raylicon she knows best: Undercity.

Bhaajan grew up in the Undercity, a community hidden in the ruins buried beneath the glittering City of Cries. Caught between the astonishing beauty and crushing poverty of that life, and caught by wanderlust, she enlisted in the military. Now retired, Major Bhaajan is a private investigator who solves cases for the House of Majda, a royal family centered in Cries. The powerful elite of the City of Cries are disappearing, and only Bhaajan, who grew up in the Undercity, can find them -- if she isn't murdered first.

Selei City is the capital of the Imperialate and one of the most desired locales in all of the Skolian Empire. But its thin veneer of civilization is cracked when a series of brutal crimes implicates those in political power in a vast conspiracy. Three prominent scientists have lost their lives to a serial killer--and notes at the scenes of the crimes lead to a connection to the Royalist political party.

Major Bhaajan, former military officer turned private detective, is called back to Selei City to solve the crime. Bhaaj and her crew of Undercity Dust Knights plunge into the Byzantine world of Imperial politics--a jigsaw world where none of the pieces seem to fit. As the assassination plot becomes more and more convoluted, Bhaaj is kidnapped and threatened with death and must fight for her life against the growing number of people threatened by her investigation. Bhaaj has faced all this and more, but now she must deal with something far deadlier--interstellar politics.

Zanos the Gladiator and Astra, a master reader, are loyal citizens of the Aventine Empire. Nevertheless, one holds a deadly secret and the other is drawn into a high-level conspiracy that brings them together and propels them into a desperate flight to the Savage Empire. A prophecy of peace and hope might provide a new life for them there--if their pursuing enemies don't kill them first. One of Zanos and Astra's new friends in the Savage Empire is the blind reader Torio, who has unexpectedly gained the rare talent of prophecy. The cryptic messages of his new gift send Zanos, Astra, Torio, and his beloved Melissa on a danger-filled journey north to Zanos's homeland. There, each one finds a personal destiny, and all must pay a price for confronting the lethal Sorcerers of the Frozen Isles.

Table of Contents:

• 9 - Flight to the Savage Empire - [The Savage Empire - 4] - (1986) - novel by Jean Lorrah and Winston A. Howlett
• 179 - Sorcerers of the Frozen Isles - [The Savage Empire - 5] - (1986) - novel by Jean Lorrah

The Aventine Empire is crumbling under the attacks of savages armed with strange and dangerous powers. Exiled from the empire, a powerful telepath named Leonardo is captured by the savages, and finds himself in unfamiliar territory. Prepared for their brutality and mindless aggression, Leonardo learns their world differs from what he has been taught, and he is forced to question all of his previously held assumptions.

Table of Contents:

• 11 - Savage Empire - [The Savage Empire - 1] - (1981) - novel by Jean Lorrah
• 187 - Dragon Lord of the Savage Empire - [The Savage Empire - 2] - (1982) - novel by Jean Lorrah
• 367 - Captives of the Savage Empire - [The Savage Empire - 3] - (1984) - novel by Jean Lorrah

Lenardo, one of the most powerful Readers in the Aventine Empire, can read thoughts and sense details about objects and people miles away. His abilities are crucial, since the Empire is being attacked by savages with immense psychic powers. When he discovers that one of his former students, Galen, has turned traitor, he's sent on a mission to retrieve the turncoat. Instead, he encounters Lady Aradia, who dreams of ending the conflict. But most of the savage Adepts are allied with Lord Drakonius, whose only interest lies in conquest. Can Lenardo and Aradia find some means together to end the war?

Lenardo, a master Reader with strong telepathic powers, meets Aradia, a Lady Adept who can use her powers both to heal and destroy. Together they defeat an evil Lord Adept. When the war's over, though, what then? Can they actually build an empire together? Each then decides to sacrifice their own powers to weaken the other's. Is this treachery--or something else entirely? And then a new menace appears on the horizon. There's a fine line between love and hate.

Torio, a renegade Reader, has broken his oath and taken his powers of telepathy to the Savage Lands. The Savage Adepts have driven back the walls of the Empire, using their mysterious gifts of sorcery. Now, with the Readers in their midst, their powers--to tumble walls, to sink ships, to cause the earth to swallow entire cities--can reach into the very heart of the Empire. Melissa, Reader and Healer, must learn to leave her body for a treacherous journey into the Savage Lands, to save her true love and her world. Without her help, the Savage Empire may be doomed!

In the Aventine Empire, gladiator games still slake the multitudes' undying thirst for blood. Magister Astra hated the games - with her telepathic powers, she felt the warriors' agonies as her own. But the Master had once again sent her there to tend the wounded: it was a punishment - but for what? Even her strongest Reading couldn't tell her. Not until an unexpected death and an exotic, mind-bending drug brought her into the pat of the ex-slave warrior Zanos did Astra begin to understand the web of deceit, greed, and vengeance that would send them both in a desperate Flight To The Savage Empire.

Maldek's Evil Empire... Medura-a realm of ice and gloom, Zano's homeland and the dominion of the evil sorcerer, Maldek. It is a place of barbaric savagery and extraordinary Adept powers. Few men journey to Medura. Fewer yet leave her shores alive. Now the Blind Reader Torio impulsively demands to join Zanos on his journey home, a journey that will bring him to the heart of that forsaken land-and face to face with the evil powers of the black Lord Maldek...

The Strangers from Africa arrived on the shores of the Savage Empire seeking aid in battle to the death against Z'Nelia the Witch-Queen. The powerful adept was forced to refuse them, for his true duity was to protect the people of his own kingdom from harm. But when the Africans kidnapped his brother by marrage, Wulfston was forced to cross the seas in pursuit of his traitorous guests. And what began as a simple rescue mission became a deadly contest of wills.

As always Power ruled the Savage Empire. Not the crude force of sword and staff but the infinitely subtle strains of an Adept's musings. Aradia, the most powerful Adept of the Empire, is a woman thrust into greatness in order to rule a land beset by strife and ancient evil. But suddenly her strength falters. An unseen force seems to strike against her to sap Aradia's Power. Terrified she wonders about the unborn child growing inside her. Could its power be growing as well, overwhelming her own?

As the "audacious and subversive"* Shadow Campaigns novels continue, the weather is growing warmer, but the frosty threat of Vordan's enemies is only growing worse...

As the roar of the guns subsides and the smoke of battle clears, the country of Vordan is offered a fragile peace...

After their shattering defeats at the hands of brilliant General Janus bet Vhalnich, the opposing powers have called all sides to the negotiating table in hopes of securing an end to the war. Queen Raesinia of Vordan is anxious to see the return of peace, but Janus insists that any peace with the implacable Sworn Church of Elysium is doomed to fail. For their Priests of the Black, there can be no truce with heretics and demons they seek to destroy, and the war is to the death.

Soldiers Marcus d'Ivoire and Winter Ihernglass find themselves caught between their general and their queen. Now, each must decide which leader truly commands their loyalty--and what price they might pay for final victory.

And in the depths of Elysium, a malign force is rising--and defeating it might mean making sacrifices beyond anything they have ever imagined.

It is through first contact with an alien species that humanity learns of the Dream. It is a plane of mental existence where people are able to communicate by their thoughts alone--over distances of thousands of light-years. To ensure that future generations will have this ability, human genetic engineering produces newborns capable of finding and navigating the Dream.

They become known as the Silent.

Rust is just one planet among many in the Empire of Human Unity. It's nothing special, nothing unusual...except for the fact that it is home to an unknown boy who may be the most powerful Silent telepath ever born--a Silent with the ability to possess the bodies of others against their will. This mysterious child may be causing tremors within the Dream itself.

For now, only the Children of Irfan know about him. A monastic-like order of the Silent, the Children protect their members even as they barter their services with the governments and corporations that control known space. But power like that cannot be hidden, and soon every Silent in the universe will know about the boy--and every government will be willing to go to war to control him.

And if the Children of Irfan cannot find him first, the Dream itself may be shattered...

In the future, dreams keep the universe running. Dreamers, known as "Silent," are able to look into other people's dreams, communicate with other Silent across the galaxy, and speak to aliens. Silent construct dreams for themselves more vivid than reality.

But some dreams have become nightmares...

Kendi Weaver doesn't know he's Silent. Hijacked into slavery, he has resigned himself to a life of servitude. Then the discovery of his innate gift for dream communication changes everything. Suddenly Kendi is a very valuable commodity. He is rescued by the Children of Irfan--a society dedicated to freeing enslaved Silent--and taken to their planet, Bellerophon.

But Bellerophon is hardly a safe refuge. A brutal serial killer is murdering Silent in their telepathic dreams, and Kendi is soon embroiled in a world of madness and murder. To catch the killer, he must enter the victims' dreams...

The Dream has been shattered, and the majority of Silent who telepathically communicated through it have been cast out by the event known as the Despair, unable to reenter. Now the remaining Silent still capable of linking to the Dream have become a valuable commodity to those in power seeing to keep the lines of galactic communication open...

In the midst of the Despair, Father Kendi Weaver and the crew of the Poltergeist have a limited window of opportunity to find the loved ones they have lost--including Kendi's parents and siblings, who were sold into slavery more than fifteen years ago.

But just as Kendi closes in on the whereabouts of his brother and sister, they are taken by a mysterious group intent on using them for their own secret agenda...

The lush and beautiful forest planet of Bellerophon is home to a cacophony of noises, but its resident psychics are known as the Silent. Previously they could travel to the Dream, a telepathic plane of existence where they could twist the laws of reality. But that time is over...

One madman's lust for power tore the Dream asunder. Now only a handful of the Silent can enter it. Kendi Weaver is one of them.

As an election for the governorship of Bellerophon begins, Kendi is caught in the crossfire. Attempts on his life--and a rash of Silent kidnappings--point to a political enemy... or a personal one. Either way, the future of the Dream is at stake. And Kendi fears it may become a nightmare.

A handful of ordinary Americans -- housewives, lawyers, interior decorators, and the like -- found themselves caught up in a transdimensional conflict, and transported from their homes to realms where magic worked, to desert planets and rebel worlds, to places straight out of science fiction and fantasy. But these were not the harmless, happy-ending lands of film and fable. The sweat and blood was real, and the horrors they faced genuinely dangerous. One world was a world of magic, ruled by a dark force called Shadow. A handful of would-be heroes resisted Shadow's dominion, and sought assistance in their desperate struggle to free their homeland. The other reality was a universe of spaceships and rayguns, dominated by a Galactic Empire that saw Shadow as a threat -- and that demanded the exiles from our world aid them in their campaign. Against their will, these few people were flung into battle... IN THE EMPIRE OF SHADOW

Bianca Xing has spent a lifetime on a provincial planet, dreaming of travelling the stars. When her planet is annexed by the Barony of Letnev, Bianca finds herself being taken into custody, told that she's special - the secret daughter of a brilliant scientist, hidden away on a remote planet for her own safety. But the truth about Bianca is stranger. There are secrets hidden in her genetic code that could have galaxy altering consequences. Driven by an incredible yearning and assisted by the fearsome Letnev Captain, Dampierre, Bianca must follow her destiny to the end, even if it leads to places that are best left forgotten.

In the dark and gothic Warhammer world, the foul magic of Chaos is everywhere, its corrupting and mutating powers twisting man and beast alike. From the south, the dark armies of the Undead attack the realms of man, thirsting to drain all life from the land. From the north, the endless hordes of Chaos sweep down from the wastelands and destroy in the name of their Dark Gods. Swords of the Empire is a storming collection of short stories including a brand new Storm of Chaos novella by the award-winning Dan Abnett and a new Zavant short story by Gordon Rennie!

On the eve of a recurring catastrophic event known to extinguish nations and reshape continents, a troubled orphan evades death and slavery to uncover her own bloody past...while a world goes to war with itself.

In the frozen kingdom of Saiduan, invaders from another realm are decimating whole cities, leaving behind nothing but ash and ruin. At the heart of this war lie the pacifistic Dhai people, once enslaved by the Saiduan and now courted by their former masters to provide aid against the encroaching enemy.

Stretching from desolate tundra to steamy, semi-tropical climes seething with sentient plant life, this is an epic tale of blood mages and mercenaries, emperors and priestly assassins who must unite to save a world on the brink of ruin.

As the dark star of the cataclysm rises, an illegitimate ruler is tasked with holding together a country fractured by civil war; a precocious young fighter is asked to betray his family to save his skin; and a half-Dhai general must choose between the eradication of her father's people or loyalty to her alien Empress.

Through tense alliances and devastating betrayal, the Dhai and their allies attempt to hold against a seemingly unstoppable force as enemy nations prepare for a coming together of worlds as old as the universe itself.

In the end, one world will rise - and many will perish.