I had lain down in my crypt to rest for a few decades, but when I awoke, centuries had passed. My castle is in ruins, my clan is gone, and necromancers are considered just a fairy tale for children. They take me for a healer. That's because the world is sick. And it's time for strong medicine.

Busy with troubles of her own, Maud the village witch just wants to be left alone. Peace and quiet should be easy enough when you're dead, right? Wrong. Reborn as a powerful lich, Maud is suddenly faced with the attentions of all the righteous heroes, holy clerics, and nosy neighbors of the realm. Now, instead of whiling away the days in her garden with her cat and her knitting, Maud must figure out how much force is required to crush a man's spine, the proper storage solution to keep a spoiling cadaver, and how best to display the remains of the fallen for maximum scare.

Ah, Nyil, with its magic, its monsters, and its petty gods. A divine spat leaves French medic Viv stranded in the middle of an arcane disaster zone crawling with undead horrors. Thankfully, there are strange allies to be found, not least the mysterious interface that helps humans survive in this merciless world. Viv will have to progress fast to survive this calamity and find civilisation. She will also need a bit of luck. Unless, of course, she becomes the calamity herself. After all, luck is such a fickle thing.

After his parents died, Alex Roth had one desire: become a wizard. Through hard work, he was accepted into the University of Generasi, the world’s greatest academy of wizardry.... Fate, however, had another plan. On his 18th birthday, he is Marked by prophecy as one of his kingdom’s five Heroes, chosen to fight the Ravener, his land’s great enemy. But his brand is "The Fool". Worst of the marks.

I was the most powerful healer in my world—the best, having devoted my entire life to mastering the art of healing. And yet, for whatever reason, my brother feared that I sought to claim his throne, and he marshaled his forces against me.

As an anti-social art major perpetually at risk of dropping out, college life wasn't a great fit for Momo. When she wakes up one morning in a dark cavern full of sentient skeletons and oddball introverts who call themselves necromancers, she knows a new era of her life is about to start. Chosen for her meek and harmless personality, she is able to exist under the radar as she completes the Dawn's necromantic missions. Watch her as she gains confidence (and class levels), and reluctantly rises from meager apprentice to self-assured queen of the underworld.

Ralph could be described as a rogue on a good day. A bad day involved a lot of cursing, calling him a pirate, or sometimes even having a shoot-out. It wasn't really his fault of course, or so he would have you believe. It was the fault of those who wanted to get in his way of making as much money as possible as a smuggler. His family had been gifted with a letter of marque for the Terran Confed, one that is inherited and has been passed down to him. Essentially, it gives him a lot of loopholes and ways through regulations to be a fantastic smuggler. Or as a legal pirate, a Privateer.

Benny White had been having a rough couple of years, and the approaching apocalypse wasn’t exactly helping. Pulled from the point of death and thrust into a horde-mode-style survival game, Benny’s odds weren’t looking too great. To make matters worse, an eldritch god… entity… thing named ‘Dave’ tasked him with destroying the very System that now controls his fate. But hey, it's not all bad news. Benny’s experience as a lab tech grants him a rare Splicer Class that lets him repurpose the genetic material of slain enemies into augments for himself.

Syl was given a choice by Gramps when they died. Reincarnate as a regular person or embark on a daring experiment. Driven by a desire to honor Gramps and a sense of adventure, Syl chose the latter... only to awaken as a lowly slime. A farmed slime. The life of a farmed slime was cruel. Syl was constantly at the mercy of humans, a slime whose only purpose was to eat and recycle garbage. The threat of lethal core-destroying knives wielded by innocent children was a constant shadow. This was not the life Syl had envisioned. So, they made a daring escape to the wilderness!

The Netherworld: it is a hellish landscape inhabited only by demons. Joining the ranks of newborn demons, Salvos is thrown into the violent, anarchy-ruled landscape of that world. To survive, she will have to learn, she will have to adapt, and she will have to evolve. She will gain experience to reach new Levels of power. Her curiosity aids her but her pride could be her fall. It is the nature of the Netherworld to avoid or conquer any threats faced. After all, the law of evolution is survival of the fittest, and Salvos is a survivor.

She's unlike any one or any thing else: a Non-Standard Leashed-Intelligence Cybernetic Enforcer aka NSLICE-00P. The first of her kind, she's let loose into a universe of superheroes on behalf of her sinister masters to destroy all who oppose them. And everything's going according to plan—until NSLICE-00P gets hacked and sent into the past to kill her own creator before he creates her. Obeying orders as always, she wastes the poor guy. Unfortunately, there are consequences to initiating a reality-breaking time paradox. The most significant: total ejection from that reality.

Adventurers seek dungeons for riches. Heroes storm great fortresses. Gods clash far above. Arek cooks lasagna and tops it with a dash of finely chopped basil. An orc who has seen more than his fair amount of fighting, Arek wants nothing more than to spend the rest of his days cooking and away from the chaos of combat. However, when Ming and her group of adventurers hire him as their full-time chef, his plans of avoiding violence crumble. He longs to leave his blood-soaked mistakes in his past, but old friends and foes have different ideas.

Extreme sub-zero temperatures suffocate the surface. Frozen structures of bygone eras span across massive ice-wastes. And the survivors closely guard any technology rediscovered within them. The only escape from the deadly climate is beneath the surface, but that doesn't mean it's safe... Monstrous machines lurk in the depths. Unhinged demigods war against them, dying over and over, treating it all like a game. The depths themselves shift over time, more contraption than rock.

Have you ever woken up, rolled over, and thought to yourself, “I’m pretty sure I’m working for a Super Villain.” If you haven’t, then maybe you’re not the type of person to work for a global corporation. Edmund, however, is just such an individual. He works for Legion: a corporation of unimaginable reach that he barely understands, a corporation that seems determined to put itself smack dab in the middle of a brewing civil war between Super Heroes and Super Villains.

As a monster, Shrubley is forbidden from joining the adventurers guild. In a world where essence artists rank up in power and most monsters are feral beasts, Shrubley is among the weakest of creatures and is treated as an outcast. With curiosity essence bound to his spirit, Shrubley might be weak, but he's intelligent and determined. Against all the odds, he discovers a loophole from the Druid that gave him life—but there's a deadly catch. For a chance of ever being accepted as a true adventurer, he must challenge an otherworldly realm threatening to consume everything.

Compiled by intrepid journalist Neve Pride, this archive of recordings spans the months after dragons emerged on earth, chronicling the communities that sprang up amid the destruction, the scientists, military leaders, and experts searching for a defense, and those steadfastly seeking the missing. Neve and her young daughter Bex travel among the wreckage speaking to those left behind and surviving, against all odds. Neve records everything for history, and in the hopes of locating a clue as to where the dragons came from and how one might stop them.

Ryland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission - and if he fails, humanity and the Earth itself will perish. Except that right now, he doesn't know that. He can't even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it. All he knows is that he's been asleep for a very, very long time. And he's just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company.

Annie has always had high hopes for her future. But the reality of her life just isn’t measuring up. She loves her fiancé, Greg–doesn’t she? She’s going to get her degree and open her own business–won’t she? Then, a strange old woman shows up outside her house, and she seems to know a lot about Annie. An awful lot. Annie could tell the old woman to get lost. Yet there’s something about her Annie just can’t shake. And what she learns could change her life forever–but is it the life she envisioned?

For some it’s an opportunity. For others it’s a moment to question their faith: In God, in science, in everything. Still others try to keep the world running in the face of absurdity and uncertainty. And then there are the billions looking to the sky and wondering how a thing that was always just there is now... something absolutely impossible.

Six days ago, astronaut Mark Watney became one of the first people to walk on Mars. Now, he's sure he'll be the first person to die there. After a dust storm nearly kills him and forces his crew to evacuate while thinking him dead, Mark finds himself stranded and completely alone with no way to even signal Earth that he’s alive - and even if he could get word out, his supplies would be gone long before a rescue could arrive. But Mark isn't ready to give up yet.

Busy with troubles of her own, Maud the village witch just wants to be left alone. Peace and quiet should be easy enough when you're dead, right? Wrong. Reborn as a powerful lich, Maud is suddenly faced with the attentions of all the righteous heroes, holy clerics, and nosy neighbors of the realm. Now, instead of whiling away the days in her garden with her cat and her knitting, Maud must figure out how much force is required to crush a man's spine, the proper storage solution to keep a spoiling cadaver, and how best to display the remains of the fallen for maximum scare.

In the wild, unexplored coastal jungles of West Africa lives a wild human boy named Tarzan, the adopted son of a tribe of fierce almost-human anthropoid apes - but in reality, the unknown heir of a wealthy and titled English noble family. Then one day, a small party of American treasure-seekers is marooned on Tarzan's beach, including a lovely Baltimore belle named Jane Porter.

The price for saving the world is the right to rule it. After saving a faraway world, Lyn Rivers was cast back to Earth. Wanting the admiration, prestige, and glory of saving that world, she forced her way back. But she was forgotten, and someone else claimed credit for her deeds. Now, with the power of a deity of destruction, she desires nothing more than to claim her place in history. To do that she will conquer dungeons, make alliances, destroy kingdoms, and build an empire.

Deicide is one-part public service, one-part revenge . . . or at least that's why Lilith does it. An operative of the multiverse-spanning Eifni Organization, she travels to new worlds to clear out the local deities before they can eat everyone's souls. It's a tricky process, requiring advanced sociological science and an arsenal of tools weaponizing meaning itself. But a god once tried to eat her, and she's not one to easily forgive. When Lilith deploys to pre-industrial Theria, she finds their gods aren't willing to go quietly.

The Wish Curse Palace, the largest criminal organization in the multiverse, seeks its new successor. On Shane's eighteenth birthday, his dormant Wishmaster bloodline awakens, making him a potential heir to the organization's legacy. In Unity territory, power and public perception go hand-in-hand, empowering an elite class of superheroes and supervillains. Shane must progress through the ranks of heroes to harness his wish-granting abilities. With the help of newfound allies, Shane must showcase acts of heroism to climb the hierarchy, all while concealing the true source of his powers.

Bryce Alexander isn't exactly on a path to wizardly renown. In fact, his latest rejection from the Arcane Arts program at the Kotodama Institute has pretty much guaranteed his dream of attending magical college is over. But rather than give in to despair and join the manager training program at Samba Smoothies, he does something incredibly daring, unexpected, and . . . stupid. He sneaks into the Queens warehouse where the Dark Sorcerer Zambrano has recently been spotted and offers up his service as an apprentice.

Allen Ming awakens in an unfamiliar realm, trapped within an unfamiliar form—feeble in body and spirit. Thrust into a world of cultivation, Allen Ming finds himself grappling with a reality of a wastrel body, and a world filled with danger and killing. With an AI-enhanced eye, he seeks his way through the dark world of cultivation. But with his newfound family haunted by a looming threat, he has to take charge of the situation even before he gets familiar with the new body.

Simon, one of the last of his kind, seeks otherworldly treasures to change the card fate has dealt him. When he discovers Penumbra Springs, a secret haven for mythics, he's determined to join. But the haven hides more than just a community of strange beings.

My name is Remy Aaron, and a sexy witch summoned a meteor from outer space to blow up my car while I was driving home from work. Unfortunately, the new world I respawned in is a monster-infested battleground between the Deep Ones and the Outer Gods. Lucky for me, I can harness and multiply the elemental powers of my wives. Oh, did I forget to mention them? Each of my wives has an elemental affinity that grows stronger the more we bond, and so I’m well on my way to mastering all the elements.

Waking up chained in a dark cellar, Ariane must struggle to survive and escape the strange fortress she finds herself in. All those around her play by rules she does not understand, and there is also this strange thirst that water cannot sate.

This short story collection will take you into the depths of Beck’s dark imagination: from what happens when the deepest bore hole on Earth has just passed nine miles and hits a strange open space – and it's hellishly hot down there; to an Antarctic research team examining fragments from a deep ice glacier and discovers a tiny seed that, once thawed, grows into something terrifyingly unexpected.

The victim of a daring scientific experiment, Sarah wakes alone, naked and confused, in what appears to be a swamp. Terrified and suddenly angry, she quickly realizes she's in a whole new world, part of some kind of "system" and receiving messages regarding her status—both mental and physical—via holograph. Soon Sarah will learn just how different this world is from her own. In the meantime, all she can do is heed her system's instructions and warnings about mutating, "levels," and her "life force." But the longer she's there, the less she remembers about her old life and the people in it.

Trapped in a new world. Targeted by everyone. He can either run, or embrace the mayhem! Ben finds himself stuck in the beta of Mayhem, forced to be an evil elf character by the system AI. Their race is universally hated due to their lust for destruction, bloodshed, and world domination, so, he’s understandably a bit irritated. His buddy Chip and his Rainbow Unicow Bessie, on the other hand, couldn’t be happier. Extreme violence is right up Chip’s alley and seeing as Bessie has gotten a taste for human flesh, she’s totally up for the bloodshed bit.

Juliette Contzen is a lazy, good-for-nothing princess. Overshadowed by her siblings, she's left with little to do but nap, read, and occasionally cut the falling raindrops with her sword. Spotted one day by an astonished adventurer, he insists on grading Juliette's swordsmanship, then promptly has a mental breakdown at the result. Soon after, Juliette is given the news that her kingdom is on the brink of bankruptcy. At the threat of being married off, the lazy princess vows to do whatever it takes to maintain her current lifestyle.

When Aesca Lampi wakes up in the form of her character from Eldest Fantasy Wars Online, she's annoyed by the historical inaccuracies. (Video-game-style scrolls? Really?) That is, until a building collapses on top of her, revealing she's on a fantastical island centered around the impossibly tall, glowing Tower of Aetherius . . . with an array of dangerous creatures—including jaguar hybrids, velociraptors, and giant, flesh-eating lizards—in the way. (Oh, joy.)