Fight, survive, adapt, and rely only on yourself. That is Derek’s creed and what's got him through the System Integration on Earth. Everything changed when the System came. Cute bunnies and beautiful butterflies became savage killing machines. Then the Invaders arrived with a single goal: to obtain ownership of this new habitable planet. War has raged ever since. None of this mattered much to Derek, aside from making living a little more perilous.

It was a day like any other when suddenly the world changed. The universe reached a threshold humanity didn’t even know existed, and it was time to finally be integrated into the vast multiverse. A place where power is the only thing anyone can truly rely on.

Zac was alone in the middle of the forest when the world changed... The whole planet was introduced to the multiverse by an unfeeling System... or God. A universe where an endless number of races and civilizations fought for power and dominion. Zac finds himself stuck in the wilderness surrounded by deadly beasts, demons, and worse. Alone, lost and without answers, he must find the means to survive and get stronger in this new cut-throat reality.

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.

Every year, the empire administers the rite of passage into adulthood. That rite serves to identify those blessed by Aether to become magi. The new magi are shipped to the academy to learn the arts of magic. The academy is a dangerous place; the tournaments held twice each year can cripple or kill the students, and the clans of the empire will go to great lengths to recruit the students they want. Gregory had one dream: to become a magi like the legends of old. Though he was ridiculed by the residents of the village and his unsupportive father, he never wavered from his dream.

Becoming a knockoff Dracula in tight leather pants was never part of Vincent’s plans. Neither was being summoned to another world by a cult of vampire wannabes. But both happened. Now, Vincent’s left to pick up the tattered pieces of his humanity as he tries to grow strong enough to keep his family safe. The world is filled with nightmares, and the looming threat of losing his soul stands between his goal and his reality, so it’s not like it will be too hard or anything. Hell should tremble. A good man is going to war.

There is no weapon more powerful than the [Psychokinetic] mind. Astrid, a mischievous noble teen, long dreamed of exploring the ancient cities preserved beneath the waves, left behind from a time before the ocean swallowed the world. She's been training all her life to become a magic swordsman capable of doing just that. But when an ancient monster long thought dead assaults humanity's last bastion–a floating ship-city–she awakens her System early.

Arthur lives with his father, a fallen but proud former noble, in Border Village #49, along with the other good folks condemned to toil in service to the Baron. But Arthur has an edge: a stolen heart card that secretly fell into his possession, thanks to a dragon. It’s a priceless source of power for the Baron and the tyrant will kill to get it back. Invaluable, too, to a young man of spellcasting ambitions.

Betrayed. Murdered. Reborn. One last chance, to make it right. Theo's adventure ended with his mentor's hands around his neck. The betrayal cost him his friends, allies, and everything he had built...but not his life. Though broken and powerless, Theo has one last chance to enter the Nine Worlds, wielding the knowledge and expertise of his first life. This time, he needs more than just power, he needs to unravel the deception that killed him once...and is coming for him again.

After the collapse of the known world, Rowan Wilder opened his eyes and found himself on the first floor of the Tower. With a flawless memory and a mere eight cards to his name, he must venture out and prepare himself for the coming calamity.

Beneath the light of three moons, the world of Aster Fall lies shattered. Classes are broken, Outsiders are invading, and the future is unknown. The ancient guardians have left and no one knows where they have gone. The fate of the world lies with one young man. Sam Hastern. His family has been cursed by a broken class for the last fifty years. No one has ever managed to level it, condemning them to the lowest paying jobs and life in a barren village.

After fulfilling the duty all Arch Necromancers are tasked with, the last thing Sylver Sezari expected was to be reborn. He was usually the one reanimating dead things, after all. How ironic. But reborn he was. And after crawling his way back into the land of the living, he finds himself in a strange land, a strange time, and with a strange floating screen in front of his new face. Either through plan or chance, he’s alive again, and planning to enjoy himself to his heart's content.

Lu Jie woke up in a world filled with scheming sects, arrogant young masters, and the mad chase for the immortal heavens. He wanted none of it, and soon finds himself beaten bloody in a spar he didn't remember and treated as less than worthless. But his plan to escape the sect is interrupted by an old Alchemist's pills that heal him within moments—a magical cure. These medicines ignite the flame of curiosity to learn true magic in him. Lu Jie sets out to study the truths hidden within the world, and soon finds an all new path of cultivation that could take him to the very top.

In a former life, Jack was gifted, meaning he possessed peculiar abilities. If rich folks found themselves in a jam, Jack could use his talents to get them out of it. Where others were sure to fail, Jack's aristocratic clientele could always count on him to finish jobs cleanly, efficiently, and leave no trace, for which his services commanded a hefty fee. But one day, Jack picked a fight with the wrong man and his old life came to an end. But, as it turned out, his story was far from over.

It’s not easy making the career jump from office-supplies-store middle manager to heroic interdimensional adventurer. At least, Jason tries to be heroic, but it's hard to be good when all your powers are evil. He’ll face off against cannibals, cultists, wizards, monsters...and that’s just on the first day. He’s going to need courage, he’s going to need wit, and he’s going to need some magic powers of his own. But first, he’s going to need pants.

Penniless graduate Blair Wilkes has always felt one step behind everyone else. Unemployed and out of luck, with the uncanny ability to cause havoc wherever she treads, when she receives a job offer from a strange town called Fairy Falls, she's certain it's too good to be true. It turns out Fairy Falls isn't just eccentric: it's magical...and so is Blair.

Her job description is the "tracking and apprehension of mentally-fractured killers". What this really means in FBI profiler Jace Valchek's brave new world - one in which only one percent of the population is human - is that a woman's work is never done. And real is getting stranger every day. Jace has been ripped from her reality by David Cassius, the vampire head of the NSA. He knows that she's the best there is in the business, and David needs her help in solving a series of gruesome murders of vampires and werewolves.

Get the first three books in the Kid Sensation series. Like millions of other kids, Jim grew up wanting to be a superhero. Unlike most of his contemporaries, however, Jim actually had the goods: a plethora of super powers that would have been the envy of any meta on the planet. But when his tryout with the Alpha League - the world's premiere group of supers - goes disastrously wrong, Jim basically becomes an outcast.

Vlad Taltos, a mobster and assassin in the magical metropolis of Adrilankha, is given the largest contract of his career, but the job is even more complicated than he expects.

Stephen Leeds, AKA 'Legion,' is a man whose unique mental condition allows him to generate a multitude of personae: hallucinatory entities with a wide variety of personal characteristics and a vast array of highly specialized skills. As the story begins, Leeds and his 'aspects' are drawn into the search for the missing Balubal Razon, inventor of a camera whose astonishing properties could alter our understanding of human history and change the very structure of society.

Ian isn't crazy. Life would be a lot simpler if he was. He's eighteen, on the run, and scared - the shape-shifting delusions he's had since childhood have turned out to be real. He's the result of a dynamic mimicry project intended to help undercover agents "go grey" and blend in unnoticed. Now the biotech company wants its property back, and the only people he can trust are two private military contractors sent to find him...

From best-selling author Kay Hooper comes a thrilling tale with a paranormal bent and a touch of romance. Cassie Neill has a powerful but troubling gift. She can see inside the minds of serial killers as they are planning their crimes. Tormented by her ability, she takes refuge in a secluded North Carolina town. But there’s no escaping her visions, and when a body surfaces just where she predicted, Cassie is suddenly a suspect.

Vampire and thief Raylene Pendle doesn’t need more complications in her life. Her Seattle home is already overrun by a band of misfits, including Ian Stott, a blind vampire, and Adrian deJesus, an ex–Navy SEAL/drag queen. But Raylene still can’t resist an old pal’s request: seek out and steal a bizarre set of artifacts. Also on the hunt is a brilliant but certifiably crazy sorceress determined to stomp anyone who gets in her way.

Surviving 60,000 years takes cunning and more than a little luck. But in the 21st century, Adam confronts new dangers - someone has found out what he is, a demon is after him, and he has run out of places to hide. Worst of all, he has had entirely too much to drink.

Kitty Norville is a midnight-shift DJ for a Denver radio station---and a werewolf in the closet. Sick of lame song requests, she accidentally starts "The Midnight Hour," a late-night advice show for the supernaturally disadvantaged. After desperate vampires, werewolves, and witches across the country begin calling in to share their woes, her new show is a raging success.

In Jasper Fforde's Great Britain, circa 1985, time travel is routine, cloning is a reality (dodos are the resurrected pet of choice), and literature is taken very, very seriously. England is a virtual police state where an aunt can get lost (literally) in a Wordsworth poem and forging Byronic verse is a punishable offense. All this is business as usual for Thursday Next, renowned Special Operative in literary detection.

Abby Cooper is a P.I., psychic intuitive. But her insight failed her when she didn't foresee the death of one of her clients - or that the lead investigator for the case is the gorgeous blind date she just met. Now, with the police suspicious of her abilities and a killer on the loose, Abby's future looks more uncertain than ever.

John Charming isn't your average prince... He comes from a line of Charmings - an illustrious family of dragon slayers, witch-finders and killers dating back to before the fall of Rome. Trained by a modern day version of the Knights Templar, monster hunters who have updated their methods from chain mail and crossbows to Kevlar and shotguns, John Charming was one of the best-until a curse made him one of the abominations the Knights were sworn to hunt.

Bodyguard Celia Graves has definitely accepted her share of weird assignments, both human and supernatural. But her newest job takes the cake. Guarding a prince from terrorists and religious fundamentalists is hard enough, but it seems like the entire supernatural world is after this guy too. When she is betrayed by those she is employed to help, and everything goes horribly wrong, Celia wakes to find herself transformed. Neither human nor vampire, Celia has become an abomination-something that should not exist-and now both human and supernatural alike want her dead.

Short novels are movie-length narratives that may well be the perfect length for science fiction stories. This audio collection presents the best-of-the-best short science fiction novels published in 2014 by current and emerging masters of this vibrant form of storytelling.

When the System came to Earth, technology failed, monsters appeared, and billions died as humans were inducted into the game-like physics the System enforced. Unfortunately for the System, not all humans were on Earth. Some scattered postbiological individuals decided to push it back, and embarked on a decade-long crusade to eliminate the System from Earth.

The Questing Stones have come to Nowherested, and Evelia Greene is finally ready to receive her life's quest. Perhaps she'll be a great warrior, or a wealthy merchant, or a brilliant mage. Perhaps her quest is simply to live a quiet life, constantly honing a craft to the heights of perfection. Or perhaps the Questing Stones will grant her the legendary mission of popping over to the next village to pick up a loaf of bread.

Nick was going to make something of himself. He was not going to be just another guy drifting through life. Then he died. Lucky for him he caught the attention of an eccentric god and gets to choose: reincarnation or travel beyond. Nick is reborn as a champion of Ki’darth people. He must learn their ways, stay alive, and work to understand the Titan system, one level at a time.

I've been living in a small town working for the vampires for the last six months. All I want is to save up enough to open an apothecary so I don't have to heal the neckers anymore. Of course, nothing in my life can be that simple. Two detectives show up at my door asking questions about a dead girl and trying to pin the murder on my employer. Next thing I know, I'm dodging fireballs in parking lots.

A clock hangs over the head of every mortal. Counting down to the inescapable day that the Goddess of Death claims them. That is the way of the world. The natural cycle of mortals. The Gods, however, were said to live for forever. To exist so far outside of the natural laws of the universe that even their crimes can't be punished. But Knell Coba, at great cost, realizes this is nothing but another lie.

Storytelling was outlawed. Magic had all but vanished. That changed when the woman in black came to town. Branded with the black stamp at a young age, Brent thought he would end up a vagrant like his father. His craft was telling stories, but the Order had long forbidden any weaving of tales. When Brent sees the woman in black, she leads him into a menagerie of tunnels beneath the Earth where his life falls into the nauseating, but beautiful, mist of the dead. He finds friendship in Rho, a young woman who hides her face with a tree branch while roots and vines bow to her every whim.

Nic has been Selected. Chosen to leave his own body behind and become a monster. Chosen to live or die on his own wits. His own strengths. He'll adventure out into a new realm as a foot soldier for the System's relentless integration of new worlds. Fighting to break the natives into submission. But Nic has never loved the System, or cared for his home planet, a depleted husk of a world that the System forgot long ago. With blue skies overhead and green forest to the horizons, he might just fall in love with this strange planet named Earth.

Nathaniel's bus ride was supposed to be just another boring commute. Wrong. Now, he, 23 fellow passengers, and a corgi named Biscuit, are stuck in a "Hell Difficulty" Tutorial, battling monsters and leveling up to survive. Easy difficulty, anyone can handle. Normal difficulty, you've got to put up a fight to get by. Hard difficulty is where only the tough ones last. And Hell? That's where you have to be a bit out of your mind! With his terrifying talent for mana manipulation, Nathaniel decides to invest every stat point into mana.

After living a painful life as an office worker, Azusa ended her short life by dying from overworking. So when she found herself reincarnated as an undying, unaging witch in a new world, she vows to spend her days stress free and as pleasantly as possible. She ekes out a living by hunting down the easiest targets—the slimes! But after centuries of doing this simple job, she's ended up with insane powers...how will she maintain her low key life now?!

Drew Michalik was working in a top-secret facility in Washington, DC, when the Advent began. As all electronics in the world simply ceased to work, blue screens filled with information appeared before him. Drew was given access to a mana interface and a limited number of reality-altering crystals called Xatherite. Following the instructions on his vision-impairing screens, he "slotted" his Xatherite and changed his fate: He gained the ability to cast spells. Now alone in the dark, he must battle through the government bunker turned dungeon in a desperate bid for survival.