The decision to start a new life is never an easy one, but for Joe the transition was far from figurative. Becoming a permanent addition to a game world, it doesn't take long to learn that people with his abilities are actively hunted. In fact, if the wrong people gained knowledge of what he was capable of, assassins would appear in droves.

Twenty years ago, the Merge brought armies of monsters flooding into the West Coast. Dungeons popped up in shopping malls, airports, and Starbucks. Walls were built to contain the spread, but the promise of priceless loot dropped by the creatures inspired a new type of gold rush. Clay Jaeger has nothing left outside the walls. Civilization took everything he worked for, chewed it up, and spat it out. Now Clay, his wife Alex, and his beer-loving, chainsaw-toting brother, Joe, are going west to try their hand at monster killing.

Five days after Owen Zastava Pitt pushed his insufferable boss out of a 14th story window, he woke up in the hospital with a scarred face, an unbelievable memory, and a job offer. It turns out that monsters are real. All the things from myth, legend, and B-movies are out there, waiting in the shadows. Some of them are evil, and some are just hungry. Monster Hunter International is the premier eradication company in the business. And now Owen is their newest recruit.

Immerse yourself in a world of strong men and the beautiful women who adore them. From Dragon Lords and Greek Gods to Dungeon Masters and Barbarian Kings. Whether you're an avid harem fan or just want to spice up your sci-fi and fantasy habit, Dangerous Playmates from Black Forge Books brings battle babes and bad boys together in an explosive boxed set you'll listen to again and again.

The end of the world is not such a bad thing for Russian weapons engineer Vlad Nardoir. Really, his world ended six months ago when his wife died, and ever since then, things have been downhill. Soul-crushing medical debt. Favors to the Russian mafia. Now, asteroid. For Vlad, this is life in a nutshell. But, in a wild twist of fate, he has found a way out. A chance to start fresh in a brand-new ultra-immersive MMORPG called Viridian Gate Online. Making the leap might kill him, but again, death is not such a bad thing for a man with nothing to live for.

An EMT in 2042 San Diego, Jack knows he won't survive the impact of the massive asteroid hurtling towards Earth. After all, he's not one of the handful of lucky lottery winners scheduled for rescue. But he did luck into a NexGenVR capsule, which means Jack can risk a one-way trip to the virtual reality world of Viridan Gate Online, a completely immersive online multiplayer fantasy role-playing game, or RPG.

Boyd Knight found his calling when he joined the Marines and qualified for the elite Force Recon. He'd found a tribe and a family, so when a hand grenade landed near his team, he jumped on it without thought or regret. But instead of winding up dead, he wakes up butt-naked in a cave full of monsters with a knife in one hand and a pistol in the other. He's been chosen by Raguel, the Five-Faced God of Justice, and entrusted with the power of the Vigil Bound.

A man. His ex-girlfriend's cat. A sadistic game show unlike anything in the universe: a dungeon crawl where survival depends on killing your prey in the most entertaining way possible. In a flash, every human-erected construction on Earth - from Buckingham Palace to the tiniest of sheds - collapses in a heap, sinking into the ground. The buildings and all the people inside have all been atomized and transformed into the dungeon: an 18-level labyrinth filled with traps, monsters, and loot.

Stephen Oakwood is a young man on the edge of this hidden world. He has talent and potential, but turning that potential into magical power takes money, opportunity, and training. All Stephen has is a minimum wage job and a cat. But when a chance encounter with a member of House Ashford gets him noticed by the wrong people, Stephen is thrown in the deep end. For centuries, the vast corporations and aristocratic Houses of the magical world have grown impossibly rich and influential by hoarding their knowledge.

How do you raise a boy who can bend reality with his mind? How do you keep him levelheaded, sane, and good? Raising any child is a tremendous undertaking, let alone one blessed by the goddess herself. Levi Guildersleeve, retired soldier and successful collector of rare books, finds himself as the only male role model of the most powerful witch ever born.

On the streets of Boston, the world is divided into the ordinary Usuals, and the paranormal Unorthodox. And in the Department of Unorthodox Affairs, the Auditors are the magical elite, government-sanctioned witches with spells at their command and all the power and prestige that comes with it. Grimshaw Griswald Grimsby is…not one of those witches.

Knowledge is power. That would be the motto of Lander University, had it not been snatched up and used to death by others long before the school was founded. For while Lander offers a full range of courses to nearly all students, it also offers a small number of specialty classes to a very select few. Lander is home to the Hero Certification Program, a curriculum designed to develop students with superhuman capabilities, commonly known as Supers, into official Heroes.

Jake Sullivan is a licensed private eye with a seriously hardboiled attitude. He also possesses raw magical talent and the ability to make objects in his vicinity light as a feather or as heavy as depleted uranium, all with a magical thought. It's no wonder the G-men turn to Jake when they need someoneto go after a suspected killer who has been knocking off banks in a magic-enhanced crime spree.

After the arrival of the multiversal monopoly BuyMort, life got brutal. All systems were through BuyMort. All currency was through BuyMort. All sales were through BuyMort. You could resist, you could compete, but it didn’t really matter because in the end you used BuyMort—or you perished. BuyMort be praised. But not everyone’s happy with the new system. Some, even, want to see it destroyed. It’s quick. It’s convenient. And it will help people kill you and your family as readily as it will help them sell you knickknacks for a quick mortie.

Some people are born boring. Some live boring. Some even die boring. Fred managed to do all three, and when he woke up as a vampire, he did so as a boring one. Timid, socially awkward, and plagued by self-esteem issues, Fred has never been the adventurous sort. One fateful night, Fred reconnects with an old friend at his high school reunion. This rekindled relationship sets off a chain of events thrusting him right into the chaos that is the parahuman world.

A call from a distraught wife, and another from Lt. Murphy of the Chicago PD Special Investigation Unit makes Harry believe things are looking up, but they are about to get worse, much worse. Someone is harnessing immense supernatural forces to commit a series of grisly murders. Someone has violated the first law of magic: Thou Shalt Not Kill. Tracking that someone takes Harry into the dangerous underbelly of Chicago, from mobsters to vampires....

In the beginning, the gods destroyed the world. Five hundred years later, things haven’t gotten much better for humans. The demigods that were left behind to guard over humanity have been using them as fodder for an endless civil war between themselves, and the humans just go on dutifully slaughtering each other, battle after battle. It’s not all bad, though. Perry McGown makes his living off those bloody, stinking battlefields. He works on a crew that reclaims all the spent shell casings. But if anyone found out that he was a deserter from the war, he’d be executed for heresy.

When the Inkolana Cartel's experimental computer network comes under attack, they give white-hat hacker Clay Knight two hours to fix the problem. If he succeeds, he'll be rich beyond his wildest dreams. If he fails, he's a dead man. But when Clay hacks the hackers, he stumbles into an ancient ritual that summons him to the dusty, forgotten world of Soketra...Clay finds dungeons, monsters, and a fierce pride of beautiful cat women who believe he is the reincarnation of the ancient Dungeon Lord Rathokhetra. Listen to find out more.

Thirty-three-year-old game designer Dex Walsh spends an entire year devoured by sorrow after the death of his wife. As a last-ditch effort to regain his joy, he sells everything and joins Overtaken Online. Expecting to spawn in a noob-friendly area with guidance from his personal assistant, he instead finds himself naked and alone in a dark prison cell rapidly filling with gas. Under-leveled and not knowing how to escape, he has no idea how far he will be able to progress as long as he pushes forward and doesn't give up.

Dustin Graves was a jack of all trades, a directionless dreamer until the day he found his purpose: as a ritual sacrifice. Transformed in death, Dust awakens to the eldritch mysteries behind the grit and glamor of the city of Valero – and to the wellspring of dark magic that lives inside his very bones.

For 10 years Kal Hakala has been the Bureau of Supernatural Investigation's top man, the longest surviving agent in its blood-soaked history. The World At Large has no idea that The World Under exists. And its vampires, demons, zombies, and mythic monsters are growing increasingly restless. In all Kal's time with the Bureau, there has been no case he couldn't crack, no monster he couldn't kill. Then a plague of zombies comes to Denver, along with a vicious serial killer dubbed The Organ Donor.

Gabriel Delling might call himself a professional con artist, but when walking superstitions start trying to bite his face off, his charm is shockingly unhelpful. It turns out living nightmares almost never appreciate a good joke. Together with a succubus who insists on constantly saving his life, Gabe desperately tries to survive a new reality that suddenly features demons, legends, and a giant locust named Dale - all of whom pretty much hate his guts. And when an ancient horror comes hunting for a spirit locked in his head, Gabe finds himself faced with the excruciating choice between death...or becoming some kind of freaking hero.

Rogue wizard Josiah Quinn never met a rule he wouldn’t break. Even though he knows he’ll face plenty of backlash from both good and evil, he braves the fires of Hell to spring Satan’s captive daughter. But before they return to their lives, he’s got to track down the missing pieces of her soul.... As he attempts to unite the fragmented spirit of the succubus by his side, Josiah has one little problem: a power-hungry wizard aiming to rule the underworld.

Felix's life on Earth had become a series of dead-end jobs, ruined relationships, and rotating apartments smaller than most postage stamps. By all accounts, even his own, he was a coward. Too afraid to move forward, to take risks. Yet when given the chance to choose between risking his life or walking away from a deadly encounter, he didn't hesitate. Moments before his untimely demise, Felix was snatched from earth and thrust into a magical world known only as "The Continent". Empowered by the "System", he learns that he can strengthen himself through combat and dedication.

Join scholar and spell-caster Everson Croft in this five-book urban fantasy set, from the discovery of his magic in the prequel novella, Book of Souls, to his battle against a mind-warping evil in the shocking finale, Death Mage.

Not every man can handle a magitech gauntlet that speaks in floating silver text, or a handful of women with unique...needs. I’m not every man. When a bad blind date got worse - like, interdimensional lightning storm worse - I woke up to a realm of dragon women, magical kobolds, and a playful monkey girl with a painful secret. I also accidentally (totally on purpose) stole an ancient artifact in the form of a black gauntlet that bonded with my body and unlocked various new abilities. So what’s the catch? The glove wasn’t meant for me. It was meant for the fabled Hero of Silura.

Maulkin didn't know dying would mean a new eternity of dungeon delving, monster slaying, and glory hunting. If he had, he wouldn't have been so worried about kicking the bucket on a date gone even more wrong than usual. Reborn in the wild world of Amaranth, Maulkin finds himself in a hulking demi-human body with a sword of a size to match. Marked as an Eternal, a fledging immortal of boundless potential, Maulkin soon discovers he's been given a mission by the elder pantheon of this new realm.

What you thought you knew about vampires and werewolves is wrong...so very, very, wrong. A thousand years of effort to keep the Unknown World hidden is unraveling and the Patriarch is tired. He needs to find someone to take over. He finds Bethany Anne.

An attack in the dark. The loss of a love. Waking up hung over in a ditch. These are the things that make a hero, especially if that hero is Quincy Harker, immortal wizard, snarky bastard, and general badass. Histories collects two short stories and one short novella giving a peek behind the curtain at the man, the myth, the legend that is Quincy Harker, as well as the origin story of one of his most popular cohorts, Jo Henry.

Mysterious billionaire Cameron Crayton is a household name from televised spectacles in which prison inmates fight to the death, but his old shows pale in comparison to his new event, The Crucible, a gladiatorial tournament anyone can enter. The winner is promised unimaginable wealth and glory...if they’re able to survive a series of globally broadcast fight-to-the-death matches with medieval weaponry against the world’s most fearsome fighters.