What happens when the haggling is done and the shops are closed? When the quest has been given, the steeds saddled, and the adventurers are off to their next encounter? They keep the world running, the food cooked, and the horses shoed, yet what adventurer has ever spared a thought or concern for the Non-Player Characters? In the town of Maplebark, four such NPCs settle in for a night of actively ignoring the adventurers drinking in the tavern when things go quickly and fatally awry.

A world on the precipice of the apocalypse. A secret forged in the flames of war. A chance to start over. For John Sutton, only one of those three things matters. Retired from a decade of brutal war, he wants nothing more than a quiet pastoral life while he does his best to stem the steady increase of his Doom Points before they hit 100, signaling the start of the end. He’s been given a small farm on the outskirts of the empire as a thanks for his service, but no matter how far he travels, it's impossible to escape the war's devastating effects on the world.

"No killing Goblins." So reads the sign outside of The Wandering Inn, a small building run by a young woman named Erin Solstice. She serves pasta with sausage, blue fruit juice, and dead acid flies on request. And she comes from another world. Ours. It's a bad day when Erin finds herself transported to a fantastical world and nearly gets eaten by a Dragon. She doesn't belong in a place where monster attacks are a fact of life, and where Humans are one species among many. But she must adapt to her new life. Or die.

Gifted with meta-human powers, Tori Rivas kept away from the limelight, preferring to work as a thief in the shadows. But when she's captured trying to rob a vault that belongs to a secret guild of villains, she's offered a hard choice: prove she has what it takes to join them or be eliminated. Apprenticed to one of the world's most powerful (and supposedly dead) villains, she is thrust into a strange world where the lines that divide superheroes and criminals are more complex than they seem.

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.

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.

When your fairy godmother threatens to enslave you with a curse - when a malevolent piper solves your rat problem but steals your children - when you seek revenge on the prince who turned you into a frog - who can you turn to in your hour of need? The band of scoundrels known far and wide as the Bastard Champions - the swashbuckling trio who travel a world of legend, seeking adventure and righting wrongs - as long as there's enough gold to be earned.

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.

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.

My name is Drew Hayes, and for the past six years I've made my living as a writer. In that time, I've published 20 books, written hundreds of thousands of words, and made countless mistakes - most of which I like to think I've learned from. Underqualified Advice (and Other Amusing Diversions) is my attempt to compile those lessons and share them with others, as well as have some fun along the way. Half of the book is dedicated to detailing specifics about writing, maneuvering the industry, and keeping fiscally afloat in largely unstable waters.

Large chests are said to encompass all manner of hopes and dreams. Men covet them. Women envy them. But one fact holds true - everyone wants to get their hands on some big ones. The same holds true for one intrepid adventurer - a strapping young lad by the name of Himmel. Armed with his grandfather's trusty longsword and the dream of being the strongest, he sets out on the journey of a lifetime!

Sacred artists follow a thousand Paths to power, using their souls to control the forces of the natural world. Lindon is Unsouled, forbidden to learn the sacred arts of his clan. When faced with a looming fate he cannot ignore, he must rise beyond anything he's ever known...and forge his own Path.

Most people would be overjoyed to win $50,000 and the chance to star in a nation-wide commercial, even if it was just for a fast food joint like Camelot Burger. Then again, Clint Tucker has never been like most people. Ushered to the tropical paradise of Kenowai, he and the other winners undertake an island tradition for the cameras, one meant to free a local imprisoned deity. One with very specific requirements that have yet to be met. One that might just be a bit more authentic than any of them expected.

What happens when the haggling is done and the shops are closed? When the quest has been given, the steeds saddled, and the adventurers are off to their next encounter? They keep the world running, the food cooked, and the horses shoed, yet what adventurer has ever spared a thought or concern for the Non-Player Characters? In the town of Maplebark, four such NPCs settle in for a night of actively ignoring the adventurers drinking in the tavern when things go quickly and fatally awry.

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.

My name is Drew Hayes, and for the past six years I've made my living as a writer. In that time, I've published 20 books, written hundreds of thousands of words, and made countless mistakes - most of which I like to think I've learned from. Underqualified Advice (and Other Amusing Diversions) is my attempt to compile those lessons and share them with others, as well as have some fun along the way. Half of the book is dedicated to detailing specifics about writing, maneuvering the industry, and keeping fiscally afloat in largely unstable waters.

Timid, socially awkward, and plagued by self-esteem issues, Fred has never been the adventurous sort. One fateful night - different from the night he died, which was more inconvenient than fateful - 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 of the parahuman world.

Most people would be overjoyed to win $50,000 and the chance to star in a nation-wide commercial, even if it was just for a fast food joint like Camelot Burger. Then again, Clint Tucker has never been like most people. Ushered to the tropical paradise of Kenowai, he and the other winners undertake an island tradition for the cameras, one meant to free a local imprisoned deity. One with very specific requirements that have yet to be met. One that might just be a bit more authentic than any of them expected.

Gifted with meta-human powers, Tori Rivas kept away from the limelight, preferring to work as a thief in the shadows. But when she's captured trying to rob a vault that belongs to a secret guild of villains, she's offered a hard choice: prove she has what it takes to join them or be eliminated. Apprenticed to one of the world's most powerful (and supposedly dead) villains, she is thrust into a strange world where the lines that divide superheroes and criminals are more complex than they seem.

The beloved King Ik is dead, and there was barely time to check his pulse before the royal throne was supporting the suspiciously shapely backside of an impostor pretending to be Ik's beautiful, long-lost daughter. With the land's heroic hunks busy drooling all over themselves, there's only one man left who can save the kingdom of Jenair. His name is Dungar Loloth, a rural blacksmith turned innkeeper, a surly hermit, and an all-around nobody oozing toward middle age, compensating for a lack of height, looks, charm, and tact with guts and an attitude.

Morgan used to be a pretty normal guy. He went to college by day and played online games by night, leading his guild into new conquests - until he got hit by a car and a dude wearing a wet suit appeared in front of him. The man offered him a new chance at life in a world he had created, a world with similar rules to the games Morgan loved to play. There is the promise of great rewards and power, he says, if Morgan manages to complete the Tower of Power.

Matt's just an ordinary guy, but when he's beaten, robbed, and left for dead, bleeding out at the bottom of a gully, it all has to change as he grasps frantically at his only chance for survival, coming as it does in the form of a glowing, dangerously pulsing light. With his reality forever altered, Matt must quickly find a suitable place to deploy the Dungeon Core, fighting his way through the hundreds of people between him and safety, because if he doesn't do it soon, a Core Detonation will solve all of his problems for him....permanently.

He thought it was the end, and his gun sat ready to make sure. But an oddball offer from his last friend comes at the literal last second. Curiosity gets the best of him, and he finds himself sucked into iNcarn8, a game claiming to be a whole new life. Now, as Montana, the larger-than-life tank warrior, he has one more last time to get his life right.

Nine months ago, Zeus' murder catapulted the Greek gods back into public life. Now, the whole pantheon revels in new temples, casinos, and media empires - except Apollo. An overachiever with a bursting portfolio of godly duties, the amount of email alone he receives from rapacious mortals turns each day into a living hell. Yet there may be hope, if only he can return Zeus to life! With the aid of Thalia, the muse of comedy and science fiction, Apollo will risk his very godhood to help TV producer Tracy Wallace and a gamer geek named Leif, who hold the key to Zeus' resurrection.

When a storm reveals a mysterious cave behind a waterfall, the young mystic’s apprentice and her wolf investigate. Inside, she discovers a secret place containing a pile of human bones and the young girl makes what could be a fatal mistake. In this Legends of the First Empire prequel, we witness the events that helped shape the woman who would one day become Suri the Mystic, the first Rhune Artist, and a hero to a generation

Being one of the guys isn't all it's cracked up to be. So when journalist Chastity O'Neill returns to her hometown, she decides it's time to start working on some of those feminine wiles. Two tiny problems: one - she's five feet and 11 inches of rock-solid girl power; two - she's cursed with four alpha-male older brothers. While doing a story on local heroes, she meets a hunky doctor, and things start to look up. Now there's only one problem: Trevor Meade, her first love and the one man she's never quite gotten over....

After being court-martialed by the Space Legion for ordering the strafing of a treaty-signing ceremony, multimillionaire Willard Phule receives his punishment: He must command the misfit Omega Company on Haskin's Planet, a mining settlement on the edge of settled space. At his duty station, he leverages his personal money and a knack for managing people to get the company to come together as a unit.

No matter what you heard or thought about the movie version of Strip Tease, forget it. Film simply can’t catch the layers of humor, satire, and imagination that Pulitzer Prize-winning author Carl Hiaasen creates in each of his novels.