When out-of-shape IT technician Roen wakes up and starts hearing voices in his head, he naturally assumes he’s losing it. He isn’t. As of last night, he has a passenger in his brain - an ancient alien life-form called Tao, whose race crash-landed on Earth before the first fish crawled out of the oceans. Over the millennia his people have trained human heroes to be great leaders, to advance our species at a rate far beyond what it would have achieved on its own. Split into two opposing factions - the peace-loving, but under-represented Prophus, and the savage, powerful Genjix - the aliens have been in a state of civil war for centuries.

Ella Patel, thief, con-artist and smuggler, is in the wrong place at the wrong time. One night, she happens upon a man and woman being attacked. The man freezes, leaving the woman to fight off five attackers at once, before succumbing. As she dies, to both Ella and the man's surprise, the sparkling light that rises from the woman enters Ella, instead of the man. She soon realizes she's been inhabited by Io, a low-ranking Quasing. Now Ella must help the alien presence to complete her mission.

So many stories begin the same way: With a prophecy. A chosen one. And the inevitable quest to slay a villain, save the kingdom, and fulfill a grand destiny. But this is not that kind of story. It does begin with a prophecy: A child will rise to defeat the Eternal Khan, a cruel immortal god-king, and save the kingdom. And that prophecy did anoint a hero, Jian, raised since birth in luxury and splendor, and celebrated before he has won a single battle.

Since time immemorial the Spires have sheltered humanity, towering for miles over the mist-shrouded surface of the world. Within their halls aristocratic houses have ruled for generations, developing scientific marvels, fostering trade alliances, and building fleets of airships to keep the peace. Captain Grimm commands the merchant ship Predator. Fiercely loyal to Spire Albion, he has taken their side in the cold war with Spire Aurora, disrupting the enemy's shipping lines by attacking their cargo vessels.

Worn out after decades of packing steel and raising hell, Viv, the orc barbarian, cashes out of the warrior’s life with one final score. A forgotten legend, a fabled artifact, and an unreasonable amount of hope lead her to the streets of Thune, where she plans to open the first coffee shop the city has ever seen. However, her dreams of a fresh start filling mugs instead of swinging swords are hardly a sure bet. Old frenemies and Thune’s shady underbelly may just upset her plans. To finally build something that will last, Viv will need some new partners, and a different kind of resolve.

The Galahad, a faster-than-light spacecraft, carries 50 scientists and engineers on a mission to prepare Kepler 452b, Earth's nearest habitable neighbor at 1400 light years away. With Earth no longer habitable and the Mars colony slowly failing, they are humanity's best hope. After 10 years in a failed cryogenic bed - body asleep, mind awake - William Chanokh's torture comes to an end as the fog clears, the hatch opens, and his friend and fellow hacker, Tom, greets him...by stabbing a screwdriver into his heart. This is the first time William dies.

The boy has lived his whole life trapped within a book-choked chamber older than empires and larger than cities. The girl has been plucked from the outskirts of civilization to be trained as a librarian, studying the mysteries of the great library at the heart of her kingdom. They were never supposed to meet. But in the library, they did. Their stories spiral around each other, across worlds and time. This is a tale of truth and lies and hearts, and the blurring of one into another.

STOP. You should not have touched this flyer with your bare hands. NO, don't put it down. It's too late. They're watching you. My name is David Wong. My best friend is John. Those names are fake. You might want to change yours. You may not want to know about the things you'll read on these pages, about the sauce, about Korrok, about the invasion, and the future. But it's too late. You touched the book. You're in the game. You're under the eye. The only defense is knowledge. You need to read this book, to the end. Even the part with the bratwurst. Why?

Legends uncovers the origin of the Ronin and the final breaking. Kail, leader of the Ronin and threader of wind, along with his eight elemental brothers and sisters have been betrayed. On the cusp of defeat, they go to the Hall of Winds, to the council chamber to discover who in their inner circle is the cursed traitor...Only to discover the darkness is much closer than they ever imagined.

Everything I’d known about the world was a lie. On my thirteenth birthday, I, Alcatraz Smedry (yes, I got named after a prison, don’t ask), received my inheritance: a bag of sand. And then I accidentally destroyed my foster parents’ kitchen. It’s not my fault, things just break around me, I swear! I thought the sand was a joke until evil Librarians came to steal it. You’re probably thinking, “Librarians are nice people who recommend good books,” but that’s just what they want you to think!

Neil Gaiman has long been inspired by ancient mythology in creating the fantastical realms of his fiction. Now he turns his attention back to the source, presenting a bravura rendition of the great northern tales. In Norse Mythology, Gaiman fashions primeval stories into a novelistic arc that begins with the genesis of the legendary nine worlds; delves into the exploits of the deities, dwarves, and giants; and culminates in Ragnarok, the twilight of the gods and the rebirth of a new time and people.

Gaelan Starfire is a farmer, happy to be a husband and a father; a careful, quiet, simple man. He’s also an immortal, peerless in the arts of war. Over the centuries, he’s worn many faces to hide his gift, but he is a man ill-fit for obscurity and all too often he’s become a hero, his very names passing into legend: Acaelus Thorne, Yric the Black, Hrothan Steelbender, Tal Drakkan, Rebus Nimble.

After years of searching for the next Avatar, the four nations have found peace with Avatar Yun - until Kyoshi, Yun’s friend and servant, demonstrates remarkable bending abilities herself. With the identity of the true Avatar at stake, Kyoshi and her fiery friend Rangi flee the Avatar mansion and find supporters in the daofei - outlaws living in the shadows of the Earth Kingdom. But while Kyoshi, Rangi, and their daofei friends face off against underworld rivals, those who seek to control the Avatar draw close.

Bayr of Saylok, bastard son of a powerful and jealous chieftain, is haunted by the curse once leveled by his dying mother. Bartered, abandoned, and rarely loved, she plagued the land with her words: From this day forward, there will be no daughters in Saylok. Raised among the Keepers at Temple Hill, Bayr is gifted with inhuman strength. But he’s also blessed with an all-too-human heart that beats with one purpose: to protect Alba, the first girl child born in nearly two decades and the salvation for a country at risk.

His name was Feliks. He came to London to commit a murder that would change history. A master manipulator, he had many weapons at his command, but against him were ranged the whole of the English police, a brilliant and powerful lord, and the young Winston Churchill himself. These odds would have stopped any man in the world - except the man from St. Petersburg.

When out-of-shape IT technician Roen wakes up and starts hearing voices in his head, he naturally assumes he’s losing it. He isn’t. As of last night, he has a passenger in his brain - an ancient alien life-form called Tao, whose race crash-landed on Earth before the first fish crawled out of the oceans. Over the millennia his people have trained human heroes to be great leaders, to advance our species at a rate far beyond what it would have achieved on its own. Split into two opposing factions - the peace-loving, but under-represented Prophus, and the savage, powerful Genjix - the aliens have been in a state of civil war for centuries.

Ella Patel, thief, con-artist and smuggler, is in the wrong place at the wrong time. One night, she happens upon a man and woman being attacked. The man freezes, leaving the woman to fight off five attackers at once, before succumbing. As she dies, to both Ella and the man's surprise, the sparkling light that rises from the woman enters Ella, instead of the man. She soon realizes she's been inhabited by Io, a low-ranking Quasing. Now Ella must help the alien presence to complete her mission.

David was caught in the middle of the city when the zombie outbreak started. His wife and daughters were at home, stranded on the roof as zombies waited below. He would have to fight through hordes of undead, merciless other survivors, and a series of death defying stunts to get home. However, even if he makes it there, how can he be sure they're safe? Deadlocked puts you into David's head as he struggles to get home. Then a final confrontation occurs that could guarantee his family's survival, but at what cost?

After America’s Second Civil War, the Pro-Choice and Pro-Life armies came to an agreement. According to their Bill of Life, human life may not be terminated from the moment of conception until the age of thirteen. But between the ages of thirteen and eighteen, the child may be gotten rid of by their parent through a process called “unwinding.”

The end begins with a viral outbreak unlike anything mankind has ever encountered before. The infected are subject to delirium, fever, a dramatic increase in violent behavior, and a one-hundred percent mortality rate. Death. But it doesn't end there. The victims return from death to walk the earth. When a massive military operation fails to contain the plague of the living dead it escalates into a global pandemic.

The Earth is under siege - and no one knows about it because the invaders erase those whom they consume. A handful of men and women stand on the border between the mundane and the magical. They have a special spark of soul - not quite enough to be naturally gifted in spellcraft but greater than the average person, a tiny flame that can ignite incredible potential. They possess the ability to fight back against the Vorid: the ability to become a Contractor.

Drake Sharazi, disgraced former captain of the Royal Guard, has spent the past seven years chasing fugitives as a hawker. He has never failed to complete an assignment, and this new runner will not be an exception. But being able to do a thing does not mean you should. Now he is forced to question the world around him as never before.

The Death will find you... Devin Chase was just living his life, when the world changed in an instant. In the matter of a week a deadly virus known as The Death ravages the world killing over 90% of those infected. After six months in a self-imposed quarantine, he emerges into a new world. As he travels, he discovers others like him who are immune, but he also discovers that the world he knew is gone. It has been replaced with a savage and brutal one where the only rule is kill or be killed.

Tragedy and heartache seem to be waiting for Drew Carter at every turn, but college offers Drew a chance to start over - until an accident during a physics experiment leaves him blind and his genius friend, Benjamin Berg, missing. As his sight miraculously returns, Drew discovers that the accident has heightened his neuron activity, giving him skills and sight beyond the normal man. When he begins to observe fierce invaders that no one else can see, he questions his own sanity, and so do others. But is he insane or do the invaders truly exist?

Kevin, Rachel, and Ben are young fencers eager to compete in an upcoming tournament at Nellis Air Force Base. But when they arrive, they become unwilling pawns in a twisted plan to steal the ultimate weapon. A plan that somehow revolves around the tournament. Now, battling for their very survival, they must find a way to stop the two brilliant arms dealers behind it all.

The world had become used to the metahumans - people sometimes perfectly ordinary, but sometimes quite extraordinary in appearance - who mostly worked with their governments as high-powered peace officers, fighting crime, and sometimes fighting rogue metahumans who had become super-criminals. Then that comfortable world ended in just one terrifying day.

Modern gods and goddesses, remote, revered - and like the pantheon of heroes and heroines of ancient myth - possessing great power tempered with flaws. Now, find within this anthology great tales by gifted and award-winning authors who move superheroes from the four-color panels of comic books to the fantastic pages of fiction, stories that will remind anyone who ever wanted to wear a cape or don a cowl of the extraordinary powers of the imagination!

Humankind has escaped a dying Earth and set out to find a new home among the stars aboard an immense generation ship affectionately named the Ark. Bryan Benson is the Ark's greatest living sports hero, enjoying retirement working as a detective in Avalon, his home module. The hours are good, the work is easy, and the perks can't be beat. But when a crew member goes missing, Bryan is thrust into the center of an ever-expanding web of deception, secrets, and violence.

The job was simple: decapitate the zombie, get paid, get out. Warlock Marcus Shifter followed the plan perfectly. The corpse, however, did not. Now there's a body on the loose, accusations of illegal necromancy are flying, and the answers are waiting in the perilous alleys between the mortal and paranormal worlds. They're no place for someone who mostly gave up magic after a childhood accident. And given his tendency to shoot off his mouth and his Glock, Marcus is having a hell of a time digging up more than just bodies. When an apocalypse-minded megalomaniac threatens Marcus's family, things get personal.

The virus has spread...and four teens are infected. This new life isn't what I asked for. And if I can't learn to protect myself, it will destroy me. My mission is clear. My enemies will fall. And nothing will stand in my way. I knew there was something wrong with me. But maybe I can be more than just a freak. People always underestimate me. They only see a pretty face. And that mistake is going to cost them.