Adventure Fantasy Humor

Never meddle with unidentified spying objects...The year is: The Future. Mars and Earth are like that divorced couple who don’t exactly like each other but have at least stopped fighting in public. Floating somewhere in between them, amid all the garbage and Gene Roddenberry’s ashes, a transport vessel called the SS Jefferson is homeward bound. Its crew might have even made it on time for once, too...

When the world last checked in with its favorite Cheetos addict, the planet had been overrun by flesh-hungry beasts, and nature had started reclaiming her territory from humankind. S.T., the intrepid crow, alongside his bloodhound-bestie Dennis, had set about saving pets that had become trapped in their homes after humanity went the way of the dodo. That is, dear reader, until S.T. stumbled upon something so rare - and so precious - that he vowed to do everything in his power to safeguard what could, quite literally, be humanity's last hope for survival.

They’re here. They’ve arrived. And they’re all eyes. The Voltarian scouting party - illegal aliens extraordinaire - on a top-secret expedition led by one Jettero Heller, Royal Officer of the Fleet. His mission: rescue the planet from pollution - and make it safe for the upcoming invasion. His problem: The planet may not want to be saved - and the invasion may just be a trick.

Skeeve needs more than magic to solve a matter of Murder and Myth-tery. He’s in a real pickle this time. His green, scaly partner, Aahz, has disappeared, and it looks like foul play. Finding Aahz ought to be a snap for a talented magician like Skeeve, especially with a sassy apprentice and a dumb-but-brawny bodyguard along for the ride. The trouble is, they're sleuthing in another dimension that makes the Bazaar on Deva look tame!

Cade Clarke spends his last night on Earth drinking with an old army buddy. When he decides to risk his life to defend a gorgeous bartender, he pays the ultimate price. Resurrected to Antinium, Cade finds himself thrown into a world where the very rules of reality have shifted. He chooses a unique class, customizes his soul weapon, and levels up to unlock vital skills, traits and attributes points in order to survive. Cade’s chances for success are minimal, until he finds his destiny intertwined with a group of sexy women.

The impossible was just the beginning. Now in their second year as superhuman government weapons-in-training at the Pentagonal Spire, Tom and his friends are midlevel cadets in the elite combat corps known as the Intrasolar Forces. But as training intensifies and a moment arrives that could make or break his entire career, Tom's loyalties are again put to the test. Will his idealism and bravado cost him everything - and everyone - that matters to him?

Sick of the stress, aggravation, and multiple genocides they've had to put up with lately, accidental space hero Cal Carver and his crew set off to start a new life in a distant corner of the galaxy. Six tedious days of warp-speed and board games later, they arrive in a sector filled with new hope, new opportunities, and new adventures. Too broke to take advantage of any of these things, they are forced to accept a series of increasingly demeaning jobs just to make ends meet.

More than anything, Tom Raines wants to be important, though his shadowy life is anything but that. For years, Tom's drifted from casino to casino with his unlucky gambler of a dad, gaming for their survival. Keeping a roof over their heads depends on a careful combination of skill, luck, con artistry, and staying invisible. Then one day, Tom stops being invisible. Someone's been watching his virtual-reality prowess, and he's offered the incredible - a place at the Pentagonal Spire, an elite military academy. There, Tom's instincts for combat will be put to the test and if he passes, he'll become a member of the Intrasolar Forces.

Low-level entertainment lawyer Nick Carter thinks it's a prank, not an alien encounter, when a redheaded mullah and a curvaceous nun show up at his office. But Frampton and Carly are highly advanced (if bumbling) extraterrestrials. And boy, do they have news. The entire cosmos, they tell him, has been hopelessly hooked on humanity's music ever since "Year Zero" (1977 to us), when American pop songs first reached alien ears. This addiction has driven a vast intergalactic society to commit the biggest copyright violation since the Big Bang.

Walter Reddie is a washed-up former astronaut who takes it upon himself to build a rocket ship to rescue his cousin, who is stuck on the International Space Station after a mission gone wrong. If America won’t rescue its astronauts, Walter will do it himself. Violating numerous laws, common sense, logic, and reason, Walter Reddie becomes a lightning rod for people who aren’t ready to lay down and die just yet.

Cal Carver is having a bad day. Imprisoned and forced to share a cell with a cannibalistic serial killer, Cal thinks things can't possibly get any worse. He is wrong. It's not until two-thirds of the human race is wiped out and Cal is abducted by aliens that his day really starts to go downhill. Whisked across the galaxy, Cal is thrown into a team of some of the sector's most notorious villains and scumbags.

Witness the epic battle of the cyclops! Visit the endangered dragon preserve! Please, no slaying. Solve the mystery of The Mystery Cottage, if you dare! Buy some knickknacks from The Fates! They might come in handy later. On a road trip across an enchanted America, Helen and Troy will discover all this and more. If the curse placed upon them by an ancient god doesn't kill them or the pack of reluctant orc assassins don't catch up to them, Helen and Troy might reach the end their journey in one piece, where they might just end up destroying the world.

The best-selling author of the classic Mars trilogy and The Years of Rice and Salt returns with a riveting new trilogy of cutting-edge science, international politics, and the real-life ramifications of global warming as they are played out in our nation's capital - and in the daily lives of those at the center of the action. Hauntingly realistic, here is a novel of the near future that is inspired by scientific facts already making headlines. BONUS AUDIO: Includes an exclusive introduction by author Kim Stanley Robinson.

Four set out, one is dead, another is barely holding it together. Still, in the face of tragedy, to save the modern world, Alexander Grant is more determined than ever to stop Elam Khai, Peter Kroll, and anyone else who stands in his way. Having lived over 1500 years, our teenage hero knows a bit about history. But as much as he’s trained, seen, and experienced, nothing has prepared him for what he’s about to face.

After years as a court magician and interdimensional hero, Skeeve needed a rest. So he took some time off to study magic and relax. When a few months later several members of the M.Y.T.H. Inc. Team each ask him to train some talented, young magicians in "practical magic", he has to agree. But after the assassins attack and a manticore tries to eat them, the Khlad mage soon discovers that there is more going on than learning. His students are preparing for a very deadly magical game, and you won't believe where.

After learning he has only months to live, Gemini Fowler is granted one shot to cheat death when a billionaire game developer offers to transfer his consciousness into a virtual realm using a technology that could end death as we know it. The catch: The only current VR with the capability to receive him is the unreleased video game, Enora Online, and Gemini must survive until level 10 or be completely wiped from the servers...and existence. Welcome to Enora Online, where virtual is reality.

Fort Fitzgerald can’t stop having nightmares about the day his father was taken from him in an attack on Washington, DC. In these dreams, an Old One, an evil beyond comprehension, demands the location of the last dragon. But other than some dragon skeletons dug up with the books of magic on Discovery Day, Fort has never seen a dragon before. Could there still be one left alive? And weirdly, Fort’s not the only one at the Oppenheimer School having these nightmares. His new roommate, Gabriel, seems to know more than he’s letting on about this dragon as well.

As time runs down for the players trapped by the evil Lich-Lord in the hyper-realistic MMORPG Fantasy Realms Online, Kromgorn the Barbarian is still stuck playing as the gorgeous, pleasure-fueled Lacey the Courtesan, a character designed to level fastest when she’s getting busy with every NPC in sight. The action is hot, the stakes are high, and Lacey will need to pull out every skill she can muster if she wants to win the day.

After saving the grim and gritty alien city of Down Here from something big, mean, and mind-bendingly horrible, Dan is looking forward to unwinding in the closest available bar. Annoyingly, the universe has other ideas. Instead, Dan finds himself investigating a cheating husband, two horrible murders, and the potential enslavement of everyone in the galaxy. With his caseload stretching his woefully limited detective skills, his car in pieces, and the whole "being dead" thing not doing him any favors, Dan has no choice but to ask his friends for help.

This is a collection of six short stories from the Caverns and Creatures series. It includes the following stories: "Slimes and Misty Wieners", "Great Balls on Fire", "Your Anus Is a Gas Giant", "Clear and Present Ranger", "The Mimic's Chest", and "Styxian Stoners May Break My Boners".