Contemporary Science Fiction

Emerson Powers has been so focused on obtaining her science degree that she’s neglected the more social aspects of college life. With the new start of her junior year, she’s determined to fix that with a real hands-on lesson in biology. The assignment is simple enough—teach the rock star’s son how to be good, while he shows her how to be very bad. Two objectives, one outcome … will the lesson be love or heartbreak?

It was supposed to be a simple scouting mission. In and out. No fighting. No new quests. Just me, my hippocorn, Alice, and a few hired mercenaries. We were going to tiptoe into the Spiral, get the info we needed, and leave. You know, the Spiral? That tower-defense run that protects the hobgoblin capital from invaders? Easy, right? Nobody would even know we were there. Yeah, so about that....

Brighten your day and dive into Flat Spell Tales! The author, Tony Martello, transforms ordinary events in our lives into fiction based on half-realities. Drop in and surf stories about romance, revenge, treasure hunts, and humor. He invites you along with him on a variety of adventures that take you into extreme nature, complex human relationships, and animal allegories.

Morganville, Texas, is a small college town filled with quirky characters. But when the sun goes down, the bad come out. Because in Morganville, there is an evil that lurks in the darkest shadows---one that will spill out into the bright light of day.

Hadley Whitaker is a liar, a killer, and a chocoholic, but she's getting better about the first two. Or maybe she's just getting better at them. Some days it's hard for her to tell fact from fiction, but only one truth matters. Goddess willing, she's going to be the next Potentate of Atlanta. Even if it means playing nice with Midas Kinase, a shifter whose mysterious past might just be grimmer than her own. When a bloodthirsty rogue begins hunting the city's paranormals, Hadley ropes Midas into letting her work the case. But that rope starts to feel more like a noose.

After the crystoid incident nearly destroyed all magic in Eden and killed a dear friend, Justin Slade wants payback. That means invading the angel realm Seraphina and squashing the usurper Cephus like a bug. Unfortunately, another crystoid in Seraphina is preventing the Alabaster Arch from opening a portal into the realm. Using a sky portal from the last remaining crystoid in Eden, Justin launches a desperate bid to open the portal from the other side.

As a fox-shifter, Shayne Davies gets no respect in an underworld run by the fearsome and powerful - werewolves and vampires, sorcerers, demons, and mythical faerie creatures. Even at home, Shayne is still treated like the brat of the pack. All Shayne wants is to prove that she's got what it takes to run with the big dogs, which is why she is constantly hounding Nick Gorgeous to make her an agent at the "Double D", the Detroit Division of the FUA.

Jake is working at the neighborhood market under his apartment when the world ends. He expected nuclear war, a computer virus, or even climate change burning everyone to a crisp to bring about the downfall of civilization. But cruel and arbitrary gods from another world? Who would have guessed that? When these cruel gods shuffled Earth like a deck of cards, nothing was in the same place anymore. Monsters, dungeons, and magical items appear scattered across the globe. And suddenly, everyone has access to a new, strange magical card system that gives them magical powers.

The remaining Crystals of Harmony are out of our reach, and my prophecy darkens the road beyond. The time has come where the cult will harvest my blood and raise the dark lord from the dead. I’ll do everything in my power to prevent them from performing the ceremony that will cause Droga to take over our world…but not even the gods can stop what’s coming.

The best science fiction and fantasy stories of 2021, selected by series editor John Joseph Adams and guest editor Veronica Roth. This year’s selection of science fiction and fantasy stories, chosen by series editor John Joseph Adams and bestselling author of the Divergent series Veronica Roth...

Black Hollow is a town with a dark secret. For centuries, residents have foretold the return of the Dreamwalker - an ominous figure from local folklore said to lure young women into the woods and possess them. Yet the boundary between fact and fable is blurred by a troubling statistic: Occasionally, women do go missing. And after they return, they almost always end up dead.

Long ago, homo nocturnus ruled the Earth, able to manipulate the forces of nature at their most basic level. Before the dawn of recorded history they were overthrown, leaving behind them only legends---our legends of shapeshifters and blood-drinkers, of cruel gods and evil magicians, of ogres and goblins, succubi and incubi.

Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden is Chicago's only openly practicing wizard. He is also dead broke. His vast knowledge and magical skills are unfortunately matched by his talent for making powerful enemies and alienating friends. With little more than his integrity left, he accepts an offer of work from Lt. Karin Murphy of Chicago's Special Investigations Unit. He wants to redeem himself in Murphy's eyes and make enough money to quiet his rumbling stomach.

Amber Sand's matchmaking business is threatened by a YouTube star with a flair for showbiz, but when she meets Jane, the fairy behind the new fad, Amber finds a kindred spirit. Jane never got her wings and, like Amber, feels like an outsider in her family. Meanwhile, the gang is enjoying the summer after senior year and gearing up for college. They team up with Jane to track down the rare and difficult-to-obtain fairy dust and try to restore Ivy's siren powers. Perhaps most risky of all, Jane offers to tell Amber who her match truly is.

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?

My secret is finally out. I am a Boneweaver, and the last of my kind: A beast who can shift into any other. Now there’s an elephant sized target on my back and two people I love have been taken from me. In order to get them back, I’m going to have to do the unthinkable: present myself to the most dangerous beasts of the underworld and Scythe Kharkorous is going to help me do it. The Great White shark with the sharp, cold eyes has plans no one can guess at and the devastating secret he’s about to reveal to me will turn my world upside down. Everything is about to change.

Until an oracle predicted my regal future, I'd never imagined myself rising above the curve of my round ears. After all, I was the magicless halfling loved by beasts but loathed by every pure-blooded faerie at court. Well...by all but one.

Markham has returned to Seattle, searching for Katarina, the girl who, a decade ago, touched his soul, literally tearing it from his body. But what he discovers upon arriving is dark magick - of a most ancient and destructive kind! An encounter with a desperate spirit, leaping destructively from host to host, sets Markham on the trail of secretive cabal of magicians seeking to punch a hole through heaven, extinguishing forever the divine spark.

Claire Connolly is a good girl with a dangerous secret: She's a Sensitive, a human endowed with magic that seeped through the Veil. Claire knows that revealing her skills would mean being confined to Devil's Isle. Unfortunately, hiding her power has left her untrained and unfocused. Liam Quinn knows from experience that magic makes monsters of the weak, and he has no time for a Sensitive with no control of her own strength.

I expected aging out of the foster care system to be hard. I wasn't expecting it to include finding out I was a Warlock, destined to be hunted by the most powerful Witch Families so they could bind me to a coven of thirteen witches and spend the rest of my life "harvesting mana". Add to that a set of magical resonants that made me an even bigger target to some of those Witch Families, some of which would rather kill me than let a rival get me.