Epic Classics

The inspiration for the Play It Loud exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art "Every guitar player will want to read this book twice. And even the casual music fan will find a thrilling narrative that weaves together cultural history, musical history, race, politics, business case studies...

This book won a World Fantasy Award. It's remarkable: The stories are rich, fascinating stuff - creepy and unsettling and phantasmic. Imagine what Tolkien's Lord of the Rings would have been like if Tolkien had tried to tell that story sympathetically from the point of view of the human denizens of Mordor and you'll have the slightest sense of what you're about to wade into... but only just a sense.

Japanese noblewoman Murasaki Shikibu wrote The Tale of Genji in the 11th century to entertain the other women in the court. It follows the romantic exploits of the title character, an emperor’s son, as he navigates life within aristocratic society and eventually outside of it. Praised for its psychological insight into the characters’ motivations, the book greatly influenced Japanese culture and is widely considered the world’s first novel. In 1882, Suematsu Kencho translated a condensed version of the text into English, allowing this classic tale to reach a wider audience.

After losing his powers in an epic battle between good and evil, former sorcerer Nate Garrett finds himself living as a humble human in Clockwork, Oregon. While the world thinks Nate is dead, his friends continue to fight against Avalon and the evil it’s intent on spreading. Avalon’s forces turn up in Clockwork, and Nate’s frustration grows with every passing day his magic doesn’t return. He finds himself trying to stop Avalon’s plans while hiding from enemies who would destroy everything in their path to see him dead.

As Evan focuses on rebuilding Hatra, he discovers the project, and the city, are much bigger than he first thought. And things are lurking in the shadowed ruins. Then a phoenix princess comes flying out of the desert, and she begs Evan to save her people from deadly creatures that have pursued them relentlessly. Evan’s not one to turn down a beautiful princess, and besides, there is treasure to be found in the desert. Maybe it’s time to start his own dragon hoard...

Inos, the late king's daughter, had been kidnapped through the magic casement even as the Impish legions overrunning her tiny kingdom were storming the castle tower. Now she was a prisoner in a desert land ruled by a dockside whore with a talent for magic and a passion for politics. She little dreamed that the loyal stableboy Rap had jumped through the casement after her. But no one really knew how the magic worked, and Rap found himself not in a desert, but in the steaming jungles of Faerie....

A pirate captain of the Inner Sea, Torius Vin makes a living raiding wealthy merchant ships with his crew of loyal buccaneers. Few things matter more to Captain Torius than ill-gotten gold-but one of those is Celeste, his beautiful snake-bodied navigator. When a crafty courtesan offers the pirate crew a chance at the heist of a lifetime, it's time for both man and naga to hoist the black flag and lead the Stargazer's crew to fame and fortune.

Wallie Smith can feel the pain. He goes to the hospital, remembers the doctors and the commotion, but when he wakes up it all seems like a dream. However, if that was a dream how do you explain waking up in another body and in another world? Little Wallie finds himself in the physique of a barbarian swordsman, accompanied by both an eccentric priest babbling about the Goddess and a voluptuous slave girl. Is this a rude awakening or a dream come true?

As the young student of the cruel, brilliant artist Vincent Rushkin, Isabelle Copley discovered that she could paint images so vividly real they brought her wildest fantasies to life. Now, 20 years later, Isabelle must come to terms with the shattering memories she has long denied and unlock the slumbering power of her brush. And, in a dark reckoning with her old master, she must find the courage to live out her dreams and bring the magic back to life.

The illustrated edition of this audiobook features 14 beautiful pieces of artwork in an attached PDF, and a link to a comprehensive set of behind-the-scenes videos documenting the illustration and narration processes. The ultimate way to experience this classic tale! What happens after Homer's Iliad? Not only is the larger conflict unresolved by the end of that story, but several of the most famous events of the Trojan War are absent from its pages. It's hard not to want another complete epic to pick up where Achilles, Agamemnon, and Priam left off.

Enter the fantastical world of Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast Trilogy, one of the undisputed fantasy classics of all time. Novelist C.S. Lewis called Peake's books "actual additions to life; they give, like certain rare dreams, sensations we never had before, and enlarge our conception of the range of possible experience."

A tale of the distant future by the author of The Shape-Changer's Wife brings listeners to a world in which the fate of all life rests on the voice of an angel.

Rosamund is an Earth Master in the Schwarzwald, the ancient Black Forest of Germany. Since the age of 10, she has lived with her teacher, the Hunt Master and Earth Magician of the Schwarzwald Foresters, a man she calls "Papa". Her adoptive Papa rescued her after her original Earth Master teacher, an old woman who lived alone in a small cottage in the forest, was brutally murdered by werewolves. Rosa herself barely escaped, and this terrifying incident molded the course of her future.

Wallie Smith had been dying on another world when the Goddess transferred his mind to the body of the barbarian swordsman Shonsu. Then She gave him the great, magical Sapphire Sword of Chioxin and sent him on a mission. All he had to do was to lead the arrogant band of swordsmen to destroy the sorcerers and their Fire God. Now Wallie discovered that he'd already tried it - and been hopelessly defeated.

The old Imperor was dead at last. His popular soldier grandson, known as Shandie, had succeeded him... Hadn't he? No, he hadn't. The man who sat the opal throne was not Shandie, but an illusion created by the mad dwarf, Xinixo. Year after year he had stealthily been enchanting sorcerers, turning them into loyal minions. Now, wielding their combined power, he was irresistible. He ruled the Impire, so he ruled the world. He would continue to rule it for centuries.

Imriel de la Courcel's blood parents are history's most reviled traitors, while his adoptive parents, Phedre and Joscelin, are Terre d'Ange's greatest champions. Stolen, tortured, and enslaved as a young boy, Imriel is now a Prince of the Blood, third in line for the throne in a land that revels in beauty, art, and desire.

England is overrun by dragons of all shapes and sizes. Most people are blissfully unaware of them and the Pendragon Treaty that keeps the peace between human and dragon kind. Only those born with preternatural hearing, like Fitzwilliam Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet are able to hear and converse with dragonkind.

It's tough being a country girl in the big city, especially when werewolves are murdering their way through the underworld! Chase Berrymore must bring all her divination skills to bear in order to survive both wild werewolves and murderous mafiosos. She's got a shot at finding steadfast allies along the way, but at great cost; the mysterious entities that call themselves "players" are involved. And where they go, chaos follows....

Laying hands upon the injured and dying, Avry of Kazan absorbs their wounds and diseases into herself. But rather than being honored for her skills, she is hunted. Healers like Avry are accused of spreading the plague that has decimated the Fifteen Realms, leaving the survivors in a state of chaos.

The Song of Roland is acknowledged today as the first masterpiece of French vernacular literature and one of the world’s greatest epic poems. Written down around the year 1090, The Song of Roland finely crafted verses tell of the betrayal and defeat of Charlemagne’s beloved nephew at the Pass of Roncevaux in the Pyrenees and of the revenge subsequently sought on his behalf.