Epic Comedy

Being the Dark Lord and Prince of Evil is not as much fun as it sounds, particularly if you are a basically decent person. King Mordak is just such a person. Technically he's more goblin than person, but the point is that he is really keen to be a lot less despicable than his predecessors. Not that the other goblins appreciate Mordak's attempts to redefine the role. Why should they when his new healthcare program seems designed to actually extend life expectancy, and his efforts to end a perfectly reasonable war with the dwarves appear to have become an obsession?

With the way behind them sealed, the only way forward for Eve and her friends is down. Down the narrow steps carved into the mountain. Down into the oppressive toxic fog. Down into the Dead Fields. But the Dead Fields are not so dead as they seem. Things lurk in the mist, things far beyond the levels of Eve, Wes, Preston, and, especially, the hatchling Reginald.

There's a war brewing between high-level factions, a conflict Eve finds herself caught in the middle of. Soon enough, this secret plot, this life quest, this entire broken trilogy will come hurtling to an end. Perhaps, with any luck, there will be a loaf of bread waiting on the other side. Or maybe the real loaf of bread was the friends we made along the way. Those friends that made it through, that is.

Listening to such facts and stories is perfect for killing time when you are waiting in your doctor’s office, the barbershop, or even for making a road trip more entertaining. Imagine how much fun it would be to play this trivia quiz with your family rather than everyone staring at their phone.

Hi, how are you? Yes, I am talking to you, the reader of this book's description. Okay, I get it, fourth-wall breaking is overdone. Get over it. This book, Villains Rule, is a fantasy action-comedy which you have to hear. Not because it redefines the genre, far from it. But rather for what it contains. A villain's tale. How often do you get to listen to a story where the villain is the protagonist? No, not an anti-hero, or a brooding monster, nor a hero thinly disguised as a villain. And not evil. If you want evil, take that nonsense to therapy.

The Pyrates is all the swashbucklers that ever were, rolled into one great technicoloured pantomime - tall ships and desert islands, impossibly gallant adventurers and glamorous heroines, buried treasure and black spots, devilish dons and ghastly dungeons, plots, duels, escapes, savage rituals, tender romance and steaming passion, all to the accompaniment of ringing steel, thunderous broadsides, sweeping film music, and the sound of cursing extras falling in the water and exchanging period dialogue.

Un nuevo día, sereno y apacible, empieza en el Mundodisco. Como es habitual, la gran tortuga navega por el éter entregada a reflexiones inescrutables, sosteniendo en su caparazón a los cuatro elefantes sobre los que descansa el mundo. Sin embargo, se avecina una inexorable colisión con una malévola estrella roja, y solo una persona puede poner remedio al inminente desastre: Rincewind, el inepto y cobarde hechicero. Por desgracia, Rincewind fue visto por última vez cuando caía por el borde del mundo...

Here is Old Man's War author John Scalzi's sendup of the heroic fantasy genre, now a finalist for the Hugo Award for Best Short Story.

Loch is seeking revenge. It would help if she wasn’t in jail. The plan: To steal a priceless elven manuscript that once belonged to her family, but is now in the hands of the most powerful man in the Republic. To do so, Loch - former soldier, former prisoner, and current fugitive - must assemble a crack team of magical misfits that includes a cynical illusionist, a shape shifting unicorn, a repentant death priestess, a talking magical war hammer, and a lad with seemingly no skills.

Piers Anthony delivers another tale set in the best-selling world of Xanth, filled with magic, surprises, adventure, and a few puns. Here's what the author has to say about his new book: "Five Portraits is a kind of sequel to Board Stiff in that it picks up where the other leaves off, with the same characters. Apart from that, it's one of my favorites within the series.

From Snuff: Vimes looked at the cover. The title was The World of Poo. When his wife was out of eyeshot he carefully leafed through it. Well, okay, you had to accept that the world had moved on and these days’ fairy stories were probably not going to be about twinkly little things with wings. As he turned page after page, it dawned on him that whomever had written this book, they certainly knew what would make kids like Young Sam laugh until they were nearly sick. The bit about sailing down the river almost made him smile.

Invitation in hand, it’s time for Eve and friends to travel north in search of the legendary Dragonwrought. With a single-minded focus, they’ll trek deep into the mountains, willfully ignoring the onslaught of side quests threatening to derail their journey. The only things anybody knows about the illusive Dragonwrought, greatest of all the adventuring companies in Leshk, are their deep connections to the dragons that roam the skies beyond their keep, and that they haven’t deemed take a new recruit in decades. But nobody’s sure exactly how many decades.

Waldo and company arrive looking for information. What they find is a suspicious mage guild, a delusional queen, an entire city awash in greed and deception, and an old acquaintance who is very happy to see him again. Getting the information he's looking for won't be easy, but when has that ever stopped Waldo?

Living in a virtual game world sounds like the ultimate dream. Plenty of action, intrigue, and guess who gets to be the big hero? But what happens when that digital reality gets flipped on its head? Bad guys are after your sweet loot, your fancy title is loaded with unrealistic expectations, and achieving such a high level comes with a big fat target on your back. Something has to give, so when a new crusader faction rolls into town, Talon senses an opportunity.

Waldo's on the run again. He escapes Melissa's grasp but is marked by her Death Seal. What is there to do but keep going forward? Follow Waldo, Alice, and Gronk as they deal with spies, smugglers, and giant monsters. Meanwhile, Melissa has problems of her own back in Torikai. While in the land of Dark Mages, Lilith begins putting her plans into action. Waldo finds himself in a port city with no one willing to take him and his party where he needs to go. Just what will he have to do to get passage? If you're desperate enough, you can always find someone willing to make a deal.

All Lex wanted was to help his good buddy Gryph find his sister and maybe save the world along the way. But everything goes wrong from the start when Lex gets separated from Gryph during their transfer into the Realms. Lost, alone, and forced to live the same day over and over, Lex must defeat the agent of a despotic god, uncover hidden truths about himself, and find his way back to his friend. If he fails the Realms face destruction.

To become a Dark Lord is no easy thing. The simple ambition to hold dominion over the world and bend all to your will sounds straightforward, but it's not. There are armies to raise, fortresses to build, heroes to defeat, and battles to be fought. After many spectacular failures, Evil decided to lend more than inspiration to these would-be tyrants. He wrote an easy-to-follow Dark Lord's Handbook. And yet the next Dark Lord that came along screwed up like all the others.

Gerald Dunwoody is a wizard. Just not a particularly good one. He's blown up a factory, lost his job, and there's a chance that he's not really a Third Grade wizard after all. So it's off to New Ottosland to be the new Court Wizard for King Lional. It's a shame that King Lional isn't the vain, self-centered young man he appeared to be. With a princess in danger, a talking bird who can't stay out of trouble, and a kingdom to save, Gerald soon suspects that he might be out of his depth.

The near future. Earth has been invaded by the L'zuhl, an aggressive, imperialistic alien race who have laid waste to the galaxy for centuries. The few human survivors have been evacuated to the farthest reaches of space to rebuild and fight back against the L'zuhl onslaught. There, on the distant planet of Palangonia, in a large, walled compound that houses the new human colony, lives the former Newcastle United and England boss Kevin Keegan, now manager of Palangonia FC.

Milton Frederick was arguably the best player of Crowned Lieges of Destiny in the entire world. As the strategy coordinator for one of the top guilds, he was beginning to actually make a living from it. That was, until he was abducted by aliens. Severely damaged and confused about what happened to him, he woke up to find himself trapped inside a massive chicken egg on a strange, primitive world filled with curious - and deadly - creatures. Now, in order to survive, Milton has to rely on a snarky, foul-mouthed AI guide to show him what it means to be a Station Core.