Fantasy Adventure

With The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume 3, award-winning editor Neil Clarke provides a year-in-review and 27 of the best stories published by both new and established authors in 2017.

Just yesterday, Ian Raven was a champion in Vale Tudo. His fighting spirit and the desire to win led him to the top of the fighting Olympus. Having met death in battle, Ian made a deal with a mysterious entity wearing the mask of a demon and found himself in a new body and a new world. A world that lives by old traditions. A world in which the law is the will of ruthless clans. A world with disturbed balance. A world hurtling toward the abyss.

The world is changing, and it needs a new Alpha. It needs me. I was doing well enough before the Apocalypse, but fast cars and penthouses mean nothing when the world changes into a wasteland filled with parasite-infested mutants. Now, the iron will that made me king of the boardroom is going to make me king of this new world. I am going to unlock my true power, I’m going to cultivate it, and I am going to dominate!

For nearly a billion years, every known sentient species in the universe has been the result of genetic and cultural guidance - or "uplifting" - by a previously uplifted patron race. Then humans are discovered. Having already uplifted chimps and dolphins, humanity clearly qualifies as an intelligent species, but did they actually evolve their own intelligence, or did some mysterious patron race begin the process, then suddenly abandon Earth?

Darrow would have lived in peace, but his enemies brought him war. The Gold overlords demanded his obedience, hanged his wife, and enslaved his people. But Darrow is determined to fight back. Risking everything to transform himself and breach Gold society, Darrow has battled to survive the cutthroat rivalries that breed Society's mightiest warriors, climbed the ranks, and waited patiently to unleash the revolution that will tear the hierarchy apart from within.

Twenty years ago, his father saved the world. Or so the history books will probably say once someone gets around to writing them. All Mihalis knows is the world he has been raised into. It's not a bad world, as things ago, he has a big and loving family, but there is the ongoing "war" that promises to be on-going for a good many years to come. Raised to the blade by his mother, and taught not only her ways as well as a good many of the ways of her people, but also the ways of his father's other wives, as well as the ways of his magic, Mihalis has had a very thorough education.

Travel to other planets is now a reality, and with overpopulation stretching the resources of Earth, the necessity of finding habitable worlds is growing ever more urgent. There’s a problem though—because the spaceships are slower than light, any communication between the exploring ships and Earth would take years.

Tom and Pat are identical twin teenagers. As twins they’ve always been close, so close that it seemed like they could read each other’s minds.

Sakamori Kagami was one of the top players in the VRMMO Ark Earth Online as Danblf, a veteran summoner with the gravitas to match his elite status. When he falls asleep playing one day, he's transported to a world where the game is reality—but instead of his all-powerful avatar, he's stuck in the body of a cute young girl! He can't let anyone know that this little cutie is really Danblf, so he takes the name "Mira" and claims to be Danblf's disciple. If this gets out, he'll never live it down!

The first of the acclaimed Vatta's War books, the exciting military science fiction series that features a swashbuckling spaceship-captain heroine who mixes commerce with combat.

Kera Watson never expected to face death behind a Los Angeles coffee shop. Not after surviving two tours lugging an M16 around the Middle East. If it wasn't for her hot Viking customer showing up too late to help, nobody would even have seen her die. In uncountable years of service to the Allfather Odin, Ludvig "Vig" Rundstrom has never seen anyone kick ass with quite as much style as Kera.

Kousuke and Sylphy's Liberation Army are making big moves! But just as they're settling into their newly captured base, betrayal strikes from within their own ranks! What's a crafty survivor from another world to do when he's trapped behind enemy lines and at the mercy of three very slimy sisters? He'll have to go under all sorts of covers if he ever wants to see his dark elf mistress again!

Ajax Demos finds himself lost in society. Graduating shortly after artificial intelligence is allowed to enter the workforce, he can’t get his career off the ground. He clings to what he believes a responsible adult should pursue, but it just isn’t in the cards. As his last hope for a steady paycheck disappears new opportunities open. Ajax gets a chance to play a brand new Immersive Reality game. Things aren't as they seem. Mega Corps hover over what appears to be a simple game. Two unlikely women hiding their real identities join his party....

Dark times have come to Hogwarts. After the Dementors' attack on his cousin Dudley, Harry Potter knows that Voldemort will stop at nothing to find him. There are many who deny the Dark Lord's return, but Harry is not alone: a secret order gathers at Grimmauld Place to fight against the Dark forces. Harry must allow Professor Snape to teach him how to protect himself from Voldemort's savage assaults on his mind. But they are growing stronger by the day and Harry is running out of time...

As a professional thief, Esme Bellerose's daylong job interview was going well: She'd come through most of it with only a black eye, bloody lip, broken wrist, a few cracked ribs, and talon marks from a ruby-throated dragon - but at least she wasn't missing any pieces. And if she could only survive until the five o'clock hour, she'd land the job that was every mystic thief's dream: employment at SPL Inc. But the head of SPL, Elric Ostergaard, has other plans, and he's put one additional task on Esme's job application, which must be completed before he'll hire her.

Ben and his friends have defeated a deadly threat to mankind and gained powerful allies along the way, but sometimes, the biggest danger is ourselves. In the final audiobook in the Benjamin Ashwood series, Ben will have to take the mantle of leadership to prevent a war that will devastate Alcott.

Is it easy to survive in the game world? You could say yes, if you didn't know what the additional conditions were. They are unusual: it's the real world in which you have lived all your life. The enemy, craving to destroy you. Your own class who couldn't care less about you. Are you still sure that survival is easy? Then welcome to The Game! It will prove you wrong.

As multiple worlds and dimensions converged, humanity was met with the Unknown. A mysterious System forces it to play its part in a death game, and through the workings of a higher power teleports every human to a deadly Tutorial Zone. In order to save himself and others, Liam must reach his full potential as the last hope. This is the story of a man's desperate attempts to save humanity from certain extinction, as well as find out who's behind it all. He dreams of creating a fairer, more just reality and through the System, finds a ray of hope.

Jonathan Thomas Meriweather is a typical college student, interested in girls, music, and an occasional taste of reefer. But when a journey through an interdimensional portal lands him in a world of talking animals and ominous sorcery, he finds he is on a very different trip indeed. Here, when he plays a strange instrument called a duar, peculiar things happen: powerful magic that may be the only way to stop a dark force that threatens his new world — and his old one.

Katniss Everdeen, girl on fire, has survived, even though her home has been destroyed. Peeta has been captured by the Capitol. District 13 really does exist. There are rebels. There are new leaders. A revolution is unfolding. It is by design that Katniss was rescued from the arena in the cruel and haunting Quarter Quell, and it is by design that she has long been part of the revolution without knowing it. District 13 has come out of the shadows and is plotting to overthrow the Capitol. Everyone, it seems, has had a hand in the carefully laid plans - except Katniss.

After her adventures with the League of the Healing Hand, Finn the Cat finds her life at Castle Rurach boring. Snowbound for the winter and faced with the prospect of being molded into “Lady Fionnghal” by her mother, she pines to be on the battlefront with her father against the sea demons. But Finn’s talents are needed elsewhere. Summoned by the Righ, Lachlan the Winged, she must embark on a perilous journey into the Forbidden Land. Imprisoned in the Black Tower is a rebellious prophet whose beliefs have made him an enemy among his own people.