Inventor Fantasy

A “lifer” at the secluded Academy of Florence, Leo has never met his parents ... or anyone in his family for that matter. His current “family” is his mechanical monkey and robot lion, who along with his charming best friend and fellow lifer, Savvy, only get him into trouble. But after Leo’s latest experiment goes catastrophically wrong, he finds a mysterious clue that opens an underground maze—one that seems to have been created for him to solve. Leo hopes the tunnels will help him discover the identities of his parents and the reason he’s an orphan in the first place.

London 1884. Electricity pioneer Simon Borthwick lights up Victorian London with a stunning illuminations display - then shoots himself in a hansom cab. Plucky Fleet Street reporter Penny Green witnesses the inventor's death and suspects the clue to his suicide lies in a mysterious letter he left behind. But can she persuade Inspector James Blakely of Scotland Yard that a crime has been committed? Borthwick isn't the only person who died that day, and Penny soon encounters a shadowy world which the police can't get close to.

During his lifetime, Buckminster Fuller was hailed as one of the greatest geniuses of the twentieth century. As the architectural designer and futurist best known for the geodesic dome, he enthralled a vast popular audience, inspired devotion from both the counterculture and the establishment, and was praised as a modern Leonardo da Vinci. To his admirers, he exemplified what one man could accomplish by approaching urgent design problems using a radically unconventional set of strategies, which he based on a mystical conception of the universe’s geometry.

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, showcases a crop of authors that are willing to experiment and tantalize readers with new takes on classic themes and by exchanging the ordinary for the avant-garde. Folktales and lore come alive, the dead rise, the depths of space are traversed, and magic threads itself through singular moments of love and loss, illuminating the circulatory nature of life, death, the in-between, and the hereafter.

Science fiction is a portal that opens doors onto futures too rich and strange to imagine. Fantasy takes us through doorways of magic and wonder. For more than a decade award-winning editor Jonathan Strahan has sifted through tens of thousands of stories to select the best, the most interesting, the most engaging science fiction and fantasy to thrill and delight readers.

Imogene Hale is a lowly parlor maid with a soul-crushing secret. Seeking solace, she takes work at a local hive, only to fall desperately in love with the amazing lady inventor the vampires are keeping in the potting shed. Genevieve Lefoux is heartsick, lonely, and French. With culture, class, and the lady herself set against the match, can Imogene and her duster overcome all odds and win Genevieve's heart, or will the vampires suck both of them dry?

Charlotte has spent her whole life fighting the British Empire, following in the footsteps of her parents and their group of rebels. But when her reunion with her mother laid bare horrible truths about the rebellion, Charlotte knew she had to escape. Now she is on the run, with no idea who the enemy is - or which of her compatriots is truly on her side.

Victor is sceptical when Walter Swizwit comes to the village of Rainwater. He's the latest in a string of inventors passing through and no one wants to buy his cheap magic tricks. But Walter doesn't take rejection well and puts a curse on the village. Only Victor is unaffected, and he must leave Rainwater for the first time in his life if he's to find the cure. Victor's path takes him past other villages that Walter has damaged and he picks up new companions on the way: Elena, handy with bow and arrow, Mo-Lan, a science prodigy and scaredy-cat Mingus.

HD Schenk is a maker—an inventor, someone who builds cool stuff. He's got a plan for the summer: He'll build his own computer and enter it in the county fair. Then everyone will know who he is and what he can do. To earn enough money for the parts he'll need, HD has promised to clear out his uncle's overflowing basement. No big deal, right? But there's more in that basement than HD bargained for. On his first trip down there, a voice only he can hear starts talking to him. About...sauerkraut?

Charlotte leads her group of exiles west, plunging into a wild world of shady merchants and surly rivermen on the way to New Orleans. But as Charlotte learns more about the revolution she has championed, she wonders if she's on the right side after all.

It's another day at the Swift Academy when Tom starts finding little troll-like figures around campus. And he's not the only one. Much to the amusement and curiosity of students, these dolls are appearing all over the school. But even after they're collected by faculty, a second wave mysteriously appears - except these replacements record audio and play it back for surrounding listeners. Before everyone knows it, secrets and gossip are revealed across campus, and suddenly the figures aren't nearly as fun as they used to be.

Steam technology and spring-powered engines have evolved since the discovery of Blackrock Steel, which can store vast amounts of energy, but word of this incredible resource has spread far and wide. When a horde of barbarian warriors known as Vangars sweep across the Frigid Sea in massive airships fueled by precious but dwindling supplies of black tar-like oil, they are determined to learn the secrets of Blackrock Steel at any cost. They assault the capital city, slaying King Ryshan and the entire royal family, and then ravage the countryside.

This box set contains four novellas in the best-selling Magnificent Devices steampunk series.

When 11-year-old Malky and his younger brother Seb become the owners of a 'Dreaminator', they are thrust into worlds beyond their wildest imagination. From tree-top flights and Spanish galleons, to thrilling battles and sporting greatness—it seems like nothing is out of reach when you can share a dream with someone else. But impossible dreams come with incredible risks, and when Seb won’t wake up and is taken to hospital in a coma, Malky is forced to leave reality behind and undertake a final, terrifying journey to the Stone Age to wake his brother....

Imagine a school in the year 2074 where students don't read history, but watch it happen around them; where running in gym class isn't around a track, but up a virtual mountain; and where learning about animals means becoming one through an avatar. Welcome to Cragbridge Hall, the most advanced and prestigious school in the world. Twins Abby and Derick Cragbridge are excited as new students to use their famed grandfather's inventions that make Cragbridge Hall so incredible.

Junar is a 17-year-old boy following in the footsteps of his Ace Pilot father, Leif, as a flyer in the Kili-Boranna Guild, better known as The Sky Riders. As if life couldn't get any better, Junar's first year apprenticeship riding the massive birds of the sky, the majestic felrell, takes a fortuitous leap forward when his father is promoted to the most prestigious position in all of Aria-Prime - Timber Pilot.

Jaxon's Magical Adventure with Black Inventors and Scientists is the first audiobook in the series, Just Imagine...What If There Were No Black People in the World? This fun children's chapter audiobook tells the story of Jaxon, a 10-year-old black boy who discovers and learns about several of the African American inventors and historical figures who have made a positive impact on our everyday lives. Kids experience black history in a magical story that brings history into the present.

What happens when you can't do the one thing that matters most? Twelve-year-old Hope Toriella lives in White Rock, a town of inventors struggling to recover from the green bombs of World War III. But Hope is terrible at inventing and would much rather sneak off to cliff dive into the Bomb's Breath - the deadly band of compressed air that covers the crater left by the bombs - than fail at yet another invention.

In 1903, five truly brilliant young inventors, the children of the world's most important scientists, went about their lives and their work as they always had. But all that changed the day the men in black arrived. They arrived to take twelve-year-old Jasper Modest and his six-year-old sister, Lucy he with his remarkable creations and she with her perfect memory from their London, England home to a place across the ocean they'd never seen before.

Sam’s life is far from ordinary. Living in a high-tech world without arms or legs, she has one special room where she can project herself as a 3D hologram, just like the holodeck from Star Trek. In that room, Sam can be whoever she wants to be—free to explore the world in ways her body can't allow. But when her dad surprises her with a tablet that can transport her hologram anywhere, Sam gets the opportunity of a lifetime: her first picnic—a simple dream come true. But things take a sudden, dangerous turn, and Sam finds herself on an unexpected adventure with no way back.