Literary Science Fiction

In the contested and unexplored territories at the edge of the Empire, a boat is making its laborious way up stream. Riding along the banks are the mercenaries hired to protect it - from raiders, bandits and, most of all, the stretchers, elf-like natives who kill any intruders into their territory. The mercenaries know this is dangerous, deadly work. But it is what they do. In the boat the drunk governor of the territories and his sons and daughters make merry. They believe that their status makes them untouchable.

Nigel Shirazi was first in line for the chairmanship of Asbaran Solutions, one of the prominent "Four Horsemen" mercenary companies. First in line...until his drinking and temper caused him to fail out of college and get disinherited by the family. Now he leads the life of a playboy, enjoying a stipend from the family to stay out of the way. But someone is out to get his family, and Nigel is all that stands between the hidden enemy and the destruction of Asbaran Solutions and the Shirazi family.

It's coming up on Cajeiri's birthday. The boy has been promised he can have the young human children he knew from his voyage sent down from the space station for a two week stay. But there's a far darker business going on in the background - a major split compromising the Assassins' Guild, which furnishes security and law enforcement to the whole continent. Tabini's consort's own father has been barred from court, and may be involved in a new conspiracy against him.

A Locus Award Finalist “Stretches the boundaries of the genre.” —The New York Times 1931, New Galveston, Mars: Fourteen-year-old Anabelle Crisp sets off through the wastelands of the Strange to find Silas Mundt’s gang who have stolen her mother’s voice, destroyed her father, and left...

Down the Road to Eternity: New & Selected Fiction is a collection of M.A.C. Farrant’s work dating from 1985 to 2009. Satiric and philosophical in approach, indelibly marked by wit, humor, irony, playfulness, a blend of parody and science fiction, irreverent analysis and comic existentialism, these stories celebrate the literary imagination as an antidote to the stranglehold the popular media now has on the public’s imagination.

In A Reign of Steel, Gwendolyn must protect her people as she finds King's Court under siege. She strives to evacuate them from the Ring-but there is one problem: Her people refuse to leave. As a power struggle ensues, Gwen finds her queenship under challenge for the first time - while the greatest threat to the Ring looms. Behind the McClouds lie the threat of Romulus and his dragons, who, with the Shield destroyed, embark on a catastrophic invasion, nothing left to stand between them and the complete annihilation of the Ring.

Lieutenant James Shelley, who has an uncanny knack for premeditating danger, leads a squad of advanced US Army military tasked with enforcing the peace around a conflict in sub-Saharan Africa. The squad members are linked wirelessly 24/7 to themselves and a central intelligence that guides them via drone relay - and unbeknownst to Shelley and his team, they are being recorded for a reality TV show.

For 25 years, civilization has survived in meager enclaves, guarded against a plague of the dead. Temple wanders this blighted landscape, keeping to herself and keeping her demons inside her heart. She can’t remember a time before the zombies, but she does remember an old man who took her in and the younger brother she cared for until the tragedy that set her off on her personal journey toward redemption.

The Magic Factory tells the story of 11-year-old Oliver Blue, a boy unloved by his hateful family. Oliver knows he is different, and senses that he holds powers that others do not. Obsessed with inventions, Oliver is determined to escape his horrible life and make his mark on the world. When Oliver is moved to yet another awful house he is put into in a new sixth grade, one even more terrifying than the last. He is bullied and excluded, and sees no way out. But when he stumbles across an abandoned invention factory, he wonders if his dreams might be about to come true.

A captivating and atmospheric historical novel about a young girl in Nazi Germany, a psychoanalyst in fin-de-siecle Vienna, and the powerful mystery that links them together. Gretel and the Dark explores good and evil, hope and despair, showing how the primal thrills and horrors of the stories we learn as children can illuminate the darkest moments in history, in two rich, intertwining narratives that come together to form one exhilarating listen.

Far from the savage remnants of humanity, Henry and his family have managed to survive the grip of desolate, perpetual winter on a vast tundra that was once an ocean teeming with life. When the family is discovered, their peaceful existence is shattered and their lives changed forever. Henry’s siblings are kidnapped, leaving him alone in the ruins of their home. Broken, altered, and tormented by all that has befallen him, he is driven to wreak vengeance upon those who assume him dead...by any means necessary.

The vampires of Asheville, North Carolina, want to establish their own clan, but since they owe loyalty to the Master Vampire of New Orleans, they must work out the terms with him. To come up with an equitable solution, he sends an envoy with the best bodyguard blood money can buy: skinwalker Jane Yellowrock. But when a group of local campers are attacked by something fanged, Jane goes from escort to investigator. Is it a rogue-vampire, shapechanger, or witch? Or something else magical?

As civil war sweeps across the Shima Imperium, the Lotus Guild unleashes their deadliest creation - a mechanical goliath, intended to unite the shattered Empire under a yoke of fear. Yukiko and Buruu are forced to take leadership of the rebellion, gathering new allies and old friends. But the ghosts of Buruu's past stand between them and the army they need, and Kin's betrayal has destroyed all trust among their allies.

Conspirators plot to explode a train carrying nerve gas. A perfect servant suddenly reveals himself to be the insidious Dr. Fu Manchu. Science-fantasy wars, racism, corporate capitalism, drug addiction, and various medical and psychiatric horrors all play their parts in this mosaic, experimental novel. Here is William S. Burroughs at his coruscating and hilarious best.

On the alien, sunless planet they call Eden, the 532 members of the Family shelter beneath the light and warmth of the Forest’s lantern trees. Beyond the Forest lie the mountains of the Snowy Dark and a cold so bitter and a night so profound that no man has ever crossed it. The Oldest among...

They knew us before we began to walk upright. Shamans called them guardians, mythmakers called them tricksters, pagans called them gods, churchmen called them demons, folklorists called them shape-shifters. They've obligingly taken any role we've assigned them, and, while needing nothing from us, have accepted whatever we thought was their due?

As the New Republic takes devastating losses in the ongoingwar with the scattered remnants of the Empire, the galaxy's future depends on three small children -- among them the Jedi twins -- born to incredible powers and perils, as an extraordinary new saga unfolds... While the...

They couldn’t afford a ship, much less the cost of registering one...and now they need an entire fleet! Harmon Tomeral, along with friends Clip, Zerith, and the artificial intelligence Jayneen, were heroes. Having brought back the battlecruiser Salvage Title from an unknown system, they defeated the alien Squilla and saved their home system of Tretrayon, although they lost the computer holding Jayneen in the battle. But the Squilla are coming back. And, not only are they coming, they have also recruited the alien Krift to help them destroy the Tretrayon system.

Before there was Hill House, there was the Halloran mansion of Jackson’s stunningly creepy fourth novel, The Sundial When the Halloran clan gathers at the family home for a funeral, no one is surprised when the somewhat peculiar Aunt Fanny wanders off into the secret garden. But then she...

The downtown core of Toronto is being consumed by Elysium, a drug that allows its users to slip through the permeable edges of this world into the next, before consuming them utterly. Peddled by the icy Srebrenka, few have managed to escape the drug and its dealer. But Maggie has. Years after beating her addiction, Maggie is dismayed by the reappearance of Srebrenka in her life. Although she resists temptation, she quickly learns her brother, Kyle, has been ensnared by Srebrenka's beguiling.