Modern Science Fiction

Everyone says Luma has the world at her fingertips. Her trust fund can buy anything she wants, there's a modeling agency courting her, and most people would kill for her life - especially her stepmother, Tabitha. When Tabitha comes home mangled from a botched cosmetic procedure and finds out Luma's been offered a prestigious gig, jealousy rears its aging, puffy head. Tabitha wants Luma dead and she's got no choice but to flee. Alone and cut off from her resources, Luma's last refuge is a remote cottage where she prays Tabitha won't find her.

In 2043, Pamela just wants to stop feeling like shit. Enter U++, a new black-market gene therapy, that fills her with promises of a genetically enhanced 'best self.' The horrifying discovery? Pam's biology has very different ideas about what constitutes self improvement... As the grotesque transformation accelerates, her desperate husband Mark sees opportunity: why not document his wife's metamorphosis as an unscripted show? With their finances crashing, a new baby to support, and the future-Texas heat literally killing people, exploiting Pam's condition might be their only path to survival.

Victor Frankenstein learns how to create life and creates a being in the likeness of man, but larger and more powerful than the average man. Frankenstein rejects the creature, and lives to regret his desire to create life, after it kills his brother William. Frankenstein is a warning against the "over-reaching" of modern man and the Industrial Revolution, alluded to in the novel's subtitle, The Modern Prometheus.

A deafening explosion. A shining metal disc crashed into a cornfield. A mysterious little girl with a cryptic mission. Longing to be like the heroes in his storybooks, Robbie Flynn embarks on a quest he hopes will lead him to his missing father. But nothing is as it seems. As the moments of this mythic journey divide and intertwine, Robbie is faced with an extraordinary realization: not all paths always lead ahead.

Each of the best-selling writers represented in these selections from Legends II returns to the fantasy universe he or she made famous throughout the world. Whether set before or after events already recounted elsewhere, whether featuring beloved characters or compelling new creations, these masterful short novels are both mesmerizing stand-alones - perfect introductions to the work of their authors - and indispensable additions to the epics on which they are based.

Mysterious happenings to a small handicapped boy in a little Somerset village, way back in the 1930s, suddenly repeat themselves in the 21st Century. At the first event the villagers kept quiet about what they thought was either hallucination, witchcraft or a little boy’s mischief. They suspected, quite rightly, that they wouldn’t be believed. However, silence turns out to be impossible in the present media and online culture, with the result that the lives of two families are disrupted and changed forever.

Beat the game. Get the girls. Stop the bad guy. My name's Ethan Riley. Just your typical dude with a bartending gig and an outdated Subaru, and if that wasn't boring enough...I'm from Ohio. Or at least I was boring...until I died. No, seriously. I died. But thanks to the magic of unethical medical practices, I was kitted out with a microchip in my head and some hush money in my pocket. Now, I’m suddenly seeing everything like a dating simulator, including some of the hottest gamer girls in the industry.

I’ve been known by many names...Junkyard Druid. Justiciar. God-Killer. And now, Trickster. That’s because I’ve thrown my lot in with the Trickster Gods’ Local #113. This merry band of defecation-stirring deities and demigods includes the likes of Sun Wukong, Loki, Heyoka, and the immortal magician formerly known as Gwydion—who happens to be my mentor.

Val is expanding her horizons as she settles into her new abode. Her jewelry business is taking off, and she's also found a pub or two for relaxing. Plus, she's got the bodyguard business, and the occasional bouncing gig. Busy dwarf! She's also learning the art and science of having friends. One of them, Stella, will be moving, which forces Val to make a choice. Has she finally found a world that will accept her? Does she want to make it her home? Then Anne, her first client who is now a friend as well, calls her about another protection job, and she can't say no.

The name’s Crowley, but the fae know me as Fuamnach’s Hound. She’s the Tuath Dé sorceress who abducted me as a child, making me her slave in Underhill. For decades, I languished under her thumb, suffering torturous abuse while she molded me into her own personal magical assassin and saboteur. After years of slavery, I finally broke free, earning her ire and the attention of her death squads. Now, I'm searching for my human family and the doppelgänger who stole my identity. I intend to gain back what was lost by killing the faery who is living the life I was meant to have.

Guy is about to finish writing his breakthrough online article. He overheard the story by chance in a pub and it’s guaranteed to go viral - all he needs to do is persuade the World’s Unluckiest Man to talk to him. His best friend Larry’s quest for killer clickbait material has led him to a recently appeared shanty town in Glasgow, where he finds some kind of urban voodoo cult. Ex-cop Sam has already come face-to-face with the terrifying force behind both these phenomena, but he’s been trying to put it out of his mind.

In this modern retelling of a fairy tale classic, Goldie Lax is a safecracking prodigy who learned her craft from her father and her grandfather before him. When she pairs up with Richard Campbell, who can hack any system, together they make the perfect team, mixing both business and pleasure. When Goldie's grandfather, who survived the Holocaust only to end up in a nursing home in his 80s, tells her about a horrific crime that robbed a good friend of his family's inheritance, Goldie enlists Campbell's help.

Best-selling urban fantasy and paranormal suspense author M.D. Massey welcomes listeners back to the world of the Junkyard Druid for his third short story collection. Blood Bound includes "Voodoo Ball", "Prince Mark's Price", and "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do".

Death. Betrayal. Destruction. This was Alaya's destiny, written in the stars on the night she was born. She should have been killed because of it. She wasn't. The once crown prince of the highest throne in Sundolia is now the high king, and all of his advisors agree on one thing: He should have destroyed that dangerous Dragon woman when he had the chance. He didn't. Now war spreads like a wildfire from the southern kingdom. The empire is burning. The day of prophecy is arriving.

The goddess Fuamnach kidnapped me when I was a child, she taught me magic, then she made me her assassin and slave. If that was all she did to me, I might’ve escaped and let it pass. But she changed me—in ways I still don’t completely understand.

The Gods of Pegana was the book that marked the transition from imaginary creatures in the real world to the gods of imaginary world. Lord Dunsany was the most influential writer in the genre that came to be known as fantasy, of which his stories set trends for that continue to this day.

Sydney's not sure which is worse - the curse that has her trapped in her dreams every night or having to deal with her wicked stepmother and stepsisters while she's awake. Just before her 17th birthday, her father surprises her with magic camp, and Sydney can't wait to learn how to use her powers instead of keeping them hidden. Knowing Luke is there to watch out for her only makes camp that much sweeter. But Sydney finds out quickly that the magic world holds its own secrets as her nightmares become reality.

The Society for Magickal Heritage’s best agents are heading back into paradise. Giddy Gods help them all. No one ever said heroic adventure would be easy, but this is ridiculous. Magickal wonderlands aren’t meant to have a dark side. Heroes aren’t meant to get stranded there, either. Ves may be up for anything, but she hadn’t expected that pretty much anything would be up for her. And with a horde of unhappy spirits enjoying a direct line to Zareen’s psyche, it’s lucky she’s unbreakable... right?

Our new life in Scotland isn’t perfect, but somehow, being surrounded by the bewitching Highlands has kept the memory of our parents alive. But amongst the looming mountains, lush greenery, and murky lochs, there are hidden mysteries. Mysteries that may hold the key to both our past — and our future. And I’m more determined than ever to get to the bottom of the feud between the Duncan and Blackwood clans. But although things may seem oddly quiet, nothing stays that way when magic is involved.

Most of Thulu and La Fi's clients are dead. Which is perfect since their detective agency caters to the supernatural. But a simple job finding a lost locket leads to a big case tracking relics for an ancient daemon. The daemon needs the relics to keep a dangerous portal closed. His enemy, Gabriel, wants the relics to open the portal and give his people access to a new feeding ground - Earth. Caught on live TV, other portals begin to open and the creatures of magic return to Earth. The people of Earth are not alone, but will soon wish they were.