Science Fiction City

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author Scott Westerfeld comes a “masterful” (Cory Doctorow) novel-within-a-novel that you won’t be able to put down. Darcy Patel has put college on hold to publish her teen novel, Afterworlds. With a contract in hand, she arrives in New York City with...

As Harry and the other residents of Orchard Close struggle to survive, a new crop of problems presents itself. Unstable electricity damages equipment, days are spent scavenging for ammo, weapons, food, glass bottles, and of all things, yarn. Elsewhere, gangs carve out their territory throughout the city. Residents pay for protection through coupons, bartering, or worse. Citizens fleeing the city gangs, violence, and lack of food flock to Orchard Close, but how many can they take in?

Alice wakes up in the Los Angeles Quake Zone in 2025 having no idea how she got there. As her memories slowly return, she finds she's being hunted by several armed groups intent on capturing her alive. At the same time, Este, a survivor of the quakes that destroyed Los Angeles, makes a living as a pathfinder for salvage teams in the city. Este rescues Alice from her pursuers and learns there is something not quite right about her - Alice is convinced it is 2003.

Bowdoin and his crew have grown in both strength and reach. They have taken on all comers, gangs, corpo, and otherwise, and expanded their domain to include the entirety of their arcology. But they have not avoided entrapment. Ostensibly, Bowdoin is doing work for hire for the hacker corporation Inside Eye. The reality of it is bleaker than this. The chains may be pretty and invisible to the naked eye, but they are still there.

At the center of a forbidden ruin, an artifact of black stone is unearthed. Archaeologist Ru Delara, vilified by the scientific community for believing in magic, is summoned to investigate. But when she arrives, she finds herself inexorably drawn to the artifact, even though it could harbor untold destructive power. Unable to resist its pull, Ru reaches out to touch the stone....

The McCormacks have a starship, and now, they need a safe place to start harvesting the technology. They’re starting with a place in the Cook Islands, but to succeed, they have to avoid spies, figure out how to manufacture the new technology using Earth-based tools, and then introduce it without getting into too much trouble with the governments and big corporations of Earth.

Inner-city Black America is often stereotyped as a place of random violence; in fact, violence in the inner city is regulated through an informal but well-known code of the street. How you dress, talk, and behave can have life-or-death consequences, with young people particularly at risk. The most powerful force counteracting this code and its reign of terror is the strong, loving, decent family, and we meet many heroic figures in the course of this narrative.

The post-Katrina New Orleans of The City of Lost Fortunes is a place haunted by its history and by the hurricane's destruction, a place that is hoping to survive the rebuilding of its present long enough to ensure that it has a future. Street magician Jude Dubuisson is likewise burdened by his past and by the consequences of the storm, because he has a secret: the magical ability to find lost things, a gift passed down to him by the father he has never known - a father who just happens to be more than human.

Faith, religion, godliness - these things have caused more pain, suffering, and death than all the plagues of history combined. In Fortinbras, a city built in the aftermath of a religious war that nearly ended all life on the planet, religion is considered a disease. The residents are taught that they are all that is left of humanity and the cold law of logic and reason rule their lives. Sabrina Sabryia, a young police cadet, is a resolute enforcer of the law until her loyalties are torn between her best friend, a charismatic spiritual leader, and her uncle, the head administrator of the city.

Zeke's finally beaten and/or Subordinated all the other Apocalypses in his city. You'd think a winner would be due a hero's welcome, or at least a good night sleep. Instead, he's greeted with a grim sight—other Apocalyptic domes opening all around him. There's no time to spare. With every passing moment, all the competing Apocalypses grow stronger and firm up their defenses. It's Zeke's turn to go on the offense as he strikes out of his city and takes on all the other Apocalypses out there.

The fourth novel based on the new edition of the Dungeons & Dragons game. In the sands of a great desert, a once-heroic paladin has turned to evil and enlisted an army of gnolls to help retrieve a powerful relic, reputed to be kept in the vaults of the City of Fire. If they find it, the world will never again be at peace.Can a party of four stop an army of hundreds?

The Cipher has rewarded Cullen with XP to distribute across areas of Resurrection City, from military to defense, economy and more, but he'll need so much more than that to protect his people. And he must do it while negotiating treaties with invaluable allies and fighting off sorcerers, mobs, and the dungeon core growing up out of their backyard.

It should have been an easy job—deliver the ID chip, get paid, and get out. But when Drakkal sees a beautiful human in his client’s private zoo and instantly recognizes her as his mate, the situation gets complicated.

Crimson Twill is a little witch, but you might not know it. She lives in the country and loves polka dots and puppies instead of pointy shoes and black dresses. She even wears a big bow on her hat—which is crimson, just like her name. Tonight, for the very first time, Crimson is riding on her mother’s broom all the way to New Wart City to go shopping at Broomingdale’s! The huge department store has everything a witch could itch for. For Crimson, each floor (hats! cats! brooms!) is a new adventure. But is Broomingdale’s ready for a witch as unique as Crimson?

On an Earth where chimps are the psychic slaves of the human race, he has begun to rattle the cage. Follow Victory Chimp as he moves from adolescence to adolescence to adolescence across the multiverse. Victory Chimp and Occula battle the immortal Chon as wave upon wave of illusion and pain conspire to imprison them within time's dominion. One Earth awaits Victory Chimp's return. Will he survive?

When a young dwarf child is forced to undergo a challenging quest, three warriors - and a scholar - join together to track down a long lost piece of dwarven history. Coming face-to-face with the rarest wildlife Lentari has to offer, soaring high through the clouds in the clutches of the dragons, and trying to solve the most cryptic scavenger hunt anyone has ever seen, five dwarves are led on a quest to solve a mystery that has confounded their fellow dwarves for centuries. Let the treasure hunt begin!

Samazzar and his family have moved to the city of Vereton to continue his magic studies. There, he is introduced to a dizzying array of culture, technology, and magic. The caves he grew up in as a kobold fade into memory as Sam throws himself into his new life studying and adventuring under the mentorship of Wind Master Pothas.

April 1927 finds adventurer-pilot Jack McGraw and occult expert Dorothy "Doc" Starr extracting a priceless Celtic artifact from a long-sealed tomb on a windswept Scottish island. Following a shootout with Silver Star commandos and a desperate dogfight into the eye of a storm, the airship Daedalus limps back to London - only to discover a former crewmate has gone missing, along with his own airship and its crew!

The world has ended. The country devolves into pockets of self-sufficient communities, and salt is now currency. A desperate man thinks he's found salvation in a small rural town ruled by the Fat Man. The Fat Man is willing to let him stay as long as he can help them find salt, and the only place he knows where to find some is in the city, where mutants lurk the streets, searching for human flesh.

Urban fantasy offers a diverse playground for some extremely powerful stories. Professional writer and editor Kerrie L. Hughes pulled some fantastic tales out of 14 top writers for this fifth installment of Fiction River. Set in urban lands from modern Portland, to a future Detroit, to a wild Washington, D.C., and ending the tour in London, these top writers take the idea of "Hex" and stretch and twist it into stories with a magickal grip on the imagination.