Science Fiction Monsters

Each day, Owen rises with the sun. Creatures cheer as he shovels food into the trough. Enchanted plants dance and sway while he waters their stalks. This is a strange, wild world. A place where mushrooms can sprout sentience. A place where forest slimes make the best pets. It’s cozy. Simple. But that’s the tip of the monster-farming iceberg. The more his creatures work, the stronger they become. They grow and grow, morphing into unbelievable, frightening beasts.

They say greed lit the match, that gold was at the root of this evil. The miners up near Devils Desk, Alaska, dug too deep, blasted too hard, and they broke something that can never be repaired. Quakes shattered ancient barriers creating a rift between worlds that had been sealed by an ancient race, and the domino effect of those first tremors rocked both the earth’s foundation and humanity’s.

When everything is on the line, how far will you go to protect those you love? What if the cost of saving them is your soul? Would you pay it? I thought I was prepared for what was coming; that if I made sacrifices, I could win this game. I’m no longer afraid of the darkness or the monsters that hide in the shadows. I’ve become what I feared most, allowing it in to protect those I loved. Sometimes it takes a monster to win. Sometimes to fight monsters, you have to become one. My only fear is…can I come back from it?

Elise was always made fun of for her big ears and buck teeth. She tried her best to overcome the mockery, only to work herself to death and wake up as... a big-eared, buck-toothed rabbit. Now, with nothing but an almost worthless System Assistant to help her, she needs to survive in a world full of magic and monsters. On top of all that, for some reason she's been given the ominous [Mark of Fate] skill. She has no idea what it does, but things keep happening to her, most of them unpleasant.

Two weeks ago, I was writing press releases in a cubicle. Now I’m hunting giant crustaceans to feed a tribe of beautiful women. I awoke on a strange shore, far from Earth, with a new power raging in my muscles. In this primitive world, helpless women look to me for protection against goblin slavers and wild beasts.

Now that I've bonded with the mansion's dungeon core, I have a lot of work to do. Create new monsters. Build my dungeon. Prepare my team. And I have to do it all before the Technomancer comes for a visit. When he does, my mansion, my monster girls, and my creatures will be ready for him.

Monster Hunter International may have had its roots in the United States of America, but there are plenty of monsters in the big old world. And wherever there are monsters, humans will need monster hunters. Here then, stories of the things that go bump in the night and the men and women who bump back—focusing on the myths, legends, and folklore of Czechia, by Czech authors. Includes a new short story by Larry Correia.

Follow John Smoke—a cunning ex-con turned supernatural bounty hunter—and his partner, Sidney Shaw, a fearless former FBI sharpshooter—as they battle shapeshifters, werewolves, shadowy conspiracies, and inter-dimensional dragons. From secret D.C. wars to world-bending portal invasions, the stakes climb fast and never let up.

"Monsters aren't real." That's what sixteen-year-old Lucy Brannigan has always believed, until, broke and desperate, she and her father move to an isolated farmhouse in the small Scottish town of Helsbridge. It's their last chance, and they have to make it work. For Lucy, life appears to be over. With no friends, and surrounded by miles of thick woodland, there's nothing to do. But why did the previous occupants leave their belongings behind?

Gwen Tailor is stunned when her most formidable Noble enemy—and captor—Valjean, becomes a powerful ally. Her unique crafter abilities have helped her gain monster-killing talents usually reserved for Nobles, but to save her town and people from extinction, she needs Valjean's help to become a Noble herself and infiltrate their aristocratic circles. So, along with cleaver-wielding butcher Sandy and enchanted-weapons-maker Gerald, she enrolls in the legendary Academy to learn its lethal arts . . . and uncover the secrets behind their land's ruthless class divisions.

The Academy is still rebuilding after the primordial monster attack last semester. Dirk is ready to get back to training and raising his monster bond, but the ArchTamer has other plans for him. Whisked away to the Sea Capitol, Dirk will face new challenges and threats in the form of wild monsters, Domineer plots, and the mysterious Order of the Keystone. A storm of unimaginable strength is on the horizon, and hidden danger lurks in the ocean depths.

As the daughter of Dracula, you would think I’d be born the perfect monster. You couldn’t be more wrong. As far as monsters go, I’m a screw up—if I’m not tripping over my own feet, I’m accidentally murdering someone (it’s a real issue, guys). Left with no choice, Dad decides to send me to Prodigium—otherwise known as Monster Academy—to train me on how to be a better monster. When bodies turn up on campus, I’m the prime suspect (not that I can blame them).

After a wedding cake catastrophe, local decorator Tegan finds herself being helped by a solid wall of fur and fangs named Atlas. She's never met anyone like him and finds herself enamored by his wolfish charm. After their sweet encounter, Atlas invites her to his gym anytime she needs his cake-lifting services. Tegan decides that instead—she wants to lift the cakes herself. She signs up for a membership with Leviathan Fitness, determined to build her strength.

Alex Delaware is back! And in Jonathan Kellerman's riveting and ingenious new novel, Monster, he faces one of the most grisly and baffling mysteries of his career: How can a nonfunctional psychotic locked up in a supposedly secure institution for homicidal madmen predict brutal murders in the...

For 200 years, monsters have terrorized the wilds. The only thing keeping humanity safe: Monster Tamers. Orphaned during a wild monster attack when he was young, Dirk has always wanted to join the Monster Tamer Academy. Becoming a Tamer involves bonding with a monster to unlock one’s access to magic. As a Tamer raises their bond, both the Tamer and their monster grow stronger.

A larval Great Old One is growing day by day in power and just about ready to pop. If Chad Gadenier can't convince "the powers that be" to get involved, not only New Orleans, but the entire world, is going to fall under the power of the nastiest of nasties. Now on the outs with the US government and in exile from his usual job of saving the world, Chad must rally the forces of light against the coming darkness. The problem is one guy with a sword and a sub-gun isn't going to solve this one.

When left for dead, a relentless warrior named Venir rises again to roam the Outlands, protecting helpless denizens from a bloodthirsty magic-wielding subterranean race set on world domination. Led by two omnipotent wizards, the insidious underlings gather an invincible army of slayers called the Badoon to destroy the scourge Venir has become. Seeking refuge in the City of Bone from a battle torn campaign, Venir's visit is short lived after he crosses the diabolical ruling class of Royals who put a price on his head.

Eric is a physicist, an angel vivisectionist, and an architect of the future. He's also an accidental time traveler, stuck in the past and trying to re-create his own future. Now he's got to save the world for a better tomorrow, but not like everyone does, in general, every day. Oh, no. He has to make a better tomorrow that looks exactly the way he remembers it, or there may be no yesterday, no today, and no Eric! There is a reason he hates time travel, and it has nothing to do with physics.

Traveling the country camping was supposed to be an escape from the strange and unusual that clings to my family. My family’s calling to fame terrifies me. The ghosts, the hauntings, the supernatural—I want nothing to do with it. Too bad it wants everything to do with me. Where did the trip first go wrong? Maybe when an old friend with dark secrets insisted on coming—a rising rock star whose fame is now putting me in the limelight. Then there is the West Virginia local legend.

It's been three years since Aren seized the Ember Blade. Three years since they struck the spark they hoped would ignite the revolution. But the flame has failed to catch. The Krodans have crushed Ossia in an iron grip of terror. The revolution seems further away than ever. Far in the north, the Dawnwardens seek to unite the fractious clans of the Fell Folk and create a stronghold from which to retake their land. But even if they can overcome the danger of treachery from within, they still have to contend with the dreadknights.