Short Stories Science

People have been telling stories about warriors for as long as they have been telling stories... Our contributors make up an all-star lineup of award-winning and bestselling writers, representing a dozen different publishers and as many genres. We asked each of them for the same thing - a story about a warrior. Some chose to write in the genre they’re best known for. Some decided to try something different. You will find warriors of every shape, size, and color here....

New York Times best-selling author Nalini Singh delivers a smoldering story with Secrets at Midnight, as the scent of Bastien Smith's elusive lover ignites a possessiveness in him that's as feral as it is ecstatic. And now that he's found his mate, he'll do anything to keep her.

A mysterious force transports Noah to a fantasy realm of magic and levels. Unable to return home, he leans into his Blacksmith Apprentice class. By killing creatures in battle, mining ore, and even picking plants, Noah will obtain the ingredients he needs to create items to help him survive. His old life drags on him at first, a fact he doesn't let hold him down, because on Prixa, there's a brutal war between feline warriors and werewolves.

Aux confins de la veille et du songe, une porte s’entrouvre. La Porte des rêves rassemble quinze contes fin-de-siècle où le fantastique se teinte de symbolisme. Sous l’influence de Poe et de Stevenson, Marcel Schwob cisèle des visions brèves, inquiétantes, parfois ironiques, où l’invisible affleure et la réalité chancelle. Voix, silhouettes, présages et mirages y composent un dédale de sensations: moins des intrigues que des atmosphères, où chaque image éclaire une ombre.

An ancient foe lurks in the shadows...licking its wounds and assembling its forces. Risen from the ashes and shrouded in darkness, these ancient beings are waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike back and set the universe on fire. After their world is ambushed in a devastating onslaught, the Star Alliance is nearly wiped out in one fell swoop. Hotheaded pilot Chase Athanatos leads the barely surviving fleet to the far edge of space and a small backwater planet.

An arsonist's twisted handiwork claims hundreds of lives in the roughest neighborhood in New York - Daredevil's turf. Daredevil digs up the root of the problem and comes up with a ruthless crime boss bent on brutally wrestling control of New York's underworld from the corrupt clutches of the Kingpin of Crime. The new crime boss' enforcer? The bloodthirsty Bullseye, master assassin with a pathological enmity for Daredevil. Bullseye takes to his work with deadly efficiency, killing his way toward the Man Without Fear.

A game of tag turns monstrous one night in the forested village of Pine Bluff, where kids who are "it" for too long transform into something terrifying. When little Mateo goes missing after being "it," the kids begin to worry who the next victim will be—only to discover that the truth may be scarier than they thought! Follow along with Mateo and others in this collection of scary stories.

Life can kick us when we are down. In Shawn Speakman's case, he is fighting back. Lacking health insurance and diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma in 2011, Speakman beat the disease as well as the massive medical debt he amassed from its treatment. He did this by publishing Unfettered, an anthology featuring short stories donated by some of the best science fiction and fantasy writers working today. Speakman has again collaborated with celebrated genre authors to publish Unfettered II.

Grab the first three books in the bestselling, scorching-hot Real Men Shift series in one boxed set! Real Men Howl: Mason Blackwood's inner wolf will go crazy without her. Lucy thinks he's already crazy. Werewolves aren't real. Right? Real Men Snarl: Ally doesn't want to have anything to do with werewolves. Kade Blackwood is a werewolf who wants to do everything to Ally. Real Men Growl: Gavin Blackwood expected gratitude, but what he got was a gorgeous she-wolf who defied him at every turn.

The last time Matteo tried out for the Rangers, he lost an arm. In a world plagued by monstrous threats, Matteo is granted a second chance to join the elite Rangers—the monster hunters protecting the city atop a giant turtle. With the promise of wielding a powerful magical artifact, he vows to excel in boot camp and make this opportunity count. Yet, as he endures the grueling trials of the Ranger training, a dark revelation surfaces: their ranks are thinning at an alarming rate.

This book won a World Fantasy Award. It's remarkable: The stories are rich, fascinating stuff - creepy and unsettling and phantasmic. Imagine what Tolkien's Lord of the Rings would have been like if Tolkien had tried to tell that story sympathetically from the point of view of the human denizens of Mordor and you'll have the slightest sense of what you're about to wade into... but only just a sense.

A fresh post-apocalyptic anthology: the end of the world seen through the salvage and ruins, featuring Emily St. John Mandel, Carmen Maria Machado, and more.

Christmas is coming to Beechwood Harbor, but will the manor residents be ready for his magical visit? With mischief and mystery at every turn, Holly and friends have to rally to save Christmas before it's too late! A Very Beechwood Christmas includes four mini mysteries set around a wild and magical Christmas when the real Santa Claus comes to town!

Can You Forgive Her? is the first of the six Palliser novels. Here Trollope examines parliamentary election and marriage, politics and privacy. As he dissects the Victorian upper class, issues and people shed their pretenses under his patient, ironic probe.

Winter is a time of reflection and cultivation for the Verdant Green Waters Sect. For Wu Ying, this peaceful interlude is interrupted by a new assignment that pits him against the mortal world’s conventions of class and privilege.

Why is it that I’m a boyfriend-less, job-less, chunky loser? I returned home from my failed life in a heaping pile of misery. I’m lucky I have friends who built me up, dusted me off, and shoved a dating app in my face. I expected nothing to become of it, until I got a hit. He’s the hot new guy in town, and heavens help me, I accept his date request.

THE ETERNAL FIGHT BETWEEN GOOD AND EVIL… The brave Jedi vs the devious Sith! Just in time to celebrate the highly-anticipated re-match between Obi-Wan Kenobi and Darth Vader in the Disney+ event Obi-Wan Kenobi, here are ten original stories about the the valiant Jedi and the evil Sith...

Whenever we envision a world without war, without prisons, without capitalism, we are producing speculative fiction. Organizers and activists envision and try to create such worlds all the time. Walidah Imarisha and adrienne maree brown have brought 20 of them together in the first anthology of short stories to explore the connections between radical speculative fiction and movements for social change.

Oram's journey from average Joe to hero begins when he's transported into his favorite game. Lucky for him, he still has access to his early backer class, the Phylomancer, a mage class that learns spells and abilities by binding others to him.

In this striking and bleak, yet luminous debut collection, Nathan Ballingrud, winner of the inaugural Shirley Jackson Award, uses the trappings of the Gothic and the uncanny to investigate a distinctly American landscape: The loneliest and darkest corners of contemporary life. Ballingrud’s stories are love stories. They’re also monster stories. Sometimes the monsters collected here are vampires or werewolves.